Zoemi smirked and shook his head while waving his hand dismissively.

”Still – although it is a potentially troublesome situation, isn’t it better to just leave it be for a moment longer? The Lazaram family is already holding back the progress of your inheritance procedure – if this situation is caused because of their interference, wouldn’t they try to get back at you even harder for messing with them like that? Let’s wait until that is over with and then we can slam down on them for whatever they had been doing…”

In response to that Benevirau furrowed his brows and sighed.

”Aww, grandpa, it’s alright. In the worst situation, we will have to wait until the ruler will change – Horeo isn’t the type to turn his back on his friends.”

”I understand…”

Zoemi snickered, causing Benevirau to make a conflicted expression.

”…young master… why do you keep calling me grandpa…? I already told you that I am just a butler.”

As it turned out, the dark-blue-haired man wasn’t even bothered about the potential embezzlement situation, but instead about the way that the black-haired boy had been addressing him.

”No.”

Zoemi merely shook his head, rejecting any complaints on the spot.

”You raised the first lord Banemor, my mother called you uncle – you are my grandpa. This is non-negotiable.”

”…!”

The boy added with an indifferent expression leaning in and pressing his head against the speechless Benevirau’s head.

”With that said, grandpa, you have any idea what might be going on with the Ghosts? Or how to help my father without making it obvious?”

Zoemi ended up moving his head, giving the minimal amount of personal space back to the dark-blue-haired butler, and asked.

”As for the Ghosts – it is possible that they are simply doing something outside of the reach of our powers, or maybe they really are hiding within the darkness in a spot where no one even considered to look.”

Benevirau breathed out and answered, not even aware of the smile on his own face that had been caused by Zoemi’s earlier words.

”When we are talking about your father… do you know what he wants to do in the first place? Maybe it’s alright to just trust him with whatever he is doing? He didn’t seem like he gave up, did he?”

Benevirau tilted his head and wondered, making Zoemi do the same thing but in silence.

”He sure did seem tired, but not desperate – and the way he

controlled the ice mana in his body was really impressive – although his mana reservoir didn’t change at all, he could keep his spells active for much longer than ever before.”

The black-haired boy nodded, at least partially agreeing with the butler’s argument.

”Well then, that answers it then, doesn’t it? Sometimes there are things that people have and want to do on their own. Just trust him and at least let him try his best on his own. Constantly trying to help others no matter what might have unfortunate consequences – I mean, take the Ghosts of Bellcpehora for example. They were granted status because the king wanted his son born out of wedlock to acquire a high social position, he wanted to help him but that only ended up planting a seed of self-doubt and wanting to prove himself in those children – although I already said that I most likely had my part in that – which lead to the catastrophe and the biggest tragedy in Bellcephora kingdom history.”

To drive his point in, Benevirau added the Ghosts of Bellcephora into the mix, which definitely worked – at least judging by Zoemi’s expression.

”My dad wouldn’t start killing everyone just because he would want to prove himself. But… I get what you want to say… fine… I will not do anything unless he would be in danger or asks me to help him.”

The black-haired boy breathed out and nodded with a slightly grumpy expression before leaning down and pressing his cheek against the butler’s shoulder.

”While the important decisions are being made – what do you think about participating in the tournament for the hand of young lady Victureo? You are at the right age to get engaged and from what I know she is not only the first natural-born sage that Ghosts left alive since they had achieved the level of sages, but is a real beauty too.”

”…”

Benevirau clearly wanted to lift the mood while bringing it up, but things were a little bit more complicated for Zoemi at the moment…

”I actually do have someone I already like, so I’m not interested in the engagement being the prize for winning.”

He breathed out heavily and explained before looking to the side.

”But I was thinking that participating for the sake of it would be good. You know, grandpa, showing up as the heir to the Banemor family and showing off the strength all when most of the kingdom nobles would be keenly watching doesn’t sound like a bad thing. But – that would be the case only if the inheritance process will go smoothly from now on… How much time we have left for that tournament anyway? Three weeks? A month?”

Zoemi grumbled in a dispirited voice and asked looking back at Benevirau.

”The invitation that had been sent out with the help of the royal castle stated the date that would be two weeks from now on.”

The dark-blue-haired butler answered without a moment of hesitation – after all, he would not bring it up if he didn’t have enough details to hold up a conversation.

He was also very curious about the person that the black-haired boy was talking about, but was tactful enough not to pressure him for the answer…

”Yeah, they might still try to block me by that point, and I’m sure that Auequas’s family will fill up the limit of three people per family just to make sure I would not be able to participate normally. Oh well.”

Zoemi sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

”Maybe we will be lucky and find traces of Ghosts and will be too busy dealing with them to bother about any tournament?”

He added with an unsure smile.