By Zephyria Darkness also visited the inside of the cave, where bright light had been streaming in.
Kenneth was lying on a blanket spread beside a pillar, eyes closed, exhaling colored breaths. Perhaps because his sleeping spot was uncomfortable, he occasionally tossed and turned and scratched his neck. A little distance away from him, another thick blanket was spread, but that spot was empty.
Originally, he had thought that once Leonardo regained consciousness and recovered his condition, they would immediately rejoin the ranks. Being separated from the seniors for a long time due to a sudden accident was quite a burden for a new recruit who had just joined.
However, the reason Kenneth was still here even after packing all the luggage was due to Leonardo’s persuasion: since it would soon be dark, they should spend the night here and depart at daybreak.
Having learned that in remote areas like this peninsula, once darkness falls, everywhere immediately becomes pitch black and the danger probability doubles, Kenneth agreed with Leonardo’s opinion and decided to spend one more night.
From where he was, following the railing of the structure straight, turning two corners, there was a small courtyard with several statues entangled in vines among low grasses and a carved roof casting a shadow. There, one light and two figures flickered. The owner of the empty spot next to Kenneth was also there.
The scholar pulled out the syringe needle he had inserted into his arm, rubbing it with cotton, and said.
“Tsk, to think I’m letting such a precious thing be abused like this.”
Leonardo, leaning obliquely against a pillar, covering his mouth, watched the scholar’s actions, then made the floating flames nearby a little larger before slowly examining the ingredients written on the medicine bottle he was holding.
The so-called Magic Power Stabilizers circulating on the market merely mimicked stabilizing Magic Power; they only slowed the heart rate at best and had significant side effects. Therefore, most institutions used somewhat crude methods like restraints or Magic Stones to control unstable Magic Power instead of Stabilizers.
However, the Stabilizer this scholar bastard developed was somewhat different. At first, due to unconditional wariness, there was some rejection, but as time passed, the flow of Magic Power felt calmer and control became more refined.
Still, suspicion remained the same, so Leonardo demanded that the scholar first inject the Stabilizer into his own arm. Then, as if wondering if it contained something significant, he examined the drug’s ingredient list, but aside from painkiller-like components, nothing particularly special or problematic seemed to be present.
After staring at it for a long time, when he handed the bottle back without a word, the scholar smiled and accepted it.
“So, how about it? Starting to trust me a bit now?”
But Leonardo’s expression remained cold.
“I still can’t say I trust you. How would I know if abnormal symptoms appear later?”
“So suspicious. Then why are you willing to make a deal?”
“I said I’d hear you out.”
“Oh ho.”
The scholar let out a light laugh and put the medicine bottle and syringe back into the small backpack placed beside him. Then, he pulled out a map that was rolled up and inserted into the backpack.
The scholar, about to unfold the map immediately, paused briefly, then rolled up the unfolded end again, holding it in his hand, and said.
“First, my condition is simple. You just need to safely take me to a certain location within this peninsula without being detected. Since the person originally accompanying me for personal protection disappeared, you can just do that in their place. Simple, right?”
His action of not unfolding the map showed his intention not to reveal the location yet. As if hiding it in case negotiations broke down.
“I need to know what kind of place it is. And, if it were such a simple task, why would you propose a deal?”
“Nothing else, but there are quite a few demon beasts on the way. Still, it’s not that far from here. It’s a place you can reach within two days at most, and of course, avoiding the Council’s eyes might take a bit longer.”
“……”
“Ah, and I’ll handle the return trip myself, so as long as you get me to the destination, I’ll consider the contract fulfilled.”
Just listening, it didn’t seem like a particularly difficult request. Of course, if the location the scholar mentioned was somewhere anyone could easily go, he wouldn’t have even brought up a deal, but since it wouldn’t take that long and if handled well, he might be able to extract various information.
“Now, you? What do you want from me?”
Leonardo, who had been watching the scholar’s expression, rubbed his lips slowly with the hand covering his mouth, then spoke.
“What I want is three things.”
“Three things?”
“First, guide me to the place where you discovered ‘Etaid’. Second, explain everything you know about the egg you were researching, the outsider you briefly accompanied, and this Eldermilli Peninsula. Third, do not disclose to anyone else any of the conversations we’ve had, including this deal, and everything you’ve learned. These are my conditions. Simple, right?”
Etaid was the unofficial name of the blue mineral Leonardo Blaine was looking for.
The scholar gave a wry smile at Leonardo’s words, who listed things off and added, “Simple, right?” just like himself at the end.
“It’s not difficult, but isn’t it unfair? I have one condition, but you’re telling me to spill everything I know and even trying to shut me up. It seems like I’m at a loss no matter how I look at it.”
“So you’re not going to do it?”
“It’s not that I won’t, but… there needs to be something more beneficial to me. By the way, Etaid is quite popular these days, isn’t it? Seeing as you’re looking for it too.”
The scholar’s words sounded as if there was someone else looking for Etaid besides Leonardo and himself. And it sounded as if he was deliberately dropping hints to gauge the level of interest.
“Is there someone else looking for Etaid besides me?”
Leonardo, knowing but playing along to meet his expectations, made the scholar’s lips quirk up slightly.
“I can only tell you the answer to that if we make a deal.”
“…….”
His smiling face was annoying. The scholar was the one who proposed it first, but it seemed like he was the one in the disadvantageous position. But even if it was just to keep probing the scholar, who might know something about Etaid, he had to at least pretend to continue the deal.
“…So, are you going to make a deal or not?”
“Let’s trade fairly. So, it would be neat if I added more conditions to balance things out, right?”
The scholar, who was pondering what conditions to set for a moment, grinned as if a good idea had come to mind and opened his mouth.
“I’ve been developing some medicine recently, and I need a lot of test subjects.”
“…….”
“S-Class Mages are rare, too. It won’t harm your body, so if you just take a few…”
“I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
His eyes, smiling slyly, seemed to think he had the upper hand. Leonardo, feeling displeased by it, frowned and said.
“You don’t have any more conditions to offer. I was going to threaten you from now on.”
“Hmm?”
The scholar tilted his head with a brazen smile. Leonardo stared at his face as if annoyed, then relaxed his expression and gave him the same smile.
“That you got your bag stolen. That’s a lie.”
The laughter disappeared from the scholar’s eyes, which had been narrowly curved. Only his mouth was smiling.
What do you know. A parabola was drawn on Leonardo’s lips as he looked at him.
One of the things he learned while interrogating that outsider with threats was that there might be another partner in the peninsula who knew about Etaid and the unidentified egg besides him.
The outsider, who had been avoiding proper answers all along, cowered as if afraid of being hit, saying that he didn’t even know if the egg was in the bag, and that he only did ‘transportation’ and didn’t know anything.
He wasn’t sure whether that was true or not at the time, but as a result of probing just now, it became clear that the scholar’s words were false, and it felt like things were getting sorted out a bit.
Leonardo, who had woken up here for the first time and scanned the scholar’s backpack with his eyes to figure out the surrounding situation, found something attached to the backpack and did not rashly touch it. Later, when the scholar returned with Kenneth, there was definitely something attached to the small backpack he was carrying.
It seemed to be a kind of lock using magic, and he could tell that the purpose was to prevent someone else from touching the backpack, whatever it was. The more a guy has to hide, the more he tends to pay attention to his belongings. Just like he put multiple locks on the Artifact.
However, the bag that the outsider had did not have such a thing, nor did it have any traces of being forcibly torn off. It didn’t make sense that he couldn’t find it even after searching so thoroughly, and it seemed right to think that it wasn’t attached in the first place.
Then the question moved on to the next. Why didn’t a guy who takes care of his belongings so much that he puts locks on all the backpacks not put anything on that bag? Besides, judging from this guy’s personality, which he had seen for a while, it didn’t seem like he would have let the outsider steal the bag so easily.
Leonardo, who had been speculating all along, came to a conclusion.
“You knew the bag would be stolen and just left it alone, or you didn’t get it stolen, but you directly gave the bag and told him to transport it. Right?”
The scholar said nothing. His expression showed neither denial nor affirmation.
“Well, I’m convinced that it’s the latter. How do I know? The outsider said he was only told to transport it, so he didn’t know anything.”
The scholar’s expression subtly crumpled.
“But when I think about it that way, something feels strange. If there’s something I have to take care of, I have to hold it myself to feel at ease. But does it make sense to have an outsider, whom you met briefly in the peninsula and accompanied for a while, transport valuable materials for research? What if that guy just runs away with it?”
“…….”
“I don’t know what kind of relationship you and that guy have, but judging from what you’re doing to me, the two of you must have a relationship made through a deal. You promised to give him money or compensation corresponding to transporting the bag, or the mineral in the bag may be a kind of compensation.”
Leonardo relentlessly listed his guesses.
“So you didn’t have any attachment to what was in it in the first place. You must have told him to transport it, thinking you were throwing it away. Then what do you want to get by having him transport the bag? And, I thought about it.”
The scholar asked with a relaxed smile.
“Interesting. So, you thought about it?”
There was no way the scholar didn’t know anything about the egg in the bag. Although it was still a guess, the egg had a strange power to attract Dermokas. If this scholar had been carrying the egg that they cherished so much without knowing anything, he wouldn’t have been alive until now.
Besides, the scholar, who had been traveling with the outsider for protection, had now reached this place alone, and had gone out with Kenneth to get food alone. In other words, he was capable of wandering around the peninsula to some extent even without the outsider.
He doubted whether the outsider had any value to him, but he was able to get a hint from what the scholar had said to him a little while ago.
“I thought you liked experimenting. I wondered if you experimented on that guy.”
Leonardo smiled leisurely and continued.
“The egg in your bag. It’s not an ordinary egg that an ignorant scholar would say he picked up somewhere.”
“…….”
“The statement that you don’t know anything about the egg must be a lie, too. It’s a terrifying egg that Dermokas will follow if you have it, but you just have it…”
“I knew it.”
Leonardo frowned slightly and stopped talking for a moment at the scholar’s words, who interrupted him in the middle.
“I knew it, that was right.”
The scholar had a face as if he had heard a satisfactory answer. His face seemed to be genuinely happy, and Leonardo’s thoughts stopped for a moment as he looked at him.
‘What, this bastard?’
The scholar, who was slowly chewing on something, grinned like a madman and suddenly began to admit one by one.
“I did experiment. I wanted to know if demon beasts reacted to that egg. In fact, I only knew that Dermokas were flocking to that side, and I didn’t know the exact results, so I couldn’t be sure, but you told me the results, so my experiment was completed.”
Leonardo, who was listening, was speechless for a moment, then frowned and barely opened his mouth.
“What, completed? Don’t you know this is attempted murder? That guy might be dead.”
“Attempted murder? If you knew what that outsider you’re talking about was doing outside, you wouldn’t think much of it either? That guy is a notorious criminal famous in the slums around Barmot. Rather, if he dies in the peninsula after being used as my experimental material, wouldn’t that be more helpful to the world?”
Leonardo, who was listening to the scholar’s confident words, made an absurd expression, unlike usual, and let out a laugh that he was dumbfounded.
So this guy, after coaxing an outsider who was a criminal who didn’t matter if he died anyway, made him carry a bag and sent him to the middle of the peninsula. To see if the demon beast was moving along with the egg.