Zoemi breathed out and nodded, doing his best to not how any of his inner turmoil on the outside.

”Just in case, try to prepare yourself, as if anything dangerous happens, I will grab you and immediately teleport away.”

”Eh… I-I mean, huh?”

The black-haired boy made a serious expression and declared, beckoning the surprised green-haired boy to approach him.

”But… there really won’t be anything dangerous…! Sir Benevirau really believes that you are the heir to the Banemor family!”

”I’m sure he does.”

Reo indeed walked towards him and – intentionally or not – grabbed onto Zoemi’s arm, making a worried expression, but that resulted only in a long sigh from the black-haired boy.

”The sculptures – aren’t they similar though? Sir Benevirau insisted that there can be no mistake about your lineage…!”

”…?”

The green-haired boy seemed so certain that Zoemi began to suspect that he had indeed fallen for the magicless girl’s charms and was saying all of those things because she asked him to.

You are overthinking it. Kid, you can ask him about it too, you know?

|…that might put him in danger, he already has enough problems on his own…|

Ludier’s shadow called out to Zoemi, but the boy dismissed him with a sulky remark, that surprisingly made the shadow puppet go quiet – although Ludier going silent might have more to do with the black-haired boy looking over at the statue of Learen and gritting his teeth in silence than with anything else.

”Sir Zoe… Zoemi?”

Reo asked, but then shook his head and hurriedly changed the way he addressed the black-haired boy.

”…”

”…?”

Zoemi lowered his head for a moment, and when he raised it and looked at Reo, the green-haired boy tilted his head in surprise.

Zoemi wasn’t angry or embarrassed or annoyed.

He seemed incredibly sad.

”The third sculpture. I… I am able to recognize who that person is supposed to be.”

Zoemi spoke, pointing at the visage of young lady Learen.

”Is it your mo…? wait… Why are saying it like that?”

Reo leaned in to ask but he suddenly stopped, furrowing his brows recognizing a certain suggestion in Zoemi’s voice.

”There is a lot of resemblance between this person and my mother… I can certainly recognize some of the facial features, but… in my memories, my mother didn’t look anywhere near as healthy and happy as this person.”

”…oh…”

The black-haired boy breathed out and explained, causing the green-haired Reo to lower his head and fidget from worry.

|Say, sir Ludier – how good you are with sculpting, or altering the sculptures?|

Zoemi closed his mouth and sent his thoughts to the shadow puppet of the ice magician.

I was always more interested in developing my territory than spending my time appreciating fine arts, but if we are talking about ice, I can pretty much create anything that I imagine. What am I supposed to do with the sculpture?

Ludier’s shadow answered with a bit of hesitation but ended up agreeing to Zoemi’s request even though the black-haired boy didn’t directly ask him to do anything.

|Thank you. Please, if you can, try to make it more like this.|

”…?”

Zoemi focused on his mother’s face and smiled softly, nodding his head gratefully, even though he was only thinking the words, making Reo slightly worried about what was going on.

The next moment, Ludier’s shadow separated from Zoemi’s shadow and reached his arms towards the third ice sculpture, enveloping it with the murky darkness.

After only a few seconds of the shocked silence – which was the result of Reo sticking close to Zoemi, basically hiding behind him, and observing the other shadow with a slightly unnerved expression – the shadowy figure returned to when he came, sinking back into Zoemi’s shadow, leaving the altered sculpture.

”…!”

”…”

The ice was still made in the image of the same woman, but now instead of standing tall with a confident smile, she was hunched down, with her cheeks sunken down from months of going hungry – not because of the lack of food, but because of the inability to properly eat.

The more Zoemi focused, the more unpleasant memories surfaced.

His mother always tried to make the brave smile, even though she was constantly in pain.

Back then the black-haired boy didn’t understand what exactly was happening to her, connecting all of the symptoms to some dangerous sickness only present in that world…

…but with the knowledge he had now, he was fully aware of what must have been the real cause.

The Ghosts of Bellcephora tried to forcibly turn his mother into their comrade and to do so, they overloaded her with the darkness attribute mana to convert into her own.

The only problem was that the darkness mana was innately corrosive, and without the foundation of an already vast mana reservoir, it was impossible to work through it all fast enough.

But the mana remained regardless and started corroding and melting all of Zoemi’s mother’s internal organs, giving her excruciatingly slow and agonizing death.

The ice sculpture as it was now showed the woman doing her best to smile through the pain, forcing herself to show a brave front to her child so that he wouldn’t worry about her.

”Say, Reo… the original sculpture… has it really been the young lady Learen…? Are there any portraits of her or things like that?”

”…!”

Zoemi asked while feeling his throat getting tighter the more he looked into his mother’s face, feeling Reo clenching his fists while holding onto his back.

”It was – I have seen the reproductions of the paintings of her while researching Banemor territory… I also discovered that the originals are hung on the walls upstairs – I can lead you to see them if you…”

The green-haired boy gulped down his saliva and said hesitantly before tugging on Zoemi’s clothes and pointing towards the door.

”No. It’s okay, I trust your opinion.”

”…!”

The black-haired boy shook his head lightly and rejected the proposition with a sad-looking smile, making the green-haired boy behind him hold back his breath and blush.

”…I will give Benevirau a chance… I only hope that I will not regret it…”

Zoemi ended up sighing and nodding more to himself than to Reo.

”Ririe said that he had left to the capital to look for me – how did he do that? Using enchantments and running? Actually going in a carriage…?”

The black-haired boy asked, turning around to face the green-haired capture target.

”Oh… I… actually am not sure – he just dashed outside and then there was this loud loud thunder, and when I went to see what happened, he was nowhere to be seen.”

”Thunder…?”

Reo explained, fidgetting from the attention he was receiving, while Zoemi was furrowing his brows trying to piece together what was that supposed to mean.

Benevirau was supposed to be a water magician- or sage – Reo said so, and the spells used by the dark-blue-haired butler seemed to confirm it too…

|Huh… I wanted to catch up to him, but with no hint as to how fast he is going, that might be impossible to do…|

Zoemi thought to himself – or rather sent his thoughts to the shadow puppet lurking within his own shadow.

Then just wait – the sculptures weren’t just one and done thing – they are active spells, and I just messed with it. Benevirau would definitely notice that – If he really is so devoted, then there is a chance that he would get pissed about someone messing with the sculpture of one of his masters and come check it out having not found a trace of you.

”!!!”

Ludier’s shadow pointed out, making Zoemi straighten his back in realization.

”Zoemi…? What are you going to do now….?”

Reo rubbed his arm nervously, looking at Zoemi with a worried expression.

”Now? We wait until Benevirau returns.”

Zoemi breathed out and declared, walking towards the chairs and taking a seat.

|Now then, since my plans seem to change constantly, I better exchange some important information with a certain gold-haired best friend of mine…|

He then put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his linked hands, closing his eyes and thinking.

”|Hello? My prince – it’s me Zoemi.|”

”{Wha…?! Ah! Zoemi! Took you long enough to message me! How are you?}”

The boy called out in his mind and got an almost immediate response from the first prince, Horeo.

”|Things are getting… interesting – especially since…|”

Zoemi took a deep breath and reported everything he saw ad heard happen by the crystal lake…