Golden Mage Chapter 151

Book 6, Episode 1

Chapter 1 Who is Brilkend?

In Verdis, the capital of the Tolian Kingdom, the Marquisate of Brilkend – the centre of the Second Prince’s faction – was in a tranquil mood.

The Marquisate of Brilkend, the centrepiece of the Second Prince’s faction, was as serene as any other day.

The Marquises of Brilkend, of which there are only five in the Tolian realm, are renowned for their shrewdness.

And that reputation has reached its zenith in the present day-the current Marquis of Brilkend is considered the greatest librarian in the Tolian realm.

For he has united the scattered factions of the Second Princes into a faction comparable in strength to that of the First Princes.

The Duke of Tgenvalli is its centre, but all who know him know that it is the Marquis of Brilkend who has built up the Second Prince’s faction.

But the Marquis of Brilkend was not without his faults, and rumours about him were constantly circulating in Verdi’s circle.

First of all, the Marquis of Brilkend never married.

The Marquis of Brilkend, one of the five marquises of the kingdom, is over forty years old and has never married.

Nor is his affairs with women complicated, for he prides himself on his purity in the matter of women, having rarely met a woman, let alone been near one.

This was a commendable matter, but he was so clean that it was almost a matter of disgust.

And there was another thing that was very disconcerting: a very great brain.

The Marquess of Brilkend is of a distinguished family in the Tolian kingdom.

It has produced geniuses over the generations, and the current Marquis of Brillkend is considered by many to be the most brilliant in the history of the House of Brillkend.

The reason is simple.

because he solves a task every day that no other human being can.

The Marquis of Brilkend is an unusual man: he has no knights or wizards.

There are only soldiers to defend the house, and no bureaucrats to do the work.

This means that the Marquis of Brillkend is responsible for all the affairs of the Second Prince’s House, beginning with the affairs of the estate.

His workload is beyond imagination.

The Marquis of Terandel, a nobleman of his calibre, has dozens of clerks to manage his estates, and he himself is the final arbiter.

In other words, the Marquis of Brilkend has dozens of clerks to manage his estates, but he does it all himself.

It’s hard to believe, but that’s not all.

The Marquis of Brilkend is highly regarded for his work with the Second Prince’s faction.

The current political factions of the Tolian kingdom are the First Prince faction, with its central nobility, the Second Prince faction, with its strong military on the periphery, and the Third Prince faction, with its king.

Originally, there was no contest for kingship in Tolian.

For with the powerful nobles united in their support of the First Prince, there was no one to oppose him.

The nobles on the fringes, however powerful they may have been, were only scattered forces.

It was the Marquis of Brilkend who united them.

With the Duke of Tgenvalli at the head of the Second Prince’s faction, he set out to enlist every single nobleman on the fringes, with the First Prince’s faction in the way.

Soon the Second Prince’s faction was complete, a huge faction in favour of the Second Prince.

The power of the Second Prince’s faction was strong.

Not only were the armies on the periphery strong, but the knights and wizards who had been through the wars were far more powerful than those of the central nobility, and the quality of the soldiers was different.

Of course, that alone was not enough to overwhelm the First Prince Sect.

If the Second Prince’s Faction had ‘strength’, the First Prince’s Faction had ‘power’.

History has proven that no matter how strong a man may be, he will eventually bend the knee to power. The nobles of the First Prince’s Faction thought the same thing.

But they soon realised it was their own arrogance.

The Second Prince’s faction didn’t just have power.

They had a brilliant chief of staff who had the ‘wit’ to utilise that ‘power’ to good effect – the Marquis of Brilkend.

He utilised the power of the powerful Second Prince’s Faction to create a strong presence throughout the kingdom, with the exception of the capital city of Verdis.

The Second Prince’s faction was thus pressing the First Prince’s faction with great force, and the First Prince’s faction was desperately resisting, creating a tense confrontation between them.

Meanwhile, just as the two major mountain systems were entering the middle of their struggle, the Third Prince Sect suddenly appeared.

Count Rubius emerged as the centre of the storm, rallying the marginalised provincial nobility behind the Gold Tower State in support of the Third Prince.

And with the hidden power of the kingdom now in the hands of the Third Prince’s faction, the current struggle for the throne has become a triangular one.

And that triangle collapsed like a lie at the end of the war between the Golden Tower and the Holy Land.

* * * *

“Hoo— quite interesting.”

The Marquis of Brilkend sat in the drawing room of his mansion, sipping his drink, lost in thought.

Slowly, he recalled the events that had transpired so far.

This trip, planned simply to see the division of the kingdom, to observe the many facets of humanity – it had been more than enough to satisfy the Marquis of Brilkend.

for he was able to observe the many faces of many people, as he had originally planned.

The human form of a man driven to despair by the loss of power, the human form of a man driven to hatred by the loss of a loved one, the human form of a man who lost everything in a single moment and fell into a swamp of emotions from which he could not escape—-

It was all new to the Marquis of Brilkend, and it was not lacking in sincere enjoyment.

The Marquis of Brilkend took a sip of his drink and laughed.

“Hoo hoo hoo, it’s certainly been one fun-filled day after another- being able to do things I never got to do thousands of years ago- but—-”

His expression suddenly twisted in a strange way- and at the same time a strange liveliness began to subtly invade the room.

A faint but absolute aura of life!

At the centre of it was none other than the Marquis de Brilkend.

He fiddled with his glass and muttered.

“Everything would have gone according to my plan had the Gold Tower Lord not appeared – the First Prince’s faction, finally unable to withstand the pressure, would have struck first, and we would have fought back and bathed the kingdom in blood – and my intention was for this side to emerge victorious and go down in history as a worthy advisor—-”

Suddenly, his eyes began to emit a faint red glow.

It was— not human eyes.

Eyes that seemed to want to torture the mind and body, to take away the freedom of the entire body.

The eyes of a predator, gazing upon its prey, and for an instant, the entire surrounding area was filled with dark life.

“Oh, my mistake-”

The Marquis of Brilkend realised what he had done in an instant and closed his eyes in a panic.

A moment later, his eyes opened again, and they were the eyes of a normal human being.

The Marquis of Brilkend shook his head and muttered to himself.

“I suppose the rise of the Gilded Tower State isn’t necessarily a bad thing- I don’t know- it’s fun to have a variable come along once in a while and muddle things up, rather than have everything go my way- it would be fun to start a war, for a start- and then make the foolish Second Prince king- and then— make the ruler of the north more respectful- hoo-hoo-hoo!”

The Marquis of Brilkend laughed as if he was genuinely amused- his appearance seemed to have been overtaken by madness.

“Eh?”

After laughing for a long time, the Marquis of Brillkend suddenly stopped laughing and his entire body twitched.

Then he frowned.

He sensed a greyish Dark Auror in the far west.

It was not a pure Dark Auror, but a very turbid Dark Auror.

He shook his head as he realised what it was.

“It must be a demon, summoned by foolish humans fed with the blood of their own kind – at any rate, humans who can’t kill their own kind are foolish.”

Saying so, he leaned back in his chair and took a long drink-

And after a moment, there was an aura that suddenly caught his senses.

“This is—!”

The Marquis de Brilkend sprang to his feet in astonishment.

His open senses were alive with a vivid sense of power and darkness that seemed to have no bounds – pure Dark Auror power that no other creature could possibly possess.

Yes, a being with such power was a demon- and it had to be a very high ranking one at that.

“Ew, a demon—-”

The Marquis of Brillkend’s expression contorted as he realised that his opponent was a demon.