Please Answer Me - Chapter 111

“Hmm, yeah. They were so desperate to get their hands on it, and now they’re telling us to dump it…”

One man muttered, resting his chin on his hand. Before long, the two of them exchanged knowing smiles. They had grown up together in the same village since they were very young. By now, they could read each other’s minds just by looking at each other.

“We’re dumping it anyway, taking a few won’t be noticeable.”

“Since we’ve come all this way, let’s take these to Edirne. Someone there will surely know what this is and how much it’s worth.”

“Let’s leave the wagon. It will draw too much attention.”

The two men took a few stones from the sacks, tied the sacks back up, and rode off on their horses, disappearing into the night.

***

In just one day, the atmosphere in the castle had completely changed. With just one person’s departure, the entire place felt empty and desolate. The three people gathered in the garden felt a chilly tension between them.

“…Asion had his reasons for keeping her identity a secret until the end. No wonder it seemed suspicious that someone who had just returned from Lysa knew Rigaina personally,” Mark remarked.

Thelma and Benny immediately turned to look at him.

“Mark, did you already know something?” Thelma asked.

“Uncle, did you know about Rigaina and kept it to yourself?” Benny added, eyes wide with surprise.

Mark quickly raised his hands in defense. “It’s not like that. I just knew about the bride being switched. I swear! I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner!”

Thelma and Benny, who felt betrayed, sighed heavily. There was no use berating him now.

Yesterday, Rashid had called the three of them to his room. As they were the closest to her, he felt they deserved to know the shocking truth: Rigaina is not the daughter of the Basque tribe chieftain but a princess. And not just any princess—she is the princess of Lysa.

Mark was left speechless, Thelma staggered in shock, and Benny, though she quickly supported Thelma, felt like collapsing herself. It still didn’t feel real that the princess of Lysa had been staying there for a month.

“It would have been nice if she had said goodbye before leaving. So sudden…” Benny murmured, feeling a pang of regret.

Even knowing the circumstances, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

“Is this the end? Will she never come back?” Benny asked, but no one could answer her. Perhaps even their Riga didn’t know.

“Does Sika still not know that Rigaina has left?” Mark asked.

Benny nodded. “How could I tell him? He’s not fully recovered yet. Rigaina did visit him a few times, but he was always asleep. At first, he seemed a bit hurt that she wasn’t visiting, but now he’s starting to get suspicious. He keeps asking if she’s really in the castle.”

“Knowing his temper, if he doesn’t find out soon, he’ll likely storm out of bed to check himself. You should tell him when the time is right,” Mark advised.

“I will.”

Mark then turned to Thelma. “Thelma, how is Riga?”

“I’m not sure. He seems fine, but at the same time, not fine at all…”

He hadn’t even gone to see her off. At some point, he had disappeared. Mark had later informed them that he had ridden off on his horse. When he returned, it was already dark. No one dared to ask where he had been. His expression had been too dark and exhausted, his mood deeply sunken.

Today, he had thrown himself into his work in a frenzy. After sending the Basque tribesmen back to their territory in the morning, he had shut himself in his office. When Thelma brought him food, he was buried in documents, as if he intended to work himself to death.

“Just let him be. He probably needs something to distract himself. Make sure to take care of his health,” Mark said.

“Of course,” Thelma nodded.

“And Benny, focus on nursing your boyfriend back to health.”

“Of course, I’ll… What are you talking about!” Benny sputtered, punching Mark for teasing her.

As Thelma was about to leave, they saw someone running frantically towards the office. The man wore the uniform of the town’s constable.

“Looks like something happened in the village,” Mark muttered, clicking his tongue. Thelma thought the same. The constable running like that usually meant serious trouble.

***

“An explosion?” Rashid questioned, his tone sharp.

The constable, catching his breath, replied, “Yes, multiple buildings were destroyed in an instant. We’ve managed to extinguish the fire, but there are still people trapped under the debris.”

Rashid immediately turned to a servant nearby and commanded, “Send doctors, workers, and all necessary rescue equipment there immediately.”

“Yes, sir!” The servant ran out swiftly. Rashid then continued his interrogation with the constable.

“A sudden explosion in buildings… was there any gunpowder stored there?”

“That’s the strange part. From what people have said, there was no smell of gunpowder. We haven’t found any traces of it either.”

“No gunpowder… that’s even more peculiar,” Rashid mused.

Gunpowder was one of the items rigorously inspected at the gate. Therefore, it was hard to believe that enough gunpowder to destroy several buildings could have been smuggled into the middle of the town. Additionally, gunpowder was an extremely difficult material to obtain. The fact that such a large explosion occurred without any trace of gunpowder made the situation even stranger.

Rashid decided this was no matter to be left to others. He stood from his chair. “I’ll go there myself.”

When Rashid arrived at the scene, the area was filled with rubble from collapsed buildings. Injured people lay bleeding around the site. Rashid first sought out the families of the victims to offer his condolences, assuring them that they would recover the bodies quickly, provide temporary housing for those who had lost their homes, and ensure proper medical treatment for the injured.

Then, Rashid, accompanied by the constable, moved to the site where the explosion was believed to have originated.

“This was a blacksmith’s forge?”

Half-finished metal items were scattered around. At the center, where the forge had once stood, there were splatters of blood and pieces of flesh. It was clear that the explosion had originated there.

“Yes, it’s where they mainly made tools and household items. Since they worked with fire, it’s possible the blacksmith made a mistake, causing the explosion… Ugh!”

“No! It wasn’t my father’s fault!” a boy suddenly shouted, charging at the constable. The boy, around Sika’s age, had a bleeding arm.

“I saw it! I saw it! It wasn’t my father’s fault. Those men threw a stone into the forge, and it exploded. It’s true!”

“How could a stone cause an explosion?” the constable scoffed, pushing the boy away, who fell to the ground.

“Don’t mind him, sir. He’s been making up stories to cover for his father, saying it was some stone that caused it…” the constable explained dismissively.

“What did you say?” Rashid asked, directing his attention to the boy. The boy, tears streaming down his face, wiped them away roughly with his sleeve.

“Some men came to the forge this morning. They showed my father a strange stone and asked if he knew what it was. When my father said he didn’t, they got angry and threw it into the forge. There was a huge explosion right after that…”

“How are you still alive if that’s true?” the constable demanded.

“I was outside, gathering wood for the charcoal,” the boy answered defiantly.

A man from the crowd watching the scene stepped forward.

“Boy, did those men have an accent from the western coast?”

The boy nodded vigorously. “Yes, they spoke like people from the coast.”

The man then turned to Rashid and bowed. “Riga, the boy is telling the truth. This morning, two men came to my jewelry shop with a similar stone, asking if I knew what it was and if I wanted to buy it. I threw them out, thinking they were mad.”

Rashid began to piece together the mystery of the explosion. Without the information Rosetta had shared about Magic Stones, he might not have understood at all.

“Search the forge for anything unusual left behind,” Rashid ordered.

Several men sifted through the blackened remains of the forge and brought back three black stones.

“That’s it!” the boy exclaimed. The jeweler also confirmed that these stones matched the ones shown to him.

Rashid examined the stones closely, recalling Rosetta’s words on their return from the lake.

“When not glowing, they look like ordinary black stones. Once they become safe, they turn red. Until then, they need to be handled with extreme caution.”