CHAPTER 44
Several hours after making contact.
A presence was felt approaching the place where Ares and Niobe were.
An entity possessing quite a powerful force, even by the standards of the two Sword Masters.

"It has been a while, Count."

The woman who entered the room and bowed politely had light brown hair and wore a rather shabby-looking mage's robe.

"Indeed, Haas."

Hearing the light brown-haired mage's greeting, Ares called her name.
Haas.
She was the exclusive mage of the Whiperion Count family and the woman who helped adopt Ceres.
She looked young, around her twenties, but she was quite old. After all, she had entered the family before Ceres was adopted.

"Niobe, say hello. This is Haas, the one you were looking for."

Ares introduced the two, who were meeting for the first time.

"Haas, you greet her as well. As I mentioned when I contacted you earlier, she is Ceres's recently appointed escort knight."
"It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Haas..."

Haas, having been introduced, was about to greet Niobe when—

"...!"
"?"

At that moment.
Haas briefly made a surprised expression, while Niobe looked puzzled.

"What is it?"
"...Ah, my apologies. For a moment, I thought you were someone I knew, but I must have been mistaken."
"Is that so? Come to think of it, I feel like I've seen you somewhere before too."

As Niobe made a doubtful expression, Haas quickly raised her voice.

"It must be a misunderstanding! Let's handle the important matter first. Didn't you call me here regarding Lord Ceres?"
"Ah, right."

At the mention of Ceres, Niobe dismissed the sense of déjà vu as a simple mistake and moved on to the main topic.

"You must have already heard the detailed situation when the Count contacted you, right?"
"Yes, you wanted to know where I brought Lord Ceres from, correct?"

Haas pondered for a moment before speaking.

"...I brought Lord Ceres from a certain village."
"Which village?"
"I don't know the name. By the time I visited, all the residents had already died from an epidemic."

Haas explained that while wandering, she coincidentally saw the village's tragic state, and while checking for survivors, she found Ceres, who was a baby at the time.

"He was the only one who survived while everyone else died. However, his physical condition didn't look good. I thought he was left with aftereffects from fighting off the disease."

She couldn't just leave the baby there, so she brought him to the Whiperion family, and that was when Ares's late husband saw him.

"He showed interest in the fact that the baby had silver hair. He said it was just like the people of the Whiperion family, and that he looked just like Count Ares's child. He asked if it would be possible to adopt him."
"Why? There's no need to adopt when you can just give birth to one."
"That was because Count Ares wasn't particularly keen on it. Count Ares found her husband bothersome, so they had no children. Thus, he thought that if they adopted a child who looked similar, Count Ares's attitude might change..."

Haas's explanation to Niobe, who hadn't known the circumstances of that time, was cut off there.

"Enough! That story doesn't matter!"

Ares, whose mood had soured, cut off the explanation.

"Just stick to the point. So, since you also found Ceres by chance, you're saying you don't really know his lineage either, right?"
"That's correct."
"But this one is convinced that even though Ceres is adopted, he is indeed of Whiperion blood."
"Hmm."

Hearing Ares's words, Haas looked at Niobe, thought about something, and let out an "Ah."

"If so, could it be that a collateral branch of the Whiperion family lived in that village?"
"What?"
"Like your younger sibling who left home, if a member who left the family settled in that village and their descendant is Lord Ceres, it makes sense. Come to think of it, silver hair, the family's unique symbol, isn't common."

Could there be such a coincidence?
It was too convenient a coincidence, so Ares briefly doubted Haas's guess.
But if her guess was right, one problem would be solved.

'Then it means I adopted someone from a collateral bloodline, so he can fully be considered a direct descendant!'

It was relatively common for a noble without children to bring in a child from a collateral branch and make them the heir.
A child brought in this way was treated as a direct descendant, so there would be no problem even by the standards of noble society.

"With this, we could completely crush the opponent's justification that he is the only direct descendant and My Liege is just an adopted son."

Niobe also had the same thought.

"We can no longer stop the fallout from what those bastards did, but we can make sure they can never cause trouble again in the future."
"...Yes, we can't do anything about what's already been done, but we can stop them from doing anything more."

Ares wore a bleak expression as she thought of Ceres, who had rejected her and gone to the Imperial Palace.
Then Haas spoke up.

"But just claiming it verbally won't be enough. Shall I prepare to prove Lord Ceres's lineage with magic?"
"Is that possible?"
"It's impossible right this moment, but given time, it is entirely possible. If you permit it, I will prepare it in my laboratory here."
"Do so."

Haas bowed politely and left the room.
Completely unaware that Niobe was watching her retreating figure with a strange look in her eyes.

Haas's laboratory was located in the basement of the Whiperion mansion.
It was structured so that once inside, it was absolutely impossible for anyone outside to know what was happening within.
It was a special place created at Haas's own request to Ares, stating that she didn't want to be disturbed during her magic research.

"...No one's here, right?"

Arriving at the underground lab, Haas looked around and made absolutely sure there was no one nearby to hear her words.
And then...

"Damn it, why are things getting so twisted?!"

Fuming, she kicked and smashed objects in the lab to vent her anger.

"Why is the Knight Commander of the Holy Kingdom here?! I heard rumors that she became a Death Knight, but out of all things, why did she have to become Lord Ceres's escort knight?!"

Haas continued to vent, accurately mentioning Niobe's true identity, which Ares hadn't told her.

"And what's with those bastards who came to reveal that Lord Ceres is adopted?! It's already troublesome enough with the Hero, the High Priest, and even the Emperor! All sorts of riffraff are obsessing over Lord Ceres. And now, even these ridiculous nobodies are getting in the way!"

While wandering, Haas had heard the information that Ceres was loved by powerful women.
Combining the sudden arrival of Niobe and Nemeth. All of this was highly problematic for her.
Because...

"At this rate, I can't sneak Lord Ceres away!"

The more people around Ceres and the more variables that arose, the harder it became to sneak him away and bring him over to their side.

"With incidents suddenly erupting one after another, I even had to make up a weird excuse. Saying I brought Lord Ceres from a village wiped out by a disease... Even though I'm the one who said it, it's an excuse that only warrants a hollow laugh."

Haas actually let out a hollow laugh as she recalled the words she had spoken just a moment ago.
She then continued muttering to herself.

"There's no way Lord Ceres has real parents or ancestors. After all, he's someone we created with magic."

Haas spoke words that would have appalled Ceres himself, and anyone who knew him, had they heard it.
Creating a person with magic was possible, but to say Ceres was born through such means?
Why? And if he was created with magic, what about his Divine Power or his Whiperion bloodline?
If the person in question, Ceres, had been here, he would have strangled her immediately to extract information, claiming that such a detail was never in the original novel.

The beginning of everything was a thousand years ago from now.
A thousand years ago.
When the Demon King destroyed the Holy Kingdom and nearly annihilated the Whiperion Royal Family.
The divine artifact kept by the Royal Family also fell into the Demon King's hands.

The divine artifact, the 'Feather of the Heavenly God'.
It was unknown if it was true, but it was a holy feather carrying the legend that it fell from the wings of the Heavenly God.
Even if its authenticity was uncertain, looking at the feather that had actually granted the Whiperion Royal Family the ability to wield Holy Power and Divine Power, the Demon King came up with a strange idea.

What would happen if I used this entirely to create a person?

This curiosity did not end as mere curiosity and was almost put into action, but it was halted midway.
Because the first Emperor of the Empire and those who followed her succeeded in overthrowing the Demon King herself.
Thus, the Demon King died, and it seemed the Feather of the Heavenly God would also fall into the Empire's hands, but...

'I smuggled it out before that happened.'

Haas recalled what she had done a thousand years ago.
She was actually not human.
She was a demon hiding her identity, a subordinate who had followed the Demon King a thousand years ago. A follower of the Demon King.
She was one of the beings who still occasionally revealed themselves and were treated as public enemies of the Empire.

At that time, in the extreme situation where the Demon King had died and the Emperor bearing the blood of dragons was right on their doorstep, Haas hurriedly fled with the Feather of the Heavenly God, along with blood and other items collected from the dead members of the Whiperion Royal Family.

Because there was something she absolutely had to do using the items she took.

She desperately built up her forces in a hellish situation, basically being chased by the whole world. Gathering those who fled like her and persuading other demons, she prepared to resume the Demon King's halted plan to use the Heavenly God's feather.
And then, just twenty-something years ago, after a thousand years had passed.
She succeeded in the Demon King's devised plan to create a person using the Heavenly God's feather.
Using the feather and the bloodline of the Whiperion royal family, she created a person.
That was Ceres.

'It really was a long journey.'

Haas recalled the harsh past. It was truly arduous, but what was even more baffling was that creating Ceres wasn't the end.
Haas immediately approached Ares's late husband and persuaded him to adopt Ceres.
There were a few reasons why she intentionally had a precious being—made from irreplaceable materials—adopted into the Whiperion family.
The first reason was that it was too dangerous in many ways for Haas to carry Ceres around.
Honestly, she was in a position where she could be caught and killed by the Imperial Army at any moment; she couldn't drag a newborn baby around. It was better to leave him in a safer place.
The second reason was her certainty that Ceres would win Ares's favor.
Although his blood was diluted, Ceres was practically the origin of the Whiperion family, so she figured Ares, a Whiperion herself, would show him goodwill.
If things went well, Ceres could rightfully inherit everything of the Whiperion family, regardless of being an adopted child.
Even if that didn't happen, she figured she could at least learn the location of Black Pain from Ares.

'If nothing else, I absolutely had to obtain Black Pain.'

Because this was the most important reason for sending Ceres to the Whiperion family as an adopted son.

"Lord Ceres must use Black Pain to resurrect the Demon King and become her consort. Because that is what he was created for."