Silver Ice Merchant Guild
Alex was panicking.
What the fuck is this?
Not that he could be blamed. He'd never imagined a mage would just start throwing spells without so much as a word of warning.
Alex had killed mages before. What he didn't know was that every last one of them had been an ordinary mage. Every mage he'd ever seen put someone else out in front — soldiers, slaves, it made no difference. None of them ever stepped forward alone and attacked with their own two hands.
This one, though, had come at him and his men the instant he laid eyes on them, before anyone could even react. You could feel it in your bones: this man was used to fighting.
Dofnik, that son of a bitch!
Trembling as pain crawled up his spine, Alex cursed Dofnik first. Don't touch the mage, my ass! He should've ambushed the bastard first and taken his head off!
The thought even crossed his mind that Dofnik might have fed him false information to get him killed — then he hurriedly shook his head.
This isn't the time!
He could figure out the situation later. Unlike the amateurs, he was quick to read a room. Right now, hiding from that mage took priority over everything else.
"Nngh!"
Alex clenched his teeth and twisted his body. His shock-numbed limbs screamed as they moved.
"Move, you bastards! I said move!"
At Alex's roar, his fallen men started hauling themselves up.
"Kill him!"
He jabbed a finger at the mage and bellowed. Of course, for all his shouting, Alex had no intention of fighting a mage like that head-on. The plan was to bolt for the window the moment his men charged. As it happened, he'd only brought the nastiest bastards he had. Their blood was up from the sudden attack, and every eye was locked on the mage. One of them even pulled a small dagger from somewhere.
Useless idiots.
But reality didn't play out the way he'd hoped.
Thud!
The mage slammed his staff into the floor, and a glowing orb came screaming through the air with a vicious hiss.
Crunch!
Unlike a moment ago, this time there was the dangerous sound of bone shattering, and one of the men closest to him came flying straight at Alex.
"Hup!"
Alex ducked, and the man slammed into the wall behind him. When he looked back, the man's face had caved in — blood was pouring out from under his mask.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud!
The words had barely left the mage's mouth before the rest of Alex's men came flying at him one after another. He managed to dodge two of them, but the third caught him square and sent him tumbling across the floor.
"Gah!"
Alex flailed, shoving the collapsed bodies off himself. With a veteran's instinct he rolled across the floor and was back on his feet in an instant. Then he spun and sprinted for the window.
⟨ Return ⟩
But in that instant, the mage's incantation rang out, and a wall of pure white unfurled in front of the window.
Fuck it, I don't care!
Alex didn't stop even when he saw it. Stopping here meant facing the mage head-on. He had no idea what that wall was, but he was going to smash through it with brute force. He kicked off the ground and launched himself at it.
And then—
Crunch!
"Ghk!"
He bounced back with an utterly ugly sound, sailed through the air, and tumbled across the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain spreading from his shoulder through his entire body.
But before that pain could even fade—
Thud!
Another brutal impact smashed into his leg.
"Aaaagh!"
His eyes flew open from the agony. And what filled Alex's vision was his own leg, bent the wrong way.
"Hhk?!"
He lifted his head, and a glowing orb hung motionless right in front of his face.
"Don't move."
As Alex's gaze locked onto the orb, the mage's voice came from beyond it.
"There's always bastards like you, no matter where you go."
He let out a small sigh. Then, in a low, quiet voice, he continued.
"Try not to scream, if you can. It'll be better for you that way."
Crrrk—
At the same time, a hideous sound and a wave of pain exploded from both his legs.
"Gaaaaah!"
Alex screamed and collapsed backward. And as he lay there, his eyes caught a man slowly descending the stairs.
"I told you to keep quiet... Ah, well. Not like it matters."
Those were the last words he heard before a heavy blow landed on his jaw. Alex's consciousness went dark in an instant.
"W-what's going on here?"
Once the commotion had finally died down, Braham emerged from where he'd been hiding in the reception room.
"I don't know either. I came downstairs and found them fighting my retainers."
One thing was certain: they hadn't been after Joseph. The moment they spotted him at the top of the stairs, they'd shouted in surprise. They clearly hadn't expected him to be here.
Still, they don't seem like they came here to kill anyone, either.
Joseph's gaze drifted to a club rolling across the floor. It was a rather noisy weapon for sneaking in at midnight to murder someone. Having faced an assassin like Torbin, he could tell these men were a different breed.
"How are the servants?"
"A few broken bones, from the looks of it... but no one's dead."
Joseph asked Derik. Fortunately, Derik's own wounds didn't seem too serious — the bleeding had already stopped. While Joseph had been dealing with the attackers, Derik had been quietly treating the unconscious servants. He hadn't even glanced at the attackers, as if the thought that Joseph might lose had never crossed his mind.
"Should we just tie those ones up?"
Derik pointed at the fallen attackers, and Joseph nodded.
"Don't tell me..."
Braham, who'd been glancing around, muttered as if something had clicked.
"Do you have an idea?"
"Yes. I just didn't think they'd move this fast..."
"This fast...?"
He nodded and explained his theory. Any merchant guild breaking into a new line of business was bound to draw pushback from those already entrenched in the market.
"They moved much faster than I expected, though..."
Joseph asked, looking puzzled.
"...Doesn't Caladon have Merchant Coalition law?"
Braham's expression said he had no idea what Joseph was talking about.
"There's law, sure. But in practice, the big guilds operate by their own rules."
"Rules?"
"They demand a kind of... protection money from new businesses. We haven't paid it yet."
Joseph let out a small sigh at that.
I didn't think it'd be this bad...
He'd assumed that a city governed by the Merchant Coalition would be better than a place that swung with a noble's every whim. At the very least, a merchants' city ought to be more rational. But looking at Braham's reaction, it seemed that the powerful making up their own rules was the same everywhere.
In some ways, this might even be worse than a noble's territory.
At least in a noble's castle, you couldn't get away with something like this so freely. Guards patrolled for public order, and if you started swinging steel over something like this and a noble caught wind of it, you'd hang. Caladon, by contrast, was a place where the price of freedom was that you had to protect your own property. Even if those attackers had beaten you into a cripple, there was no one who'd actively step in to right that injustice.
"It'll be faster to hear the details from them directly."
"Pardon?"
Joseph turned his gaze to Derik. While the two of them had been talking, Derik had been stripping the attackers of every last scrap of clothing.
"......?"
It was so natural that Braham glanced at Joseph for a cue.
Wait... what's he doing?
Attackers or not, stripping them first thing? And he was doing it without even a word from his employer, reducing them to half-naked wrecks on his own initiative. But Joseph just gave a small nod.
Is this actually happening?
"This one. His name's Alex."
"Alex?"
Braham said, looking at the man bound to a chair in his underclothes.
"Yes. He's well-known in the back alleys for taking jobs like this. Looks like some other guild hired him."
Joseph's expression turned slightly puzzled at that. There was almost no anger in Braham's face as he looked at Alex. It was more like the look you'd give a tool than a person.
Hell, he might actually think of him that way.
In this city, mercenaries like that were a necessity for merchants. Someday the tables might turn, and Braham himself would need to hire men like these. That was probably why he didn't bother reacting to each individual attacker.
"Derik. Wake Alex up."
At Joseph's word, Derik immediately brought a bucket of water. Then he dumped the whole thing over the man's face.
"Hhk!"
Alex's eyes snapped open. He rolled them around for a moment, taking in the situation, then opened his mouth at once.
"I-I'll tell you everything."
For an attacker, it was an exceedingly polite and submissive attitude.
"Name?"
"Alex. Captain of the Malacca Mercenary Troop, from the back alleys."
"And them?"
"My men."
"Why did you raid this place?"
At that question, Alex flicked a glance at Braham.
"Th-there was a job. To send a warning not to distribute Ice Artifacts so freely."
Braham nodded at that. It was exactly what he'd expected, so he didn't look particularly surprised. Instead, he asked something else.
"Was it a job from the Silver Ice Merchant Guild?"
"That's right."
"The Silver Ice Merchant Guild?"
"They're the largest guild in the city that deals in ice."
Braham said that the only outfit that would send people this quickly was the Silver Ice Merchant Guild.
"And you heard we were selling Ice Artifacts from them as well?"
"Yes. Dofnik, the guildmaster of the Silver Ice Merchant Guild, is my sworn brother."
He spilled even things no one had asked.
What kind of sworn brother has this little loyalty? Does he even know what that word means?
While Joseph was thinking that, Braham continued the explanation. Dofnik. Guildmaster of the Silver Ice Merchant Guild, famous for his blunt, generous personality. The kind of man who, if he weren't a merchant, would almost certainly be making his living by the sword somewhere.
But Joseph was more interested in something else than the talk about Dofnik.
"You. The way you're spilling everything so easily is pretty suspicious. And you called him your sworn brother?"
"W-well, we aren't that close. We just used to work as traveling merchants together, that's all."
"So the kind of relationship where you'd stab each other in the back given the chance?"
"...It wasn't that bad, but going forward, it probably will be."
Alex said that, then glanced at Joseph.
"Dofnik never mentioned that you'd be here, sir mage."
Of course, there was no way Dofnik could have known Joseph would be at the guild at this hour — but as far as Alex was concerned, failing to pass along proper information, including that, was Dofnik's fault. It wasn't entirely wrong, either. If Dofnik had done even a little digging on Joseph the way Braham had, he would have approached more carefully.
Having heard that much, Joseph turned to Braham.
"What happens if we hand this over to the Merchant Coalition? Handle it by their rules?"
Braham shook his head.
"It wouldn't mean much. They won't bother with something this small."
The Merchant Coalition existed to mediate disputes between large-scale guilds. They didn't concern themselves with friction between small operations like this. Besides, this kind of thing was fairly common in Caladon, and no one had actually died. Braham's assessment was that even if they dragged these men to the Coalition, the Malacca Mercenary Troop would get a slap on the wrist and that would be the end of it.
"Then what do you intend to do with this one?"
As he said it, Joseph floated a Mana Orb. They'd attacked them, after all. Whatever their intent, if the man was of no use, it was better to dispose of him now — for the sake of what came after.
"H-hhk!"
Alex made a sound like he'd swallowed his own breath.