By Zephyria “Blaine, what kind of rude behavior is that towards the Count?”
At the merchant’s words, the man jumped off the sofa and went to the door. Then, still with a teasing expression, he grabbed the doorknob and said.
“Isn’t it because you keep coddling him that the old geezer is acting like a pig that hasn’t eaten in days?”
“What? A pig? You little rascal!”
Count Serbia completely abandoned his dignity and raged again. The man simply chuckled, teased the Count for a while, then opened the door and walked out with a mocking smile.
The Count’s shouts could be heard from inside, but he didn’t seem to care at all.
“That scoundrel!”
As soon as he left, the Count fumed and hurled every curse he could think of at the door. The Delberg merchant rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache, then steeled himself again, smiled, and said something that would calm his anxiety and anger.
“Please, calm down, Count.”
“Do you think I can calm down right now!”
“Dealing with Blaine is no easy task, but if we keep him around, we might be able to use him as an excuse to get through this incident.”
At the merchant’s words, the Count, who had been fuming, stopped cursing and looked at her. Seeing that the Count seemed interested, the merchant smiled and offered him a handkerchief.
The Count, embarrassed that he had been so agitated, took the handkerchief she offered and wiped his sweat, asking again.
“What do you mean? Get through this incident?”
As his anger seemed to have subsided a little, the merchant thought that he had taken the bait and began to tell the story she had in mind without hesitation.
“Leonardo Blaine is currently like a disgrace to the Council. The whole world knows that the Council has been desperate to catch him for years, doesn’t it?”
“Hmm….”
“If your deal with me is traced or put in a dangerous situation, if we leak information about him first, we can negotiate with the Council by handing over Blaine.”
The Count pondered her words, which flowed out gently, and nodded, thinking it made sense. However, he was not completely relieved and asked again with suspicious eyes.
“But, what if we try to hand him over and he blurts out the contents of our contract?”
The merchant smiled and said as if there was nothing to worry about.
“Although the Council is chasing Blaine, he is not currently a wanted man who has to pay for his crimes. But if it is revealed that he was involved in our work, he will become a high-risk criminal and the Council’s top priority for extradition. Surely Blaine himself wouldn’t want that. He won’t blurt it out so easily.”
“Hmm hmm, that’s right.”
“Still, this is a plan in case of an emergency, so let’s keep it a secret between you and me and watch the situation for now. Let’s leave it as a last resort.”
The Delberg merchant’s somewhat persuasive words seemed to have completely captivated the Count. Soon, he wiped his sweat until the handkerchief was damp, and then, with a relatively calm voice, said.
“Okay, I’ll trust you.”
He seemed to think that he had something to rely on to some extent.
The merchant, who had calmed the Count after a difficult struggle, said that she would definitely warn Blaine and left the room with a smile. Then, she rubbed her throbbing forehead, annoyed at having to cater to the whims of a troublesome nobleman, and roughly swept back her carefully styled hair.
In fact, she had never imagined that she would be involved in such illegal activities until just a few months ago.
But coincidentally, her future and her life were at stake in this matter. She had readily accepted the head merchant’s promise to give her a portion of the trading company and appoint her as the official head merchant if she successfully completed this project.
However, the opportunity that came sooner than expected came with enormous risks. In such a dangerous situation, she was very upset to be catering to the Count’s whims when she herself was anxious and uneasy.
Her idea of negotiating with the Council by handing over Blaine was just a nice-sounding sophistry to reassure the Count. In fact, she said that, but there were several problems and risks if she handed over the mage she had hired.
She couldn’t be sure whether he would really blurt out that he was involved in the work, and, crucially, there was one fact that the Count didn’t know.
So she hoped that the Council would just investigate the arson or whatever and withdraw as soon as possible. If she continued to heighten the Count’s anxiety, he might do something unnecessary.
* * *
The man who was called Blaine by the merchant pretended to be relaxed and composed inside, but as soon as he left the door and walked down the hallway, his expression was full of anxiety.
“Damn it…, the Council.”
This morning, news came to the Count Serbia’s residence that members of the Council had come to a nearby village across the mountain to investigate an arson case.
Usually, when a fire broke out, the Lord’s Castle of the frost territory would send guards to conduct a formal investigation. What the man called Blaine wanted was just such a formal scene, not the sudden appearance of the Council.
Quite late last night, one of the Count’s guards had come to him. The guard told him that two strangers had appeared in a nearby village in recent days, looking for ‘Leonardo Blaine’. Then he added that the strangers ‘looked quite strong’.
He couldn’t help but be surprised to hear the news. There had been rumors, but this was the first time that someone had directly come so close to looking for ‘Leonardo Blaine’. The man immediately made a fierce expression and said to the guard who had brought the news.
“Hey, you. Did you tell your master about this?”
“No, not yet. It’s very late at night, so I thought the Count would be asleep, so I came to tell Blaine first.”
“Really? Then, is there anyone in the Count’s residence besides you who knows about this?”
“Yes? No. Probably not. I’m the only one in charge of that patrol among the guards.”
“…Really?”
He immediately smiled bitterly and roughly pushed the guard’s shoulder against the wall. The guard, who had bumped into the wall, looked at him in confusion. The guard’s eyes, barely visible through the helmet, seemed to flicker gold for a brief moment, perhaps because of the moonlight.
“Hey, don’t tell anyone about what we just talked about.”
“Yes…? But I have to report to the Count―”
“If this fact is known to anyone other than you, I’ll assume you told them and I won’t let you get away with it. Do you know what I mean?”
“…….”
“If your master knew about this, he would tremble and have all sorts of delusions, right? So don’t tell anyone and let me handle it quietly.”
“…Yes, I understand.”
“If you understand, go back to work.”
He tapped the guard’s helmet with his finger and told him to keep his mouth shut. Then he waved his hand as if telling him to go. The guard bowed to him and turned around.
“Oh, what’s your name? I need to have some insurance.”
He called out to the guard who was walking away as if he had forgotten something. The helmeted guard turned around and said.
“Andrew Sherman.”
“Andrew Sherman? Okay, Andrew. If you really care about your master, don’t report it and keep it to yourself. I’ll take care of it.”
“Yes.”
The guard looked at him, who was making threats with a lot of bravado, and then turned around and walked away. As soon as he was left alone, he became desperate and immediately headed to the village where the guard had said there were strangers, late at night.
Usually, those who were looking for Leonardo Blaine were either employers who wanted to entrust him with dangerous work, people who had a grudge against him in the past, or the Council, which had been chasing him continuously.
So he needed to find out who those strangers were. He had to act differently depending on who the people who came to find Blaine were.
Working here in frost territory was comfortable and good, but he knew that if things dragged on, he would get caught, and he was just about to switch to another employer. That’s because the atmosphere inside the Delberg trading company, which he was doing business with, had not been good recently.
When he arrived at the village where the outsiders were staying, he first set a fire nearby to observe the situation. According to the guard, they seemed quite strong, so he thought that if they discovered the fire, they would take action in some way.
However, he did use his brain to some extent. If he just set a fire, the Count’s residence would unconditionally suspect him, so he deliberately poured oil on it and set it on fire, so that it would look like someone who couldn’t use fire magic had committed arson. Then he hid and watched the situation.
The fire spread quickly on the oil, and soon someone who discovered the fire shouted loudly that there was a fire. Then, one by one, the lights in the houses turned on and many people discovered the blazing flames.
People tried to put out the fire by carrying water buckets, but the speed at which the fire spread was so fast that it was far from enough to extinguish it. As the fire spread to the houses, the arsonist himself became anxious. If a fire broke out in a normal house and someone got hurt, that would make things even bigger.
At that time, someone was seen flying in from the sky and standing in front of the people.
‘A mage?’
Being able to fly meant that they were a mage who used magic power. He couldn’t hear clearly because he was far away, but the person who suddenly appeared seemed to be telling people to step back. He could feel a sense of intimidation in just that one word.
A moment later, he couldn’t help but gape at the situation. A large magic circle and powerful streams of water appeared in front of him without a chant, and before the sparks could fly, the fire on the oil was helplessly extinguished!
Seeing that scene, he felt that the magic power of the mage who used water magic was so incredibly powerful that it couldn’t be compared to his own. A mage who could use such powerful magic at such a fast speed without chanting.
He instinctively felt that if he faced that person, his identity would be revealed quickly.
He hurriedly returned to the Count Serbia’s residence, immediately washed away the smell of oil from his body so that he wouldn’t be caught, and waited anxiously until dawn. Then he grabbed a passing guard and immediately ordered him to secretly summon a guard named ‘Andrew Sherman’.
But the answer he got from the guard was shocking.
“There is no guard with that name in the Count’s residence.”
For a moment, he couldn’t understand what the guard was saying. The person who had delivered the message to him yesterday was clearly wearing the Count Serbia’s guard armor. It was a mistake that he had only asked for the guy’s name and hadn’t checked his face because he was in a hurry to go to the village after hearing that Leonardo Blaine was being searched for.
If there was no guard with that name, then who was the one who had come to him?
While he was confused, morning came and he heard that the Council branch had dispatched to investigate the fire that had occurred in a nearby village last night.
The man was worried that the guard who had concealed his name and identity might have told the Count about it. If he said that a fire suddenly broke out in the village after he heard that story, the arrow would most likely be pointed at him.
However, the Count Serbia, whom he met in the morning, was only surprised and jumping up and down at the fact that the Council had entered a nearby village. Judging from his appearance, the Count only had a suspicion that he had set the fire, but he didn’t seem to have any certainty.
In other words, the Count didn’t seem to know that he knew that outsiders were looking for ‘Leonardo Blaine’. The Count didn’t even seem to know what the outsiders were looking for yet.
So the suspicion about the guard who had appeared in front of him last night could only deepen.
The man, who had come out into the hallway, grabbed his mottled yellow and brown hair and wondered what to do.
“Then are those guys who put out the fire yesterday also from the Council? The Council doesn’t usually dispatch this quickly just because there’s a fire….”
He crossed his arms in anxiety and shook his legs. Since the guys who were thought to be from the Council were looking for Leonardo Blaine, he came to the conclusion that it was dangerous to stay here any longer.
He was about to start packing his bags and preparing to leave secretly when he heard someone’s voice.
“Blaine, so you were here.”