Turning Chapter 1111

Chapter 1111

Despite the suddenness of the situation, everything began to fall into place without any confusion, as if it had been prepared in advance. Those who heard the news that Kishiar would not be leaving his bedroom for a while due to a condition related to his second gender were quite worried at first, but after hearing that it was something all second gender manifested individuals experience, they were reassured like Enk.

"Well. I'm sorry to say this to someone so busy, but from our perspective, it feels really reassuring and fortunate that this situation happened now when you, Sir Yuder, have come."

"Sir Welliven, whom I just met, said something similar."

"Haha. Everyone must feel the same way. Anyway, we'll make sure to keep our mouths shut so this news doesn't leak outside, so don't worry about that part. Please take good care of the Duke."

Yuder nodded silently and turned away as he listened to Shusainer's chatter.

While heat is nothing unusual in the Cavalry, it might be seen as strange in other places where most people are non-awakeners. Nevertheless, Kishiar chose to honestly reveal the cause of this incident to his close vassals. The vassals also, as if responding to their lord's trust, kept to their positions and swore to keep the secret thoroughly as they had done so far, without anyone telling them to do so.

Even though nothing had happened yet, just that alone made him feel reassured, as if there was a big wall supporting his back.

'I've briefly informed the Northern Branch about the Commander's absence, and delivered Kishiar's replies to those who sent letters. So I guess that's all I need to do right now.'

Kishiar ordered all Cavalry members in areas where anomalous cracks had appeared to continue monitoring the situation. He asked them to investigate the surroundings and send reports immediately to both Peletta and the capital headquarters if a similar situation occurs again, just like this time, so they would be able to find out quickly if anything else happens.

'Moreover, now that information will be shared with Emperor Keilusa's side as well, we won't have to struggle alone.'

Although the Emperor’s wish for his brother to take a full break during his leave was now impossible, once they relayed the information about the cracks to him, Keilusa would undoubtedly take action. This should also considerably reduce the burden caused by Kishiar's absence.

'They say it's meaningless to predict anomalous cracks... but judging from the trends so far, it's highly likely that they will continue to be observed somewhere for a while. It would be good if we could find out which regions they're more concentrated in through the members' investigations, but even if not...'

It's a great comfort to the people when the country's leadership shows signs of being alert and not taking even small incidents lightly. Yuder already knew all too well how a country that didn't even do that much and let everyone fall into anxiety would collapse.

But this time, that won't happen. Yuder returned to the Duke's bedroom where Kishiar was, with clear certainty and belief.

The upper floor of the inner castle, which now only Yuder could come and go, was quieter than ever. He advanced silently through that place, knocked on the bedroom door, and opened it to find the man sitting in front of a makeshift office desk.

Dressed in his usual ducal attire and sitting slightly askew, piles of books and bundles of papers were spread out in front of him, and a faint smell of old ink wafted through the air. Yuder stopped for a moment in front of this scene that was hard to believe was of someone who might soon face heat.

Come to think of it, it's always like this. No matter how bad his physical condition, Kishiar always held papers or books like that. If he wasn't lying in bed, he never even let his clothes become disheveled. In the past, Yuder would have seen this without much thought, but now it was a bit different.

Everyone has pride and stubbornness that they can't let go of until the end. The thought suddenly occurred to him that this might be part of the stubbornness he cherishes.

"Did something happen outside?"

He's a man who would have already noticed Yuder's arrival. Seeing the face that looked up and asked, perhaps finding it strange that there was no greeting, Yuder shook his head slightly.

"Nothing happened. Everyone said they understood right away and would cooperate well."

"As they should. They know I'm not gone from here, and that I'm watching and listening to everything from up here."

Kishiar laughed lightly. It was a bright laugh unbecoming of someone who couldn't go outside.

"You've distributed all the work to us, so what were you looking at again?"

"Since I have time to sit still, I was reviewing the materials I saw in Luma's library. And... also the result reports of some investigations I had requested before."

Looking closely, the paper in front of Kishiar was densely filled with ancient language scribbled like doodles. Leaving that aside as it was incomprehensible, Yuder picked up a bundle of papers that looked like reports and casually flipped through them. Kishiar blinked, softening his eyebrows.

"Ah, that's..."

"-Investigation reports of the second gender awakeners rescued from the South... When did you do this again?"

Beltrail Shand Apeto, an elder priest from House Apeto who is now dead, deceived and kidnapped second gender manifested awakeners indiscriminately and conducted terrible experiments. He tried to forcibly pair alpha awakeners and omega awakeners and make them have children as if grafting animals.

The reason Beltrail and the trash from House Apeto who helped him did such things was because of their genetic disease.

The existence of a second gender that goes against the innate first gender. They thought that perhaps a child born as a result of such a second gender might help find a way to cure the genetic disease.

As a result of that experiment, some omega awakeners did become pregnant. However, as far as Yuder knew, none of them gave birth to a living child.

At the time of the raid on House Apeto, they were able to rescue the alpha awakeners relatively quickly. However, they couldn't find the omega awakeners that Nahan, who had infiltrated in advance, had first smuggled out with Hosanna's power, and had to trace their tracks for quite a long time afterward. The Cavalry was able to rescue them when they found the location of the Star of Nagran's main base hidden near the southern desert.

Those who were the weakest and least capable, unable to leave the base until the very end. Many of them were the omega awakeners who had been missing at that time.

'The last thing I remember is that Devran, who had found the base, took them to the capital to help with their treatment.'

The front part of the report contained the names and brief information of those who had received such treatment, as well as their statements so far.

'Let's see. Devran... suggested that since most of them seem to fear life outside and are reluctant to return to their hometowns after the sage's death and the disappearance of brainwashing, it would be good to let them help with work within the Cavalry and find stability as soon as their health recovers. Not bad.'

After staring at the sentences Devran must have written with difficulty, he turned to the next page. The corner of that page was specially folded. It was a habit Kishiar took when marking important parts. When he couldn't use bookmarks individually, he would fold the corner once or twice to distinguish the importance of the document's contents.

And the page he just turned now had its corner folded not once, not twice, but three times.

'What's this?'

His gaze naturally turned to the contents of the page.

'-That nameless awakener tried desperately not to approach me. To the point of scratching the wall until their nails came off and bled. Of course, such efforts were useless, as there was nowhere to escape in the narrow prison... I felt great gratitude towards that awakener...'

The page contained statements related to experiences during heat among the testimonies of awakeners recovering in the Cavalry. It wasn't very long, but the meaning of the content was clear.

Turning to the next page, there were also testimonies of alpha awakeners who had survived and were still working in the Cavalry. The content was similarly about memories related to the heat they experienced then.

After reading through all those reports, Yuder turned his head. He seemed to understand why Kishiar had been reading this without having to ask.

"Were you curious about the worst cases of heat that second gender awakeners could experience?"

Kishiar looked down at the paper and let out a small, long sigh.

"Rather than worst cases, there are still too many things that neither you, nor I, nor even those who have experienced it directly know... Let's say I wanted to know a little more diverse information in advance."

"I think I mentioned this a bit before, but I also did a lot of similar investigations in the previous game."

Wanting to understand what had happened between Kishiar and himself, feeling the need to find out even a little more about tendencies for the sake of suffering second gender awakeners, Yuder met and inquired of countless people.

"The conclusion was one. It's really difficult for a child to be conceived between two second gender awakeners in the first place. Even if conceived, most die in the womb, and even if they're born after breaking through tremendous odds, many of those children die soon after. Even among the surviving children, I couldn't find any who lived past three years old until the end."

Well, there might have been some after Yuder died, but still.

"At that time, there was speculation within the Cavalry that perhaps second gender awakeners were not allowed to have normal offspring at all. You can think of it as being that rare originally. Of course, Beltrail's experiments rarely produced quite a few results... but the outcome was the same."

"That's right."

Kishiar nodded slowly.