Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Evin stood beside a river and looked as Decatur held a torch to his mother's pyre. It didn't take much for the fire to catch on and Evin saw the ever-playful gray smoke waving through the endless blue sky. Gently, Decatur pushed the pyre down the river and looked towards it with silent tears streaming from his eyes. He sometimes choked or sobbed uncontrollably, but he kept them inside and forced himself to look strong.

After he was finished with his duty, he walked towards a tall, silver-haired male - who probably looked the calmest of the funeral's thousands of participants – and looked towards the burning pyre. Aside from the hundred or so nobles, countless 1st grades and 2nd grades littered the banks of the river Ank. The Countess wasn't the most beloved of rulers, but she was well-respected by many.

Even the most insensitive of men wore at least a strained expression during the funeral, but Gehenne dan Carew only wore a light, almost neutral expression. The sudden death of her mother seemed to have affected him even less than the average 3rd grade, but whether that was an act of strength, or simply his cold-heartedness, Evin couldn't tell. He was wearing a government official's uniform, but Evin had heard that he was currently working as an assistant to a Mage Minister.

This of course, complicated many things. "Do you think Lord Gehenne would relinquish his post to rule over his mother's lands?" a baron was whispering near Evin.

"I'm sure he doesn't want that… but Decatur isn't old enough to inherit, right?" another answered.

Now that the funeral was officially finished, there wasn't a need to keep silent anymore. Evin caught other nobles and even some 1st grades starting to speak in hushes.

Curiously, he glanced at Decatur, and saw that the noble boy was hatefully glaring at the people, seemingly wondering how they could be so rude. During the funeral, Decatur's expression changed countless times. When it began, he was staring at the clear blue sky with a grimace, as if he was wondering how the day could be so beautiful on his mother's funeral. During the various ceremonies of the funeral, he looked deeply conflicted, as if these rites finally forced him to confront the fact that his mother was dead. Occasionally, Evin found him glaring at Gehenne, most likely thinking how the latter could keep himself so calm during all this.

Decatur looked like he could lash out at anyone or anything, but none of those things warranted his full fury. He was convinced that her mother was assassinated, despite the royal investigator saying otherwise.

In a world filled with mages, not one death could be brushed off as something natural. Even Evin, a first year of the Mage Academy, had a hundred methods to make a murder look like an accident. So naturally, the death of a Countess who was barely 40 years old wasn't going to be brushed off so easily.

Sure, 40 could be considered old for 2nd grades and below, as their life expectancy was 45; but for the Countess, who could comfortably afford all manner of healers, it was simply too implausible. With the help of magic, one could easily reach the age of 60; a mage with some mastery of the World of Life could reach the age of 80 and in some cases, one could even reach 100 and beyond. Barring the Empress and Two Tales, who were at the very least 1493 years old, the oldest person who in Evin's knowledge was king Roland Arcwall, who died at the age of 130.

Due to these considerations, Decatur insisted that there was something nefarious about his mother's death. The late Countess was rarely, if ever, ill. She looked her age, but she was fitter than most people in their mid-20s, so it was simply inconceivably for her to die from a heart-attack.

A sonorous voice from above interrupted Evin's thoughts, "The nobility of Greater Ankelite, please gather in the Carew mansion.

Gehenne dan Carew was gracefully floating above the masses, acting as an announcer. He repeated the same thing a few times and the nobles started to move towards the mansion with mourning faces.

"What kind of rituals to Cosmics have for their dead?" Evin asked Rith, who was a sitting beside him.

The Cosmic's ear perked up slightly and said, "Pull me up."

Evin offered her a hand and the latter quickly climbed atop Evin's shoulders and made herself practically weightless.

"So?"

"Hmm… Well, I suppose its fastest to show you," Rith shrugged and created a small golden circle.

Beyond the circle, Evin saw a background of light blue and purple, so he recognized that it was Rith's own personal storage. Rith pulled out a small velvet bag from inside it and struggled with the complicated knot that kept it closed it. After two months of interacting with the Cosmic, Evin realized that probably the biggest difference between a normal cat and a Cosmic Feline was that the latter had thumbs on their front paws. Evin didn't think it was a big deal at first, but when Rith asked him to imagine his fingers arranged the same way as his toes, Evin started to realize the dexterity his thumbs allowed him.

Anyhow, Rith showed the inside of the bag to Evin and declared neutrally, "This here is my great-great-grandmother."

As Evin was observing the dust-like golden particles inside the bag (which weirdly reminded him of a Therae World Shard), the meaning of the words finally hit him. "What?"

"Only a part of her, though. Part of her is with Abe, and another part of her is with my sister. If any of my countless siblings reach beyond the level of a simple 'Standard', perhaps we'll be forced to share some of our grandmother with them. But for now, they'd have to make do with an account of our bloodline."

"Why do you have to keep your great-great-grandmother like that?"

"Truth be told, I never really understood why," Rith shrugged and put her great-great-grandmother back into her storage space. "But you asked us how we did our funerals, well, there you have it. When we die, our true bodies turn into these dust-like things and it is our tradition to share it among relatives…" Rith said, but went silent as if she'd said something she wasn't supposed to.

"True bodies?" Evin asked, wondering if it was that.

"Slip of the tongue," Rith admitted and shook her head.

But Evin was worried about something else. "Rith, did I snort a Cosmic through my nose?"

"What?" Rith asked, struggling to keep the laughter from escaping her mouth.

"Aren't Therae World Shards dead Cosmics?"

"No, no, no. The World Shards you absorbed come from a mine in the Eastern Desert. Dead Cosmics do look similar to the World Shards, but that's just coincidence. If you snort a Cosmic… well, you probably won't die, but your mana-core definitely wouldn't get any bigger."

Evin nodded thoughtfully and then shook his head. "Let's go home."

"I thought you were going to wait for Bella and Phel?"

"I think they're going to take a while with Lord Gehenne," Evin shrugged.

"Sure," Rith said and started floating.

It took a carriage two hours to reach Ankelite city from the Care manor, but ever since Evin learned how to fly using the newly absorbed World of Weight and the World of Air, he could make the trip in only half an hour. But just when Evin finished absorbing the mana inside a lodestone to make himself weightless, the same sonorous voice interrupted him.

"You must be Evin?" Gehenne asked as he landed nearby. Without giving Evin any chance to reply, he continued, "I heard you've been giving my brother some trouble?"

Evin felt a surge of panic flash through his head, as he thought of a proper response.

"Don't look so panicked," Gehenne said, waving his hands. "I'm not so free to go around settling the fights that my brother started. I just wanted to tell something to you, is all."

"Please tell, my Lord," Evin answered. Gehenne dan Carew was acting weirdly casual with him, but Evin decided that at least he should keep cordialities.

"Decatur will have full authority over Greater Ankelite. Challenging his influence will be considered challenging me directly. Until my brother is old enough to inherit the position legally, I'll only be a figurehead ruler of this county," Gehenne revealed simply. "I'll declare this during the meeting with the nobles. That's all I had to say."

Without waiting for Evin's reply, the silver-haired man flew away.

"What was that about?" Rith murmured.

"Who knows?" Evin replied unenthusiastically, wondering about the reasons behind Gehenne's action.

"But isn't that bad? Decatur's only 11, right? Even if he was trained from a young age to inherit the position, he really doesn't seem mature enough to do so in reality."

"I thought he was 10?"

"He turned 11 a few days ago."

<Ah,> the Voice made a sound of understanding. <He-he.>

Evin didn't doubt for a second that the Voice had a guess about what just occurred. Ignoring the faint feeling of shame, Evin asked, <You have any idea?>

<You'll see soon enough,> the Voice replied, chuckling faintly.

Evin figured that it was pointless to ask further and decided to think about the matter by himself later on. He and Rith flew towards the city and parted there.

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