Chapter 88
You Are Truly Shameless
The sun sank completely into the west, and night fell.
Leaving behind the refugees led by William, Ferda returned to the castle.
He sat on a sofa in the reception room and looked at the man seated across from him.
Stephan was there.
Some of the haggardness unique to a cornered man had faded, but his eyes still looked hollow.
Ferda spoke.
“I have good news.”
“W-What good news?”
Stephan asked anxiously.
Ferda slowly explained everything he had pieced together.
“Stephan, the mercenaries you hired were harboring intentions far more malicious than we initially suspected.”
They were not third-rate mercenaries.
They were assassins deliberately organized to sow chaos.
At the rendezvous point, they murdered every merchant and laborer.
Then they scattered the cargo and pulled out some of its contents, attempting to disguise the incident as a robbery.
“However, making it look like a robbery carried too much risk.”
“Because of the anti-theft magic, I assume.”
As a branch manager, Stephan knew about it well.
Expensive goods were protected by anti-theft spells.
The instant someone touched them, they would be branded as a criminal.
For assassins, that would have been the worst possible outcome.
For the incident to look like a robbery, the valuables needed to disappear.
Yet if the valuables remained untouched, the irony would only make it more obvious that the true purpose had been assassination.
“That is why two of the mercenaries laid the groundwork.”
“How?”
“They probably forced open and smashed the containers holding the valuables, then pulled the contents out.”
“But they would still have triggered the tracking spells. Why would they do something so foolish…?”
“They were likely caught in a trap themselves. Perhaps they were not given the information, or perhaps they were known to be greedy and were disposed of while the opportunity presented itself.”
Stephan accepted the explanation and nodded faintly.
“Taking out the valuables was apparently the groundwork. But what exactly was it laying the groundwork for?”
Ferda brought up another piece.
A pawn.
“To draw the refugees into the robbery.”
The refugees had been traveling while shivering in the early winter cold.
Since the mercenaries had departed from the Empire, they likely knew that refugees were heading toward the far east in search of hope.
They discovered the group led by William.
As planned, they tempted the refugees with promises of food and gave them a sliver of hope.
“The refugees had no choice but to go there. Whatever else happened, they needed food immediately.”
Even if the information turned out to be false, starving people had nothing to lose by following it.
So they moved without delay.
But instead of a charitable distribution point, they arrived at the scene of a horrific massacre.
“All that remained was for the refugees to tear through the table that had already been set for them.”
Ferda flicked the pawn with his index finger as he spoke.
“What would they have seen? Food, weapons, and precious treasures made of gold—the sort they might never see again in their entire lives. Things they needed immediately, things they wanted, and things they desired but could never obtain even after a lifetime of work, all gathered in one place.”
It was as though they had stepped into a temple of desire.
Stephan could now see how the entire scheme had been intended to unfold.
The refugees would transform the assassination into a robbery.
Since most of the looting would have been done by them, everyone would naturally assume the refugees were the masterminds and slaughter them all.
There would be no need to pursue the troublesome remnants.
Enough of them would already have been killed to serve as an example.
However, the central point of the story contained one inconsistency.
Everything Ferda had explained concerned an assassination disguised as a robbery.
Which meant that everything the culprits had intended to do afterward had failed.
“The refugees did not touch the jewels.”
“There was an unforeseen variable.”
Ferda nodded.
“No one could have predicted it. The possibility was too remote and absurd to include in any reasonable calculation. It was like being struck by lightning beneath a clear sky.”
Ferda placed a knight beside the tilted pawn.
“The group was led by a knight who remained true to his convictions.”
William.
The man who could have become a knight understood duty and moral obligation.
He regarded the gold before him as though it were nothing more than stone.
He gathered the corpses and prayed for them.
Although he did take some of the goods, he chose only what was necessary for survival, and the total value remained below one golden.
It was an offense minor enough to overlook with leniency.
“Because of him, we were able to confirm beyond doubt that this was an assassination.”
That was the complete picture they had uncovered so far.
And naturally, it led to the next question.
“Then who ordered the assassination?”
“This man is currently the most likely suspect.”
Ferda handed him an employee record from the Pascal Trading Company.
“Frank Fontaine. The only one of the twelve merchants who remains missing.”
“Frank Fontaine.”
The instant he heard the name, Stephan frowned reflexively.
“You do not seem particularly fond of him.”
“He has worked here for ten years, and he was always complaining that he had never been promoted to branch manager and was still doing work fit for a wagon driver.”
“And why was that?”
“There is no grand reason. His performance was poor. He simply lacked talent as a merchant.”
Stephan stared at the face in the file and ground his teeth.
“He often behaved like some overbearing old superior, so we clashed several times. I considered dismissing him because I thought he was beyond hope, but I decided against it.”
“Why?”
“He had five children to support.”
“You were too softhearted.”
“It seems so.”
Crinkle—
The personnel record crumpled in Stephan’s hand.
“This bastard… ordered the deaths of eleven of my merchants?”
Had a small act of compassion—
that weakhearted compassion—
caused the deaths of all those other families?
“That is not the case.”
Ferda shook his head.
“I am certain Frank Fontaine was involved, but he could not have been the mastermind.”
“May I ask why you are so certain?”
Stephan wondered whether the question exceeded his place, but he needed an explanation he could accept.
“Excluding the refugees’ tracks, we received a report that twelve sets of footprints came and went from the site. That means thirty-two mercenaries participated in the assassination, correct?”
“That is correct.”
“The stolen goods were worth no more than two hundred golden, even by the most generous estimate. If thirty-two men divided it evenly, each would receive roughly three golden and twenty-five shillings.”
Three golden and twenty-five shillings was a considerable sum.
But it was little compensation for money earned with blood on one’s hands.
“If they had been cheap labor, I could understand it. But these men were skilled at erasing their tracks. Do you know how much people like that charge?”
“I do not.”
“They start at no less than fifty golden per person. Even at the lowest estimate, hiring all of them would cost more than one thousand golden.”
“One thousand… Frank could not raise that much even if he scraped together every last thing he owned.”
Stephan set Frank’s personnel file down.
“If there is someone else behind this trying to destabilize me, then who in the hell are they…?”
“That is the good news.”
Ferda slipped a hand into the inner pocket of his coat.
“We were able to identify the people behind it.”
Ferda took something out and placed it on the table.
It was a green scarf.
The same object that had been found by the young refugee boy.
“This is…”
Stephan recognized it immediately.
“It belongs to an employee of my brother’s company… Why do you have it, Regent?”
“A child among the refugees said he saw one of the conspirators drop it and picked it up.”
“Do you mean the people behind this are…? They are…”
Stephan could not finish.
But both he and Ferda already knew whose name would emerge if the conversation continued.
Overwhelmed by shock, Stephan finally dropped the glass in his hand.
Crash!
It shattered, spilling its contents across the floor.
He paid it no attention.
Ferda ignored the trivial mess as well.
Stephan covered his face with both hands.
He no longer knew what expression he was making.
“…Are you certain?”
“That is what the evidence suggests.”
Stephan reached out and took the scarf.
His pupils, contracted from shock, slowly traced the embroidery.
His gaze fixed on the Pascal family crest.
Behind it were two crossed swords.
He examined it repeatedly, but there was no mistake.
It was no counterfeit.
It belonged to the Pascal Mercenary Company.
“My brother’s company…”
Stephan stared down at it as he spoke.
“There is a saying that signing a contract with the Pascal Mercenary Company is like making a pact with a demon. Do you know what it means?”
“I do not.”
“It means that once you sign with them, you can never escape.”
A hollow smile formed on Stephan’s face.
Then it twisted.
Every emotion whirling inside his mind seemed to surface upon his expression the moment it arose.
“They say that whenever a contract with the Pascal Mercenary Company ends, bandits who had remained quiet immediately begin targeting the wagons. Almost as though someone had deliberately informed them.”
Stephan’s voice trembled faintly.
“It was always strange. The first caravan dispatched after a contract expired was guaranteed to encounter trouble. Sometimes it was robbed. Sometimes the mercenaries became the robbers. Sometimes they simply deserted…”
“Eight times out of ten, disaster always struck. And seven of those eight would return and sign another contract with my brother.”
“You believe Merchant arranged those incidents himself?”
“There is a saying that necessity creates demand. In the security business, one must demonstrate that necessity to the customer.”
Stephan remembered his recent conflict with Merchant.
His brother had told him to wait and see how well he survived without him.
This was far more vicious than the attacks whispered about in rumors.
Those people had been as good as family to Stephan.
They had been his seniors and his fathers.
His juniors and his younger brothers.
His peers and his friends.
Merchant had taken them from him.
For no reason other than that Stephan had defied him.
The scarf crumpled in Stephan’s hand.
He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip.
It hurt.
He wanted to cry, but no tears came.
He wanted to scream, but his throat was blocked.
The pain was unbearable, yet not knowing what to do with that pain only made it more suffocating.
At that moment, Luri entered the room and stood beside Ferda.
“Lord Ferda, you have a visitor.”
“At this hour?”
Her eyes briefly shifted toward Stephan, who was clutching his head.
“Yes. He specifically wishes to meet both you and Lord Stephan.”
“Me?”
“Who is it?”
The name that left Luri’s mouth stunned them both.
“He asked me to announce him as Merchant Pascal.”
***
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Regent.”
Merchant Pascal sat across the reception room and greeted Ferda.
Looking at the two brothers, Ferda had only one thought.
‘Do they truly share the same blood?’
Stephan had smooth, pale skin with a healthy sheen.
He looked every bit the wealthy merchant, the studious type who might leave the imprint of his plump backside on any chair he occupied.
Merchant, however, had bronzed skin and short, rough hair cut in a severe regent style.
He had a thick neck and broad shoulders.
Though dressed in a formal uniform, the intimidating lines of his muscles made him look more like the boss of a criminal gang.
Had their hair and eye colors been different, Ferda would never have assumed they were brothers unless they introduced themselves as such.
“Welcome, Sir Merchant.”
“Sir? I am merely a lowly squad leader who commands a few common soldiers.”
Merchant modestly waved off the title with an awkward smile.
Rather than the entrance of a monstrous villain, he gave off an easy, bold confidence.
Ferda could sense it clearly.
The man had no idea that he had been identified as a suspect.
No—
He was behaving as though the possibility that anyone here might suspect him had never even crossed his mind.
“I heard my foolish little brother was in considerable distress, so I went looking for him and ended up coming all the way to the castle. Thank you for receiving me so graciously at such a late hour.”
“Not at all. Seeking out family in difficult times is only natural.”
After exchanging a little idle conversation, Merchant shifted his gaze toward Stephan.
Stephan’s eyes were cold.
Whether he understood his brother’s feelings or not, Merchant offered him words of consolation.
“Stephan, I heard what happened. They say the eastern caravan was annihilated?”
“It is truly unfortunate. I know how loyal those men were to you. Their absence must leave an enormous void.”
“…”
“I have already instructed our people to deliver the tragic news to their families. We will arrange the funerals as well. For now, compose yourself.”
“…You are truly shameless.”
To anyone unaware of the truth, Merchant sounded like the most caring elder brother imaginable.
But Stephan was neither blind nor deaf.
He was a human being capable of seeing, hearing, and thinking.
He knew what was hidden beneath that thick face.
“You truly are…”
“Pardon?”
Though fury boiled inside him, Stephan forced himself to speak calmly.
“You sent men to kill them all, yet why are you sitting there pretending to be a good person?”
“…What?”
One of Merchant’s eyebrows rose.
The small flame inside Stephan’s heart erupted into a violent blaze.