CH 465

The room was extremely messy. There were a bunch of documents scattered all over a desk in the corner. This area was especially disorderly and would have made any neat person freak out. Some of the documents were even scattered on the ground, and a couple of holy knights were placing them back on top of the desk.

“Who is it! I said no one is allowed to…!” Winstin shouted aggressively while standing near the entrance but stopped when he saw Lubella and Weig.

“I heard that you all made an important discovery, so we asked the people outside to let us in. You didn’t include us when you said ‘no one’ is allowed in, right Sir Dyner?”

”Of course, Saintess. I gave the order thinking it would hinder the investigation if there were too many people in the room. Of course, both of you are exceptions to this.”

Then, Winstin bowed his head politely. Chelsea had been watching from behind, and she turned her head after scowling slightly. Although they had separated paths now, it appeared that she still didn’t want someone who used to be her personal guard bow his head to her ex-rival, Lubella.

“Did you find anything?”

Winstin’s eyebrow wiggled at Weig’s question, but that was all, and he soon replied normally.

“We found a load of documents. We don’t know about the contents yet, but I thought it would be related to the commotion happening inside the Steelwall Estate and ordered my men to gather them in one place.”

Weig stared at the holy knights collecting the fallen documents. They bowed slightly to Weig, and Weig nodded and jerked his chin to tell them to continue their work. The holy knights began gathering their documents again.

“Is there anything else?”

“There’s one thing that caught our eye.” Winstin stepped to the side, revealing the center of the room that his body had been concealing. There, Glen and his group were surrounding some kind of object. Although they were now listening to Lubella, Weig, and Winstin’s conversation, it seemed they had been studying it before Zich’s group entered the room. Zich’s group naturally turned their attention to the object, and Lubella cautiously walked in front of it.

“…Is it a model?”

“That seems to be the case,” Weig said while standing next to Lubella.

The object lay on top of a large table and seemed to be in the form of a landscape. There was a mountain, a plain, a river, and a city carved onto its surface. It seemed to have been made with wood and was made so delicately and with detail that it could have been taken from a bird’s eye view in the sky. Zich also stood between the two and studied the model. However, his main focus was on Glen.

‘He’s probably going to show us something now.’ This was a vital opportunity for Glen to gain merits by revealing the Bellids’ schemes. If Glen had already planned out a scenario, now was the time for him to show something. Accordingly, Glen was taking the stance of someone deeply in thought, and Zich focused on the object in front of him to suppress his urge to laugh. If Zich had to continue to witness Glen’s obvious acting any longer, he would start rolling on the ground in laughter.

“It seems like the model is pointing toward a specific place. Don’t you think so, Sir Weig?”

“Yes, Saintess. It’s clear that the Bellids had been conjuring up dirty schemes here.”

“Do you know what place this is?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what every place in the world looks like.” Weig shook his shoulders. “I think it must be a place close by, but, this bothers me.”

Weig pointed at one part of the model. Unlike the areas that had many curves to show the different topographies without differences in color, the area that Weig pointed out was carved flatly with smooth techniques.

“Is that a lake?”

“Considering how obsessed those Bellid guys are with water, there’s a high possibility.”

“It’s quite big.”

“Yes, if you compare it to the city carved on the model, even more so. However, from what I know, there are no lakes near here.”

Then, Weig turned his focus to Zich.

“Sir Zich, have you perhaps seen a large lake like this near here?” To confirm, Weig asked Zich, who was actually from the Steelwall Estate, but his tone seemed to indicate that he had low expectations.

“I haven’t seen one either.”

Weig nodded like he had expected as much and asked Winstin this time. “I'm sure you all have been exchanging your opinions when you found this model. What do you all think?”

“We have similar thoughts as you. Since there are no large lakes in sight here, the model seems to be of a different place and not here.”

It seemed like everyone’s consensus was that the model showed a different area.

“Then, where is this place? I’m sure the Bellid followers must have had their purpose for making a model like this. Should we order some people to find this place? After all, the Bellids must be up to no good in whatever they do.”

“It could be a model not grounded in reality. They could have made a model out of imagination for a different purpose. Of course, I agree with you that the Bellids must not have made this for a good purpose.”

Lubella and Weig exchanged opinions. The others also studied the model carefully or shuffled through the documents piled up on the desk and tried to decipher the Bellids’ intentions. Zich was also lost in thought. Of course, he wasn’t trying to desperately think of an answer like the others since he thought, ‘Even if we don’t do anything, Glen Zenard is going to tell us the answer anyways.’

Glen was still pretending to be deep in thought. He was probably looking for the right time to make himself more noticeable. Seeing this, Zich thought there was no need for him to wait patiently until Glen told them the answer.

‘Especially since that guy will be pissed off if I say the answer before he does.’ Of course, he wouldn’t be able to shake up Glen’s plan with just this, but this wasn’t a concern to him. This was a great opportunity to worsen Glen Zenard’s mood, and Glen’s anger was Zich’s happiness.

‘Should I start using my head for real?’ Zich began racking his head to take Glen’s spotlight. ‘First, there’s a high possibility that this sculpture is a miniature model of the surroundings here.’ Since all the evidence they had collected so far pointed towards Steelwall, it was logical to think that this miniature model was also related to Steelwall.

‘If I think of it like that, I think I can figure out the locations.’ Even though he had been exiled, Zich used to be Count Steelwall’s next successor. He roughly knew the layout of the Steelwall Estate, so he was able to immediately locate Steelwall Estate in the model.

‘They modeled an extremely large area.’ The model did not just cover the Steelwall Estate, but the neighboring estates as well. It even showed the Flaud Estate, which was an estate in a different country.

‘That area is probably Violsa, and the area a little farther from that is probably where we are.’ However, even Zich couldn’t understand the lake part. If the model really represented the Steelwall Estate and the surrounding estates, the size of the lake was way too big. Moreover, the extent that the lake impacted the surrounding estates was also too large. According to the model, half of the Steelwall Estate was covered under the lake and the estates next to it were completely underneath the lake, including most of the Flaud Estate.

‘A large river flows into the lake, but it’s nothing compared to the size of the lake.’ The river expanded during rainy seasons, but it was nowhere as big as the lake in the model. ‘Did the Bellid bastards really just make a model out of their imagination?’

Or it could be their wishful hope. If he looked at the model, a large lake would exist in the temple that Zich and his companions were currently in, and considering that the Bellids built their temples around large bodies of water‌, then this place would become the perfect environment for the Bellids.

‘Hmm?’ The wheels in his head began to turn. ‘There’s no surrounding water in this temple, which is especially strange considering its size. It’s a special case that even Lubella and Weig haven’t ever seen or heard.’ On the other hand, the model in front of him perfectly met Bellid’s requirement in building a temple.

‘This place definitely doesn’t fit the Bellids’ requirements. Moreover, it’s hard to believe that those bastards suddenly began building their temple in a place without a large amount of water nearby.’

The Bellids were extremely well-known for building their temples next to large bodies of water, so it was difficult for them to build a temple, and once they built it, they would easily be found out and hunted. Thus, it was reasonable for one to think that considering these circumstances, the Bellids might have changed their requirements, but as one of the major creeds among Bellid followers, building temples next to bodies of water was not a requirement that they could easily change. Bellid was fundamentally a religion, and Bellid followers must dutifully follow their religious creeds.

If they could change the creed however they wanted, they would probably first want to get rid of the creeds that made them a taboo to other people and increase their numbers. So it was reasonable to think that the Bellids absolutely needed a large amount of water nearby to fit a temple of this size.

‘Then, this temple would also definitely need water.’ Moreover, it needed to be a significant amount of water. However, this amount of water only existed in the model that the Bellids made and didn’t exist in real life. On the other hand, it also meant that the Bellids made a model of a lake that didn’t exist in real life as if they were planning to make it in the future.

Zich’s gaze scanned the lake in the model. The beginning of the lake began from one of the flowing river streams. The river existed in real life, and the model lake also began upstream.

‘The end of the model lake is at…!’ Zich quickly moved. People who were deep in thought all looked towards Zich.

“Did you notice something, Sir Zich?” Lubella asked with a bright expression.

Zich didn’t immediately reply and continued to scan the model. Even though he didn’t reply, Lubella was not disheartened; instead, she quietly watched him to not disturb him. It wasn’t only Lubella, as Weig, Chelsea, Pina, Winstin, and all the other Holy Knights quietly focused on Zich’s movements—even Glen Zenard.

“Pweh!” After scanning the model for a bit, Zich straightened his back and let out a sigh.

Glen asked, “…Have you found out something, Mr. Zich?” His voice was full of expectations as if he was hoping that Zich would know the answer. However, it might have been just his bias, but Zich felt as if he could read a subtle nervousness in Glen’s voice.

“I thought of a reasonable theory.”

“Really? What is it?” Lubella walked toward Zich with a hopeful expression. Unlike Glen, Zich felt that her voice was filled with pure intentions. Zich let out a small chuckle and said, “First, this model most likely represents the surrounding area here. However, the size of this model is bigger than our expectations. It covers a total of four surrounding estates, including the Steelwall Estate.”

Weig asked, “However, there isn’t such a large lake like this around here. Moreover, the size of this lake doesn’t make sense if it includes four estates, and it doesn’t make sense that there’s such a big lake hidden around here.”

“Of course, because it’s not hidden. Rather, the lake is going to be made in the future,” Zich spoke nonchalantly, but the content of his words was not light enough for people to take them so calmly. Zich thought that Glen’s face might have stiffened momentarily.