Chapter 481

I learned for the first time today that we apparently have a deep knowledge of astronomy. Which is funny, because we don’t.

‘The order of the planets is something even middle schoolers know! And he’s calling that perfect?’

But the deed was already done. Before a servant could come outside, I hurried over and stood beside Elias, pulling one side of my robe back over my shoulder so I wouldn’t look too suspicious. Thankfully, I was wearing ordinary clothes underneath—the Jesuit order didn’t strictly require its priests to wear cassocks.

“Anyone there?”

Even now, Elias was knocking on the door. Well, who would come out first? The owner of the house? Unlikely. The first person out would be a servant.

I cast cognitive distortion magic, blurring Elias’s and my faces. When I looked back, all I saw was an empty alley. Narke had disappeared before I knew it. Then the heavy iron door slowly swung open.

“Who is it?”

A neatly dressed servant looked at us and asked with a puzzled expression. Having caused the mess, Elias simply stared at me. I was grateful that he hadn’t tried jumping from the neighboring rooftop onto the eaves or digging a tunnel, and I was also grateful that he wasn’t just blurting out the first thing that came to mind. Still, leaving the quick thinking to me was ridiculous.

I cleared my throat and gave the servant a gentle smile, trying to make the best impression possible.

Damn it. What am I supposed to say now? Then I remembered the phrase I had seen earlier on the advertisement page of the journal and blurted it out.

“Is this the place that publishes Effemeridi astronomiche calcolate al mezzogiorno tempo vero nel meridiano di Roma ad uso della Specola Caetani? I heard this historical periodical was recently reissued.”

That name is ridiculously long. If I hadn’t had such a good memory, I would have had to blatantly flip through the journal by now. The servant slightly raised an eyebrow at the long name before answering.

“That is correct, but…”

Yes, it is, so what about it? That was probably what he wanted to say.

Now came the important part. The problem was, my Italian was bad enough that I had a hard time figuring out exactly what kind of publication this actually was.

But I couldn’t back down now. There was still hope. To be honest, learning another European language wasn’t particularly difficult for a European, as long as you put in a certain amount of effort. If you had properly learned Latin and Ancient Greek, you could even recognize the etymology of words, which made things much easier. Fortunately, both were mandatory courses at Gymnasiums.

The similarity between Effemeridi and the German word Ephemeride couldn’t be a coincidence. Astronomiche was pretty obvious too, and so was calcolate. Meridiano also brought meridian to mind. Ephemeride meant an ephemeris, while meridian meant a line of longitude, so could this publication be an astronomical ephemeris calculated for the meridian of Rome, intended for use at the Caetani Observatory? I hoped my guess was right.

When I didn’t answer immediately, Elias started to speak. I grabbed his arm to stop him and said, “About that ephemeris. I’ve always found it very interesting. It wasn’t an ephemeris I could use where I lived, but I’ve always looked forward to the day I could visit Rome and observe the planets listed for the date of my trip.”

The servant nodded, though he didn’t look particularly impressed. Relief settled in my chest. Good. It worked. Even without knowing Italian, I hadn’t spouted some nonsense like, ‘I found the articles in that publication very impressive.’

Sensing that I needed to explain further, I narrowed my eyes into a friendly smile.

“Sorry for the late introduction. I’m a first-year student in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. So is my friend.”

Philosophy? Elias stared at me in surprise. He only knew half the story. If I’d said we were studying natural sciences, could you imagine what kind of disaster we’d be facing before long? The servant was one thing. But if we met an actual scholar and they took us for undergraduate students of natural science, we’d be in serious trouble. The best thing would be to get out before meeting any scholars.

“I became interested in astronomy while studying philosophy, so I was hoping I might be able to meet the people who compile this ephemeris here. I know you wouldn’t hand a telescope over to someone who’s never used one just so they could observe the planets, and I’m not expecting that. I’d just like to look through the academic journals published here, as well as ephemeride like this one. I couldn’t find the complete collection in the library.”

I mixed in some German as I spoke, and since the servant already knew I was from Switzerland, he didn’t seem to find it particularly strange. He simply nodded.

“I see. But is there really anything a philosophy student could learn here?”

“Of course. The universe and philosophy are connected, after all. If we turn our gaze away from ourselves and try to think on a broader scale, philosophy is also an attempt to understand the world around us—the universe. And aren’t we beings born from the universe itself? In a way, looking at the universe is also an opportunity to understand ourselves and humanity. It’s about generalizing our insights into the phenomena we observe. Actually, I’m planning to enroll in astronomy as an additional major next semester…”

The servant looked at me with an expression that made it clear he had already stopped listening before I’d even finished my long-winded speech. Then he abruptly asked, “Non-mage?”

“Yes.”

He turned around and made room for us to enter. If I had answered that we were mages, he would have either temporarily deactivated the barrier or fitted us with a special artifact to allow us inside for a short while. Since we had snuck in using one of Narke’s artifacts issued specifically by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, we could sneak back out the same way.

We passed through the dark corridor of the facade and entered a vast courtyard flooded with sunlight. He led us toward another garden beyond it, to a place right beside the back entrance.

“This building is used for the society’s meetings. Outsiders are allowed in here. But if you wander onto another floor, you will be thrown out immediately, so please stay on this floor.”

“Thank you. Does that arcade over there lead to the back entrance?”

“Yes.”

He gave a brief answer and stopped in front of the drawing room.

“There are the society’s publications in the study here. This is as far as I can let outsiders go.”

“Thank you. We will look through them and leave through the back entrance at a reasonable time… Ah.”

At my voice, the servant turned around.

“When do the scholars here usually come? I heard they don’t simply have their headquarters here and only come on the days the society meets.”

The scholars were upstairs. They really were.

There was a very real possibility that we would end up face-to-face with them with nothing but a ceiling between us. We had to escape to somewhere else in the mansion before they discovered me and Elias. Because, really, the only thing I could talk about was the order of the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

My knowledge of astronomy stopped at high-school Earth Science, and even beyond that, all I had was the sort of general science knowledge I’d crammed into my head by reading popular science books. More importantly, I had no idea how far astronomy was taught in this world at this point in history, so the safest thing I could do was keep my mouth shut.

And, actually, worrying about the scholars showing up wasn’t even the most pressing problem.

“…….”

Elias and I stared at the young servant standing guard by the door. He was a different servant from before. The one who had let us in had apparently asked him to come here and keep an eye on us. Since we were strangers, he seemed worried that we might wander beyond the area open to outsiders and poke around the mansion.

“Ahem.”

Elias sat crookedly on the sofa and looked at him. With the servant standing there, we couldn’t leave. Elias glanced back and forth between the society journal and the servant before raising a hand.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Could you make us a cup of coffee?”

“…….”

The servant left with an annoyed look on his face. I frowned, running through all sorts of thoughts about the situation, and asked, “Don’t tell me you’re trying to leave right now.”

“No. Of course not. It’d be too obvious if I asked them to make us some tea and then bolted.”

“You know that much.”

“Do you think this is my first time doing something like this?”

As he said that, Elias leaned toward me across the table.

“Luka. We can’t just sit here quietly flipping through books. We need to have an enthusiastic academic discussion between ourselves. We’re passionate students who were dedicated enough to get into a mansion with an observatory, remember?”

“Right. That’s what we should do.”

“If you just give me something to work with, I’ll take it from there.”

I looked into Elias’s eyes and nodded. He’ll take it from there. Good. He wasn’t going to just charge out after coming all this way.

I stretched my stiff body and asked, “Where did Narke go?”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s probably somewhere doing his own thing.”

The moment we finished whispering, the door opened. The servant set down the coffee in front of us before returning to his place by the door. Elias clapped his hands.

“Oh, great. Thank you.”

He’d said he’d take it from there as long as I gave him something to work with. Now it was my turn to give him something. We couldn’t stay here under constant watch. Flipping through the papers, I said, “I still think Kepler’s Third Law is fascinating. What do you think?”

Elias nearly spat out his coffee. I wasn’t sure whether it was because I’d called him you in such a formal way or because I was bringing up something a high school student would learn.

“I wouldn’t say it’s that fascinating. It’s just… there. But isn’t this something we learn in the aca—I mean, high school?”

“They’re using the Third Law to calculate planetary velocities here, so it happened to catch my attention.”

“Is that really the level of this journal…?”

Elias chuckled, so I quickly leaned toward him. “I’m setting you up so you can play along. Do you actually understand everything written here?”

I whispered it to him, and Elias immediately nodded in understanding. However, he soon convinced me that Kepler’s Laws weren’t exactly the right topic to discuss, so in the end, I couldn’t bring it up again.

I checked the time. It kept ticking away. We couldn’t talk about astronomy forever. I needed to pick the right topic and finish this in one go.

I rubbed my chin as I compared the general knowledge stored in my head with the dates when each discovery had been made, then said, “There’s an article here suggesting that the luminous cloud of Andromeda might not actually be part of our galaxy. What do you think?”

“I think that’s plausible.”

“Which part?”

You shouldn’t be able to think that’s plausible at this point in history, should you?

With a sharp look in his eyes and his chin propped on his hand, Elias gave me an answer I never expected.

“People tend to think everything there is to know is contained in the place they live, but they really ought to get their heads straight…”

“What are you talking about…?”

The conversational well of two people who knew nothing but the order of the planets had run completely dry.

“The thing is, in our time, we think Andromeda is some cloud-like mass made of light. But what if it’s actually another galaxy? Isn’t that astonishing?”

“It is.”

Elias’s eyes widened, apparently genuinely intrigued.

“So you’re saying that the cloud is actually a mass of light emitted by stars? Like the Orion Nebula or the Eagle Nebula?”

“Exactly. Though it’s slightly different. Right now, you think there’s a cloud in Andromeda, and that the cloud itself is emitting light, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Elias nodded with a serious expression. I leaned closer to him and said earnestly, “You think the Orion Nebula has a cloud, and stars are born inside it that act like light bulbs, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But I think differently. That cloud—sure, it probably contains some dust too—but what if it’s actually a cluster of stars? What do you think?”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at it. But haven’t we never found anything in Andromeda that could actually be called a star? All we’ve ever seen is a glowing cloud.”

“Maybe we’ll discover them someday.”

“Then how did you come up with this idea? It’s not like you’ve actually observed the stars yourself.”

Hubble figured it out with a telescope. Of course, Hubble hadn’t even been born yet, so I couldn’t exactly say that. I had to think of some way to explain it away. I shrugged, and Elias winked at me before casually turning his head.

“What do you think? Do you think there are stars in Andromeda?”

“Me?”

The servant put a hand to his chest, looking flustered. We nodded. He answered hesitantly, “Well… I suppose we won’t know until we see it for ourselves.”

At that, I spread both hands enthusiastically.

“Why not? Then let’s look at it the other way. Why do you think Andromeda’s cosmic dust would emit light on its own when there aren’t even any stars there?”

The servant blinked rapidly. He looked down at us as if wondering what kind of lunatics asked questions like this. He was clearly at a loss. Elias, half-reclining on the sofa, raised a hand and answered for him.

“I know. The clumped-up cosmic dust absorbs the light from the surrounding stars, which raises its temperature, and eventually the cloud itself becomes like a star.”

I knew Elias wasn’t answering from some special background knowledge and was really just making something up, but I nodded anyway.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. It’s going to be refuted anyway.”

“Huh?”

“If this universe is just our galaxy, and all those countless stars are distributed evenly throughout it, then why does the night sky turn black like it’s been covered by a curtain whenever the sun sets? The light from the stars shouldn’t just illuminate those individual points like holes poked into a sheet of paper. Shouldn’t it be enough to light up the entire universe? In the end, shouldn’t the night sky be just as bright as the day?”

I urged the servant to answer with a gesture. He stared down at us as though we were lunatics, then seemed to collect himself and gave us an awkward smile.

“I suppose so… I’m not really sure.”

Elias promptly cut in.

“The clumps of cosmic dust we talked about earlier absorb the light. That’s why only a small amount of light reaches the ground.”

That was the prevailing belief of the time. I had sat through science classes at Imperial Second Academy too, so I knew Elias would answer that way. I leaned forward and spoke quietly.

“Good. But if they’re absorbing all that light, then as you said, the dust should heat up. So why don’t the countless clouds floating through space emit light on their own? In the end, wouldn’t that mean the night sky should be as bright as the day?”

“…….”

Elias blinked at me in surprise. He was genuinely thrown off by my act, his mouth hanging open as he gave me a strange smile. I turned to the servant and gestured for an answer.

“Then, what do you think—”

“I think I will step outside for a moment. I just remembered something I need to do.”

The servant said it firmly, as though he had no intention of dealing with us any longer, and left the room. Elias watched the door close quietly and ran his tongue over his lips.

“Success.”

I let out a long breath and rubbed my forehead. We were finally free from surveillance. I snickered.

“I’m honestly impressed you know how to annoy someone enough to make them leave…”

“I’ve always lived like this.”

Right. He certainly knew how to wear people down in a different sense. His indomitable spirit worked wherever he went.

Elias put his eye to the keyhole of the drawing room. He watched the hallway for quite some time before eventually giving me a hand signal. We quietly slipped out of the drawing room.

As expected, there was no one in the hallway. Elias removed the restraint around his hand, and I did the same. Then, still holding his hand, I cast a concealment spell. Elias quickly scanned the corridor before heading down the stairs.

The basement. The servants’ quarters were mostly down there. There were plenty of servants who lived on the upper floors too, of course, but he must have thought it would be easier to search the basement than look for them upstairs.

Elias went around putting his ear to the doors at random. After shaking his head when he heard signs of someone inside, he moved on to another room. He found one that seemed empty, but when he tried the handle, it wouldn’t budge. Elias sighed, then pulled a piece of wire from his clutch.

“…….”

“Hahaha.”

Making a strange sound under his breath, Elias picked the lock. Then he quickly shoved me inside. It was obvious what we had to do. I headed for the wardrobe while he rummaged through the drawers and picked out another key.

“A spare~”

“They have a lot of clothes.”

A servant’s uniforms were neatly hung inside. I pulled out a suitable shirt and held it against myself, only to immediately realize the servant was shorter than me. I shook my head.

“No good. Seems like he’s at least a hand shorter than me.”

“What? Seriously…”

Elias clutched his head, put the spare key back in the drawer, and hurried out. No, he seemed to change his mind halfway out, because he came back in and grabbed an old bag. I quickly followed him. Elias turned his head and whispered, “We need someone tall and a little on the plump side. You’d have to wear trousers a size bigger to cover your boots.”

“True. But someone like that…”

“There might be one.”

He grabbed my hand and ran. He sprinted at full speed, scanning both sides of the vast, maze-like underground corridor. Then, spotting a door with a couple of large baskets beside it, he kicked off the floor and came to a stop.

“Found it.”

After making a racket running around just moments ago, he now stood casually with one hand in his pocket and politely knocked twice on the door with his knuckle. When there was no answer from inside, he abruptly turned the handle.

It was a laundry room. A frightening-looking washing machine stood on one side, with an iron on the other. Elias unfolded a neatly folded shirt and held it against himself, then snapped his fingers. He found a vest, jacket, and trousers, changed into them, then found a suitable set of clothes for me as well and handed them over. He stuffed the clothes we had been wearing into the old bag. Once we had changed and fixed our hair, Elias, who had been watching me in silence, spoke with a concerned look.

“Did you drop the cognitive distortion spell? You stand out way too much to pass as a servant.”

“So do you. What are you going to do?”

“Me? Ah~ What am I gonna do?”

Elias shook his head as he rubbed his chin, staring at himself in the mirror.

“Leo and Heike are the good-looking ones on our team, but I guess I’ll have to join them now.”

I could only laugh at Elias’s nonchalant remark. Just as I naturally didn’t care much about how I or other people looked, Elias was the same way, so it was clearly just a joke. Still, there was no denying that we really did stand out, so we had to do something about it.

“We can’t use illusion magic.”

I muttered that as I stepped outside. We had to keep our use of illusions to a minimum. Duke Caetani was undoubtedly a powerful mage, much like the older generation of ruling house mages such as Georg Askanien. The illusion would probably work on him, but if we kept it active while talking to him for an extended period, he would certainly become suspicious. Things might have been different with Narke’s skill in illusion magic. As for me, I wasn’t so sure.

‘Let’s think about what Narke might be planning.’

I had said that once we arrived in Rome, we needed to steal either the Caetani or Savelli seal. But what did ‘stealing the seal’ actually mean? It meant making something that wasn’t Caetani’s will appear as though it was.

We would send false information to House Orsini and lure their clergy away from the Papal See. Since we couldn’t imitate Duke Caetani’s handwriting—or that of his dedicated scribe—we intended to type a letter addressed to House Orsini and stamp it with the seal. The family seal would most likely be here, in the Duke Caetani’s residence, inside the safe in his study. But we had no way of opening the safe. We didn’t have a spell formula for disabling security magic like Terminus Eukairia did.

So, in order to accomplish what the plan to ‘steal the seal’ actually implied, Narke would have to get Duke Caetani to write the letter himself or take out the seal.

But how?

“…I guess we don’t need to worry about that. Let’s leave through the back door.”

“We went all the way in here, and you want to leave again?!”

“Yeah. We have the clothes now, so we’re fine.”

Clothes, huh… Elias muttered and headed up to the ground floor. Mages who looked like scholars were coming down the stairs and strolling through the courtyard. We waited until they had all passed—feeling a little guilty as people who had once been University of Geneva students—before heading outside. The back door was also unlocked enough for us to simply open it ourselves.

“…!”

The moment we opened the door, we saw an old man standing ramrod straight right outside the back entrance. When he saw us, he smiled warmly. Thinking about how I had nearly hit the old man with the door, I suppressed my pounding heart and let out an awkward laugh.

“…Father.”

“Ah, here, let’s go with ‘Your Grace.’”

“Duke Caetani of Pisa, then.”

Narke nodded. Elias looked back and forth between Narke and me, his face clearly asking how I knew that.

To use the seal belonging to Duke Caetani of Rome, we had to convince him with words. With lies, obviously.

Who would Duke Caetani of Rome trust? Savelli? Orsini? Colonna? Conti? Who knows. But wasn’t there a trustworthy insider we’d heard about earlier? Someone trusted enough to move the enemy of his own child.

Narke would disguise himself as the Caetani of Pisa. That was my guess.

The Caetani of Pisa might not be related by blood to the Caetani of Rome, but he believed they were family and lived as though they belonged to the same house. If so, wouldn’t it make sense for the servants to wear the same clothes, too? Servants’ clothes were all more or less alike, but even the smallest differences could make everything look completely different.

Narke took on the appearance of an old man and beckoned to us.

“Let’s head back to the main entrance.”

“Your Grace, how long can you keep up that disguise?”

“I can’t say for certain.”

With that, Narke headed for the mansion’s main entrance and knocked on the door, just as Elias had earlier. This time, a servant came out much more quickly. Narke immediately introduced himself.

“I am Marte Caetani. I have come from the Two Sicilies to see Duke Caetani.”

“Your Grace.”

Recognizing who he was, the servant hurriedly bowed and reached for Narke’s hat. Narke sharply waved him off.

“Thank you, but no need. Bring the duke out quickly. Every second counts.”

“What is the matter…?”

“This is no time to explain! There’s a reason I warped straight here from the Two Sicilies, you see!”

“Yes, yes. His Grace happens to be inside at the moment. Please wait in the drawing room, and I will inform His Grace in the meantime.”

The servant hurriedly led us to the second floor. It was different from earlier, when we had crossed the courtyard and headed toward the far end of the estate. Red wallpaper, gold decorations, candlelight, and mahogany banisters gave the place a dark, imposing atmosphere. The servant ushered us into the drawing room and immediately hurried off toward another floor.

“He happens to be inside…”

Narke muttered without expression as he sat down, apparently bothered by those words. Even while wearing the appearance of Marte Caetani, his expression remained as cold as it had been ever since we arrived in Rome. Yet whenever he came face-to-face with someone, he would instantly become someone else and play the part of Marte Caetani.

A short while later, the drawing room door opened. A middle-aged mage dressed in formal attire entered the room. That had to be Duke Caetani of Rome. Standing beside Marte Caetani, we bowed to him before straightening up again. Duke Caetani of Rome sat down across from Marte and spoke in a deep, measured voice.

“I was told you requested to see me. What brings you here without prior notice?”

“It has been a while, Duke. Something has arisen that requires we discuss it in person. It concerns diplomacy.”

“Then let’s hear what it is.”

“…….”

Marte Caetani opened his mouth as if to say something, then slowly closed it again and looked at the person before him.

Silence stretched on. Just as I looked at Narke in confusion, Duke Caetani drew his wand.

“…!”

My hand reached instinctively for the wand holster that wasn’t even there, only to be yanked back into the air. We had to remove the restraints we’d put back on to pass through the barrier. The moment my hand reflexively went to my neck, a razor-sharp divine power seized my body.

BOOM—!

My head slammed into the wall, and my consciousness reeled. The unbearable pressure of divine power held my entire body firmly in place. Since Elias’s blue mana was nowhere to be seen, he had clearly been caught in the same way.

“Wait—!”

— Whoever listens to you listens to me.”

BOOM—!

— Whoever rejects you rejects me.

This spell…! I narrowed my eyes. I could barely breathe under the pressure of the divine power, my lungs feeling as though they might burst. Through the blinding light of divine power obscuring my vision, I saw Narke collapsed on the floor.

— But whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.

The wand in Duke Caetani’s hand poured out divine power without the slightest fluctuation, pressing down on Narke’s neck. Starting from the mage’s divine power, Narke’s illusion melted away in concentric circles.

Narke returned to his original appearance—a tall, young priest, with neither hunched shoulders nor wrinkles on his face. Strangely, he looked completely detached, staring into empty space as though he had no regret whatsoever about being exposed. Blood began to run down Narke’s face, perhaps because all his mana had been concentrated in his head.

Duke Caetani spoke in a cold voice.

“Playing house in Germany seems to have stripped you of all your competence.”

I struggled to find a point of light in my vision as it darkened under the pressure, and somehow managed to open the status window. The Duke’s status window, visible in the distance as he casually moved only his wand.

“…….”

I understood why Narke had remained so calm.

“You could have known that I would be here.”

Duke Caetani erased the illusion he had been wearing. The young mage I had last seen at the Pentathlon appeared, now wearing a familiar face.

“Anything I could have anticipated, you had already anticipated long ago as well. So for what reason have you stepped foot in here with such shamelessness?”