The Lady Only Deals With the Real Ones - Chapter 200

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The stone wall slid to the side.

Grandfather’s secret warehouse, filled with countless gold, jewels, and glittering treasures, welcomed me.

These were things I had once desperately wanted to find. Because I had to protect them. Because they couldn’t be taken away.

“Wow, so this is what you were looking for…! My goodness, it’s real treasure!”

“No. This isn’t what I’m looking for.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll search from here on. Please just look around.”

But today, my goal wasn’t Grandfather’s personal fortune.

‘The dry flower Grandfather made reacted to Eivor.’

While organizing the attic before Milton came, I saw the blackened bouquet and reached one conclusion.

‘Grandfather knew about Eivor’s existence and was trying to prepare for him.’

But how did he know?

And why didn’t he tell me a single word about it?

‘Grandfather always left explanations next to his treasures.’

So the answer to my unsolved questions would be here.

If I look around carefully, surely…

‘This is it.’

I passed by the dazzling treasures and headed toward a safe that gave off a rather different light.

I tried concentrating power into my fingertips like I had done with the stone wall, but it wouldn’t open.

Looking closely, there was a groove instead of a keyhole. It was a somewhat irregular teardrop-shaped groove, as if someone had carved it out with a blade.

I know that shape.

“The path is within you.”

It was the necklace that had always been with me since childhood, which I couldn’t even remember, and had protected my final moments in my past life.

So this was.

‘A safe made for me. One that only I could open.’

I fitted the necklace into the groove.

Click. Click.

After the sound of gears turning, there was a clunk as the door opened.

‘As expected.’

When I opened my eyes, I saw a worn notebook and several documents inside.

I decided to examine the notebook on top first.

[The Circle of Circulation]

The names of the four Circles of Circulation—divine-grade relics—along with their legends and general information were written in Grandfather’s handwriting.

Most of it was content I already knew from Crescens, but there was something noteworthy.

‘The ‘World Tree Sap’ section has X marks on it. Quite a lot of them.’

Since Grandfather was a careful person, it wouldn’t be mere scribbling. It could be because it was dangerous, or because it was important.

One thing was certain: among the four relics, Grandfather had shown particular deep interest in the ‘World Tree Sap’. I decided to remember this.

[Divine Power Detector]

Next was a blueprint.

Judging by the complex equations written all over it, Grandfather seemed to have researched ways to apply the principle of divine power detectors to other objects.

Like Tesagh’s magical tool for tracking Rugenote, designed to respond only to specific powers.

One result of that research was the safe that could be opened with my necklace, and another was the dry flower.

Like distinguishing acids and bases by the color of litmus paper, it was made to intuitively recognize when specific power was detected through the color of petals.

But there was a note attached.

[…Excluding Elisha’s divine power, manufactured to detect high-purity divine power…]

The moment I understood the sentence, chills ran down my spine.

‘…The fact that the dry flower, a divine power detector, reacted to Eivor means the power he uses is…’

Divine power.

And a very strong one at that.

I bit my lip.

‘I had my suspicions when I heard the dead Eivor was immune to magic.’

Setting aside how he, being a mage himself, had given me advice about how divine power shouldn’t be used that way.

Thinking about it slowly, there was something strange about Eivor’s ‘magic’.

‘If he were a mage, would it have been possible to steal divine-grade relics in the first place? His power should have weakened due to the conflict between divine power and magic power.’

But Eivor had stolen the divine-grade relics very easily.

That wasn’t all.

‘At the place where Rugenote had been, and when the four pieces of the Ruby Tablet were gathered together, strangely, the light of the relics I could see was black. …Like Eivor’s magic.’

At first, I thought it was traces of black magic.

I believed it was remnants of magic Eivor had cast to steal the relics, visible to my eyes.

But that wasn’t it. What I could see was ‘divine power’, not ‘magic power’.

“No magical tool or magic can be used inside there. Magic power is not only nullified, but if even the slightest bit is detected, tracking arrows designed for elimination are fired densely.”

The arrows weren’t fired.

“For mages, spell formulas are like footprints in snow. When you step on snow, footprints are always left, right? When you use magic, spell formulas are bound to remain.”

His magic had no spell formulas.

There’s only one reason.

Because it wasn’t magic.

‘Something too bright is the same as darkness…’

‘Eivor’ also possessed divine-grade divine power.

After returning from the Imperial Palace, I had similar doubts at the pawnshop, so I contacted Chloe before departing.

I explained about the power that had bound Tesagh, asking if black magic would work on him since he was immune to magic, as black magic wasn’t ordinary magic.

The reply came quickly.

To conclude, no. Magic immunity means immunity to all magic, including black magic.

I was already concerned that the Duke seemed to think differently, so I investigated, and black magic doesn’t work either. That’s certain.

My vague suspicions became more certain with Chloe’s answer and Grandfather’s notebook.

However, I couldn’t readily tell people about it.

The reason I hadn’t told Milton the details and kept my mouth shut wasn’t really because I was worried he might run away from the mine because he hated it.

‘The real Eivor spoke as if he knew me very well. But he didn’t know exactly. Which means…’

Eivor said he had ‘watched’ my actions well.

He had observed me through the eyes of the people he controlled. Of course, the beheaded Eivor would have been included among them.

It might be fortunate that he couldn’t read my mind, but.

‘…From now on, I can’t tell anyone my thoughts and plans.’

Because I don’t know when, where, or through whose eyes he might be watching me.

I wasn’t afraid of being monitored.

‘I can’t give him any opportunity to use the people around me.’

I was worried that other people might get unnecessarily involved.

Swallowing a sigh, I glanced at Milton, who was admiring things in the distance. Fortunately, he seemed to be absorbed in the numerous treasures and not particularly interested in this side.

That’s a relief. The less Milton knows, the safer he’ll be.

‘I can’t take the notebook with me. I’ll have to memorize everything and leave.’

As I was seriously committing Grandfather’s records to memory, I paused and smiled slightly when I saw the title [The Two-Faced God].

‘Isn’t this Grandfather’s original fairy tale?’

Grandfather didn’t particularly like established children’s literature.

He disliked the stereotypes and clichéd morals typical of books written for children to understand easily.

So he would often create and read his own stories. This [The Two-Faced God] was one of them.

‘Sorry, Grandfather. I heard it when I was too young, so I don’t remember the content, and honestly I only remember it being pretty boring…’

As I memorized the book, several sentences flashed before my eyes.

[…He had two faces on one body. The face of life, creation, morning, and beginning was welcomed by all, but the face of death, destruction, night, and end was merely an object of fear…]

[…The face of beginning comforted the face of end. It told people that order without you is merely chaos, and life without your presence is merely suffering. But people would not listen…]

[…The face of end hid itself. People rejoiced. But without death, guilt disappeared; without destruction, leisure disappeared; without night, rest disappeared; and without end, even this pain became eternal…]

[…The face of beginning, left alone, could not begin anything…]

‘How could you read something like this to a three or four-year-old, Grandfather?’

The story was so profound it was almost avant-garde, more like mythology than a fairy tale.

I suddenly found it quite strange that Grandfather, who didn’t even believe in the World Tree, had created a story about gods.

It wouldn’t simply be for preserving memories. This handwritten and bound story was also a clue Grandfather had left for me.

‘The Two-Faced God.’

Does everyone have a hidden side?

I was thinking of Eivor, who desperately wanted to kill me yet worried about the wound on my neck, when I put the notebook back in the safe.

Click.

I seemed to have touched something. The bottom of the safe opened.

[Birth Certificate]

Was my birth certificate a treasure to Grandfather?

I was examining the document with somewhat tender feelings when I froze solid.

“Um, Miss Elisha. Dawn will break soon. If you still have things to see, wouldn’t it be better to rest for a while and return after reorganizing?”

“…”

“Miss Elisha?”

“…Ah, yes. Let’s go. But I won’t need to come back.”

“Huh? Have you seen everything?”

“…Yes. I’ve seen it all. Everything.”

I barely managed to answer, put the document back in the safe, and pressed the stone wall switch to close the door.

We were on our way back up in the cart.

‘That document. It’s forged.’

Even if I weren’t an appraiser, I couldn’t help but know.

Because the doctor’s signature confirming Beatrix Rionet’s delivery at the field hospital was in none other than my very familiar Grandfather’s handwriting.

Then what am I?

This disparate family of a grandfather with magic power and a granddaughter with holy power, then what are we?

I was sitting there staring blankly ahead when the dawn air above ground and the beeping sounds of magical devices brought me back to my senses.

“Oh my, why are there so many calls… Please excuse me for a moment, Miss Elisha.”

It seemed all the calls that couldn’t get through while we were in the mine shaft were flooding in at once.

Milton returned the most recent call first.

“I apologize for the late response. Knight Milton reporting to the Captain of the Royal Knights. Yes, yes. …What? What do you mean…?”

Milton’s face turned pale.

He looked at me and stammered.

“…The Empire’s Regent King Crodil Etewyrn has…”

At the words that followed, I shot to my feet.

“Suddenly confessed?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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