By Zephyria “That’s the price for all the trouble you caused me. You should be glad it ended with just one punch.”
In front of a wide table that could easily seat 12 people. Leonardo, sitting in a fancy wooden chair, rested his chin on his left hand and glared at Andrew. Terzio put a cold orange juice in front of him, telling him to calm down. Even as he grabbed the cup and gulped it down, Leonardo’s eyes did not leave his opponent.
Andrew, who was rubbing half of his bruised face with an ice pack, gave an awkward smile at his fierce gaze.
“Yeah. I caused you trouble, so I have to put up with this much.”
“Don’t talk for a moment.”
Judy took off her gloves and applied a strange cream to Andrew’s face. She even put a bandage that covered half of his face and patted his cheek before returning to her seat.
Leonardo frowned at Andrew’s answer. That guy always makes people look like bad guys by talking like that.
Terzio, who was watching him closely from the side, pressed between his golden eyebrows as if telling him to relax the tension in his brows, and asked.
“So, what happened? Tell us. Why did Kajard suddenly appear in the frost territory, and how did a guy who could have escaped if he wanted to get caught so easily?”
Leonardo pushed away the hand that was hovering over his brow as if it was annoying. Then, he swept back his bangs and let out a deep sigh.
“Haa, where should I start?”
“Start with the Delberg Merchant leader.”
Miraile, who had put all the Butterflies in the aviary, sat down in the opposite chair and replied. Leonardo, who was rubbing his eyes, bit his lip and nodded.
He poured the remaining juice in the cup into his mouth and slowly began to speak.
“So….”
To deal with the beginning of the incident, Leonardo had to bring out memories from before he met Hugo in the frost territory. It was around the time when Leonardo was massacring a large number of Kuamer in Perion in the Middle East and sweeping up Magic stones before he infiltrated the Delberg Merchant group as a low-ranking member.
During the Council interrogation, he stated that the reason he collected Magic stones was to make a water-attribute protective gear. It was generally accepted that fire Mages were vulnerable to water, so the Council investigators did not ask any further questions about that point.
But that wasn’t the main reason. The real reason Leonardo collected Kuamer’s Magic stones was that it maximized the expansion power of Etaid, which had explosive properties, and completely erased the traces.
Also, he stated that the Kuamer he had hunted in large quantities suddenly disappeared, and he infiltrated the Delberg Merchant group while tracking down the inside story, but that was also not true. Rather, it was more appropriate to say that he deliberately left the demon beast carcasses on the Perion coast to track down the Delberg Merchant group. It was a kind of scheme disguised as a coincidence.
The people gathered here are partners who met with one purpose. In order to achieve that purpose, there was a prior task of uncovering the inside story of the Delberg Merchant group.
Of course, they didn’t necessarily have to do that role themselves. The Delberg Merchant group, who had taken the bait, moved the stolen Kuamer and buried it in the frost territory, a large-scale workshop. And Leonardo, as a low-ranking member of the hastily formed Merchant group, grasped the situation and lured the Council’s pursuit team chasing him to the frost territory in order to wipe them out.
But if life always went according to plan, life wouldn’t be so difficult. Three unexpected events occurred to him.
The appearance of an impersonator, Briana Dixi’s origin, and Hugo Agrizendro’s pursuit, which had never happened before.
“An impersonator stealing my name? Okay, I can concede that much. But because of the rumors that guy spread, I was chased much faster than I expected, and it was the Council’s Legion Commander. On top of that, the Merchant leader who hired the impersonator is Briana Dixi, someone this Andrew knows.”
Leonardo rubbed his eyebrows, recalling the situation at the time when he was in the dark.
While identifying the members of the temporarily settled Merchant group, he passed the list to his partners and requested analysis. After that, he was able to hear some information about the Merchant leader through Andrew’s information network, who was in charge of target analysis. And that’s when things started to go wrong.
That she was from Bermuda, and that she was Briana Dixi, who had stayed in the same orphanage as Andrew in the past. And that she was destined to be abandoned after taking on dangerous work herself in order to catch the eye of the general Merchant leader, Filione Delberg.
Andrew, who was telling the truth, earnestly asked Leonardo, knowing that it was an unreasonable request. To quietly take her out so that she wouldn’t be involved in this incident.
But at the time, Leonardo, who knew that Kajard had entered the nearby village and was looking for him, had no time to take care of anyone else. He couldn’t even be sure if the other person would cooperate, let alone if he was alone. How could he secretly move with a key figure in the incident?
Besides, the Merchant leader was always surrounded by executives, so she wasn’t an easy person to approach, and she had entered this incident because of her own greed, knowing that she was involved in illegal activities.
Leonardo, who wasn’t soft enough to help her while risking his own safety, was planning to give Flynn a hint about the demon beast storage and get out to watch the situation.
But as time passed, the story Andrew had told him bothered a corner of his heart. If she was caught by the Council with the Merchant members, she would surely be silenced and found dead one day.
Didn’t you know the desperate situation she was in as a person from Bermuda to take on illegal work herself, this harsh society?
If he knew about someone’s foreseen death and left them alone, it was an act of tearing apart Leonardo’s beliefs, who was always struggling with the regret that he couldn’t protect them. Moreover, he had often heard from Andrew, who was reminiscing about his childhood, that she had pain as a person from Bermuda.
In the end, Leonardo, who was struggling with anguish, couldn’t ignore her. After that, he moved a little more boldly, knowing it would be dangerous.
“I snuck into the lodging at night to warn her, and even leaked information to the executives to make her escape. In the meantime, I got to know two people from the Council and gave them clues related to the incident, creating room for me to control the situation and even buying time. But later, I saw that the executives had run away, but she was left behind. She said she couldn’t leave her Merchant members behind, she wouldn’t leave.”
Leonardo smiled bitterly, recalling the Merchant leader, who was so stubborn that it was absurd. He had heard that she had saved Andrew from being bullied by his peers when he was young. She was an extremely bold woman, as he had heard.
After that, he hid the Merchant leader and showed Flynn the storage, and then took her to the sea, the only escape route within the closed territory. Leonardo recounted the dangerous moments one by one, telling the story of the situation at the time.
“Wait, so you succeeded in escaping the Merchant leader, and only Leo, you were trapped inside. Can’t you get out easily if you’re alone?”
“Merchant member identity check immediately after the Gate was closed, were you caught at that time? If the Council came out and investigated directly, your fake ID could have been caught quickly.”
Judy and Andrew asked in turn. Leonardo shook his head.
“I’m not an idiot, would I use a fake ID there? Terju has two IDs. I have one of them.”
Leonardo took out an ID from the Artifact and placed it on the table. The name ‘Terzio Ruano’ was written there. It was an old ID, so the fact that a photo was not inserted was, in a way, a divine move.
This is one of the actual IDs that Terzio ‘owned’. And this name died about 15 years ago. It is the same person as Terzio Dungray in this place, but the current paper connection was completely severed.
Terzio followed the surname of his mother, who had taken him in as a child, and after his mother passed away, he voluntarily registered in another family, gaining two identities that were completely different people. This was a case of intentionally exploiting errors that occurred in the process of registering a person from Bermuda without roots as an imperial citizen.
It wouldn’t be easy to catch this error with the current system unless all the data held by the Empire’s administrative bodies were examined in one place. People from Bermuda who had flowed in from the outside didn’t know their exact place and date of birth, so it was a huge difficulty and an exceptional element in the process of identity registration or census.
The reason Leonardo Blaine was able to leave the investigation tent with the ID of a deceased person from Bermuda was that he had exploited this loophole.
Later, it was almost a problem that he was transferred to the central branch and was in possession of someone else’s ID, but it seemed that the Legion Commander, who kept the Forbidden magic a secret, settled it without going any deeper.
However, it didn’t matter if they went further. After all, they couldn’t contact the dead to ask why they were carrying around their ID, and only one line, ‘Theft of another person’s ID,’ would be added to the numerous charges he had before his release.
“Anyway, back then, I assumed the worst-case scenario and decided it was better to give the name of a person who actually existed. So, Terju’s ID, and Andrew’s hairstyle….”
Leonardo Blaine said, poking Judy’s nose, who was sitting on his left.
“I borrowed your freckles too.”
The magic to change one’s face is a type of elaborate Illusion magic, so it’s difficult to consistently maintain the same appearance with just imagination. Therefore, as a result of Leonardo Blaine collecting elements of several people he had seen in his life little by little, an ordinary yet extraordinary virtual person named Terzio, a low-ranking merchant, was created.
Judy, who considered freckles a complex, blushed and pushed away Leonardo Blaine’s hand. Terzio stared at the two of them silently. Then, Miraile, who had been listening, opened her mouth.
“Why did you get caught after going that far? Even if your identity was exposed, Kajard is no match for your skills as far as I know. I know he’s strong, but compared to your background, he’s like a flower in a greenhouse.”
“…I thought so too, but that person is much stronger than we expected. If it were me now, I might be pushed back a little―.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
The eyes of the four people, including Leonardo Blaine, were focused on one person. It was Terzio who uttered the last words.
He crossed his arms and leaned his upper body on the table, staring intently at Leonardo Blaine’s face. Soon, he hid his sharp eyes with a smile and tilted his head loosely.
“I’m not curious about the process of being caught after being good at deceiving. I’m just curious why you didn’t escape even though you had the chance.”
Leonardo Blaine, who had been maintaining a calm expression, lifted his chin and looked down at him, asking.
“What are you talking about?”
“Prince, tell me honestly. You could have run away back then. I even threw a glass bottle to create an opening.”