With This Treasure, I Summon Primordial Weapons
Chapter 20: Hour is Late

Chapter 20: Hour is Late

Godric took a short moment to compose himself before speaking in a tone that sounded almost bored.

"The hour is late. Let us pick up our conversation another time."

He didn’t turn around and try to leave right away. That was the exact thing a guilty person would do, and Daren didn’t need much to brand someone as ’guilty’.

Instead, he remained still and held Daren’s gaze until the man nodded in agreement.

"Yes," Daren nodded after a pause that felt like he could either find the idea great or throw Godric right where he threw the visitor a moment ago. "Let us pick this up upon the next moon."

Godric gave Daren a single final nod and quickly climbed the narrow staircase.

He moved swiftly.

Despite the exhaustion clinging to his body both from the lack of sleep and his previous climb, he moved up the endless spiralling staircase of the tower even faster than during his first climb.

Of course, it wasn’t accidental.

This entire time, he left Raven alone with Torr, and as much as he believed her to be capable, seeing what the man did in the tower’s dungeon, he wanted to confirm she was alive as soon as possible.

Still, with how ridiculously high the tower was, his mind managed to come up with twenty different ways Torr could’ve disposed of her before he finally managed to reach the sixth floor from the top.

He knocked once and entered.

A vast chamber opened up, lit by a half dozen candle-like lights, spread evenly across the room.

The moment he stepped inside, a familiar figure propped herself up on the bed before quickly jumping to her feet and walking hurriedly toward him.

Raven’s plump lips curved into a pout as she spoke, her face oddly close to him. "You took long. I was beginning to worry."

’Worry?’

The word seemed rather strong for a pair of students who knew each other for barely two days.

She caught something in his face and frowned. "You seem a little... rattled. Are you all right?"

"I just saw your kin execute someone."

Raven went still. The pout was gone before he finished the sentence.

"...What do you mean, execute?"

"They’re keeping beasts of everyone here imprisoned in the tower’s dungeon. A visitor came to see his beasts, but the moment Daren saw him, he decided to ’reward’ him for his devotion and threw him into the cage." Godric paused for a moment. "He was torn apart in seconds."

Raven didn’t say anything for a while. Her expression remained as composed as ever, but behind her eyes Godric could see the girl going over the information a dozen times.

"You kept your name hidden, why?" he asked.

Raven lingered for a second longer before replying.

"I know every member of my family personally. I knew something was off right away." She turned around and walked toward the edge of the bed. "Then I remembered something from the family books. A disgraced heir. Pushed aside for being..." she made a small motion with her hand, as though holding the word away from herself, "...impulsive."

"Impulsive? That was all it said?"

"That was all it needed to say." Her mouth flattened. "I know men in my house who killed a dozen people and were seated at dinner the same evening. Whatever he did, he did something bad. Real bad."

Godric nodded.

The moment he heard Raven’s lie, he figured as much.

He knew as much as anyone how normal killing was for those from the Great Houses.

Battles against summoners often ended in death, and those sitting at the very top of that hierarchy each had a long list of names they erased from history.

Still, Godric couldn’t help but wonder what the young heir of a great house could’ve done to be banished from his family. Though considering how easily he executed the visitor right in front of him, he doubted there was much he wouldn’t do to reach his goals.

"By the way, good thinking," Raven said. "Using your family name to your advantage like that." She nodded in acknowledgement.

Godric walked further into the room, pulled off the jacket of his uniform and then the tie, and laid them over the back of a chair, leaving the white button-up shirt.

"He knows how to get out of here. He’s been keeping everyone here on purpose. There was something he wants from this place, and won’t let anyone leave before that."

Raven’s eyes lit up, but before hope could settle in them, Godric continued.

"I don’t know the details yet. But he trusts me. As long as that continues to be the case, I will find the way out of here."

"You thinking it might change?"

Godric shrugged before lowering himself down onto a chair that resembled a single-seat sofa. "Who knows. He’s perceptive... and cautious. Next time, if you’re going to act like you’re from the outskirts, try being a little less... noble."

"He caught it?" She grimaced, as though expecting her lie to be perfect. "So how did you salvage that?"

For a moment, Godric considered how to explain the way Daren had rewritten the lie for himself. Then he remembered the exact word the man had used.

Concubine.

He shook the thought away before it could show on his face.

"He thinks we’re... lovers," he said. "Hence the shared room."

"Is that so?" Raven’s lips curved. "In that case, I think it’s time to come to bed, lover."

Godric didn’t answer right away.

He stood up and sized up the bed.

Large enough for two people to sleep and never even meet one another.

Two people. One of whom had undone the top of her shirt at some point during her walk to the bed and had not thought to do it up again.

Godric’s gaze suddenly snapped away from his so-called ’lover’ and instead locked onto the far wall, eyeing it as though the plain black brick wall of the chamber was the most interesting thing he had seen in years.

It was the hour, he told himself.

Nothing else.

It was only because he was tired.