Falling petals

How do you know the Language?

"Those things..."
 
"The head butler of Gabriel's estate was left to take care of your clothing necessities after the incident. While gathering clothes for you to wear, he noticed how ruggedly and unwearable the clothes you came back became so he decided to just toss it, however when he got to your clothes he surprisingly noticed it was a bit heavy for such a light dress. so he went and checked the pockets and
what do you think he found?"
 
"..."
 
"This strange vial filled with an unknown liquid, and this file of papers rolled up tightly and hidden away in a inner pocket, it was well hidden too, he almost gave up on searching thinking maybe it was designed to be a bit heavy and he was overthinking it until he found the little pocket and found this hidden stash of objects."
 
"Well-!."
 
'Shit. I reacted too strongly to the stuff in his hands, he knows that I find those objects to be something important; only he doesn't know how important they are.'
 
"For her highness to do something like take a few objects that may weight her down in her escape; it must mean that they are worth taking along. But what objects would be considered worthy enough for her to place her life in risk to grab and drag along?"
 
The feeling of watching her grave being dogged deeper and deeper to the ground paled her complexion close to paper white.
 
Her skills of bullshiting may have met its match with how quick he was putting pieces together before she could interrupt with a lie.
 
'Shit! Have to find something quick!'
 
"Um! I just saw him use a key to open the drawer they were hidden in. In my mind, anything worth hiding in a locked drawer must mean it is something important so that's why I grabbed them when I got the chance!"
 
'Yess!!! How you gonna win against that excuse! It sounds rational and childish at the same time for a kids like me! It doesn't degrade my intelligence too much and matches what a smart kid will say so it should work well.'
 
"I see..."
 
His eyes seem to read her expression and she began to panic with his stare, the others don't seem to understand what Seraph is trying to do but they as well didn't understand why her calm appearance broke a bit when she noticed those files and the vial he placed in the table.
 
"Yup! But let's forget that, let's continue with the rest of the rescue for Adaline."
 
She was trying to act like what he has at hand isn't something she really knows the contents of. So she tried to belittle her interest on it by trying to smoothly switch her attention to what she did after getting those things and leaving to save Adaline.
 
'I can't have him know that I understand what the contents of those files are. If he knew I can read those papers then I'm really done for; a child who only learn the language of humans till now knowing a language of the corrupted beings is too suspicious and impossible.
 
It is well known only those who were raised with the language or has been taken over by a corruption can be able to understand it. If I show even an inkling of being able to read it. Then the question of how I do know will in some way say I had once been "possessed" by the corruption but then the question of when or how did I get "cured" of it. But there will be too many loopholes which I won't be able to catch on and knowing  Uncle Seraph, he will quickly catch them.
 
And if I try to use the excuse of it being revealed in my dreams, then that wouldn't work either because then that means I was seeing from my point of view which again isn't possible if it was a prophecy of the future.'
 
While thinking of all the directions that her answer can lead her, before she can continue with her talk of the Adaline case she was interrupted by Seraph.
 
"The people I had investigate this files said it was of no importance, that nothing special was discussed in it. I'm thankful her highness was thinking of collecting information for us but its fine not to put your life in anymore danger if you ever find yourself in that situation again."
 
'Wait what? Nothing important!? They have information of other hidden bases, even in other empires outside the human territories!'
 
Seraph sighs and grabs the papers he placed in the table, she watches him excuse himself for a moment and head to the fireplace just behind him.
 
"Mihkael, can you turn the fireplace on. I just feel like it's better to dispose of this papers before I forget and just leave it lying around taking space."
 
"Wait!"
 
Seeing her father just nod and really turn on the fire place with his fire. She quickly stood up in fright when seeing it being done so nonchalantly.
 
'Which quack told him those files aren't important! Bring him here so I can beat him up!!'
 
"Are you sure they aren't important? He had them hidden in a locked drawer just beside him!"
 
"I'm sure. The experts I had asked were once possessed by low tier corruption. And I know they have only been possessed maybe a few days and weren't able to fully ingrain the corruption language in their mind, so they had quite the hard time deciphering it. However when just finishing half of the page, they discovered only information of creating a poison in it. And we already learn the type of poison and already had a cure for it a long time ago.
So this has no value at all. So might as well just get rid of it since it isn't anything valuable."
 
'They can't decipher shit!!"
 
Sakura quickly ran to Seraph and grabbed the papers he was just inches away in tossing to the fire.
 
She quickly checked on the papers and sighed in relief that not even the edge was burn.
 
"Why do you say that?"
 
That calm voice caused her to freeze in terror of what she just did.
 
"Oh no..."
 
"Well my dear niece. Why do you say that they can't, how did you say it? Oh, "decipher shit." Hmm?"
 
She clenches her eyes shut and actually prayed for a quick and easy death.
 
"Hmm~?"
 
"Sakura."
 
Hearing Raphael's voice made her feel even worse than she already did.
 
"I won't discuss the language you just used but I do wish to know why you seem to believe that whomever deciphered that is wrong. Will you tell me my dear princess?"
 
Raphael walked to where Sakura ran and kneeled on his left leg while holding her hand that wasn't holding onto the file.
 
She turn away from him so she wouldn't be guilt tripped in speaking anything. She knew she couldn't escape from this, but she'll be damn if she doesn't try to dodge the question as long as she can!
 
"Do you not trust me to tell me?"
 
Hearing how deflated he sound she quickly turn to look at him and regretted taking that look.
 
His beautiful crystal blues eyes seem to have darken to a desolate sight. His expression seemed as if he was trying to smile through his pain and it hit her hard in the chest seeing that dejected appearance of him.
 
He was her weakness and she doesn't know if he knew that or not, but she couldn't keep quiet if it meant he will keep this look.
 
"No! I do trust you! I'll tell you so don't look sad."
 
She gently smoothed the frown away from his face and felt relief when he had his usual smile back.
 
But she knew that even if she said she'll tell him, she'll mostly tell him a lie to follow up with this act of hers rather than the truth.
 
"Then does your highness know what's really written in those papers?"
 
Uriel was startled at the thought she knew and the implication of it if she did.
 
Sakura sighs and didn't deny nor affirm that she did or didn't know. But even if she thinks of it, she can tell this task will be one of the hardest thing to solve.
 
'I don't have a good excuse to explain how I know what's in that paper and my bullshit skills seem to be running dry.'
 
She was thinking of maybe saying she had visions of the point of view of the perpetrators who kidnapped them, but then her going through a lot of hiding  and sneaking while looking for Adaline wouldn't make sense since she should have used those visions as clues to just directly head to the cave and rescue her before she entered it.
 
'Wait! I think I got it!!'
 
"Well.... you guys won't get mad with what I'm going to tell you right?"
 
"We won't. So do tell us our dear princess on what you know of those papers."
 
"... They are coordinates of the hidden bases of those who worship the corruption. 3 in the human territories and 4 more outside the human territory."
 
" So you did know what those papers mean."
 
Seraph sighs and feels a headache form when his suspicions were confirmed.
 
Ariel laughs in disbelief while the rest seem to still process what they just heard.
 
'She knows the language. The hidden language of the corruption! Something even those who have been possessed by a short while aren't able to understand in just a few days.'
 
Seraph actually had 3 men who were controlled by a mid-tier corruption once  and then purified to try and decipher the hidden language.
 
They couldn't get much but had a rough understanding that those documents in their hands are coordinates, but to where? They cannot find out because of how complex the language was. Those who have been controlled for a long time; was once possessed by a high tier corruption or was raised to learn the language at a young age would be able to read it and maybe even write it.
 
However they didn't have someone who was raised with the language or controlled and purified from a high-tier corruption. Even those mid-tier ones that was once controlled haven't been in control for too long so that's why deciphering anymore that what they did is such a short time will be a challenge.
 
Yet Seraph had a feeling that Sakura may have known what was in those files because of what one of the men said about the papers.
 
***
"It seems she selected which ones to grab."
 
"Why you say that?"
 
"Because of this sir."
 
The man points at the middle of the page and there is a figure of some letter or number there.
 
"What is it?"
 
"Well from the bit of memories that are still in my head, they actually put the number of pages in the middle of the paper, to hide it in all the words or numbers of their files to confuse others. The only reason I know this was because I was close to mid-tier 4 stage of the corruption. So I received a bit of more information."
 
If the man hadn't told Seraph he would have just seen the paper and thought it was just a long word or maybe a small one that was in the middle of a sentence, and not a number indicating the page number.
 
"Here it says page 5."
 
"If you can read the numbers then how is it hard for you to decipher the coordinates of whatever it is directing to?"
 
The man smiles in a self mockery when hearing those words.
 
"Because when they write numbers together, they fuse the numbers in a way that you can't tell if it means a 51 or a 98. Now imagine a bunch of jumbled numbers like that, you wouldn't be able to tell which is the first number, much lest the last one. The only reason I can tell this one is because it's just one number."
 
"I see."
 
"But going back to why I believe her highness may have selected which ones to take. It is because there are a few pages missing."
 
"Missing? Maybe she just grabbed whichever she can and ran."
 
"But if she did so, then it should be just her grabbing it in an orderly manner and no Pages would be missing, maybe the last few pages but there are gaps to them. For example we have pages 1 and 2 but don't have 3 or 4;  yet again we have 5 yet not six and 7 but then we have 8, 9 but then no 10 yet 11 and the last one which is 12 I think. If she just grabbed it, then it should be 1 through 12 or whatever."
 
"!! I see. I understand what you're saying."
 
"That's why sir. Can it be she was selecting them?"
 
The man said that with even shocking himself when he things more deeply at the thought.
 
"For now do not speculate. Even more so do not tell a soul yet. Understand?"
 
"Yes sir!"
 
The man bows and heads back to continue with working on a copy of the papers with the other two men.
 
While Seraph sits alone looking at the papers in front of him. His own thoughts hard to decipher.
***
 
'I was actually hoping she wouldn't react to my bluff, yet she very well knew what the papers signified and quickly stopped me from burning them. Yet even I didn't know how important they were and what the coordinates meant.'
 
"How do you know that?"
 
Seraph looked at her with more seriousness then at the beginning.
 
"How do you know how to read it, it shouldn't be possible to know at all, especially one who shouldn't have even an ounce of knowledge of the corruption other than that in your "dreams" and even then, you seem to have enough knowledge to rival those taken controlled by those of a high-tier corruption."
 
"... haahh~"
 
Seeing her sigh to his words in a defeated tone made everyone in the room understand that she can actually read the language of the corruption and even at a high level!
 
"Your right. I do know the language and can read it, even write it if needed to."
 
"!!! How!?"
 
Even Ariel was startled at how advance her understanding was..
 
She looks up and smiles warily at them.
 
"Looks like I can't keep quiet on this one. Well, I'll tell you."
 
 
A/N: aaand cliffhanger!! Hello author here! Gotta say that I truly sorry for the slow updates and my weak writing. I just don't know how far I'll head with this story and seeing the number of chapters I'm at now makes me wonder how I reached this far. Sorry for the procrastination but knowing me, I may just continue on like this. Sorry for that haha! Well till the next chapter.