Throne of Magical Arcana - The Invitation

“My lord… If you’re interested in my information, I beg you pardon me, please.” Chris almost burst into tears.
    

“That depends on how valuable your information is.” Lucien held his sword firmly.
    

“I… I got an invitation the other day,” stammered Chris.
    

“You got?” Lucien tilted his head a bit.
    

“I stole… I stole the invitation,” Chris corrected himself awkwardly, but he then explained hurriedly, “It looks like an invitation for a gathering of black sorcerers.”
    

“…” Lucien did not respond, although his heart suddenly missed a beat.
    

“My lord… It is a gathering of black sorcerers of low rank, and it’s a great chance for any knight to establish a great, heroic feat.”
    

“Show me the invitation.” Lucien hid his excitement and commanded sternly.
    

Under Lucien’s watch, Chris took out a small piece of neatly folded paper from his pocket.
    

“Here it is, my lord. Several days ago, a mysterious traveler came to the town and the way he spent money was pretty indulgent. So I followed him when he left the town and I witnessed that he killed a bunch of beats which were trying to attack him, using vicious, frightful black magic!”
    

Lucien took the piece of paper and unfolded it with his left hand. Only with a short glance, he registered the invitation in his spiritual library:
    

“The second Friday in the Month of Fire, when the silver moon is in the sky, we invite you, sorcerers and sorcerer apprentices, to come to the land previously owned by Wilfred, to attend a feast of death that will be held in Carendia Castle to welcome a mister from the headquarter of the Congress of Magic.”
    

No salutation, no signature. It was a strange invitation. However, it sparked off Lucien’s great interest as a sorcerer himself.
    

Seeing that Lucien did not cut him off immediately, Chris resumed talking to provide more information to please him, “When I was following him, I didn’t realize that he was also the target of another group of adventurers. After several rounds of fighting against the beasts, they attacked the traveler. The traveler was not at a disadvantage at the beginning, since his black magic was even more powerful than they thought, until all of them got besieged by a group of robbers when they were exhausted, and both the traveler and the adventures were killed.”
    

Listening to Chris’s words, Lucien was quite certain that the traveler was a sorcerer apprentice.
    

“So you took an advantage of it and got this invitation?” asked Lucien.
    

“Yes… that’s right, my lord,” answered Chris obediently.
    

“Why you did not report to the Church, then?” The name, Wilfred, was not strange to Lucien. Wilfred was one of the several legendary-level necromancers in history, however, he was killed in the siege of the Church performed by the major cardinals, and even his Magic Tower built in a demiplane was destroyed. “And do you know anything about Carendia Castle?”
    

“I’m a rogue walking in darkness and shadow. If the Church found out, I would be sentenced to death on the gallows,” Chris honestly answered. “And I know nothing about this castle. In fact, I mentioned the name of the castle to people a couple of times in Korsor in the Adventurers’ Association and the Rogue Guild, but no one ever heard of this place before. I guess… My guess is that it’s a code among the black sorcerers. Well… that’s how we rogues do it.”
    

Lucien was a bit disappointed, since there was just too few clues for him to locate a place in a country which was totally strange to him.
    

“I see. Did you ever tell this to anyone else?” A gentle smile appeared on Lucien’s face.
    

“Never. I was still looking for a buyer.” Chris gave a sigh of relief. It seemed his hands were safe now. “Serving you is my pleasure, my lord.”
    

Lucien nodded, “Good job.”
    

Then, Lucien directly stabbed the sword at Chris’s throat without any hesitance. Chris’s eyes opened wide, but he could not make a sound. His blood bubbled from his mouth and throat. Lucien calmly pulled the sword back, “You know too much.”
    

Although Lucien did not think he would be able to find the so-called Carendia Castle, he did not want to leave any risk here for himself, just in case, especially because he did not trust Chris at all. Who knew whether this rogue would sell this information to someone else afterwards.
    

Although in the beginning he felt bad, Lucien had to admit that now he felt way less guilty about killing someone who could be a great danger to himself, as long as the person was not his friend or not innocent.
    

Chris’s body hit the wood floor of the coach and made a thud.
    

A small cluster of flame appeared on Lucien’s finger tip and quickly burned the piece of paper completely down. Then, without hesitation, Lucien opened the window of the coach and called Betty’s name gently, “Betty, can you come over here?”
    

Although his voice was low, Betty was still taken aback.
    

“Mr. Evans! You scared me a bit!” Although she was complaining, there was a sweet smile on her face.
    

Then Betty stood up and walked toward the coach, and at this time, what was mentioned once by Joanna and Simon suddenly occurred to her: it was not uncommon to have some clients who would ask for some “extra” services if his female guard was good-looking or had a nice figure. If the client was generous enough and was not annoying to the guard, some of them, who were quite open-minded about sex, would be willing to have an intimate relationship with their clients. After all, they also had physiological needs, and there would be a decent amount of money for them.
    

However, Betty regarded herself as quite conservative, and although Mr. Evans was quite handsome and generous, she was still not going to agree.
    

When Betty was considering how to refuse Mr. Evans, the young lord said to her calmly, “A thief sneaked into the coach.”
    

“What?!” Betty raised her tone and immediately covered her mouth. Luckily, none of the others were woken up because of her shout. She quickly got on the coach and saw a body lying on the floor. “Chris…?! He’s a rogue?” Betty’s eyes opened wide, “Is he… dead?”
    

“I think so,” Lucien answered in a plain tone.
    

“Mr. Evans…” Betty turned around and looked at him, “You killed him?”
    

“Yes.” Lucien smiled, “He was trying to steal my sword, and he failed. I woke up during the process and killed him.”
    

Since Betty had always regarded Lucien as just a young noble who wouldn’t even dare to kill a chicken, Lucien’s reaction after killing a person and the smile on his face sort of scared her, but soon she calmed down.
    

“Mr. Evans, you’re stronger than I thought,” said Betty. She now believed that this young noble man sitting in front of her should be about the level of a high level knight squire.
    

“Can you deal with the body, Betty?” Lucien did not respond to Betty’s comment but pointed at the body on the floor.
    

“Of course, this is my fault… I should apologize for letting a thief sneak into your coach.” Betty lowered her head, and then looked at Lucien again with her big eyes, “…Mr. Evans, can you keep this as a secret from my sister and Simon? She would be quite disappointed and mad if she got to know that I was not doing a good job at protecting our client.”
    

Lucien titled his head and smiled, “I won’t tell your sister. Just be careful. Don’t wake her up when you’re dealing with the body.”
    

“Thank you so much, Mr. Evans!” Betty was very grateful, since this kind of fault could be very bad for their safeguarding record in the Adventurers’ Association if the client decided to complain to the organization.
    

“I promise it won’t happen again!” Betty started to pull the body out of the coach. She had disliked Chris for a long time, and no guard would hold sympathy to a thief who was trying to attack his or her client.
    

“Wait a second, Betty.” Lucien asked, “Did you ever hear about a castle named Carendia?”
    

“Umm…” Betty frowned her eyebrows a bit as she was thinking, but then shook her head, “No, never.”
    

“I see.” Lucien nodded with a bit disappointment.
    

Although Betty was still a young girl, she was relatively experienced as an adventurer in her age. With great caution, she did a great job with the task given by Lucien.
    

In the following morning, although the other people, including the two bards, were quite surprised that Chris left the campsite without telling anyone, no one really cared. On the other hand, Betty, who felt rather grateful to Lucien for keeping her secret, was now showing more respect and enthusiasm toward him.
    

In the evening of the third day, the coach came arrived at a fork on the road, whose northward road led deep into the woods to Fogtown, known by people in this area for its lumbering, and the northeastward one to a mining town named Neese.
    

Both roads could lead them to Korsor, although the northward one was way less busy, but also more bumpy.
    

Because Lena needed to go to Fogtown, they chose the northward road.