How About a Refill? ~The Elegant Tea Party of the Grand Witches~ - Chapter 44

The Second Prince’s Faction

Eleonora had a wound on her arm. Gil had taken the opportunity to escape when she’d received the wound during their fight.

“To manage to hurt Ellie… he is quite unexpected.”

“Sorry. I was too careless.”

Because Eleonora was half human and half dark elf, she had been quite proficient in offensive magic even before she became a grand witch. On top of that, her military skills were higher than both Beatrice and Valeria.

A person who could inflict injury on her would be quite proficient at fighting.

“The man was definitely Gilbert Dala de Feline, right?”

“Yeah, it’s very likely. He had shoulder length silver hair.”

Valeria quickly healed Eleonora’s injured arm.

Once she finished treating it, they both pulled out their wands once again.

“We’ll go back to the castle for now.”

They conjured up a large magic circle on top of their heads. The light enveloped them and transported them to the palace.

Valeria went to look through the memories of the red robed people they had captured. They also looked at the weapons they had confiscated from them.

“As I thought, it’s a black dragon’s beard, and black magic stones.”

Eleonora was examining the wand decorated with black thread and black stones that was used by the red robed man who looked to be the leader of the attack.

“The demonic power in these is not small, but these have to be extracted from a young black dragon.”

“Then it really must be the red robe organisation that’s luring young black dragons in the valley too?”

Beatrice wondered as she set out tea on the table.

“What was with the attack this time? Besides Ivan, could there be someone else from the second prince’s faction that’s connected to the religion?”

Emilio asked Dino, but Dino just shook his head with a sigh.

“I’m a bit ashamed to admit it but the second Prince’s faction isn’t that influential. Especially now that His Highness is in confinement.”

“…I see.”

“Right now it’s been separated into three groups. The first is made up of those waiting for an opportunity to switch over to the First Prince’s side, the second is made up of those staying silent for now, and the third is those who taking advantage of the fact that his status as a prince is not stripped, are planning to overthrow the First Prince and put Prince Ivan on the throne… in other words, the radicals.”

“So is it possible this attack was the work of these radicals from the Second Prince’s faction?”

“That looks to be the case.”

They turned around at the voice to see Valeria who had returned from looking through the memories of the red robes.

“If the Duke of Saint Angelo is one of the radicals, that is.”

The Duke of Saint Angelo was the older brother of the current King’s concubine. He was Ivan’s uncle, and was thinking of gaining power by putting Ivan on the throne and controlling it from the shadows.

“Rather than being one of them, he’s the one leading them.”

“He was in the memory of the guy who looked like the leader of the attack. It looked like he also visited the Duke’s residence a few times. Oh and I was also able to confirm the face of the leader of the True Salvation religion. Does the almanac of nobility have pictures?”

“If it’s the current head then their picture should be printed there. They won’t let me take out the original records so if you want to confirm why don’t we go to the library together?”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Saying so, Valeria quickly gulped down her tea and stuffed some pastries into her mouth as she got up.

“The Witch of the Forest is q-quite surprising.”

“Don’t dawdle! Let’s go already.”

Valeria grabbed Dino, who was quite surprised at the gap between her cute appearance and her unseemly actions, and dragged him off towards the library.

◇

“Oh, found it! It’s this guy, the founder of the religion.”

Valeria and Dino had found the man they were looking for as they looked over the pictures of the current heads of noble houses.

Saverio Lambert lou Feline. He had bronze hair with green eyes. His face was thin but he had a sharp gaze.

“So it is the Feline house after all, huh.”

“Well, with the son at the forefront, there’s no reason the father won’t be involved either, right?”

Dino replied as he returned the almanac back to it’s shelf.

“By the way, is it okay for youto be here,  seeing as you’re from the second prince’s faction? WOuldn’t it be bad for you if you help us out this much?”

Dino laughed self-deprecatingly as he stroked his face.

“Ah, well, I’m not particularly favoured by the Duke Saint Angelo so it should be fine.”

“Hmmm. Did you do something to him?”

“No, no, I’ve been quite well behaved. It’s just that the Duke wanted Leonardo to be the Second Prince’s aide.”

Apart from their families having different ranks, Leonardo and Dino were not that different in their abilities.

Either of them would make good aides when it came to performing their duties, but the Duke still wanted Leonardo.

“Rather than Leonardo, I feel like he just wanted someone from the Caparoni house, that is… Lady Tatiana’s son.”

“Ah, I see.”

“They really do resemble her with their golden hair and amethyst eyes. Leonardo and Alessia.”

“Hmm, yeah Ana used to be very popular back then.”

20 years ago there was a woman who took society by storm with her beauty. That woman was Tatiana, the daughter of the Knight Commander of that time, she was now the mother of three children.

Many young men fell for her and asked for her hand in marriage. But Tatiana fell in love with Ferdinand who she had met through her father, and they got married.

Ferdinand was also famous as a handsome knight, so the two’s love story became famous throughout the kingdom.

It became the subject of many portraits or songs sung by minstrels.

“Duke Saint Angelo was also among the men who wanted to marry Lady Tatiana, but, well you already know how that turned out. It’s just he’s probably still attached to her even now. His own children are not the same age so he probably tried to make a connection with his nephew by having Leonardo as his aide, and probably wanted one of the daughters to be the queen…”

“Looks like it was all lost to Emilio, huh.”

“He probably hates Prince Emilio even more now.”

“Well that could be a good thing.”

Nodding in assent, the two returned to Beatrice’s mansion.