"Well, shit," wasn't what she wanted to say in front of Norina, despite the fact that it was probably Norina who knew her habits better than anyone else by now. That's why the servant wasn't particularly surprised, but it did give her an uncertain feeling about why she made the comment.

It was merely a slip of the tongue. But who could blame her after what she had just heard?

"I didn't think they had those here." Frankly, she had thought about it a lot, and there were so many things that seemed to be called the same, but didn't have the same meaning as in her old world. 'Okay, that's not true either. The only thing that's a bit off is the title of Grand Duke in this world, depending on how you see the fact that our Territory isn't much bigger than that of a Marquis and the influence sucks as well.'

Surely, a Factory held the same meaning as it did in her old world, just as it did with most things she had encountered.

"A common factory was hardly what they meant," Norina mused, trying to pry lightly into the matter.

"No," Rowena replied, thinking of avoiding the subject, but that wouldn't be very helpful, "they mean something else. What do you think it means?"

The blonde girl took a deep breath and thought about the things she had just heard, combining them with the knowledge she had recently gained.

"We were chosen because we had Mana capabilities. There was a basement with seawater in it, and thanks to my lady, we now know that it's the salt in the water that repels the Visitors," she recounted, "so they protected the floor with the water? But they still let someone down there because there were human remains. So the Visitors still managed to get in?"

The more she rambled, the more confused she became. If it was the salt that kept them out, didn't that mean they couldn't completely drain the floor without the water drying out and leaving salt on the ground? Of course, there was a chance that the amount wouldn't be enough to keep them at bay, but the work itself seemed hard to keep up with, especially without anyone noticing.

Now that she thought about it, she had never heard any unusual noises coming from the basement. They might have been working at night, when the children weren't allowed downstairs, but wouldn't they have heard anything? Whoever died in there would probably have screamed.

"Odd," the maid mumbled, lost in thought.

"Quite," Rowena agreed. But she had another thought in mind. 'It really wouldn't make sense for them to mop up the water and then spill it over time and again, especially since you would want it to happen as fast as possible. They couldn't have risked for themselves to get busy with Visitors because one slipped in while they were cleaning up.'

There was only one possible explanation in her mind, although she couldn't be sure since she hadn't received the information first hand. If she went with her theory that others were behind it, she could think of only one organization that could have done it.

"The people we met in Lodden could have been behind it," she thought aloud, "there was a guy who controlled the sea water, he could have brought and taken the water cleanly and efficiently. And they had a few too many Contractors for my liking, too."

"Too many Contractors?" Norina, too, thought of the people they had met in the neighboring Empire, and the hairs on her neck stood on end. They could have killed them all if they had wanted to.

"Yes, even though there aren't many Contractors known right now, they had at least three up their sleeves. That's more than you'd find by chance."

"What does that mean?" The word "Factory" popped back up in the young servant's mind. "It can't be that?

"Do you remember what we were talking about? A 'Factory', Norina - it's nothing but a place of dread," the mistress said in disgust, "they take children with sufficient Mana potential and throw them on unholy or unblessed grounds to attract Visitors from the World Beyond the Surface. If there were Visitors who wanted to contract them, they would come to rescue them. That's how you forcibly create an Ex-" Rowena cleared her throat, buying herself some time to remember what they were called in this world. "Right, a Paladin. That's how they create them, with the bonus of having them join your ranks, because children are easy to manipulate and scare."

"Oh my God," Norina said, her face pale and shocked. "Charlotte could have..." She didn't want to say it.

"I assume that all the children who were supposedly adopted must have met the same fate. Some of them will no doubt still be alive, but most of them won't. That's how inefficient the process is."

Or was it? Now that she had the information about how the potential contractors were marked from the beginning, she finally started to understand why this method worked in the first place. Attracting them was the easiest, because a body that was good for Mana had more Life Force in it, minus the unpleasant air of active Mana, which they didn't like so much.

Just like a pregnant woman, like Iris seventeen years ago, or Celia, who also had the Mana capacity of a Paladin, they had both worked like magnets. A distant pain came over her as she remembered the assessment VAULT had given her back then, that it was likely she had been targeted by the Visitors, who ended up destroying a city and murdered her parents.

'Anyway, it was something that worked, but the more you did it in the same place, the more Visitors would come through and in the end, they would cause a Rift from the constant influx.'

That's where the problems came in. First, the danger of the Visitors coming and getting out of control, not to mention the danger of being discovered. Another reason why Rowena was sure that there was a larger group behind this plan.

Second, it would mean constantly sacrificing people who could easily become warriors just by using Mana, but compared to a Paladin, a Holy Knight was akin to a joke. It might not be something she liked to say out loud, because even the normal Knights worked hard and were part of the bigger picture in a war, but against a certain amount of enemies, a Paladin could hold his own as a one-man army, while Holy Knights were just that: Knights; better in numbers.

'Leviathan, the Pied Piper and apparently the one who Pan called King of All. And I don't think that's all of them, maybe one of them was able to silence the basement of the orphanage. Damn.' They really shouldn't have so many.

As far as she could tell, the normal population didn't even know much about the Paladin. She would have to ask Ballinger about that as soon as she was back in the capital. More and more questions piled up, and Rowena feared that she might actually forget some of the things she wanted to ask.

But one thing still bothered her. "But Charlotte never went to the basement, did she?"

The unexpected question pulled Norina out of her complicated mind. "No, never."

"When did she start showing symptoms of aging?"

"Um, about half a year ago? That's when I started looking for a new workplace. She wasn't sick enough to die at first, but her appearance had changed right away. I went out to look for her because she hadn't returned from picking flowers." Her eyebrows furrowed at the memory. "Then I found her like that."

"So it was a coincidence." Rowena concluded.

They had taken her because she seemed like someone who could handle a Visitor's contract. In that respect they weren't wrong and probably would have had her on their side by now, together with the brother, Chaos.

Which still begged the question, who was supposed to be next to Charlotte? Someone from the Nerena Territory? Or was it Norina?

Sighing, she tucked one of her lavender strands behind her ear and closed her eyes at the same time.

'In the first place, why did I even meddle in Norina's business? Now I know things I didn't really want to know,' she thought with a bit of anguish, 'No, that's not hard to answer. I didn't want her to lose a sibling like that.'

Celia may not have had family or close friends, but she did have brothers in arms that she lost in a similar way on the battlefield. It's not something one gets over easily. She didn't want to feel bad every time she looked at Norina.

Now that she was already thinking about it, her mind ran in circles, trying to get a clear picture of everything in her head.

'So there's this human group of people trying to get as many Contractors on their side as possible, with no regard for other types of talent, see their methods.' She thought back to the moment when she had stood in front of the Contractor of Leviathan. 'They are up to something big, but I don't know what it is. In the novel, these people never showed up, they weren't even mentioned.'

'The Prophet didn't know about them.'

'How is that possible?'

'Just as a prophet can misinterpret circumstances if they misjudge something that hasn't been shown to them in detail, they won't be able to know about something that hasn't been shown to them at all.'

'Uh, so... they didn't show their faces in the version of the future that Sarah Dent saw, so she didn't know they even existed?'

'Indeed.'

'Welp.'

'Indeed.'

A heavy sigh escaped her throat as she leaned back against the headrest with her eyes closed.

"This is a lot," she remarked, 'especially a lot of trouble.'

"Maybe we can ask for a short break?" Norina asked, concern audible in her voice.

"No, we have to keep going, this journey is long enough as it is." And that was true.

In Celia's world, she would have traveled half the planet in the same time it took to get back to the Varnhagen Territory from the capital of Lodden. She should have asked for a Drake, now that they knew about her Mana abilities.

On the other hand, it was better for them to assume that her abilities weren't sufficient for such a thing. The Church wouldn't take it lightly if they thought that she might have learned how to use Mana professionally.

With the bad feeling from before, the noble lady tried to relax and nod off a bit to escape her racing thoughts. Nothing good would come of it.

 

"We couldn't dare accept that, Young Lady!" an older woman's voice echoed through the tiny house.

Rowena was truly grateful that they hadn't interfered with her visit to Eisenwacht. After all that had happened last time, they simply believed her lie about wanting to see the old couple because she still felt bad about what had happened.

A man named Gren had accompanied her all the way to the village, which meant that this time she had managed to visit officially, like a welcome guest. But in the house with her was only Norina.

She brushed off Iris's complaint, along with her wide-eyed surprise. It wasn't the first time the older woman had seen a valuable ore like virgin silver or a higher-grade Mana Stone, but it had been a long time since she'd seen it.

They did get some cheaper ones thanks to Bruno, but it was just good enough to use the blueprint and practice. An example of how Ansgar had "practiced" now lay on the table in front of their lord's daughter.

She picked up the short sword and held it up to the light coming in from the window.

"Beautiful," she said, swinging the sword lightly, testing it for balance, "a fine piece of work. I knew you would grasp the concept easily."

Working with Mana Stones wasn't easy, but it wasn't too complicated either, once the technique was understood. Shaping the Mana Stone without breaking it or rendering it useless was the trickiest part, and it was probably just because Mana Stones were still rare that no one had tried it.

After all, for a long time, normal weapons weren't as sought after by people who could afford more. Not all of the better blacksmiths would even be able to use enough Mana to forge them in the first place. And in this world, which hadn't had much of a problem with the Visitors until now, Mana Stones were much rarer than in Celia's world, which increased their value.

All of these things accumulated and acted as a roadblock for talented people like Ansgar. But that roadblock was removed in one fell swoop by Rowena, who smiled at the first man-made Mana Sword from this world, an artifact weapon that was not trash.

"This would never have been possible without your guidance," Ansgar said as he watched the joy in the young woman's eyes, "I will never forget that debt."

"What debt?" she said nonchalantly, "I was the one who came to you." She picked up the silver ore and Mana Stones she had lifted from her private supply and shoved them at the artisan couple.

"I should at least pay for this."

"Pay? With what money?" With a bratty attitude, Rowena crossed her arms over her chest after putting the sword down and averted her eyes. "Besides, you can make any sword you want with this method. It doesn't have to be a blade like the one on the blueprint."

"I thought so. But I have never seen a blade forged this way, so I was curious."

"It's something I came across through a traveler from the east," she boldly lied, "It happened to be the shape that best suited me. There's no need to copy it."

Most people in this world would probably prefer the Western style of swords, since that was the type of sword they were used to.

'What if it doesn't find a buyer? We still need heroic swords for people to use.'

Sooner or later, he would forge a sword that would be used to save this world. She would watch from the sidelines with a snack, she imagined. But they had to be prepared for it, so that she wouldn't end up in peril even as a civilian.

At her words, the aging smiths shared a glance of determination. "How long will you stay, Young Lady Rowena?"