Chapter 1223 — Ancestor and Descendant

It was not a polite remark but the old mage's true thought. Victoria could tell as much, and so did not insist. Mo Jin walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed, then pointed to the chair by the desk and nodded to Victoria: "Sit."

Victoria sat down facing Mo Jin. After the creak of wood rubbing against wood, the little hut fell quiet for a time. She looked at the old man before her, pondering how to keep the conversation going, while the names of Hedy and Rebecca surfaced in her mind—she finally understood what a complex and wondrous feeling it must have been for the Xuanmai Sect to face him across the centuries. Facing a blood kin in theory and a stranger in practice, it seemed that no matter how she opened her mouth, she would sound insufficiently thoughtful...

So how had Hedy and Rebecca gone about breaking the ice when they first saw the ancestor rise from his coffin? How had they made the atmosphere less awkward?

Victoria suddenly rather regretted not having consulted Lady Hedy carefully on this subject before setting out. At the time Hedy had been busy with affairs, and she had only managed a few words with Rebecca over the magic-net terminal—but what the princess had said then had only left her more confused. Things like "when your brain doesn't react, your hands have already moved," "the key is to back off fast enough," "best if you can take a beating"... She understood none of it.

Countless thoughts churned in Victoria's mind, yet the expression on her face remained utterly still, maintaining its usual ice-bound composure. Looking at such a "descendant," Mo Jin suddenly felt a bit of a headache. He had not expected that the one to appear before him would be a woman so severe and unsmiling—how utterly unlike his own temperament. How had such an evidently unsociable disposition been educated into her?

But on reflection, he seemed to have no right to speak on the matter—after all, by Victoria's account, he was already her "ancestor" of six hundred years past. On the subject of educating one's descendants... he really had no standing to open his mouth.

Fortunately, in the end it was the old mage who spoke first, breaking the silence in the little hut: "Victoria, is it? What is your surname?"

Victoria: "..."

Mo Jin: "..."

"The same surname as yours, only..." Extreme embarrassment once again nearly pierced through Victoria's dozen-odd layers of mental defense. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, and it took great effort for her to speak while maintaining her expressionless look. "I was instructed not to casually reveal matters concerning the surname to you—it seems to stimulate your 'memory fault.'"

"Ah, ah, that's right, I remember now," Mo Jin said, clapping a hand to his head with some embarrassment. "I do recall that Heragor reminded me about this not long ago—that there is a 'fault' in my memory system, and that once key information is touched upon, it causes my consciousness to break off and reset. Well, that was my oversight."

As he spoke he began to laugh, and it seemed the earlier awkward, rigid atmosphere had thinned considerably thanks to this little interlude: "Then let me ask something else... What is it you do? Your family—that ought to count as my family—what is its situation now?"

"I... mostly manage. Mm, manage a great deal of land. Many people depend on that land for their livelihood," Victoria said, rather stiffly. After all, she had never before considered describing her ordinary life and the people around her in such a way. "Your descendants have done fairly well for themselves in this generation. Besides me, some have joined the army, or run their own estates. Most of the young ones are still studying. One of the most gifted is my nephew; he is studying in the imperial capital..."

Mo Jin stared, feeling only that all these things seemed very, very far from him. That sense of unreality surged up once more, and he muttered unconsciously: "An old fellow who goes adventuring all over the place—how did I suddenly come to have such a heap of descendants who sound so impressive?"

Victoria seemed not to have caught it: "What did you say?"

"Ah, nothing," Mo Jin waved his hand hastily, then looked at Victoria with some curiosity. "It all sounds far from simple—estates and land both. But I'm all the more confused. What is it you actually do day to day... It sounds like farming? But a bit more impressive than that..."

"Er, a bit more impressive than that," Victoria said with difficulty. She was truly not good at communicating in this manner, but at this moment she had to think swiftly about how to explain her own affairs to her ancestor while giving him not the slightest cause to think of the great behemoth of the north, the Wilde family. "I do not work the land myself. I merely manage vast tracts of land, and also manage all the industries upon that land..."

Mo Jin listened earnestly, but suddenly his brows drew together, and the gravity in his expression gave Victoria a start. She stopped speaking at once: "Ancestor, is something wrong?"

"You mustn't go breaking the law now," Mo Jin said suddenly, apropos of nothing. "This is no laughing matter."

Victoria was utterly bewildered. "Huh?"

"I may wander about aimlessly most of the time, but I do know the laws promulgated by the Empire and the policies published by the government affairs hall," Mo Jin went on, watching Victoria with a grave expression—at that moment he truly looked like an old man worrying that his descendant might stray onto a crooked path. "Child, secretly appropriating land and monopolizing business are against the law!"

Victoria: "...?"

It took her a full two seconds to react, and then, with immense awkwardness (though none of it showed on her face), she explained, "No, you've misunderstood. I'm only responsible for managing those—the land belongs to the state, the businesses belong to others, I merely manage them. Of course, our family has some holdings of its own, but that hardly counts as annexation or monopoly—everything is done on a lawful basis..."

The grand duchess who ruled the entire Northern Region was, for the first time in her life, at something of a loss. Mo Jin's brow, however, gradually smoothed out; at last the old mage nodded, having understood everything. "That's a relief to hear... Ah, I've got it now—I know what you do. You work at the government affairs hall, don't you?"

"Uh..." Victoria was taken aback for a moment, then swiftly embraced this brand-new line of thinking and nodded repeatedly. "Yes, I work at the government affairs hall—I have to show my face there almost every day, and sometimes I even bring documents home to deal with..."

"Then you've got it rough," Mo Jin said, finally smiling again, and there was even a touch of gratification in that smile. "Still, it's good for young people to work hard—it builds something for the life ahead... By the way, from what you're saying, you're actually an official at the government affairs hall?"

"That... I suppose so," Victoria said, nodding stiffly. "A... well, an ordinary administrative staff member..."