Time passed. At night they set up camp, and Ian threw spoons into boiling water.
The girl asked what he was doing, and he answered that he was boiling spoons.
Lucy asked why he was doing that. Were they going to eat them? She imagined the knights enjoying this unusual dish.
After that the knights nearby began whispering about the mage making soup out of spoons.
He called them idiots irritably. He was sterilising them.
Lucy asked what that was, but he was too lazy to explain, and simply told her that it was a kind of sacrament. She would not understand anything even if he did explain.
The knights were delighted by the mere word sacrament. Then they came up to him with pieces of meat and asked him to boil this too.
He looked at them in fury. This was not soup.
After they had finished their meal, Lucy said that she had been thinking about something, and fell silent.
Ian asked indifferently what she was thinking about, and she answered: about his reward. Of course she wanted to give him gold, but he already had more than enough.
He was indignant. He would not mind getting more.
So she had thought about what else might please him, she said. There is one magic sword, Orosil. It was a gift from a fairy to the first Baron Tarian. The baron fell in love with the fairy, and with this sword in his hands he became the saviour of the fairy kingdom. At least, that is what the legend says.
She was delighted, and Ian wondered what kind of fantasy novel this was. He asked that if they had such an amazing magic sword, then why were they still merely barons?
She became flustered, not knowing what to answer, and justified herself by saying that this story was four hundred years old. Besides, Orosil was buried in the tomb of the first baron.
She smiled and added that to get it, he would have to dig up the grave.
The thought of it made him feel creepy. The first baron sealed the sword in his own tomb, and his descendant would just go and dig it up. It really was creepy.
"Do you people treat your ancestors' tombs as time capsules?" he asked.
She did not understand what he was talking about, and he pointed out that it was a magic sword, after all. It sounded like something valuable. Wouldn't it be better for her to use it for her own family? That would be much better than letting it be used by someone who only wanted her title.
She puffed out her cheeks in offence and said that she had not repaid anything yet. But thanks to him, she finally had a chance to fight back. She was so grateful to him for everything. He deserved something equally valuable in return, and that was why she wanted to give him their precious heirloom.
Having blurted this out in embarrassment, she ran off, calling him a fool.
He scratched his head in confusion and realised that he had gone too far.
After that a knight came up to him and said that the count had a favour to ask of him.
Meanwhile, in a nearby village, a young man with a pitchfork was chasing mercenaries away from his chickens. He called them thieves, and one of the mercenaries took offence at the word. Let him just give them three chickens and they would let him go in peace. They still had a battle to go to, and you cannot fight on an empty stomach.
The young man did not know what to say — and suddenly a raven cawed off to one side.
They turned around at once, and the mercenary pointed at the bird sitting on a branch and asked whether that did not look like the raven the magician had.
His friend confirmed it, and the raven flapped its wings, calling for its owner. The mercenaries were very surprised that the raven was talking.
Then Ian came up behind them and called out to them, which made them shudder. Realising that they had been caught doing something not very nice, they slowly turned to face him, and he asked in displeasure what they thought they were doing.
Some time earlier, when he came to the count's tent, the count had said that he had a favour to ask of him. He cleared his throat, and Ian thought that it seemed hard for him to say. What is this favour?
The count said that he wanted him to stop the mercenaries plundering this city.
"Wouldn't the knights be better at this?" Ian asked.
The man looked down and replied that knights often kept quiet, all for the sake of preserving their honour. He had turned a blind eye to what happened to the bandits, but that had been neighbouring territory. If he agreed to help, it would force his men to keep their composure.
And that was why Ian was here now.
The raven on his shoulder cawed menacingly, and he glared at the mercenaries, which made them huddle together in fear. He asked how they could rob houses like that.
The raven cried out that it was time for punishment, and its master threatened to kill them as a warning to the others.
They fell to their knees and begged him for mercy. They had learned their lesson.
After those mercenaries were caught, the others were so frightened that they stopped at once. They could not sleep a wink at night for fear of running into his raven. The count and Lucy were delighted when they heard the news.
However, something unexpected happened. Sir Dekade came to the count with bad news. Their army actually posed no threat at all.
Ian asked how that could be, considering there were over four hundred of them.
That was precisely because their army was harmless. If the army had plundered this territory, the people would have begged Graeme to stop the invasion, since he now held the Tarian title. But since they were proceeding so peacefully, Graeme had been given enough time to gather his forces. Moreover, with their army unable to act, morale had plummeted.
Events took a rather strange turn. Dekade approached the count and asked whether he would allow them to plunder the cities, and the count paused for a moment, then asked the mage for his opinion.
Lucy looked at him hopefully, and he thought for a moment before replying that it was not entirely impossible.
They immediately rejoiced, asking him to tell them the plan quickly. But the mercenaries glanced at him strangely, thinking that he was overconfident.
Some time later, somewhere in Tarian territory, it was early morning, and a man was sleeping peacefully in his house. But he was disturbed by constant cawing. Unable to bear it any longer, he left the house to chase the silly bird away, and immediately bumped into Ian, which made him scream in fear.
He asked excitedly who they were, and Ian, pointing at a poor field, asked whether he owned it.
The man clutched at his heart in fear and asked again who they were, and then one of the knights answered him with displeasure. "This is Lord Ian Alletus Raven, apprentice of the great sorceress."
Realising who he was talking to, he immediately fell at his feet and begged his forgiveness. He had no idea that such a celebrity stood before him.
Ian gave him a haughty look and clicked his tongue, saying that the wheat here was already doomed.
The man looked at him in confusion and asked what he meant by that.
He struck the ground with his staff in rage. "Can't you feel it?" Evil energy permeated these fields. The soul of the first Baron Tarian, whose land had been stolen, was furious.
The man was horrified. He burst into tears and asked what they should do, and Ian waved his staff at him, ordering him to be silent. He closed his eyes as though trying to make out words whispered in his ear, and then suddenly opened them and raised his hand.
"The heavens say that if Lucy Tarian takes the place of the Baroness, the curse will lift."
He suddenly jumped up, sensing evil energy somewhere else, and the man stared after him in shock. He could never have imagined that their lands were perishing because of this usurper.
A short time later, thanks to the rumours Ian had spread, the people of Tarian began to distrust the usurper Graeme. To avoid the disaster hanging over them, they demanded that Lucy take the throne. This boosted the morale of the count's army, and they marched towards the usurper's position.