In the hall of Myco's manor, Tails paused in front of a portrait facing the porch.

"This is Leinster Cavendier. ”

Raphael's voice came from behind him.

The handsome and well-dressed man sits in a red leather chair and plays with a slightly unsheathed dagger—the exposed blade of which radiates cold light, and the tip of the daggard is set with gems.

"One of the six knights of the Revival King, the deadly Iris. ”

Hearing this surname and nickname, Tails was intrigued, and he looked at the tapestry under the frame:

【Leinster S. P· T. Cavendier, 27-20 B.C.

"Seven hundred years ago, he recruited and trained the first batch of professional spies and spies for the sake of Prince Tomund, who had not yet become king, and contributed to the end of the war and the founding of the country, and was the first intelligence director of the kingdom. ”

Raphael stares at the portrait as if he were looking at a real person:

"Recognized as the founder of the Kingdom Secret Branch. ”

The painter's fatal iris is only thirty or forty years old, with a focused expression but a slight frown, revealing a depressed and misty temperament, and there seems to be endless sorrow hidden in his chest, which cannot be resolved.

Let the viewer feel pity.

Leinster Kevendier.

Founder of Secret Branch.

The prince thoughtfully:

"He is also the ancestor of the Cavendier family, the first Duke of the Southbank?"

"Exactly. ”

Tails nodded, didn't say anything, and followed in Raphael's footsteps.

Stepping inside, stepping on the kingdom's common star-blue carpet, the mansion hall presented to Tails was open and bright, a far cry from the stale desolation of the manor.

Tails looked around:

"It seems bigger than it looks from the outside. ”

The sunlight shone through the windows, shining brightly on the wall carpet and the silver double cross on the flag, and there was no expectation of depth and darkness.

"That's thanks to the original owner of this manor, the architectural layout is ingenious, and there are many things inside. ”

Raphael didn't squint and walked non-stop.

"It's a pity that the manor poured blood mold in the bloody year, and it was almost burned to the ground. ”

"Otherwise, it wouldn't have become our headquarters. ”

A few people in civilian clothes sat in the hall busy, some working on papers, some talking in low voices, ignoring them.

There is little difference from an ordinary municipal department.

Almost.

Raphael led the boy into a side hall.

Whether it's the corners, columns, staircase handrails, or even the shape of the ceiling, Tails can see the extravagance and splendor of this place in the past, and the history has precipitated, but Raphael's pace is fast, and he is obviously accustomed to this rhythm.

Until he saw another classical bust in a hallway.

【Halwa · C. M. Kalabyan, 14-65 B.C.

The man in the painting is nearly middle-aged, but there is no twilight between his eyebrows, and he even has a light smile at the corner of his mouth, looking simple and sincere.

It is in contrast to Leinster in the chest of the castle.

"That's the head of Halwa. ”

Noticing that Tails' footsteps slowed down, Raphael glanced at him and revealed the identity of the person in the painting:

"Leinster's deputy and successor. ”

Tails' heart moved.

Raphael nodded slowly:

"Thanks to his talent and persistence, the intelligence network, which was originally in Leinster's private control, did not become a short-lived accident due to its poor reputation after the death of the 'Deadly Iris', but was officially named the 'Kingdom Secret Branch', recruiting talents, customizing the rules, and continuing all the way to this day. ”

Tails' gaze moved to the carpet under the frame, on which was embroidered with a sentence in gold thread, in a simple, half-literate, half-white font, between the Chinese language of the modern emperor and the lingua franca of the contemporary era:

[The eyes and ears of the king, the night whistle of the country, knowing and keeping secrets, the responsibility of my department. 】

Raphael continued:

"Of course, Halwar eventually rose from the position of chief intelligence officer, became an official and became the prime minister of the kingdom above ten thousand people, known as the 'wise minister'. ”

"Wise," Tails repeated as he recalled Gilbert's history lesson, repeating the nickname:

"'Wise Minister' Karabiyan?"

He had a strange look on his face.

"I know what you're thinking. ”

Raphael remembered something and sighed:

"Whenever this nickname is put together with this surname......"

"That's a big contrast, right?"

Tails snorted, then held back the desire at the corners of his mouth, solemnly faced, and continued to move forward.

Their journey was smooth and quiet, passing through countless corridors, not ending in the foyer, and occasionally someone passing by with a stack of scrolls, appearing through one door and disappearing through another, with a hurried pace and a busy state, and only nodding when they met the two of them.

"It seems that there are not many people on duty?" said the prince, curious.

"Whether it's for the accident of a certain prince in the Western Wilderness, or the accident of a certain prince at a banquet, many people have stayed up for days and nights without shifts," Raphael did not care about Tails' face:

"Have pity on them. ”

Tails had to shrug his shoulders in embarrassment.

"But what are we doing here, since Cavendill can't be punished, and you can't do anything about the case. ”

Raphael glanced at him and was about to answer, when a door suddenly opened behind him, and a man stopped them:

"Raphael, the butts are done preparing for the white glove thing, do you want to come and see it?"

As the man said this, his eyes kept glancing at Tails, and he wanted to salute but hesitated.

Raphael was thoughtful, but Tails frowned.

"He said, butt?"

Tails leaned close to Raphael suspiciously and asked in a low voice:

"Butt?"

Raphael turned his head and spread his hands indifferently, as if he didn't see the prince's face:

"It's a special team of mine that told you the full name. ”

"Need to repeat?"

Tails forced himself to squeeze out a smile.

Raphael raised an eyebrow understandingly, and walked back to the man: "Very good, Dani, let's check the procedure, it won't be long." ”

"By the way, put your eyes in a normal place. ”

The man at the door immediately withdrew his peeking gaze at Tails.

Tails was about to follow up, but was blocked by the Bonesman reaching out for him:

"No, I'll be out soon. You just wait for me right here, don't move. ”

Raphael gave him a pleasant smile and closed the door.

Tails, who had stayed in the hallway, rolled his eyes.

Hmph, wipe your ass.

The hallway was still quiet, and Tails was bored, so he simply took a few more steps and looked at the portraits hanging on both sides of the hallway: mostly men in their prime to middle age, either calm and serious, or aggressive.

In contrast, one particular painting caught his eye first:

It was a full-length portrait of a woman.

She is lying on the dark sofa with a stretched posture, her complexion is fair and beautiful, her facial features are deep and intimidating, her clothes are full of exotic style, and she is not afraid to show her slender thighs, showing a sexy and sultry figure.

But unlike the man's blood-soaked posture, the expression on this woman's face was cold and mysterious, and she didn't care about everything around her.

In contrast, Tails looked at her, sometimes as if she was full of charm, and sometimes felt noble and inviolable.

Tails moved his eyes to the bottom of the frame:

[Alve Seldu Ka Mimo Hampour, 39-77]

"This is Alve. ”

A slightly thicker voice came from behind him, with the familiar tone of the Western Wilderness for Tails:

"People call her 'Oriental Beauty', and this is one of the few portraits of her that has not been burned. ”

Tails looked back and was slightly taken aback when he saw someone coming.

"Wait, I know you, you're ......"

Behind him was a well-groomed, slightly darker-skinned man, who saluted Tails as he had done at Camp Bladetooth:

"Contemptible Nobu. ”

"It's an honor to see you again, and I'm glad you're at ease now, Your Highness Tails—or should I say, Duke of Starlake?"

Tails looked at him in amazement, and finally confirmed the identity of the other party:

In the Blade Fang camp, the secret cadre who dared to confront the Wings of Legend in front of thousands of troops.

Nobu.

It's just that......

"Why are you here?"

Tails' gaze subconsciously shifted to Nobu's right leg.

On the surface, nothing unusual was apparent, but the prince noticed that Nobu was holding a cane in his right hand, supporting half of his body.

Nobu smiled faintly, as humble as ever:

"I'm coming back to debrief for the sake of ...... The West Wilderness thing. ”

Tails knew it.

"Yes," Tails hesitated for a moment, but finally couldn't help asking:

"You, how's your leg?"

Nobu is stagnant.

He slowly turned his head, looked at his right leg, and then at his crutches, and his face looked lonely.

"Thank you for your concern. ”

"The secret department has good wound medicine, but it's just ......"

Nobu squeezed out a self-deprecating smile and nodded the cane in his right hand:

"I'm going to have to learn to get used to this. ”

Tails was silent for a moment.

He remembered the scene when Roman brutally broke Nobu's right leg in the desert in order to cover up the news for himself, and suddenly felt a little guilty.

"I'm sorry. ”

Nobu shook his head and put away his low mood:

"It's not your fault. ”

"Besides, if it weren't for this leg," he laughed.

"I guess they won't let me come back so easily, and it's a blessing in disguise, and I don't know. ”

Looking at his self-deprecation and open-mindedness, Tails didn't know what to say.

Nobu, apparently noticing the awkwardness of the atmosphere, quickly turned to look at the woman in the painting, and used the topic to drive away the momentary depression:

"In short, Alf came from the Hembur dynasty in the Eastern Continent and is said to be the exiled vein of 'Great Kadir' Amma Mimo Hampour. ”

Alve.

Tails wondered:

"So, Alve, she's a foreigner, and she's a woman...... Someone from the secret department too?"

Strangely, Nobu shook his head at first, then nodded again.

"After the failure of the Northern Expedition of John I of the 'Black Eye' and the deposition of the 'Wise Minister' Halva, the kingdom's secret department was not trusted, and the future was uncertain and crumbling. ”

Nobu looked at the interracial women in the painting with a deep gaze:

Until Kurome decided to give this little kid to his favorite pillow lover—like a retributive post, or rather, a gift—as a reason to persuade the ministers to keep her around. ”

The King's Lover?

Tails subconsciously turned his head, wanting to take a closer look at this Alve lady.

In the painting, she is still indifferent, her posture is free, and she doesn't care about the eyes of outsiders.

With contempt and hostility from the inside out, Alve resisted the pressure to fight for the budget, reorganize and save the demoralized, dying. ”

Norbu seemed to sigh:

"That's right, in those years, Dongfang Yanying controlled the circulation of intelligence, spread the news network, and was the nameless but real head of the secret department, the head of intelligence. ”

He was silently distracted:

"And she's done a great job. ”

"It's even too good. ”

Therefore, after Heimu's death, she was sent to the guillotine for the crime of murdering the former king, and was spurned by thousands of people. ”

Tails was shocked:

"What?"

Murder of the first king?

Nobu smiled, shook his head, and said:

"It's not her - who can force the ten major families of Exeter to abandon their past suspicions and unite together, and even have to turn to the dragon to avoid the extinction of the country, and the 'black eye' is not the wrong one to believe that the young ones are easy to follow. ”

Nobu took a few steps forward on crutches and pointed to the words embroidered in gold thread under Alve's name:

"Planning is a bitch, don't believe it - even if you've got enough money.] 】

But after Kurome, his three sons inherited his ambitions, but none of them had the great talent of their father. ”

"I know this part, the end of the first century of the end of the calendar," Tails took over his words:

"The three stars are separated, the brothers are on the wall, the earth is torn and the king is fighting, and the war is raging. ”

Nobu nodded, his gaze far-reaching:

"So, when you don't have the corresponding merit and popularity, but you want to overpower the other two, and legitimately wear the nine-star crown left by your father......"

He looked at Alf and said quietly:

"The quickest way is to avenge the king, and if you want to take revenge, ......"

The prince reacted, he raised his gaze in a daze, and took over the conversation:

"You've got to have a murderer first. ”

Tails looked at the charming beauty on the wall.

"I've seen this story. ”

"At the same time, she is favored by the former king and feared by everyone, but she is a beautiful and skillful foreign female spy and ** slut," the young man understood something, and his voice was low:

"There is no better scapegoat for the murder of the kings. ”

Nobu nodded.

The prince gazed at Alve's silhouette, imagining the former alien beauty, unkempt and unkempt, covered in scars and chains, limping and lonely to the guillotine under the cold gaze of the conspirators, and cursing against the fingers of thousands of people.

At that moment, her head was probably held high.

As if guessing Tails' intentions, Nobu took a deep breath and smiled.

"Don't worry, when the 'Taiping King' Kessel I was crowned, ending the three-star division, and the kingdom was reunited, the 'Oriental Shadow' was rehabilitated. ”

Tails felt relieved.

He looked at Alve's most beautiful appearance, and felt a little less sad in his heart.

"So I'm still here, and I'm still here, and I'm still seeing her portrait. ”

But Norbu shook his head in denial.

"Redraw. ”

Tails looked back in surprise.

"By the time this painting was finished, the Oriental Shadow had died," Nobu sighed.

"The painters can only rely on a few memories to restore the former style of her as a woman who traveled to the pinnacle of power and ruled the underground world. ”

"But you can see how they can use their talents and imagination ......"

Looking at Alve, who had been drawn with sultry curves, Nobu shook his head in disappointment.

Both Tails and Nobu were silent for a moment.

After a while, Nobu reacted:

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"yes. Tails said with resentment.

Butts.

The prince looked at the room where Raphael had entered, and shrugged:

He ...... I can't get out for a while."

"In that case," said Nobu, handing out his hand to the next painting in the hallway, amicingly:

"You don't mind?"

Tails nodded, and followed him forward.

It's much more interesting than Bachelor Beauna's grammar lessons, and Raphael's satire.

Nobu raised his hand and reached out to the other side:

"Gamble Tebak, known as 'Darkmoon'. ”

Tails turned his head.

【Gamble M. W· B. Tebak, 137-215]

"Tebak, the ruling family of the Blade Lord, the Blood Moon of Blade City?"

Tails remembered the Duchess Lyanna, whom he hadn't seen in years.

The painter of Gamble is middle-aged, with a fat figure and a noble face, but he puts the weight of his whole body on the cane in front of him, so that he straightens his chest and abdomen, and his smile is a little stiff and funny, and his hairline is lost at the city gate......

In another world, it is probably "not photogenic".

"He was the intelligence chief of three kings in the late second and early third centuries. ”

Nob nodded:

"From Sume I to Elam I, the King of the Ascendant, and even Tormund III, all three kings relied on him as their arm and trusted him. ”

Ascend to the King.

Hearing the familiar name, Tails couldn't help but compare it with Gilbert's history class, and thought of something that was slightly cold.

Norbu with remembrance:

"Don't look at him like this, but for those born in our time, it is difficult for them to imagine the extent of Chief Gamble's contribution to the Kingdom, the weight of its significance, and the depth of its influence. ”

"Why?"

Nobu exhaled:

"For in the history books, all men see only kings and prime ministers, generals and dukes, and lament their farsightedness and great achievements, but they do not know or turn a blind eye to the filth of the night. ”

"It's also hard to imagine how terrible the Sunset Church had in the kingdom in the days before Gamber Tebak—from fiefdoms and succession to weddings and funerals, as well as firewood, rice, oil, and salt. ”

"An order can be changed, and a word can be decided. ”

Tails thought for a moment, and Nobu shook his head:

"At that time, the king's scepter was lighter than the bishop's robe, the loyalty of the people was born of prayer, and the eyes of the gods were mortal fate. ”

The next moment, Nobu raised his head and looked back solemnly:

"But half a century has passed since Gamble took charge of the Secret Branch Auxiliary King, and to the time when he died in glory......

The believers at sunset were divided into two factions, the church and the temple, and there was endless strife and internal strife. ”

"They can no longer interfere with the genealogy of the royal family, let alone interfere in the general policies of the kingdom, let alone dominate the daily lives of the people. ”

Tails frowned, and the Meghan sacrifice that had been told in theology class about the "battle between the elder and the young" appeared in front of him—well, and the nervous little nun.

Eventually, the gods reverted to ethereal, and their devotees had to bow their heads of prayer to the crown of the nine stars, gradually withdrawing from the center of power of the stars. ”

Norbu looked at the mediocre-looking Gamber with a sparkling gaze:

During this period, Gamble was a man of great fame, but he was a great contributor. ”

Really.

Tails stood in front of Gamble's portrait: no one should be a face.

But he said it too early.

Because the next picture that Norbu pointed out to him was a hunchbacked little old man with a vicissitudes of life.

William, 226-306

[It is better to be underestimated than to be feared.] 】

"'Hunchback' William. Nobu introduced.

William in the painting is ordinary and decent, not only is there no brilliance, but he even looks deformed and ugly because of his hunchback.

"The first intelligence chief of a commoner origin—who, as you can see, has no surname—has been at the helm of the secret department for fifty years, from the middle of the third century, and has been conscientious and diligent. ”

Nobu's crutches tapped lightly, and he looked at William's hunchback, as if he felt the same way:

"When people talk about the regent legend of the Empress Dowager Iron Thorn who has survived seven dynasties, they always ignore this low-key servant of her time. ”

Nobu said to himself, ignoring Tails' presence for a moment.

"But it was William, the intelligence director who lacked neither great merit nor noble reputation, who, together with the Empress Dowager Iron Thorn, managed to sustain the weakest, darkest, and most dangerous half century in the history of the Kingdom of Stars. ”

Tails lowered his head, remembering the origin of the Ballard Room.

"Did I make you bored?"

"Of course not," Tails came back to his senses, standard of manners:

"Please continue. ”

Nobu's eyes lit up.

"Ah, I thought of it, this secret ancestor, you must be more interested. ”

He led Tails a few steps forward, past several of the Secret Governors, and stopped beside one of the most remarkable portraits.

Tails was stunned: unlike the other portraits, this one is framed in a silver frame, which is extraordinarily different.

What caught his eye even more was the young woman in the painting.

She sat on a horse, fully armored and ready to carry the reins of the sword, and her expression was confident and calm, as if she was about to rush out of the frame of the picture in the next moment, and pierce the long sword in her hand into the heart of the viewer.

This is the second woman Tails has seen in Myko, after Alve.

More importantly, Tails squinted at the pattern engraved on the lady's armor and was amazed:

There's nothing wrong with that.

Is that......

Nine-pointed star.