The Herman Company. It’s a merchant company expanding its influence in the Kingdom of Claydale, primarily in the western noble territories consolidated by Duke Helton.
They deal in a wide variety of goods, but their main business is an import operation dealing in grains like wheat and daily necessities. By selling at low profit margins in large volumes, they drove out pre-existing merchant companies and monopolized the local markets, thereby exerting influence in various ways.
That much is legal. As long as there are people who seek out slightly lower quality goods, it’s one method of commerce.
However, normally, there would be people seeking cheap, low-quality goods and those seeking high-quality goods even if they’re a bit more expensive, creating a certain balance. But the Herman Company’s goods are sold at prices that clearly disregard profit, a method disliked by other merchant companies as it crushes them and monopolizes the market.
But who is providing the money to cover those losses? Mikhail and the others in the Shadow Unit investigated, and I heard about it from Elena.
The Solhorse Kingdom. That was the entity behind the scenes, acting as a source of funds for the noble faction… and the Crown Prince’s faction.
“Let’s go, Nero.”
――Affirmative――
We set out once more into the night forest.
After hearing the story from the village couple who were attacked earlier, I confirmed one of their sources of funding.
What the Herman Company is doing is borderline, but not illegal. Selling citizens of Claydale in Solhorse, using loans and contracts as a shield, is framed as merely “introducing new work.” Without being able to investigate beyond our borders, it’s difficult to press charges.
But, emotionally, it’s not good. Normally, Duke Helton, as the overseer of this region, should use his authority to stop it, even forcefully. However, the Duke can’t cut off the Herman Company, his source of funds.
That’s precisely why Elena couldn’t touch the Herman Company either. It’s not just the Herman Company… several neighboring countries, including the Condor Kingdom and the Ils Duchy who are vying for mining rights, are doing similar things.
Right now, with the Royal Family’s power weakened and the noble faction gaining strength, it’s a prime opportunity for neighboring countries to diminish the Kingdom of Claydale’s national power.
If our national power were robust, we could afford to give some benefits to neighboring countries, but in the current situation, we have no choice but to prioritize national interests, even if it means eliminating the noble faction.
『……Grrr.』
“It’s nothing.”
Nero reacted to the self-deprecating laugh that escaped me.
This makes me no different from Grave. He sought the nation’s peace and was willing to kill even Elena if necessary. He would probably be gladly moving to kill the Crown Prince and the Saint now. He said I would become his successor. That I, too, would understand eventually…
Grave. You are right. But I will not acknowledge your justice.
I am a “Blade.” One who possesses great power must not act on their own justice.
I understood that from my fight with you.
Mom and Dad said that there are no truly evil people at heart. It’s just that people have their own individual justices, and when those clash, there’s no such thing as true justice.
Elena is my conscience. That’s why I believe in Elena and wield my blade for her sake.
Someday, for the sake of saving that un-saved child who also possesses great power…
＊＊＊
I won’t lay a hand on Duke Helton. It’s Elena’s role to deal with that without causing widespread impact. To that end, I will infiltrate the headquarters of the Herman Company, Duke Helton’s source of funds, and find evidence of their connection to the Solhorse Kingdom.
But I think that will be difficult. They wouldn’t be foolish enough to carefully preserve such things. However, the Herman Company has made a mistake here.
In my opinion, the Herman Company selling villagers is their own arbitrary decision. Even if they were acting on orders from their home country, having operated in the Kingdom of Claydale for twenty years, they sought their own “benefits.”
Human trafficking. If there’s evidence of sales in the Solhorse Kingdom, which is illegal in the Kingdom of Claydale, then Duke Helton, who brought them in, will be held responsible.
The adventurers I defeated also had the Solhorse Kingdom’s insignia on their identification tags, so they must have been hired by the country. But even they sought benefits and took part in human trafficking.
…That village couple asked me to save their village. But unless I cut off the root cause, even if I crush that one branch in the barony, the village’s debt won’t disappear, their circumstances won’t change, and there’s nothing I can do.
“Nero, hide around there.”
『…………』
“It’ll be fine.”
While hidden in the darkness, I gently stroked the neck of Nero, who was staring intently, then turned my gaze to the enormous mansion visible in the distance.
On the outskirts, a short distance from the town under Duke Helton’s jurisdiction, was the mansion where the head of the Herman Company lived.
Their shop is in the town, but the reason I came to this mansion instead of the shop was that the shop only had ordinary security, while this place had extraordinary security.
There were clearly suspicious individuals. A large merchant company might have connections to the underworld and pay the Thieves’ Guild to handle their security. But such ordinary types were only at the shop; the ones guarding this mansion were clearly individuals with high combat power, accustomed to fighting in the underworld.
Due to the distance, I can’t determine their exact combat power, but judging from their movements and footwork, they’re likely 500 or more… some might even reach 1000.
At least Rank 3 or higher. There might even be Rank 4s. In fact, there were one or two who seemed to notice my gaze and looked around.
Moreover, several dogs were let loose on the vast grounds. That’s why the Shadow Unit’s intelligence agents couldn’t fully investigate. Sera or Viro would probably also find it difficult to infiltrate by normal means. I surmised that only people from Solhorse or the underworld were allowed within those grounds.
The guards with normal footwork are likely adventurers from Solhorse. In that case, are the ones with footwork that silences their steps from the Solhorse Kingdom’s Shadow Unit?
…No, that’s not it. There might be state personnel, but organizations like the Shadow Unit wouldn’t entrust important tasks to anyone without high loyalty. Even Grave, twisted as he was, had loyalty to the nation higher than anyone else. I can’t imagine such people would allow the Herman Company to do as they please. If that’s the case…
“…The Claydale Assassin Guild, then.”
Judging by the number of dark-skinned Kruz people, I think they’re assassins from the Central West branch. With security this tight, any decent person would have no choice but to give up on investigating.
“…【Real Breaker】…”
Using the 【Darkness】 of World Rejection, I instantly moved onto the mansion grounds.
If I keep using 【Darkness】, I don’t think anyone will find me. But since I don’t know how long it will take to find evidence, I should refrain from wasting magical power.
I lightly exhaled the air from my lungs, pulled out the surrounding weeds, soil and all, and rubbed them onto my cloak.
Being able to “see” Magical Element with my eyes, my Stealth rivals that of a cat-type beastman. From the information I’ve gathered so far, the most dangerous thing would be encountering a high-rank Stealth expert without either of us noticing the other. I can recognize them by color and shape, so I can avoid them to some extent, but I think the most troublesome things are the roaming dogs.
Wild animals wouldn’t notice me. However, if there were dogs trained to detect Stealth, there was a possibility they could notice me by a faint scent even if I wasn’t visually discovered.
It’s troublesome, but not all bad. To avoid being targeted by the dogs while using Stealth, the Assassin Guild members are also not using Stealth.
Besides, using animals isn’t always advantageous.
“…………”
The dog is right in front of me. It’s a huge dog, like a dire wolf. Even if it hasn’t noticed me, it’s not moving from its spot, probably because it senses something amiss with my scent.
The fact that it doesn’t even growl is proof of considerable training. The dog moved as if searching for something, and its gaze stopped on me.
However, after a few seconds of staring, the dog averted its gaze, quietly cleared the path, and I slipped past it.
The reason is simple. A faint scent of Nero lingers on my body. And I myself am probably no longer an ordinary human.
Until now, wild animals would cower if they noticed me. But ever since I delivered the finishing blow to the dragon, wild animals that see me no longer flee as if sensing “death.”
Approaching the building, I pressed myself against the wall, searching for signs of presence inside. Finding an empty spot, I slipped a Thread controlled by Thread Manipulation through a gap.
(…【Shadow Walk】…)
Complete silent casting still lowers accuracy, but I used Shadow Walk via the Thread to enter the room, then climbed up near the high ceiling and began moving, sticking to it.
I won’t carelessly enter the space above the ceiling. If it were me, I’d set traps in places where normal people wouldn’t pass.
If people passed by, I’d stay still and let them pass. To be honest, the difficulty was higher than the Evil Race fortress, which had many soldiers, but the tension was similar.
Inside, there were also many adventurers and those who seemed to be assassins, but if I ignored the premise that “I’ll be killed if discovered,” continuing to hide wasn’t that much of a hardship.
After wandering for about an hour, I began to understand the situation inside quite well.
The lower floor had reception rooms, a kitchen, and a place for the guards. It was a two-story building, and on the upper floor, there was also a person who seemed to be the head of the Herman Company, and a place like a study, but I felt a slight sense of unease about that.
Compared to the strict security elsewhere, that study only had traps. If it were only lethal traps, the need to station personnel would be reduced, but then it would be difficult to use normally.
Am I overlooking something? If so… the place with the tightest security.
“…The basement, huh?”
I went back down to the first floor and searched for the entrance to the basement. The most heavily guarded area was the garden, but if that was to prevent outsiders like the Assassin Guild from entering the mansion, then the entrance should indeed be inside the mansion.
I didn’t notice it when I first looked around, but when I searched thinking there might be a basement, I found an unnatural shelf under the stairs leading to the second floor, and through a gap there, I found a hidden door to the basement.
The shelf itself was designed to open like a door, but I didn’t unlock it and instead used Shadow Walker again to pass through the door. I had suspected as much, but there were no lethal traps. Of course. They wouldn’t use dangerous traps that could go off by chance in a place used by important figures of this company.
At the same time, I figured that if there were important documents, there wouldn’t be any mechanisms that could damage them.
It was dark inside, but with even a tiny amount of magical light, I had no trouble reading text.
Inside, there was only a simple table and a simple shelf, on which were documents filled with numbers, but I didn’t have time to examine them in detail. Still, wondering if I could use something, I quickly skimmed through them while putting everything into Shadow Storage.
Most of them were income and expenditure statements related to business. Even a quick glance revealed they were purchasing goods from the neighboring country at ridiculously low prices.
But so far, these were just ordinary financial statements. Full of oddities, but not evidence of a crime.
“…?”
After storing all the documents that were on the shelf, I noticed a part of the shelf moved.
Using the same trick twice… They probably didn’t expect a spy who would take all the documents. But when I gently moved it, I heard a sound like an alarm in the distance.
A trap at this point? It’s probably a mechanism where an alarm sounds if a certain procedure isn’t followed. I was wary of lethal traps, but simple things like this are, conversely, difficult to deal with.
“…”
I opened the shelf as it was and started reading the documents inside.
As expected, there were no directives from the Solhorse Kingdom. However, among them, I found a single sheet, perhaps handwritten by the company head himself, an unfinished activity report addressed to a certain person, and within it, a description of slaves that could be sent during the current term.
There were probably still parts he hadn’t finished writing. If I had infiltrated a few days later, it might have already been sent.
“Don’t move!”
Just then, the door burst open with a bang, and several men with drawn weapons came down.
As I turned around while putting the report into Shadow Storage, the men, who seemed to be Rank 4 adventurers, relaxed slightly upon seeing I was alone.
“A spy from Claydale, huh? You did well to get this far. But now that you’re here, don’t think you’ll leave alive.”
“Unlucky for you, it’s the time when the company head is present. Today, skilled individuals from the surrounding area have also gathered as guards, so we’ll have you thoroughly tell us which organization you’re from.”
In that instant, I spread my cloak in front of the men. The Rank 4 men reflexively dodged, but my dagger pierced the forehead of the man in front, right through the cloak.
No matter what, even I can’t do anything without evidence.
Even with evidence, if I leave it to Duke Helton, the village’s debt probably won’t disappear.
…But, I finally have a reason to do it.
Amidst the torn cloak and a spray of blood, I pointed my Black Dagger at the astonished men.
“I no longer have any reason to hold back.”
The Ash Covered Princess finally bares her fangs.
Next time, battle with the Herman Company.