Chapter 86 - Bandits and Refugees

The assembly hall of the far eastern front alliance.

Aside from their once-a-year gathering, this was the first time a second summons had ever occurred in the far east where there was rarely a need to convene in large numbers.

Ferda slowly scanned the 14 lords.

For some of them, the plumpness he had noticed during the first summons had disappeared, and their jawlines were beginning to show.

Looking at them, Ferda spoke.

"There is a young man named Stephan."

A young man named Stephan.

It wasn't exactly something a kid turning 19 soon should be saying.

However, his presence was so weighty that even such a laughable choice of words naturally blended in.

"I trust you all know well what kind of person that young man is."

"We do."

"Thanks to him, whenever we need something, we can go find it right away."

They reeled off their praises for him one by one.

There was a limit to self-sufficiency in the far east.

So, most of them had lived their lives either making do or ignoring their lack as if they had never had it in the first place.

Stephan was a good merchant who created the opportunity to improve their lives.

"The reason you all have been able to do so is because I promised that young man one thing."

Ferda held up his index finger.

"I promised him that I would help him become the master of his company."

"The master of the company, you say?"

"Someone like Young Master Pascal is more than qualified to become the master of the Pascal trading company."

"I thought so as well. But it seems things have gotten so difficult for the young man that he is now ready to give up on that dream."

A brief moment of silence.

Normally, Concillus would have chimed in to stir things up in this situation, but even he just quietly observed.

It was because he wanted to gauge the actual public opinion.

"If that's the case, shouldn't we naturally step up?"

A viscount who looked thoroughly filled with a sense of justice suddenly stood up.

Another lord, matching his enthusiasm, stood up as well and shouted.

"That's right! Who do you think made this far east a little more livable? We can't just feign ignorance!"

"If we don't even consider repaying that debt of gratitude, we'd deserve nothing short of the sun's judgment!"

"Yes, yes!"

Aside from them, he could also see the faces of those agreeing rather reluctantly.

Ferda committed their faces carefully to memory.

"I've grasped your intentions well. Until the Pascal trading company is stabilized, I would like to request that we dispatch troops there to provide an escort. Of course, within bounds that won't hinder the defense of the Grand Duchy's territory."

"Of course! We will dispatch 30 of our standing defense troops."

"We'll send 35...!"

"40...!"

Since the competition to prove their loyalty was getting overheated, he had no choice but to limit it to a maximum of 30 soldiers.

Even with just that, 400 men were instantly gathered, and about 15 knights were also drafted.

Ferda handed the promised documents over to Count Concillus.

"I'll leave it to you."

"As the Regent commands."

The merchant company's mercenary issue was practically half-solved.

The remaining half depended on whether the root problem had been resolved.

In the meantime, Ferda decided to do what he had to do.

"Luri."

"Yes."

"Could you take me to the location where the attack happened?"

"Do you think I'm your personal shuttle, Ferda?"

"It's because I don't want to waste time."

While grumbling, she smoothly slid her hands between Ferda's shoulders and hugged him tight.

"Hold on tight. If you slip, I won't catch you."

Luri flew off, spreading her large wings.

It was a distance that would have taken two days from Valdrova Castle, but they arrived there in less than a minute.

The location where the incident occurred was quite a bit away from the Grand Duchy's territory, a land without an owner.

That meant it was a worthless and dangerous land.

As it was a harsh season, the scene had also been brutally ravaged.

People from the Grand Duchy's territory were guarding the perimeter there, keeping the scene preserved as much as possible.

The ones conducting the investigation of the incident were the dragon spawns dispatched to maintain the magic circles.

The one commanding them was Administrator Isabella.

She spotted Ferda and Luri and bowed her head in greeting.

"You've arrived? I see Miss Luri came with you."

"Yes, it just ended up that way."

Luri looked visibly reluctant to deal with Isabella.

Rather than the commonly seen factional friction, she showed signs of disliking Isabella herself.

"What is the current status of the damage?"

"There were a total of 10 carriages moving into the Grand Duchy's territory; among them, 3 carriages were meant for transporting monster corpses, and the remaining 7 carriages were delivering goods to be stocked at the branch in Count Concillus's territory."

The 3 intact carriages were the ones carrying the monster corpses.

They were loaded with things so filthy that even getting close was repulsive, so it was only natural that they went untouched.

"Casualties?"

"Out of the 12 merchants, 11 are dead and 1 is missing, and all 22 laborers were killed. Among the 20 hired mercenaries, 2 died. You could say the staff was annihilated, while most of the mercenaries survived and escaped."

"How typical."

In the sense that even when everyone else dies, the mercenaries survive and return.

"Were there no unusual details?"

"There are."

Isabella pointed to where the corpses were.

The corpses, each bearing a single sword wound, were laid out neatly in a row.

Ferda naturally assumed they had been arranged that way for the recovery of the bodies.

"They were already like that when we arrived."

"They were arranged neatly?"

"Yes. Just in case, I asked the merchant company's scouts, and they said they hadn't touched them."

At the unexpected situation, Luri muttered in disbelief.

"It seems the standards of the humans on the Serdes Continent have gone up. To think bandits could be this polite."

"Tell me about it."

Ferda examined their condition.

They were all laid out in a straight line, with their hands placed over their chests.

Was there a reason to go through this much trouble?

"There's one more strange thing. Some of the laborers were holding weapons, yet there are no signs of a struggle."

"No signs of a struggle means..."

"They were all killed in a single strike. In other words, they were ambushed."

Ferda quickly understood.

"They didn't hire mercenaries in the first place, they hired bandits."

"You could see it that way."

It was typical.

Yet even within that typical scenario, there was something he couldn't comprehend right now.

Luri caught onto that detail and tugged at Ferda's collar.

"Ferda, since they ambushed the merchants, they obviously came to loot, right?"

"Indeed."

"But for a looting, it seems to have ended rather modestly."

Luri pointed to the carriage loaded with valuables.

"Look. Didn't they just leave without even touching the items in there?"

The barrel storing golden candlesticks was wide open, as if practically screaming, 'I'm right here.'

Yet the carriage containing the valuables was barely touched.

Everything stolen was fresh produce.

Some of the partially stolen goods were preserved rations and weapons.

And as for the most valuable gems and precious items, they had merely taken four pieces, and that was it.

"Miss Luri, to answer your question, it's probably because of anti-theft magic."

"Anti-theft magic?"

Luri asked, as if muttering to herself.

"To explain it for your sake, Miss Luri, some high-priced goods have a magical tag attached to them that allows for tracking the moment anyone other than the merchant touches them. It's a method frequently used by modern merchants for insurance."

"I see."

A tracking spell that clung like a criminal's tag.

Even if such magic existed, the logic of the world was that those who would touch it would still touch it anyway.

"Are all the stolen valuables by any chance items without that tracking magic on them?"

"Having checked, that is indeed the case."

"Who is aware of that fact?"

"From what they explained, no one knows except the merchants."

Ferda rubbed his chin in thought.

"The two dead mercenaries."

"Yes."

"Are they under that tracking magic, perhaps?"

"I will check."

Isabella emitted her magic power to examine the two corpses.

Ferda's prediction was accurate.

"Just as the Regent said, the tracking magic is active on them."

"It seems they killed the ones who got too greedy."

Piecing the given circumstances together, Ferda arrived at a new deduction.

"It's highly likely that the missing merchant is the ringleader."

"It does seem that way. That is actually a method that occasionally happens in small-to-medium trading companies."

One of the merchants had brought in a group of bandits from the start with the intention of stabbing Stephan in the back.

It was the sort of scenario where they'd fake being wiped out, pocket a decent sum, and slip away.

It formed a rough picture, but even so, Ferda couldn't shake off his doubts.

It still wasn't clearly forming in his mind.

Wondering if he was obsessing over something, he pondered for a moment before asking Isabella.

"What if they had no intention of looting in the first place?"

Luri and Isabella asked.

"They had no intention of looting?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean the looting was a secondary element, and their main goal was murder and conspiracy. To show that they are collapsing due to internal division, just like this."

"Murder and conspiracy..."

Upon hearing Ferda's words, Isabella nodded her head before smoothly tilting it to the side.

"But if that's the case, there's something strange."

She showed Ferda the list of stolen items and said.

"If murder was their goal, is there a reason they would specifically take all the fresh produce?"

"Couldn't they have taken it because they were short on food?"

Isabella refuted Luri's words.

"If they were short on food, they should have taken all the preserved rations. Stealing fresh produce when you have to run away is an action not even third-rate thugs would do."

Isabella was right.

Fresh produce is bulky and difficult to store.

If they wanted to pull off a hit-and-run, they would have stolen all the preserved rations that are easy to keep.

"If it's people who would take something like that, it'd be those desperate for food—refugees."

"That's synonymous with bandits."

Meaning there was no guarantee they hadn't collaborated either.

Ferda also agreed with Isabella's words.

'This leaves a bad taste in my mouth.'

Ferda racked his brain time and time again to understand this irritating situation.

He was more suspicious than usual, trying not to carelessly leave even the slightest sliver of doubt unaddressed.

Right then, one of the dragon spawns aiding the investigation whispered something into Isabella's ear.

"Good news. After checking, they say there is one person with a tracking magic tag attached."

It was a strange story.

The two mercenaries who got too greedy and were caught by the tracking magic had died on the spot.

"What did they steal?"

"They say a single gold coin was taken from a merchant's pouch. It seems we'll be able to track the bandits with this."

"A single gold coin?"

"Yes."

Ferda asked again.

"Are you saying they took one coin from a pouch that only had a single gold coin inside?"

"That's not the case. Upon checking, out of the 5 Golden meant for travel expenses, with 1 Golden and 30 Shilling spent as costs, it is one of the remaining gold coins."

Meaning they had merely taken one gold coin from a pouch holding 3 Golden and 70 Shilling.

"Where are they heading?"

"Surprisingly, they say they are heading into the Grand Duchy's territory."

It was a truly surprising situation.

To think they'd bust their asses trying not to trigger the tracking magic, only to get caught over a single gold coin.

They were a bundle of contradictions.

Flawless, yet showing loopholes.

Brutal, yet polite.

It was a chaos where two incompatible things were mixed together.

Perhaps,

That foolish bandit might hand them the answer directly.

"I will immediately organize a tracking team and order them to capture them all al—"

"No."

Ferda cut Isabella's words off.

"There's no need to order them caught. We will move ourselves."

"Us?"

Isabella seemed entirely unenthused.

"It's not proper to wipe out a mere band of thugs with your status, Regent. It's better to leave things like this to the subordinates."

"She's right. It's better not to do things like this."

Luri sided with Isabella's opinion and tried to dissuade him.

But if he was the type to listen to such dissuasion, he wouldn't be Ferda.

"I have the kind of personality where I can't be satisfied unless I do it myself. And for this matter, I don't want to leave any room for doubt."

"Doubt?"

"Yeah, there must be no doubt remaining."

Only Ferda knew.

Revenge is at its most beautiful when it is clean.

"This is a play of revenge for Stephan."

A play of revenge must be clean.

A play of revenge for someone else must be even cleaner than usual.

That was Ferda's personal philosophy.

* * *

Late evening.

Tracking them down by the traces they left behind, what they saw was the camp of those presumed to be the bandits.

It was different from the expectation that there would be vicious and despicable criminals.

There, barely forty men, women, and children were gathered in small groups in front of a campfire.

"Can we eat now?"

"No. We have to cook it a little more."

"I feel like I'm gonna starve to death! Listen. It's growling!"

"It's better than dying of a stomachache."

Even though they had gotten quite close, no one had noticed Ferda and Isabella approaching.

Their attention was directed at the campfire, specifically the pot placed over it.

"It's done."

The children erupted in cheers, and the adults smiled.

For this moment at least, it was enough for them to forget that they were destined to disappear as fleetingly as mayflies.

Be it Isabella, Ferda, or Luri.

With just a flick of a finger from any of them, these people would be sent flying ridiculously easily.

Instead of moving a finger, Ferda kicked a pot rolling on the ground.

CLANG! CLANG!

The men who had been focused on the cooking pot turned their gazes.

A pot suddenly rolling and flying towards them.

When they raised their heads, they saw one man and two women standing there.

...

...

A brief moment of silence.

The one who broke that silence and moved was a bearded man.

That man frantically drew his sword.

SHING!

The light of the campfire reflected faintly off it.

A well-forged sword that didn't match his ragged appearance.

Ferda instantly recognized it as the sword lost from the merchant company.

"What are you doing!? Draw your weapons!"

Moving at that command, they belatedly grasped the situation and tried to draw their weapons.

"Stop!"

They stopped in unison.

The one who had spoken those words was a man wearing half-plate armor.

Unlike the other refugees who were flustering about unable to grasp the situation, he possessed insight.

"Everyone, lower your swords! Lower your swords, get on your knees, and place your hands on the ground!"

"What do you—"

"If you want to live, do it immediately!"

At the man's words, all the men and women knelt and placed their hands on the ground.

True to those who were more accustomed to submission than the will to fight, they moved quickly.

It was truly swift judgment.

It was a bit of a blow to Ferda, who had been planning to make an example of at least one of them to start a conversation.

The man stood up from his spot and knelt before Ferda.

"I am William, the captain leading this group of refugees. Is our esteemed guest's name Ferda Valdrova... the Regent?"

He asked.

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

"Yeah, that's right."

"And you must have come here... tracking us down after completing your investigation on the looting incident."

"Yeah."

It seemed he had the awareness that an investigation team would be dispatched to look into this matter.

"I believe you must undoubtedly be curious about the full details of the incident. I will tell you everything, so please, would you allow the children to eat their meal first?"

He asked politely.

Because of that, Ferda scoffed.

"You dare beg for sympathy pretending to be human when you're nothing but rats hoarding other people's grain? You have no right to eat."

Ferda slowly looked them over as he spoke.

"From now on, anyone who moves without my permission will be killed. That means everyone, without exception—adults, children, and the elderly."

Ferda sat right down on the very pot he had kicked.

"Confess properly. If you don't, I'll start by killing the children."