Cthulhu Gonfalon

By the time the two sides started debating, the situation leaned to one side.

Romon was so eloquent as to refer to bad things and good ones, smelly things and fragrant ones, black things and white ones, and dead things and alive ones. In contrast, Steele was clever and could articulate, but was far less comparable to him.

From the very beginning of the debate, Steele was far inferior to Romon because every one of her reasons was objected to and she was awkward after being criticized. Occasionally, she seized the opportunity to refute a little bit, but she would definitely fall into the trap prepared by Romon and become more embarrassed.

Not only that, when Romon performed very well, there were a few aristocrats and representatives, whom he had bought in advance, that clapped for him. Every time they clapped, those aristocrats and representatives who supported Steele seemed more upset, and at last they all had sullen faces. Sui Xiong suspected that if not for the rules, they would have left long ago.

This scene could only be described as miserable because aristocrats and representatives were all shaking their heads. Even Steele knew that she would be defeated, but she kept holding on because she did not want to lose everything.

“Oh! A professional player indeed outperforms a child!” Sui Xiong could not help but sigh, “One side can always pay attention to other situations under such a high intensity, and he is a master who can accurately know the cooling time of his skills with half a second as the unit. The other side is so weak that she can only bury herself in marching forward. Romon is too boring because he just shows off his skills when he outperforms a weak player. He just pretended to be outperformed by Steele… ”

“Pretending to be outperformed by Steele?” Ray asked confusedly. “I have not seen Steele fight back.”

Sui Xiong laughed loudly. The debate was over, and even the aristocrats and representatives did not even have to consult with each other. It was known by seeing each other’s eyes that everyone had made the same choice. The aristocrats, who had been bought beforehand by Romon, were even congratulating each other on the upcoming success and were ready to congratulate Romon.

The old baron asked people’s opinions to confirm the suspicions of everyone. Then he cleared his throat and announced the result.

“The result of this contention of succession is that Romon has won, and that he will inherit the title of viscount of Geerteng and become the new lord of the land. Steele will be deprived of her aristocracy and driven out of the territory of Geerteng.” He looked around the audience with a solemn look, “Now, who will pose objection to this result?”

Almost immediately, the voice of Olian sounded under the stage, “I object to it!”

After people heard her voice, the whole venue fell silent even though it had been a bit noisy.

Many aristocrats on the high platform were suspicious, and they muttered amongst themselves. Aristocrats who supported Romon all seemed angry, but they didn’t dare to act rashly.

A person who dared to make trouble on this occasion would be a fool, but certainly they must be supported by somebody. But no one could understand where her confidence came from that made her disregard the universal opinion.

The old baron, who was the host, was also surprised for a moment. He felt a kind of scare and thought a bit just before he got angry. So he hurriedly suppressed his anger, and allowed the questioner to go up to the stage to speak in accordance with the rules.

Olian slowly went up onto the platform. At this most crucial moment, she, however, had completely calmed down without the slightest panic on her face. She was so calm that she seemed to be leisurely taking a stroll in the court.

When she came to the center of the platform and was side by side with Romon and Steele, the old baron asked, “Tell us your position before you speak, and why do you pose an objection?”

“I’m Olian Geerteng, a member of the Geerteng family, and I am speaking here as a family member,” Olian replied calmly. “I question Mr. Romon’s descent. The territory of Geerteng shall not be inherited by an outsider.”

“Nonsense!” A big and tall aristocrat suddenly stood up and shouted loudly, “We ourselves verified Romon’s identity, and it is absolutely true!”

He was one of the aristocrats that Romon had bought off in advance. Seeing that a questioner rose to pose an objection before the final decision, he rose to show that his deeds were absolutely worth the benefits he gained.

His noble title was not high, but his personal strength was extremely powerful. As he spoke, his eyes were wide and round, with his body bursting into a violent momentum. He was like a tiger running down a hill. Although he was far away, he seemed to have forced himself to the center of the high platform and wanted to oppress Olian to force her to withdraw.

Forced by this momentum, Steele felt her legs, weakened and paralyzed, and she fell to the wet ground. Romon’s face was also slightly pale. He couldn’t help but retreat a bit, barely maintaining his grace.

But for Olian, who once battled the dragon, the momentum was nothing. Even if more than half of the momentum was directed at her, she would not be impacted at all. She looked into the eyes of the strong aristocrat and spoke calmly like a soft breeze, “I certainly have evidence, as we shouldn’t have a loose tongue when talking about things like this.

“Uh-huh!” hummed the strongman who looked more like a bear than a man. He looked around but found no helpers, so he could only hum and sit down again, “I’m waiting to see your evidence. If it cannot convince me, even though you are a woman, you cannot escape sanctions!”

Saying this, he hit the desk in front of him with his fist heavily. His tremendous force not only smashed a crack on the solid wooden table but also made the entire platform tremble. Because of that, a lot of aristocrats with lower levels of power frowned. If this human-shaped “bear” really got mad on the stage, everyone would be in danger!

“You said you had evidence, then show it,” the old baron tried to calm down his tone, but his knitted brows and dignified eyes showed his displeasure.

He thought the debate would have already ended well, so why should a troublemaker come here? And the reason was that she questioned Romon’s pedigree… If she verified her accusation, aristocrats who inspected and recognized Romon’s pedigree, including him, would become a joke, wouldn’t they?

Olian nodded slightly, and walked aside a little, keeping a distance from Romon. She put on a look of being afraid of Romon hitting her out of anger and embarrassment.

Her action was too obvious, making people all frown again. Romon was dumbfounded. He was not crazy, so no matter what kind of questions he was faced with, he was not likely to hurt others!

If he hit her, it would verify the question and would cause tremendous trouble for him afterwards even if he could live through today’s affair. Not to mention that a man who dared to hurt others on this high platform that symbolized the nobility and tradition must be deprived of inheritance even if his pedigree was genuine!

For example, the stupid woman next to him wouldn’t inherit the title even if now he was deprived of the right of succession because of the fact that she had fallen to the ground due to being paralyzed with fear.

After all, honor and decency were valued most by the aristocracy. A person who lost their decency at a crucial time was not eligible to become a successor.

Moreover, he did not believe this girl could have any way to reveal his identity. For so many years, the ceremony of blood inheritance had been used by the aristocrats of all parties an unknown number of times, but no one had revealed his true identity.

After Olian stood still, a beam of light flashed on her wrist, and a grey scroll that exuded a crystal blue light appeared on her hand.

“A spell of ‘Magic Disintegration’ is sealed in this scroll that can undo any magical effect, and nothing would be an exception whether it comes from the spell itself, from magic props, or from a ritual.”

Romon was astonished and almost fell off the stage. He never dreamed that the Geerteng family actually still had such a foundation: a girl of the collateral branch whose origin was unknown was actually able to show the legendary magic scroll!

Could it be that among the previous viscounts of the Geerteng family, there was one who had actually an excellent friendship with a great legendary mage, and the mage made this scroll especially for them?

Maybe… the legendary mage was now hiding in the darkness, and he instructed the little girl to come forward and safeguard the inheritance of the Geerteng family?

But then he immediately expelled these ridiculous thoughts out of his mind because he didn’t need to scare himself as the origin of the scroll was unknown. There were many such things in casinos. Obviously someone had good poker cards, but was scared by others who had bad ones. He couldn’t make such a mistake!

A scroll of legendary spells? How could one so easily appear!

As a senior cheater, he had an excellent ability to control his facial expression. Even if he thought of an idea several times in his mind, his face was completely blank, so that the aristocrats, who were originally suspicious after hearing the questioning from Olian, felt suspicious again. The aristocrats bought off by Romon were also taking the opportunity to whisper, disrupting people’s hearts.

“This girl is just speaking nonsense, isn’t she?”

“Yes… How can her ‘scroll of legendary spells’ possibly exist. Even though my family is also considered a big aristocracy, we have never seen one in our lives.”

“Legendary mages are beyond our imagination! You can boast about it for the rest of your life even if you can meet him and talk for awhile. The scroll of legendary spells? Not all legendary mages are able to make a scroll of legendary spells!”

Of course, somebody was seriously discussing…

“Is she faking the scroll by using ‘Advanced Magic of Disintegration?’ Theoretically it can also get rid of magical effects and temporarily suppress magic props…”

“But if you want to get rid of the effect of ceremony, I am afraid we must use legendary spells. Otherwise, how could the ceremony of blood inheritance be—”

“Be discreet in saying things!”

“Yes, this is something that we shouldn’t talk about… I was confused…”

In the face of the crowd ‘s gaze and suspicious eyes, Olian seemed calm and raised the scroll over her head. “I’ll activate the scroll, and everyone will naturally understand whether what I said was true or not. Now I’m going to activate this scroll.”

“No!” The bear-like man quickly shouted. “Who knows what a scroll you are holding! If it is a powerful scroll of Attack Spell and it is activated, at least half of us will die since we are so close to it!”

Olian sneered, “If anyone worries that it is a scroll of Attack Spell, you can now leave.”

In the face of Olian, who was holding the slightly shining scroll and might activate it at any time, even the man as strong as a bear could not help but become prudent, and he was afraid to act rashly.

Knowing that he had limited intelligence and could not think of any good solutions, he turned his head and winked toward the ‘respectable” aristocrat next to him.

That old aristocrat was really smart because he came up with an idea after he turned his head. He said quietly, “I think it’s not appropriate because we all have life-saving magic props, and your ‘Magic of Disintegration’ can get rid of the effect of all of our magic props… This loss is too big!”

“You guys can give the magic props to people who are trustworthy, and have them leave with the props.” Olian maintained her position of holding up her scroll, and her look remained unchanged.

“This is impossible!” There was a triangular-faced representative shouting, “Without our protective magic props, what will we do in case there are assassins? Maybe you are simply on the assassin’s side!”

This person was also bought off in advance by Romon so that he would frame others when necessary. Originally he was just on standby, but now he really played his role.

Since he had begun, the aristocrats and representatives, who had decided to support Romon’s succession, followed one after another by claiming that they were of great honor and were in danger of being assassinated at any moment. Further, they claimed that Olian harbored sinister intentions by asking them to unload their magic props so as to collude with assassins in murdering them!

For some time, the situation on the platform was somewhat disorderly, while Romon secretly smiled.

He thought that was it. The more chaos the better! As long as the situation was complicated, they could get a chance to seize the girl before she activated the scroll, and all her questions would be in vain if the scroll couldn’t be activated, regardless of whether the scroll was the legendary ‘Magic of Disintegration’ or not.

But he was happy too early. At this moment, Ray, who had been silent, stood up, took a deep breath, and roared—

“Keep quiet!”