The trip back to the Rosetta manor was faster than the one we took to Beaufort with Grandfather Emilien. After all, we didn't take as many rests as we did back then, and our carriage drove at a far faster pace compared to that time. As a result, in less than one day on the road, we arrived at our current location, which was about an hour and a half distant from the Rosetta Manor.

With Vicar Serena around, the trip felt even way shorter.

In this short one-day journey, I got to talk with her a lot. She is someone rather very talkative and very straightforward.

During the trip, I ventured this question “Why did you help my mother? Why helping me.”, one must say that not everyone would be willing to dive into the mess that was my birth, her answer was simple and cutting: Because Grandfather Emilien sought her help.

I don't know much about their relationship, she appears to hold Grandfather in very high respect. I was curious about where it came from but I didn’t dare to question her on the subject, after all, I felt that the subject was too personal for me to get immisced in.

In a normal circumstance, I would’ve just asked Syrus, but with us, three confined in this carriage that wasn’t an option.

As such, the only information I have about her relationship with her grandfather is that she is currently assisting him with his hospital center throughout the duchy outside of her Vicar duties.

I said Vicar duties, but this is a bit of an exaggeration,

As she said, when I asked her about whether or not it was safe for us to have her accompanying us, while all her colleagues of the church are hunting this faceless one, she replied that it would be fine because of her status of Vicar, but there was a second reason for her confidence: Her inability to use magic.

She could no longer use magic, or to be exact she had little to no mana to perform any form of magic.

The reason being, that when a Clergyman performs the baptismal on a child, he dedicates a portion of his mana to repel the child's mana and that is during the 10 years that there is between the baptismal and the coronation.

She was in charge of the baptismal of 12 children, including all of the heirs of the five great families and numerous children of fairly high-ranking nobles whose baptismal required more mana than an average noble.

This is a fairly impressive achievement, given that 4 is the standard number of Baptismal a clergy should be able to supply concurrently with mana, and 10 is the norm for a Vicar. These numbers are made even more impressive by the fact that the majority of the children baptized by her come from a very powerful lineage.

Considering her accomplishment, she was very well recognized within the clergy of Beaufort, and this would be the case whenever she went after all, what she has done showed that she possessed a large enough mana pool to be compared to one of the fourteens.

It stands to reason that she claimed yesterday that if it weren't for her cursed magic, she might have the standing to pretend to the title of Archbishop or Holy Paladin, that being said she is currently as frail as a commoner.

“It seems, we are getting closer.” Syrus as he peered outside from the windows.

It was late at night, but thanks to the full moon twilight, I had a fantastic view of the Iharana forest, which seemed to stretch endlessly, a forest that had not long ago used my playground.

“Now that we’ve almost reached the Rosetta manor, there is a question I 've been meaning to ask since the beginning of this journey: What exactly will happen once we reach the Rosetta manor?”

“The main reason we brought you back to the Rosetta manor is to keep you as far away from these cousins as possible. Now that it has been completed, all that remains for us to do is to wait for your great-grandfather to arrive at the manor. With the unexpected arrival of these two cousins, we have no choice but to delegate to Madam Mathilda, Luke, and Lord Emilien the responsibility of explaining everything to your Great-grandfather.”

“And, when do you think that might be?”

“I'm not sure, but I believe it will be when the cousins have finished doing what they came to Beaumont to accomplish in the first place, whether or not they are successful in apprehending this faceless one. In any case, we have no means of knowing when it will be.”

So, it could be anytime then.

“I see.”

I wonder how Ramia and Mael are doing. All of this happened so suddenly, I didn’t even have the chance to get the chance to properly say goodbye.

If everything went well, the dance party should have ended by now.

I wish I could’ve seen it.

“Don't be so down; your great-grandfather must have arrived in Beaufort by now. With enough luck, maybe the business of the cousins here might have already been done by now, who knows, maybe he'll be on his way tomorrow or after tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t -” I was cut by her pinching my left cheek.

“It's scribbled on your face. Even though I didn't see it, Lord Emilien told me that you, Mael, and Ramia were inseparable; once this is all sorted out, you'll have plenty of chances to meet again. And, believe me, it may happen sooner than you think.“ She said as she retrieved the box and agitated it as if it was some sort of gift she was teasing to offer me.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t get it? Once your grandfather is here, we will proceed with your coronation.”

“Wait-what?! Already?”

“Yes.”

“But, I’m still 9. Aren’t coronations supposed to be made at 10?”

“Yes, to the point where we are now, the sooner you have your coronation, the better. To be honest, with all the rules we’ve broken so far, breaking that rule should be the least of our concerns.”

“I understand.”

“And…”

“And?”

“I want to regain my magical abilities. You see, as horrendous as your unique talent is, in the end, it is just a part of yourself; if your unique talent is truly to erase people's memories, the time will eventually come where you will be able to put it to good use, just like. So you don’t have to fret over too much about that.”

I guess she's right; I'm overthinking all of this; at this rate, I'll be bald before I'm fifteen.

Suddenly, Vicar Serana's, who was seated in front of us, changed expression from confusion to dread before she shouted “Syrus! Get out of the carriage! Now!!”

Syrus immediately drew me out of the carriage and jumped to the snowy ground, followed by Vicar Serana.

And as soon as we jumped out, I saw why she wanted us to jump out; it all happened in less than 3 seconds, but it was enough for me to get a good view of what happened: a rain of stalactites the size of a forearm rained down, piercing the carriage like a colander.

The horse and the two coachmen were killed in the process, and all that was left of them was a pile of meat, blood, and bones.

“Are you two okay?” Vicar Serena asked as he

“Yes, we’re fine. What exactly happened.”

“I knew this voice was familiar.” A masculine voice called.

We looked over to where the voice came from, and there were six men in the middle of the road, seemingly following us from behind, each wearing the same priest robe, with the exception of two of them wearing a shield insignia on their shoulder.

“You!! What are you all doing here?” -“Weren’t you supposed to help the Archbishop catch the faceless one? But most importantly, why did you launch that attack on us?”

It seems she recognized the leading man.

After all, given their outfits, it was easy to guess, from where she knew them.

These men were clearly clergymen.

“That's a lot of questions, Vicar Serana, but yes, the Archbishop has tasked me with locating the faceless one, and I have one question for you, only one, WHY ARE YOU ASSISTING THE FACELESS ONE ?! DID YOU TURN ON AGAINST THE CHURCH?!”

“What the hell are you talking about?! I was just riding a carriage when you attacked me, and now you're spitting bullshit on me! When did you see me helping the faceless one?”

“Don’t play dumb with us. One of these two is the faceless one, and you, a Vicar of the church, was helping them to run away.” The man said pointing at both Syrus and me.

The man speaking showed us the bracer he was wearing on his left wrist, the bracer was adorned with a gem, within which a smoke-like substance was moving violently.

I'm not sure why, but it reminded me of how the spheres of the reality figer reacted.

“There must be some sort of mistake somewhere, this one is a commoner, and the other one is just a child, how do you think it’s possible for one of them to be the faceless one?”

She’s right, that doesn’t make any sense.

According to Vicar Serena, the only way they could find Faceless One is through that magic item that tracked his mana. Therefore he must be a noble.

The only person they could accuse of being the Faceless one here is me.

I have managed to speedrun a lot of things in this life but I doubt I managed to become the most researched person in this world before I even reached three.

Did they somehow find out about me in some way? And they're attempting to use that as an excuse to execute or detain me.

That can only be that.

But how? How did they find out?

All of this went too fast, way too fast, did they find out through Grandfather? Or Luke maybe?

What happened to Mael? Ramia ?

Maybe, I should ask, maybe I’ll get some valuable information from him, there's nothing to lose by trying.

“Listen, I think there is some sort of mistake som-”

When I spoke, I made a move toward the man speaking, but the moment I did, the bracer he was wearing showed a very active reaction.

The clergymen, seeing the reaction of the bracer, became extremely cautious, even retrieving their blade that looked very much like Martha and Olga, and pointing it at us.

The bracer was clearly reacting to me, there was no hiding to it.

“There’s no doubt about it. The Archbishop was correct, the faceless one was indeed a child, and I'm sure he will be heartened to have finally found the one he'd been looking for all these years.”

“But first, we’ll have some cleaning up to do. Before summoning them over.”

While the others began to threateningly point their blade at us, the second man wearing the shield insignia, retreated far behind the others.

“Clean up?” Vicar Serena asked.

“Yes, clean up. Don’t worry, we won't harm you because of your position, and only the Archbishop is allowed to dispose of that child, so we won't harm him either, but it's a different story for this one, the presence of a filthy commoner may bother the highbishop, and it's our responsibility to take care of that.”

It seems they are planning to dispose of Syrus as they did with the coachmen, before calling over their bosses.

What do we do ?! If we fight back- can we even do that there are 6 of them, we’re just 3 and none of us can use magic.

Syrus glanced at Vicar Serena, and then at me.

I took a deep breath, I don’t know what will happen from now on but if I ever get caught by these cousins, I am as good as dead.

“Syrus, I don’t know what you’re currently thinking of but do you know the best way to make friends?” - “It is to make the first step yourself.”

I approached the clergymen and knelt and prostrated myself against the winter cold rock-grounded soil surface about 6m away from them.

“I am ready to accept the consequences of my sins but first, May this sinful one,inquire your name, gentleman?”

“I am Stanis Chaldini, the Bishop of the Holy Cathedral of Beaufort.” The leader said, slowly casting a spell with his hands, which he pointed visibly weary, at me or Syrus.

“Oh~ Stanis, I see.”-“What a shame, such a good name for a dead man.”

Fully enhanced on Aina, I abruptly stood up and threw the rock I had noticed earlier before prostrating, at the group's leader.

The rock, which was the size of an adult fist, flew at high speed and landed on the leader's head, obliterating a large portion of the passage's left side, the spell he was trying to cast immediately faded into nothingness.

I don’t know how to get this information about me or why they are saying that I’m that infamous faceless one, but I have zero intention to willingly offer my head nor Syrus’s to a bunch of fuckers like them.

Syrus, instantly passed by me and charged at them

“What?!” The five other clergymen exclaimed, stunned and taken aback by what had happened to their colleagues as well as Syrus' sudden charge.

Hand tightly gripping his sword Syrus engaged with two of the clergymen on the left.

I took advantage of the confusion, to launch another throw this time aiming at the guts of one of the clergymen on the right, my throw hit the spot leaving only a big hole on his belly.

The last one on the left retreated toward where the second one with the insignia was and was visibly trying to protect him, while he was holding his hand a strange blue crystal.

“Syrus !! The One holding the blue crystal! Kill him! He’s trying to teleport the ArchBishop here!!!!” Vicar Serena shouted bloodshot eyes and nose bleeding, before collapsing on the ground.

I had no idea what happened to her but if what she said was true then we have to stop them.

There was a reason why the ArchBishop was supposed to be able to come so fast to Beaufort, they had a way to teleport people, and the crystal he was holding must be a tool used to that end.

Syrus, who had already managed to kill one of the two men he was fighting, was still trying to get rid of the other.

So, I had no other choice but to take care of it myself.

I sprinted toward one of the clergymen's corpses, took his dagger, and charged at the one, she wanted Syrus to cut down, the one who was shielding him began to cast some magic at me.

Three stalactite-shaped rocks flew at me at high speed; I avoided them and immediately kicked the snowy ground in the air, creating a barrage of snow between me and him.

I immediately threw one of the daggers through the snow, taking advantage of the blind spot it offered. And planted itself in his throat.

I was about to charge at the last one when I saw Syrus who already managed to cut down his last foes, charging at high speed toward the one holding the blue crystal.

His blade was high ready to swing down at the man, but he stopped his attack when suddenly a giant magical white pillar that looked like it ascended from the sky, appeared out of nowhere.

After a brief instant, the pilar disappeared like it magically appeared, revealing three men: One was a man, who seems to be in late fifty, with ashen, blonde hair, he wearing a white robe similar to the one the priest earlier wore and was holding in his hand a golden and white staff.

The other was a two-meter-tall giant built like an armory; despite his impressive physique, his face told me he was in his late sixties; he was dressed in a full set of golden heavy armor and held two massive golden shields in both hands; shield aside, everything about him made him look like a mighty god of war.

The last one was the youngest and most plain of the bunch, with a face and blonde hair that vaguely resemble Luke's.

“Oya, Oya … Can someone explain to me what’s the meaning of all this."

The man who spoke was the one I would remember as the one who turned my entire life upside down.