The door opened to reveal the figure of a girl with straight chestnut-colored hair of shoulder length.
She had blue eyes that were similar to those of the emperor, and she emitted an air of maturity that made people forget she was just eleven.
Within her irises, a crest could be seen, a single letter written in an ancient language lost to time.
Its meaning; Truth.
Laurene Hayes walked into the room and shook her head at the sight of the kneeling knights in front of her father.
Behind her were two familiar faces, one of them being the father of the runaway noble, Roger del Eris, and the other being the brother of the Imperial guard Captain, Ralphie.
"Laurene? You said you were going to procure the materials for your magic catalyst. Why are you here?"
"I'm already done. Besides, why should I not be here?
Perhaps, you didn't want me to walk into the scene of you receiving reports from the knights you sent after Evan, despite giving me your word that you would call of 'all' searches for him."
Rudeus' face contorted slightly upon hearing her words.
As for the others, the light of surprise flashed through their eyes as they finally understood why the Emperor had suddenly called off the search for Evan a few months ago.
'So, it was because of the Princess!'
Even Duke Roger was unaware of this, as he had even argued with the emperor when he received the order to make Ralphie put on a show of searching for Evan for a month before returning afterward.
The princess in question, ignored the gazes of the other people in the room and walked up to the leader of the kneeling knights, Sir Walsh.
She held his chin and chuckled a bit before saying.
"I can imagine the expression you had on your face when 'she' arrived with your fellow knight in a deplorable state."
A frown crept up both Sir Walsh's and the face of the knight who was humiliated by Pride.
"Seats for us, please?"
As she spoke, two maids entered the room and placed seats for her the Duke and Ralphie, placing one behind Finley and Jenson before bowing and hurriedly leaving the room.
Laurene took a seat while Roger greeted the Emperor and Empress before doing the same. Laurene ignored her father's gaze that was boring into her head, adjusting her dress as she crossed her legs and turned to Jenson.
"Remember that spell from before? The one you said can let you view a person's memories as videos. Can you use it on him?"
Pointing to Sir Walsh, Jenson pondered on it for a few moments before taking out a space expansion bag from inside his robes and pulling out a few things from it.
"What's the target?"
"Everything with 'Evan Del Eris' in it. Oh, and try to get the audio too."
After Laurene answered his question, Jenson then turned to the Emperor who was staring at Laurene with a complicated gaze. He shook his head and signalled for Jenson to carry on.
He knew his daughter well and he knew that she would not interrupt his meeting with the Duke just because she wanted to.
He was sure that there was a reasonable reason.
The chief court mage nodded, pulled out a communication device, and then drew a small circle around Sir Walsh before taking a step back and rousing his magic power.
"Memory Magic: Memoir Sine Dolo."
As he chanted, a spiked dome appeared over Sir Walsh's head. The dome then connected to a sphere that appeared further above.
Along the connecting column, five horizontal planes appeared, each with a screen extending from it.
"Don't resist too much, only do so when you feel the magic perusing through memories it's not meant to."
Jenson spoke to Sir Walsh as the memory magic perused through every single memory of his that had Evan in it.
The mage then tapped the first screen and it enlarged itself, displaying the memories of a certain situation that all the knights remembered.
It showed the scene of a burning city with towers of smoke rising from almost every corner.
All those in the room were aware of the incident that took place more than a month ago, but none of them had seen the scene of the incident with their own eyes.
The sight of the city shocked Rudeus as he decided to increase the relief sent to the people of Geto City and began formulating plans to help the city get back on its feet while his eyes watched the floating screen.
They all saw the appearance of the demon whose corpse was brought to them, Xakon, standing at above six feet, with his skin colour being gray and his purple eyes.
The wingspan of his bat-like wings that were almost three and a half meters long, and the glowing magic circle on the interior part of his wings.
On his forehead was a magic crest consisting of a star inscribed in a circle overlapping a triangle, and his red hair was long enough for him to tie it up in a ponytail.
They saw him slam two 'things' into the ground before tossing them in opposite directions. He then walked up to his fallen blade and picked it up when a beam of concentrated magic power fired from beside Sir Walsh suddenly hit him.
The video then proceeded to show how Sir Walsh utilized his Royal knight's bladework skills to hold off the demon Xakon for a while.
As for Audio, Jenson had reproduced that with his magic power, using the communication device in his hands as a stand-in speaker to generate the sound.
["Royal Knights Bladework: Sever!"
"Cutting Edge!"
**SCHRINGGG!!!]
It didn't take long, barely a few minutes when the demon suddenly coated his hand in aura and grabbed the blade of Sir Walsh, pulling him with all his strength and tossing him into the air.
Sir Walsh's vision was shaky as he was tossed in the air, causing the video they were seeing to become shaky as well.
When it finally stabilized, they could now see the appearance of Evan, who was clashing with Xakon.
Seeing his form, Laurene's mystic eyes activated as she stared at the markings on his arm.
She understood the 'Truth' of the technique Evan was using and after cross-checking with her memories of the Previous Fourth, she spoke up.
"Possession...To think he let 'her' inside his body."
Her mutter did not go unheard by the others in the room, especially Finely and Ralphie whose eyes had been on her ever since they sensed her skill activation.
However, they let it be, for now, choosing to view the rest of the memories before asking any questions.
["First you were fighting alongside a demon, next you're letting the demon possess your body.
Are you really a hero?"
"I'm not your typical Hero!"]
On the screen, the scene of Evan and Xakon screaming to each other could be seen, right before the boy flapped the wings that had appeared on his back and dashed towards the demon with a sword in each hand.
Hearing Xakon refer to Evan as a 'hero' and Evan indirectly admitting it made those in the room raise eyebrows in question.
More attention was also drawn to the thing that Xakon called a 'demon' that was possessing Evan. Because Sir Walsh did not witness the moment Evan was possessed by Pride, they could not see the appearance of the 'demon' in question.
They saw him use his vortex skill, with Finely showing small surprise at the skill he didn't know Evan had.
Seeing him disappear and reappear multiple times, confirmed their earlier data of Evan now possessing some sort of spatial movement skill.
They watched the fight in silence until the point where Evan knocked the demon to the ground and ended him with a large elemental Vortex, passing out right after the demon died.
As soon as the memory stopped playing, there was silence in the room as none of them had any words to say in regards to what they had just seen.
Duke Roger clenched his fists tightly as he thought about the fact that his son had to go through the pain of battling the 'humanoid monster' in the video while he did not know anything about it.
'Tsk...'
He clicked his tongue internally as he thought about the fact that the reason the emperor stopped him from sending spatial mages after Evan was because of Laurene and slight hatred towards the princess bloomed in his heart.
However, he kept a poker face and watched everything calmly.
"Move on to the next one, after he woke up."
Jenson nodded and minimized the screen before selecting another one as a different memory began playing.
It showed the conversation with Evan after the funeral, all of them in the room being surprised by the change in Evan's appearance.
It was too much change for just one month and they couldn't fathom how it was possible.
The moment Sir Walsh's gaze travelled to Pride, Ralphie's eyes widened in surprise as he recalled her to be the woman he met right after the incident in the Graveyard of the Arrogant.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om