Valeria Hall

"It seems our princely highness is rather concerned about that princess!" At the entrance to Valeria Hall, Lansseax winked at Lucia and teased him with great interest.

"Lansseax..." Lucia withdrew his gaze from Miquella's and Malenia's retreating backs and turned to the white-robed priestess before the hall, his face speechless. "After all the chaotic messes from morning to night today, why do I feel like you're not tired at all?"

"Tsk, now that's just hurtful," Lansseax said with an innocent look. "Your big sister rushed over in a panic first thing in the morning to help you out, flew with you all the way from Dectus to Leyndell, even toured the Sword Monument ruins along the road, hurried back to the Ancient Dragon Temple to marshal troops before the dinner banquet was even over, and, by the way, pushed off the next few days of official duties to condescend to be your temporary guard—and after all that, you're still making snide little comments about me not being tired? Hey, hey, don't run—"

Lucia had already raised both hands in surrender and was walking into the courtyard, mechanically repeating without the slightest sincerity, "I was wrong, I was wrong... I was wrong, all right?"

Lansseax smiled smugly and quickened her pace to catch up.

"Right, Lansseax, how long have you been here? Have you had people inspect the environment inside the hall?" After their brief laughing around, Lucia turned to the real matter.

"Don't worry. More than just sending people to check it, I've personally gone over this bedchamber inside and out. Every bit of the architectural layout matches the map delivered by the Golden Dynasty exactly. There are no hidden rooms, secret passages, or blind spots for eavesdropping or surveillance." As Lansseax answered, she casually tossed Lucia a scroll. "Here. Take a look yourself. I'll take you around while we're at it."

Lucia unfurled the scroll. Inside was an extremely precise and rigorous layout map of Valeria Hall. Not only were the locations and functions of every room marked in detail, it was even paired with a thorough scale and legend. Yet in the lower right corner of the map was a signature stamped in flamboyant, sweeping script—Ed Linser.

"This Ed Linser—have you heard of him, Lansseax?" Lucia raised an eyebrow. The level of drafting on this map was almost no worse than the computer-aided drawings he had seen in his previous life, yet the final signature was so free and ostentatious that it could not help but stir a little curiosity in him.

"Ed Linser?" Lansseax was slightly startled, then nodded. "Of course I've heard of him. Before the Golden Dynasty's southern campaign, he was once the most famous great scholar in all of Leyndell. Not only did he preside over the construction of the bastion-style defense system around Leyndell's outskirts, he also led the design of the entire Golden Sanctuary as its chief architect. It was only when the War King led his army to Limgrave that the Golden royal family specifically invited him to serve as the military theory advisor for the entire Eastern Expedition Legion. Later, naturally, he was exiled beyond the Sea of Fog along with them."

At this point, she sighed softly. "The reason I remember it so clearly is also because the collapse of the Storm Dynasty was inseparable from this great scholar. Relying on outstanding knowledge of precision mechanics and mathematics, he designed and built a great deal of weaponry and equipment for the Eastern Expedition Legion that far surpassed the forces of every other nation in that era."

"They used pulley crossbows to produce an unprecedentedly dense rain of arrows, suppressing the Storm Knights' mass charges from the front. They also replicated the technology of ancient ruin civilizations to create golem guards over ten meters tall—although those things moved slowly, once the giant bows and great arrows in their hands exceeded a certain scale in number, they were already enough to pose a fatal threat to the Wyvern Warriors we sent as support."

"People all think that the Golden Dynasty's strength in the wars of unification lay in the number of powerful individuals that crushed every other nation, and in its invincible eastern and western legions. Yet as early as thirty years ago, High Priest Gulan warned us at the council of elders that the Golden Dynasty's strength began with Leyndell. Talent, soldiers, wealth, supplies, technology... Leyndell was like a powerful machine that never stopped, absorbing the nourishment of the entire continent for the Golden Dynasty, then continuously supplying strength to the eastern and western legions. That was the true reason the Erdtree conquered wherever it attacked."

"And it was precisely because of that that we did not make the Storm Dynasty the battlefield for the decisive war. Instead, we chose to swing our armies straight at Leyndell and burn the flames of war toward the enemy's heart." She sighed faintly. "In that battle, though we never truly destroyed their strength from beginning to end, we at least made the Golden Dynasty realize one thing—if the war continued, Leyndell would inevitably be destroyed in the next round of fighting. For the Erdtree, which sought to establish a new order covering the entire world, that was a price they would never be willing to bear."

After listening, Lucia remained silent for a long time. Now he finally understood why, in that era when the Golden Dynasty swept across all lands, when the Erdtree grew ever more flourishing by the day and nearly covered everything, only the Carians and the ancient dragons had managed to preserve their own civilizations and legacies. It was because their dignity had not been generously bestowed by the Erdtree, but had been defended with blood and blades by countless Carian Knights and ancient dragon warriors.

Yet the War of the Moon Tree and the Dragon-Tree War had both been over for more than ten years. In these ten years, the Golden Dynasty, having lost the War King and the Eastern Expedition Legion, had not only failed to weaken, but had instead shown unprecedented strength. At the same time, Sky City declined by the day amid endless internal divisions, while Caria, too, began to show signs of decline after Queen of the Full Moon's mental collapse. On the contrary, Raya Lucaria Academy, seated in the heart of Liurnia's lake, was growing increasingly powerful and beginning to try to seize a greater voice.

If everything continued along its current path, when the next upheaval arrived, would they still have enough power to protect themselves?

As they spoke, the two of them had already followed the route indicated by the map through more than half of Valeria Hall.

Just as Lansseax had said, Ed Linser was worthy of being one of the most talented great scholars in the Golden Dynasty's history. Combining the mathematical and scientific knowledge from his previous life with the powerful mental strength of a demigod, Lucia continuously measured the structures throughout the bedchamber with his naked eyes along the way, then calculated in his mind, and discovered that the error between this map and the actual building was even below the centimeter level.

As for the palace's layout, although Valeria Hall was nominally a bedchamber, as a demigod's residence, it had a full complement of facilities, including training grounds, a library, and an armory. Just across a wall to the east was Haligtree Hall, where Miquella and Malenia lived, and several bedchambers of similar standard were scattered a few hundred meters away. At present, all of them were empty. Lucia estimated that when the three siblings of the Carian royal family arrived, they would most likely be directly settled here as well.

Walking side by side with Lansseax into the inner hall, the two Ancient Dragon Knights guarding the entrance immediately saluted them. After stepping through the hall doors, Lucia gently lifted the little fox, which had long since curled into a ball and fallen asleep on his shoulder, and handed it to a palace maid, telling her to take the little fox somewhere to rest.

After that, the two came to the study together. Only when Lansseax sealed off the room's space with divine power did Lucia abruptly relax.

"Lansseax, I had to trouble you to observe it the whole way just now. This shadow beast of mine... there shouldn't be any problems with it, right?"