Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“Baron Fallos. If you cooperate obediently, I’ll spare your life.”

The ones who barged in wore common hemp clothes with armor only on the knees, elbows, shoulders, and chest degree, and masks covering everything up to the eyes.

As I put the journal in my bosom and tried to get up fumbling, they looked at me.

“You just stay lying down. If you don’t want to die...”

“Who are you?”

“...”

Having obtained the Blessing, I just want to ask bluntly.

Of course there was no answer, and the intruder standing at the very front just slowly tilted his head.

“Baron Fallos. You’ll have to transfer the Nibispine to a pot.”

“...It won’t do unless it’s the designated pot. The magic practitioners who will take it prepare and bring it, so there is none here.”

From behind, one masked person brought a box and put it down.

Opening the box, an empty pot that looked expensive at a glance was inside.

“Put it in.”

“This is the Count’s land, and everything in this forest is the Count’s property. If you steal it recklessly like this...”

Without even listening to all of Baron Fallos’s words, the attacker raised his hand and signaled.

The direction the fingertips lightly pointed was me.

The picture is drawn.

Coerce, and since he doesn’t listen, cut the nearby guy.

Then naturally he’ll listen, but that won’t be easy.

I put my hand into the pocket.

I was thinking of just beating them if it was one or two, but only the ones standing in front of my eyes are six, and including the ones rustling beyond the entrance behind, it looks like more than eight.

So the spell scroll I prepared in preparation for a crisis...

“Is it a bit wasteful...?”

The thought came that I might be being too careful.

Those aren’t demons, nor am I of the age where I have to be careful with my body because my waist is uncomfortable the day after overdoing it.

A fresh period where even if injured, it gets better after eating one meal.

Yeah, it’s not even a time when I don’t have to worry about money like then.

Thinking it’s still early to rely on expensive equipment to resolve work, I drew the sword from inside the herb basket.

“Let’s see the skills a bit first.”

“A mere herb gatherer!”

As sword and sword met, sparks flew.

I pushed and pressed to one side before the sword fell, and while the sword tip was still toward the opponent, I cut the back of the hand and retrieved it.

“Ack!”

I hit the chin of the masked person who let go of the sword with my fist.

With a bang—— sound, the head went up to the sky with a whoosh, and collapsed without a word as is.

Then the sword coming down toward the head and the sword met exactly.

I scraped the met sword all the way down to the guard, then pointed at the opponent’s sword surface with my hand.

Blue light blooming in an instant the moment it touches.

With a thud—— the opponent’s sword that spun once was caught in my hand.

“One step forward.”

“...?”

The masked person who had the sword taken couldn’t hide his bewilderment and hesitated.

“Even if I try to spare you, this is... Shall I just cut?”

Sufficient distance to cut.

Knowing that if he steps back, his neck will really fly, the masked person walked forward in front of me hesitatingly.

“Well done.”

I hit the crown with the sword hilt and cleanly knocked him out.

It wasn’t particularly that I was trying to spare him out of pity.

The more people to interrogate, the better, right?

One person might readily answer a casually thrown question.

I see killing the guy who might have the lightest mouth in this place as a kind of gamble.

“Wh-what?”

A stirring atmosphere.

I discarded the sword I took and took off the masks of the nearby guys.

“Are there any familiar faces?”

When I asked Baron Fallos, he shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“They’ll know if we take them to the guard corps. Anyway, secured two pieces of evidence.”

I looked at the guy at the very front again and said.

“Why aren’t you coming? Come quickly.”

“Who are you? No, who are you, sir?”

“I asked first.”

When I gestured with my chin as if to answer first, there was no answer this time either.

“...If you don’t come, shall I go?”

After saying that, I jumped toward the masked person.

Didn’t expect me to charge?

He’s quite startled.

***

Baron Fallos felt as if he had seen a ghost.

It was bewildering that numerous people suddenly appeared in this secret place, and when they tried to cut the Viscount without further ado, he thought he would faint.

But the thing that happened next was something unimaginable.

Block the sword and retrieve, and the opponent lets go of the sword.

Block the sword and put the opposite hand, and the opponent’s sword comes over.

It was truly a scene that seemed to show what swordsmanship is.

‘Indeed, I heard he learns the Equira sword!’

Those from the Equira family’s sword institute are said to handle the sword well, but not everyone who just filled 10 years and came out showed that level of skill.

‘Though it’s said to be right before finishing the arduous training of the Equira Sword Family, even though still only eighteen, that level of skill... Indeed, it’s Gradias!’

In fact, being Gradias also didn’t matter much.

Ronan Gradias also had a skill feeling similar to ordinary students when he just finished graduation.

Closer to the proficiency that came from accumulated years rather than talent.

“Hey! Be careful of the grass behind your feet. That looks expensive.”

The continuing scene also only brought admiration.

No matter how excellent a swordsman, he cannot block all the swords that three or four continuously swing.

But if the armament is disarmed every time the swords meet like that, the realization comes that indeed he alone could handle even a hundred.

One sword falls and a thud—— sound is heard, and one person falls.

What reveals the Viscount’s meticulous personality is that he never sent them flying or slammed them, but laid them down exactly in place.

“You’re not the one who’ll pay, right?”

“Hehe...”

“Uh uh, going back? Not listening? You’ll die?”

A dull sound comes from the chin of the one who couldn’t go forward or back and hesitated.

So refreshing.

Baron Fallos had already relaxed the tension, put his hands behind his back, and was leisurely enjoying the viewing.

***

After the battle ended, I was preparing the next interrogation at Baron Fallos’s mountain cabin.

I went through the subordinates who didn’t need responsibility one by one, and mouths certainly opened well, but no one knew the main culprit.

Still, I heard the story that these are the Baales Mercenary Group who entered the Count’s territory about 2 years ago, their specialty is tracking and infiltration, the person standing at the very front is the leader, and that this job was commissioned more than 1 year ago.

At the time I was about to board the carriage heading to the sword family, these were already pre-surveying near the Spirit Vein Forest.

However, since I didn’t go out, they provisionally stopped, and the moment I went out, they started moving according to the original plan.

“Did the Count send you?”

“Yes.”

Would I be fooled by that?

They show an attitude of ‘It’s the Count’s will, what can you do’, but the acting was lacking.

“Someone around the Count?”

“No. I said it’s the Count.”

It’s someone around.

“The Count’s family?”

“I said it’s the Count... Ack!”

Even though I didn’t hit, it’s exaggeration.

Because I’m holding the sword.

“Answer with yes or no. Is it the Count’s family?”

The guy thereafter unified all answers as ‘No’.

I asked in turn about the guard, butler, steward...

At the steward, it was visible that he put strength in his eyes on purpose.

“No.”

If it were the old days, I would have taken that clumsy acting as circumstantial evidence and entered additional investigation, but now this confirms it.

Because falsehood was felt in that guy’s words.

Of course, making others understand is a secondary problem, so it wasn’t the end with this.

“Good work.”

When I stood up cleanly as if having heard the answer, the eye area of the interrogated guy trembled.

“What the hell are you.”

“I’m Ronan Gradias.”

I smiled pleasantly.

“You mean that greenhorn ordered it?”

Even with the introduction, he doesn’t recognize.

It was natural.

It would be hard to believe the words of a stranger introducing himself as someone whose face he knows well.

“Understand moderately on your own, and now sleep. When you open your eyes, it’ll be prison.”

I greeted and placed my hand on the guy’s chin.

Blue light rose, and the guy bowed his head deeply.

The surprised voice of Baron Fallos, who had been quietly watching the interrogation from the side, was heard.

“...You can use magic too?”

“I don’t know how to use it?”

“...”

Silence as if asking what I just used.

Ah, was this kind of thing a later trend.

I unconsciously used the refined method of decades later.

I should have just hit the back of the neck or chin in a way fitting now.

“It’s not something like sleep magic, I just gave a shock to the head with mana and knocked him out.”

“Does the sword family teach even that? Indeed, the name of Equira was not an empty name.”

It’s not like that.

***

A middle-aged man of scholar style with a neat face and glasses opened the rusty door of the warehouse and entered.

He was the steward of Valdemar Count’s territory.

He looked at one box placed without a sense of incongruity among the miscellaneous items in the basement of the house and made a noticeably relieved expression.

Baales Freddy. They said he’s a skilled mercenary, and as the broker said, the work handling is clean.

Since the fewer people who know, the better, I only talked with the mercenary group leader, and promised that after finishing the work in the Spirit Vein Forest, to move it to the basement of the old mountain cabin at the western end crossing Ascar Forest.

I received the success signal.

I heard that the son of the Spirit Vein Forest manager went to the guard corps and filed a report that his father went missing.

Now the thing to do was to send the guard corps to the Gradias family’s lumber camp.

The guard corps will find the one Snow Pine that the Baales guy hid there, and with that as evidence, catch the son of the Fallos family and put him in prison.

If he eats poison and dies inside, now there will be no one who knows well about the Spirit Vein Forest, and the investigation will also face difficulties.

He would have not the slightest thought of disclosing that secret place to the guard corps.

The Count is not a person who will thoroughly investigate and distinguish right and wrong.

He will just order to select a scholar, research the materials of the Fallos Baron family, and pick a new manager, then look for a target to take responsibility for failing to protect the Spirit Vein Forest.

‘That will be the Gradias family, and I just need to hand the item to the broker and receive the money.’

Although I was promised an amount that isn’t even half the value of the Snow Pine, with that alone I would be able to put up one decent building in the city of the Count’s territory.

I quietly walked and opened the box.

A treasure from which even with one potted plant, a cool atmosphere is felt as if looking down on the winter garden of an old-era poet.

The pure white light of the Snow Pine that is said to hold and emit pure mana...

“Blue?”

Atmosphere? This round flat leaves with countless shining blue dots embedded, giving a strange sense of rejection, is the atmosphere...?

The pot is correct that I prepared it myself.

But this contained here is blue no matter how you look, and first of all, it’s ugly.

“Wh-what. Where did the Snow Pine go.”

“Good, that’s enough.”

Turning back at the suddenly heard voice, there was an old curtain behind the boxes stacked layer by layer.

Sweeping the curtain aside, a man with red hair walked out.

“Cough, cough... Why is there so much dust. I’ll have to eat meat later.”

“Who are you?”

“Want to guess?”

“...”

“I’m hard, right? That person will be easy.”

Turning my gaze to the place he gestured with his chin, one knight was standing upright among the items in a secluded place.

What was drawn on his chest was the emblem of Valdemar.

If adding the castle emblem engraved on the right button of the cloak...

“Guard captain?”

It was a familiar face.

“B-Baron Martin!”

“Arrest the steward.”

The door opened, and guards poured in.

“W-wait! I can explain! My words...!”

The red-haired man who first revealed his appearance reached out his hand.

The moment he felt that rough touch reach his neck, he lost consciousness with a feeling of thunder striking.

***

A well-built grayish castle.

Seeing that the culprit steward is being taken into Valdemar Count’s castle, it seems the time to leave this land has come soon.

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