Gran Harman, the chairman of the Herman Company, is a Commercial Baron of the Solhorse Kingdom. This rank, unique to Solhorse, is a lower noble title granted to merchants who have made significant contributions to the nation.
While it’s now possible to acquire the title through donations, Commercial Barons are entrusted with specific rights and responsibilities within their regions.
The Solhorse Kingdom’s Foreign Trade Department, seeking to import wheat, was approached by Duke Haerlton of the Kingdom of Claydale, with whom they had prior connections. They chose the Herman Company, which had a base near the border with the Kingdom of Claydale, for the task.
The Solhorse Kingdom, possessing vast farmlands, offered wheat at a lower price than Claydale. Even considering transportation costs, the price difference wouldn’t be substantial, and the risks of accidents in the wetlands made the deal less appealing for Solhorse. Nevertheless, the Solhorse Kingdom complied with Duke Haerlton’s request.
The Solhorse Kingdom’s directive to Gran wasn’t merely about trade. Their aim was to weaken the productive capacity of western Claydale by selling moderately poor-quality wheat, thereby increasing Claydale’s dependence on Solhorse and expanding their influence through economic invasion.
“Those fools in the capital are too naive,” Gran Harman, a man in his fifties, scoffed at the nation’s strategy while drinking in his mansion within the Haerlton Dukedom.
Gran, though a lower noble in the Solhorse Kingdom, was considered a commoner in Claydale. However, this didn’t bother him, as the mansion and the liquor he enjoyed were far superior to what he had in Solhorse.
Following the capital’s plan would indeed make Claydale dependent on the Solhorse Kingdom. But Gran, lacking loyalty to the nation despite his noble title, sought profit as any merchant would.
With the plan in motion, subsidies were available. He used national intelligence to build connections with higher nobles. He intended to drive out other merchants like slash-and-burn agriculture, lend money to impoverished villages in Claydale that they couldn’t repay, and amass wealth by enslaving the people of the Kingdom of Claydale in mines and brothels.
Gran’s laughter wasn’t directed at the nation’s policy but at the foolishness of thinking a Commercial Baron like him would act for the country’s sake.
However, seeking wealth through borderline illegal activities naturally created enemies. Organizations like the local Thieves’ Guild could be bribed, but he couldn’t afford for noble families driven to desperation by debt or, especially, the Shadow Unit of the Kingdom of Claydale to discover his connection to the Solhorse Kingdom.
To that end, Gran brought in adventurers he had worked with in the Solhorse Kingdom as accomplices and contacted the Assassin Guild in this land to hunt down the nobles’ dogs and Shadow Unit knights.
Even if the Kingdom of Claydale suspected the Herman Company, the ignorant Duke Haerlton would protect him. But—
— KA-A-ANG!
“What?!”
Gran looked up at the sudden, bell-like sound. What was that? As he searched his memory, he heard hurried footsteps.
“Master!”
“…What’s all the commotion?”
Gran frowned as one of his managers burst into the room without knocking, but the young manager shook his head frantically.
“I-I apologize! But the alarm in the basement…”
“What?!”
Gran finally remembered the alarm in the hidden room in the basement. It had been over a decade since the alarm was installed, and no one had ever managed to infiltrate the mansion. This was the first time it had ever sounded. But that was where the reports to be sent to the capital were stored.
“Send the adventurers there immediately!”
“Y-yes!”
The young manager fled the room, startled by Gran’s outburst.
“…Tch. Those useless assassins.”
He had paid them handsomely, yet they had allowed a thief to infiltrate. But the assassins had never let a thief pass before. They even had war dogs prepared. How did the intruder get past them?
“…Tch.”
Gran clicked his tongue again and rose from the sofa.
The reports absolutely couldn’t be exposed. He didn’t know the size of the intruder’s force, but fortunately, nearly all the adventurers were gathered at the mansion for the end of the fiscal period.
The infiltration was skillful, but no matter how stealthy the thief was, they couldn’t escape against dozens of adventurers and assassins. Thinking so, Gran headed to the basement himself. He found over a dozen adventurers gathered at the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement entrance. He spotted Cardis, a middle-aged adventurer he had known since his youth, whom he had brought in as a leader for the adventurers, and called out to his back.
“Cardis! What are you doing?! Capture the thief already!”
“…Boss, Jiff and his group are inside. We can’t all fit in there.”
“O-oh, right…”
Gran nodded, backing down at his old friend’s exasperated tone.
Jiff and his companions were young but had already reached Rank 4. They were a bit greedy, but that meant they were more proactive than other adventurers if paid.
They probably rushed in first to claim the credit. He turned his gaze to the entrance, expecting them to emerge soon. At that moment, a shadow resembling Jiff appeared in the darkness.
“Oh, Jiff! What about the thief?!”
As Gran spoke and tried to approach, Cardis suddenly grabbed Gran’s shoulder and stopped him.
“Boss, get back!”
Cardis stepped forward to shield Gran. At that instant, a jet-black “Shadow” mimicking Jiff burst out and ran, and Cardis immediately slashed it with his longsword.
“What?!”
The Shadow dissipated with a single blow. A fleeting moment of opportunity was created. Simultaneously, a “thief” clad in a cloak leaped out of the basement, and the adventurers instinctively responded, throwing throwing knives. However, the multiple knives were caught in the cloak that the thief had discarded and spread out, and throwing knives launched from the other side of the cloak pierced the foreheads of two unsuspecting adventurers.
“Protect the boss!”
Cardis’s command cut through the confused adventurers. But everyone’s gaze was instantly drawn to the figure of the “thief” who emerged from behind the fallen cloak.
“…A woman?”
Gran’s voice leaked out. There stood a young girl clad in black, dress-like leather armor.
Her hair was a pinkish gold. Her features, though still youthful, were beautiful enough.
But… facing so many enemies without the slightest fear, narrowing her eyes and standing with composure—that “atmospheric presence” made some of the adventurers gasp as if they were swallowed whole.
“…Woman. What happened to Jiff and the others?”
Cardis asked warily, looking at the comrades who had been killed in an instant. The girl quietly muttered, her eyes sweeping over everyone.
“There was no reason to keep them alive.”
“—!”
In that instant, Cardis, with his long combat experience, understood.
The girl before him was not a thief who had been caught infiltrating, nor a pitiful rabbit caught in a trap. The cold gaze that seemed to count their corpses made Cardis realize that this girl was a “monster” who had come to kill them.
“Enemy attack—!!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs to summon the assassins outside.
Several adventurers responded to his voice, grabbing Gran and retreating, while several others took up short swords and hand axes, acknowledging the girl as an enemy and launching an attack.
“Don’t think you can fight properly in this narrow space!”
Judging from the girl’s appearance, she was likely a scout or light warrior. Her fighting style would focus on evasion using her speed, but in a narrow place like this with stairs, the space for evasion was limited, and her speed was restricted. But—
“Gah!?”
The girl gently deflected the approaching blade as if pushing it aside with her bare hand, then slit the adventurer’s throat with a knife.
Seeing that, an adventurer hesitated for a moment to jump in, and the girl glided closer and fluidly thrust a dagger under his chin.
“[Fire(Fire)…”
One of the adventurers, about to chant a fire spell, suddenly spurted blood from his neck and collapsed.
“Be careful! There’s something(・・)!”
Cardis had seen something like threads dancing in the air around the girl for a moment. He didn’t know what it was, but he warned those around him. At the same time, the girl moved.
“Damn!”
Responding to this, one adventurer stepped forward as a shield. But, showing the difference in their abilities, the giant man, twice the girl’s size, had his knees shattered in an instant, and as he collapsed, his jaw was struck with a palm strike, snapping his neck backward.
“…Impossible.”
The adventurers here were skilled warriors even in the Solhorse Kingdom. Even Rank 3 adventurers had a combat power of 500 or more, and some, like Cardis and Jiff, were reaching Rank 4.
I knew from her presence that the girl was no ordinary person. Yet, somewhere in my heart, I underestimated her because of her adorable appearance. Youngsters are especially prone to that. Even Cardis hadn’t even bothered to [Appraise] her, judging solely on her looks.
“…2400…?”
I saw an impossible combat power. How could a girl, barely in her mid-teens, possess such strength? Even with all my years of training, my combat power is only around 1000…
In this Kingdom of Claydale… no, even including the Solhorse Kingdom, there probably isn’t anyone with such combat power.
–The Strongest–
Such words flashed through Cardis’s mind. He had lived his youth seeking that. But when did he give up on it…?
“Everyone, fall back to a wider area! Use your best weapons to fight back!!”
Bad luck. While driven by the urge to click my tongue and spit at my employer, Cardis could only shout that.
The enemy is probably a high-ranking Rank 5. At that level, common sense doesn’t apply. No matter how unfavorable a narrow space is for a scout, if only two people can attack at once, that alone will be dealt with.
What good would it do to inform the other Adventurers of her combat power? It would only scare them. Cardis had already given up on fighting and was planning to secure Gran and escape.
The other Adventurers were sacrifices to buy time. They would surround her with their best weapons, hoping to buy even a little time.
But it didn’t take long to realize that even that was wishful thinking.
“Cardis! What’s going on!?”
“Master, please listen calmly.”
Gran, still surrounded by the remaining Adventurers, was still in the hall. While inwardly clicking his tongue at his employer for not running away in this situation, Cardis immediately rushed over and whispered so only he could hear.
“That one’s bad news. It’s better to run now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! If that thing from the basement gets out, I’m ruined!”
“Life comes before possessions!”
As long as you have your life, you can manage somehow. The best course of action would be to have Duke Haerlton shelter him and try to rebuild.
Should I knock him out and drag him away? Such thoughts crossed his mind, but the battle had already moved to the plaza, and as the surrounded Adventurers pointed their best weapons, the girl suddenly turned her eyes to Cardis and Gran.
“–Stop!!”
There was no basis for Cardis’s shout. He just instinctively knew that the girl was aiming straight for them.
“Gah!”
The girl, placing her hand on the head of a man wielding a Two-Handed Axe, leaped over him, twisting and crushing his neck.
“Uwaaaaaaa!!”
A young Adventurer who had thrust his Spear at the girl as she leaped over him was kicked in the head, making a skull-cracking sound, and killed.
The sight of everyone blocking her path and resisting being killed as mere obstacles felt like an unreal nightmare.
“…What is that…”
Gran finally acknowledged the one attacking them and muttered in astonishment.
“That’s what I’ve been saying!”
The “Grim Reaper” in the form of a girl was approaching. But at that moment–
Crash!!
Just as he was about to give up, thinking there was no escape, several men burst in, smashing through the mansion’s windows.
“It’s outside the contract, but can we be allowed inside the mansion?”
The Cruz men who appeared, with turban-like cloths wrapped around their heads, were Assassins from the Assassin Guild’s Central West Branch.
“Sinan! Kill her!!”
“Understood.”
The handsome Cruz man called Sinan smiled and showed a Killing Intent that seemed to change the air, focusing on the Pink-Haired Girl.
“I hate killing young women, but it’s my employer’s request. Judging by your skill in dodging the dogs and infiltrating, I can’t hold back. No hard feelings, girl.”
Sinan held a slender longsword with both hands, slowly pointing it at the girl, and the surrounding Assassins also simultaneously pointed their curved swords called scimitars at the girl.
Sinan was a Rank 5 warrior and was inwardly surprised by the girl’s combat power.
There are two existences in this country’s Underworld that you should never mess with. One of them had destroyed the Assassin Guild’s Northern Frontier Branch, and even Sinan’s Central West Branch had suffered damage.
Sinan had not been involved in that and had not placed much importance on that information. After all, he understood that combat power was just a guideline and not the whole of battle.
Situation and tactics, comrades and Adventurers to be used as pawns… if he used these, he could deal with any opponent, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
“Now, Adventurers, counterattack! Avenge your fallen comrades here!”
“Ooh!”
The Adventurers, who had been on the verge of giving up, regained their vitality and readied their weapons at Sinan’s confident figure and words.
“…………”
Even so, the girl remained silent, calmly holding her weapon without changing her expression.
Cardis felt uneasy at that sight, and as Sinan frowned slightly and launched an attack simultaneously with his subordinates, the Pink-Haired Girl muttered in a faint voice.
“–Iron Rose–“
The world was dyed in “crimson.”
Blood splatters and blood mist scattered throughout the space in front of them, and Cardis, reading the movements of Sinan’s severed head as it flew through the air with a look of astonishment plastered on its face, realized who he had been fighting.
The two existences in this country that you must never antagonize.
One is the “Witch of Thorns,” feared from both the shadows and the light–
And the other… the one feared by everyone in this country’s Underworld–
“–Ash-Covered Princess–“
Watching the monstrous bird, its pink hair turned to a scorching ash-iron color, spreading particles of light like silver wings, pierce his and Gran’s foreheads with a Black Dagger and Knife, Cardis cursed the gods for his misfortune.
“Gaa…”
“Okay. Let’s go, Nero. Next.”
I joined up with Nero, who had taken care of those who had fled the mansion, and ran into the night forest, leaving the burning mansion behind us.
Bloodshed!
Next time, a new war situation
In reality, I don’t think I’ll struggle against ordinary people after coming this far.