By Zephyria Hugo and Flynn stood in front of the main door of the Count’s estate, waiting politely for the door to open. Even without looking inside, they could feel how chaotic the interior was.
Several minutes passed. Just as Hugo was about to forcibly open the door and enter, the central door opened, and the Count greeted them himself with an awkward smile.
“T-To think that Your Excellency would come all the way out here, it’s an honor.”
At the Count’s words, Hugo stared at his face and opened his mouth.
“I have come today as the Commander of the Council, so please refrain from using that title.”
“Yes? The C-Council, you mean…?”
Count Serbia was very respectful in front of Hugo. Flynn was used to nobles bowing to Hugo because he knew his superior’s position well. The Count was very flustered in front of them, who had suddenly visited the mansion, and didn’t know what to do.
“Haha, what brings the Council Commander here….”
He was sweating profusely and was almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown ever since he heard that the Council had entered the next village, and then Hugo Agrizendro, who could be said to be the head of the Council, suddenly burst into his mansion.
According to noble customs, visiting someone’s mansion without prior notice was quite rude, but the story was different if they burst in with the title of the Council.
Count Serbia, who was in a panic, desperately hoped that the Delberg merchant leader and the street thug-like mage who had been with him until just now would not be anywhere near here, and forced a smile while rubbing his hands together. Then, he led them to the drawing room.
As Hugo picked up a cup placed on the table, the steaming teacup instantly turned cold. Hugo took a sip of the cold tea, put the teacup down, and asked directly.
“My adjutant and I stopped by the next village on business. And this morning, we arrested a mage who was tailing us.”
“You arrested a mage…?”
The Count’s vision blurred. The mage they arrested was probably the mage he had sent. He had ordered the mage he was using to monitor them in order to find out the identity of the suspicious outsiders who had appeared recently.
But he never dreamed that the outsiders the mage was tailing would be this Hugo Agrizendro. He never imagined that the outsiders who had entered the next village would be the Council, and even the Commander and his adjutant.
“Yes, do you know anything about that mage?”
“……”
When the Count closed his mouth, Hugo leaned back and looked at him silently. Hugo wasn’t saying or doing anything, but the pressure the Count was receiving was truly enormous. He was frantically racking his brain, feeling like Hugo already knew everything, but no answer came to mind.
As time passed, the sound of the fireplace crackling soon faded, and the fire slowly went out. As the interior quickly became cold, Flynn quietly shivered.
The Count, who had been greatly intimidated by the cold air emanating from the Commander in front of him, finally opened his mouth with difficulty. He thought that they had already come with conviction.
“It’s true that I sent that mage. I heard that outsiders were asking questions in the village in the next town, so I sent him to tail them for investigation, but I never dreamed that it would be the Commander.”
“Are you trying to say that you sent a mage just to investigate outsiders? I think that’s too much.”
Hugo said, poking at the flaw in the Count’s words. Then, silence came again.
“Did you react so sensitively to the outsiders because you had something to hide? Something that shouldn’t be discovered.”
“N-No such thing!”
When Flynn asked cautiously, the Count visibly startled and subtly showed his displeasure. Flynn, who had been watching his reaction, thought that he was reacting this way because he was hiding something related to the disposal of demon beast corpses.
Hugo felt the same way. He guessed that the Count was reacting sensitively to the outsiders and even sent a mage to spy on them because he was hiding something. And he suspected that what he was hiding was related to the demon beast corpses.
However, the words that came out of the Count’s mouth, who had been hesitating for a long time, were completely unexpected.
“The reason I sent a mage to tail them was because I heard that the two outsiders were looking for Leonardo Blaine. I thought that if they were looking for such a dangerous person, they might be even more dangerous, so I tried to investigate them secretly.”
“…Leonardo Blaine, you say?”
Flynn, who was looking at the Count with surprised eyes, turned his head towards Hugo. Hugo also had a puzzled look on his face, as he didn’t expect that name to come up here. Then, Hugo asked Flynn.
“Flynn Levernill, did you ever mention his name when you were conducting the investigation?”
“Absolutely not. I swear. I didn’t reveal the name, I only showed the picture.”
Flynn answered clearly as if he really swore.
“…That means.”
A subtle smile spread across Hugo’s lips. His handsome features stood out as a smile spread across his cold face. However, it was a more terrifying smile than any other smile to the Count, who didn’t understand what they were reacting to.
“There is someone who knows his face.”
At Hugo’s words, the Count sensed that something he had said was wrong.
“How do you know that fact? That the person we are looking for is Leonardo Blaine. When we were conducting the investigation by showing the picture, we never said that the person in the picture was that guy.”
Count Serbia rolled his eyes. His mind was completely blank as he desperately tried to figure out what he had said wrong.
The one who told the Count that foreigners seemed to be looking for Leonardo Blaine was the water magic user he had ordered to tail the foreigners.
The magic user had said that the foreigners were going around showing a picture, but he hadn’t mentioned that they didn’t say the name of the person in the picture, so the Count had no idea about that.
Besides, he had never seen the picture they were carrying around, so he didn’t realize that the Leonardo Blaine they were talking about was a different person.
So, the Count was terrified that if it became known that the magic user who had told him knew Leonardo Blaine’s face, it would be linked to the fact that the scoundrel had been here until just now, and all the things he had done would be exposed.
As the crisis approached, only the words the merchant had said earlier echoed in his head.
‘If we leak information about that guy first, we might be able to negotiate with the Council by handing over Blaine.’
However, one thing she overlooked was that the negotiating partner was Kajard of the Council. ‘Kajard’ was one of the nicknames of Council Commander Hugo Agrizendro, a word used to describe him, who was known for being quite principled and cold-blooded.
However, the protagonist of that nickname hated the name quite a bit, so there were hardly any who used the word in front of him.
Hugo Agrizendro, whom Count Serbia knew well, was definitely not someone he could negotiate with. He was a person who valued principles and the right path very much, and trying to negotiate with him was rather an act of offending him.
In the end, the Count, who was worried about this problem, decided to pass the crisis on to Delberg, the head of the merchant group who had Leonardo Blaine directly.
“The Delberg merchant group has entered the territory. The head of the merchant group told me.”
“The head of Delberg?”
“Yes, as the merchant group entered this frost territory, the head of the merchant group visited my mansion to say hello, and at that time, he hinted to me. Foreigners have entered the vicinity looking for Leonardo Blaine, and they seem to be dangerous people, so he said it would be good to pay attention.”
The Count lied to avoid the crisis as much as possible. The head of the Delberg merchant group would be shocked if she knew that this matter had been passed on to him, but he thought that since she was the one who brought Leonardo Blaine, she should take some responsibility.
And as soon as these people left, he thought it was urgent and best to find the head of the merchant group and get their stories straight in advance.
Hugo looked closely at the Count who was saying that. If his words were true, it meant that the head of Delberg had been among the people they had asked while showing the picture, or someone had asked the head of the merchant group for information.
Hugo naturally recalled the two young men among the men who had been drinking and talking with him last night. They said they were low-ranking members of Delberg, and they didn’t know the purpose of the merchant group’s visit here, they were just doing their job.
If they knew Leonardo Blaine’s face and pretended not to know…
Reaching that point, Hugo recalled that there was something he had to do before judging the truth of what the Count had said. If the low-ranking member of the merchant group he saw at the pub deliberately hid the fact that he knew Leonardo Blaine’s face and reported it to the head of the merchant group… why on earth did he talk about the demon beast corpse that could put the merchant group under suspicion?
“Then I’ll ask you one more thing.”
“Wh…what is it?”
“I heard quite an interesting rumor in the village. About half a month ago, a burned demon beast corpse was found in the foothills. And I heard that the lord of frost territory collected it.”
“That’s…!”
“I want to hear an explanation about this story.”
When the demon beast story came up, the Count’s face turned white and he looked noticeably embarrassed. After moving his lips for a while, he hurriedly replied, thinking that he still had an excuse to escape the situation.
“That’s not a demon beast corpse! It’s just an animal corpse.”
“…An animal corpse?”
“Th…this frost territory, as Commander also knows, has a low climate and barren land. It is not suitable for animal husbandry. So, while importing slaughtered livestock meat through the merchant group, it caught fire by accident. A demon beast, that’s absurd. Haha.”
There’s no way something like that would be here… The Count wiped away his cold sweat and added awkwardly. Flynn was slightly puzzled by the plausible sophistry. Hugo, who had been listening quietly, asked the Count again.
“It caught fire by accident? What was the reason for the sudden fire?”
“Isn’t the climate here very dry? So, wildfires occur often, and there are many dry branches, so the spread rate is fast. As far as I know, a member of the merchant group was smoking and the ashes fell, accidentally causing the fire to spread. There were many dry trees and grass around, so the fire spread quickly. So, as soon as I heard the news, I sent the water magic user I employ to put out the fire.”
Flynn, who was listening to the smooth answers, carefully opened his mouth.
“I… I know that frost territory is a region where wildfires often occur. But then, do you know that there was a fire in the next village last night? At that time, the guards arrived only after I contacted the Council branch and several hours had passed.”
“Ah…, I know about that. The fire last night was not in the mountains but near the village, so it seems that the detector was late in detecting it.”
The Count took something out of his inside pocket and showed it. It was a type of thermal detector.
“I have these temperature detectors installed all over the mountains so that I can know immediately when a fire breaks out. However, since fires rarely occur near private houses, it seems that I didn’t install many detectors there, so I couldn’t detect it properly.”
“Can I see that detector for a moment?”
“…I will.”
The Count was a little reluctant, but he handed the detector to Flynn, thinking that he wouldn’t be able to find out anything with just this.
His statement that the detector could not detect was true. In fact, the devices connected to the Count’s family did not ring immediately about the fire that occurred last night, so they found out about it only later.
Flynn began to examine the received object. Count Serbia looked at him a little uneasily, then wiped away his sweat again and gave an awkward smile at the gaze of Commander Agrizendro, who was staring at him intently.
“By the way, is the water magic user who put out the fire last night perhaps the Commander?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh my, I can’t thank you enough…! If it weren’t for the Commander, it would have turned into a big fire. I thank you on behalf of the villagers.”
The Count made a fuss as if he had met a benefactor when Hugo nodded and spoke at the topic he had carefully turned to. Then, he rubbed his hands carefully and said cautiously with eyes that showed he would not offend him as much as possible.
“But… when will the magic user I sent be….”
“I will conduct an interrogation and return him immediately if there are no problems.”
“Ah, thank you.”
The story of the interrogation was a bit unsettling, but the Count knew that the Council’s interrogation was not sadistic, but just asking a few questions, so he was relieved that the magic user would not blow the facts.
Looking at such a Count, Hugo felt that the water magic user he had caught knew a lot.