Chapter 56
<56> The Scarlet Pimpernel
“Master. There are people outside peering in. Shall I go out and investigate?”
“No, stay here. It’s dangerous if you go out alone.”
“But as time passes, it’ll get darker and there will be fewer people around, won’t there?”
“Even so, they wouldn’t launch an attack right in the middle of a main street.”
“No, now that it’s this time, there are fewer people around. It seems like an attack would be possible.”
At that moment, the shop owner took out some money.
“Here are 80 shillings. And I’ll include this pouch as a special courtesy.”
“Thank you.”
Idnia received 80 shillings for selling the jewelry box, and placed the jeweled cross into a soft satin pouch before tucking it into her chest.
“Are there any suspicious people outside? You’re carrying a valuable treasure, so if you’re worried, shall we contact the Academy and request guards?”
“Guards?”
“Yes. In case of trouble, the Academy will dispatch battle mages and animated armor.”
“Battle mages….”
Idnia thought they were probably instructors.
“Of course, there’s a tax.”
“Is it… a paid service?”
“Yes. The Academy is very eager to collect taxes.”
“In that case, we’ll handle it ourselves. There’s no need to pay money for it, and besides, if the battle mages come from the Academy, they’ll likely be seniors. I wouldn’t want to trouble their hands unnecessarily.”
Idnia stepped out of the shop together with Black Wolf.
As soon as Idnia left the shop, the thugs who had indeed been watching from afar began to move slowly.
Even though it was raining, they had assumed it would be fine in the middle of the main street of the town, but as the sun went down, the number of people had sharply decreased.
Perhaps because of that? The thugs, emboldened, approached Idnia and spoke to her.
“Hey there, young lady of the duke’s house. It seems your purse is quite heavy.”
“We were thinking we might help you share that heavy burden a little.”
A man with a sword at his waist and a staff in his hand, and another holding a small club, stepped in front of Idnia.
“Ah, it’s best not to make any sudden moves, young lady. There’s an archer hiding in those bushes over there. An arrow could come flying out and harm you and that little friend of yours.
He’s a very skilled shooter, so don’t expect him to miss.”
“And don’t make a sound either. If you do, he’ll shoot immediately, take your purse, and flee.
You’ll be left here bleeding and collapsed, and then people will prioritize rescuing you rather than chasing us, won’t they?”
They said this and chuckled among themselves.
Judging by their words, they showed no hesitation in committing crimes even in a city like this.
Idnia, observing their brazen behavior, felt puzzled.
“Wait a moment. This is an island, isn’t it? What do you think you’re going to do? Even if you steal my money, there’s no way the Academy would just let you go.”
“Haha. It seems you trust the Academy quite a bit….”
“First, hand over the money. There’s no need for you to worry about where we run off to.”
At that moment, Black Wolf spoke up.
“Master. There are others watching as well. I can feel gazes from various places in the buildings.”
“They’re likely Lorenzo Mazdari’s subordinates. There’s no reason he would have purchased these establishments otherwise.”
The employees of the restaurant and the general goods store were not ordinary staff.
To Idnia, they were all practitioners who trained in both aura and magic simultaneously, powerful combat personnel.
And they were likely watching in secret, curious to see how Idnia would resolve the situation.
As Idnia had expected, those from the southern region were observing the situation from inside a dark room through gaps in the windows.
“The Duke’s daughter of Betelgeuse is dealing with the thugs. What should we do? Shouldn’t we assist her?”
The servants of the Mazdari Principality looked nervously toward their superiors, the senior agents.
“She didn’t ask the shop staff for help. Is there any need for us to interfere?”
“Lord Lorenzo of Mazdari instructed us to take good care of her.”
“Yes. The young lord of Mazdari is quite benevolent. But isn’t our mission more important?”
These southern visitors were divided into Lorenzo’s servants and envoys from the Papal Curia.
The Papal envoys were not under Lorenzo’s direct orders, and they seemed to be curious to see what Idnia could do in this opportunity.
“What if the duke’s daughter gets hurt because of this….”
The Mazdari servants were uneasy, but the Papal envoys observed the situation calmly.
“Rest assured.
That little boy called Black Wolf is truly the future chief of the Sacred Beast tribe’s Five Clans.
He carries the power of the Sacred Beast within him, so ordinary thugs should pose no problem for him.”
Indeed, the Papal agent’s assessment was correct.
It was Black Wolf who moved first.
Idnia looked at the thugs blocking her path and gave an order to Black Wolf.
“Black Wolf.”
“Yeah?”
“Subdue them. Do not kill them.”
“Understood.”
The moment they heard that, the thugs burst into laughter.
They had arrows aimed at them and were being blocked head-on. In this situation, even the most skilled mage would be helpless and overwhelmed, yet what? Do not kill them?
But the next instant, Black Wolf suddenly vanished from their sight.
He leapt to a considerable height, circled behind them, and struck the back of their necks with the handle of a dagger.
“Guh!?”
“Argh!”
It was a swift and precise strike. Black Wolf’s strength and speed far exceeded their imagination.
Only because the force was carefully controlled were they spared; had it been just slightly higher, their occiputs would have been pierced clean through.
As the two bandits collapsed unconscious in an instant, the sniper hidden in the bushes was startled.
At that moment, Idnia cast a shield spell, applied spell modification, and then hurled the shield.
The magical shield released from Idnia’s black iron wand pierced through the bushes and struck the bandit with a thud.
The Papal envoys were left speechless as the situation ended without even giving them a chance to intervene.
“Remarkable. That boy, Black Wolf, took down the two of them in an instant.”
“Indeed. We expected no less of someone chosen as a guard for the beloved daughter of Duke Betelgeuse.”
In truth, Black Wolf had volunteered, but the Papal agents believed that Duke Betelgeuse had selected him to protect Idnia.
“Still, Duke’s daughter Idnia is impressive as well. I’ve never seen someone modify a shield spell and throw it before. It’s surprising that a first-year student can perform spell modification, and her throwing posture is excellent too. She could probably play as a wizard ball player.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen such a clean sidearm throw with the right arm. I wonder what kind of velocity she’d achieve if she threw a ball….”
They marveled as they assessed the capabilities of Black Wolf and Idnia.
“It seems it was worth leaving those scoundrels inside the town and observing them like this. You anticipated this outcome and chose not to intervene, didn’t you?”
When the young agent asked that, the senior agent clicked his tongue.
“No. We left them alone because the one who came with them was troublesome.”
“What? What do you mean….”
“Shh, be careful. He’s here.”
Idnia and Black Wolf had successfully subdued the thugs. Those struck by Black Wolf were knocked out cleanly, but the archer hit by Idnia’s thrown shield was clutching his broken arm and groaning.
“Agh… ahhh… it hurts.”
“You’re a woman. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Master is a woman too. And these guys were the ones threatening others over trivial trinkets in the first place. Scoundrels like these have no right to complain even if they die.”
Black Wolf spoke coldly and searched the belongings of those he had defeated.
He found a heavy purse.
“Master. What should we do? Normally we should send them to prison and force them into labor until they die, but that would ruin your overnight stay.
Should we call someone from the Academy to arrest them? Is there a prison like that?
Or we could confiscate their money and let them go. What they tried to do would simply come back onto them.”
“Hmm. Let’s ask the one with the broken arm. Do you want to go to prison, or end this by having your purse taken?”
Idnia asked the archer who was still conscious.
Clutching her broken arm, she groaned before answering.
“Are you insane? Do you even know who we are! We’ll definitely take revenge! Hurry up and release us!”
“In that case, I’ll take your belongings and release you. Understood.”
At that moment, a voice came from behind.
“I’m sorry, young student. That one is this humble servant’s subordinate—would you be willing to show some mercy?”
Black Wolf turned around in surprise.
Rarely did anyone evade his perception, yet the person had approached to a considerable distance without making any sound, even in the rain.
A man wearing a tricorne hat and a cloak approached. His hands were hidden beneath the cloak, making it impossible to tell whether he held a sword or a magic wand.
“Requesting leniency for a bandit is quite unreasonable. State your conditions.”
Black Wolf asked, and the man replied.
“Hmm. My original intention was not to cause trouble.
However, due to my own incompetence, I failed to properly manage them, and while I was away, it seems they could not resist their boredom and attempted to make a small profit by taking matters into their own hands.
I humbly ask for your understanding, and I shall surely repay this kindness.”
“Banditry just because they were bored? Ridiculous—”
“Black Wolf!?”
At Idnia’s warning, Black Wolf leapt backward.
A sword was drawn from the man’s cloak, slicing through the space where Black Wolf’s head had been an instant earlier.
While speaking, the man had approached with almost no visible movement, gliding forward as though pushing himself along the ground.
An extraordinary opponent.
Idnia immediately cast a shield spell.
The man drew both a sword and a staff from beneath his cloak and pursued Black Wolf while simultaneously casting a spell toward Idnia.
A bolt of lightning shot toward her, but Idnia blocked it with her shield spell.
However, the spell dispersed and spread through a puddle on the ground, shocking Idnia.
Crackle!
“Ugh!?”
“Ah, what a pity.
To kill a young mage.
A defensive spell that only guards the front cannot fully block my refracted lightning magic. You’re still only a first-year student, so it can’t be helped, but it seems a precious talent has been lost.”
By now, the man had turned around, and his face was covered by a plain mirror-like mask.
However…
“Hmm. It is indeed difficult to block with a shield spell alone. And it’s raining as well.”
For Idnia, it had only been a brief sting.
“Eh? Remarkable. To withstand magic with a female body?”
Seeing Idnia standing unharmed, the masked man felt taken aback.
“Well, it was only a brief sting, but this is an opponent that cannot be defeated with magic alone. And that sword….”
Idnia frowned as she looked at the sword in his hand.
“The Scarlet Pimpernel?”
At Idnia’s unconscious utterance of the name, the masked man flinched.
“Oh? And why do you think that, young lady?”
“That silver mask, and the magical sword in your hand—Man Eater.”
The Scarlet Pimpernel was a vast criminal organization that controlled the entire empire.
Most of its members were ordinary thugs.
They could be considered a typical thieves’ guild.
However, among them, the elite who bore the name Scarlet Pimpernel were composed of powerful battle mages, including academy dropouts, graduates, and even former instructors.
And…
‘In the original story, there was an event where the villainess Idnia formed an alliance with them and came near this academy in an attempt to kidnap the heroine, the saint Mary.
The timing of the event has occurred earlier than in the original, and I let my guard down. Even without the villainess Idnia summoning them, they’ve been moving around the academy and conducting investigations.’
Seeing through his identity instantly, Idnia caused the masked man to let out a quiet laugh and lower the tip of his sword.
“Remarkable. It seems I have greatly underestimated you, young lady. Indeed….”
Having said that, the man who had lowered his sword appeared to be standing still, but Idnia could see that he was slowly approaching her.
It was a form of illusion similar to what he had used on Black Wolf.
Without any incantation, his wand moved, and his body closed the distance.
“Be careful, Master!”