Ofnir

"Your Highness, that is the general situation," Ekzykes reported to Lucia.

Lucia did not answer at once. He merely motioned for Ekzykes to take a seat on his left, then lightly propped up his chin and sank into a long silence of thought.

Inside the royal tent, neither the two elders, Merrell and Atok, seated at the head on either side, nor Guerel, Ekzykes, Alvins, Annasia, and the others arranged below them had any intention of speaking first. Some were silent, some were thinking, but all of them, as if by unspoken agreement, waited for Lucia's instructions.

Such a scene had never appeared during the many previous councils held by the delegation. Lucia had always treated these senior ministers, whose experience and strength far surpassed his own, with great generosity, and when decisions were discussed, he had communicated with everyone in as equal a manner as possible.

But this time, the situation was utterly different from before. What lay before them was not the internal affairs of the Ancient Dragon Dynasty. The safety of the city of Kallen and the eventual ownership of the governorship concerned not merely the lives and deaths of twenty thousand people, but the power struggle among more than half of the noble houses of the Golden Dynasty. In the current world order, where the Erdtree towered over the age, the impact of this turmoil could even spread across the entire continent with ease.

Thus, let alone the few people in the royal tent, even if the seven senators of the Senate and the two priests of the Sky Temple were present, they would never speak before Lucia. Otherwise, it would be no different from overstepping their place.

"Elder Merrell, the roots of the Ofnir Family... how much do you know?" Lucia asked after weighing his words.

Elder Merrell, seated first on the left, was a hale and hearty old man. At eight hundred and seventy-two years of age, he counted among the oldest dragons after the Forbidden War, and even within the council of elders, he was one of the most senior in experience.

Over his long life, Merrell had witnessed the revival and rise of many civilizations after the war, and had also, from the perspective of an onlooker, seen the war of the gods that determined the ownership of The Lands Between. From this perspective, whether it was the Golden Dynasty now at the height of its power or the Carian Dynasty dominating the western continent, before the ancient dragon race with its long history, they were nothing more than latecomers.

"Ofnir..." The old man pondered briefly, then said, "Your Highness should already know that Governor Hectorv's fief lies in the town of Lent in the Altus region. His eldest brother, Marquis Osarion, and his second brother, Viscount Rowens, serve respectively as deputy commander of the Golden Dynasty's northern army and municipal supervisor of Leyndell. These three brothers nominally remain outside the court's partisan struggle between the old and new factions, but in truth they are thoroughly members of the new faction. Viscount Rowens in particular—the old minister has heard that he is quite close to His Highness Godrick."

"Godrick?" Lucia raised an eyebrow. "Since when did he become part of the new faction too?"

These past few days, he had been cramming the internal political structures of the continent's nations, and had gained some understanding of the Golden Dynasty's so-called struggle between the new and old factions. The leader of the old faction was Marika, "Queen Eternal," the final victor of the war of the gods, while the new faction was headed by Radagon, the new king who had ascended the Elden Throne more than ten years ago. Most of them were military nobles who had risen during the war of unification, and they advocated replacing the original Erdtree doctrine with Golden Order fundamentalism, taking even harsher measures against all powers that did not belong to the Erdtree.

But no matter how he thought about it, he could not understand why someone like Godrick had gotten mixed up with the new faction. If the vast majority of Leyndell's nobles had no choice but to pick a side between the two factions, then Godrick was absolutely one of the few who did not need to take sides.

At least for now, whether the new faction or the old faction, when it came to the choice of the Golden Dynasty's next heir, they would only support Godwyn, the Golden Prince. As Godwyn's legitimate son, Godrick only needed to continue his father's political stance and play both sides smoothly. Why would he openly run into the new faction and create political enemies for himself out of thin air?

"Your Highness may not know," Elder Merrell said, coughing twice with an awkward expression, "but His Highness Godrick has always been rather unconventional in how he conducts himself. I hear Her Majesty Marika and His Highness Godwyn have always intended for him to become the one who reconciles the new and old factions, but he seems to have been born with contempt in his heart for many races outside the Golden system. More than once, he has publicly declared that Her Majesty Marika's Erdtree doctrine is far too lenient, to the point that even many coarse and filthy sorts can bathe beneath the Erdtree's radiance, and so on... After this happened time and again, the members of the old faction naturally found it difficult to tolerate."

Lucia was stunned for a moment, then looked toward the others in inquiry. "Is that really the case?"

"It is indeed," Ekzykes agreed. "Previously, His Highness Godwyn tried to have His Highness Godrick gradually take over command of the Crucible Knights. But after those incidents Elder Merrell mentioned occurred, several Crucible Knights of mixed-blood origin felt they had been insulted. Chief Ordovis even specially had a private discussion with His Highness Godwyn. At the time, this matter was no secret throughout all of Leyndell. After that, the commander of His Highness Godrick's personal guards was changed from a Crucible Knight to a Leyndell Knight, and the matter of handing over command came to nothing."

"A talent. What a talent!" Lucia barely managed to suppress the helpless, half-laughing expression on his face as he thought wordlessly.

He mused that the lord of Stormveil he had seen in his previous life, who didn't care about race and would chop off the arms and legs of anyone strong enough to graft onto himself, had not been this picky in taste. This present attitude, practically eager to tell the whole world that he looked down on everyone, was probably because he had not yet suffered society's beatings.

Thinking of this, he more or less understood why Hectorv had put on such an overbearing and rude attitude toward him. If this family could mix with Godrick, then they were clearly fanatics of the new faction as well. In addition, the degree to which Kallen oppressed the surrounding demi-humans and mixed-bloods was enough to prove Hectorv's own stance toward foreign races.

Regardless of whether the new faction, or even Godrick himself, had directly instructed the matter from behind the scenes, if not for the fact that he ultimately possessed the status of a demigod, and Sky City was not some random stray that could be bullied at will, perhaps even this temporary camp would not exist.

"Right," he said, turning his gaze back to Merrell. "Elder, have you ever heard of a knight in the Ofnir Family named Gideon?"

After hearing this name, the old man thought for quite some time, then shook his head seriously and said, "If he were from an unennobled branch family, this old minister might not have an impression of him, but among nobles of knight rank and above, there is absolutely no such person."

"I see..."

"However, if Your Highness is certain such a person exists, then after we arrive at Leyndell, this old minister can visit a few old friends and look into the Ofnir genealogy from the early days of the war of unification for Your Highness," the old man suddenly said. "Back then, one branch of the Ofnir clan followed His Majesty the War King. After the eastern campaign in Caelid ended, they were also exiled with the War King to the far side of the mist. This Knight Gideon you mentioned may well have been one of them."