Magus: Rise of the Darkness Empress

Richard was sitting casually reading a few reports when Karl entered his room with Ural. As he came in, Richard gave him a very thorough look to see his current condition.

Karl was a handsome man with brown hair and brown eyes and he looked like his usual self. But the murderous intent that was leaking from his body looked to be even stronger than before.

This was definitely a good sign and exactly what Richard wanted. So this result made him happy.

But now he was even more curious about the reason why Karl had taken someone in as his servant when his mind should be full of murderous thoughts.

Still, first he needed to ask Karl about the mission. Count Falgur was definitely still waiting for his report and various future projects of Richard depended on the assistance of the count.

”Hello Karl, welcome back. It looks like you really had a good time in that remote location. Now you should be fine for some time and your murderous thoughts will not get out of control.”

”Yes boss. Thanks for the opportunity.”

”Now tell me everything that you have found out about this Souran territory. Ural, take notes and then write a report based on that to send to the Count.”

”Yes master.”

After hearing Richard’s order, Karl started to tell him all the things that Weiss had taught him. Following her instructions, most of the things that Karl was going to tell would be the truth. But he was going to tell it in a misleading way and he would also mix in some lies to hide what actually mattered the most.

”Boss, the current baroness is really a young girl and she had a powerful knight assisting her too. I have actually managed to meet both the baroness and this mysterious knight.”

Hearing this, Richard became interested. His main goal for sending Karl to this mission was to increase his murderous thoughts even more. As for the report, he did not have any hope that Karl would be able to get much information.

But now, it looked like Karl had performed very well during this mission. He had even managed to meet with the young noble girl and even the mysterious unknown knight. Now Richard was interested in knowing how he ended up meeting them.

So when when Karl was busy describing some of the beasts and the monsters that he had seen in that area, Richard suddenly stopped him and ask about how he had managed to meet with the baroness.

Karl already had an explanation ready for this question.

”I meet a mysterious knight clad in black from the rumours in the forest outside the Souran territory even before reaching the village and had a conversation with her. Yes, she is a female. We had also hunted beasts together in the forest and managed to get closer.

Later on the baroness invited me inside for a dinner with her. I was also thanked by the people working in the castle. So I was even allowed to even stay in the castle for the duration i was there.”

Hearing this Richard fell into deep thoughts for a few moments. With his experience of seeing through lies, he found that everything that Karl had said were mostly true.

But still there were a few things that were not adding up. So instead of speculating about them, Richard decided to directly ask Karl about them.

”It looked like you have made a good connection with the baroness Souran and her knight helper. But then how did you manage to satisfy your desire and kill a bunch of people ? Were they not against this ?”

”There were a lot of bandits in that region that I got to hunt with the mysterious Knight. And the village was also attacked by wild beasts several times and I was able to kill many of them to satisfy myself too.”

Richard found these explanation to be satisfactory. So he stopped asking Karl any more questions and told him to continue with his report.

...

Karl took a little more than an hours time to finish his report. Then Ural handed Richard the notebook where he had written down everything that Karl told.

Karl had heard from various villagers how the previous baron was killed by a Four Clawed Fiery Bear and how the mysterious knight had defeated it.

As for the identity of the mysterious knight, Karl was still not sure but he speculated that this lady was from a different nation. And Richard agreed with what Karl had thought.

Other than this, Karl also told him about how the new baroness had implimented a new tax system but was unable to give any explanation about how this tax system worked.

That was also something that was expected. Richard actually would have been surprised if Karl could properly describe something as complex as a tax system with his current state of mind.

The most important news was about how the Souran territory was always in danger of being destroyed by the wild beasts and only a knight was capable of keeping it safe.

And even through the previous baron was gone, as long as this mysterious knight was there, the village would still most probably be safe for the time being. But knowing this, the count could come up with some idea to find the true identity of this person or even assassinate her.

But that was not something that Richard needed to worry about. The amount of information that Karl had brought back was more than enough to satisfy the count. So his future collaboration plans with the count should also face no trouble.

Thinking about this, Richard became happy. But still, he now needed to know why did Karl suddenly take in two new subordinates.

As Richard ask this question to Karl, the answer that he received was very surprising but simple. It turned out that the people who had came with him were someone that the mysterious Knight was close with. And Karl had brought them here because the knight had requested him to do so.

Now it all made sense to Richard. Why Karl had not killed them was also obvious. No one would suddenly want to become enemies with a powerful knight. Not even Karl whose mind was currently not in the right state. So now, Richard was able to completely relax.

He had a lot of confidence in his own intelligence so he was sure that someone like Karl would not be able to hide anything before him. So this conversation got rid of all his worries.

Karl was given a good amount of money for his successful completion of the mission and was told to take a break for a few days. If there was a new mission for him, someone would notify him about that.

Richard even decided to stop the hardcore surveillance on Karl except for just a single person keeping an eye on when he was leaving the house. So for the time being, Karl had managed to get rid of almost all the suspicions on him.

...

The person who was most angry with this situation was Ural. Actually when he had first joined the Night Crow, he had gotten scared and had wetted his pants after encountering murderous Karl for the first time.

That was the most humiliating day of his life. That was also the reason why he hated Karl so much. Even though he knew that his master was trying to turn Karl into a mindless puppet, Ural was not happy with that.

He wanted to Karl to be completely gone. That was the only way how Ural could get rid of his humiliation. So even though Richard had stopped suspecting Karl, Ural was still trying to find a way to get rid of him for good.

Would he be able to do that ?