"I'm sorry but I will decline your offer." Ludger quickly refuses Darius' offer.
It was quite a quick and straight answer that surprised everyone in that room. They thought that Darius' offer was the best solution for Ludger and his mother's current condition. There are no other places that are as safe as the Duke Manor's. But they were lacking the information related to Ludger's identity and the reason why they were chasing both of them.
"I know that you are saying that to protect both of us. But it will only make them able to easier for find us because it was too suspicious. They will suspect our reason for moving to your place. And it might cause the people who are close to us will get into a dangerous situation." Ludger said with a tint of sadness in his expression.
"You are right, it will be too dangerous if both of you suddenly do that. I'm sorry for rushing with such a suggestion. It would be such a loss if something happened to our City, especially to the people in the Red Dawn Restaurant. That place has been turning into this City's trademark. But if our enemies are the people with the black robe, the guard will have a hard time or they all might die if they fight them." Darius thought as he remembered the people in black robes that he met before.
"Well, those people are really dangerous and most people will have a hard time fighting against them. Their unusual power is too hard to handle. Then how will you deal with them, Boy?" Hudson nodded as he also knew how dangerous the group of people in black robes looked in Ludger's direction.
"I don't know. But as long as you are able to guarantee the safety of my family, I will try to resolve this problem with my everything. Besides, I know what they are looking for." Ludger said with a sad expression as he always knew that they were aiming for his life.
'Should I use my life as a bargaining chip? Or should I leave this place after I can confirm their safety? If they know about this, what will they tell me?' Ludger thought as he wanted to keep the people that were important to him in a safe place while he decided to fight them.
Of course, Ludger never thinks that he will be unscathed or able to face them safely because of his current power. The worst-case scenario is if they were able to get his soul and destroy this world. But for Ludger's current state, he was afraid that he would see the people around him will get hurt or die because of him.
It was an unconscious thought that suddenly appeared after watching what happened to Renneshia in the game inside the dream that appeared every night. Every time that dream appeared, Ludger felt that his mind became much weaker. But it also makes Ludger resolve to protect the people around him even if he needs to throw away his own life that he has been trying to protect.
"Stop it!" Darius shouted as if he was warning him.
"Hmm, why are you shouting, Mr. Darius?" Ludger asked with a confused face as he was surprised by what Darius did.
"I don't know what you are actually thinking but I believe that it was something stupid that was not worth thinking about. If you need any help, you just need to ask for help. Do you know what kind of face that you are making right now?" Darius said with an annoyed tone.
"Huh?! I always thought it was an expressionless face. Oh, right!" Ludger touched his face and realized that he had the spells to hide the expressionless face.
"Please care about yourself more. If something happens to you, your family will be sad. You still need to experience a lot of things especially all kinds of happiness. What about having a fun picnic with everyone in Red Dawn later when spring comes? But you must not sacrifice yourself or go alone to face them." Darius make a worried and sad face as he often saw such a face before.
It was a similar face that he often saw in the mirror before. There is a time before he met Ludger and Katarina when he often did something reckless. He goes to a dangerous place only to look for his fate person like a headless chicken.
"Thank you for reminding me. I will remember it. Maybe I was really too tired to have you give me such a warning." Ludger gives him a wry smile.
"Hahaha, getting such words from him was really too much. But don't change the topic, Boy! What kind of dangerous thing that you been thinking about before?" Hudson laughed loudly but then he looked at Ludger with an extremely angry expression.
"Hey, what are you talking about? I never thought of something dangerous although it might get dangerous if there is someone strong as hell in their group... But I never thought to face them directly... I'm sorry." At first, Ludger wants to deny their words but as their sharp glare seems to making a hole in his body, he tries to make an excuse before he apologises for his recklessness.
"Good that you understand what we are talking about. Sometimes you need to listen to the adult's advice. I know that you are smarter than most people but that is also the reason that you often overthink your problem and close your heart to everyone. How about starting to talk a bit about what troubling you and you can talk about it with us or how about talking to your friends?" Darius tries to give some advice that he got from his own experiences before.
"Thank you for your advice. But can we talk about it later? I will decide my answer after I look at those documents. Because I think that it would contain important information that I have been looking for a long time. Because your family is special Mr. Darius." Ludger said while looking at the documents in Darius's hand.
"Why are you so interested in this document? Did you know something that even I as the current patriarch of my family didn't know about? What is your relationship with my family? Is it related to the 'cemetery accident'? Haa, you won't say anything about it before you read these, right?" Darius feels something disturbing from Ludger's words.
Although Darius knows that Ludger will never try to harm them or put this city in danger, but it still disturbing to know that Ludger seems to know everything, especially the things related to his family. After all, it was too strange for a child who only lived for around ten years to know something that existed from around thousands of years ago. But Darius still hands the documents to Ludger because he remembers the saying in his family.
'You must remember that the race from another continent is actually loved by Goddess. That's why they might know something that no one in this world knows. But of course, it also depends on their purity and their rank or position. The highest person in their race is their leader, the Head Priestess or this world's one and only Saintess.' It was what the previous Duke Kadaklan, Kismet's father taught him about something that their family has kept passing to the next patriarch of their family.
Ludger took the documents and started reading them. Ludger quickly forgets about his surrounding and only focus on the documents in his hands. It was a bad habit that existed from the past life. Ludger often makes other people around him scold him because of this bad habit. But Ludger felt that this bad habit was something that was hard to change.
"Should I show you the improvement of the new communication device? Teacher will be like that until he finishes reading it all or until he finds any clue that he was looking for. I know it because I have seen him like this a few times in the past." Favian told the other two as he took a chair and put Ludger on the chair.
"But, have you read it before? Can you tell us about the content? Is it really related to the race from another continent? And do you have a guess that Ludger was actually the person from that race?" Hudson asked while looking at Darius who kept his eyes on Ludger.
"Hmm. Oh about that, it was some kind of letter from the past. But it was mostly about the writer wanting to apologize to the receiver of the letter who should have died before he could give this letter. It looks like a love letter when I read it before. And the receiver of that letter seems from a race from another continent. As for Ludger's identity, I never knew that he was the descendant of that race." Darius answers while keep looking at Ludger who is currently seriously reading those documents in his hands.
"But do you think that the documents have some secret like it might hide something like the secret documents that my Teacher usually writes in invisible ink? Have you ever tried to find the secret about it?" Favian asked with an interest expression.
"You seem to be not surprised by the Boy's real identity? Did you know about it before?" Hudson feels something wrong with how calmly Favian reacts to Ludger's real identity.
"Oh, if you are talking about that, I have been a bit suspicious about it before because of Teacher is the only person who is able to use the seventh attribute. He told me that it was something that he learnt from that race before. But when I ask him to teach me about it, I can't do it even when I try to listen to his explanation. He even tried to give me different types of explanations. Even when I could understand what he said, I was still unable to learn about it." Favian explains his deduction.