Chapter 186

Translator: Willia

“We don’t even know whether Dunkel is his real name. There’s extremely little information on him. All we managed to find out is that he was active in the Benzinen Brotherhood before he began working under Court Count Hellauman.”

Paolo spoke. Ricardt, Bori, Ice, and Roy were listening.

“If even the Benicio Trading Company doesn’t know, isn’t that pretty much the end of the road?”

Bori sounded skeptical. The reason was simple: the Benicio Trading Company was no ordinary merchant company.

Anyone in the know was aware that the Benicio Trading Company was, in truth, an extremely frightening organization.

On the surface, of course, it was merely a trading company, but in reality it had informants scattered throughout the world, would do anything to further its own interests, and even manipulated lords from behind the scenes.

Even Paolo did not know the full truth about the company. Yet even an organization like that was having difficulty finding information on Dunkel.

“It’s not the end. The answer is always at the scene. If we go there and investigate in person, something else might turn up.”

“Can’t we trace it backward? Starting with that woman, Sally.”

Ricardt answered positively, and Ice chimed in. Paolo seemed to have investigated Sally as well, because he replied at once.

“Sally was also from the Benzinen Brotherhood. She seems to have traveled with Dunkel for quite a long time, but apparently they went their separate ways after Court Count Hellauman died. She married a man named Chael and was living in the Esck region. It seems the trouble surfaced shortly after her husband became embroiled in some kind of conflict.”

Since Ricardt had been the one who killed Hellauman, would it be too much of a stretch to say that this tragedy had happened because of him? In any case, both in terms of the times and the people involved, Hellauman’s death had undeniably marked a turning point in many ways.

“What kind of conflict?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but in some rural regions, entire villages are organized into something like thieves’ guilds. They’re called Esca. Old people, women, children, adults, everyone is connected to the organization. That is simply how they live. What I called a conflict would have been a war to them. You could call it extraordinary, or you could call it trivial, but it seems they had a dispute with another village over their interests. Chael took part in that fight and was killed.”

Normally, lords or knights governed an area, exercised judicial authority, and protected its people, but there were regions where that system did not work. Sometimes the people themselves rejected it.

Most such regions had suffered repeated invasions from outsiders since ancient times.

In time, the people would become disillusioned with the lords or knights they had trusted and followed, or be betrayed by them, and begin protecting themselves instead.

People like that naturally formed incredibly tight, solid bonds among themselves.

They had not deliberately set out to do so, but organizations resembling criminal groups naturally formed around individual villages.

Every city had organizations like thieves’ guilds, but when people from such villages flowed into a city, they could drive out the existing organizations and seize control in no time. They were simply on a different level, so to speak.

If the War of Imperial Succession was the macrocosm, then what happened in the shadows was the microcosm.

All the macrocosm ever did was trample and burn, while the microcosm hid behind it and somehow struggled to survive.

“So you’re saying Dunkel wasn’t the one who murdered her husband?”

“That, we don’t know. Even if he didn’t kill him personally, he may have engineered it from behind the scenes. The Esca have two iron rules. One is revenge, and the other is secrecy. Every one of them carries powder made from ground black lotus root so they can take their own lives at any time.”

“......”

Leaving everything else aside, one thing seemed certain: this would not be easy. Silence settled over the tent before Ricardt asked another question.

“How is the plan to drive them apart going?”

“As Your Majesty knows, Duke Brummbar and Duke Frederia have never been on good terms to begin with. But Duke Brummbar wants to mobilize the Second Prince’s forces. The problem is the timing.”

“But if that happens, wouldn’t Duke Frederia side with the Fifth Prince?”

Bori asked. Paolo shrugged.

“When you deal with nobles, quite a few of them seem to defy common sense, don’t they? He apparently intends to remain neutral to the very end. If that’s what he intends, you’d think he should have taken some sort of action when the forces were being gathered, but who knows. The problem is the timing, and the good news for us is that he doesn’t know about the gold mine development.”

The gold mine was where this whole affair had begun. In fact, the area believed to contain the gold mine lay slightly on Duke Frederia’s side of the border with Adeloron.

The plan was to keep Duke Frederia from noticing the existence of the gold mine and divert his attention by encouraging conflict between him and Duke Brummbar.

Only if the gold mine development was successfully completed could everything they had set in motion finally take root properly. For now, it was all running on debt. The Caldebern Family’s succession issue, the formation of the Master Alliance, all of it.

Amid all that, the old woman’s request did not quite fit their current course. Still, whether it was merely out of curiosity or because something about it smelled suspicious, they had decided for the time being to investigate it as a matter for the Alliance.

“Who are you going to send?”

Bori asked Ricardt. Deciding whom to dispatch after weighing the scale and importance of a matter was another responsibility that fell to the chairman.

Ricardt thought for a moment, then looked at Roy.

“Let’s go, Roy.”

“Yes.”

“You’re going yourself?”

Bori and Ice asked at the same time.

“We have too many things going on right now, so we’re short on people. From what I’ve heard, this doesn’t sound like something we can send just anyone to handle. Besides, Dunkel and Sally are both people I knew, so I think it’ll be faster if I go myself. I’ll leave the administrative side to Volka, so let him know. He’ll probably do a better job than I would.”

“Everyone’s busy one way or another. Marie’s running the kingdom all by herself.”

“It’s only because we’re still at the beginning. Things will settle down with time.”

“The old woman’s death. No reward.”

Ice muttered to himself. Everyone turned to look at him.

“Interesting.”

“Interesting? This is?”

Bori asked, his eyes widening. One eyebrow sat higher than the other.

“I didn’t mean it was actually fun.”

“Then let’s all get back to what we have to do. Better to rest while we still can.”

Ricardt spoke, and everyone simply dispersed without so much as wishing one another good night.

Ricardt and his friends were certainly as tightly bound to one another as the Esca, but they were not particularly given to warm words.

The old woman’s body was buried in the graveyard of the new temple still under construction. There was no funeral, but those who had witnessed her death placed a few mourning flowers on her grave.

On a long journey, shoelaces had to be tied securely. The belt needed to be adjusted properly, and the straps of the pack tightened so they did not hang loose. Otherwise, even a little looseness could drain far more stamina than expected after hours of walking.

The blades of the main weapon and dagger had to be tended, the provisions checked to make sure nothing had spoiled, and a reasonable amount of travel money, tinder, flint, a whetstone, camellia oil, and the like packed carefully. A cloak was best when soft yet durable.

Ricardt did not ride a horse. Horses were too troublesome to look after, and there was nowhere convenient to leave one.

The Esck region was neither especially far nor especially near. Walking steadily southwest from Stormhertz, it took three or four days to reach.

The Second Prince’s army was somewhere in Duke Brummbar’s domain, while the Fifth Prince was mostly stationed in Nibelungen, so the region was not particularly tied to the war.

Of course, if brutal taxes were levied to fund the war, that could become its own sort of living hell, but the Esck region was not suffering under taxation. Its people were not the sort to meekly hand over money simply because someone demanded it.

“Is the Esck region your hometown, Roy?”

“No. I think it’s farther west than here. I left when I was young, so I don’t remember exactly. I’ll ask my mother later.”

“No, there’s no need to go out of your way to ask.”

Master and disciple, king and attendant, walked along a road overflowing with spring blossoms. Both wore dark crimson cloaks, and from a distance they looked like a pair of red flowers swaying in the wind.

It was their second day since leaving Stormhertz. The road rose toward the highlands so gradually that the incline was almost impossible to notice.

A great mountain range ran along the Empire’s southern border, and it was probably because of that. Ricardt had heard that the Esck region was not particularly rugged, but it was a highland region nonetheless.

They said extremes met, and there was something about the place that resembled the Heiden Fields. The only difference was that it was somewhat warmer.

Around noon, far off at the edge of the horizon, they saw a mountain crowned with perpetual snow. After crossing a hill, they came upon a small village beside a clear-flowing river.

At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a village whose people tended kitchen gardens and made a modest living from dairy farming. But something out of place caught Ricardt’s eye at once.

“Looks awfully hard to defend, yet they seem to be doing fine.”

“Looks that way.”

“Means run-of-the-mill bandits wouldn’t dare touch them.”

“That’s right.”

“Stop just agreeing with me and tell me what you think.”

“You’ve already said everything, Your Majesty, so I have nothing to add.”

“I told you not to call me Your Majesty when we’re outside.”

“Sorry, Master.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

“Yes.”

Ricardt walked toward the village with his disciple, the spring breeze blowing against them.

The villagers noticed the pair from a distance and watched them approach. One man who had been hoeing a field stopped, planted the hoe against the ground, and leaned on it as though resting his chin on his hand while he stared.

Though Ricardt wore a sword at his waist, the villagers showed no sign of fear. Nor were they especially wary. They were simply calmly sizing them up.

Ricardt approached the man standing in the field with his hoe and asked him a question.

“May I ask you something? Is this the Esck region?”

The farmer in shabby clothes calmly nodded.

“What is this village called? It looks quite peaceful.”

“Meringen.”

“I’m looking for someone. Do you know a woman named Sally? She has quite an appetite, but she isn’t fat. If anything, she’s rather slender.”

Naturally, Ricardt knew Sally was dead. He was deliberately pretending otherwise.

The villager shook his head. The village was not particularly large, so if this man did not know her, it was reasonable to assume the others did not either.

“Understood. I’ll be on my way.”

Ricardt passed the man and walked through the village. Unfriendly gazes followed him.

After passing straight through the settlement, Ricardt and Roy resumed their journey.

“Do you think he really didn’t know?”

“He might not. The Esca are divided village by village, and I heard their debts of gratitude and grudges are tangled together in complicated ways. It’s probably outsiders who casually lump them all together and call them Esca.”

“Then how are we supposed to find out anything? We can’t go around asking every single person. Even if they know something, they’ll obviously say they don’t.”

“Don’t worry. We’re already inside their territory. They’ll be the ones asking questions first.”

“What?”

“Wouldn’t they be curious about who we are? Word will spread faster than the wind. A man and a boy in red cloaks are wandering around the Esck region looking for Sally.”

“And when they come ask us first?”

“This. This will make an excellent tool for conversation.”

Ricardt raised his gloved fist.

“There’ll be people who are bothered when they hear Sally’s name. And that means those people know something. We can’t just beat up anyone, can we? I’m not that kind of violent man.”

“Right......”

“What’s with that reluctant tone?”

“Nothing. It certainly is a quick means of communication.”

“Exactly. Watch closely and learn. Copy my every move.”

“Yes......”

“What’s with that tone like you don’t want to?”

“Nothing. It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m having fun already.”

Laughing, Ricardt vigorously tousled the hair of his disciple, whose blond hair resembled his own. Roy roughly smoothed his disheveled hair back into place with one hand.

For the moment, the man and the boy simply strolled leisurely across the gently sloping highlands. [TL Note: The source reads “two men and a boy” here; rendered as “the man and the boy” because only Ricardt and Roy are present.]

As the sun sank and evening began to fall, they searched for a suitable place to camp. The surrounding land was an open field with no trees at all, so they had to wander around quite a bit.

Eventually, they found a depression in the ground beside a large boulder. It looked like a good place to shelter from the wind while still being able to build a fire.

Roy was lowering the pack from his shoulder to settle in when several dark silhouettes appeared in the distance. They made no particular effort to hide themselves, but approached without making a sound.

Ricardt, however, heard every faint footfall. He also knew that the people approaching from the front were drawing their attention while others secretly closed in from behind.

Without any change in expression, he quietly said to Roy,

“See? I told you they’d come. There are two behind us, so be careful.”

“Yes.”

Roy pulled away the cloth covering the blade of his axe. He held it in one hand, and perhaps because he had grown considerably bigger, there was something rather imposing about him now. Just like his father.

Before long, the people approaching them stopped. They remained concealed in the dim evening shadows, and only one man stepped forward. A cloth covered his nose and mouth.

And sure enough, just as Ricardt had predicted, he asked a question.

“Hey. Who are you two?”

“Well, before that, why don’t we start with a rational introduction?”

At Ricardt’s words, the man with half his face covered looked as though he had no idea what he meant.

And no wonder. The “rational introduction” Ricardt was referring to was the very thing he had shown Roy earlier that day. His fist.

****

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