The Mad Dog of This Territory (3)
“Eek! S-sister—?!”
“Cough, huff, ngh—!”
Apparently she’d swallowed something wrong, because Grace spat the liquid in her mouth straight into the bartender’s face and broke into a fit of coughing. She stared at me and Lia with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Lia and I walked up to the liquor counter where Grace was standing and offered a casual greeting.
“Grace, it’s been a while. What has it been, two years since we last saw each other?”
I escorted Lia to a seat and sat down beside her.
Grace covered her mouth with one hand and coughed a few more times, and as she slowly regained her wits, she finally managed to speak.
“H-how did you end up… here?”
She trailed off before she could finish, but I could guess exactly what she’d been about to ask.
No doubt she’d been trying to say, How did you know I was here and find me…?
I smiled pleasantly and gave her shoulder a light pat.
“Let’s just say I have my ways.”
By accident, in fact.
“D-don’t tell me you were watching me? No, I mean… were you?” Grace asked in a very low voice, glancing nervously at the bartender.
But I ignored her and addressed the bartender, meeting his eyes.
“What’s your best drink here?”
“Haa… Lewis County champagne, sir.”
“Then two glasses of that. This should cover it, yes?”
I set a coin worth one shilling—about seventy thousand won in my old world—on the table. The bartender checked the value and his eyes widened before he bowed respectfully.
“Yes, sir. I’ll bring it chilled, so please wait a moment.”
The bartender disappeared into the kitchen area.
Only then did I lazily turn my head and look at Grace.
“What are you doing here, Grace? I believe I warned you not to pull any nonsense ever again.”
My fingers idly toyed with the hilt of the sword at my waist as I murmured the words, and Grace’s eyes trembled.
“I-I’m not! I-I just came to have a drink with an old acquaintance, that’s all. I’m absolutely not scheming anything suspicious…!”
“And why would I believe that?”
“I-it’s true! Sir Cain, you know it too. I made an Oath of Mana with you, so I can’t harm civilians…!”
I looked away from Grace’s frantic excuses and flicked my gaze to Lia. Since she could sense the flow of mana, she could even detect the corrupt mana that leaked out whenever a mage lied.
I asked her wordlessly whether she felt anything, and Lia shook her head. Which meant Grace wasn’t lying.
“Fine. I’ll let it go this time.”
“O-oh, thank goodness…”
“...However.”
I laced my fingers together and leaned forward.
Grace flinched and straightened her back in alarm.
“I have a few questions for you.”
“Y-yes. Ask me anything….”
“What exactly is going on here, in Death Scythe Club? No, Under Club, I should say.”
“...Pardon?”
“Don’t play dumb. I came here already knowing everything.”
I met Lia’s eyes.
She gave a small cough, then explained in my place.
“Within the last year alone, clubs and organizations affiliated with Bern Academy have spent a total of 784 pounds at Death Scythe Club under the pretext of dinner expenses and liquor purchases. Considering that the most expensive champagne here costs five shillings a bottle, that is clearly an abnormal amount.”
Eleven shillings was roughly one pound. Which meant that if they’d bought 784 pounds’ worth at the highest champagne price, they would have purchased a staggering 8,624 bottles.
Were our students all severe alcoholics? Obviously not. Numerically, it made no sense.
There was a hundred percent something going on here. Dinner expenses and liquor purchases were only the cover; in reality, the money was being funneled somewhere else.
So Lia and I had come here after gathering whatever clues we could, hoping to find a lead on the place known as Death Scythe Club.
And then, what do you know? The moment we stepped inside, there was an all-too-familiar face sitting there, and somehow I even felt a little relieved.
Death Scythe Club didn’t appear in the original novel at all; it was underground even by underground standards, so honestly I had no idea where to begin. But then Grace, who seemed like she’d know all about a criminal den like this, was sitting there popping open champagne, and I felt much more secure.
I waited until Lia finished her explanation, then asked Grace bluntly, “Grace, answer me honestly. What exactly is Death Scythe Club doing with all this absurd money?”
“I-I don’t know. I really, really don’t know…!”
...She was putting up the dead-fish excuse.
I leaned close to her ear and whispered, “You think ignorance gets you out of military service?”
“Y-yes? Military service?”
“...Never mind. I was joking.”
I straightened and looked down at Grace.
“There’s no such thing as ‘don’t know.’”
“...Pardon?”
“If you don’t know, then you go find out.”
“W-why would I have to go find out…?”
“Your arms and legs.”
“I-I’ll do it! I’ll find out! So please, just leave my arms and legs alone…!”
“...Hey now, what kind of thing is that to say? If someone heard you, they’d think I was threatening to cut off your limbs.”
Watch your mouth around Lia if you don’t want to get literally chopped into pieces.
When I mouthed my true meaning to her, Grace’s face drained white and she nodded furiously.
With a creak, the bartender returned.
“Here you are, sir. The Lewis County champagne you ordered. Would you like the second glass served to your companion, miss?”
I gestured for him to do so and handed over an extra penny as a tip.
The nameless bartender thanked me repeatedly with deep bows, then began looking at Grace with something like reverence in his eyes.
I didn’t know the circumstances well enough to say what emotion was lurking in that gaze, but if I had to guess, it was probably something like, Sister, were you really friends with such magnificent people…?
“Grace, would you like to have a drink with us too?”
She was going to be working hard on our behalf from now on; surely I could afford her a single glass of champagne.
So, with great generosity, I made the offer.
“N-no. I’m, uh, fine. Really, I’m fine….”
For some reason, Grace shook her head, her face dark and troubled.
* * *
Exactly one week later, in the student council office.
Thud.
Edwin von Edward, the president of Bern Academy’s student council, silently stared at the enormous stack of papers on his desk, then turned his head.
“Cain Reinhardt, what is all this?”
“A handwritten report detailing the results of the anti-corruption campaign Lia and I carried out over the past week.”
“...All of these are reports?”
“Yes. There were more, originally, but I figured submitting them all at once would be too much, so I picked out the most important ones.”
“Huh….”
Blink, blink.
Edwin slowly blinked, then reached out toward the bundle of reports.
He started reading from the very first page, and sure enough, just as Cain had said, everything had been written in a neat, precise hand, calm and organized from beginning to end.
“Hmm. Yes, you’ve done well, though… was there anything uncomfortable about the work?”
“Nothing in particular. Though I do have one suggestion.”
“A suggestion?”
Edwin tilted his chin, inviting him to continue. Cain spoke with a careless air.
“It concerns duels on campus. Could you please establish a rule limiting duels with the same person to a maximum of three times a week?”
“What?”
“There are a few people who are more stubborn than I expected.”
Cain frowned slightly, as if the mere thought was irritating.
“Even after losing a duel with the survival of their club at stake, there are people who won’t accept it and keep clinging to me, demanding rematches. If it happened once or twice, I’d endure it and move on, but they even come looking for me during class and disrupt the other students’ lessons. It’s a nuisance and a half.”
“...Ah, you mean you want to protect the right of your classmates to study?”
“That’s correct. Other innocent people shouldn’t suffer because of one muddy fish.”
“Understood. I’ll formally propose it at the next regular meeting. Anything else?”
“No, nothing beyond that. Thank you for your consideration.”
“Mm, good.”
After bowing politely, Cain Reinhardt left the student council office.
Edwin watched his retreating figure for a moment, then shifted his gaze.
There stood Rowen, Edwin’s ever-expressionless secretary, perfectly upright as always.
“Rowen.”
“Yes, President.”
“About that week we bet on—you know, a day and a half have already passed, haven’t they?”
“...Ah, is that so?”
As if only just remembering, Rowen let out an absentminded reply.
Edwin looked at him and snorted softly.
“Yes. I won the bet, which means you now have the right to ask me for one wish. So, what do you want? Money? Honor? Or perhaps a title?”
“I’d like all three, so would you marry me?”
“Can’t do that. As it happens, I already have a fiancée I’ve promised my future to.”
Edwin shrugged. Rowen, still calm as ever, muttered another line.
“Then would you accompany me after class?”
“Is that a date request?”
“No. I need to buy new supplies, but they’re too heavy for me to carry alone.”
“You really do have no shame, trying to exploit the imperial crown prince as a daytime porter. Even I, in all my benevolence, can’t possibly forgive such outrageous insolence….”
“So, you won’t come with me?”
“Meet me at six in front of the academy gates. I have somewhere to stop by first.”
With that brief answer, Edwin rose from his seat.
Rowen looked up at him—at a man one and a half heads taller than himself—and said, “I’ll accompany you. Let’s go together.”
“No, I’m going alone.”
Edwin pulled the very first sheet from the stack of documents and flicked it into view.
Report Concerning Suspicion of Narcotics Trafficking by Death Scythe Club.
“I need to see for myself which fearless bastard is gnawing away at my people.”
“...”
Looking at Edwin’s smiling mouth and unsmiling eyes, Rowen instinctively knew.
Very soon, a storm of blood would descend upon the place called Death Scythe Club.
The storm brought by the imperial crown prince, a man who cherished his people beyond measure.
“...Yes, sir. Understood.”
* * *
“Cain, did you deliver the report properly?”
“Yes, I did. He said it was very well organized.”
“Oh, really? Too bad. I should’ve gone with you.”
“Then next time we submit the regular report, shall we go together?”
“Ugh, no thanks. Student Council President Edwin has a pretty scary look in his eyes.”
“...Hmm.”
Lia probably wasn’t saying it because she knew, but the student council president and first prince of the Empire, Edwin, really was a frightening man.
After all, in the original story—around volume three, I think?—when he found out that someone caught smuggling narcotics into the Empire’s borderlands had been hired by a royal family from a neighboring kingdom, he convinced his father, the emperor, to wage war and turn the place into land where not even grass would grow.
...And that wasn’t a metaphor. It was just a statement of fact. That was why I was afraid of Edwin and his brother Bern.
The blood they inherited from the emperor, a tyrant and a wise ruler both, certainly hadn’t gone anywhere; the two of them were twisted bastards through and through, and unless Stella kept them in check, they could go completely off the rails.
You could see that clearly if you looked at the deeds of Edwin and Bern in the IF storyline, a separate branch from the original, where they never met Stella.
“...”
I’ll spare you the details of what happened to those two, and to the Empire’s fate. Honestly, just thinking about it again gave me chills.
I rubbed at the gooseflesh rising on my arms and looked at Lia.
“Ah, right. Lady Lia.”
“Mm? What is it?”
“It’s been about a week since we started wearing these rings, hasn’t it? Has Lady Venus said anything in that time?”
“No, not a word. Maybe she’s still thinking about what trial to set for us?”
“I see.”
According to the original story, this was about the time Venus would begin giving Stella her first trial.
I remembered that the first trial—what Venus called a trial, at least—was probably to have the two of them subjugate the River Tyrant, a C-rank danger species.
But Venus had said she intended to make our ordeal especially easy, so chances were she’d assign us something weaker than that, probably a D-rank danger species.
Something at D-rank would be a piece of cake. So whatever it was, we’d finish it quickly and then focus on rooting out the cult’s believers—
──My darlings.
Then, someone’s voice reached us. Lia and I turned to each other at the same time.
“Huh? Cain, just now….”
“Yes, I heard it too.”
──My darlings, the first trial has been prepared. Are you ready?
“Yes, yes! Please tell us, Lady Venus!”
──Good. Then the two little ones there, kneel down.
We did as Venus instructed, dropping to our knees in place and preparing ourselves to receive her words.
──My darling, your first trial shall be this.
“Yes, the trial is?”
──It is an A-rank danger species by human classification, and by epithet it is called the ruler of the sea.
“...?”
“...Pardon?”
──You will cut out the reverse scale of the Water Dragon and offer it upon my altar.