Free Web NovelChapter 9: Great Master is a Deceiver
There are two ways to win.
Either with strength, or with sheer cunning.
Fools rely on the first and die surprised, but Rian has always preferred the second, because it leaves no one alive to be surprised.
As long as he gets the outcome he desires, that is what matters to him more.
Anything extra was just a luxury.
Staring down from his room’s balcony, Rian saw the entire Orlok estate in a rather busy state.
Alongside the Empire’s royal guard, House Orlok had also deployed their own guards.
They were busy searching for the reason behind the fall of House Morgrath.
What group could have possibly caused such an incident which left no one in the entire Archdukedom alive?
How could this be even remotely possible over night?
Rian walked inside his room, and sat beside his table.
It was midnight.
Lilly and his mother must have fallen asleep by now.
But his father had not returned yet.
"Here’s you tea, Great Master."
Thalia set a white cup in front of him.
He glanced at the cup.
The tea that she served him looked rather weird.
"...."
It was all pink and with a single pale white petal drifting on the surface.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it.
It had been years since he last had the same tea.
In his past life, Thalia had made him this same tea in the hours between battles.
He remembered how he and a few men from Jeanne’s forces used to love it.
After he’d lost Thalia, he had never tasted it again.
Thalia caught the look on his face and tilted her head.
"This is my mother’s recipe, brewed from the blossoms of the cherry tree. You steep the petals just slowly before they fall, so the sweetness stays in them."
She told him once that it used to be her favourite when she was alive.
"Have you never had it before, great master?"
She didn’t know that he’d already tasted this a hundred times in a future that no longer existed.
"...No, this is my first time even seeing something like it."
He wondered, distantly, when she’d even found the time to arrange all of it.
But that was simply how Thalia was.
Rian lifted the cup.
A soft, sweet aroma met him first before taking a sip.
"...Sweet."
It tasted exactly the same.
"I am glad it suits your taste, this used to be my favourite when I was alive."
"Is that so? Then, serve me the same from now on."
A bright pleasing smile appeared on her face and her single crimson eye softened.
"Gladly."
Since Rian had woken up Thalia this early, compared to his previous timeline, he had arranged her as his personal maid.
She used to be his battle companion in the previous timeline.
But well...
Rian’s eyes traced her from head to toe.
She was wearing a deep blue and white maid uniform, along with her usual eye patch.
He wouldn’t lie, but seeing her in this outfit was almost funny.
As Thalia settled the tea, she asked Rian a question.
"Great Master, if you don’t mind, could I ask you a question?"
He nodded, to which she continued.
"The strange art you used earlier, what was it?"
She was asking about the Origin Art, the one he’d used during the massacre, and the one he’d used to wake her in this new body.
As a scholar herself, of course she would be curious.
The Art was Rian’s own branch of Dark Magic, one he’d crafted precisely because the Dark Arts as they were currently practiced fell short in so many regards.
By the time Thalia had woken in his previous timeline, he had already mastered his Origin Art.
But it was just as true that she had helped him refine more than a few of its flawed techniques.
She had been an invaluable hand in its making, and so the Art belonged to her as much as it did to him.
He didn’t mind sharing every last secret of it with her.
As she listened, Thalia’s eye widened, and her face bloomed into a proud smile aimed at her great master.
But it wasn’t the Origin Art itself that moved her so.
It was that he had unraveled the whole of it for her at nothing more than a single asking.
He trusted her that much.
What greater blessing could there be, for one such as Thalia?
Clearly, none at all.
After Thalia left his side, the room fell silent.
He had instructed her to blend in among the other maids, to spend the remaining days serving as an ordinary one would, at least until they departed for Caelistra Academy in three days’ time.
Thanks to the Reincarnation spell, not a single soul in the entire empire would ever suspect what she truly was.
No one alive today could tell an undead like Thalia apart from the living with the current knowledge of Dark Art they had.
To them, she would simply be a girl.
At first, Rian had considered placing her somewhere far more useful as his eyes and ears inside the Empress’s own castle.
But he’d let the idea go almost as soon as it came, because Thalia would never have wanted that.
And the reason why... was a different story altogether.
The very story that had gotten her killed in the first place.
"...yawwwwn~"
’I am exhausted.’
Rian climbed onto his bed and lay back, staring up at the canopy above him.
In his head, he was already mapping out the conversation the Empress would be having with the four remaining Archdukes right about now.
"...Well. That should keep them busy for a while."
With the fall of House Morgrath, the entire Dark Empire had been thrown into chaos, politically and physically both. It had forced the Empress to make a dozen hard decisions overnight.
What would become of the lands House Morgrath had once governed?
Those territories would have to be absorbed, either divided among the four remaining Archdukes, or handed to some new proxy.
Knowing the Empress as well as he did, Rian was certain she’d order the four Houses to take Morgrath’s domain between them.
That being said...
’The Holy Empire’s spy...’
Rian’s lips curled.
There was indeed a spy hidden within the Empress’s castle.
And Rian knew exactly who it was.
He had no intention of dealing with them now, though. Because knowing that particular person, they would prove far more useful left alone.
’...Should I go say hello?’
The thought drifted through him, just once.
It would be a fine move, if he made it. But now wasn’t the time, and besides he had far more important things to handle tomorrow.
He turned his gaze to the window beside his bed.
The night was still deep and black, and the guards below moved more restlessly than before.
’By tomorrow, the whole of the Dark Empire, and the Holy Empire too, will have heard of Morgrath’s fall.’
It would leave the Dark Empire looking weak for a few weeks at least.
Rian had fought against the Holy Empire, and worked alongside it, long enough to know they wouldn’t strike at the Dark Empire with this opportunity.
They’d do the opposite, they’d grow cautious and first find out the reason behind Morgrath’s fall.
A whole Archdukedom wiped out in a single night?
The Holy Empire would tread carefully, and not boldly, and the blame would eventually fall squarely on the demons, exactly as Rian had arranged.
That was why he’d ordered Thalia to leave the laboratory and the underground facility untouched by her Hell Flames.
The evidence stored in those rooms would be more than enough to expose House Morgrath’s ties to the demons.
Faced with that, both empires would have no choice but to play it safe.
They would be wary to their very cores, and still never find the answer.
’A Demon Lord did this.’ That was the conclusion they would all be forced to reach, in the end.
And Rian intended to use that fear to his own advantage.
But all of that was for later.
For now, he had preparations to make before leaving for the Academy, and only tomorrow to make them.
Mara and Lilly would almost certainly drag him to the city market at some point, which left him only tomorrow.
’...tomorrow’s going to be exhausting.’
