CHAPTER 1027: CHAPTER1027: THE MISSING WEAPONS

They then got seated accordingly for the meeting.

As usual, it was Arabella, Ferdinand, and the Pope who were seated first.

Xavier looked puzzled as to why Raymond, who was another dragon, was not seated. He was assigned outside the continent for several years and had recently returned, so he was not up to date with recent developments and intelligence in Eliora.

Pope Elsevier had also limited the information he revealed about the long-lived races, only telling them what he believed was necessary. He had only begun revealing more now that he was thinking of retiring.

{Sandra, why is the Prime Minister not seated? Isn’t he a dragon, too?} Xavier communicated telepathically.

{Father said that it’s because the one in front of us is a Primordial dragon and his mate. The Prime Minister is a respected Elder dragon, but he is apparently the primordial’s butler back in Estrella.}

Sandra repeated the explanation Pope Elsevier had told them when they asked in the past.

{A primordial?! You mean those super-powerful beings closest to the Creators?!!}

Xavier was overwhelmed and stared at Ferdinand.

{Don’t stare!} Sandra warned that Xavier was blatantly gawking and making it obvious they were talking about them in their heads. It was rude.

{Right!} Xavier immediately averted his gaze, but it was too late.

Ferdinand and everyone else had already noticed but did not comment.

"My apologies. They are young and curious," Pope Elsevier apologized for the two.

Ferdinand nodded, and Raymond smiled.

Arabella smiled as well, stopping herself from chuckling as Xavier and Sandra sighed in relief.

However, Alwin gave a warning glare at the two, so they tensed up again.

[How many times have they done this already? They had been staring since before the speeches this morning even began. Did they think they could just get away with it? My elders may be forgiving about things like this, but I won’t simply tolerate it.]

Alwin hated it when his elders were disrespected.

Ferdinand, Raymond, and Rendell, who had lived much longer and had already experienced a lot more disrespect than this, were no longer bothered by it. But Alwin, who was not used to seeing his elders disrespected, got more irritated by it than they ever did.

Sandra tried making an adorable, pleading puppy-dog-eyes look that said, ’Please, forgive us.’

It seemed to work on the Pope’s other companions, but as for Alwin, he simply looked away.

It didn’t work on him. But at least, he did stop glaring at the two.

[Fine. I’m still indebted to the Pope, so I’ll let this slide. But I won’t let them do as they please next time. Once I have paid off my debt, I can tell them off openly.]

Alwin diverted his attention elsewhere, and Sandra and Xavier finally relaxed.

[Did it work?] Sandra wondered if pleading with Alwin the way she did actually worked, hoping it would work again next time.

[He is the Master of the Magic Tower, right? He seems more troublesome than his elders.] Xavier thought. He knew the elders were stronger, but he could tell Alwin was harder to convince or deal with.

With all the pleasantries done, they then proceeded with the meeting.

"I believe Your Holiness personally headed here for a reason," Raymond said.

"Yes, our inventory and investigations had finally yielded results," Pope Elsevier replied.

"That’s good to hear. What did you find?" Ferdinand asked.

Pope Elsevier sighed deeply before he said, "Thousands of weapons were missing."

Everyone on Valeria’s side was wide-eyed at this revelation and exchanged glances.

[Thousands?! We have gathered all the weapons from the ones we caught, and it only totaled to how many.]

’This means there are more people out there with anti-magic weapons?!’ Even Arabella got nervous about this.

"I believe you retrieved all the anti-magic weapons used here. All the weapons stored in the temple were from various kingdoms from the past, but I have marked every single one with the temple’s sigil using divine magic. Only I and the most capable magicians from the temple will be able to see it. I’d like to see the weapons and verify," Pope Elsevier said.

"That’s quite a difficult request. You know every single anti-magic weapon is fatal to the long-lived races. And I believe all of you here can wield it adeptly. We, from the older war-torn generations, may not be at risk, but we cannot expose the younger generations to this kind of danger," Ferdinand responded.

After the incident with Alwin, they did not want to put more of their people in danger. Especially in a storage room filled with anti-magic weapons and the Pope and his closest comrades, who may have the most finesse in using them.

The Pope did heal Alwin, but he could also do the opposite. And though his comrades were loyal to him and did not seem to have any thoughts against them right now, it was difficult to trust completely after the instances with the magicians last time, who could possess others’ bodies.

"Right, of course. Seeing it from a magic orb will be enough. I’ll be able to check," the Pope responded.

"If that’s the case, then it should be alright," Ferdinand said and glanced at Alwin.

Alwin nodded and contacted Riley, instructing the latter to go to the storage room and record the weapons.

Alwin then retrieved a magic orb from his space ring and settled it on the table. When it was activated, the anti-magic weapons collected from the knights and magicians here in Crux were shown.

Arabella gulped as a lot of anti-magic weapons were shown lined up neatly. Their knights were the ones who handled and fixed this.

Just looking at all these, it was easy to tell there were hundreds. Thankfully, their enemies did not get the chance to fully use these, or else their Estrellian allies could have been at risk of dying.

Pope Elsevier’s eyes glowed as he watched the footage.

"These are indeed from the temple. All of them had the mark I left. But this is much less compared to the number missing from the temple."

"How many went missing from the temple?" Ferdinand inquired.

"10,000 anti-magic weapons," the Pope said gravely.

Everyone in the room was wide-eyed. This number was too much!

_______________

A/N:

I’m so sorry for the lack of updates.

I moved to another place again, so I had to clean, pack, and unpack things. It was so tiring that I couldn’t write.