Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Baron held his breath, bracing for the pain.

But there was no pain.

The blade of the sword had stopped on his shoulder.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. You can die cleanly too. You just have to answer well.”

Death was certain, and it was a situation where he had to choose between dying while being interrogated painfully or dying without pain.

“I understand.”

Ronan, who nodded, released the Baron’s hand.

And while sheathing the sword, he asked.

“Where do you keep the business ledgers?”

“There, check behind the frame behind the bed.”

Ronan walked that way and removed the painting.

A safe was visible.

When he turned back to the Baron, he quietly recited numbers.

Ronan, who opened the safe by turning the mechanism, paused.

A red stone was placed on top of the documents.

The one who doubted his eyes picked up the stone and slightly infused mana.

Blue light spread like blood vessels and then faded.

Soon, a faint red light flickered from deep inside.

The light stopped quickly, but he knew that light very well.

The red moonlight that illuminates the ground every night.

This stone was a Red Moon Stone, a fragment of the red moon.

“Baron, do you know what this is?”

“It was together inside the bookshelf where the Trial Book was stuck.”

I heard that my great-grandfather, trusting the one who fixed his leg, emptied the family assets and bought many strange items.

So the Red Moon Stone came in together with the Trial Book at that time?

“When you infuse mana, it glows strangely. I kept it because it didn’t seem like something to throw away.”

Then, one of the Blessings the Baron possessed later might have been obtained through the Red Moon Stone.

The expression of Ronan, who stuffed the Red Moon Stone into his pocket, became peculiar.

He did not rate the possibility that the family’s Trial Book was real as high.

Because if it were real, he thought someone among the previous generations would have received a Blessing earlier.

But if it was someone who sold a real Red Moon Stone, it didn’t seem like they would have handed over a fake Trial Book.

[Imagine another world, write about it, and act as if you have become a character of that world.]

Ronan once again recalled the content of the trial he had checked out of curiosity, then examined the documents inside the safe.

Confirming it was the material he was looking for, Ronan put the documents back in place and returned to the table to pull out one tissue.

After lifting the pen and writing the safe’s password that the Baron had told him, he placed the pen on top to fix it so it wouldn’t fly away.

Ronan, who finished the work, looked at the Baron.

“Let me ask just one more thing last.”

“Go ahead.”

“You have a Blessing, right?”

A brief silence fell.

The Baron was lost in thought for a moment.

“...I have one.”

“What kind of Trial Book?”

The Baron sent his gaze to the broken bookshelf.

“The second paragraph of the preface of the thickest book, and the first phrase of the first line of the last page.”

Ronan moved his steps.

And after opening the thick book and turning a few pages, he confirmed the sentences.

[Looked into the dog’s eyes. That infinite trust and affection was felt.]

He flipped the book and turned one page.

[Talked about the false people of the world. He revealed that not speaking falsehoods for profit was the condition of this bet.]

Combining the first phrases of the two sentences, it was like this.

[Looked into the dog’s eyes. Talked about the false people of the world.]

“The dog’s eyes... Is this it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s simple to the point of being hard to believe, but what kind of Blessing can you receive with this?”

“You can distinguish the truth of words.”

“Indeed.”

Later, Solders Orsel devours numerous organizations and becomes a big shot in the underworld.

If he had a Blessing like that, it would have been almost like cheating in a world that runs on betrayal and deals.

When Ronan also realized that Orsel was his enemy and started targeting him, the people he sent into his organization were continuously discovered.

Since he didn’t fall for traps and schemes, Ronan eventually chose to enlarge the matter and push in with force.

“Did you have others try it too?”

“...Everyone failed.”

“Is that so?”

“This time too, they seemed annoyed as if I brought a fake Trial Book and made them do useless things. Well, it must be a trial that depends on the person.”

The Baron’s words grew longer.

“Perhaps you need experience of being greatly betrayed or scammed. My family lived like flowers in a greenhouse, unlike me. They don’t know at all what kind of work I do or have done.”

He met eyes with Ronan.

And asked in a slightly trembling voice.

“...Are they dying today too?”

“No, I’m not interested.”

The Baron noticeably relaxed and looked at the broken bookshelf.

“In fact, the Trial Books in that bookshelf might all be real too. I just missed something, or it wasn’t permitted to me.”

Outside the door was noisy.

The footsteps of several people were approaching toward the hallway.

“I said I gave up earlier, but I was reading those and performing every day.”

As if the conversation ended here, Ronan walked toward the Baron while drawing the sword.

“Any last words?”

“There were no personal feelings. I just wanted to become stronger.”

The Baron of later years, though at the entrance, had entered the path of magic, and was armed with Blessings collected for over ten years.

The illegal businesses and organizations that were still in the starting stage had grown by then to a scale hard to gauge, providing the Baron with endless wealth and hideouts.

So Ronan struggled quite a bit to catch the guy even while drawing on the army’s resources.

The Baron stood up from his place, trembling.

Not because of fear, but forcibly squeezing out strength that wouldn’t enter.

Seeing him standing with all his might among the dead mercenaries, it overlapped with the appearance in memory.

At that time too, he was barely standing after collapsing the combat officers with a body covered in blood.

‘Major Gradias. I heard you wanted to kill me that much.’

‘You know well.’

That day, Ronan beheaded Orsel, and took responsibility for involving the army in personal revenge and was discharged.

Ronan’s sword drew the same trajectory as then.

The Baron’s head rolled and fell.

The ending where Orsel dies at Ronan’s hands did not change.

It was just that he died earlier, with fewer sacrifices.

Ronan passed the fallen Baron’s body and left the bedroom.

***

Revenge was instantaneous, but a complicated process was needed to get here.

To secretly slip out of Valdemar Count’s territory, he climbed down the forest cliff and swam out through the river.

With the money he had, he forged an identification plaque, disguised himself as that person, moved to the Kshar Marquis territory where the enemy Solders Baron lived, and began activities as a broker.

With two daggers at his waist, and long straight hair sticking out and hanging under the deeply pressed hood, a broker named ‘Boldan’.

The first thing I did as Boldan was to find in advance the base of the bandits who robbed an important load of a caravan merchant.

Then I sent a letter to the caravan merchant saying ‘I can retrieve the items’.

And receiving the request, I sent a decent mercenary group to resolve it.

Originally, the caravan merchant absolutely did not give up that jewel inherited generation after generation in the family, and eventually continues a quite famous ill-fated relationship with that bandit group for a long 4 years.

All the bandits died, but the amount the caravan merchant spent to retrieve that jewel exceeded ten times the jewel’s price.

Of course, after that anecdote was added, the price inflated dozens of times and it became a legendary jewel, so it wasn’t a loss, they say...

While turning that matter into a small theft incident of a few months, I might have erased one legend.

The caravan merchant was grateful to me, but it was still early to be introduced to the lord I was aiming for.

I received introductions to a few big shots of the Marquis territory from him and resolved matters in a similar way.

After gaining their trust this way, I said I had something urgent to tell the lord.

There is a crazy human trying to build his own underground world in the clean Marquis territory...

He’s quite capable and vicious, so if you don’t nip it in the bud in advance, it will become troublesome, I asked them to convey.

In the end, the lord sent a person and heard his name from me.

‘Solders Orsel.’

While the Kshar lord is doing nothing without knowing anything, a guy who ends up becoming a big shot with greater influence than the lord.

The lord thought he didn’t need to receive the broker’s help, and started stirring Solders himself.

Even if the lord catches and kills that guy on his own, there’s nothing bad about it.

I was quietly watching like that, but unfortunately, the investigation made no progress.

It was a period not long after Solders started the work, but because of that, the guy was moving more meticulously.

The lord rather suspected me.

Aren’t you deceiving me because you have a grudge against Solders?

It became that he sent knights and guards to an inn that was being operated normally and well for no reason and harassed it, only damaging my face.

The Marquis’s experience was too lacking to find the hidden gambling den.

Even if he found it, that place would have already been transformed into something like the establishment owner’s liquor warehouse.

I said to leave it to me for now.

At times like this, you shouldn’t carelessly offer to reduce the money or just help.

That is the most un-broker-like action.

The best was to release some information to make them anxious, then absolutely not release the most important information until receiving the advance payment.

In the end, the lord handed money to me.

He said he wouldn’t leave it if it was deception, but not long after I asked him to leave it to me, I brought and offered a recording sphere.

Inside the recording sphere were contained the scenery of the gambling den in the hidden room on the upper floor of the restaurant Solders operates, and the auction house taking place in the underground of the inn.

I had disguised myself as a regular there and entered and come out myself.

The Kshar Marquis was enraged.

And I advised him.

If you send knights and guards, they might notice in advance and flee.

Since you don’t know where their eyes and ears are, when raiding the establishments, give some of the guards and knights vacation in advance and exclude them, and charge in all at once without saying where you’re going.

By that time, the Marquis fully listened to my words.

I know a reliable mercenary group. While quietly handling that person, I’ll also take out the crime evidence to a well-visible place. Will you leave the work to me once more?

The Marquis nodded, and again paid me a large sum of money.

I hired a mercenary group as a broker, and in that mercenary group, I had entered with another identity.

Bamstead Brothers.

A mercenary group whose entry procedure includes ‘win at arm-wrestling with the youngest’, and that youngest, though muscular, is in charge of administration and is always called the youngest no matter who enters.

It seems because he’s the youngest among the leader’s blood relatives.

Looking only at such traditions and those rough faces, it seems they would move ignorantly, but that wasn’t the case.

A group that moves after deciding everything that can be done and cannot be done before entering the work, working more delicately than it looks.

After narrowing down four out of the thirty-three mercenary groups active in the Marquis territory, working together a few times to grasp their tendencies, and finally selecting that place.

I raided the Baron’s mansion together with them, and completed the revenge myself.

It was a somewhat cumbersome method, but killing a noble is a quite sensitive part, so I could be persistently chased if not careful.

If it can be done under the permission of the highest person, that is the cleanest.

“Charlie, it seemed to be getting late, so I came up.”

Charlie Brams was my name as a mercenary.

Even if things go wrong later, the main culprit who murdered Solders Baron will be this Charlie Brams.

“It’s finished.”

The second among the leader’s blood relatives. Homer glanced inside.

The one who finished confirming in an instant the Baron’s corpse, the exposed safe, even the note on the desk, turned around and shouted.

“Prepare to withdraw!”

Going down the stairs, corpses were strewn in the Baron’s family.

However, weapons had invariably fallen around them, and there were not a few who were kneeling in the corner with both arms raised and hands behind their heads.

“The knights will come soon. I don’t want to meet them here, so hurry.”

“Yes.”

The orders are good.

It’s very satisfying that they keep the conditions I set as a broker one by one.

The mercenary group exited the mansion’s main gate and entered the hill road.

At that time, there was a force coming up from the opposite side.

A knight of the Marquis family wearing armor and the soldiers he led were heading toward the Baron’s mansion.

“Everyone quietly go down. Don’t even answer.”

If the Marquis intends to betray the mercenaries, now was the right time.

A blood-covered mercenary group walking down the hill road leading to a noble family’s mansion.

It was a situation where not catching them would be negligence of duty.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and met eyes with the knight at the very front.

It was a knight with dark blue hair tied back and hanging long.

The name is Pyros. The most blindly loyal one in the Marquis family.

If I tear the spell scroll caught on my fingertips, the loss would be a bit big, but I would be able to save about three nearby people and escape.

“...”

Pyros turned his gaze as is with an expressionless face.

The soldiers, as if following the attitude of the leading knight, pretended not to see the mercenary group and passed by.

“Hoo...”

As they passed by, the mercenaries let out a sigh of relief.

“Everyone worked hard. Let’s go rest quickly.”

The leader soothed everyone.

Before long, people of dirty appearance increased around.

Clothes with dirt not dusted off, bandages soaked in blood, weapons worn by hand marks were visible.

Among the crowd walking toward the mercenary guild, they didn’t look strange at all.

The leader looked at me and said.

“Charlie, we’ll tidy up moderately and head straight to Orca Territory tomorrow.”

“You thought well. After something like this, it’s better to avoid for a bit.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I have a few errands left. I think I’ll stay about a week more and then leave.”

The leader nodded.

“If you finish the work and have nowhere to go, come to the mercenary guild in Orca and look for the Bamstead Brothers.”

“Understood.”

I stopped in front of the building.

They waved their hands in greeting and entered the noisy building.

After seeing them off, I put on the robe inside out, pressed down the hood, and moved my steps.

Entering the alley, I walked down the underground stairs next to the stall where an old man sells fruit, opened the third room among the underground corridors, and entered.

I took out the Trial Journal and Red Moon Stone and put them down, then took off the hood.

I opened the closet and took out the items inside and laid them out in front of the mirror.

When preparations were finished, I tore off the front hair covering the eyes and the curved mustache.

After sweeping up and arranging the black hair, I pressed on a brown wig.

Then I carefully attached a neat brown beard so that the sideburns, chin beard, and mustache connected.

I turned my face to check and nodded.

It had excellently become the face of a professor of Romanchure Academy.

I will now leave this land as Palis Ederson.

I stood up, took out the high-class suit hanging inside the old wardrobe, changed into it, and put on the coat.

I opened the drawer, took out the glasses, and put them on.

I took the documents next to it into my bosom and closed the drawer.

I opened the bag that had been standing next to the desk and put in the Red Moon Stone and Trial Journal.

Holding the bag, I stood in front of the door and briefly looked around the room.

Putting the hat hanging on the hanger on my head, I left the room.

I passed the corridor and went up the opposite stairs.

The place I came out was the entrance of a miscellaneous goods store in front of a crowded fountain.

After walking mixed in the crowd for a bit, when the red mailbox approached, I took out the letter from my bosom and put it in.

Then I reached out to an empty carriage and got on.

“Where shall I take you?”

“To the South Gate station.”

That day, it was recorded in the guard corps that a professor of Romanchure Academy named Palis Ederson, who visited on vacation, left the territory.

***

Sitting in front of a sunlit desk, I was reading Grandfather’s Trial Journal.

Since obtaining the Red Moon Stone, this trial bothered me a lot.

After turning a few more pages, I put down the journal and stretched.

Morris placed a cup in front of the desk and poured tea.

Blankly looking at the tree outside the window, a question suddenly arose.

“By the way, why isn’t anything happening?”

The tea stream that was being poured shook.

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