The Villain has Perished

The downpour continued as our convoy entered the Rapthial Town. Amidst the rain, I pulled the curtain of my carriage and peeked outside.

Rapthial Town was a major trading hub of the Kamera Continent with a massive population of 300,000 people. The hustle and bustle of the town during the day would be comparable to major metropolitan cities from my 2nd life. But the rain had forced the crowds to stay hidden and only a few people were loitering around.

'I choose you, Baby Tarantula!'

I picked a <Summoner Card> that had Baby Tarantula inside it, and threw it into an empty alleyway. I continued throwing one card into every few alleyways until I had 20 cards left with me and then stopped.

When I was done, I willed the Summoner cards to release the baby tarantulas inside them. I had experimented previously and came to the conclusion that the summons inside the cards can be released regardless of distance.

Using <Summoner Card> this way was another experiment I came up with to test my summons and their limits.

The convoy would be staying in Rapthial Town for today only before resuming our journey tomorrow. I needed to get the two pieces necessary for my future plans in this town before that.

But the town was too large for me to find the location of the shop I needed to visit in one day by myself.

This was where Baby Tarantulas and their skill <Share Vision> came in clutch.

Their description said that these little spiders like to explore. If they followed the description, the spiders should travel in different directions and go to places that are less visited.

'Well, I don't need the exact location. All I need is an approximate location, even rough landmarks should work.'

Shortly, the convoy reached Viscount Daorn's mansion.

The soldiers along with knights were guided towards the back of the mansion, while several high-ranking servants led me who was being followed by the chimpanzee sword instructor, and the 5 participants that included the pink-head and the blue-head from yesterday.

|Is that …2nd… princess?! She's more beautiful than the rumors portrayed..|

|Black Hair!!! …rumors …true!|

|....possessed….fiend…|

|....who ….with….2nd princess?|

The thoughts of the servants who came to guide us mostly revolved around 2 topics: Me and the pink-head from before.

…Yeah, the pink-head was the 2nd princess and the blue-head with her was the protagonist, Jae-sung.

'Jae-sung is supposed to regress during the Rite of Passage. This must be why his hair is yet to turn ashen white.'

I was planning to get involved with Jae-sung to complete a few of my objectives. But I decided to take it slow.

For one, Jae-sung carries intense hate toward Lionel Family due to the betrayal in 1st timeline, and secondly, I was a variable that didn't exist in 1st timeline.

It was best to let the events take a natural course and get acquainted that way, rather than being the one to make the first move to get involved with him. If I did that he might think I was suspicious and that would make matters worse.

As we entered the mansion, a few people were waiting for us at the doorsteps.

"It's a pleasure to be in your presence, your Highness." A slim man whose oiled hairs had been slicked back bowed to the pink-head and turned to me next. "I heard about the recent happenings during the banquet, Sir Sol. I cannot but thank the heavens for saving a noble soul like you."

"The pleasure is mine, Viscount Daorn." The pink-head curtsied and left.

"The viscount is jesting." I added.

The pink-head was a warrior first and the princess third. Although she was well educated and had a graceful demeanor, she disliked following 'useless' noble etiquettes through and through. In her head, everything was fine as long as she continued on her path of strength.

With the greeting done, the group split up.

I turned to the chimpanzee, the Lionel House sword instructor, and ordered, "You got the entry from this passage already so stop following me."

His brows twitched.

|Since when…. this idiot…. retorting? He seems…different….Possessed actually?|

The servants and the knights were supposed to use the back door to enter the mansion and then led to servants quarters to rest.

The chimpanzee had followed me because he believed it to be beneath himself to use servant quarters.

I left while leaving a few words to the chimpanzee, "I will ignore your rude actions for once, but don't expect me to be merciful again."

Translation: Do whatever you want but don't use my name at your discretion again.

'Hah, at this point, I give up. How did my words change when the first sentence I spoke came out normally?'

Not knowing the chimpanzee's thoughts, I left to the guest room provided to me.

Cluck—!

I closed the door behind me and looked at the room.

The room was large and spacious, with high ceilings and tall windows that allowed plenty of natural light to flood in. It was furnished with high-quality wooden furniture, a large four-poster bed with feather-stuffed mattresses, embroidered cushions and drapes, while the floor was covered with luxurious rugs or animal hides.

Sitting on the sofa, I closed my eyes and muttered, "<Share Vision>"

Then for the next dozen minutes, I alternated between different baby tarantulas until their magic power emptied and looked at the town through their eyes.

I was able to recognize a few landmarks. The experiment also helped me understand more about my summons.

Firstly, no tarantula had died yet. The description about them being sneaky seemed true. I rarely found anyone looking at the tarantulas.

Secondly, the magic power used for the summons skills was supplied by the summon themselves.

Third, I had no control over their actions. This was probably because they were low rank summons and the higher ranked summons should be more intelligent.

But this didn't mean low rank summons were unusable. If I set the surrounding conditions to match their descriptions accordingly, the summons would be useful.

In this case, the baby tarantula were exploring the town. Their objective matched with mine and they became useful.

'There is no useless summon, only useless summoner, eh?'

With the experiment completed, I opened my eyes.

Picking my sword, I left the room for the training courtyard. Previously, I had asked the maid who guided me to the guest room and thus knew of the training courtyard's location.

It didn't take me long to reach the destination.

"Again!"

"One, two, three, hah!"

"Are your runts not being fed! I can't hear a single shout! Louder!"

"One, two, three, hah!"

"Even my grandma can do better strikes! Swing harder!"

"One, two, three, hah!"

The soldiers of the Viscount House were training diligently. Looking around, I noticed that the courtyard was not wet despite the intense downpour that lasted till this morning.

'The weather is beginning to get worse with each passing day. Sometimes it would rain, then a drought might come the next day due to intense heat. I also heard that it snowed in the middle estates of the empire, a place that is known for their searing hot climate throughout the year.'

Shaking my head, I walked to a corner to practice my sword.

The climate changes were happening due to mana currents going haywire. It was the omen of the coming disaster, which sadly only the protagonist would have been able to recognize.

Schwing—!

Schwing—!

I started training with the sword that I had brought from Lionel House.

This sword was a random sword I picked from storage. Since I was the only one connected with Tower of Babel as of this moment, the item information wouldn't come up until it was a bound-type equipment and I wouldn't know which equipment was better.

It was the same with those living in this world, World of Swords & Magic.

They cannot access the interface nor their soul book. This is why people of this world would not know the existence of ranked skills until Coalescence.

Rather for them, only four ranks exist: First Mortal Awakening, Second Mortal Awakening, Third Mortal Awakening, and Ascended.

Since, there is a clear growth in stats with every Mortal Awakening, it is easy to differentiate the first three ranks. But, after the Third Mortal Awakening the stats barely grow and this leads to the common belief that Third Mortal Awakening is the peak of power progression.

The only reason Ascended rank came into existence was thanks to the clear combat ability difference between Third Mortal Awakening and higher ranks. It will be after Coalescence that humans learn to differentiate the ranks that come after the Third Mortal Awakening.

While I believed — correction, I hoped — that I would spend the time until night time training peacefully, I was soon interrupted,

Thwack—!

I felt a sudden impact at my back that pushed me a few steps forward.

"I didn't know the young master Sol, also trained. Did the young master skip his medicines because his personal maid isn't here? Is that why he is behaving 'normally'? Hahaha!"

"What did you just do?" I faced the chimpanzee who had pushed me.

"Oh, pardon my rude actions." The chimpanzee bowed exaggeratedly. "I only greeted the young master normally but I forgot that the young master is too weak, and might have pushed a bit forcefully."

|You insulted... me? Brat… you think… you greater than me….to retort. See..how I put you in your place..|

I stopped using <Reader> as I didn't need it to understand the situation.

'To put it simply, this monkey face thinks that he can push me around (pun intended) because that's what he has been doing for the past years.'

"Haah…", I couldn't help but sigh at his childishness.

"What is it? Is the young master getting tired?"

The commotion gathered a few gazes. Suddenly, my eyes fell on the blue-head and the pink-head among the crowd.

And, a plan slowly appeared in my head.