Chapter 25
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 25
Unlike the lavishly decorated train that had carried Seo-ah, this one’s interior was like the scorched steel frame of a gutted building. Inside, surrounded by exposed, silvery metal, were men forged from the same raw material.
Reinhardt’s most elite search and combat teams bowed deeply to the master who had summoned them. Oscar strode down the long aisle between the rows of wolves, each one honed to a razor’s edge.
With a metallic screech, the train began to move.
Finally reaching the head of the car, Oscar surveyed the living weapons bowed before him and began his final review.
The mercenary company that had captured his agents was a private military outfit the King of Luxen used for his clandestine dirty work. They were the same group that had hired the assassins in Pelfe. Because they handled the king’s foul deeds, Oscar had sent an intelligence team to infiltrate their ranks and uncover the monarch's secrets.
But they had been discovered.
“They tore our Wolves apart and fed them to their hounds.”
At the words he spat, the bowed heads slowly began to rise.
Oscar’s deeply sunken eyes met the agents’ gazes, which boiled with vengeance. When every agent had straightened up to look at him, Oscar concluded his address.
If he couldn’t uncover the king’s schemes, he would simply cut off the hands that executed them. A hand dipped in filth couldn’t be reattached once severed.
“Five days,” Oscar commanded.
“Within five days, bring me the head of the Beta Mercenaries’ leader.”
The agents, the image of their brutally murdered comrades seared into their minds, answered as if they had been waiting for that command alone.
“Your command is our will, Your Excellency!”
* * *
Luxen.
A land with a mild climate year-round and a generous territory free of harsh terrain. Situated in the geographical center of the Norfolk Continent, it had been a hub of trade for generations. Money naturally flowed in, and where money gathered, art and culture blossomed.
Vies, the capital of Luxen, was particularly renowned for its artistic and cultural achievements, earning it the name “the Pearl of Norfolk.” It was not uncommon for an ordinary museum to be more splendid than the royal palace of a lesser nation. But the true essence of Vies’s art was, without a doubt, the royal palace itself.
At the palace’s main gate stood two massive, symmetrical pillars, each ten meters high. Atop each, a double-headed eagle—the symbol of the royal family—spread its great wings, surveying all directions. Just as the two pillars were symmetrical, the palace, too, was a perfect mirror of itself.
But the true beauty of this symmetry was not appreciated from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out. The palace’s architect had designed everything from the king’s point of view.
The king’s balcony was the center of this symmetry, the heart of the palace.
It was the most beautiful balcony in the palace—some even called it the most beautiful in the world—and was a work of art in its own right. From the marble railings to the floor, every detail was a masterpiece, but the view it offered was what truly took one’s breath away.
An open vista stretched out against a perpetually blue sky. Beneath that blue, a golden eagle shone with exceptional brilliance.
Looking down from the balcony, one could see a lawn sculpted into an intricate pattern. Following the pattern with one’s eyes led to symmetrically placed fountains, flanked on either side by colonnades formed from dozens of arches. The palace garden was a painting created for the king, framed by the colonnades.
Everyone lavished praise upon the balcony, but there was one person who didn’t just dislike it—he despised it.
The problem was that this person was the master of the palace and the owner of the balcony: the king.
Leopold, the King of Luxen, stood motionless in the center of the balcony, staring straight ahead. He hadn’t always hated it. There was a time he had loved this place so much that he had commissioned a painting of the view just for himself.
That was before that bastard started getting on his nerves.
Beyond the main gate, in a direct line from the balcony, was a wide traffic circle. In the center of that circle stood a towering statue.
In a place that should have been graced by a statue of the first king, there instead stood a statue of the late Marquis Reinhardt.
Hero of the nation.
Even now, commoners would look up at the statue as they passed, eagerly explaining the fame of House Reinhardt to their children.
That damned statue, which he had to see every single day, always reminded him of that slick-faced bastard.
Then again, was it just the statue?
Leopold stared at Oscar’s face plastered on the front page of the morning paper, then threw the newspaper down.
Recently, Luxen’s major daily papers had been chattering endlessly about the fall of other kingdoms’ royal families or the growth of the Reinhardt Steel Company. But since they couldn’t put news of a fallen foreign royal family on the front page, Oscar’s picture was usually featured instead.
‘The Pillar of Luxen, the Reinhardt Steel Company.’
With a dog-shit title like that.
As the Chief Lady-in-Waiting, who stood like a shadow, bent down to pick up the newspaper, a middle-aged gentleman entered the balcony through the open door.
“Your Majesty.”
It was Count Jerome, known as King Leopold’s right-hand man. Late last year, he had succeeded in making his one and only daughter the king’s fiancée.
The count bowed respectfully, but Leopold, barely acknowledging him, put a cigarette to his lips. The Chief Lady-in-Waiting, having folded the newspaper and placed it on a sofa, approached and lit it for him. As the count closed the door behind him, Leopold asked in an irritated tone.
“Did you see the paper today?”
“…”
“The news I want is nowhere to be found. Instead, I get ‘The Pillar of Luxen, the Reinhardt Steel Company.’ At this rate, they’ll propose changing the country’s name to Reinhardt.”
“Your Majesty.”
“What am I supposed to do? Follow the King of Pelfe’s example and open a bank just to peddle a few accounts?”
Leopold snapped, flicking ash from his cigarette.
“You swore you could kill him this time. Not only did you fail, but how is it that not a single one of your men came back alive?”
“I apologize. I am deeply ashamed.”
“You’re not holding back because you’re worried about the Marchioness, are you?”
At the loaded question, Count Jerome’s face hardened almost imperceptibly.
“Your Majesty.”
“Isn’t that right? He’s still her son, after all. You always keep things like this a secret from the Marchioness, don’t you?”
“…”
As Count Jerome protested with silence, Leopold rubbed his face roughly and burst out in anger.
“I’m only asking because I’m so damn frustrated!”
He had the bodies of the captured Reinhardt agents chopped into pieces and fed to dogs, but even that hadn’t cooled his rage.
“What happened to the two wolf cubs we caught? Did they spill anything?”
At Leopold’s question, Count Jerome let out a short sigh.
“As I’ve told you, they are the type of men who would say nothing about their master, even if we cut off all their limbs.”
“Then gouge out their eyes.”
“…”
“If they won’t talk with their limbs cut off, then don’t cut them off. Throw them in boiling oil. If that doesn’t work, skin them alive. I need to know how many wolves that bastard has, where his network begins and ends—I need to find out something to even begin to figure out how to kill him!”
Count Jerome inwardly clicked his tongue.
They had already brutally butchered the bodies of three Reinhardt agents. If there were any chance of results, he would throw the remaining agents into boiling oil or gouge out their eyes, but at this point, it would be a pointless act. Worse than pointless, it would only serve to provoke Oscar, who was surely already furious.
The problem was that only this kind of brutality could begin to appease King Leopold’s anger. And for Count Jerome, that was the better option. Having failed to produce results, he had to pacify the king somehow.
“I understand, Your Majesty. However, be aware that they are already under torture and could die from shock at any moment.”
Leopold squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and gestured with his hand. The Chief Lady-in-Waiting, who had been standing ramrod straight, saw the gesture and immediately poured a drink. But she did not present it directly to the king. Using a dropper, she placed a single drop of the liquor on the back of her hand and tasted it for poison. Only then did she offer the glass to the king, who took it with practiced ease.
“For me to take full possession of that steel company they call the Pillar of Luxen, that man has to die.”
It was an era of crumbling monarchies.
Land was no longer the source of wealth and power. In times like these, if the steel company known as the furnace of East Norfolk were to be nationalized and become royal property, he could become a true king, holding both power and wealth in his hands. He would no longer have to worry about the royal family’s collapse.
But for that to happen, Oscar had to die. And for that to happen, Reinhardt’s Wolves had to be dragged into the light.
Like magma hidden beneath the earth, Oscar had kept his military forces masterfully concealed. On some days, Leopold wondered if the secretive wolves could be more than a handful. On other days, he couldn’t sleep, fearing they might outnumber the entire royal army.
A throbbing headache began to spread, and Leopold scowled as he drained his glass.
Just then, the Chief Lady-in-Waiting spoke.
“It seems the Marquis has met with the King of Pelfe. It appears Grand Duke Baden will soon be dismissed from his position as president.”
“…”
Leopold’s scowl deepened.
About three years ago, Oscar had made that moron from Pelfe act like a proper royal, even installing him as the president of the Pelfe Bank.
Why? What was in the Pelfe Bank?
He could never find out. That was the entire reason Leopold had secretly approached Grand Duke Baden, but an idiot, it seemed, would always be an idiot.
“How can he not know a single thing?”