Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 469 - 84 Soul Search

Once the Dragon of Imagination explained the situation, Aske and Medea came to understand, it turned out they had misunderstood.

The Frankish custom of bestowing the names of elders, nobles, and historical heroes upon the young meant there were many "Ottos," "Henrys," "Hermans," and so on.

The Bruno that Marquina had spoken of was not this demigod proficient in the domain of mind and dreams, the Dragon of Imagination, but instead another young man of the same name.

Following the Dragon of Imagination into a certain tent, the two saw Bruno, who was being guarded by the Blade Warrior.

This man was no stranger. Aske had encountered this Guard Officer when he had had an audience with the Emperor. It was said he was a rather outstanding young member of the Saxon Family, also the Emperor Otto’s own nephew, currently serving as a personal Guard Officer to the Emperor.

Upon reflecting, it was clear that the most likely to influence a leader was indeed a secretary.

"Your Excellency," the young man named Bruno greeted with a bitter smile as the Dragon of Imagination entered, "have you finally got the time to examine me?"

"You don’t seem to be afraid," Aske noted curiously.

"There’s nothing to be afraid of; I am merely a victim of Extraordinary Ability," the Guard Officer replied calmly, "If indeed it was due to me that the Emperor was subjected to subtle, long-term misdirection, wouldn’t that make me a criminal of the Saxon Family? With that in mind, it’s all the more important to clarify the truth of the matter as soon as possible."

"Even if the examination itself requires exposing your memories and may cause certain damage to your mind?" Aske asked.

"Of course," the Guard Officer affirmed firmly, "the interests of the family come before personal benefit. My sacrifice would be worthwhile."

Well, this too was typical of the Frankish nobility—placing the family above all else.

Since the one being examined had no objections, Aske signaled for Medea to proceed with the Mind Reading.

The ease of employing the Mind Reading Ability from the Mind Sequence was greatly related to the innate strength of the subject. For instance, someone like a demigod with ample and sensitive Spirituality could usually detect and resist mind-reading attempts by low-level Transcendents with ease.

Lower-level Transcendents were comparatively more passive. However, those with inherent strong Spiritual Power or those who had received special and rare training also tended to have some degree of resistance to Mind Reading. For example, player forums had tutorials for so-called "Brain Sealing Techniques," which involved confusing the results of mind-reading with a multitude of miscellaneous thoughts.

The Guard Officer before them, without a doubt, was the type of target that Mind Reading witches preferred: inexperienced, unguarded, laying open his thoughts without reservation, displaying his memories as openly as a book, effortless to read.

The topmost layers held guilt and fear.

Medea read his current thoughts; one was guilt, the other was fear. He feared that he indeed might have influenced the Emperor’s Mind without his knowledge and felt profound guilt for it.

Delving deeper, away from the active consciousness of the Guard Officer, one could see his surface Memory Fragments floating like bubbles in the sea, all appearing similarly bright and colorful at first glance, with no obvious differences on the surface.

Medea quickly captured enough memories to piece together the young man’s life like a puzzle.

Quite uneventful.

The life of an uneventful man named Bruno.

Born into a noble family in the Lorraine Duchy, because he was mature and sensible from an early age, his parents sent him to the Court...

Of course, not as a eunuch.

The Frankish people didn’t have a tradition of polygamy. There were no harems, and thus no need to create eunuchs to deal with such matters in harems. In short, Bruno quickly gained the attention and favor of his uncle, Emperor Otto, due to his outstanding administrative abilities and was promoted to serve as the Emperor’s Guard Officer.

That is what’s known as the executive secretary.

After reviewing these memories from beginning to end, Medea still had not found the source of the infection. The previously mentioned oriole had been recently infected, which caused slight discomfort and abnormalities in her mind body, and this guy was clearly infected long ago. The point in time may have to be traced back several years, so much so that it was submerged in layers upon layers of deep memories.

Of course, there is a distinction between shallow and deep memories. Shallow memories are those that people can recall, appearing in the subconscious ocean as shining bubbles.

Deep memories, on the other hand, are those that people believe they have forgotten, some still having scant adhesion to the mind body, meaning they might be recalled at some future time, while others have completely disconnected from their being, scattered deep within the subconscious ocean, which is to say, utterly forgotten.

Medea could not ascertain whether the problematic memories had been completely forgotten. However, now that she found nothing in the shallow memories, she had no choice but to continue probing deeper levels of memories.

These memory fragments were more chaotic and disorganized, completely unrelated to one another, mostly just an image, a thought, a stretch of sound. Searching like this was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack, yet it seemed there was no better method.

Mind power extended its tentacles into the ocean, struggling to collect one memory fragment after another.

Some were of him being scolded by his superior, chastised like a foolish dog; some were of him waking up early in the morning to see a stray cat squatting in the roadside shrubbery; and others were of him flirting with a female court official.

Huh?

Medea suddenly noticed one of the memory fragments. This fragment... it was obviously too large, it shouldn’t be called a fragment, it was closer to the bubble shape of a shallow memory.

Perhaps it had just been forgotten from the shallow memories?

She reached out with her mind tentacles and fished it out, discovering it was a dynamic scene:

It had snowed.

In the court of the Aachen Palace, winter snow had draped thick silver coats over the walls and trees. A courtly and glamorous woman stood in the snow, with a maid by her side holding an umbrella for her.

"Your Majesty," Guard Officer Bruno bowed to her.

The "Your Majesty" here, naturally, was not referring to the Emperor, but to the Queen. This meant that this woman was Emperor Otto’s wife, Theophano, the Queen from the East Solomon Empire.

As Medea pondered this, she saw Theophano begin to speak:

..........

Static?

What Theophano had said was incomprehensible in Bruno’s memory, manifesting as a series of white noise. But the abnormality soon appeared, a faint pain rose from the memory, as if Bruno was beginning to suffer from a headache, with what felt like a nerve searing in his mind.

This was a phenomenon of mental interference! Since Bruno himself did not have a rank, lacking enough spirituality to resist extraordinary abilities, his mind body began exhibiting symptoms of discomfort due to the brute interference!

Medea quickly withdrew from the other’s mind body and saw Aske and the Dragon of Imagination staring intently at her, while the young guard officer sitting in the chair was panting heavily, looking utterly drained.

"Did you find any clues?" Aske asked.

The Dragon of Imagination remained silent, casually bursting another phantasm that rushed from behind, and then waited for her answer.

"Hmm..." Medea fell silent for a moment. Of course, she would not be foolish enough to utter that name here (after all, both the Blade Warrior and the Guard Officer himself were present), and indicated with a glance outside.

Let’s talk outside.

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