My father easily pierced the chest of the disguised human and retrieved a small white orb.
While I was cleaning the blood and gore with simple fire magic he subtly put the marble in my pocket, but I didn't react.
The remaining oldies and instructor Gerd were still shell shocked by what had happened.
Not only had they found a traitor within the assistant Gerd had employed for his classes, they now discovered that the vice-dean itself was a traitor, but I knew better… the marble I was in possession of right now, did bot come from a human at all.
"Dad, I think the real vice-dean might still be alive and only held in captivity…"
"My shadows are already working on it."
That was all the conversation that happened under the scrutiny of the others. The heirs were also slowly being escorted by guards that appeared out of nowhere to the family estate, but when some noticed that nobody was going to get me, they expressed clear dissent, that I shut up with an easy: "I'm with dad, who would even think of daring to act in front of him?"
That got me a blushing father and various nods from the rich kids that finally left.
"Now that this has been taken care of, we should resume the issue at hand. The body of the Beyondspawn that Lord Crow has defeated."
I was so over this charade, but thankfully daddy Morvane was too.
"Bring an orb of lies, if he says he killed something else, you will all shut up, if not, I will personally send the body to the military."
Not even a minute later, an attendant entered with a black orb on a purple cushion delivering it straight to me. She instructed me on how to use it and promptly left.
With all said and done the questioning finally begun.
"Did you or did you not kill a Beyondspawn this afternoon during the attack to the heirs?"
"I did not."
The audience fell into silence, nobody expected something like that to happen and I could keep my shoulders from trembling.
"Lie about something, we need to verify that the orb works."
"I'm blonde."
The orb immediately lit up with a black light demonstrating that I was in fact lying, I was tempted to turn my hair blonde with illusions and try again to see if I could fool the artefact, but I decided this wasn't the best of times for my experiments, there was also the fact that I was wasting time when I still needed to read about the ritual to become a Runner.
"There you have it. Son, let's go."
I left the orb on the ground and strutted with my father away from that troublesome situation. Once back in my room, were I needed to collect some books and papers I was working on, the duke snapped his finger erecting a barrier made of mana and started speaking.
"Crow, what did you fight then? There has never been anything beside Beyondspawn and beyonder beasts… if it's something new…"
"I don't think it's new dad, I think what I killed was in fact a Beyondspawn, but I know them by another name."
He looked at me with a confused look. Clearly waiting for explanation, but I just took out the still malformed body of the monster and directly asked him.
"Can you feel the residual mana? It's the same as that thing in the conference room before. Also…"
I cut open his heart and the same white orb he had previously given me came out of that beast again.
"I don't know what this is, but it's clearly not human, at least Judas didn't have one…"
"That is indeed a Beyondspawn… but how did you manage to have him deform in such a way? They have a tendency to reach only for perfection…"
"Oh that was the most fun I've had in ages! Here, I recorded everything!"
I watched how his face went from concerned to proud to straight up laughing and finally pensive.
"Are those your real parents?"
"How would I know? Didn't Yom tell you how I got my name?"
He thought for a second and then nodded. It was a tough argument to tackle. For me because I recently realised that even if I wanted to look for them I'd probably be unsuccessful, for him because he didn't want to risk me going away.
Either way, there was something else bothering me.
"Dad, we talk about traitor and stuff, but aren't they simply those things in disguise?"
"No Crow, there really are traitors of humanity. There isn't a singular path responsible for this betrayal, at least not that we know. All the traitors we discovered are from different sub-paths of the main families."
That was bothersome in some ways. Not having a clear enemy would create dis-.
"Wait, they don't really think our family is the cause, do they?"
He had a somewhat somber look and I knew in that moment why all the heirs were in the land of disorder.
"They are keeping you in check. Probably even planted spies everywhere."
The level of prejudice was disgusting. Just because the path called for it, they thought he'd betray humanity just like that?
But then I thought of something else.
If the requirements for my ritual was that I fooled 500 folks just to become a Runner, what would the requirements be for steps higher up in the path?
"It's too early for you to trouble yourself with those thoughts Crow, let's talk about the name you use for those bastards, it could be useful on its own."
Well, that was also true since even I was able to deduct a way to fight them.
"I know them as Spawn of Correction, to be honest, I think the beyond has something similar to our paths of power but diametrically opposed. At least, that's what I thought when I saw how the beyonder beast behaved."
"Correction… yes, we also believe you are right about your deduction, but it's weird… we have the 12 paths and no other help, while they seem to have one path and the antithesis to all paths… things don't really add up."
I wanted to change argument as quickly as possible, we were entering a dangerous territory, for me.
"Either way, looking at their name and how they behaved I thought that the best way for me to fight that thing was to make it make a mistake. From there on out he simply walked his own downfall."
This time, the duke didn't speak up, of course he sensed there was something I didn't want to talk about, he was no fool.
However he decided to gloss over it.
"Very good. Now, as for those white marbles. They have a miraculous effect, at least for us. They are food for our runes. As you might know, primordial runes can get stronger through cultivation, but these marbles accelerate that process to unbelievable paces. With only 3 orbs you can achieve the first level of strengthening, but of course they are extremely hard to come by and precious beyond believe."
"Damn. Do I need to join the military to get my hands on those?"
He laughed hard enough to bend over and I just stared speechless.
"No, as a matter of facts, the 3 orbs necessary for the first strengthening of the heirs just arrived at the palace. That's also one of the reasons I send them there."
"Well, I'm not an heir technically…"
"You are not, but you're still my son. 3 orbs arrived for you too. I also asked for an extra one since from all reports it was you that saved everyone's ass."
"That means…"
"Indeed, you're going to have six orbes, not enough to reach the second step, but a good incentive either way."
That was interesting and at the same time frightening. If I really managed to obtain every primordial rune from the other heirs… I'd really need to join the military.
The prospect of fighting continuously was not appealing at all, but the thought of strengthening my runes… it was definitively exciting.
My face was a mix of happiness and annoyance, something so intense the duke couldn't help but take a picture while laughing heartily.
"Crow, you need to learn how to mask your emotions better, people will be able to exploit you."
"I know how to mask my emotion dad, I simply don't think there's a need to mask them with you."