Chase and Be Chased (2)
It was a dark night — so dark that even a person standing right in front of you would register as little more than a silhouette.
Tak. Taak.
Light, stealthy footsteps crossed the roofs of the buildings lined up below. He stopped on one of them.
Have I found them all?
Ellen unfolded a sheet of paper. It was dense with writing and diagrams. With a few quick strokes of the pen he added several more lines.
This is a real problem.
Looking at the finished web of connections made his head ache. Names of individuals were written out, and one figure linked to all of them in common.
I never expected Viscount Cliff to be involved as well.
Cliff was the lord of Buner. In his previous life Ellen had never paid the man any particular attention, so he knew almost nothing about him beyond the title.
I don't remember anything like this ever breaking open on this side before.
No matter how hard he searched his memories, he could not recall a human-trafficking case of this scale — one that reached as high as the nobility. That left two possibilities.
Either my choices have changed the future… or they simply never got caught until I died.
Which of the two it was hardly mattered. What mattered was that human trafficking — strictly forbidden across the entire continent — was being carried out right here.
Rescuing those people comes first. This is going to take serious preparation.
The opposition was far more organized than he had expected. On the way here they had switched carriages several times. The vehicles themselves looked ordinary, yet several men had provided discreet escort all around them.
If Ellen had not learned body techniques from Phillips, simply tracking them would have been nearly impossible.
On top of that, a noble was shielding them from behind. Ellen was a noble himself, but only a single-generation peer without a domain of his own. To slip free of any charge of defamation or the like, he would need to create an airtight situation.
While he was lost in thought—
Whiiisssh.
A sound cutting through the cold night air reached his ears with perfect clarity. Before, his body had only been reinforced while he circulated mana. Now even his ordinary senses were far sharper.
Thup.
Ellen snatched the flying object out of the air with his bare hand.
It had not been the sharp ring of metal, so he had judged it safe enough to catch bare-handed.
A pebble?
What sat in his palm was a small stone — the sort you could find along any roadside. He had braced for something far more lethal; the anticlimax left him almost limp.
"Who's there?"
Ellen tossed the pebble up and down as he called out. Outwardly he looked relaxed, but inside he was fully prepared.
The weapon was pathetic, but I never noticed it coming until it was already in the air.
Mana began to circulate through his body. He pushed his senses to the extreme.
Detect.
At the same time he pinpointed the enemy's position. Two human signatures registered in the mana spreading outward.
Paaak.
He hurled the pebble he still held toward that spot.
The moment they dodge, I go in.
With that thought he coiled power into his legs, ready to launch at any instant.
"Argh!"
"Huh?"
The completely unexpected reaction drew a strange sound from Ellen's mouth.
"Gavin, you okay?"
"Aaaagh."
Ellen moved toward the voices.
Kids?
Two boys who looked to be in their late teens stood there. One was rubbing his forehead where the pebble had struck; the other was fretting over him.
"Who are you two?"
At the sound of Ellen's voice the boys flinched and immediately went on guard.
"Damn it. Looks like neither of us is getting away. You go first, Cabin."
"We both have to run!"
"No. One of us has to stay and buy time. I'm saying this as the older brother, so listen."
"Gavin, stop acting high and mighty just because you were born a few minutes earlier!"
Ellen stared at them, speechless.
"Are you two clowns?"
"Clowns? We are the Prode Kingdom's greatest information merchants — the brothers Gavin and Cabin!"
Cabin thumped his chest proudly. Ellen scratched his head, still unable to get a handle on the mood.
Wait. Gavin and Cabin… the brothers?
A memory flashed through his mind. He had been a mercenary in his previous life and had never known the royal organizations in detail. But the royal intelligence agency Raven was famous enough that virtually every citizen of Prode knew its name.
Even when corruption of every kind was draining the kingdom's strength, the force that had kept Prode standing was right there.
And the heads of that agency were the brothers Gavin and Cabin…
Nothing was known about them beyond their names. Birthplace, age — everything was top secret.
To run into them here…
It was pure luck.
These two would one day become Prode's finest intelligence operatives. He needed to get a hold of them early.
"So why did you attack me?"
Ellen let the edge leave his voice, speaking more gently.
"You — what's your connection to those guys?"
Gavin pointed down at the traffickers below the building. Ellen glanced in that direction.
"I was tracking them. Looked like human traffickers to me."
"You knew too?"
Gavin's eyes went wide.
"We kept seeing you while we were tailing them, so we figured you were on the same side."
Cabin wore the exact same expression as his brother.
"Why were you two chasing them?"
"They're trafficking people! Of course we have to stop them!"
"Human trafficking is unforgivable."
Ellen's eyes lit up. Here was a perfect chance to get close to them. After regressing, no one understood the value of information better than he did. Relying solely on the future he remembered left far too many variables.
I have to be able to predict every situation.
And for that, what he needed most was an intelligence organization under his own command.
"So what's your plan? As you can see, those guys are highly organized. The scale is huge, and there's even a noble backing them."
The brothers' faces grew troubled. They had no solid method either. In fact, being weaker than Ellen, there was even less they could do.
"We've been looking into it from every angle, but the situation isn't good."
"More than anything, Viscount Cliff behind them is the problem."
Ellen himself had the power to deal serious damage to their headquarters. What he needed was someone who could clean up afterward. Ordinarily the proper course would have been to report it to the lord of the city with jurisdiction. But right now that very lord was the target he needed to strike.
"So in the end, you two can't handle this alone."
"That's right."
They answered in unison. The gloom in their voices came through clearly.
"Then want to work with me?"
"You have a way?"
The brothers pricked up their ears and stared at him.
"First I need maps. You said you're information merchants, right? Can you sketch the layout of that place and the fortress outside the city? As fast as possible."
From what Ellen had learned, this location was a kind of exchange where documents, money, and people all passed through. There was a fortress outside the city, and the captives were being held there.
Sssk.
Gavin pulled a folded sheet from his coat.
"We've already got all of that prepared."
"We even made a map of the fortress."
When Ellen took the map, he could not help being astonished.
These boys really made this?
The interiors of both the fortress and the exchange were drawn in meticulous detail. The symbols were intuitive enough to grasp at a glance.
They investigated even this much… The future heads of Raven really were different from the start.
The map even recorded the locations of the captives, the positions of the guards, and their shift changes — broken down by date.
"You two actually did all this yourselves?"
At Ellen's reaction the brothers brightened.
"We're the best information merchants there are."
"You'll have a hard time finding a map this good anywhere around here."
They were right; this was more than enough. All that remained was to form a strategy.
With Chantless Casting, refined magic, Phillips's fist techniques, and a diversionary operation, I can handle all of them.
Gavin and Cabin had more than enough skill to draw the enemy's attention and then escape.
Then who can handle the cleanup afterward?
Ellen rubbed his chin.
Going all the way to Harryford for royal support would take too long.
There was no telling when the next transaction might take place. Time was not on their side.
I suppose I'll have to use that.
He fingered the paper he always carried with him. Calculations raced through his mind.
"All right. Gavin, Cabin — let's put every last one of them away."
Resolve had settled in; strength entered Ellen's voice.
"Cabin, do you know a place called Crishu?"
"Of course I do. Half a day's travel east of here."
Cabin puffed out his chest as he answered.
"Take this and find Demion there. Tell him I want soldiers."
Crisu was a mid-sized town in the Buner region. It had no lord of its own; an administrator appointed by Cliff managed it.
And right now the Fourth Army's public-order unit — the Thorn Unit — is stationed there for repairs on Crishu's walls.
Demion was the commander of that Thorn Unit. Ellen intended to secure their support.
"What is this paper?"
Cabin asked, looking at the document he had been given.
"Th-this is…?"
Ellen had not answered. Cabin himself had recognized what it was.
"That's right — the royal seal. His Majesty Alberto Prode bestowed it on me in person."
What Ellen had handed Cabin was the royal seal he had received at his first audience with Alberto.
"With that, you should be able to get the Thorn Unit's support immediately. They need to arrive here within two days at the latest."
It was a document stamped with the royal seal. Within the Kingdom of Prode, no one could ignore that paper.
"R-right. Got it."
Cabin was still dazed, but he quickly pulled himself together.
"I'll go right now."
He set off for Crishu at once. It was the dead of night, but that posed no problem for him.
Watching Cabin race across the rooftops at high speed, Ellen clicked his tongue softly.
It's a shame, but I don't need it right this moment.
What he had originally wanted from the royal seal was the expungement of his criminal record. For now, though, he was using an alias and disguise magic, so the inconvenience was minimal.
Most of the people who know my real face are Academy students anyway. At most there's Zack Chedleton or Yujin.
None of them were at a level to see through his disguise magic. There was no immediate danger.
Besides, whether the royal seal grants a full pardon is still up to the king's will. As long as I keep my relationship with the royal family in good standing, I can always negotiate a pardon later.
That calculation was real enough — but the most important thing was saving the people right in front of him.
I can't just stand by and watch people dance in the palms of noble bastards any longer.
Every discrimination he had suffered in his previous life came flooding back. Because they were nobles, they could do things to commoners that no human being should do. Because he had been a commoner, he had simply had to endure it.
Because they were mages, they could treat Magic Assistants however they liked. Because he had been a Magic Assistant, he had simply had to endure it.
Now he was both a noble and a mage. And he finally had the power to stop it.
This time you won't get to do as you please.
Ellen's gaze returned to the exchange. His eyes looked as cold as a sheet of ice.