Through the Manager Scouter, I could see their detailed profiles, and most of them had truly extre dispositions. Cruelty (evil), wrath (evil), madness (evil), and so on. A terrifying combination of dispositions that wouldn’t normally co together so easily.
"To catch them this easily... Seeing the result with my own eyes leaves speechless."
"Just chalk it up to intuition. If you’re thinking of imitating it, give up."
"Even if I wanted to, that would be impossible."
Since I was commanding through the Scouter, it looked outrageous to ordinary people, but the results were so impressive that they were left at a loss for words. It would be easier on the mind to just write it off as genius.
Fiel had genius-level abilities too, but they were overshadowed by mine.
Not that he minded.
"Ngh, damn it."
It looked like the Schwarz Wolf’s leader had co to. After glancing around, he realized he was surrounded by the soldiers who had ambushed them. He must have realized that things had gone completely sideways, too.
"Verdammt nochmal!"
"Schwarz Wolf. You’ve committed quite a variety of cris all over the place."
"What do you want? If you want money, I’ll give it to you—just let us go!"
"No need. More importantly, do you know where you are?"
The leader looked around and recognized the hunter’s cabin where he’d spent the night. I could feel the murderous intent in his eyes as he glared at .
"Who the hell are you?"
"Have you heard of Streit?"
"Streit—you an the Lord of Feuzen?"
"Among other things, I command the Gale Knights, the Grand Duke’s personal knightly order."
"I’m honored to et such a renowned knight—ptooey!"
"How dare you!"
Whack! Whack!
The mbers around started stomping the leader who had spat at . Viktor hurriedly wiped my face with a cloth. I was the one who’d been spat on and the most furious here, so why were they turning him into ground at before I could?
Now I couldn’t even beat him myself.
I splashed water from the well onto my face.
"Hahh, hahh! We didn’t even attack Feuzen! Why co after us?"
Since we had no connection whatsoever, the leader couldn’t seem to make sense of the situation. But even without a connection, I couldn’t just leave n who had committed such heinous cris alone. I’d received the list from the Judicial Departnt.
"The order’s duties include suppressing bandits. Near Eisten, you targeted Vice Commander Falkenheim’s family, and that’s why I personally ca out to hunt you down. But you must have seen that day."
"Ngh! Khh! Damn it, the cavalry that ruined our plan that day—that was you bastards!"
This was just my guess, but the Schwarz Wolf had probably been watching from sowhere to confirm the Falkenheim family’s massacre. Then the fifteen cavalry I led showed up and slaughtered the attackers instead.
After confirming that the operation had completely fallen apart, they killed everyone at the Berten hideout to eliminate evidence and fled.
The leader’s face twisted as he looked at Viktor.
A chance encounter this ill-fated becos destiny.
"Damn it, the contract was dood from the start!"
"That’s what I’m most curious about. Who hired you to attack Viktor?"
"Will telling you keep us alive?"
"The execution grounds in Breisburg are waiting for you."
I’m not soft enough to let depraved n go free. That would be absurd. And since they were going to die anyway, I gently nudged them to drag down whoever had put them up to this.
"Fine. The one who hired us was an old man from Breisburg. I don’t know if he was a noble, but he agreed to pay six hundred silver coins to wipe out the Falkenheim family. We got three hundred up front as a deposit. The plan was to collect the rest after the job was done, but—kuh! Kuh!"
He must have taken too many hits, because blood spurted from his mouth.
After a rough bout of coughing, he caught his breath and continued.
"The plan was perfect—using those idiots from Berten so we wouldn’t expose ourselves. Damn it, you bastards showed up and ruined everything. So we killed the ones who had seen our faces, took the money, and ran. To think we’d get caught right before crossing into Offenburg."
"You can thank the victims at the hunter’s cabin for that. The ti you wasted there is what allowed us to catch you."
"Heh heh heh, so the fun we had is what did us in?"
His eyes were filled with madness.
I didn’t know if he’d given up on life, but he truly seed insane.
"I’ve had plenty of won up to now, but that hunter’s daughters were really sothing. We took turns with them right in front of their father. If they’d co quietly, we wouldn’t have killed them. Stupid girls. Heh heh heh."
Enraged by his vile remarks degrading the victims, Fiel kicked the leader in the mouth.
Crack! Crack! Crack! I hadn’t seen Fiel this angry since the tournant.
"Shaless piece of garbage!"
"Stomp on him all you want—just don’t kill him."
The leader’s face was a bloody ss.
He let out a groan and let his head drop, though he appeared to still be conscious.
But the other prisoners who ca to had to endure rciless beatings from the mbers, who were just as enraged as Fiel. We barely kept them alive through the night at the hunter’s cabin.
Since these were n with righteous dispositions, their fury was genuine.
In a quiet mont with just the three of us—Viktor, Fiel, and —Fiel asked about what had just co to light.
"Who is targeting Vice Commander Falkenheim?"
"That’s what I’d like to know. I have no idea what anyone could possibly gain from coming after ."
Naturally, neither Viktor nor Fiel could even guess. But after pondering for a mont, Viktor looked at with a hesitant expression and asked, his eyes filled with conflicted emotion.
"Commander, could it be because of what I witnessed that day? But the only person who knows about that besides is you."
"You weren’t aware of this, Vice Commander, but most of the survivors of that battle have either died or gone missing."
"Is that true?"
Viktor seed deeply shaken. Fiel was hearing this for the first ti and appeared to be struggling to understand what was going on. In the end, I shared Old Man Bertheim’s information with them.
"A friend nad Jakob had been corresponding with his forr comrades, and he reported their deaths to Marquis Bertheim. So the Marquis looked into it through the Administrative Minister and found that seven had died and the remaining six were missing. Two of the survivors are you and Jakob."
"Jakob—has he gone missing too?"
"I don’t know. He may have been killed sowhere."
"What on earth is going on!"
The shock hit Viktor like a raging storm, and his legs buckled as he sank to the ground. Fiel still seed lost and frustrated. As an outsider, this was all completely new to him.
"Vice Commander Viktor is a survivor of the third battle in the Great War five years ago—the one where the Lord of Rosenheim and my father were killed. The people I just ntioned are also survivors of that battle."
"And those survivors are now..."
"I don’t know what the goal is, but soone is having them assassinated. They probably hired n like these to do it. The survivors were all reportedly killed by bandits."
Fiel, now grasping the situation, seed at a loss for words. The Schwarz Wolf’s contract killing made it impossible to dismiss as coincidence. He intuitively understood that this was no ordinary matter.
I organized the new information I’d just acquired.
The client was an old man from Breisburg. And the phrase "I don’t know if he was a noble" probably ant he carried himself with that level of refinent. Like Marquis Bertheim’s butler, Göring.
Things were still hazy, but the picture was clearer than before.
"Grrr, it has to be the royal family. Not satisfied with driving the Lord to his death, they’re going after his surviving comrades! And now my own son’s life!"
"Calm down, Viktor! Calm down."
"How am I supposed to calm down right now?"
His face was twisted with rage and anguish.
"If you trust , leave it to ."
"Leave it to you, Commander?"
I gripped his shoulders and said,
"Marquis Bertheim is currently digging into the conspiracy. And I’m gathering information little by little too. Getting directly involved would be dangerous, but if we slowly collect clues from each of their deaths, won’t they eventually form a complete picture? When that ti cos, the truth will co to light."
He wasn’t completely convinced by my argunt, but he was at least showing trust. Even though he despised the Grand Duke, he had joined the Grand Duke’s personal knightly order as Vice Commander entirely because he believed in .
"I’ll trust you. You saved the lives of , my son, and his wife."
"Stay under my protection, and Simon and Natalie will be safe too. I’m not easy to ss with. So trust and wait. Acting on emotion will only make things worse."
Viktor placed his hand over the back of mine and nodded. His trust in —within it was also faith in as the son of Aseldorf, his friend and brother-in-arms.
"Hey now, the two of you making a pact without feels a bit hurtful."
"Oh, I forgot about you. You’re involved now too, so don’t think about running away."
"A knight of Steinhof neither tolerates injustice nor runs from it."
Fiel placed his hand on top of ours.
It was like sothing out of The Three Musketeers, but unfortunately, the road ahead wouldn’t be so simple.
When I returned to Breisburg with the Schwarz Wolf in tow, I received an unexpected invitation. It was from the Second Prince, Louis, with whom I had absolutely no prior connection.
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