By Zephyria The scholar bastard, Alec Siles, said that he had worked as a scholar affiliated with the Imperial Palace for about 10 years before being kicked out about 6 years ago.
And he briefly mentioned that the reason he was kicked out was because he was researching things that the Imperial family didn’t like, and he didn’t go into it any further.
Leonardo was a little wary of his words that he had been affiliated with the Imperial Palace, but there was a gap of 6 years, and he had had a similar experience, so he didn’t ask deeply either.
He had a lot of strange things, as befitting a crazy bastard. Things like a sleeping scent that could put people to sleep in a short time, shoes that reduced the load on the ground when stepping on it so that almost no footprints were left, and gloves that nullified magic so that he could touch the Dark Silver ring with resistance magic on it even for a very short time.
Some of them were things that had never existed in the world before.
Those were Alec Siles’ own inventions that he had made over several years, and Leonardo was moving with him to a certain location where Etaid was piled up, listening to stories such as how the gloves he had developed for 10 years thanks to that ring were torn to shreds and completely burned, so he couldn’t use them anymore.
Killing the mouth of the guy who knew about Nero’s contact with him, or blocking it with a contract. Just when he couldn’t decide which was the better choice, Alec brought out a piece of information that made him think the latter would be a little better.
“Since a few months ago, flyers have been circulating in the slums near Fidele Territory, recruiting people to go to the Eldermilli Peninsula to mine. That’s where illegal things happen every day, so no one found it strange.”
He started the story from when he had stayed near the area to gather information before entering the peninsula.
“But at the time, the damage caused by demon beast appearances was getting worse and worse, so the eyes of the territory’s guards, the royal guard, and the organizations under the Southern Council were all focused on the peninsula. So all the guys who saw the flyers laughed. They said, who would go there at this time unless they were crazy.”
“……”
“Besides, because of the issue with the peninsula, surprise inspections and patrols around the slums were rather infrequent, so they would have caused accidents in that area, but no one was trying to go to the peninsula.”
At Alec’s words, Leonardo, who was looking around and leading the way, turned around.
“But after a few weeks, all the flyers that had been there disappeared and new flyers were posted. The flyers said that if you mined minerals on the Eldermilli Peninsula for a certain period of time, you would be paid 30% of the amount you mined and 1 million Bell. So even if you mined a few stones, you would get 1 million Bell, right? Guys who were short on money supported it. So did I.”
“You don’t look that short on money.”
“Since I’m going to enter the peninsula anyway, it’s better to get paid to enter? Besides, it was my first time entering at this time, so I thought a group would be safer than going alone, and usually the guys who put out those flyers are businessmen who have fairly large merchant guilds or noble families behind them. I thought it would be better than a disorganized group that gathers anyone to make some money.”
According to Alec, the number of unauthorized outsiders who were illegally entering the peninsula was quite large. And it wasn’t just now, but there had been a steady stream of people, including himself, who had been secretly entering since before.
The reason their existence is now prominent is probably because the security has become stricter than before as the peninsula subjugation is in progress.
Not all of them were moving under the same affiliation, and they were entering through different methods and routes, but most of them were caught by the Council before long because they didn’t have the knack. But some knew about the existence of this cave, so it was possible to move secretly.
And that some was the mining team that Alec belonged to.
The mining team was divided into several groups and moved in an organized manner. However, the group that Alec belonged to was the last one, and it was said that it was quite difficult to enter the peninsula because it coincided with the Central Branch of the Council’s expedition.
This was because these tunnels were only distributed around the large peaks inside the peninsula, so they had to travel along the paths that the Council used from the border area until they reached the 4th peak of the central route.
In the meantime, Alec had experience traveling to and from the peninsula several times before, so he played the role of guide at the very front of the team, and the strange sense of discomfort he felt when entering the entrance of the 4th peak flashed through Leonardo’s mind.
That sense of discomfort that someone had been following him from behind.
And when he saw Alec’s face, it soon turned into déjà vu.
“…Were you the one following me around?”
“Correct.”
Looking at that smiling face, which was saying it as if he had answered some quiz, an unpleasant hollow laugh came out involuntarily.
So, this bastard had been following him at a distance from the entrance of the peninsula to the cave, which was the entrance of the 4th peak, until the procession split into three branches.
He had been wondering who the crazy bastard following Kajard’s procession was, but thinking about it, it was the opposite. As the saying goes, the darkest place is under the lamp, so he had been trying to avoid Kajard by sticking to the very back of the procession to avoid surveillance.
Leonardo stopped walking abruptly. Then, he said in a cold voice.
“So, what about the other guys you came in with? How do I know that the place you’re taking me to isn’t a trap?”
“Hey, we even signed a contract. Listen a little more. I’m out of there now.”
Alec said with a grin and continued.
Torches were fixed on the walls of the dark cave at regular intervals. The shadows of the torches stretched out, guiding the way into the deep and secret interior. There were about six burly men guarding the entrance along the way, but they were all unconscious and collapsed.
The last remaining man couldn’t even scream and choked as his neck was strangled by someone’s arm. The one wrapping his arm around the man’s neck from behind was wearing the face of the outsider Leonardo and Kenneth had met.
However, he was taller and bigger than the outsider, his expression was cold, and he was wearing the clothes of Terzio, who had worked as a low-level merchant in frost territory.
Deudeudeuk―!
The man’s neck, which had been struggling with his eyes rolled back, was instantly turned halfway around. Then, his stiff arms and legs loosened and his body slumped like a cold corpse.
As the heavy body slid down from his arm and fell to the floor, the one with the outsider’s face stared at the man’s pale face for a moment and then put his hand on his thick neck. Then, he grabbed his head and tilted it back, and rubbed under his chin a few times to find the carotid artery.
Fortunately, when he felt a faint pulse, he let out a sigh of relief. He had been worried that he might have accidentally killed him because he had put more strength into his arm than he had thought because this guy was unusually large.
“No big deal.”
He had been told that he was a mercenary officially hired by the mining team, so he had thought it would take a little time, but unlike his worries, they were just slum thugs.
He had already knocked out about 20 necks as he followed the road. After scanning the fallen men, he lightly shook his hand and moved his silent footsteps again, following the torch.
Alec Siles said that when he led the rearguard into the cave of the 4th peak, a member of the mining team appeared and guided him to the path leading to the tunnel. He also added that the route to their hideout was quite complicated, so he wouldn’t have been able to find it easily if he hadn’t followed the member.
And as he said, the roads around here were complicated like an ant nest, and he would have been quite lost if it hadn’t been for the map the scholar bastard had drawn.
After that, the rearguard moved day and night in the cave and moved to a certain base, where minerals that were already being mined were classified and piled up in huge wheeled wooden boxes, and some of them were Etaid.
And the huge wooden box he mentioned seemed to mean the one in front of him now.
Leonardo, with the outsider’s face, stuck close to the cornered wall of the cave and watched the movements behind him. The cuboid-shaped wooden box, which seemed to be about 3m high, had iron plates added to withstand the weight and was nailed, and on top of it, he could vaguely see a pile of one type of mineral.
The road was narrow, but the box in the middle was so big that he couldn’t see well beyond it, but at least there were two men standing guard right in front of it. They seemed to be chatting rather than guarding, but anyway, it seemed right that the reason they were standing there was to guard and monitor the minerals.
According to what the scholar had told him, there was a thorough hierarchy within the mining team. First of all, there were the general miners who mined the minerals and the middle managers who supervised them, and above them were the senior managers, and the senior managers only managed and monitored the minerals that the miners had mined, and they could hardly meet them during work.
And the mercenaries were hired to prevent access from demon beasts and those who were not members, and to control the departure of general miners, and they only listened to the orders of the senior managers. It was a kind of pyramid structure.
Leonardo got the feeling from what he had told him that the mining team was moving quite systematically and meticulously. At the same time, he guessed that the reason that was possible was because there was someone behind them who kept looking after them so that they could maintain the system.
But recently, a big problem had occurred in the mining team. The managers had brought mercenaries and threatened the miners, and they didn’t let them out even after a certain period of time, and they had excluded all the valuable types of minerals from the 30% they had promised to pay.
The reason they had recruited workers from around the slums in the first place was probably to exploit the socially impoverished or criminals who couldn’t ask for help from the outside because they weren’t honest.
Instead of receiving 1 million Bell, they were doing even more labor than that, so the number of people who were dissatisfied was increasing, and as a result, a riot broke out a while ago and some people tried to escape. Alec had also escaped in the midst of the commotion, and the outsider who had been traveling with him for a while was also one of those escapees.
He had heard that the security had become stricter because of that, but looking at the two who were chatting now, it didn’t seem like that was the case.
Alec had said that he had been using a pseudonym and disguising himself a little when he was in the mining team, but he didn’t have the ability to completely change his face like someone, so he didn’t want to get beaten up if he just wandered around, so he said he would just watch from nearby.
Leonardo was uneasy, but he also thought it would be easier to move alone inside, so he just took the map and ordered him to wait nearby.
Leonardo’s face, which had been the outsider’s, distorted, and this time it changed to the face of one of the mercenaries who had been standing outside. He was the man who was the most similar in build.
The ones guarding the minerals were likely to be senior managers, so it seemed more natural to approach them in the guise of a mercenary.
After clearing his throat for a moment, he took a long breath and exhaled, panting roughly. Then, he made his body hot to squeeze out sweat that didn’t come out well, messed up his hair a little, and ran in place to make noise, and then rushed out in front of them as if he had run urgently.
“Hah, hah―. Boss!”
The two men, who had been sharing silly jokes, were startled when the mercenary, who should have been guarding the entrance, approached with a gasp and a hurried look, and then looked at him with puzzled faces.
“Damn, you scared me.”
“What’s wrong, what happened?”
“Haa, there’s a strange guy outside causing trouble.”
“…What?”
“The guys are stopping him now, but I think you should come quickly!”
At his words, the two men frowned and then stared at each other’s faces. They seemed to be checking who would go to check the situation. Then, the man on the left, who had a slightly dirtier impression, first tapped the shoulder of the man next to him and said.
“Hey, you go with him.”
“What? Why me?”
“Why? Because you came in later than me. Martin will get annoyed if he finds out, so go solve it quickly.”
The man with the dirty impression had a quite rough tone as much as his impression. At those words, the man on the right made a dumbfounded face, but he didn’t have anything to say, so he scratched his head as if he was annoyed and started walking towards the entrance.
‘Martin?’
Leonardo, who was panting with the mercenary’s face, focused on the name that the senior managers seemed to be aware of. He remembered that the scholar bastard had mentioned that there was a hierarchy even among the senior managers.
The man on the left pushed the mercenary’s shoulder hard when he didn’t follow and stood still.
“What are you standing there for? Aren’t you going?”
It wasn’t his left shoulder, but he felt quite unpleasant when he was touched, so Leonardo turned to look at the man who had pushed his shoulder with a slightly fierce look. But then three or four more humans crawled out from behind the huge box and asked the man with the dirty impression what was going on.
If there hadn’t been people, he would have smashed their heads in here, but he didn’t know how many more were on the other side, so Leonardo lowered his head and pretended to be standing there because he was out of breath.
“Ah, yes. I’ll go too.”
“Anyway, all the mercenaries we’ve hired these days are missing a screw, they can’t even solve one guy among themselves.”
The mercenary pretended not to hear and followed the man who had gone ahead with quick steps. The man who was watching added a few words of criticism to their backs and waved his hand to the others as if it was nothing.
It was obvious that the guys who had escaped a while ago couldn’t get out of the peninsula and had crawled back in, or they were coming to cause trouble to get paid for their work. Such guys had been hanging around for the past few days.
As the two disappeared around the curve of the cave, the man with the dirty look suddenly muttered with a strange expression.
“But has that bastard’s way of speaking always been like that?””