Upon returning to the quiet comfort of their hotel suite, the members of the mansion did not immediately retire for the evening.
Patchouli felt it was still far too early to sleep, so she prepared her specialized reference notes, pulled out the shimmering library card Fremont had given her, and slipped away to spend a few quiet hours studying within the Liches' boundless archives. As for the rest of the household, they had already spent the entire afternoon staring at dense texts until their minds were thoroughly dizzy, so they all declined to join her.
Instead, the remaining companions gathered in the lounge area, turning on the television to watch a regional program while chatting comfortably.
Remilia sat elegantly on the sofa, her focus entirely fixed on her younger sister. Based on her close observations over the past several weeks, she had begun to perceive a highly distinct anomaly: her younger sister seemed to possess an absolute treasury of profound historical secrets that she herself had zero knowledge of.
"Spit it out!"
Remilia crossed her arms firmly over her chest, leveling a sharp, authoritative gaze at Flandre with the strict demeanor of a grand magistrate presiding over a high-stakes trial.
"Ah? What exactly do you want me to confess, Sister?"
Flandre tilted her head in genuine confusion. Then, as if suddenly grasping her sister's meaning, a highly apologetic, slightly sheepish expression washed over her face. "It really was terribly wrong of me to secretly swipe that slice of cake from your tray during dinner!"
"What?! You actually managed to steal my pastry too?!" Remilia was thoroughly shocked. No wonder she had felt an inexplicable sense of culinary loss while finishing her dessert; it turned out a tiny, stick wing mole had actively compromised her tray right under her nose. How on earth had Flandre executed such a theft without triggering her senses? Remilia found it completely hard to believe.
"Oh, it happened right when you and Lady Patchouli were locked in that deep theoretical discussion," Hong Meiling interjected cheerfully from the side, completely shattering the child's cover. "She secretly manifested a tiny clone to snatch the plate from the opposite edge of the table."
"And not a single one of you chose to say a word?!" Remilia threw her hands up in exasperation. In an instant, she felt as though she were raising a literal syndicate of domestic traitors within her own household.
"The one orchestrating the operation was our Second Young Miss," Hong Meiling replied with a defensive chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck. "Given that reality, how could any of us possibly bring ourselves to ruin her fun?"
Hong Meiling's flawless logic left Remilia entirely speechless. She shook her head, forcing herself to put the tragic matter of the stolen pastry behind her, before fixing her gaze back onto Flandre.
"Let's return to the true subject. What else do you know regarding the inner workings of the Sarkaz? I am referring explicitly to the kind of classified information that ordinary citizens have zero hope of uncovering through standard research."
Flandre resting her chin in her small hand, rubbing it thoughtfully for a long time before letting out a soft sigh, indicating that the question was simply too vague for her to pull a specific memory.
Remilia conceded that her inquiry was indeed too broad to prompt a precise answer. "Then simply tell me a secret that the rest of the world remains completely ignorant of!"
Flandre suddenly clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting up with immense excitement. "Then I shall share something truly, profoundly amazing! Everyone across the territories is fully aware of the historical fact that Her Highness Theresa met her tragic end exactly two years ago, correct?"
The moment the words left her lips, every single companion resting in the lounge nodded their heads in solemn agreement.
"Theresa passed away directly aboard the primary flagship of Rhodes Island," Flandre explained, her tone shifting into a natural narrative rhythm. "Back during that specific era, the organization was still formally known by its original title, Babel. For the past two years, countless military analysts and political figures have harbored intense suspicion regarding her fall, simply because the entire sequence of events was far too coincidental to be organic."
She paused, looking around the room. "At that exact hour, every single high-level combat asset and elite commander within the Babel hierarchy—including Ascalon, the supreme shadow warrior entrusted with Theresa's personal defense—had been intentionally dispatched to the outer sectors on urgent combat missions. Consequently, that specific window constituted the absolute most vulnerable moment in the entire history of Rhodes Island."
"But logically speaking," Flandre continued, her voice dipping low, "the structural deployment of their forces was a top-secret administrative matter. Let alone their battlefield opponents, even the vast majority of Babel's own personnel possessed zero understanding of how empty the flagship's defensive perimeter truly was at that moment. Yet, Theresis's clandestine operatives managed to seize that singular, hyper-precise window of opportunity. The elite assassins successfully breached the vessel's internal chambers, and crucially, the flagship's massive automated mechanical defense force—the ship-wide security array—remained completely silent throughout the entire infiltration. That absolute lack of automated resistance is the sole reason the assassination succeeded."
Once Flandre paused to take a breath, Remilia leaned forward, her expression turning deeply pensive.
"Patchy and I have long parsed the baseline parameters of that incident. Based on our independent strategic assessment, it is glaringly obvious that an incredibly high-ranking mole was operating within the absolute heart of Babel at that time. Only someone wielding immense administrative authority could have known those exact structural movements and possessed the security codes to secretly shut down the automated defense matrix. And during my private discussions with Patchy, we reached a unanimous conclusion that the traitor must have been physically present aboard the flagship when the blades fell."
Remilia tapped her chin, sifting through the suspects. "Under standard investigative criteria, one looks for a traitor by asking who reaped the greatest political profit and who displayed the most anomalous behavior. But as for the child Amiya... based on our casual chats with the current personnel of Rhodes Island, she was nothing more than an ordinary, dependent youth residing aboard the vessel back then. Having tragically lost both of her biological parents to an industrial accident, she had spent her entire existence confined to the inner decks, making it physically impossible for her to have established contact with outside factions to execute a grand treason."
She narrowed her eyes. "Furthermore, Theresa's unique Originium Arts and the ancestral power of her crown granted her the absolute ability to see directly into the hearts of those around her. If that child had truly harbored a single shred of hidden malice or betrayal, she could have never hidden it from Theresa's gaze. But if we exclude her from the suspect pool, there was only one other significant entity present within the inner sanctum... the Doctor. And while that individual survived the night, they were so severely broken and physically compromised that they had to be placed into a specialized stasis device to recuperate."
Remilia's brow furrowed. "As the absolute supreme military commander of Babel, the Doctor's strategic status was already second only to the queen herself, standing high above ten thousand warriors. Moreover, Theresa trusted his intellect implicitly. As long as Theresa remained standing as their grand political banner, his personal authority would have never experienced a decline. He possessed absolutely zero logical incentive to betray her cause. So, Flandre... are you about to reveal the exact identity of the monster who compromised Theresa's trust, leading to her ultimate fall?"
Hearing the question framed so intensely, Clever, who was sitting quietly on the adjacent couch, instantly pricked up her ears, her entire body tensing with a profound, emotional weight.
To any Sarkaz citizen who had looked to the civil war with hope, the sudden, violent death of Her Highness Theresa constituted a deep, agonizing wound that would likely never heal. If they could truly uncover the absolute identity of the traitor who had cut down their queen, even a low-level caster like Clever wouldn't hesitate for a single second to see that monster subjected to a thorough, agonizing execution by a thousand cuts.
Unexpectedly, Flandre slowly shook her head, her expression uncharacteristically somber.
"No, Sister... that isn't the revelation I am trying to build toward."
She looked directly into Clever's anxious eyes. "What I want to tell you is that when the blades fell that night, the infiltration wasn't merely restricted to the Wraith assassins. Two supreme sovereigns of the Sarkaz Ten Royal Courts were physically stationed right outside the flagship's perimeter, silently witnessing the absolute final moments of Theresa's life. That is the absolute truth: Duq'arael and Nezzsalem were present, watching the assassination unfold from the shadows."
"Clever, please do not let your emotions override your senses," Flandre added softly, noticing the young librarian's breath hitch. "They did indeed possess full prior knowledge of the operation. As I specified earlier, Theresis's faction had spent months weaving an absolute web around Theresa; that specific hour was simply the moment they chose to pull the cords tight. The two Royal Court leaders functioned purely as external witnesses; they never personally entered the inner chambers to participate in the physical strike."
Despite Flandre's gentle framing, an immense, overwhelming sorrow flooded Clever's eyes. She understood the brutal political reality with absolute clarity. The presence of two supreme Royal Court leaders outside the hull wasn't some passive, casual observation. It meant that if the primary Wraith assassins had somehow failed to neutralize the queen, those two terrifying entities would have personally stepped into the fray to ensure the execution was finalized.
Previously, the older sisters residing along the Riverside had often lamented that if only a few more loyal casters had remained aboard the flagship to assist Her Highness Theresa in repelling the invaders, perhaps the gentle queen would have survived the night.
Reflecting on the truth now, Clever realized that sentiment was entirely too naive.
Given Theresis's legendary caution and his absolute understanding of his sister's personal strength, he would have never left the outcome to chance. He was guaranteed to arrange an absolute backup plan—she had simply never anticipated that the backup plan would take the shape of two legendary sovereigns. Under the weight of such an absolute deployment, even if every loyalist faction had been present to defend the decks, the final historical result wouldn't have shifted by a single millimeter. With the reality-bending strength wielded by two Royal Court leaders, sweeping aside the guards to execute Theresa would have been an entirely trivial task.
While Clever was silently grieving over the crushing weight of this historical truth, Flandre spoke up once more, dropping an even more earth-shattering bombshell into the center of the quiet lounge.
"Furthermore... after Theresa's heartbeat finally ceased, her physical remains were immediately secured and carried away by Theresis's vanguard forces."
She paused, ensuring every eye was fixed on her before continuing. "Naturally, he didn't secure her body to subject it to standard military insults. His absolute objective was to utilize the ancient, forbidden arts preserved by the Confessarius lineage to resurrect her form, bringing Theresa back to serve as his ultimate political puppet."
The moment the claim left the child's lips, Clever could no longer maintain her seat. She bolted upright, her voice trembling with an absolute mixture of horror and shock. "What... what did you just say?! Her Highness Theresa is currently walking the earth?!"
Flandre shook her head slowly, her small hands resting on her knees. "She is present, but she isn't exactly alive in the conventional sense."
"The forbidden arts preserved by the Confessarius faction are undeniably powerful, but even their most advanced rituals do not possess the absolute authority required to truly bring the deceased back to life," Flandre clarified, her voice echoing softly through the quiet room. "They deployed an incredibly specific, ancient necromantic matrix—allowing Theresa's physical form to be reanimated and sustained, while simultaneously ensuring her consciousness remains entirely under their absolute administrative control."