Charlotte pushed open the door and entered the room, immediately catching a scent entirely different from the incense in the bedroom and drawing room: a mixture of turpentine and paint.
The curtains were open, and sunlight illuminated an easel and the open paint box beside it. Several brushes soaked in a narrow-necked glass bottle, with cloudy blue-green sediment at the bottom. A palette knife and a stack of paper with curled edges lay on a small table nearby.
The oil paintings on the walls depicted the lush courtyard of the Sauron family's old residence in Trier and the windmill-covered Korus Mountain in Sushit, but most were portraits: Charlotte's late mother, her brother Reynold, her sister Dana, and Charlotte herself at various ages.
There were group portraits of the family sitting in the garden, a side view of her mother holding Charlotte as a small child, her brother striking a wooden target with a wooden sword, and her sister crouching beside the lawn, caught in the moment her skirt tripped her as she reached for a butterfly.
Raoul occasionally appeared in the family portraits, but he was always positioned slightly behind the others, as though he were both part of the painting and standing outside it, watching them.
Charlotte suddenly understood that this studio was probably her father's way of remembering his late wife and the children he had lost.
Surrounded by these paintings, Baron Raoul Sauron stood before his easel, still holding a brush. He dabbed the last bit of color from its tip onto the canvas before setting it down and turning toward the door.
Once he recognized his visitor, a faint smile appeared on his expressionless face.
"What brings you here all of a sudden?"
The tentative questions Charlotte had prepared all caught in her throat when she saw the paintings on the walls.
After suffering one attack after another since transmigrating, she had already begun to harbor suspicions about the baron.
The first time, when Etienne had followed her, Raoul's reaction upon rushing to the Gustav residence had been somewhat strange, as though something he had long feared had finally happened. The second time, when she went to the Printing House, few people had known her itinerary, and her father had happened to be one of them. Then there were the various clues mentioned in Viève's booklet: a lack of respect for the orthodox gods, prolonged seclusion, excessive sensitivity to topics involving mysticism, and repeated inexplicable deaths and accidents among those around him...
A baron whose family had fallen into decline, who had lost his wife and children and been forced to leave Trier, could easily harbor resentment toward the royal family, the Church, or even the world itself.
Could he have already begun worshipping some being that claimed to grant power and offered an outlet for his resentment?
Yet standing in the studio, she suddenly found those suspicions difficult to voice.
Under her father's puzzled gaze, Charlotte realized she had to say something. She quickly put on a natural smile and said:
"It's about the Printing House... Roselle and Green are still making preparations, and I wanted to know when you would have time to ask at City Hall about the publishing permit."
Raoul did not answer immediately. He set his palette back on the small table, walked over to a round table on the other side of the room, and sat down, pointing to the opposite chair for Charlotte to join him.
Only after his daughter had slowly seated herself, her hands folded in her lap like a well-behaved young noblewoman, did the baron speak in a tone that was not particularly stern.
"Are you wondering whether I have something to do with the heretics who attacked you?"
Charlotte was stunned. She had imagined that her father might deny it outright, offer every possible explanation, or guiltily change the subject. She had not expected him to bring it up before she had even asked.
Was the Arbiter potion really that effective?
Seeing her dazed expression, Raoul gave a soft chuckle.
"It seems I guessed correctly."
"Father..."
Charlotte had barely managed that one word before he waved a hand.
"When City Hall handed Etienne's case over to the Church, I knew it couldn't be an ordinary murder. Then you went to the church twice and kept things from me when you returned. Naturally, I could guess that you had encountered things ordinary people weren't supposed to know about, and I was worried."
Charlotte pressed her lips together without arguing. Twice she had promised not to go to the church, and twice she had gone. She had promised to tell him everything she encountered, yet she had still concealed things. If they were going to discuss deception, she had been the first to deceive him.
"I went to see a bishop I knew and asked about you," Raoul continued. "I knew they would keep certain matters confidential. They wouldn't reveal the Inquisition's operations to me, much less tell me whether they had recruited a certain young noblewoman as an outside informant. But often, evasion is an answer in itself."
An outside informant.
Hearing those words from her father gave Charlotte a subtle sense of discomfort, as though she had betrayed her family.
Raoul noticed the change in her and calmly added:
"Such things are hardly uncommon. The royal family and the military do it, and so does the Church. As a Sauron, even one from a branch family, I couldn't possibly be entirely unfamiliar with them.
"In fact, the reason I could visit a bishop of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun and receive his tacit confirmation about you was partly because I had helped the Church before."
Charlotte suddenly understood that her father was not unaware of the world of mysticism, nor of the other power the Church concealed beneath its public face.
"Then why..." she asked hesitantly. "Why do you keep such a distance from the Church?"
Raoul's gaze left her face and settled on a portrait on the wall.
In it, the young Lady Sauron sat on a garden bench, cradling the newborn Charlotte. Sunlight fell across her gentle profile, lending even greater life to a face that had been gone for years.
"After your mother died, I prayed to the gods. I also went to see the bishops in Trier and asked them to determine whether someone had harmed her.
"They said no."
There was no noticeable inflection in Raoul's voice, as though he were describing something that had happened to someone else.
"Then came your sister, and then Reynold. Every time, I hoped for an explanation. Why did misfortune keep targeting our family...? But the Church's answer was always the same. They found no supernatural power, no curse rituals, no obvious traces.
"They said it was an accident. All of them were accidents."
At that, he finally withdrew his gaze and looked at Charlotte.
"So it isn't that I don't believe in the Eternal Blazing Sun. I simply no longer expect the Church to answer His believers on His behalf."
Silence settled over the room. Charlotte looked at her father, unsure what to say.
She had expected to hear about some hidden secret, some danger. Instead, she found herself facing a man who had lost too much and no longer placed any hope in the Church.
Raoul did not linger on the subject. Instead, he said:
"As for your current situation, I can make a few guesses. There has always been a certain understanding between the royal family and the two major Churches. The royal family doesn't obstruct their growth, and the Churches can't casually reach into the inner circle formed by royalty and the great nobles. At least, they can't interfere directly without any reason.
"But conversely, they are bound to seek out and cultivate people who can enter those circles. You're a member of the Sauron family, you've just become involved in an incident, and you showed sufficient composure during their operation. To the Inquisition, you're an excellent candidate to recruit as an informant."
Just as I thought. Viève, a Beyonder of a fairly high Sequence, personally listened to my requests, introduced me to the Beyonder world, and even readily gave me a Sequence 9 potion. Her purpose probably went beyond tracking down heretics and cults hidden among the nobility... Charlotte had suspected as much for some time. Hearing her father confirm it, she could not help nodding.
Although she was currently only the daughter of a baron whose fortunes had declined, if she continued advancing through the Sequences and demonstrated potential, then used the Sauron name to enter more exclusive noble circles, she would become an agent the Church had planted within the Sauron family.
That lines up with my plans anyway. To find a way back to my original world, I need both worldly standing and Beyonder power. For the former, I can't avoid the Sauron family; for the latter, I'll have to rely on the Church... Once she had worked that out, Charlotte actually felt relieved.
After all, the unknown was the most frightening thing. As long as she knew what made her useful, she could exchange that value for protection, knowledge, and resources. As long as she remained useful and served her investors' interests, this relationship would actually be the most stable kind.
Gathering her thoughts, she glanced at Raoul, whose gentle expression suggested that he was waiting for his daughter to reach her own understanding. She realized he was not merely a disappointed nobleman lost in his memories, as she had imagined. Baron Sauron might not understand potions or Sequences, or know that Purifiers were the Inquisition's core force, but he understood the workings of power among the nobility, the royal family, and the Church very well.
More importantly, since Raoul had dared to question a bishop without drawing the Church's suspicion or surveillance, she could essentially rule out the possibility that he had ties to a cult.
It looks like our family was already on the Inquisition's list-and near the top of its whitelist, at that... Why didn't Viève give me a heads-up...? Charlotte grumbled inwardly. Remembering that she had actually suspected her own family, she felt her ears grow warm. She quickly lowered her head, pretending to straighten her skirt, and muttered with some reluctance:
"I understand."
Raoul looked at her and suddenly smiled.
"The way you changed the subject just now was much like when you were little."
"I didn't. I was just..." Charlotte considered how to defend herself, then her eyes lit up. "Am I going to next week's Hunting Event too?"
Seeing her clumsily search for another topic yet again, the baron nodded.
"You may. Many of Sushit's local nobles will attend, and they'll bring their young children as well. You've been through too much lately. Returning to normal social life will be good for you... Besides, since you've accepted the Church's help, you'll have to take some action. I assume they've promised you certain special rewards, haven't they?"
Those words made Charlotte's chest tighten as she realized her father still did not know she had already become a Beyonder.
"Yes... I'm very interested in that."
She forced herself to answer calmly.
The baron sighed. His pale green eyes lingered on Charlotte's face for a moment before he continued:
"However, don't get too close to Roselle Gustav. He's too clever and far too restless. People like him can easily bring trouble. You may work with him, but only this once, and only on business."
Charlotte nodded obediently.
"I understand."
But after she gave an elegant curtsy and left the studio, another question lingered in her mind:
If her father was not secretly helping the cultists, then who had planned the ambush at the Printing House?
Raoul was not the only person who had known her itinerary that day. There were also the Gustav father and son, several servants, and Green Randall.
Because Baron Leon Gustav had saved her, and because Roselle and Green had indeed held off the attackers at the Printing House, she had instinctively ruled them out.
Yet now that she thought about it, the more trustworthy someone seemed, the easier they were to overlook.
Could the cultist lurking behind everything be not in the Sauron residence, but in Baron Gustav's household, or close to someone connected to them?