I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 86
Chapter 86
The Far East Front Alliance Hall.
In the Far East, where there was rarely a reason to gather more than once a year, this marked the first time a second assembly had been convened.
Ferda scanned the fourteen lords seated before him.
Some of them had lost the soft, plump look they possessed during the first meeting; jawlines were beginning to emerge.
Ferda addressed them.
“There is a young man named Stefan.”
A young man named Stefan.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of phrasing one would expect from a boy about to turn nineteen. Yet, his words carried such weight that even his choice of vocabulary—which might have otherwise drawn snorts of derision—felt natural.
“I trust you all know well what kind of person he is.”
“We do, of course.”
“Thanks to him, we can now find whatever we need immediately.”
They offered praises for him one by one.
Self-sufficiency had its limits in the Far East. Most of these lords had lived their lives either making do with mediocrity or simply ignoring what they lacked. Stefan was a good merchant who had created the opportunity to improve their lives.
“The reason you were able to do so is that I made a promise to that young man.”
Ferda held up his index finger.
“I promised him that I would help him become the master of the company.”
“The master of the company?”
“The Young Lord of Pascal is more than capable of becoming the master of the Pascal Company.”
“I think so as well. However, it seems the young man is struggling so much that he is now on the verge of giving up on that dream.”
A brief silence followed.
Normally, Count Consilus would have fanned the flames in this situation, but even he remained still, watching. He wanted to gauge the actual public opinion.
“If that is the case, then surely it is our duty to step forward, is it not?”
A viscount who looked particularly invested in justice stood up abruptly.
Inspired by him, another lord stood and shouted in agreement.
“That’s right! This Far East has become livable thanks to someone, so we cannot just turn a blind eye!”
“If we don’t even think of repaying that debt, we deserve the judgment of the sun!”
“Aye, aye!”
Among them, Ferda also saw the faces of those who agreed half-heartedly. He committed those faces to memory.
“I have understood your intentions well. Until the Pascal Trading Company is stabilized, I wish to request that you dispatch troops there for escort duty. Of course, only to the extent that it does not hinder the defense of the Grand Ducal Territory.”
“Of course! I shall dispatch thirty of my standing defense guards.”
“We shall send thirty-five…!”
“Forty…!”
As the competition to prove loyalty began to overheat, Ferda was forced to limit the contribution to a maximum of thirty men per lord.
Even with that cap, four hundred men were gathered in an instant, along with about fifteen knights.
Ferda handed the signed documents to Count Consilus.
“I leave this in your hands.”
“As the Regent wills.”
The problem of the merchant group’s mercenaries was now half-solved. The remaining half depended on whether the root of the problem could be addressed.
In the meantime, Ferda decided to do what he had to do.
“Ruri.”
“Yes.”
“Can you take me to the site of the raid?”
“Do you think I’m your shuttle, Ferda-nim?”
“I simply don’t want to waste time.”
Grumbling, she slid her arms under Ferda’s shoulders and pulled him into an embrace.
“Hold on tight. If you let go, I won’t catch you.”
Ruri spread her large wings and took flight.
It would have taken two days from Valdrova Castle, but they arrived at the site in less than a minute.
The location where the incident occurred was a bit far from the Grand Ducal Territory, situated in a no-man’s land. It was a place as dangerous as it was worthless.
Being a grim season, the scene had been brutally ravaged. People from the Grand Ducal Territory were guarding the perimeter, preserving the site as best as they could.
The ones conducting the investigation were dragon spawns dispatched to maintain the magic circles. The person in command was Administrator Isabella.
Noticing Ferda and Ruri, she bowed politely.
“You’ve arrived? Ruri-yang is with you as well.”
“Yes, it just happened that way.”
Ruri looked somewhat reluctant toward Isabella. It seemed less like professional friction and more like a personal dislike for Isabella herself.
“What is the status of the damage?”
“There were ten carriages moving toward the Grand Ducal Territory. Three were for transporting monsters, and the other seven were delivering goods to the branch in Count Consilus’s fief.”
The three intact carriages were the ones carrying monster corpses. Since they carried things too foul to even approach, it was natural they were left untouched.
“And the casualties?”
“Of the twelve merchants, eleven are dead and one is missing. All twenty-two laborers were killed. Of the twenty hired mercenaries, two died. The staff was essentially wiped out, while most of the mercenaries made it out alive.”
“Typical.”
Typical, in the sense that the mercenaries survived while everyone else died.
“Any peculiarities?”
“There are.”
Isabella pointed toward where the bodies lay. The corpses, each bearing a single sword wound, were lined up neatly.
Ferda naturally assumed they had been arranged that way for recovery.
“They were like that when we arrived.”
“They were neatly aligned?”
“Yes. Just in case, I asked the merchant group’s scout, and he said he hadn’t touched them.”
Faced with this unexpected situation, Ruri muttered in disbelief.
“It seems the standards of the humans on the Serdes Continent have risen. To think bandits could be so polite.”
“Indeed.”
Ferda examined their condition. Every one of them was lying straight with their hands placed over their chests. Was there a reason to go through such trouble?
“There is one more strange thing. Some of the laborers were armed, but there are no signs of a struggle.”
“No signs of a struggle means…”
“All killed in a single blow. In other words, they were ambushed.”
Ferda understood immediately.
“They didn’t hire mercenaries; they hired bandits from the start.”
“That seems to be the case.”
It was a classic setup. Yet, even within that typical scenario, there was something he couldn’t grasp.
Ruri noticed this and tugged at Ferda’s sleeve.
“Ferda-nim, since they ambushed the merchants, they obviously came to rob them, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But for a robbery, it seems they ended on a very humble note.”
Ruri pointed to a carriage loaded with valuables.
“Look. They didn’t even touch the items over there before leaving.”
The chest holding golden candlesticks was wide open, practically shouting its presence. Yet, the carriage containing the valuables was left almost entirely alone.
The items stolen were fresh produce. Some preserved food and armaments were also taken. As for the most valuable gems and riches, only four items were missing.
“Ruri-yang, if I may answer that, it is likely because of Anti-Theft Magic.”
“Anti-Theft Magic?” Ruri asked, as if talking to herself.
“To explain it for Ruri-yang: the moment someone other than the merchant touches certain high-value goods, a mana tag attaches to them, allowing them to be tracked. It’s a common method used by modern merchants for insurance.”
“I see.”
A tracking spell that stuck to a criminal like a label. Even with such magic, those who intended to steal usually did so anyway.
“Are all the stolen valuables items that weren’t under that tracking magic?”
“I’ve checked, and that is indeed the case.”
“Who would have known that fact?”
“According to the explanation, no one but the merchants should have known.”
Ferda rubbed his chin, lost in thought.
“The two dead mercenaries.”
“Yes.”
“Are they by any chance tagged with that tracking magic?”
“I will check.”
Isabella released her mana to inspect the two corpses. Ferda’s prediction was spot on.
“It is as the Regent said. They are tagged with tracking magic.”
“It seems they killed those who got greedy.”
Synthesizing the given circumstances, Ferda arrived at a new hypothesis.
“It’s highly likely that the missing merchant is the mastermind.”
“It would seem so. This is a method occasionally seen in small to medium-sized companies.”
A merchant had brought in a band of bandits with the intention of backstabbing Stefan from the beginning. They would disguise it as a total massacre, take their share, and disappear.
The rough outline was there, but Ferda still couldn’t shake his doubt. The picture wasn’t perfectly clear in his mind yet.
Wondering if he was obsessing over something, he asked Isabella.
“What if they never intended to plunder in the first place?”
Ruri and Isabella both asked, “No intention to plunder?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Plundering was a secondary element; the primary goal was murder and conspiracy. To show that the company is collapsing from internal division.”
“Murder and conspiracy…”
Hearing Ferda’s words, Isabella nodded before tilting her head slightly.
“But if that’s the case, there’s something strange.”
She pointed out the stolen items to Ferda.
“If murder was the goal, would there be any reason to take all the fresh food?”
“Couldn’t they have taken it because they were short on food?”
At Ruri’s suggestion, Isabella countered.
“If they were short on food, they should have taken all the emergency rations. For people who need to flee, stealing fresh produce is a mistake even a third-rate amateur wouldn’t make.”
It was as Isabella said. Fresh food was bulky and difficult to store. To perform a hit-and-run, they would have stolen all the easily storable emergency rations.
“The only ones who would take those are people desperate for food—refugees.”
“Which is a synonym for bandits.”
Meaning there was no guarantee they hadn’t collaborated. Ferda agreed with Isabella’s point.
‘This leaves a bad taste.’
Ferda racked his brain several times to understand this annoying situation. He was being more suspicious than usual, trying not to leave even a shred of doubt unexamined.
Just then, one of the dragon spawns assisting the investigation whispered something into Isabella’s ear.
“Good news. It’s been confirmed that there is one person with a tracking magic tag.”
It was strange. The two mercenaries who had been greedy enough to get tagged had died on the spot.
“What did they steal?”
“They say a single gold coin was taken from a merchant’s pouch. We should be able to track the bandits with this.”
“A single gold coin?”
“Yes.”
Ferda asked again. “Did they take one coin from a pouch that only had one?”
“No. According to our check, it was one of the gold coins remaining in a pouch that held 5 Goldens for travel expenses, minus the 1 Golden and 30 Shillings used for costs.”
That meant they had taken only a single gold coin from a pouch containing 3 Goldens and 70 Shillings.
“Where are they heading?”
“Surprisingly, they are reportedly heading into the Grand Ducal Territory.”
It was a truly astonishing situation. To go to such lengths to avoid the tracking magic, only to be caught because of a single gold coin.
They were a mass of contradictions.
Perfect yet showing flaws.
Cruel yet polite.
It was chaos, where two incompatible traits were mixed together.
Perhaps that stupid bandit would provide the answer directly.
“I will immediately organize a pursuit team and order them to capture everyone alive—”
“No.”
Ferda cut Isabella off.
“There’s no need to have them captured. We will move ourselves.”
“Us?”
Isabella looked quite reluctant.
“It is not fitting for someone of the Regent’s status to suppress a mere band of bandits. It is better to leave such matters to subordinates.”
“She’s right. It’s better not to do this.”
Ruri agreed with Isabella and tried to dissuade him. But if he had listened to such advice, he wouldn’t be Ferda.
“I’m the type of person who isn’t satisfied unless I do it myself. And I don’t want to leave any room for doubt in this matter.”
“Doubt?”
“Yes. No doubt must remain.”
Only Ferda knew. Revenge is most beautiful when it is clean.
“This is a play of revenge for Stefan.”
A revenge play must be clean. A revenge play for someone else must be even cleaner than usual. That was Ferda’s philosophy.
Late evening.
Following the traces left behind, they found what appeared to be the bandits’ camp.
It was different from the expectation of seeing vicious and base criminals. Instead, about forty people—men, women, and children—were gathered in small groups around a campfire.
“Can we eat now?”
“No. It needs to cook a bit longer.”
“I think I’m going to die of hunger! Listen. My stomach is growling!”
“Better than dying of a stomachache.”
Even though they were quite close, no one noticed Ferda and Isabella’s arrival. Their attention was focused entirely on the campfire—specifically, the pot sitting atop it.
“It’s done.”
The children cheered, and the adults smiled. For this moment, they seemed to have forgotten that they were destined to vanish as fleetingly as mayflies.
Whether it was Isabella, Ferda, or Ruri—any one of them could have wiped these people out with a flick of a finger.
Instead of moving his fingers, Ferda kicked a pot rolling on the ground.
Thump! Thump!
The men, who had been focused on the cooking pot, turned their heads. A pot had suddenly come rolling toward them. When they looked up, they saw a man and two women.
“…”
“…”
A brief silence followed.
The one who broke the silence was a bearded man. He hurriedly drew his sword.
Shring!
The light of the campfire reflected softly off the blade. Despite his appearance, the sword was well-honed. Ferda recognized it instantly as one of the swords lost by the merchant group.
“What are you doing?! Draw your weapons!”
At his command, the others finally grasped the situation and moved to draw their weapons.
“Stop!”
They all froze at once.
The one who spoke was a man wearing half-plate armor. Unlike the other refugees who were fumbling in confusion, he possessed insight.
“Everyone, put down your swords! Drop your weapons, kneel, and put your hands on the ground!”
“What kind of—?”
“Do it quickly if you want to live!”
At the man’s word, every man and woman knelt and placed their hands on the ground. They moved quickly, like people more accustomed to surrender than combat.
It was truly quick judgment. Ferda, who had intended to make an example of one person to facilitate the conversation, felt slightly thwarted.
The man stood up and knelt before Ferda.
“I am William, the leader of this group of refugees. Might the guest’s name be… Ferda Valdrova, the Regent?” he asked.
His manner of speech was not that of a third-rate bandit.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And you must have completed the investigation into the raid… and tracked us here.”
“I have.”
It seemed he was aware that an investigation team would be dispatched.
“I am sure you are curious about the circumstances of the incident. I will tell you everything, so could you please allow the children to eat first?”
He asked politely.
Ferda let out a cold snort.
“A rat eating someone else’s grain dares to seek sympathy by acting human? You have no right to eat.”
Ferda looked them over as he spoke.
“From this moment on, anyone who moves without my permission dies. Adults, children, the elderly—everyone.”
Ferda sat down right on the pot he had kicked.
“Confess properly. If you don’t, I’ll start by killing the children.”
