After leaving Mirror Spring Manor, John went to the West Family estate as usual to provide Lothar with tactical guidance.
However, because his conversation with Ailafia had yielded far too much unexpected information, even John found himself repeatedly distracted during the lesson, glancing at the Obsidian Pocket Watch in his hand. As a result, he unusually fell into a disadvantage during the subsequent simulated sand-table battle with Lothar.
Fortunately, once he came to his senses, he immediately cast aside all distracting thoughts and focused on the sand-table battle. In the end, he successfully turned the situation around and won the match, avoiding any embarrassment during the lesson.
Compared to Lothar, who could not help feeling thrilled after successfully forcing John into a slump, Olivia, silently watching from the side, noticed that something was off with John.
However, she did not ask him directly. Only after the lesson ended did she send Lothar away under the pretext of having some business matters to discuss with John.
"John, has something happened to you recently?"
After sending Lothar away, Olivia got straight to the point and asked John this question. At that moment, her pale violet eyes were filled with seriousness.
Clearly, her ally's unusual performance had led the shrewd young merchant woman to believe that the Old Guard Party had begun targeting John, the Empire's newly promoted Lieutenant General, ahead of schedule.
Otherwise, there was simply no explanation for why the man who had spent yesterday's sand-table exercise relentlessly suppressing her muscle-brained younger brother would make repeated mistakes in today's exercise and nearly let Lothar overrun his position.
That was clearly not normal.
At that moment, Olivia had practically constructed an extremely dangerous assassination attempt in her mind.
But before she could say that, if necessary, the West Family could send additional