I was relieved to be able to get out of that conversation, thankful to Cal for wandering by. 

Not only was Gawn still alive, he had another witness...

Of all the people to survive it had to be Gawn of all people, lamenting how complicated this was making things for me.

"What's gotten you so worked up?" Cal slapped me on the back hard, trying to cheer me up. 

"My attempted murderer returns safe and sound from the forest, shouldn't it be obvious why I'm concerned?"

Seeing me react so seriously, he started getting a little bit concerned himself. 

"You don't actually think father's going to side with him do you? You're overthinking things here."

From my perspective Cal had an overly positive outlook on this whole thing, but I guess he was seeing what he wanted to. If this falls through Cal's got the most to lose anyway. He wouldn't be able to marry Kaya after all, and he seemed to care about that quite a bit.

"I can think of more than enough he could say to weasel out of responsibility. Not to mention he's got a witness that probably owes him their life..." The implications of that clear enough. This was undoubtedly a bad thing for the both of us.

The only good news was that Cal had begun crafting some of those cheap elixirs I had asked him about earlier. Once I had the few he made in his room, I proceeded to downing them in one go, feeling the poison numb my throat all the way down. My constitution taking a few seconds before kicking in fully, working to remove the poison and restore me to normal. As for the effectiveness, there could be no doubt.

I felt a faint euphoria from the consecutive elixir consumption, similar to how it was spending attribute points. Feeling that I was close to achieving my first natural attribute growth. 

The taste of elixir in my mouth reminding me to offload some of the material I had collected from the living grove. Verifying they were all usable with my identification ability. In the worst case I could just eat the raw material myself, but the huge amount I would need to consume was discouraging.

With the treant and other monster bodies, not to mention to countless medicinal herbs, the whole lot was probably several hundred gold at the least. Maybe not enough to be worth the deaths of so many knights, but the idea of converting these into a more usable form was something that appealed greatly to me. 

Sighing a bit, being in the mansion was a near constantly reminder of my current predicament.

"I'm a bit envious of you Cal..." I stated out of the blue, half-jokingly.

For the longest time he had been my ideal of what I wanted in my life. The power and influence enough to spend life in leisure, doing what you wanted without a care in the world. 

"How so?" He suddenly seemed interested, the closest thing to a complement that I'd given him. 

"I bet this murder scheme business with Marcella and Gawn is the most exciting thing you've heard in a long while, right?"

"That's not really true, Keaton. I have a lot going on..." He seemed a bit hesitant to share. 

"Like what?" I asked with some skepticism. He'd never shared anything even remotely interesting with me, it was always his glorious conquests of the town's women. 

He shifted uncomfortably letting his usual serious look return while he elaborated. 

"Murders aren't anything rare, it happens often in politics... even for people like us. Mother's family's almost been wiped out from those kinds of plots."

Struggling to remember what house she came from, given I never received any education in politics I was basically clueless as to who all these houses were and their histories. Seeming to notice my problem, Cal decided to be helpful.

"House Orcello. Mother's from a branch family." Cal added, his guess scarily accurate to what I was thinking. 

"Thanks... I really hope these murders aren't too common within your own family." 

This whole topic was unexpectedly serious, I mostly was just trying to break the tension when I brought it up, but I didn't expect Cal would have had those kinds of concerns in his life. 

Cal just shrugged.

"One of the reasons why father moved all the way out here was to get away from all of it. He used to be fairly influential back when we were still involved in politics back in the capital."

A second of awkward silence settling between us. 

"Sorry... that was rude of me." Seeing that I had brought up something distasteful I was starting to regret asking. I never expected for such a serious answer. 

With no clear resolution in sight for the continuing problems with Marcella and Gawn, I could only retire with the girls for the day. Hoping that Jagen dealt with the situation judiciously. 

With yet another unplanned day to spend, Tammy and I tried to come up with some ideas. She really wouldn't mind spending every day like we had yesterday, following her parent's wishes for a child at the soonest opportunity.  Something that would be a strong tie between us, and pretty much the only thing that would solidify her uncertain status as a concubine. She was watching the deterioration of one of my relationships before her very eyes after all, so it was natural for her to think like this...

Belle was in favor of that idea too, still not aware of the biological differences between beastkin and humans. She desperately wanted kittens of her own, something that was endearing but also heartbreaking. 

Even so I didn't want to spend all of my time doing that when I had so much on my mind, eventually the three of us settling on going to see Ameliah's place. Both girls interested in the idea of me buying them clothes. 

Kaguro

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