Episode 21 – The Empire’s Children

*

“Hey, stop right there.”

On my way back home, as I entered a less crowded street, I heard someone calling out to me from behind.

Turning around, I saw about five burly men with menacing looks.

“You’re Baron Salvie, right?”

“That is correct,”

“We need you to come with us for a bit,”

The man, flexing his arms to emphasize the tattoo on his arm, grinned as he spoke.

That tattoo of a four-headed snake.

Having once been involved in the city’s criminal underworld, I recognized the tattoo immediately.

It was the symbol of the once-famous gang, ‘City Snake,’ and it seemed they were still active even after 20 years.

I remembered them clearly as they were a rival group to the organization I used to be in.

“Aigo, what are you thinking so hard about?”

“Looks like this foreigner doesn’t understand the situation. No use racking your brain, though.”

They chuckled and began to surround me.

The men encircled me, leaving my right side open.

There was a narrow alleyway on the right.

It meant they wanted me to walk there on my own two feet without resisting.

It was a typical tactic of a robbery gang.

But I had no intention of dealing with them right now.

Drained from my meeting with Mella, I just wanted to return to the hotel quickly, so I wanted to toss them some money and be done with it.

“Is it money you want?”

“Kyaa-, just as the rumors say, you’re a rich bastard. You think we’re beggars?”

“Ha, then what the hell is it?”

“…Look at this guy?”

Annoying.

I no longer had the energy to play the role of Baron Salvie.

As expected of experts in intimidating others, they noticed my honorifics disappearing and were making the atmosphere hostile.

In the past, the organization I was in tried to stop me from washing my hands of it and eventually tried to kill me.

But thanks to Mella’s help, I assassinated the boss and killed or crippled most of the core members, causing it to collapse completely as I fled.

‘City Snake,’ having seen their competitor disappear in an instant, must have used that opportunity to expand their power.

So, they were still around, causing trouble even after more than 20 years.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead.

Even though my body doesn’t need to breathe, I still sighed when I felt frustrated.

I thought my past messing with me would end with Robin, Jennifer, and Mella, but it seemed there was still this adorable event left.

Before they could say anything, I walked into the alley on my own.

“Alright, let’s get this over with quickly.”

“Huh, it’s good that you’re being compliant, but I don’t like your attitude. We need to give you some education before taking you to the client.”

‘Client?’

As we went deeper into the alley, they pulled out bats, knuckledusters, and other weapons from who knows where, and followed closely behind me.

Both sides were completely blocked by walls, and the few windows were sealed shut with plywood.

The path was winding, making it impossible to see where we were from the road, like a secret room in the city.

A place that seemed perfectly designed for committing crimes, where no witnesses could be made.

“Hey, Baron. Stop now.”

“Why don’t you just advertise that you’re going to beat someone up, bringing them all the way to a place with no people?”

“Wow- this little runt has some guts?”

“Don’t you remember me saying to get this over with quickly? Well, I guess you wouldn’t have chosen this job if you had more brains.”

I could see the veins popping out on the forehead of the man I was talking to.

The other men were cracking their knuckles, preparing to beat me up without holding back.

“…I’ll teach you the manners of Siorand.”

The man reached out his tattooed arm and grabbed my shoulder.

*

The fight didn’t happen.

The only violent act that occurred there was a black chain bursting the head of the man who grabbed my shoulder.

The chain instantly caught all of them as they lost their will to fight and tried to run away, hanging them in the air.

A headless corpse lying in the middle of an alley where no one was watching, and four men hanging.

One of the men screamed.

“Aaaargh! I’ve never heard of this! What the fuck, let me go!”

“You should watch your language.”

“You fucking monster!”

I took off my mask.

After shaking off the blood and brain matter stuck to the mask, I asked the men struggling in the air.

“You said you were hired earlier, who told you to bring me?”

“…”

“Aren’t you going to answer? You guys have great loyalty,”

I mocked them, wiping the mask with the clothes of the headless corpse.

One of the hanging men slowly opened his mouth.

“…Fuck you, I’m dead if I talk.”

“Oh, really? You think you’ll live if you don’t?”

The chain tightened around one man’s torso.

The skin around the chain, which was digging into his flesh, swelled up and burst with a *pak!* sound, spraying blood.

But the chain didn’t stop, it was tightening as if to sever his waist.

As the man tried to scream from the unbearable pain, another chain extended like a branch from the center of the chain, wrapping around his face and gagging him.

Unable to even scream, the man writhed in immense pain, completely bound and wrapped, like a cocoon made of chains.

The cocoon twitched intermittently, with blood trickling through the chains.

The other guys hanging next to him were speechless as they watched the scene.

“Hey, I have a lot of money. If you tell me who hired you, I’ll give you enough money to run away to another town.”

I slowly converted magic power from demonic energy.

I didn’t know any magic spells yet, but I had become familiar enough to cause simple anomalies.

The magic power seeped into the chain that had dug into the torso of the guy who was writhing and groaning with his mouth gagged.

The cocoon made of chains twitched violently once, made a muffled scream, and then soon became silent.

The tightly wound chain loosened and released his body, revealing a man frozen solid inside.

The chain threw him away and disappeared, and the frozen body that fell to the ground shattered into pieces, scattering everywhere.

I put the mask back on after wiping it clean and said.

“Of course, only one person gets to live, first come, first served.”

*

I washed the blood off my body with divine power and left the alley.

As you can tell from the fact that I took off my mask and revealed my bare face in the middle, I didn’t let a single one of them live.

The three who spoke up late were killed instantly, and the one who gave me the information first was tortured slowly before being killed.

He screamed that he didn’t want to die, so I cut out his uvula and tongue because he was too loud.

After grinding the five corpses until only small pieces of flesh and blood clots remained, I purified and erased the gruesome bloodstains with divine power.

I gathered all the remaining pink flesh and threw it into a trash can where food waste was dumped, and then I left the alley.

I walked out of the alley and slowly moved my feet, lost in thought.

The person who commissioned City Snake to kidnap me was surprisingly someone I knew.

Piadu de Valguir.

The man I saw at the funeral, Rose’s fiancé.

It had been a little over two hours since I left the mansion.

He had left the funeral about an hour before me.

That meant he had commissioned my kidnapping within those three hours.

He couldn’t have found out my identity, so was he after my wealth?

Whatever the purpose, for a noble of such high status as to have the right to succession to the throne, his actions in committing evil were too swift.

It was clear that the man named Piadu was used to this kind of thing.

But, well, it didn’t matter.

I no longer had the energy to be shaken.

‘If it gets in the way of my revenge, I’ll just kill him.’

I arrived at the hotel a little later.

*

“Oh my, welcome back, Ed?”

As I entered the room, Lily approached.

I replied briefly.

“Yeah.”

“…Judging by your lack of energy, something must have happened with Aunt Mella.”

“…”

“…”

I passed by Lily without saying a word and staggered towards the fireplace in the living room.

I walked to the comfortable armchair with a small table next to it, plopped down, and buried myself in the sofa.

Fatigue washed over me as I leaned back comfortably, but damn it, I wasn’t sleepy at all.

Lily slowly approached and sat across from me.

I took off my mask and placed it on the table, asking her.

“Where’s Lara?”

“She went down to the lobby on the first floor, so we must have missed each other.”

“Why the first floor?”

“It seems a letter came for Baron Salvie. She went down to get it.”

“Then she’ll be up soon.”

Knowing I couldn’t sleep, I closed my eyes, pretending to try.

Only the sound of the crackling fire was heard, then,

Lily got up, came to me, and gently hugged my head.

…What?

“What are you doing?”

“…Ed, are you okay?”

“…About what.”

“You look tired.”

Lily was hugging me so gently that I couldn’t feel any pressure.

Her chest, touching my head, rose and fell with her breath.

Of course, I knew Lily wasn’t Lara, but she looked so much like Lara from 20 years ago, except for those damn eyes.

Tired of the sense of alienation from the 20 years I had felt while looking at Lara, and seeing Mella today, I relaxed and leaned against her chest.

“…It’s not easy.”

“…Yeah.”

Lily gently placed her cheek on my head, which she was holding in her arms, and said.

“Ed. When I was about to die, you saved me, right?”

“You don’t have to thank me. It happened because Lara and you followed me, and you’ve lived in that dangerous forest your whole life because of me.”

“I wasn’t going to say thank you.”

“Then?”

Lily was stroking my hair.

I left her hand alone and waited for her to speak.

“After I lost consciousness, I kept having dreams.”

“…What kind of dreams?”

Lily paused for quite a while.

I didn’t rush her.

Lily’s embrace was more comfortable than I thought, and I didn’t want to miss this small rest I had finally found.

Perhaps because it was a cold body without blood circulation, the warmth I felt in someone’s arms was so comforting.

Lily hesitated for a while, saying, “Um… um…” and finally opened her mouth.

“It was a dream where I was feeding you snacks.”

“…What?”

I was so dumbfounded that the warmth I had been feeling seemed to disappear, and I looked up at Lily.

Her face was completely red, as if she was ashamed of what she had said.

Ah,

Is it because of her flushed cheeks that her blue eyes seem to be more visible?

I quickly lowered my head.

“Ah, Ed…”

“Thank you, Lily. I’ve rested enough thanks to you.”

“Umm… Yes, I’m glad then.”

“And don’t have dreams like that in the future.”

“…Hehe, can I control that?”

“Anyway, you can stop hugging me now.”

That’s when it happened.

“Yes, Lily, will you let Ed go now?”

“…!”

When I looked up, Lara was standing right next to me and Lily, holding a letter in one hand.

Lara’s expression was completely blank.

“Oh, Mom…”

“…It’s okay, Lily. Ed just looked like he was having a hard time, right?”

“…Y-yes. He looked like he had no energy…”

“That’s understandable.”

Lara relaxed her expression, patted Lily’s head, and spoke to me.

“Ed, a letter came, and the content is something to think about. If you’re too tired now, do you want to look at it tomorrow?”

“No, it’s okay. Give it here.”

“Okay, here.”

Lara handed me the letter.

The bright yellow envelope was already torn open, as if Lara had already taken it out to look at it.

I took out the green letter paper from the envelope and quickly scanned it with my eyes.

First of all, the superficial content was a request to carry out charitable projects such as free meals in the capital, just like in Plavis.

However, the letter was by no means begging for the charity of Baron Salvie.

Rather, it was closer to a letter containing the information I wanted.

The letter seemed to clearly express concern that Robin’s Boldiras family was continuing to grow stronger.

The support of the general public for the Boldiras family was greatly influenced by Robin’s welfare projects,

Robin’s reckless welfare projects had almost depleted his money, and currently, it seemed that the Valguir Dukedom was supporting the money used for the projects.

The Valguir Dukedom was constantly aiming for the Emperor’s seat,

The letter expressed concern that the Dukedom would use the power and support of the Hero to overthrow the Emperor.

The conclusion was that they wanted Baron Salvie to do a welfare project that would threaten Robin’s welfare project.

“This letter contains the Emperor’s position, but who the hell sent it?”

“That’s the thing, there’s no name.”

“What?”

I looked at the envelope and the letter paper, but there was no name written anywhere.

Lara rested her chin on her hand and pondered.

As I put the letter down, Lily started looking at the letter.

Lara tapped her chin with her finger and said.

“When I went down to receive the letter, a servant wearing very high-quality clothes politely delivered it, so it seems clear that it was sent by an aide to the Emperor.”

“From the Emperor’s side, directly?”

“Besides, they said, ‘Please be sure to deliver it to the masked Baron Salvie.’ That means they know what you look like.”

“There are rumors spreading that a crazy rich man is staying at the hotel, but I’ve only been here for about two days?”

“That’s right. Whoever it is, they have too much information too quickly.”

“Besides, it’s strange that the letter contains so much detail about the Robin family’s situation. This is information that almost only an insider would know.”

“Who the hell is it…?”

Lara was lost in thought with her arms crossed, and

Lily was looking for hidden codes in the letter.

I closed my eyes and organized my thoughts.

If they know what I look like, they must have met me or at least seen me.

Besides, they must be an aide to the Emperor and be familiar with the Robin family’s situation.

Who could that be?

…

..

.

Ah,

“Lily, the letter, please.”

“Ah, yes.”

I took the letter from Lily.

The bright yellow envelope and the emerald green letter paper.

“I know.”

“What? Who is it?”

“…Ha, that man Piadu and everyone with the Emperor’s succession rights, are they all this quick to act?”

“What?”

“It hasn’t even been 5 hours since we met…”

Yellow hair and green eyes.

The Emperor’s daughter and Daniel’s fiancée.

“Princess Elizabeth Siora.”

It was definitely a letter from the Princess asking me to lend her my strength to fight against the Boldiras family and the Valguir family.

I don’t know why Daniel’s fiancée is hostile to Robin’s family, but I suddenly like that Princess a lot.

“I also have business with those two families. Princess-nim.”

I picked up the mask and got up from the sofa.

“Lara, I’ll be away for about ten days from now, so please deal with anyone who comes looking for me in the meantime.”

“Ed? Where are you going for ten days…”

I shook the mask at Lara and said.

“The Demon King’s Castle.”

“What? Why there.”

“Why else,”

I put the mask on my face.

The thoughts and ideas in my head click into place.

The stress and resentment I’ve received all day are piling up, becoming a plan.

A brilliant plan to bring down Robin.

“Because I need a lot of money.”

.