Daphne looked him up and down as if this was something she always experienced. Zenos realized the emotion behind that gaze and was left speechless.
If someone came to see their brother only to be rejected at the entrance, wouldn’t anger or sadness be the normal reaction?
Yet Daphne’s expression seemed to ask why he was suddenly getting upset.
“Who do you think made treating me poorly seem normal?”
When Zenos pressed his lips tightly shut while touching his bandaged wrist, Daphne answered for him.
“Our family.”
As a look of guilt crossed Zenos’s face, Daphne seized the opportunity to mock him thoroughly.
“Ah, of course excluding our youngest. Unlike certain people, that child was always kind.”
“Daphne, th-that……”
“How could I expect respect outside when I don’t receive it at home? The receptionist is the same. He has to mistreat the person you mistreat to stay on good terms with you.”
Zenos opened and closed his mouth as if trying to make some excuse.
Daphne waved her hand dismissively as if telling him not to bother with something that was already too late to fix. Zenos scratched his head, clearly embarrassed.
“Anyway, shouldn’t you be preparing for the dinner? Why are you here?”
“Dinner… what do you mean?”
“Mother sent a messenger saying the Grand Duke and Dame Margrit are coming to our house today. She insisted I must attend.”
“It’s not a dinner, just tea. And only Dame Margrit is coming.”
“…Really?”
A messenger from Christine had come and gone just before Daphne arrived.
“The Madam earnestly requested that you must attend this important gathering without fail.”
The messenger had repeatedly emphasized this, but Zenos typically ignored anything Christine said.
Zenos shrugged his shoulders and told Daphne:
“I must have misunderstood.”
Then he touched the wrist that Kartun had injured and asked grumpily:
“But why does that guy… I mean, why does the Grand Duke keep coming around so often?”
“Did you hear about what happened at the ball yesterday?”
When Daphne asked, he shook his head.
Zenos was usually oblivious to outside news, buried in his laboratory. Moreover, yesterday he had returned to his lab after being pestered by people wanting to buy his invention.
A celebration party with his research assistants had been waiting for him. Normally he would have refused, but Daphne’s advice to treat them well had been on his mind.
So yesterday he had endured a forced party all night and had barely managed to get up and come to the laboratory now.
Curious about the news, Zenos perked up his ears and asked:
“What happened?”
Daphne recounted how she had coincidentally met Margo and become friends, then explained what Leonhardt and Anaïs had done at the ball.
Daphne spoke as if she’s describing something that happened to someone else, showing no emotion, but Zenos’s expression changed from shocked to furious.
“That b*stard Leonhardt, how could he do such a thing!”
“Don’t get involved. Stay quiet until Father returns.”
She warned him sharply.
He had thought she came to him as her brother to confide her troubles…
When Zenos crumpled his face in response to being told to stay quiet, Daphne warned him again.
“Listen to me. I’ll make them pay eventually, so don’t interfere.”
In the past, he would have immediately lashed out upon hearing such words. But having injured his nose and wrist, plus gaining ideas for a stone-cutting machine, he somehow felt he should listen to what Daphne had to say.
He reluctantly answered:
“Fine. I’ll stay out of it. But what does this have to do with Dame Margrit?”
“I think she’s coming to comfort me.”
“When did she ever see you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Daphne cut him off sharply. She hadn’t explained anything clearly, but Zenos didn’t press further.
Yet Daphne’s instructions continued.
“And don’t say anything to the receptionist.”
“Why not?”
Zenos asked eagerly, as he had been planning to do exactly that.
“Because he’s a witness that I came here today but left without meeting you.”
Zenos scratched his head again at these cryptic words. His usually arrogant face that acted like it knew everything now looked foolish.
Daphne disliked even that expression and turned her head away.
“Take a look at this.”
“…What is it?”
Daphne twisted the handle of her parasol and pulled it out. From inside, she extracted a thin cylindrical box.
When Zenos received it and opened it, he found dark stone fragments inside.
“It’s a magic stone. Has its lifespan ended?”
When a magic stone’s power is completely drained, it becomes an ordinary stone. Zenos recognized this at a glance and looked more closely, muttering:
“Wait a minute… this is strange.”
Zenos brought a large magnifying glass and began examining it.
“The magical power doesn’t seem to have worn away gradually but suddenly disappeared.”
“What do you mean by disappeared?”
When Daphne asked, Zenos continued his explanation while keeping his nose close to the stone.
“It’s similar to how lava that cools rapidly becomes porous basalt with many holes, while lava that solidifies slowly underground becomes dense granite.”
“So you’re saying the magic power didn’t just wear out to become a regular stone, but rushed out so quickly that it created holes and eventually crumbled?”
“Yes. I’d need to research more to be certain, but that’s my initial assessment. Magic stones have different abilities depending on their inherent color. But with one this depleted, there’s almost nothing we can determine.”
“It was orange.”
When Zenos’s eyes widened at her words, Daphne quickly asked:
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you sure?”
“I saw it clearly with my own eyes.”
“Orange stones are extremely rare. They only exist in records; not a single one exists today. Follow me.”
Zenos entered the library adjacent to his laboratory. Inside was full of dust and cobwebs, with books scattered about like an abandoned warehouse.
When Daphne hesitated at the doorway without entering, Zenos swept his bangs back, embarrassed.
“I don’t have time to clean, and I hate having others touch my things……”
“That’s fine.”
“Wait a moment. I’ll find it.”
He rummaged around inside and returned with a book.
“It may look messy, but I remember exactly where everything is.”
He wiped the dust off the book with his sleeve.
「Classification of Magic Stones by Color」
Zenos explained what he knew first.
“The title is common, but the content is anything but. The author is the pinnacle of magic stone studies. Almost legendary. But he got caught up in a monster controversy… All his remaining works are rare editions.”
“Is it safe to possess it?”
“Don’t worry. After his death, the temple recognized its academic value.”
In her previous life, Zenos had lost all his scholarly achievements in exactly the same way. It was truly pathetic.
Completely unaware of what Daphne was recalling from her past, Zenos continued excitedly:
“According to this book, orange falls into the mental category.”
Daphne skimmed the table of contents and turned to the page about orange stones. It was filled with words like illusion, hypnosis, and unconsciousness.
“In short, it can enchant people.”
Now she understood why Leonhardt had changed so suddenly and behaved like a madman.
‘I thought he wasn’t in his right mind in my previous life too… Was Anaïs controlling him?’
The immediate concerns were where this magic stone came from and why its power had suddenly drained.
“Can you determine why the magical power disappeared?”
Zenos shrugged.
“As you know, the Empire is extremely averse to anything related to monsters.”
He trailed off and glanced at her cautiously. He recalled getting angry about Daphne’s rose-gold hair, calling it ominous.
Daphne clicked her tongue.
“Just continue as you were.”
“…Alright. The previous Emperor collected all the magical tools that could examine such things and locked them away in storage. I’ve heard that with those tools, one could determine the answer in just a day. Though I’ve never seen them myself.”
“So if we could use those magical tools, we could also identify what kind of magic stone this was?”
“Theoretically, yes. Many books on how to use magical tools still remain. And there are people still alive who have actually used them, so it’s possible.”
After finishing his answer, Zenos asked with a skeptical expression:
“Do you happen to have a way to use magical tools?”
Daphne naturally didn’t answer. Embarrassed, Zenos went back to examining the stone and asked:
“Where did you get this anyway?”
“If I tell you, can you keep it secret?”
At Daphne’s question, Zenos placed one hand on his chest and nodded.
“Of course. On my scholarly honor……”
“Perhaps you should swear on your intact wrist, fingers, and teeth… one by one?”
“What?”
“Just days ago, you threatened me and lectured about how ominously the Empire views anything related to monsters. Have you already forgotten?”
No, he remembered it clearly. He had gotten angry about her hair color, then was headbutted and knocked unconscious. It was impossible to forget.
Unable to look directly at Daphne, Zenos lowered his gaze.
“Just being a magic stone is ominous enough, but it wore away unnaturally and crumbled. We need to be careful since we don’t know why. That’s why I came in through the window.”
Daphne put the box containing the stone back into her parasol.
Zenos couldn’t even ask for a piece of it and just blankly watched as she secured the stone.
After neatly folding her parasol, Daphne said:
“I’ll try to arrange access to the magical tools. Analyze it thoroughly when that happens.”
“Hey, you’re not thinking of asking Her Majesty the Emperor, are you? Don’t even consider it. No matter how much Her Majesty likes you, she can’t grant that.”
“Why are you so certain?”
“Hey, could you give away a family heirloom just because a puppy begs? Her fondness for you is nothing more or less than……”
His habitual rudeness hadn’t disappeared. Zenos was speaking nastily as usual when his eyes met Daphne’s, and he closed his mouth.
Translator
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Ravingcrow1118
I knew Christine was being a stupid person and unnecessarily butting into Daphne’s plans by changing tea time to dinner time. I hope Daphne arrives very late to dinner and humiliates her mother.