Translator: Pai_

“Ta-da, my ass. Why did it take you so long?”

When Solif made a face as if he were hurt by the blunt reproach, Turan pretended to gag and wretch.

“It's been a while since we've seen each other. Isn't that too cold?”

“For someone with the Sun Bloodline, this much is just right. Shall we have some tea first?”

“I'll have the silk lotus tea. I don't want to say anything bad, but honestly, all the tea in this town is terrible.”

Luckily, no one was around to hear the heads of two great noble houses conversing so casually like young men.

Because as soon as everyone saw the two facing each other, they all stepped back from their seats.

Turan brought Solif to his residence instead of the stuffy office where he was holed up for several hours a day.

It was also to let him meet Meisa, whom he hadn’t seen in a while.

“Solif!”

“Ta-da. More than that, your belly's really grown. How much longer?”

"Probably about three or four months."

Come to think of it, this was the first time Solif was seeing Meisa with her belly properly protruding.

During the previous battle with the Carmine-Mermaid forces, it was still somewhat concealable with clothes, and after that, things had been busy in various ways.

"To think this guy is going to be a father, I heard it before, but seeing it like this really makes it hit home. It's impressive in many ways."

“Not yet for you?”

"Me? Well, um. If the Sun allows, the opportunity will come. Ah, saying it like this makes me sound really stupid, but I’m just used to saying it this way.”

They had come to understand that the fallen gods were no longer beings worthy of such worship, but it was still hard to change a lifetime of attitude in an instant.

Of course, the old gods who ruled the Varaha region, including the Silver Sun, and the beings worshipped as gods in the modern age had all perished, so they no longer committed atrocities like clinging to their descendants' bodies for survival.

As they lightly shared a cup of tea during their conversation, Solif let out a deep sigh.

“I really thought I was going to die from the annoyance. That damn family restoration movement happened three times. And if we were to just kill all of them, we’d have to take over hunting the magical beasts ourselves.”

Because of that, he grumbled that the instigators had to be selectively weeded out and eliminated, and the incited ones had to be punished only with corporal punishment and fines.

Fortunately, it was summer. If they had to go around the Frostwind Forest in winter, it would've been a serious ordeal.

“Still, the fact that you're back like this means it's mostly settled, right?”

“Of course. Over in Ruvan, I put up a pretty sharp and promising guy. Like you said, someone not related to the existing powers.”

“Yeah. That way, he’ll listen to us better.”

At least they hadn't completely wiped out all the Ruvan nobles, so just by maintaining some of the existing system, things had been smoothed over somewhat, and now even the nobles of Varaha had returned to their main houses except for a few dispatched personnel.

In other words, they were ready to fight again.

“Are you okay with fatigue and all?”

“Hm? What fatigue?”

“Well, we came back from fighting and got to rest early on, but you guys fought remnants several times and returned right from the field. I thought you might need more rest.”

“Come on, I’m a noble. Don’t say such weak things.”

Solif’s attitude was probably the sentiment shared by most regular nobles.

The condition of the knights, who as lower ranks had faced an even greater fear of death, wasn’t even brought up.

“Well, maybe it would’ve been better if I had brought along someone from Ruvan to serve as a concubine or something…”

Knowing Turan’s background, Solif probably found it hard to make such a decision.

Turan, understanding that part without hearing it directly, shook his head with a smile.

“You didn’t need to be that considerate of me.”

“Well, there are plenty of pretty girls and guys in Varaha too. I'm fine, so tell me about you. Earlier, Ashiz was saying something about Zahar this and Carmine that? Are you planning to end those water snake bastards this time?”

“No.”

When Turan brought up what they’d discussed before, that they decided to cooperate with Carmine and oppose Zahar, Solif showed a hint of disgust on his face.

“Hmm, that won’t be easy.”

“Still, the Sun Bloodline is pretty strong against Zahar, right? Your stronghold too."

The base of the House Varaha, the Temple of the Sun, was an entire building that had been a sacred relic passed down from the era of the Old Empire.

From the outer walls of the building to the inner walls that divided sections inside, all were imbued with the Sun's blessing, which made it nearly impossible to use Concealment Magic inside, except in specific areas such as underground or certain indoor locations.

He hadn't tried it himself, but even Turan would probably have his magic power nearly drained after just thirty seconds of concealment inside the temple.

“But still, we can’t all just hole up in our base. There are wizards scattered one or two at a time in cities or villages across the region, and thinking of those guys getting assassinated is terrifying. Did you guys prepare anything?”

“Roughly.”

Originally, the nobles of the Gray Zone weren’t particularly wealthy, so they couldn’t even dream of preparing for an invasion from the nobles of Zahar.

For example, Alos Mebern, the lord of Bigen City, couldn’t even prevent Turan from entering the middle of his own home.

To prevent such situations, Turan had, since becoming the lord of the Gray Zone, steadily instructed Ashiz to mass-produce light sphere magic artifacts and distributed them to the vassal houses.

Unless there were some who had sold their magic artifacts elsewhere, by now, most noble houses should have at least a dozen or so light spheres by default.

Of course, with just that, it was hard to expect security on par with Aravion’s base or the old mansion of House Berk, but at the very least, they wouldn’t be assassinated without resistance like before.

"Hmm, we should have done something like that too... but since we've been hostile to Zahar for a long time, I don't think we're that prepared."

In addition, nobles of Varaha born with the Sun Bloodline tended to somewhat look down on those with the Zahar bloodline.

Because the two powers they controlled, light and fire, were natural enemies of concealment abilities.

Didn’t that one Varaha noble whom Turan fought long ago, whose name he could barely remember now, show a mocking attitude as soon as he realized Turan was a noble of the Zahar bloodline?

“Then from now on, get properly prepared. Hmm, no. If we strike them preemptively, there won’t be a need to prepare.”

“You said you stormed the capital and messed it up. Aren’t they rolling their eyes by now and rushing over here?”

“Probably not.”

Since the process of taking down Haroon wasn’t exactly smooth, there was a high possibility that Zahar would need time to reorganize internally.

On top of that, though it wasn’t intentional, Turan had caused quite a bit of damage to the city during his fight with Zahar’s gods and escape from Axum City...

“Come to think of it, Badal’s whereabouts are also a problem.”

“He might still be staying on Zahar’s side, or he might’ve secretly returned to Aravion.”

“Or maybe he infiltrated Parsha. It’s not like we’ve issued a wanted poster for his face or anything.”

It would’ve been great if he had managed to secretly collect some part of Badal’s body, like a strand of hair, during the infiltration, but the moment such a move was attempted, it likely would’ve caused a mess.

Unless he was a fool, he’d be wary enough to know that Zahar might want clues to track him.

“Well, only reckless bastards like you would try something like that… So, are you going to attack right away?”

“For now, we wait. Your side’s troops need some time to rest, and we need to build justification too.”

Of course, the justification to present publicly had already been prepared.

The fact that Haroon, the head of House Zahar with whom they had personally met and renewed the non-aggression pact, had been ousted.

Normally, it was the general practice to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of another house, but when the subordinates of a house friendly to them stabbed their own head, that was sufficient cause to intervene.

If they ignored something like this, everyone would start aiming for the family head’s seat and betrayals would erupt all over.

They had already released this story within the House Parsha, so the plan was to wait until the news spread and the justification to attack Zahar became ripe.

“As a bonus, we’re also getting help from Lavitas.”

“They said they’d help?”

“No reply yet.”

Turan estimated the likelihood of Osel sending troops at about seven out of ten, and the chance of direct participation at about three out of ten.

This was considering that, unlike the last Varaha War, where there had been a clear justification, this time Osel was not a direct party involved, and Aravion's pressure had been significantly strong.

“It would definitely be more certain if Rida achieves some results... By the way, what are you doing with the White Elves you captured back then? Did you bring them to the main house?”

“Yeah. I put them in the same prison where my parents used to be held. Maybe because they’re used to underground life, they’re adapting well.”

"I should show them soon."

Nia, the only necromancer cooperating with them, had recently been asking several times to see her kin.

So far, it had only been a passive request, but if they kept refusing, she might misunderstand and assume they had already been killed or something.

Anyway, since they were connected through the jade mirror, meeting wouldn’t take very long.

***