Paonia
South Castle.
The forest nearby.
"Uncle, you've notified the other lesser lords as well?"
"I've dispatched hunters to each of them and kept in close contact. They'll move at dawn today, same as us."
The plan was simple: strike every Paonia cell across the territories at the same hour, on the same day.
And so Elwin, too, lay hidden in the woods outside South Castle, waiting for that hour to arrive.
"Still, I didn't expect even the Punan family to be working for Paonia."
The Punan family. A house renowned for its administrative talent, with its people woven deep into Frontier's bureaucracy.
And that same house had been operating as a branch of Paonia's network.
"Looking back, the Piana family must have been one of their cells as well."
The Piana family. A knight house that had served Frontier loyally for three generations. In recognition of that devotion, they had even been entrusted with the administration of Plain.
"Seems that way. That's why they went so far as to block the hunters and mercenaries from entering—to buy time."
Time they had used to destroy every scrap of evidence. By the time Elwin arrived, the documents were already gone.
"This time we need to seize the records. Without them, hitting Paonia itself gets a lot harder."
"Don't worry. The hunters have been watching the Punan estate. According to their reports, the enemy still has no idea."
As they spoke, the appointed hour drew near.
In the dead of night, when the whole city should have been asleep, they moved on South Castle.
South Castle.
The gate.
Only Elwin, Uncle Miller, and the mercenary captains approached.
The guards who had leveled their spears snapped to attention the moment they recognized him.
"Young Lord!"
"Young Lord!"
"Don't report this inside. Open the gate."
The guards' eyes flicked toward the gate captain.
"Open it. And no report to the interior."
The gates swung wide, and the mercenaries and hunters waiting outside poured through—more than five hundred of them.
"Y-Young Lord?"
"This is a classified operation."
The gate captain hesitated only a moment, then stepped aside.
Elwin clapped him on the shoulder a few times and led the force into South Castle.
They made straight for the Punan estate. There they linked up with the hunters already on watch and received their report.
"No movement at all, then?"
"None, sir. The Punan household is going about its usual routine."
"Good work."
Elwin dismissed the hunters, leaving only the command group.
Those present were:
Miller, head of the hunters.
Inon, captain of the Innocent Mercenary Unit.
Celion, captain of the Salamander Mercenaries.
Philan, captain of the Chase Mercenaries.
Hans and the slave soldiers had been left behind—they weren't suited to this kind of work. In a full-scale battle they would have been invaluable, but for a surprise raid, slave troops were simply inefficient.
"We proceed as planned."
The operation had been drawn up long before they arrived.
The Innocent Mercenaries would take the south gate.
The Salamander Mercenaries, the west.
The Chase Mercenaries, the east.
And the hunters would strike from the north.
"Capture is the priority, but if they resist, kill them. What matters most is speed. Neutralize the enemy fast and secure the document vault. That is all."
They scattered to their assigned positions.
Once every force was in place, Elwin gave the signal to Inon.
"Inon."
"Yes, sir."
Inon sprinted forward. The Innocent Mercenaries surged after him and slammed into the south gate.
Sword aura flared along Inon's blade. One stroke dropped the private soldiers guarding the entrance. A second shattered the mansion doors.
He's gotten a lot stronger.
Ever since Inon had gained holy power, his skill had jumped several ranks. According to the priests, his divine power now rivaled that of a high paladin.
With Inon at the tip of the spear, the Innocent Mercenaries poured into the mansion.
There was resistance inside—several brief clashes—but nothing that could stand against them. And the defenders had to hold four directions at once.
"Inon! Documents first!"
"Understood!!"
The entire raid was over in less than twenty minutes.
Weaker than I expected.
Paonia was a house that specialized in intelligence. Elwin had assumed they would lean toward the hunter archetype—excellent at stealth, reconnaissance, and tracking, but soft in a straight fight. That assumption had proven correct.
"Y-Young Lord! What in the world is the meaning of this?!"
The head of the Punan family, bound hand and foot, shouted up at him.
"You know Paonia, don't you?"
"What kind of question is that all of a sudden? Of course I know them!"
"What's your connection to them?"
"There's hardly any connection to speak of. I only know them in passing through Lady Brilda."
Elwin pressed him with several more questions. The Punan head answered every one of them smoothly. There was nothing suspicious in his replies. Clearly he had prepared for exactly this situation.
"Release me at once! If you withdraw now, I won't report tonight's events to the Duke!"
"That won't do. I intend to turn this entire estate inside out."
Only then did anxiety flash across the Punan head's face. That alone was enough to confirm it.
"You haven't destroyed the documents yet, have you?"
"..."
Silence settled over the mansion courtyard.
A moment later, Uncle Miller came running.
"We found a hidden chamber inside. It's packed with documents of every kind."
He handed one over.
It was a dossier on Frontier's vassals—names, ages, specialties, personal relationships, even numerical ratings of each vassal's loyalty.
"Why would the Punan family keep something like this?"
"Th-that was purely for administrative convenience. So please... just leave us be."
The Punan head's expression had turned pitiful—so obviously that everyone present could see it, not just Elwin.
"What's wrong? Talk like that only makes me want to search harder."
"..."
They searched until dawn. Beyond the first hidden room, they uncovered several more. The chamber they had found initially turned out to be little more than bait.
The deeper spaces held far more critical material.
And among those documents, one file held Elwin's gaze and would not let go.
"...Head of Punan. Is this true?"
It laid out the assassination of Silvia Frontier in full—the plan, the process, and every consequence that followed.
"They assassinated Mother?!"
Thud.
Uncle Miller seized the Punan head by the hair and slammed him into the floor. Still not satisfied, he drove his boot into the man's torso again and again.
Silvia Frontier. The birth mother of this body. Elwin had been told she died of illness—that her health had collapsed after giving birth to Elena.
But the truth was that the Paonia family had murdered her.
"You assassinated Frontier's lady, married your people into the house, and tried to put one of their children on the lord's seat. You meant to take Frontier for yourselves, didn't you?!"
Thud. Thud.
"Hah. Hah."
Miller's breath came in ragged gasps.
"This bastard needs to be executed right now! I will not forgive him!"
His face was flushed crimson, his voice thick with rage.
"Calm down, Uncle."
"You—you read that file and you can still stay calm?"
Elwin glanced at Inon, who stepped in to restrain Miller.
"Escort the documents and the Punan household to Father. He will decide their fate. As for us—we march on the Paonia family."
They led the full force toward the Paonia estate.
Having already secured agreements with the lesser lords, crossing territorial borders posed no difficulty.
Two thousand slave soldiers.
Three hundred mercenaries.
Two hundred hunters.
Only the elite of each branch had been selected—and even so, the total came to twenty-five hundred.
They took up position on the plain near the village that housed Paonia.
"What's the enemy's movement?"
Grandfather Campbell rose to his feet.
"The cell members are converging on Paonia. Perfect conditions to wipe them out in one stroke."
Rage leaked through every word.
"We should attack immediately and put every last Paonia dog to the sword!"
That was Uncle Miller.
Days had passed since the truth of Silvia's assassination came to light, and neither man's fury had cooled in the slightest.
Then Hans spoke up.
"I understand how both of you and the Young Lord feel. But the enemy is prepared for an assault. If we attack the village as things stand, civilians will die."
The cells scattered across the island had gathered at the Paonia estate, and their numbers now exceeded two thousand.
Twenty-five hundred against two thousand. If that fight erupted inside a village, the civilian casualties would be considerable.
And this is Vampires Duchy territory.
"We wait outside the village and—"
Bang.
"Elwin! Are you not angry?! We should be killing every last one of those Paonia bastards right now!"
Grandfather roared.
Elwin flinched despite himself. The anger he carried was not the same as his grandfather's or his uncle's.
A mother he had never once seen. And he was not even the original owner of this body.
Perhaps that was why his own emotions had settled so thoroughly.
"Grandfather, the head of Paonia will die by my hand. But I will not create civilian casualties in the process of killing him. It would also create political problems later."
"..."
Campbell understood with his head, but his heart still refused to accept it.
"Lady Alencia is leading her forces this way. When she arrives, we attack together. That way the situation won't spiral out of control."
"...Very well."
Paonia Mansion.
The priest who had confined himself to the underground chambers finally came up into the house itself. The situation had grown that dire.
"How on earth did you let things get this bad?"
At the priest's question, veins stood out on the Paonia head's forehead.
Was this his fault? Hadn't it been the priest's constant pressure that pushed everything to this point?
And still the man was blaming him.
"The situation is not good."
"So what do we do about it?"
Every lesser lord on the island had sided with Elwin.
Monster Island. There was nowhere left to run.
"There is... no way out."
"So you have no ideas at all. Fine. We'll start by wiping out the force gathered in front of the village. Conveniently, an enemy of the Cult is among them."
Elwin. The one who had spread the Earth Cult across Monster Island.
"You mean to eliminate Elwin?"
"Exactly. We remove Elwin first. Then we wait for the Cult's support. Once the Cult moves, a path will open somehow."
The word hope flickered through the Paonia head's mind.
If it was the Moon Cult, it just might be possible.