By Zephyria “Blaine, so you were here.”
Clack, clack, the sound of angry high heels could be heard. When he turned his head, he saw a charming woman walking towards him with a very annoyed expression. It was the Delberg merchant.
She came closer with a very angry expression, sweeping back her hair and glaring at him with fierce eyes, as if scolding him.
“I told you it’s not good to provoke the Count. Why do you keep provoking him? Do you know how much I sweated because of you?”
“Ha, is it okay for that old geezer to provoke me?”
“The Count is my business partner. I wish you would refrain from making such remarks.”
At her words, he scoffed and turned his head. The merchant stared at his face and opened her mouth.
“And I’m saying this because I need to make sure….”
She crossed her arms and stood sideways, scanning the man in front of her from head to toe. Her eyes were full of suspicion.
“The fire in the next village, you really didn’t do it, did you?”
To that, the man called Blaine retorted as if he had been stung, speaking to the merchant leader.
“Ah, I told you, it’s not me! Hey, Merchant Leader. I’m a partner too, not just the Count, you know? If you suspect your partner like this, I can’t work with you!”
As he got angry and came on strong, the merchant leader silently stared at him, as if exploring his reaction. The man swallowed nervously, seemingly tense from her behavior. This woman, after all, was a merchant leader, and there were times when her intuition was remarkably sharp.
‘He’s lying.’
As he feared, the merchant leader immediately recognized his words as false. He was easy to read; when he lied in a situation where he was suspected, his voice would rise, or it would show on his face. The fire last night was, as expected, his doing.
Even if he was a partner on the same boat, the fact that he had lied to her meant there was nothing more to gain from him. However, the merchant leader, wanting to smoothly navigate the current situation, changed her expression and said with a smile.
“Alright, I’m sorry for suspecting you. If it wasn’t you, then it’s fine. But since the Council is here, try to lay low for a while. Minimize your movements.”
“I know that without you telling me, okay? Seriously, and what’s the Council? Do you think I’d be scared of them? If necessary, I can just wipe them all out.”
Seeing the man in front of her bluffing until the end, the merchant leader barely suppressed a laugh. It was just like when he had first introduced himself as ‘Leonardo Blaine’ during their first meeting.
“Whatever the case, it’ll be troublesome if something happens, so stay put. I’ll have the others check things out and come back.”
“Do as you please.”
As he shrugged, the merchant leader turned and walked in the opposite direction. Her face, once she turned her back, was icy cold.
‘Is it time to discard him?’
She had thought she could use him for a little longer, but a fake was still a fake.
* * *
The Delberg merchant leader had been in partnership with the man who introduced himself as Leonardo Blaine for the past few months.
The story began when a strange man approached her, offering his services, as she was looking for a fire mage before coming here. He introduced himself as Leonardo Blaine, as if that justified his high price.
The name Leonardo Blaine was occasionally whispered in secret, mainly by demon beast subjugation squads or those who entrusted their personal protection to him when their lives were threatened.
Being in the merchant business, she came across a wide variety of news, and sometimes his story would come up. From what she heard, his mission success rate was close to 100%. And he was very fast, discreet, and reliable.
It would have been great if the ‘real’ Leonardo Blaine had approached her, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. However, since she needed a fire mage, the merchant leader reluctantly hired the fake one, adding a little extra to his price. Even though she knew it was a lie.
One of the reasons was that he was a useful fire mage, though not particularly strong, and another was that she was able to secure a contract with the frost territory lord thanks to the ‘name’ of Leonardo Blaine.
Since the head merchant leader of Delberg had chosen the frost territory as a future business location for the merchant group, she had to secure a contract with the Count, the lord, at the time. However, she was having difficulties because the Count, despite his overflowing greed, was as timid as a quail.
Then, when she brought ‘Leonardo Blaine’ along, his attitude changed instantly. He seemed to think that the notorious name of Blaine would protect his actions, which were ambiguously on the edge of the law.
From her perspective, it was more convenient to hire a mage who was already trying to deceive her by pretending to be him than to hire any fire mage and have them act as Leonardo Blaine, so there was no reason to hesitate.
She didn’t have to bear the risk of silencing the mage if they refused the offer to play Blaine, and if necessary, she could claim that she had been deceived as well.
There were hardly any people who impersonated his name in the world. Unless they had the guts to operate while evading the Council’s surveillance and the skills to match, they wouldn’t do anything as foolish as impersonating that name.
In that respect, the man she had been in partnership with had apparently done such things often in the past, which was truly remarkable and foolish at the same time. That made it easier to recognize his lies.
As the merchant leader recalled the man’s foolishness over the past few months, she suddenly remembered someone who had warned her about her partner’s foolish actions.
Last night, someone who identified himself as a low-ranking merchant member secretly visited her.
She had hastily assembled the merchant members before coming here, so there were quite a few unverified people, and she was trying to avoid contact with them as much as possible.
She had instructed the low-ranking members to focus on odd jobs in the nearby villages, not around the Count’s estate, so that they wouldn’t have to get close to her or the fake Leonardo Blaine. But somehow, he had avoided the eyes of the merchant group’s executives and came to her, saying abruptly.
“Two outsiders in the next village are looking for Leonardo Blaine.”
At first, she was startled to find a strange man in her room and almost screamed. But she quickly maintained her composure and snapped at him.
“…Leonardo Blaine? Why are you reporting that to me?”
“Isn’t the fire mage that the Merchant Leader hired carrying that ‘name’?”
A chill ran down her spine. It was supposed to be a strictly confidential matter, so how did a low-ranking merchant member who hadn’t been here long know about it?
Feeling threatened, the merchant leader became wary and tried to call her closest aides who were outside, but the man put a finger to his lips as if telling her to be quiet.
“You know very well that your aides are not trustworthy.”
At his words, the merchant leader flinched and stopped trying to call her aides. Then, she looked at him with a look that asked how he knew that and asked for his identity.
“Who are you?”
“I cannot say. Let’s just say I’ve come to give the Merchant Leader an opportunity.”
“Give me an opportunity?”
She let out a hollow laugh. A sharp tension rose between the two. After a moment of silence, she quickly drew the dagger she had strapped to her thigh and pointed it at the man’s neck as if she were about to slash him immediately, saying.
“Who are you to give me an opportunity? Tell me who you are.”
The merchant member glanced at the knife at his neck. But he didn’t seem nervous at all, meeting her eyes directly and gently pushing the blade away. He even had a meaningful smile on his lips.
“…The story I told you earlier is also known to the Leonardo Blaine that the Merchant Leader hired.”
He didn’t seem to have any intention of saying who he was. But before she could even realize that he had changed the subject, the merchant leader was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth and asked again.
“…That guy knows?”
“Watch how he acts and decide for yourself what to do in the future. This is all I can say. Please act quickly.”
“You…!”
With those words, the merchant member quickly knocked away the dagger, opened the window of the room she was in, and jumped out immediately. She almost screamed, but she covered her mouth and ran to the window.
This was the fifth floor, a height that would break both legs if someone jumped. But when she looked out the window, the merchant member who had suddenly visited was nowhere to be seen. The merchant leader threw open the door to go out and find him.
Then, the merchant group executives who were standing outside the door approached her, who had suddenly thrown open the door.
“Where are you going?”
Her closest aides, the merchant group executives, made sure that the merchant leader could only move in a controlled environment. It was almost as if they were monitoring her. As she looked at them approaching, she hesitated to bring up the man who had been in the room until just now.
Numerous thoughts flashed through her mind in a very short time, and after a moment of hesitation, she calmly went back into the room and said.
“It’s nothing.”
After the visit from the unidentified man last night, the merchant leader was quite uneasy.
He said he would give her an ‘opportunity.’ He also seemed to know quite a lot. She didn’t know what the opportunity he was talking about was, but she thought this was a good opportunity to test her partner.
The fire mage had been doing his job properly, but he was also unruly in many ways, and he was one of the factors that made her as uneasy as the Count.
If he was going to continue impersonating Leonardo Blaine, it was also important how he would act in a situation where someone was chasing the real one. If he acted rashly with that name, she could be in danger as well.
And he soon committed a very disappointing and foolish act.
The merchant leader thought, if only he had stayed still. Or if he had quietly eliminated the outsiders who were looking for Leonardo Blaine. She would have valued him highly and been willing to continue using his name.
But he was much more foolish than she thought.
Setting fire to the village.
To make matters worse, he told a transparent lie and, strictly speaking, kept a secret from her, his employer. After talking to that fake Leonardo Blaine, she immediately left the Count’s estate and headed outside.
She needed to hear the full story of the arson in more detail to find out about the outsiders, and she needed to find the low-ranking merchant member from last night.
She could have ordered her subordinates to do it, but in fact, there was not a single person in this merchant group that she could completely trust right now. So she had to find them herself.
Even putting aside the fact that he knew about Leonardo Blaine, he also knew that the relationship between her and her aides was not so trustworthy, even though he was just a low-ranking merchant member.
* * *
Not long after she left the Count’s estate, Hugo and Flynn arrived in front of the Count Serbia’s estate.
Hugo narrowed his brows at the subtle energy he felt inside the Count’s estate. Soon, they entered through the gates of the huge mansion.
When a guard tried to stop them, Flynn took out his badge and showed it to the guard. At the badge signifying the authority of the Council, the hesitant guard opened the way.
Then, another guard hurriedly ran into the mansion, informing the owner that they had arrived at the Count’s estate.