Ch.835Hush’s Daily Report

# Landenburg Castle

The morning at Landenburg Castle—now called the Royal Palace of Hestella—begins slightly earlier than sunrise.

While Haschal and the members of the Thousand Sword Corps, knights and soldiers would only wake up shortly after six, the maids responsible for managing the castle had to rise before everyone else to prepare for the day ahead.

Maids wake at 4 AM. Others at 6 AM. Though not codified by law, these were the customary waking hours at the Hestella Royal Palace.

Except for administrative officials who forfeited their right to sleep until completing whatever task they had been assigned.

‘Morning already…’

The morning of Hush, a knight of mixed black human and fairy heritage, also began earlier than most.

‘Time to get to work.’

Of course, she had to wake up early not to prepare morning services like the maids, but to faithfully carry out the mission Haschal had assigned to her.

======[ Hush’s Daily Report ]======

5 AM.

After a simple breakfast of bread with bacon, I quickly wash to remove my body scent and head toward the Regent’s bedroom. Quietly, so as not to be noticed by others, using the ceiling passages instead of the corridors.

The secret passages, secretly built with the help of mages during the expansion of Landenburg Castle into a royal palace, were full of dust due to lack of maintenance, but they were useful enough to make this inconvenience worthwhile.

I could thoroughly examine the interior of the castle without being detected by anyone.

Like now.

‘There she goes again…’

Eleonora, the woman who reluctantly accepted the position of Regent at Haschal’s insistence, was sleeping quietly on her luxurious bed, breathing softly. In the same blanket as my second surveillance target, the maid Belneisia Valenstein.

Judging by the nightgowns they wore, they didn’t seem to have done “that kind of thing.”

A maid sleeping with her mistress wasn’t actually that rare. I had seen it many times while carrying out assassination missions as a member of the Five Swords.

While male nobles typically preferred maids they could touch without consequences, noblewomen and noble ladies tended to prefer sleeping with maids with whom they had close relationships.

Bringing in a man was too dangerous, and their pride as nobles wouldn’t allow them to embrace a mere maid.

For such reasons, same-sex relationships with maids were secretly popular among female nobles.

Peculiarly, those two didn’t seem to have mixed bodies yet…

‘It’s not my concern.’

It was none of my business. Whether Eleonora and Belneisia rubbed against each other until their down-filled bed turned into a waterbed, or scissored until their legs broke, what did it matter to me?

My orders were to monitor whether the two posed a threat to Hestella, not to interfere with their private sexual preferences.

So I simply watched silently until they woke up, concealing myself in the darkness of the passage.

– Ssssk…

Half-closing my eyes and concentrating to draw in the darkness, shadows crawled up my skin and covered my entire body, erasing all traces of my presence.

Aura, breathing, heartbeat, smell, small noises, and even faint silhouettes—all of it.

Shadow Concealment.

The ability to perfectly hide one’s presence by concealing oneself in darkness.

It was a blessing that all black-skinned people—a race classified as a human-like species similar to the Ka’har—were born with naturally.

‘Well, not all of them, actually.’

Originally, the blessing of Shadow Concealment was an ability possessed only by those of noble bloodlines among black humans.

Now, all black humans possessed the blessing of Shadow Concealment.

Why? For an obvious reason.

Those who couldn’t hide had long since been captured and killed, so naturally only those with the blessing survived to pass on their bloodline.

Of course, even they were now few in number.

Living a lifetime hidden in darkness, or emerging into the light only to be captured and enslaved—those were the only two choices given to black humans, so it was only natural that their numbers dwindled as the years passed.

Moreover, there was once a mass slaughter of innocent black humans who were blamed for a curse developed by a mage named Valkers that caused fetuses to be born with black skin, which he spread among noblewomen across all social strata.

…Anyway, though only half, I too had black human blood. That’s why I could use the blessing of Shadow Concealment.

Although its effectiveness was somewhat reduced due to my mixed fairy blood…

Still, unless someone had senses that transcended even fairies or beasts, like Haschal, they wouldn’t be able to detect my presence.

—-

1 PM. Weather: clear. Back alleys: dark. The smell wafting through my nose: the stench of garbage and vomit.

During the post-lunch rest period with the sun shining brightly, I came out to the streets of Landenburg and hid in the back alleys, tailing Belneisia.

Surveillance target #1, Eleonora, would be sealed in her office all day, buried under mountains of paperwork.

So I judged it more efficient to monitor Belneisia during the daytime.

‘Visited a bookstore and purchased three books. Genre: ordinary romance novels. Afterward, had a light lunch at a restaurant in the corner of the shopping district. Stopped by a high-end general store to buy a couple of types of tea leaves, then visited a fabric shop to order an outfit. Presumably running errands for Regent Eleonora. Currently resting on a park bench.’

I followed Belneisia from a distance, observing her every move. I wondered if she might be attempting to make contact with someone we shouldn’t know about.

‘Nothing particularly suspicious… is she really just running errands?’

However, even after tailing her for nearly two hours, Belneisia just went around the shopping district buying or looking at items, showing no signs of contacting any suspicious individuals.

‘I’d like to interrogate all the merchants this girl dealt with, but… that would only escalate the problem.’

If I found evidence of betrayal, that would be one thing, but if I didn’t, it would mean a half-black, half-fairy slave was abusing her master’s authority.

Haschal wouldn’t want me, whom he assigned to monitor them, to cause a major incident that would damage his reputation.

‘Then… should I use “that method” after all?’

So instead of simple surveillance, I decided to create a situation where Belneisia would have no choice but to reveal her true identity. Using a classic method—classic because it was reliable.

“Mmph?! Mmmmph!”

In other words, I had Belneisia, who was walking down the street, grabbed and dragged into a dark back alley.

“Where do you think you’re going? Can’t you stay still?”

“Rick! Bring a gag! Let’s shut this wench’s mouth!”

Of course, the perpetrators weren’t me but the thugs from this neighborhood’s back alleys.

Just as light is always followed by shadow, cities always harbor back alleys and the ruffians who claim them as their territory.

Even with regular patrols by paladins and knights, it was impossible to completely eradicate the thugs who grew like weeds.

Coming from the back alleys myself, I knew this fact better than anyone, so when I received orders to monitor Eleonora and Belneisia, I secretly visited the back alleys and subjugated several potential criminals there.

It wasn’t difficult. Recruiting back alley thugs and controlling them with drugs to increase their numbers was a specialty of the Five Swords.

So I walked through the back alleys with my ears covered and my face painted white, subduing the monkeys who were lured by the desire to create a half-fairy and making them my subordinates.

– Crack!

Teaching them the lesson that when five humans gather in one place, at least one is bound to be trash.

The four thugs, covered in their comrade’s blood, trembled and swore allegiance as they watched their companion turn into finely chopped food waste rolling on the ground.

I simply handed each of them a poisoned candy, creating four dogs—a process I repeated several times.

That’s how I obtained twenty-four dogs.

They weren’t particularly trustworthy dogs—they would have fled the city entirely if not for the poisoned candy…

‘They’re disposable anyway.’

The loyalty of sewer dogs meant to be used and discarded wasn’t worth even the leftover scraps from the lord’s castle banquet.

And today, I selected four particularly nasty dogs from among them, taught them Belneisia’s appearance and dress, and ordered them to kidnap her into a back alley and break her at the first opportunity.

I didn’t actually intend to let her be raped; I just wanted to check her reaction.

Belneisia Valenstein, publicly known as an ordinary fallen noble lady, would find it impossible to physically fend off four grown men.

If she didn’t helplessly submit to rape and instead resisted to protect her chastity, killing the four dogs I sent…

That would mean Belneisia was hiding her strength—undeniable evidence of suspicion.

‘Now, what will you do?’

Hidden in the darkness far from the thugs, I silently observed the ash-haired girl struggling as her limbs were restrained.

And.

======[ Belneisia ]======

‘What kind of outrage is this?’

Werner Valenstein.

Once known as the Ghost Blade but now trapped in a girl’s body and bearing the false name Belneisia, the man trembled with bewilderment and dismay.

In his nearly seventy years of life, he had never imagined finding himself in such a situation.

“Look at this. This wench, I thought she was just a kid, but surprisingly…”

A vagrant with a lewd smile fondling her bodice. Another thug was firmly gripping her arms like handcuffs, while the remaining two were holding her legs, trying to spread them apart.

A sudden rape attempt. It was terribly disconcerting for a seventy-year-old.

Was it because of the naked, lust-filled gazes slithering over her body like snakes? She felt something like shame rather than anger bubbling up in her stomach.

‘How did I, the Ghost Blade Valenstein, end up in such a predicament?!’

The humiliation darkening her mind.

Belneisia gritted her teeth and glared at them, but the four men, surrendered to their desires, were too busy exposing the flesh beneath her disheveled bodice to care about her glare.

In this situation, she would inevitably be raped. Yet, Belneisia couldn’t offer any resistance.

Despite the fact that the four men holding her were mere thugs who could be annihilated with a single swing of her arm using the power of Karma.

‘Damn you, Feilandria…!’

She, Belneisia, was under Feilandria’s prohibition.

A mandatory restriction that prevented her from even attempting any action that might reveal her identity to Haschal.

Because of this restriction, Belneisia couldn’t resist despite facing the most desperate crisis of her life.

If she drew upon the power of Karma to slaughter these vagrants, the observer watching from somewhere—Hush—would immediately report it to Haschal.

‘The most dangerous black person is the one you can’t see!’

Even if she somehow found that half-fairy black person and silenced her, the moment Hush disappeared, Haschal would immediately turn against them. It was a complete dead end.

‘Me, being violated? By men? And by such worthless vagrants at that?!’

Her green triple-pupiled eyes trembled violently like an earthquake.

The tongue licking her cheek and the rough hands beginning to knead her exposed bare skin.

The sensation like hundreds of halved cockroaches crawling on her skin, dripping bodily fluids, sent Belneisia into a panic, her body trembling despite her decades of life.

To such an extent that Hush, who was monitoring the scene, tilted her head wondering if she had misjudged.

“Mmph, mmph…! Let go of me…!”

Though Belneisia, unskilled in magic, didn’t know this fact, just as the mind affects the body, the body also affects the mind.

Valenstein’s soul, settled in a body optimized for his soul, was gradually changing due to its high compatibility. Changing to match the female body his soul had settled in.

That was likely why the man once called the Empire’s First Sword had fallen into panic over such a crisis.