Shadows of the Holy Kingdom (4)
I read the letter the detective uncle had pulled out. It was addressed to Tirsi from someone named Electra Montgomery. She seemed to have been a maid who worked for Tirsi back when she was still a noble. They hadn’t exchanged letters frequently, so most of it was casual chatter about her personal circumstances. The actual point of the letter was crammed into the final one or two lines.
…I will explain the details when we meet in person.
“……‘I will explain the details when we meet in person?’”
“That’s probably the same reason we’re having this little chat right now.”
She must have been wary of information leaks. I tucked the letter into my coat and asked,
“Since you obtained the letter, I assume you met her?”
“Indeed. I was half-worried she might have been murdered, but she turned out to be a lively and rather charming middle-aged woman. The content of our conversation was──”
The detective paused for a moment before continuing.
“──most likely about ‘a way to return to nobility.’ I couldn’t learn anything beyond that. I couldn’t exactly threaten one of His Majesty the Emperor’s loyal subjects or start breaking her fingers, after all.”
“Do you believe she has nothing to do with this matter?”
“When I told her the story, she seemed genuinely shocked and worried. If she had something to hide or didn’t care what happened to Miss Tirsi, she wouldn’t have handed over the letter.”
I nodded and pulled out a small notebook.
“Do you know where she lives?”
“……I’d rather not become an accomplice.”
“Heh heh. Do I really look like the type to act that recklessly?”
For now, I planned to continue my investigation here in Lucregens. Tracking down that Montgomery—or was it Mongolia?—auntie would be a last resort only if I hit a complete dead end. And even if I did go see her, I had no intention of torturing or interrogating her.
“That would mean turning both the Romanian enforcers and our client into enemies at the same time. Why would I do something that means I won’t even get paid?”
“I see. I was thinking too narrowly.”
The detective nodded and pulled a thick bundle of papers from something like a briefcase.
“Let’s see… here it is. Quillare, Free Imperial City. 13 Fifth Street, Building 2, Room 3. A middle-aged couple owns the house there.”
I jotted the address down in my notebook. The detective uncle then took out a notebook similar to mine.
“Fortunately, it seems you can read well. Excellent. Here—I’ve written everything I investigated in the language of Britannia. If you have any questions, feel free to read it and ask.”
“Are you stepping away from the investigation?”
When I asked while skimming the report, the detective—who we hadn’t even properly introduced ourselves to—shrugged.
“I’ve been running all over the place, but I couldn’t dig up any information in this city. It no longer makes financial sense.”
Couldn’t get any information at all? I was reading a report so detailed it nearly made me gasp in admiration when his words made me frown. A detective this skilled couldn’t find a single lead in this city?
……Financial sense.
That was an ominous phrase. I paused my reading and looked at the detective.
“Someone erased her tracks, didn’t they? Was it a power player in the light, or in the shadows?”
“……You’ve got quite the sharp mind. You’d probably be better off running a detective agency than working as an adventurer.”
The detective let out a groan like he’d been punched in the gut before answering.
“Well, you’re exactly right. The traces were strangely nonexistent. It’s certain she came to Lucregens, yet I couldn’t find any information anywhere. The innkeepers all said they’d never seen such a guest, so that says it all.”
“You couldn’t even learn who was responsible?”
“……There’s no doubt the ones who carried it out were from the shadows.”
The middle-aged detective lowered his voice as if he couldn’t even trust his own magic item.
“However, even a noble with surface-level power would use people from the shadows when they need dirty work done. There was no bloodshed, yet no one who knows anything can be found no matter how much I dig. That means the people who saw Miss Tirsi were threatened.”
“Famous enough that just hearing the name makes them piss themselves and cooperate?”
Then it was either a noble or one of the vicious criminal organizations from the underworld. No wonder the detective uncle said it didn’t make financial sense. Even Lady Hennesis must have considered the risk to life when she set the commission fee. Completing the request might mean slightly less money, but miss the timing to pull out and you could end up crossing the rainbow bridge over pocket change.
I skimmed through the rest of the report and put it away.
“I only have one or two questions.”
“You want me to tell you who I suspect?”
“If you’re willing to say.”
The detective gave a bitter smile.
“I dare not speak the noble’s name with my own mouth. Not only because of the crime of insulting nobility, but because it doesn’t seem like they moved openly.”
“What about the execution group?”
“In Lucregens, there are three main Clientem Tenebris…… or, in vulgar terms, three families.”
Fuck, families? What is this, isekai mafia?
The detective uncle continued explaining while watching my dumbfounded expression.
“The characteristic of the Clientem Tenebris is that they are criminal organizations with sponsors. Beneath those three main groups are various smaller branch families, and a handful of insignificant independent outfits that aren’t even worth mentioning.”
“You investigated that much too?”
“Do I look crazy? I have no desire to wake up with a knife stuck in my pillow. That’s common sense. Common sense.”
Is it really common sense for a religious nation to have mafia backed by nobles? This other world never fails to amaze me in the most awesome ways.
“Lucregens has seen frequent conflicts over the past few months. Not only have the existing power balances shifted due to newly arrived families from outside, but even the groups that used to be relatively friendly with citizens have changed their policies.”
Before parting ways with me, the detective uncle left a warning.
“If you intend to investigate, remember my words well. Either handle things so cleanly they cannot retaliate…… or make sure they never learn who you are.”
After sending the detective uncle off, I finished the remaining alcohol and left the tavern.
I should do some separate activities before heading back to the inn.
No one seemed to be tailing me, but it was better to be safe. And since I was already out, I needed to figure out how the power distribution the detective mentioned was currently playing out. The report hadn’t contained that information.
As an outsider, the detective uncle probably couldn’t just walk up to citizens and ask, “Hey, how are the mafia guys around here lately?” If even one of them snitched to the mafia, he’d get dragged into a basement and forced to sniff paint thinner through his nose.
If the mafia groups have been fighting among themselves recently……
There would have been corpses. I slipped into a nearby alley, confirmed no one was watching, and carved a rune into my giant-leather armor.
“ᛒ(Berkanan).”
Whirrrrr—!
The transformation magic rune unfolded like a mandala. In the blink of an eye, my outfit changed. It became an eye-catchingly flashy martial arts-style robe. I had done it on purpose. If I left a strong impression, it would be harder for anyone to connect that crazy Dingho, the foreigner, and the spear-wielding idiot from Sargadis.
If possible, I wanted to disguise myself as someone from a country that had absolutely nothing to do with Kitai, like an Aztec…… but oh well.
Dressing up as a cannibalistic heretic in a religious nation carried too much risk. Ssssss— I also altered my skin tone to a tanned brown. I thought about making my hair blonde, but since I didn’t know what Kitai people’s hair color was, I made it long and tied it up instead. Things like hair length or skin tone could be changed without magic, so even I could handle that part of the disguise.
“Hmm.”
When I checked myself in a hand mirror, a dark-skinned, scruffy-looking foreign laborer stared back. I looked like someone who’d be called a great hero in a wuxia novel. I chuckled and put on a mask. Now I looked exactly like one of those guys who shows up to beat up the protagonist in a martial arts story, only to get his joints crushed, spill all his secrets, and die.
“May the greatest satisfaction be yours.”
I gave myself a mental pat on the back for my disguise skills and kicked off the alley wall.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
I zigzagged up the walls, leaping to higher ground. Then, combining runes and mana, I began searching for places that smelled of blood.
The story about increased conflict was true. Not long after I started searching, I was able to land in an alley still reeking of blood.
Tap!
Once I touched down, I examined the bloodstains that looked like the mafia had fled before finishing cleanup. The color was dark red, but not that old.
Splattered about a day or two ago.
These guys weren’t that skilled. The fact that they couldn’t even use Clean magic meant they were low-level trash.
Which is actually better for me right now.
I raised the mana of the rune and carved another one with my foot. I often thought this, but if you could truly draw out its full performance, this rune magic was as versatile as a MacGyver-level cheat.
“ᚨ(Ansuz).”
This was the rune I liked to use for interrogations—the one that connected to souls. Of course, it was useless in places where no souls remained. But would a mafia thug who had so little attachment to life that he could ascend to heaven after only two days of being dead really exist?
—S-Shit? What the hell? Where am I?!
The answer was NO. A dumb-looking underling spotted me. Just by looking at him, you could tell he was the type who’d proudly say, “Yeah, I’ve killed a few people.” Even if this bastard got arrested somewhere for having an ugly mug, he wouldn’t have any grounds to complain.
—Hey, you! I’m from the Fuyo Family, youuuu……
“Shh. Interrogations should be done quietly.”
I finely adjusted the ᚦ(Thurisaz) rune. Multiple rune mandalas floated up one after another, lulling the mafia underling’s consciousness to the very edge of sleep.
Back when I interrogated that ogre, my skill wasn’t good enough to make adjustments like this.
But now it was possible. This was an improved ᚦ(Thurisaz) after using Odin’s Eye to find and fix flaws in mana manipulation and rune usage. Something of this level was perfectly manageable.
“Name.”
……Joseph. Shovelhead Joseph.
“What a fucking stupid nickname.”
Still, the fact that he answered so obediently meant the truth serum was working well. Submerging the soul’s consciousness and turning the subject into an information ATM that answered any question! It required the target to be dead or asleep, but it was a high-class interrogation technique that let you extract whatever you wanted without harsh torture.
Clatter.
I used Clean on a trash can to make it spotless and sat down. There were no signs of people nearby. If anyone approached, I could erase their soul and run. I smiled pleasantly beneath my mask.
“Hey. I’m bored. Got any interesting stories?”
It might be a pain to say out loud, but when it came to local matters, nothing beat hearing it straight from the people involved.
Compared to how pathetically he had died, he turned out to be surprisingly big-shot. Not one of the three major families, but a mid-boss in one of the reasonably sized families underneath them.
Not particularly surprising.
If the conflict had grown intense enough for ordinary people to notice, it made sense that mid-bosses would start turning up dead somewhere. Picking him as my first target was lucky, but he was someone I could have found if I looked.
Reducing wasted time is definitely a gain.
The information I pulled out after injecting the Magical☆Lyrical Truth Serum was quite substantial. I was able to hear everything—from the names and bosses of the city’s three major families to all sorts of trivial gossip.
I had written the family names down, but I couldn’t be bothered to memorize them. Still, they each had distinct characteristics, so classifying them was easy. If they had all been similar, I would have had to memorize them.
The ones who came from Gorgalia forty years ago, the native Lucregens locals, and the ones from Kitai.
Those were the three types.
What a fucking festival of racial harmony.
Criminals from all over the world sure knew how to party in a religious nation. The soul of the man I interrogated belonged to a lackey of one of the native Lucregens families, and the way he kept going on about their tradition was secretly hilarious.
“Is having an old criminal organization something to brag about, you fucking idiot?”
Ugegek.
After sending the man’s soul off to the afterlife, I changed my clothes back to Norde mode and left the alley.
Mafia from Kitai, huh.
Perfect. Even if I went on a rampage in broad daylight, for the first few days they’d probably think it was ninjas sent by their rivals. It didn’t seem like the mafia groups would stop fighting long enough to clear up misunderstandings, so this worked in my favor. The Kitai mafia would probably assume I was some expert who crossed the sea for revenge.
A master from the righteous faction who crossed the ocean for revenge? Ah, that’s just wuxia genre law.
Operating in righteous faction hero mode didn’t seem bad. I could tweak the setting a bit more and work secretly in cooperation with my party members.
Should I go with something like Yesugei for the name?
With that thought, I walked down the street.
Most of the mafia are in the city’s entertainment district.
The right half of Lucregens was a street dedicated to pleasure. The entrance had a circus and touristy feel. But once you went deeper, navigated the maze of alleys, or waited until night fell, the story changed.
Brothels, gambling dens, and all sorts of illegal facilities packed together.
That was the mafia’s main source of income. They lured honest pilgrims in, sucked them dry through gambling and prostitutes, then forced them into loansharking and exploited them. They were all in it together.
Should I dig Tirsi’s information out of them? If I just beat them up, getting them to talk would be as easy as what I just did.
Solo action is a bad idea.
Now that I had a grasp of the situation, it was time to pick a party member who would cooperate with my investigation. If I ran around alone and then went silent, it would be a disaster. Since I was doing dangerous work in a dangerous area, I had already prepared several escape methods for emergencies. In particular, Veronica’sSpace Movement would serve as my trump card.
Who would ever imagine a Kitai martial arts master escaping with space movement? Of course, if a righteous faction hero like me used it, even sorcery would become mystical taoist arts.
I’ve already decided on the candidate to move with me.
The inn where our party was staying was getting closer. I spoke to the party member waiting there.
“I’m back.”
“You’re late, Senior~! I was about to start worrying if you took any longer~?”
The pink-haired self-proclaimed junior, who had been swinging her legs on the bench by the entrance out of boredom, smiled brightly as she spoke.