"Seeing that you're fine, I will be taking my leave now." The marquis stood up from his seat and headed towards the door. Just when he was about to open it, Carl suddenly remembered an important thing he wanted to ask the marquis.
"What about the western woods? Where the explosion took place?"
The marquis stopped his footsteps. "It's been taken care of. You need not worry."
Carl was not satisfied with the answer. What he wanted to know was what had happened with the ancient relic that caused the explosion in the first place, not what was going on with the western woods where the explosion took place.
"How exactly has it been taken care of, father? And by this I do not mean the forest."
Marquis Chase faced toward Carl. From the gaze he perceived from his son, he knew Carl was determined when he asked him this question. Marquis Chase felt the need to answer him honestly, as it was a gaze of determination which he had never seen before on the countenance of his son.
"When we were busy contacting a healer from the capital, it seems some information had been leaked. We don't know who did it or how much of it had been leaked, but before we could take action, the relic from the western woods was gone."
"Eyewitness?" Carl asked, with a tiny bit of hope.
"We sent a batch of soldiers there as soon as we heard about the explosion. And on the day it went missing, one patrolling soldier reported to his superior that he saw a group around his perimeter who were wearing black uniforms. That's all we know for now."
"I see." Carl replied and stayed silent ever since. The marquis watched his son pondering over something. He wanted to ask what he was thinking, but ultimately decided to leave him and watch over his movements instead.
As soon as Carl was left alone, he let out a heavy sigh. From what the marquis told him, he believed the group the soldier claimed he saw were definitely bad news. If they really happened to be what Carl think they were, then a really bad situation was bound to happen.
'With the relic on their hands, it seems to me they are planning something big.'
There was no way they did not know about what an ancient relic was, given they sneakily stole it while the castle was busy about Carl. And with the suspicious actions they were taking, they definitely were not trying to use it for goodwill. Carl let out another sigh.
Ancient relics.
Even though mana was freely present in nature, pure mana could not exist by itself without a vessel. And there were only four recorded people in history known to be able to handle pure mana. Those four people had filtered mana and put the filtered pure mana in a vessel which were now known as ancient relics.
The power and value the relics hold were unfathomable. So to anyone who knew what an ancient relic was, it would be no joke to say they would be willing to give everything they had for the relic.
'Dammit! I was trying to hit it big by selling it to someone.'
That was why Carl fell into agony as soon as he heard from the marquis the relic was gone.