Chapter 86

Bandits and Refugees

The Far Eastern Front Council Hall.

Aside from the annual gathering, there was rarely any reason for all the lords of the far east to assemble. This was the first time a second meeting had ever been called within the same year.

Ferda slowly looked over the fourteen lords.

Some of them had lost the plumpness they possessed during the first gathering, and their jawlines had begun to show.

Ferda addressed them.

“There is a young man named Stephan.”

A young man named Stephan.

It was hardly something a boy who had yet to turn nineteen should be saying.

Yet the weight in Ferda’s voice was enough to make even that potentially laughable choice of words sound natural.

“I trust all of you know what kind of man he is.”

“Of course we do.”

“Thanks to him, we can immediately obtain anything we need.”

One by one, they offered words of praise.

There were limits to self-sufficiency in the far east.

Most people had simply learned to make do without certain things, brushing off their absence or pretending they had never needed them in the first place.

Stephan had been a good merchant who gave them the chance to improve their lives.

“The reason you were able to enjoy those benefits is because I made that young man a promise.”

Ferda raised one finger.

“I promised to help him become the head of his trading company.”

“The head of the company?”

“Young Master Pascal is more than qualified to become the head of the Pascal Trading Company.”

“I believe so as well. However, it seems the young man has suffered enough to consider abandoning that dream.”

A brief silence followed.

Normally, Consilus would have stirred up the room at a moment like this.

This time, however, he remained silent and watched.

He wanted to see the lords’ genuine reactions.

“Then surely this is a matter in which we should intervene.”

A viscount who appeared particularly righteous shot to his feet.

Another lord, inspired by his fervor, rose as well and shouted,

“Indeed! It was thanks to him that the far east became a place worth living in. We cannot simply turn a blind eye!”

“If we do not even attempt to repay that kindness, we would deserve the judgment of the sun!”

“Hear, hear!”

There were also those who joined in with visibly reluctant expressions.

Ferda carefully memorized each of their faces.

“I understand your intentions. Until the Pascal Trading Company stabilizes, I would like each of you to dispatch troops to escort its caravans. Naturally, only to the extent that it does not interfere with the defense of the principality.”

“Of course! I will dispatch thirty members of my standing defense force.”

“We will send thirty-five…!”

“Forty…!”

The competition to prove their loyalty grew so heated that Ferda had no choice but to impose a maximum of thirty men per territory.

Even so, nearly four hundred soldiers were gathered in an instant, along with approximately fifteen knights.

Ferda handed the signed pledges to Count Consilus.

“I leave it to you.”

“As you command, Regent.”

The problem concerning the caravan’s mercenaries was now half resolved.

The remaining half depended on whether the underlying issue could be eliminated.

In the meantime, Ferda decided to handle what only he could do.

“Luri.”

“Yes.”

“Can you take me to the site of the attack?”

“Do you think I am your personal shuttle, Lord Ferda?”

“I simply do not wish to waste time.”

Grumbling, Luri slipped her arms beneath Ferda’s shoulders and pulled him against her.

“Hold on tightly. If you fall, I will not catch you.”

Luri spread her enormous wings and took flight.

The journey would have taken two days from Valdrova Castle, yet they arrived in less than a minute.

The attack had occurred some distance from the principality, in unclaimed territory.

That meant the land was both worthless and dangerous.

Befitting the ominous season, the site had been brutally ravaged.

People from the principality stood guard around the area, preserving the scene as much as possible.

The investigation itself was being conducted by Dragon Spawns dispatched to maintain the magic formations.

Administrator Isabella was overseeing them.

Upon spotting Ferda and Luri, she bowed politely.

“You have arrived. Miss Luri came with you as well.”

“Yes. It happened that way.”

Luri looked displeased by Isabella’s presence.

Rather than the usual rivalry between members of different factions, she seemed to dislike Isabella personally.

“What is the extent of the damage?”

“There were ten wagons traveling toward the principality. Three were intended to transport monster corpses, while the remaining seven carried goods to be delivered to the branch office in Count Consilus’s territory.”

The three intact wagons were the ones carrying monster carcasses.

They contained filthy objects no one would willingly approach, so it was only natural that the attackers had left them untouched.

“Casualties?”

“Of the twelve merchants, eleven are dead and one is missing. All twenty-two laborers were killed. Of the twenty mercenaries who had been hired, only two died. The company employees were effectively wiped out, while most of the mercenaries survived.”

“Typical.”

Particularly the part where the mercenaries survived while everyone else died.

“Were there any unusual details?”

“There were.”

Isabella pointed toward the bodies.

The corpses, each bearing a single sword wound, had been arranged neatly in rows.

Ferda assumed they had been placed that way so they could later be recovered.

“They were already like that when we arrived.”

“They had been arranged in orderly rows?”

“Yes. I asked the company’s investigator in case he had done it, but he said he had not touched them.”

Luri muttered in disbelief at the unexpected sight.

“It seems the humans of the Cerdes Continent have become more civilized. Who knew bandits could be so courteous?”

“Indeed.”

Ferda examined the bodies.

They had all been laid out in straight lines with their hands folded over their chests.

Why would anyone go to so much trouble?

“There is another strange detail. Some of the laborers were armed, yet there are no signs of combat.”

“No signs of combat means…”

“They were all killed at close range. In other words, they were ambushed.”

Ferda immediately understood.

“They hired bandits instead of mercenaries from the beginning.”

“That appears to be the case.”

It was a typical scenario.

Yet even within that familiar pattern, there was something Ferda could not understand.

Luri noticed it as well and tugged at the collar of his clothes.

“Lord Ferda, if they ambushed the merchants, then they must have come to rob them, correct?”

“That would be the obvious conclusion.”

“Then for a robbery, they seem to have been remarkably modest.”

Luri pointed toward the wagons carrying valuables.

“Look. They left without even touching the goods over there.”

A container holding golden candlesticks stood wide open, almost as though it were shouting, Here I am.

And yet, the wagons filled with valuables had barely been touched.

The only goods stolen in their entirety were fresh foodstuffs.

Some preserved food and weapons had also been taken.

As for the most valuable jewels and luxury items, only four pieces were missing.

“Miss Luri, the answer is likely the anti-theft magic.”

“Anti-theft magic?”

Luri repeated the phrase as though speaking to herself.

“To explain it for you, Miss Luri, some expensive merchandise is enchanted so that the moment anyone other than the merchant touches it, a magical tracking marker attaches itself to them. Modern merchants frequently use such measures for insurance purposes.”

“I see.”

A tracking spell that clung to the culprit like a criminal’s mark.

Even with such magic in place, however, there were always thieves reckless enough to take the goods anyway.

“Were all the stolen valuables items without that tracking magic?”

“We confirmed that they were.”

“Who knew which items were unenchanted?”

“According to the investigators, no one except the merchants should have known.”

Ferda rested a hand against his chin and thought.

“The two dead mercenaries.”

“Yes?”

“Are either of them carrying one of those tracking marks?”

“I will check.”

Isabella released her mana and examined the two corpses.

Ferda’s prediction was correct.

“Just as you said, Regent. They have tracking spells attached to them.”

“It seems they killed the ones who got too greedy.”

After piecing together the circumstances, Ferda arrived at a new suspicion.

“The missing merchant was likely the mastermind.”

“That appears to be the most likely explanation. This sort of scheme occasionally occurs among small and midsized trading companies.”

One of the merchants had intended to betray Stephan from the very beginning and brought a band of thieves into the plan.

They would make it look as though everyone had been wiped out, steal a reasonable amount, and disappear.

The rough outline made sense.

Even so, Ferda could not shake his doubts.

The entire picture still refused to take clear shape in his mind.

Wondering whether he was fixating on something unnecessarily, he asked Isabella,

“What if they never intended to loot the caravan in the first place?”

Luri and Isabella both questioned him.

“They had no intention of looting it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The theft may have been secondary. Their main objectives could have been murder and conspiracy—to make it appear as though everything was collapsing because of internal division.”

“Murder and conspiracy…”

Isabella nodded as she considered Ferda’s words, then tilted her head slightly.

“But that would create another inconsistency.”

She showed Ferda the list of stolen goods.

“If murder was their objective, why would they go out of their way to take every last piece of fresh food?”

“Couldn’t they have taken it because they were short on food?”

Isabella countered Luri’s suggestion.

“If they lacked food, they would have taken all the emergency rations. Stealing fresh produce while preparing to flee is something not even third-rate criminals would do.”

She was right.

Fresh food was bulky and difficult to preserve.

Anyone intending to strike and disappear quickly would have taken all the long-lasting emergency provisions instead.

“The kind of people who would take fresh food are those desperate for something to eat—refugees.”

“Which is practically synonymous with bandits.”

Meaning there was no guarantee the refugees had not cooperated in the attack.

Ferda agreed with Isabella’s assessment.

‘Something feels wrong.’

Ferda turned the irritating situation over in his mind again and again.

He questioned it more thoroughly than usual, unwilling to leave even the slightest suspicion unresolved.

At that moment, one of the Dragon Spawns assisting with the investigation whispered something into Isabella’s ear.

“Good news. We have confirmed that one person is still carrying a magical tracking marker.”

It was a strange development.

The two mercenaries who had triggered the tracking magic through their greed had been killed at the scene.

“What did they steal?”

“Apparently, they took a single gold coin from one of the merchants’ pouches. We should be able to track the bandits with it.”

“One gold coin?”

“Yes.”

Ferda asked again.

“You mean they took one coin from a pouch that contained only one?”

“No. According to our findings, the pouch originally contained five golden. After deducting the one golden and thirty shillings spent on travel expenses, they took only one coin from what remained.”

They had taken a single gold coin from a pouch containing three golden and seventy shillings.

“Where are they headed?”

“Surprisingly, they are moving into the principality.”

It truly was astonishing.

They had gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid triggering the tracking spells, only to be caught because of a single gold coin.

They were contradictions given human form.

Thorough, yet careless.

Cruel, yet courteous.

A chaotic mixture of two qualities that should never have coexisted.

Perhaps—

That foolish bandit would give them the answer himself.

“I will immediately organize a pursuit squad and order them to capture every last one alive—”

“No.”

Ferda cut Isabella off.

“There is no need to have them brought here. We will go ourselves.”

“We will?”

Isabella clearly disliked the idea.

“It would not be appropriate for someone of the Regent’s standing to personally suppress a common group of bandits. This sort of work would be better left to your subordinates.”

“She is right. You should not involve yourself personally in something like this.”

Luri agreed with Isabella and attempted to dissuade him.

But Ferda would not have been Ferda if such objections could stop him.

“I am the sort of person who cannot rest until I handle things myself. And in this matter, I do not want to leave the slightest room for doubt.”

“Doubt?”

“Yes. There must be none left.”

Only Ferda knew the truth.

Revenge was most beautiful when it was clean.

“This is an act of revenge for Stephan.”

Revenge had to be clean.

And revenge carried out for another person had to be cleaner still.

That was Ferda’s personal creed.

Late that evening.

Following the trail they had left behind, the three discovered what appeared to be the bandits’ campsite.

It was nothing like the den of vicious and despicable criminals they had expected.

Around forty men, women, and children sat in small groups around campfires.

“Can we eat it now?”

“No. It needs to cook a little longer.”

“I’m so hungry I’m going to die! Listen! My stomach keeps growling!”

“That’s still better than dying from a stomachache.”

Even though Ferda and the others had drawn quite close, no one noticed them approaching.

Their attention was fixed on the campfire—or, more precisely, on the pot resting above it.

“It’s ready.”

The children erupted into cheers, and the adults smiled.

For that brief moment, they may have forgotten that their lives could vanish as fleetingly as mayflies.

Isabella, Ferda, and Luri.

Any one of them could have wiped out the entire group with a single movement of a finger.

Instead of moving his finger, Ferda kicked an empty pot lying on the ground.

Clang! Clatter!

The men staring at the cooking pot turned their heads.

Another pot came rolling toward them out of nowhere.

When they looked up, they saw one man and two women standing there.

“…”

A brief silence followed.

The first to move was a bearded man.

He hurriedly drew his sword.

Shing!

The firelight reflected faintly along its edge.

The weapon was far too well maintained to match his ragged appearance.

Ferda recognized it immediately as one of the swords stolen from the caravan.

“What are you all doing?! Draw your weapons!”

At his command, the others finally grasped the situation and reached for their weapons.

“Stop!”

Every one of them froze.

The order had come from a man wearing half-plate armor.

Unlike the other refugees, who had begun panicking before they even understood what was happening, he possessed a commanding presence.

“Lower your swords! Put them down, kneel, and place your hands on the ground!”

“What are you—”

“Do it now if you want to live!”

At the man’s words, every man and woman dropped to their knees and placed their hands against the ground.

As people more accustomed to submission than resistance, they obeyed quickly.

It was an exceptionally swift judgment.

Ferda had intended to make an example of at least one of them before beginning the interrogation, but the man had deprived him of the opportunity.

The armored man rose, approached Ferda, and knelt before him.

“My name is William, and I lead this group of refugees. Are you Lord Ferda Valdrova… the Regent?”

He asked the question.

His manner of speech was not that of a third-rate bandit.

“That is correct.”

“And you have finished investigating the caravan attack… then followed us here.”

“Yes.”

It seemed he had expected an investigation team to be sent after them.

“I am certain you wish to know the full circumstances behind the incident. I will explain everything, but would you please allow the children to eat first?”

He asked with perfect courtesy.

Ferda scoffed.

“You are rats who devour another man’s grain, yet you dare pretend to be human and beg for sympathy? None of you deserve to eat.”

Ferda swept his gaze across them.

“From this moment onward, anyone who moves without my permission will die. Adults, children, and the elderly alike.”

Ferda sat down on the pot he had kicked across the ground.

“Confess everything properly. Otherwise, I will begin by killing the children.”