Chapter 61

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When Marie stepped forward in her dress, Regina's eyes widened in surprise, only for a triumphant smile to spread across her face.

"How amusing, a lady stepping forward herself. Is this the freedom you were talking about? Stupidity isn't freedom, you know. Ohohoho!"

"Hiding behind other people when something important needs doing isn't noble behavior. It's just cowardice."

"Oh, does it look as though I'm hiding? No. This is called giving orders. Something you couldn't do. Why not send your scrawny knight forward while you still can? Before you regret it."

"You'd probably die if I did."

Marie offered the warning without exaggeration.

At Marie's persistently cold, blunt remarks, Regina dropped her polite speech as though a mask had fallen away.

"... You really don't know where to draw the line, do you?"

Already taller than Regina, Marie looked down at her with a contemptuous little smile. Regina had lost every shred of composure. Her smile was gone, and her breathing came unevenly with anger.

What infuriated Regina most, in truth, was Marie's appearance. Anyone could see that she was prettier. All the expensive clothes and jewelry Regina wore could do nothing about her face.

She would have been willing to overlook it if Marie had fawned over her. But Marie was haughty and aloof as well. That, she could not forgive.

"Lowborn trash never learns until it's had a taste of pain. It's so difficult to uphold a noble's duty to show mercy. Boys, would someone ruin that face for me?"

Regina addressed the men standing behind her. There were five or six grown men, all of them looking like thugs. For all her pretensions to refinement, it was easy to imagine how she usually amused herself.

"Tsk. What a waste."

One of the men spoke. It was an utterly revolting remark.

The men glanced at Ricard, standing idly behind her, and dismissed him as a worthless coward. Putting a woman in front of him and merely watching!

That thought did not last long. Marie abruptly closed the distance and drove her long leg forward in a front kick.

THUD!

Her foot drove into the man's belly like a spear. He immediately crumpled to his knees and spewed the contents of his stomach like a waterfall.

"Bleeuuurgh!"

Marie's movements were so fluid and quick that these run-of-the-mill thugs could not react immediately. For a moment, they could only stand dazed, wondering what had happened.

She promptly swung her fist in a full arc into another man's face.

CRACK!

Bones broke audibly. His nose, the area above his upper lip, and his jaw had been smashed. A blow like that could easily kill someone.

Only then did the three remaining men's hair stand on end. The realization struck them that they had picked on the wrong person.

But their bodies froze. They could neither fight back nor flee. This was so utterly unexpected that they could not decide what to do.

Clenching her teeth, Marie delivered a powerful kick to her next opponent as though swinging a club. Then she swung her fist again.

CRACK! THWACK!

Two more men fell. She had not needed repeated attacks. One blow apiece.

After all, neighborhood brawlers stood no chance against someone who fought with sharp steel and her life on the line. Above all, Marie knew how to wield mana.

That did not guarantee victory or make her unkillable, but it clearly put her beyond what an ordinary person could handle.

Marie casually pulled a tooth embedded in her fist free, tossed it to the ground, and looked at the last man standing.

Only then did he start out of his frozen stupor and attempt to flee.

But Marie caught him by the scruff of the neck, tripped him, then raised her foot and stomped hard on his face.

CRUNCH!

She could not smash a skull like a watermelon the way the Nameless had, but it was enough to shatter his nose and a mouthful of teeth.

Still, fighting in a dress exposed her pale legs and bottom, leaving Ricard somewhat embarrassed as he watched from behind. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not stepped in himself.

Having beaten five grown men to a pulp in an instant, Marie nudged aside the head she had just stomped on and looked at Regina.

Her blue eyes gleamed coldly in the dark.

"This is real power, Sweet Reggie."

Smiling, Marie threw Regina's talk about strength and power being what separated nobles from commoners back at her.

But Regina did not hear her. Her mind had gone blank, unable to accept what was happening.

Marie's low-heeled shoes clicked as she walked toward Regina. Regina did not even tremble in fear. She merely stared up at Marie, wide-eyed and vacant, because she could not comprehend the situation at all.

Marie slowly raised a hand, then put all her strength into a slap across Regina's cheek.

CRACK!

The slap sounded like wood splitting. Regina's jaw broke, and she collapsed unconscious. Broken teeth scattered through the air like kernels of corn as she fell.

Once it was all over, Ricard walked up and gazed down at Regina.

"She looks like a squashed rat."

Regina lay unconscious with her mouth hanging open, bloody saliva drooling from it.

It occurred to him that securing a contract with the merchants' association would be difficult now. But what was done could not be undone, and he did not want to blame Marie.

The thought briefly crossed his mind that they might still cover it up by killing them and dumping them in the waterway, but he did not want to go that far at this point.

If he had meant to do that, he should have acted sooner and finished it in an instant. By now, there might be witnesses.

"Is your hand all right?"

"Yes. Won't it heal quickly if I put some of Boribori's herbal remedy on it?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't really trust that stuff."

"Aren't you two best friends?"

"Being friends doesn't change what's true and what isn't."

"Heartless as ever."

Ricard simply smiled and walked beneath the bridge. The tread of his footsteps and the click of her heels gradually faded into the distance.

Behind them, the aggressors who had volunteered to become victims lay scattered in miserable heaps.

The next morning, Ricard and his friends sat around a table eating, with the spacious building all to themselves.

Still chewing, Volka addressed Marie.

"So you just beat her up? The girl from the merchant family?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"Well, they threatened you first, so there's nothing to apologize for... Will this be all right? It will, won't it?"

Volka directed the question at Ricard. His expression seemed to say, You're a noble, so you'll sort this out, right?

"I heard somewhere that merchant families aren't nobles under imperial law."

"Are you sure?"

"Who knows?"

"..."

Volka was at a loss for words. However things turned out, he would be the one bearing all the responsibility. Of course he trusted his friends, but he was honestly breaking into a bit of a cold sweat.

"How were the docks?"

Boribori had been picking morsels out of his soup with his fingers. He sucked them clean as he answered.

"The stonemasons' guild had occupied them. The merchants' association's ships couldn't leave. They said it was because they hadn't been paid for the construction. There wasn't any fighting yesterday, but they'd practically moved in. Looks like they won't leave until they get their money."

"Hmm... I see. Well, I asked around a little, and apparently the stonemasons' guild has roots here in Ehrenberg going way back. The merchants' association has been around a long time too, but its members and families seem to change pretty often. In short, those two—the stonemasons' guild and the merchants' association—are Ehrenberg's two big powers."

"And?" Ricard asked.

"Should we get involved in their fight, or just watch? Stick your nose into something like this the wrong way and you can get fucked."

"Isn't it already too late for us with the merchants' association? We beat up their girl."

Delphi spoke as she collected the empty bowls her friends had finished with. She was not blaming Marie. That was simply the situation.

"We can still stay out of it and watch."

"But if the merchants' association gets the upper hand, won't we go down too? I think we should pick a side while we can."

Ricard favored actively intervening in the dispute.

"But how do we get involved with the stonemasons' guild?"

"Collecting unpaid debts is something adventurers have done since ancient times. It's a thoroughly time-honored line of work."

"Collecting a debt from the Ehrenberg Merchants' Association... Why didn't they pay, anyway? It's not as though they're short of money."

"We can find out. I'll go ask. Those fellows seemed to like me."

Boribori spoke. That last part was honestly a little uncertain, but he was indeed the most personable of them after Volka. He was particularly popular with taciturn older men.

"Hmm, all right. But first, you lot need to learn the work. There's more to do than you'd think. And get to know the merchants nearby. Benny at the grocer's, Glott at the general store, Waylon the blacksmith, and the tanner, the potion seller, the cloth merchant, and so on. You need to know all their faces if we're going to buy stock from them. You understand?"

An adventurers' guild's work included providing visiting adventurers with all their supplies in one place.

That meant stocking goods in advance, making good relations with the local merchants essential. Securing food was especially important, so they also needed to get along with the farmers outside the city.

Volka could not always do everything himself. Naturally, every member of the clan had to help.

"Can you manage that, Ice?" Ricard asked.

Unlike Boribori, Ice had virtually no social skills. Put in numerical terms, they were close to zero.

"He only has to stand next to us. Let's introduce him to the women first."

Besides his talent for swordsmanship, Ice had another outstanding asset: unfairly good looks.

"I've never paid full price for anything in my life."

Ice tossed out the remark casually. What he meant was that merchants lowered their prices for him unasked.

Was that a joke? Or was he serious? Everyone there let out an incredulous laugh. Only then did Ice smile faintly too.

A girl lay in a luxurious bed with bandages around her head. It was Regina. One side of her face, however, was so blackened, swollen, and mangled as to be unrecognizable.

Marconis gazed down at his daughter. Other family members stood nearby, and he muttered as though for their benefit.

"No help at all. None... Tsk."

He seemed more irritated than concerned for his daughter.

"When was the marriage meeting with the Harpin family?"

Marconis looked at his grown son as he asked. Armen's neatly slicked-back brown hair gleamed as though it had been coated in oil.

"Next month."

"Cancel it. She's no use like this. By the time she's healed, she'll be past marriageable age. Stupid bitch."

His tone suggested not the slightest affection for his daughter. He seemed to regard her merely as a tool for the family.

"But Father, shouldn't we teach those bastards a lesson?"

"What are we, a bunch of country-bumpkin knights, blinded by revenge? What have I always told you? Before you act, weigh the profits and losses."

"I'm sorry."

"Still, we can't simply let this pass. Make contact with the Beringen Guild. And dig into those two brats' backgrounds."

Marconis was a meticulous man, not the sort to lash out blindly in anger.

He was certainly angry. But that anger stemmed not from his daughter's beating, but from the disruption to his plans.

Marriage meetings, betrothals, and weddings were extremely important family affairs, for they were a means of securing alliances or strengthening existing ones.

Having those arrangements disrupted was what angered and irritated him.

On top of that, he was embroiled in a dispute with the Ehrenberg Stonemasons' Guild. He already had more than enough on his mind.

The merchants' association was not withholding the construction payment for lack of money. They had seized on a clause in the contract as a pretext to refuse payment, seeking to bring the stonemasons' guild to heel in a contest of wills.

The Ehrenberg Stonemasons' Guild was a body of craftsmen who were, for all practical purposes, the city's native population. They made their living by passing their skills down through the generations.

The merchants' association's ultimate aim was to bring them under its control, take complete command of Ehrenberg, and enjoy a monopoly.

The current plan was to begin by squeezing their livelihoods and dragging things out, then give them a little breathing room at a time until the association could gradually manipulate them as it pleased.

Compared to that, his daughter's beating was no great matter. Merely irritating. Yet it nagged at him like a hangnail.

Besides, Red Cloak and the Quarterer needed careful handling. He knew how savage and terrifying the Ehrenberg Five had been. Anyone who had killed those monsters was clearly no ordinary opponent.

Several days later, a letter arrived from the Beringen Guild. Marconis tilted his head as he read it.

<We regret what has happened to your daughter. However, we cannot disclose personal information concerning our guild's adventurers. We wish you fortune in battle.>

Fortune in battle? Not good fortune? That particular choice of words bothered Marconis. It seemed rather inappropriate for an official letter.

After all, fortune in battle specifically concerned one's luck in victory or defeat in combat. Were these uneducated fools simply using words at random?

The hangnail was bothering him more and more. It irritated him if he ignored it, yet hurt more than expected if he tried to tear it off. That was precisely how it felt.