Karma
Karma
The distance from the Noble Council to the Ogatorf estate was quite substantial. Since it had already been a tiring day, and all I could think about was hurrying back and resting in bed, the distance felt even greater now.
Even so, I deliberately chose a longer route and was taking a walk.
"What is he, a fortune teller instead of a duke? Fuck."
As soon as I left the Noble Council, some weird bastards started tailing me.
At first I wondered if I was just imagining it, but as I took a real walk, partly to mull over how much and how to explain today's events, I became certain.
Whenever I saw something that could be used as a mirror at the countless stalls in the market, I pretended to examine it and checked behind me, and sure enough, there they were. Two women, two men. Dressed like commoners you could see anywhere, but all four wore swords that matched as if standardized, the infuriating bastards.
While I was examining a necklace a bit too long, trying to guess whether they were the traitor's minions or what, the stall owner lady chattered at me.
"Ah, young sir. You've got a good eye! The thing set in the middle of that necklace is real silver."
"It doesn't look new, but it's been very neatly maintained. Do you take care of it yourself?"
I had learned to appraise precious metals from Asilie and also from the Ogatorf household. I couldn't say I was perfect, but I took pride in being able to roughly see through items like this that showed up on the street.
If I totally ignored her and the bastards tailing me caught on to something suspicious, it wouldn't be good, so I played along. The stall owner clapped her hands in response and exclaimed,
"As expected, you're no ordinary customer! You're exactly right! But it's not stolen goods! They're secondhand items from a jeweler who deals with nobles! Though the noble sirs don't even glance at them, it's different here~!"
The brown-haired woman, dressed more like an adventurer than a typical market lady, was considerably younger than the other stall owners around. Yet she had two big guys flanking her like bodyguards, which didn't look ordinary at all.
'I'm really something. Even unconsciously, I managed to pick out this kind of stall to look at.'
'It definitely looked like it could be stolen, but it wasn't important to me anyway, so I decided not to care.'
"The price?"
"Only 10 Itisel silver coins!"
"The attempt to sell used goods at original price was cute."
Even though Asilie always said my eye for things was lousy, the head butler of the Ogatorf household had praised my discernment. The fact that it was set with silver, not gems, already made it something impoverished nobles used as a luxury substitute. What a joke.
I had no intention of buying it anyway, so I was about to go on my way when the stall owner quickly blocked my hand as I tried to put the necklace down and started acting coy.
"Ahh! Sir! Wait! Joke! I was joking! Aww, it's a jooooke!"
"I don't treat trying to rip me off with the price as a joke."
"Honestly, it wasn't a joke, but if you bought it at that price, I was going to throw in a bunch of extras as a service, you know? Believe meee."
The way she twisted her body and put on that tacky cutesy act was repulsive, but she was probably so brazen because she trusted her looks. She was definitely strikingly pretty for a stall vendor, so she must have been confident.
'But there are three women prettier than you just around me. Four if I count Sheryl.' I was about to brush that off too and just leave, when suddenly a stranger's hand landed on my shoulder.
"Hey, sir. Don't be so harsh just because our girl cracked a joke. Why not look at the goods a bit more before you go?"
Surprisingly, the two big-shouldered guys were sidling up to me, trying to intimidate me.
"You've got a fancy sword on your hip, so this isn't chump change to you, right? Let's all be nice and get along."
"Wh-what?"
I was so shocked that even the fact that I had tails on me felt like nothing, and I ended up stammering.
Even if they were big-shouldered, these guys were half a head shorter than me, who was now approaching 190 cm with muscles, and they were threatening me!
"Are you telling me you can't see my outfit right now?"
Because I had witnessed such an unbelievable, bizarre spectacle, I momentarily wondered if these two had vision problems and inadvertently asked with concern.
"I see it plenty well, rich sir. Man, you must've eaten well and grown up big, since you're so tall. We're not exactly short either, but our necks are straining."
"But just because the clothes are fancy and expensive doesn't mean they'll stop a knife..."
"You so much as twitch that hand, and you're dead, got it?"
Seeing him make a move that instantly killed my amused mood, I reflexively put on a straight face.
I had intended to laugh it off if they were all talk, but the bastard was actually reaching into his pocket for a knife. My kindness, warning him that if he so much as wriggled I'd smash his jaw, was wasted as he instead made an ugly face.
"Mister, you're getting cocky 'cause you've got a sword, but don't you think my knife'll be in your gut faster than you can draw it? Looks like you ain't got real combat experience."
'Real combat...?'
'Me... have no real combat experience...?'
'What even is real combat...?'
'I just came from popping off twenty-four heads like bottle caps on an opener.'
"I was gonna let you go nice and easy, but looks like that's off the table. How about you come with us over there and have a little chat?"
"Come on, guys. Don't scare the customer like that."
Even as she said that, the stall owner, who had distanced herself from me, naturally moved aside and opened a path to the alley behind the stall.
And without really resisting the two big guys who were half-dragging me inside, I thought hard.
'What use could they possibly be to me right now?'
My outfit wasn't exactly noble-like. But it was designed such that any sensible person living in the capital would at least recognize it as a uniform, even if they didn't know which one. The former Margrave of Levien's fashion sense was no joke, you know?
'Yet they saw that and still dragged me in so brazenly? Why the hell? What were they counting on?'
"I was gonna skip this cliché line, but you guys are really mistaken."
"Oh yeah? I don't think we're mistaken at all. We might not look it, but we've got every noble sir's uniform in the capital memorized."
"Don't lie. Why would guys like you mess with me?"
"We mess with you because it's not a lie. Just by looking, you're a flashy dressed-up nouveau riche who came up from outside the capital. We've never seen the uniform you're wearing."
The moment the question 'why?' popped up, what flashed through my mind was the image of Renisa and the servants at the Ragnis manor.
'Right. Around Ragnis, the only ones wearing this were me and Renisa. No wonder they haven't seen it.'
"Our boss is the kind of guy who keeps the boys fed with information in this business. So we picked you because you looked like an easy mark, that's what I'm saying."
"...Information?"
I was already in an annoying situation, trying to figure out what to do with these insolent bastards, when that one word jolted me wide awake.
"Dear God. You're calling me again a bit sooner than usual."
'I trusted You'd be there without fail.'
"Hah, this guy's built like a mountain and he's looking for God."
"If there was a God, would you have gotten caught by us, mister?"
"Eldmia Ega."
"What?"
As I followed them further into the alley and saw more thugs emerging little by little, I gave a wholehearted smile.
"I'm called Eldmia Ega."
◈
Zikmel was a successful information broker.
4 years ago, when he was just a reckless 15-year-old brat who joined a gang in Ogwen that could throw a punch.
Zikmel, who had such an intense experience that he still occasionally had nightmares, spent over four months in mortal terror, praying his two broken legs would somehow heal properly. When he heard that the gang leader had died from a single kick, he felt grateful that only his legs were broken, but the fear was still fear.
Ironically, thanks to those two broken legs, begging wasn't hard, and as he endured those days, Zikmel had a huge realization.
That violence was utterly futile in the face of greater violence, and that actions born of ignorance never led to pleasant outcomes.
With the realization that to survive he needed knowledge, not violence, Zikmel fled Ogwen as soon as his legs healed and headed for a nearby city. He scrimped on food to learn to read from an apothecary and build his knowledge. Starting from the bottom, while lowlifes ruled the streets through violence, he made money through information.
For an ordinary man like Zikmel, information dealing with adventurers didn't make money, so he dealt in information on merchants and nobles active in the city, made his money, and overcame various dangers using that information to settle in the capital.
Even then, he didn't deal in violence. With information alone, he could expand his influence without want. Of course, he was running a stall using that information, but it was just a small side job.
So, while he was focusing on work as usual, he heard a knock that was different from the usual.
"B-Boss. May I come in?"
"If it's not important business, come later."
Being an information broker ultimately meant a continuous cycle of cross-checking documents that came to the desk all day and verifying their authenticity. So Zikmel, without raising his head from the sea of papers, recalled the other person just by hearing his voice.
It wasn't hard to recall. He was one of the guards he had assigned to protect Lilsi's stolen goods stall. Was his name Ben?
He was the kind of guy with no head for distinguishing importance on his own. But the bastard opened the door and came in without any hesitation.
"A c-customer came to see you."
His organization, which he had brought to the capital to swim in bigger waters and to get as far away from Ogwen—the source of his fear—as possible, had been growing smoothly, but talent was always scarce.
And since filling that manpower shortage ultimately fell on Zikmel himself, he didn't appreciate wasting time.
"A customer? For me?"
"Yeah. For you."
It was a voice he was hearing for the first time. And they were speaking informally. It wasn't hard to guess that this was the customer Ben mentioned.
In the brief moment it took to turn his head from the documents toward the visitor, what crossed Zikmel's mind was a simple question. There shouldn't have been any customer capable of a visit like this. Who had carelessly leaked information? Reorganizing the system for safety wouldn't be a bad idea.
When Zikmel fully turned his head and looked at the so-called customer, he focused, wondering if it was a face he recognized.
There was no need to scrutinize carefully.
"Huh? You look kinda familiar. Have we met somewhere before?"
"Ee, ee, ee!"
"Ee?"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!"
Because traces of the face he had seen sickeningly in his nightmares for four years remained.