# Chapter 97
Fortunately, the village written on the note wasn’t too far from the Verdit territory.
After riding his horse at full speed to the entrance of the village, Count Chepel Lance caught his breath and looked back. As expected, there was no sign of anyone on the desolate road where only a chilly wind swept through.
‘Should I call it careless, or excessive trust?’
No one had stopped him when he left the Grand Duke’s mansion and went beyond the territory. Even though they were fellow immortal soldiers, he expected to be asked at least once or twice where he was going, even if they didn’t find him suspicious.
‘I didn’t even need to prepare an answer.’
It seemed that the immortal soldiers thought that even if their comrades moved differently from one another, it was all for Ion Verdit or to carry out separate orders received from him.
It was only natural.
The immortal soldiers were those who showed infinite loyalty to Ion Verdit without exception.
He too, until just two days ago, had been one of the dead who prostrated himself at Ion’s feet and showed reverence.
Crunch—!
His teeth ground together just from recalling the memory.
Count Chepel Lance had sworn allegiance only to Emperor Raziel.
Having forcibly broken that relationship and then making him serve his enemy—it was enough to make him extremely furious.
‘At the very least, I’ll get to see your face in despair.’
He was already a dead man anyway.
By tomorrow, he would stop breathing again and become a corpse.
But before that, he intended to take away what Ion Verdit cherished so much and return it to his true lord’s embrace.
For that, as Hest had said, he needed the black fragment that would restore the current Levi to his normal state. Even if they managed to escape the mansion with Levi while avoiding the eyes of the immortal soldiers, it would take time to cross the border while protecting him in his perpetually sleeping state.
Above all, only Levi could deal with the immortal soldiers who would chase after them.
In fact, he believed that if Levi had been whole and not entered a state of starvation, they could have easily escaped even if all the immortal soldiers guarding the mansion came after them. Perhaps he could have even dealt with Ion Verdit himself.
So if Levi recovered sufficiently, crossing the border would be easily accomplished regardless of how many immortal soldiers pursued them.
He wasn’t particularly concerned about Levi’s wishes.
Although he couldn’t know what conversations Levi had with Ion Verdit all this time, he was certain Levi couldn’t abandon Raziel, his own blood brother. After all, he had quietly worked to protect Raziel for so long.
Chepel stepped into the village entrance, recalling Hest who had told him, ‘Ion will return late at night.’
Someone who appeared to be from the village vigilante group glanced at Chepel, then turned to another man beside him with a disinterested face and engaged in idle chat.
“Looking at his attire, he seems to be a knight of noble birth. Did he come for sightseeing?”
“No way. What is there to see in such a rural place?”
“You know, that place where the Holy One spent his childhood. People still go there sometimes to pray.”
“Ah, I see.”
The vigilantes reached their own conclusions while exchanging idle chatter among themselves.
Their assumptions weren’t entirely wrong. Chepel was indeed planning to head to that “place where the Holy One spent his childhood.”
After showing his identification badge to the vigilantes and leaving his horse with them, Chepel ignored their continuing gossip about him and walked away with large strides.
He had eaten the note he received from Hest to leave no trace. Instead, the information about the building contained within remained intact in his mind.
Shortly after walking into the shabby, worn-down village that was too pitiful to even be called a commoner’s district.
Chepel felt a large, humming vibration near his collarbone. That huge pulsation made Chepel stop in his tracks.
‘I guess I don’t need to search every corner to find it.’
Resonance was truly fascinating.
It was as if the black device throbbing like a tiny second heart was crying out loudly that this building right in front of him was the place.
Unlike his actual calm heart, this thing was so excited and thrashing about that his collarbone ached painfully from the throbbing.
Chepel placed his hand on the center of his pulsating collarbone and looked at the white brick house in front of him.
Contrary to what he expected, it was surprisingly clean. Near the building, there were flower pots that were clearly being tended by someone, and on one side, several bouquets were placed at an angle.
It seemed that quite a few people had visited with good intentions, as this was where the holy one Ion Verdit had spent his childhood. There also appeared to be volunteers maintaining this place, likely because it was the only symbolic location in this shabby, unremarkable village.
Passersby didn’t pay attention to the stranger Chepel attempting to enter the holy one’s house. Rather, it was as if they had expected it.
Chepel pulled on the door of the brick house. The wooden door without even a latch opened all too easily.
The interior was so clean it felt empty.
The only things remaining were items too large for anyone to readily take away.
A cracked wooden wardrobe, an old dresser, and two crude beds without sheets—that was about all.
The rest of the belongings had either been disposed of by Ion himself or eagerly taken by those who later learned this was the holy one’s house. If the latter was true, they were merely worthless cheap items that would be of no help whatsoever.
He briefly wondered if the black fragment might have been mixed in with the items taken away, but quickly dismissed the thought. The black hand fragment embedded in his collarbone was still calling out for the black fragment, crying.
The pulsation in his collarbone grew stronger as Chepel moved.
Chepel instinctively realized that the stronger the pulsation, the closer the black fragment was, and he became alert.
This led him to the middle of a kitchen that didn’t have a single piece of tableware. As he looked around and bent down with his hands on the floor, the vibration in his collarbone intensified.
‘Is it under here?’
But no matter how much he felt and groped the floor with his hands, all he could sense was the rough texture of cheap square stone tiles. The tiles had such tight seams that it seemed impossible to lift them individually.
Judging by the pulsation in his collarbone, it was certain that the black fragment was underneath.
To find the exact location, Chepel tapped each tile one by one until he discovered one that made a particularly clear sound.
He tried striking the suspicious spot forcefully with his fist and even stabbing it hard with the end of his sword hilt. Yet, strangely, it didn’t crack at all, unlike what one would expect from a cheap stone tile.
‘I suppose it’s been treated to have the same texture as other tiles. In reality, they probably used an extremely hard mineral.’
Princess Claudia, the former imperial princess, must have really wanted to hide the black fragment thoroughly.
But that doesn’t mean she buried it forever, inaccessible even to herself.
If that had been the case, there would have been no reason to hide it under a house floor.
As Chepel carefully examined the surroundings, feeling here and there, he soon placed his hand inside the kitchen hearth.
As he groped inside the pitch-black hearth, he felt something hard like a wooden stem protruding where there should have been nothing but soot.
The object, about the length of one finger joint, could have been easily ignored, but Chepel felt around several more times, reasoning that such a small wooden piece couldn’t possibly remain intact in a hearth used for fire. Then he discovered an intentional seam subtly felt at his fingertips, and snapped it off.
Along with that action, he felt a slight vibration through his feet.
Turning around, Chepel could see the tile floor he had been tapping gradually sinking.
‘Befitting the former imperial princess with the alias ‘Device Technician.”
When the tile sank down about a hand’s width at a leisurely pace, a small square recess became visible in the solid wall of the empty inner space.
In that spot, Chepel discovered the “third black fragment” carefully placed inside a wooden box the size of his palm.
❖ ❖ ❖
Levi, who had been in a deep sleep with no intention of waking up, suddenly felt his mind jolt to alertness at the sensation of Raziel’s energy.
If he were in the Caron Empire, it would be one thing, but currently, he was in the Grand Duke Verdit’s mansion in the Delos Empire.
Raziel couldn’t possibly be here, and if he were, he would be in the heart of enemy territory.
Even though he had fallen into an unwanted sleep after entering a state of starvation, his instinctive cry that Raziel was in danger awakened his mind.
“Razi…?”
Levi’s eyes flew open, but he stopped before finishing Raziel’s name.
The one who had entered the room was not Raziel but Chepel Lance. He didn’t understand why such a strong energy resembling Raziel’s emanated from him, but looking around behind him, all he could see was the closed door.
Levi looked up at Chepel, who was holding his black hand, with puzzled eyes.
His gaze had somehow changed from when Levi had seen him days ago. Back then, he had seemed like a doll whose emotions had disappeared except for his loyalty toward Ion, but now it was as if he had returned to the time when he served Raziel. His eyes were strong, filled with various emotions, all seemingly reinforcing his firm conviction.
“Count Aden, I’ve brought a black fragment for you to use as nourishment.”
Levi’s pale face brightened as he immediately recognized what Chepel meant by “black fragment.”
“Really? Do you have it now?”
At last, he could escape the state of starvation.
But what made Levi particularly excited was the memory that had been filled when he had previously absorbed a black fragment.
Despite clearly being his own memories, they were from such a distant past that only haziness remained.
Raziel had told him that the black fragment he would absorb would not only resolve his starvation state but would inevitably fill the carved-out memories.
‘Perhaps…’
Could he recover his memories with Ion?
Levi, sitting up in bed, looked down at the small fragment held in his black hand. The lustrous black fragment, which had clearly broken off from his core, rested in the center of a dull red pattern.
He placed his right hand on the white ring that had been fastened around the wrist of his black hand. If the ring came undone now, he might immediately go berserk, but with the black fragment in his hand, his nourishment and memories would be filled before that could happen.
There was a click as the ring’s seam opened.
At that moment, Levi could see Chepel’s gaze change once again.
‘Come to think of it…’
Chepel, the immortal soldier who had become Ion’s subordinate, had consistently called him “Lord Levi.”
Only Count Chepel Lance from the past, who had served Raziel, had called him “Count Aden”…
Without resolving his confusion, Levi felt the black fragment being absorbed into his body and immediately lost consciousness.
