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Chapter 204 - Suspicion (Thank you for your support, Chase Colip)
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 15:33:44 +0000 UTCAfter knocking on the door a few times, Arslan opened the entrance of the house. Both siblings didn’t have any manners… entering places without receiving permission first.
Regardless, those thoughts vanished from my mind when I found Clarice’s grandma sitting on a chair and sipping some tea. By her side, Glacien was sitting on the floor and laying down. That got me really confused…
At first glance, she seemed relaxed, but her eyes were always moving around the room and they relaxed a lot when he saw me.
“Mew, mew, mew!”
“Oh, it is Clarice, Arslan and Regulus, huh? How long has it been Arslan? You have been ignoring your grandmother since you became the leader of the silver arrows. When you were just a little boy, you would always stick to me, but now…”
Clarice’s grandma, whose name I still don’t know, started talking for a while about Arslan’s childhood. He kept his poker face, but it felt like he wanted to cry at some points, or at least sigh.
“Grandmother, we don’t have time for this. I knew that this was just a misunderstanding, but Clarice was making a big deal out of it. Explain what happened.”
“Cellica should be coming soon, and then she will explain everything.”
Cellica… it was probably the woman who took her and Glacien. It didn’t look like she did anything with them, but that didn’t make things any less troublesome for me. Unless she was stupid, she should have found a way to inform us of what she had done. I couldn’t discard the idea that Clarice’s grandmother was being fooled, either. She didn’t look stupid, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“Regulus, was it? No need to keep such a serious and angry expression. You are too young to feel like that. Although I can understand why you would be cautious if something like this happened all of a sudden. Cellica is a bit of an airhead, but she is a nice woman.”
I didn’t say anything because I had to decide that for myself… a person can be equally good for someone and downright evil to someone else. It was only a matter of how convenient people could be to the same person.
“He is the grumpy type, Grandmother. He keeps that expression all the time as if the entire world is after him.”
“You and your attitude won’t help him think otherwise. You have become even more caustic since you took that seat as well.”
Arslan shrugged and then I ignored their banter to check on Glacien. Her body looked fine and there was nothing wrong with her parameters. I couldn’t help but sigh in relief in my mind. Still, I couldn’t drop my guard just yet.
We had to wait for half an hour until this so-called Cellica showed up. She immediately smiled from ear to ear and then jumped to hug Arslan. I couldn’t sense anything odd coming from her, but she sure was getting on my nerves. I soon understood that it was because she was similar to Clarice three years ago.
“Arslan! You never visit, but I knew that you would come eventually to see me! You are going to stay for a few days, right? We have so much to talk about!”
She had shoulder-length blond hair, and she looked like a typical airhead… She didn’t look like the leader of the town at all. Still, all that could be an act… I thought the same thing about Clarice years ago. Still, her movements were fluid, so it was clear that she could fight. She never exposed her back to anyone in the room, and it was clear that she could see me in the corner of her vision.
“Explain what has happened, Cellica. Thanks to you, I had to endure the endless and impossible to bear wrath of my little sister and her friend.”
“Oops, sorry… I can understand how my actions could have looked suspicious, but I had a good reason for it. I swear! I would never try to anger my future little sister.”
My body started to heat up, a powerful sensation spreading through me as if my very blood were boiling. The realization hit me like a thunderclap, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Despite my best efforts to avoid the tangled web of family drama, I had walked straight into it.
Cellica had feelings for Arslan. It was plain to see now. Her actions made sense in that context. She wanted to help him, to be close to him, and perhaps, in her own way, to prove herself useful. It was no surprise then that she’d taken an interest in Clarice, her would-be sister-in-law. But Cellica wasn’t exactly one for careful planning or subtlety. Her impulsive nature meant that whatever she did, no matter how well-intentioned, often came off as suspicious. And here I was, stuck right in the middle of the mess she had stirred up.
“Explain things in detail to everyone, Cellica, please.”
“Right… things started to look suspicious when I heard rumors of a certain white-haired young man with a large bow on his back. He had a beast with him and he had similar features to an elf. When I decided to investigate it further, I heard that he had met with Clarice and then she invited him to an old, empty home.”
“What kind of rumor is that?!”
That kind of rumor would certainly ruin the reputation of someone like Clarice. It was rather misleading, but I couldn’t care less about that.
“That is what the rumors said, but I knew the truth. That house was used by you and your allies, right? Well, sorry to say this now… but they worked for me too. I made sure that you would have people that wouldn’t backstab you working for me and for you as well.”
Clarice was left speechless after that… her mouth was hanging open as if her time had stopped. I also would have been shocked if I learned that all my allies had been bought and were essentially babysitting me.
“Sorry about that, but I didn’t want to risk your life… you should have realized by now that a lot of people are influencing the unseen arrow… Some of them are even working with the dwarves and others that want to see our downfall.”
“You aren’t going to say that those who ambushed us are working for those suspicious people, are you?”
“That is exactly what had happened. That is why I sent people to look for the bodies, but we found nothing.”
“They stored the bodies. I have them with me. I was planning to do that.”
Arslan declared that and then he showed the magic bag that I gave him and then Cellica opened her eyes widely… It looked like this could be useful somehow. I had no idea how, though. Since most of the bodies were in pieces.
“We can do an investigation to connect them to the people involved and try to kill you both. This might take a while and we might not have enough time. Since they went as far as targeting you both, I decided to make sure that they wouldn’t have the chance to target Lady Renna. I didn’t have time to contact Arslan or you when I considered the attack, so I had to act fast to secure her, and she decided to bring that animal with her.”
Renna, that should be Clarice’s grandmother’s name… in any case, that explained a lot, but I still felt that there was something wrong, something missing in this entire situation. Maybe it was the people who caused the attack, but I felt that those three were more involved than they let out… Arslan, Cellica and Renna.
“Where are the mediators of the empire? Since they left Clarice and the others escaped alive, I thought that her guesses were wrong, but maybe by some miracle, she isn’t completely off this time around. I am going to talk with them and then decide for myself and if they are involved in all this.”
“They send the message that they will come here the day after tomorrow, so you should wait until then!”
Clarice sighed after she heard that Cellica was truly that unnerving. At this point in time, her only concern was staying with Arslan for longer. Still, she soon realized that this visit was a problem for me. I was also interested in why those guys were visiting a bunch of towns instead of taking with the leader of the silver bows already. Even though Arslan wasn’t the leader of the land, he had a lot of influence.
The most important group was the council of elders. A council of elder elves from each that rules the Aeloria Dominion. Disagreements often arise due to their different philosophies. Putting that aside, while he didn’t look much like an elder, Arslan was the leader there and he was also the leader of the Silver bows. He basically had the influence of five or more elders.
“I guess I will wait for them here too. You should too, Grandmother. Clarice, you will help as well. You owe me this much. While this wasn’t a total waste of time, you blamed someone that was innocent for a crime that didn’t really happen.”
“No, Arslan. I should have found a way to contact her. I am at fault too here.”
“You might have a point, but she needs to learn soon that acting out with recklessness only causes trouble for others. You should learn that too. Putting that aside, you shouldn’t try to refuse this. Your friend here should stay as well. Considering what you said to me years ago, it never occurred to me that the person who caused that incident could have been a human… even if they used a poison that we use, they should have gotten their hands from one of us to make it look like it had been us.”
“I am not interested. I am going to look for the culprit alone. Let’s go, Glacien.”
I had already learned the hard way that aligning myself with those in power came at a steep cost. To them, people like me were nothing more than tools, useful only for as long as we served their purposes, then discarded without a second thought. I had no intention of walking that road again. Even if they offered that quiver before me, an artifact that could tip the scales of power in my favor, I would refuse it.
It wasn’t just about the quiver or what it could do, it was about the strings attached. Accepting it would mean tying myself to their agenda, stepping into a web of control and manipulation. I’d seen it before how power corrupted relationships, turned allies into assets, and left betrayal as the inevitable conclusion. No matter how tempting their offer, no matter what glory or strength they promised, I wouldn’t trade my freedom or peace of mind for a glorified leash.
Comments
MagicWafflez
iirc, the unseen arrow doesn't *have* a centralized leader, that's kind of the problem and why they just killed 30 of them.
MagicWafflez
xD dude, just... give up on finding the culprit. It's too muddy and you're going to get stuck. that said, I always admire regulus's ability to flip the table and choose the third of two options. if rayner couldn't control him idk why the elves thing they can. lol
soldier eraser
He is indeed the leader of the silver arrows.
Tolokk
„You have been ignoring your grandmother since you became the leader of the silver arrows.“ -> unseen arrow
