A Lucky Day
A Lucky Day
"Why the hell is this line so long?"
Venom was startled by the changes in his hometown, which he had not visited in a long time.
In truth, everything else was the same as before, but one newly built structure stood out in particular.
A shop with a sign that made him curious about what on earth it sold: the 'Somerset Merchandise Shop.'
A long line had already formed there.
Most of the buyers were men, but with women and children scattered among them, he could not even begin to guess what kind of shop it was.
Especially since everyone who had ridden the Teleportation Circle with him had joined the line the moment they arrived, as if possessed by a ghost.
He could tell at once that this was the reason Goldpool Valley had become so lively.
It was so striking that even Venom grew curious and wanted to look around the shop, but he had no time to spare for that now, so he hurried out of the crowded area.
'First, no matter what I do, I need funds.'
Even a dark wizard could not live without eating bread, and he needed a great deal of money to secure a base of operations and rebuild his organization.
Of course, there was no way dark wizards would earn money through honest labor, so there was only one method.
An unsecured, interest-free, indefinite loan.
In simple terms, there was no choice but plunder.
Normally, they would raid a quiet village beyond the reach of the guards, sacrifice the people, and take the valuables for themselves.
But now he had no Chaos Crystal to control the tunnel snakes, and no comrades to plunder alongside him, so raiding a village was difficult.
Venom's dark magic skills were still utterly pathetic, so if the village men came at him in a mob with clubs, he could not even handle that.
'I'll have to threaten the child of a fairly wealthy household with a curse and extort money.'
The curse could be called the signature secret art of dark magic.
It was a fearsome secret art that could kill the target depending on the caster, but with Venom's still-weak skills, the best he could manage was making someone bedridden for a few days.
For a healthy adult man, it was about the level of an occasional minor illness.
But against a child, weaker than an adult, it had enough power to cause considerable trouble.
So Venom selected young children as his targets.
If he placed a curse on the child of a wealthy household and then went to the parents claiming he could cure it, they would surely weep and beg him to save the child.
A scam made possible because Venom was both the one who cast the curse and the one who lifted it.
After repeating that a few times, he would accumulate a certain amount of funds, and with that he would revive the organization.
'I will rebuild the Abyss Cult—with me as its leader!'
Venom's eyes began to fill with hope once more.
He was surely a person strong against misfortune. The fact that he had happened to be outside when the cult was attacked, and that he had possessed the Chaos Crystal capable of controlling the tunnel snakes.
"Rash! Why aren't you pulling?"
A child's voice pulled Venom back to reality from his imaginings of himself as the future cult leader.
'What's this?'
Was she about five or six?
A blonde girl with chubby cheeks was sitting on a cart, fussing at a dog.
At the front of the cart was a dog with a leash attached. It was slumped on the ground with a thoroughly exhausted expression.
'What kind of combination is this?'
Venom felt a sense of cognitive dissonance.
The girl's clothes looked quite expensive, as if she were the daughter of a well-off household. So why was she riding on a cart?
Her posture on the cart was so majestic that anyone would think it was a triumphal welcome for a victorious general.
And he could understand that it was not a horse pulling the cart.
But wouldn't a donkey or an ox at least be appropriate?
Why was a dog pulling the cart?
And why was that thing, which still looked like a young puppy, as large as a wolf?
No matter how he tried to reason it out, it was not a combination that should exist in one place.
But the important thing was not the mismatched combination.
'That girl looks like she comes from money.'
The important thing was the feeling that this girl wandering around was the child of a fairly wealthy household.
In fact, she was not alone.
Venom, whose life as a dark wizard had sharpened his instincts more than his dark magic, noticed that there were people clumsily hiding and guarding the child's surroundings.
But even with escorts, there was no way for them to block a curse.
One of the advantages of a curse was that it could be placed on a target from a distance.
He had been wondering where to start, and now prey had crawled in on its own. It felt as if heaven had chosen this for him, and Venom's mood improved greatly.
Now all he had to do was prepare to curse the child from a suitable distance.
Imagining the child wasting away and the grief on her parents' faces, Venom could already barely contain his excitement.
But to be thorough, Venom looked around.
It would be troublesome if there happened to be a wizard or a priest nearby.
Knights and ordinary people could not sense the energy of dark magic, but skilled wizards or priests could notice its unnatural aura, so he had to be careful.
Fortunately, there was no one nearby who looked like a wizard or a priest.
'Little one, you'll become the foundation of the new Abyss Cult.'
Venom hid stealthily behind a wall, quietly finished preparing the curse, and began to chant the incantation.
"I have seen my enemy with my eyes, so now, O darkness, bind and break them, and curse their soul...."
He took out the wand hidden in his chest and was one step away from completing the curse incantation.
But at that moment
Woof!
The eyes of the dog sprawled on the ground suddenly sharpened. It tore off the leash around its neck in an instant.
"Rash! If you take that off, you'll get in trouble with my brother!"
Ignoring Ada's words, Rash stared fixedly at one spot.
Soon Rash began sprinting toward the place it had been staring at, and Venom's eyes went wide.
"What the hell, you crazy mutt!"
Venom, who had been hiding behind the wall just before casting the curse, failed to complete it due to Rash's sudden attack and tumbled to the ground tangled with the dog.
"Woof! Woof!!!"
Rash was only about the size of a large dog, but his movements were far from ordinary.
Venom had thought he could at least handle a single dog, but startled by its unexpected speed and the force bearing down on him, he thrashed about and barely managed to complete one spell.
"Touch of Darkness!"
A basic dark magic spell that binds the target through their shadow.
When the spell was completed, Venom thought it had worked.
But he could only stare in disbelief as Rash leaped into the air and easily dodged the black tendrils rising from his own shadow.
"What kind of dog jumps that high?!"
But he could not keep complaining. He had thought this would be an easy opponent, but it was not, and faced with a crisis where even his full strength could not guarantee victory, cold sweat ran down Venom's back.
Moreover,
"Who is that guy? I've never seen someone like that in the territory."
The soldiers who had been hiding nearby to guard Ada emerged because of Rash's sudden behavior and began approaching Venom.
'Damn, if those guys get involved too, I'm really finished.'
Had the goddess—no, the Demon God—abandoned him as well?
Contrary to Venom's wish to end this as quietly as possible, someone—no, several people—had already spotted them.
***
"Since the Saintess is visiting, it cannot be helped."
"I apologize, Lady Bluewell. I am sorry that I cannot escort you to the drawing room, but how about taking a look around the workshop while you wait?"
Alain spoke to Amelia with a courteous attitude.
Normally, when the drawing room was occupied, other nobles would escort guests by showing them the garden or menagerie built on their estate grounds.
But Rupert, the de facto economic manager of the Somerset Count's House, and Viscount Klein both valued practicality above all.
'A garden? Why not just use it as factory space?'
'I agree, Master Rupert.'
'No!! No matter what, how can a noble's manor receive guests without even a garden?'
Count Bradley cried out in horror, but the household servants only looked on sympathetically and did not step in.
In truth, if a garden or menagerie were built, maintaining it would all become their work. They thought they would rather have a factory instead.
And so only factories stood on the spacious grounds of the Somerset family manor, and giving visiting guests a factory tour instead of a garden tour had become something of a standard course.
"If you would do that, I would be grateful. I've been curious for a while about what the place that makes such beautiful books is like."
When Amelia readily accepted the offer, Alain first guided her to the book workshop.
"May I introduce you to everyone, my lady?"
"No. I don't want to disturb the staff's work."
When Alain brought her into the workshop, the artisans glanced over, bowed their heads once, and returned their focus to their work.
Visitors to House Somerset often came to look around, so by now the artisans were used to it.
Of course, a few of them lost their composure and stared at Amelia because of her striking appearance, and only managed to tear their eyes away under Alain's sharp glare.
"Oh, is that person...?"
"Ah, I have not introduced him yet. This is Master Kroon, a dwarf artisan who has come to work at our workshop."
When Amelia's gaze landed on a dwarf in the corner of the workshop fiddling with an arm made of steel, Alain added an explanation.
A workshop where a dwarf—said to be rarer to see than an elf in the Empire—was working.
'So this is how diligently they have been making books.'
Amelia had always only received finished books, but watching the artisans' process firsthand gave her a new appreciation.
The sight of each person handling their own part while discussing opinions with one another looked truly admirable.
'This must be a scene that he created too.'
As expected, he was surely a warm person, unlike his outward appearance.
The artisans must have been tired from their work, yet their expressions were brighter than ever and the workshop was full of laughter.
A natural scene that could not exist if Rupert were a bad employer.
"Butler, may I cook for these people?"
"You yourself, my lady?"
"Yes, I brought plenty of ingredients, and since I've been learning to cook lately, cooking for others is a humble hobby of mine."
"For you to cook personally, my lady... it would surely be a once-in-a-lifetime joy for the artisans."
At Alain's answer, Amelia gave a slightly embarrassed smile.
Seeing that, Alain thought to himself that food cooked by such a beautiful person with such a beautiful heart would surely taste heavenly.