Chapter 61
When Marie stepped forward in her dress, Regina’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. She quickly recovered and smiled triumphantly.
“How amusing that a lady would step forward herself. Is that the freedom you were talking about? Being stupid is not the same as being free. Ohohoho!”
“Hiding behind others when something important needs to be handled is hardly proper conduct for a noble. It’s simply cowardice.”
“Oh, does it look like I’m hiding behind them? No. This is called giving orders. I suppose you can’t do that. Why don’t you send out that pathetic knight of yours, even now? Before you regret it.”
“You’d probably die if I did.”
Marie gave the warning without exaggeration.
Faced with Marie’s consistently cold and blunt remarks, Regina finally dropped her polite speech as though her mask had fallen away.
“You really don’t know when to stop, do you?”
Marie was already tall, so she looked down at Regina and smirked. Regina no longer had any composure left. Her smile was gone, and she breathed unevenly with rage.
In truth, the thing that irritated Regina most about Marie was her appearance. Anyone could see that Marie was more beautiful than she was. Even though Regina adorned herself with expensive clothes and jewelry, there was nothing she could do about her face.
Regina might have been willing to overlook it if Marie had behaved meekly and fawned over her, but Marie was arrogant and haughty as well. That was unforgivable.
“Lowborn trash never comes to its senses until it gets a taste of pain. It truly is difficult to uphold a noble’s mercy. Boys, would any of you like to ruin that face for me?”
Regina spoke while looking at the men standing behind her. There were five of them, all grown men, and every one of them looked like a thug. After all her pretensions of refinement, it was easy to imagine how she usually spent her time.
“Tch. What a waste.”
One of the men spoke. It was an utterly repulsive remark.
The men looked at Rickart, who stood blankly in the back, and took him for a worthless coward. What sort of man sent a woman ahead of him and merely stood there watching?
But that thought did not last long.
Marie suddenly closed the distance and drove a front kick into one of them with her long leg.
Thud!
The kick buried itself in his abdomen as though he had been impaled by a spear. The man immediately collapsed to his knees and vomited the contents of his stomach like a waterfall.
“Bleeergh!”
Marie’s movements had been so smooth and fast that ordinary thugs like them could not react immediately. For a moment, they merely stood there in a daze, wondering what had just happened.
Marie immediately swung her fist in a full arc and planted it in another man’s face.
Crack!
The sound of breaking bones rang out. His nose, philtrum, and jaw had been shattered. It was a blow that could have killed him if things went wrong.
Only then did the remaining three men feel their hair stand on end. They suddenly realized that they had picked a fight with the wrong person.
But their bodies froze, leaving them unable to fight back or even run away. The situation was so completely unexpected that they could not decide what to do.
Marie clenched her teeth and delivered a powerful kick to her next target as though swinging a club. Then she threw another punch.
Crunch! Thud!
Two more men went down. She did not strike them repeatedly. One blow was enough for each of them.
When it came down to it, men who merely swaggered around town had no chance of defeating someone accustomed to risking her life while wielding a blade. More importantly, Marie knew how to control Mana.
Being able to wield Mana did not guarantee victory or make someone impossible to kill, but it was clearly beyond what ordinary people could handle.
Marie casually plucked a tooth embedded in her fist, flicked it onto the ground, and looked at the last man standing.
He had been frozen stiff, but only then did he flinch and try to run.
Marie seized him by the back of the neck, hooked his leg, and knocked him down. She then raised her foot and stomped hard on his face.
Crack!
She could not smash a man’s skull like a watermelon as the Nameless Man could, but it was more than enough to shatter his nose and send his teeth scattering.
Incidentally, since Marie was fighting in a dress, her pale legs and rear were visible. Watching from behind, Rickart felt somewhat embarrassed. A slight pang of regret came over him as he thought that he should have stepped in instead.
After reducing five grown men to pulp in the blink of an eye, Marie casually pushed aside the head she had just stomped on and looked at Regina.
Her blue eyes gleamed coldly in the darkness of the night.
“This is what real power looks like, sweet little Reggie.”
Marie smiled as she threw Regina’s own words about power and authority being what separated nobles from commoners back at her.
But Regina did not hear a word she said. Her mind had gone blank because she simply could not accept what had happened.
Wearing low-heeled shoes, Marie walked toward Regina with sharp, clicking footsteps. Regina did not even tremble in fear. She merely stared up at Marie with wide eyes, utterly dazed. She could not even comprehend the situation she was in.
Marie slowly raised her hand, put all her strength into it, and slapped Regina across the face.
Crack!
Though it was only a slap, it sounded like a piece of wood splitting apart. Regina’s jaw broke, and she collapsed unconscious. As she fell, her broken teeth scattered through the air like kernels of corn.
Once it was all over, Rickart trudged over and stared down at Regina.
“She looks like a squashed rat.”
Regina lay unconscious with her mouth hanging open, bloody saliva dribbling from it.
In any case, Rickart figured that securing a contract with the Merchants’ Association would probably be difficult now. But what was done was done. It could not be reversed, and he could hardly blame Marie.
For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that they might still be able to conceal everything by killing Regina and dumping her in the waterway, but he did not want to go that far now.
If he had intended to do that, he should have dealt with them more quickly and cleanly from the start. It was too late now, and there might have been witnesses.
“Is your hand okay?”
“Yeah. Won’t it heal quickly if I apply Boribori’s medicinal herbs?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t have much faith in those.”
“Aren’t you two best friends?”
“Being close doesn’t mean I have to pretend something works when it doesn’t.”
“You really are coldhearted.”
Rickart merely laughed as they passed beneath the underpass. The thudding and clicking of their footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
The aggressors who had willingly cast themselves as victims lay scattered around in miserable heaps.
The next morning, Rickart and his friends gathered around a table and ate together in the spacious building they had claimed for themselves.
Volka spoke to Marie while chewing his food.
“So you just beat her up? The girl from the merchant family?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“They threatened you first, so there’s nothing to apologize for... But will this be okay? It’ll be fine, right?”
Volka looked at Rickart as he asked, his expression seeming to say, You’re a noble, so you’ll take care of this, right?
“I heard somewhere that merchant families aren’t considered nobles under imperial law.”
“Are you sure?”
“Who knows?”
“……”
Volka had nothing to say. No matter how things turned out, he was the one who would bear all the responsibility. Of course he trusted his friends, but he could not help breaking out in a cold sweat.
“How was the dock?”
Boribori picked a morsel out of his soup with his fingers and sucked them clean before answering.
“The Stonemasons’ Guild had occupied the dock. The Merchants’ Association’s ships couldn’t depart. Apparently, it’s because they haven’t been paid for their construction work. There wasn’t any fighting yesterday, but the stonemasons were practically living there. It looks like they won’t move until they get their money.”
“Hmm... I see. But you know, I looked into it briefly. The Stonemasons’ Guild has apparently been here in Ernberg for generations. The Merchants’ Association has also been around for a long time, but its members and families seem to change frequently. In short, the Stonemasons’ Guild and the Merchants’ Association are the two major powers in Ernberg.”
“So?”
Rickart asked.
“I’m wondering whether we should involve ourselves in their conflict or simply stand back and watch. If you get mixed up in something like this the wrong way, you can end up completely screwed.”
“Isn’t our relationship with the Merchants’ Association already ruined anyway? We beat up one of their girls.”
Delphy spoke while collecting the empty bowls after everyone had finished eating. She was not blaming Marie. She was merely pointing out the reality of the situation.
“We could still avoid interfering and simply watch what happens.”
“But if the Merchants’ Association gains the upper hand, won’t we go down with the Stonemasons’ Guild? I think it would be better to choose a side while we still can.”
Rickart favored actively involving themselves in the conflict.
“But how do we get involved with the Stonemasons’ Guild?”
“Collecting unpaid debts has been adventurers’ work since ancient times. It’s about as traditional as a job can get.”
“Collecting a debt from the Ernberg Merchants’ Association... But why haven’t they paid? It isn’t as though they lack money.”
“We can find out. I’ll go ask them. Those men seemed to like me.”
Boribori spoke. Rickart was honestly not entirely convinced, but it was true that Boribori was the most sociable among them after Volka. He was especially popular with taciturn older men.
“Hmm, all right. But first, you should learn how to do your jobs. There’s more work than you might think. You should also familiarize yourselves with the merchants nearby. Benny from the grocery store, Glott from the general store, Waylon the blacksmith, along with the tanner, the potion shop, the fabric shop, and so on. You need to get to know all of them if we want to purchase supplies. You know what I mean, right?”
One of the services an Adventurers’ Guild provided was supplying visiting adventurers with everything they needed.
To do that, they had to stock their supplies in advance, which made maintaining good relationships with local merchants extremely important. Securing food was especially vital, so they also needed to get along well with the farmers around the city.
Volka could not always handle all of that on his own. Naturally, every member of the same clan had to help.
“Ice, can you do it?”
Rickart asked because, unlike Boribori, Ice had virtually no sociability whatsoever. If it could be expressed numerically, his score would have been close to zero.
“He only has to stand there. Let’s have him introduce himself mainly to the women.”
Besides his talent for swordsmanship, Ice’s absurdly handsome appearance was another of his exceptional abilities.
“I’ve never paid full price for anything in my life.”
Ice tossed out the remark casually. What he meant was that merchants always lowered their prices for him without being asked.
Was that a joke just now? Or was he serious?
Everyone at the table let out incredulous chuckles. Only then did Ice allow a faint smile to appear on his face.
A girl lay on an expensive bed with bandages wrapped around her head. It was Regina. One side of her face was bruised black, grotesquely swollen, and so badly damaged that she was almost unrecognizable.
Marconis quietly looked down at his daughter. Other family members were gathered around them, and he muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Utterly useless. Completely useless... Tch.”
Rather than being worried about his daughter, he seemed merely irritated.
“When was the meeting with the Harpin family?”
Marconis asked his adult son. His son, Armen, had neatly combed brown hair that gleamed as though it had been coated in oil.
“Next month.”
“Cancel it. She’s useless in this condition. By the time she recovers, she’ll have missed her chance to marry. Stupid bitch.”
His tone contained not even the slightest trace of affection for his daughter. He seemed to regard her merely as a tool for the family.
“But Father, shouldn’t we teach these people a lesson?”
“Are we some band of ignorant country knights, blinded by the desire for revenge? Haven’t I always told you? Before taking action, you must first weigh the profits and losses.”
“My apologies.”
“But this is not something we can simply let pass. Contact someone in the Beringen Guild. Then investigate that man and woman.”
Marconis was a meticulous man. He was not the sort to charge ahead blindly in a fit of rage.
He was certainly angry. But the source of his anger was not that his daughter had been assaulted. It was that his plans had been disrupted.
Meetings, engagements, and marriages were extremely important affairs for a family because they could be used to gain new allies or strengthen existing alliances.
Now that those plans had been disrupted, he was angry and irritated.
Moreover, the Merchants’ Association was already embroiled in a conflict with the Ernberg Stonemasons’ Guild. He had more than enough problems demanding his attention.
In truth, the Merchants’ Association had not withheld payment because it lacked the money. It had seized upon a trivial clause in the contract as an excuse not to pay. The purpose was to overpower the Stonemasons’ Guild in their struggle for dominance.
The Ernberg Stonemasons’ Guild was a collective of skilled craftsmen who were effectively natives of the city. Its members passed their techniques down through the generations and made their livelihoods from their craft.
The Merchants’ Association’s ultimate objective was to bring them under its control, seize complete command of Ernberg, and enjoy a monopoly.
Its current plan was to pressure the stonemasons’ livelihoods and drag the matter out. Then it would gradually give them just enough breathing room to survive, eventually manipulating them however it wished.
Compared with that matter, his daughter being beaten was hardly significant. It was merely irritating. Even so, it nagged at him like a hangnail—annoying if ignored, yet unexpectedly painful if pulled.
Then there were the red cloak and the five-way dismemberment. Those two details had to be handled cautiously. Marconis knew just how vicious and terrifying the Ernberg Five had been. Anyone capable of killing men like them was clearly far from ordinary.
Several days later, a letter arrived from the Beringen Guild. After reading it, however, Marconis tilted his head in confusion.
<We regret what happened to your daughter. However, we cannot disclose personal information concerning adventurers affiliated with our guild. We wish you fortune in battle.>
Fortune in battle? Not good fortune?
For some reason, that single word bothered Marconis. It was not quite appropriate vocabulary for an official letter.
After all, “fortune in battle” specifically referred to one’s luck in winning or losing a fight. Had some uneducated fools simply used the term carelessly?
The hangnail was becoming increasingly bothersome. It irritated him when ignored, yet pulling at it seemed likely to hurt far more than expected.
That was precisely how it felt.