novelraw Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148: Glacier (4)
Ekampote thrived on trade.
I was planning to use its merchant guild.
By opening trade with the North, I could smuggle out the mages one by one.
In my opinion, that was enough.
Even if the migration were discovered, there was little the Rebellion Faction could do.
Would they be crazy enough to send a precious high-Rank mage to the North?
The grudge for Pedro would be directed at Harad and Ellen, and the Liberation Faction wouldn't stop the leaving mages.
But Anton was more cautious than I thought. He cared as much for the remaining Liberation Faction as he did for their own safety.
It would be frustrating if he were a stranger, but it was a welcome tendency if I planned to embrace them.
Because Anton and the mages he managed were unlikely to be exposed.
Getting the corpses itself was an easy task.
However, secretly gathering unclaimed bodies was harder than I thought.
At least for Ocellin Ekampote.
She was a countess, but she couldn't use her title. If she procured the bodies with the power of Ekampote, rumors would spread.
But for Ellen, it was a very easy task. A single letter was all it took.
That letter was delivered to a certain salt merchant in Ekampote, and that salt merchant was one of the informants employed by the Serzila Intelligence Bureau.
Ocellin Ekampote was flabbergasted by that fact, and I was once again impressed by the manager named Anton.
It meant that neither had discovered the other.
Anyway, five days after sending the letter, a carriage disguised as one from the Ekampote merchant guild arrived at the warehouse building.
“Lady Ellen.”
The coachman looked around for a moment and then bowed his head slightly to Ellen.
Ellen was a member of the Intelligence Bureau or a collateral branch of Serzila.
Not just any collateral branch.
Ellen Serzila was the daughter of the Intelligence Bureau Director.
And in truth, she was the Grand Heir.
So with a single letter, she could use the Intelligence Bureau as she pleased.
‘The daughter the Intelligence Bureau Director dotes on. That must be the concept.’
It wasn't entirely wrong.
In reality, the one who doted on her was Grand Duke Aratus.
“Thank you, Jenkinson.”
Ellen seemed to have memorized all the names of the Intelligence Bureau agents.
The Elaine of the past life had been the same.
In the carriage, there were fifteen corpses piled up instead of goods.
Jenkinson moved the corpses one by one into the warehouse building.
Inside, each of the mages took a corpse and placed it where they usually worked.
“A few need to be near the entrance. They need to look like they died trying to escape.”
I carefully set the positions of the corpses.
These corpses had to have died from being purified.
“Will you be alright?”
I asked Ocellin, who had come back from moving a corpse to the top floor of the building. She had also decided to move. She had chosen to abandon her title of countess.
“It's a precious position. And you haven't been discovered yet.”
“It was a nerve-wracking position.”
Ocellin had a relieved face.
“The only thing I felt since I was born a noble was the bad side. Ah. Did that sound like a complaint from someone who has everything?”
“I understand, since I was also a noble.”
“Pardon?”
Ocellin's eyes widened.
“Pardon?”
“I was from Iagar.”
“Ah.”
Ocellin's mouth fell open.
It seemed Iagar was a fairly famous incident even among the Liberation Tower.
‘And yet, no one in the Rebellion Faction knows my face.’
I never thought the past where I lived like an idiot would be of help.
“Hosek.”
“Y-yes!”
I called out to Hosek, who was loitering at the entrance. He was the mage whose Origin was an eraser.
He had a face as if he had made some big decision, but it was a move that was worth being nervous about. Even though he had moved many times, it would be his first time in the North.
“Could you come here?”
I took Hosek into the carriage. Hosek wrinkled his face and covered his nose. The characteristic stench of corpses was overwhelming. The place was packed with traces left by the corpses.
“Erase it.”
“Pardon?”
“Erase anything. If you can erase it, then all of it.”
Hosek tilted his head but manifested his magic. It was a white, square-shaped rubber.
Hosek rubbed the carriage floor with it.
The spot where the eraser had passed became clean. It was a spot where there had been rotten blood.
The more Hosek's hand moved, the cleaner the carriage became. Not only that. When Hosek rubbed the air, the stench weakened.
‘Erasing traces. So that's the concept.’
Hosek can even erase smells.
Is that all? The higher his Rank becomes, the more things he will be able to erase.
“That's enough.”
When Hosek had manifested his magic about ten times, the carriage became as clean as new. Even the smell was the smell of something new.
“An excellent Origin, truly.”
“Pardon?”
“How you live is your freedom, but I hope you don't give up. It's an Origin that's a waste to just leave it.”
Hosek had a moved face.
It must have been because Pedro had treated his Origin like trash earlier.
A mage has a special feeling for their Origin.
It was an unavoidable emotion even for a continental mage who lived in hiding.
Anton's corpse position was the last.
The cautious man, after much thought, placed the corpse that would play his role in the middle of the first floor of the warehouse building.
“It's done.”
Anton had a tearful face.
He must have imagined that he would die like this if he were to die. It was a great empathy. That empathy must have been the reason he became a manager.
“Go ahead.”
The carriage that had brought the corpses and burned them took the mages and left.
I waited until they had left the territory, and then set fire to the warehouse building.
It wasn't a pure white fire resembling divine power, but it was enough for arson.
“Is this the end?”
“It's all the same when it turns to ash anyway.”
The corpses inside would have died in a pure white fire.
The people who found them would think so.
“That's true, but shouldn't we be more thorough?”
Ellen asked.
“How?”
“There's no priest in Ekampote right now.”
We need someone who has witnessed a priest.
That's what Ellen was saying.
“That is the most certain way.”
Wait for the priest of Ekampote, Benach, bewitch Benach or the priest who came with him with Ocellin's voice, and set fire through that priest….
“It's a troublesome task, and it will take a long time.”
“What if it's considered just arson?”
“It probably won't be, since Countess Ocellin Ekampote is also inside.”
The orphanage director and the countess died together in a warehouse building where criminals work.
It was a death that was bound to be suspicious.
“An inquisitor has been here. The territorial residents will think so.”
Inquisitors were wanderers.
They search for devils and cry out their names, but they do not go around advertising that they have killed them.
* * *
Ellen picked me up in her arms and secretly jumped over the castle wall.
Because if I jumped over the wall alone, I would be discovered.
I was a slow mage compared to a knight, and my characteristic presence was also a problem that could not be ignored.
“You can put me down now.”
“This is the most secretive way.”
“It doesn't matter from now on.”
We had already jumped over the wall.
But Ellen was still holding me like a princess.
“Alright, then.”
Ellen put me down as if doing me a favor.
“By the way, aren't you too light?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You need to eat more. Your vessel is too weak and light.”
“……”
Everything would be light in Ellen's hands.
“I'll try. I was planning to build more muscle anyway.”
The Harad of the past life was an escort knight.
He was quite sturdy, but he was no match for a northern knight.
I was planning to get a little bigger in this life.
“You don't have to build muscle.”
“Why.”
“You're perfect right now. Or maybe not? I think it would be okay if you got a little bigger.”
Ellen scanned my entire body with a serious face. It felt like I was being appraised.
The carriage carrying the Liberation Faction had gone west and then north.
To others, it was for trade, but in reality, it was a route for them to move to the North.
That route was absurdly slow.
This was because Hosek was erasing the traces as they went with his eraser.
Thanks to that, Ellen and I were able to find the carriage quickly.
The agent, Jenkinson, who had noticed the two of them, stopped the carriage.
Hosek, who had been trailing behind, was panting.
“Just endure it a little longer. If we go a little further, you won't have to erase it.”
He was only erasing it because they were still near Ekampote.
Once they were some distance away, there would be no need to erase the carriage tracks.
“Aren't you going with us?”
Hosek asked at my attitude of speaking like it was someone else's business.
“Aren't you going, brother?”
Duke, who had heard the voice, peeked his head out of the carriage.
“I'll go later. I still have things to do.”
Grand Heir Elaine had accepted the Empire's invitation.
That's why Ellen was able to come out on an excursion.
‘No. Did she accept it because she wanted to come out?’
Either way, Ellen had to go to the Empire.
Even if she didn't meet the imperial family, she would have to show her face in the capital.
That was the minimum courtesy.
Even though she had decided to live as she pleased, she had to protect the Grand Heir Elaine who, in reality, couldn't live as she pleased.
I thought so.
“Aren't you getting on?”
Ellen was already on the coachman's seat.
Are you going to walk back?”
“……?”
I tilted my head.
“The capital, aren't you going?”
“Why would I go there? It's the Grand Heir who's going.”
Ellen was acting more as she pleased than I had thought.
* * *
In a place where there is no tiger, the fox is the king.
Here, the king was Ellen. She was a collateral branch of Serzila, and the daughter of the Intelligence Bureau Director.
‘He doesn't know.’
Jenkinson didn't seem to know that Ellen was Elaine.
It was a secret. Only a handful of people in the Intelligence Bureau would know.
It was also proof of Arika's competence. That woman knows Ellen's identity. It meant she had already been designated as a key figure in the Intelligence Bureau.
“Lady Ellen.”
Agent Jenkinson quietly began to speak.
“The imperial family is looking for the Grand Heir, who has disappeared.”
“Oh dear.”
Ellen picked her ear as if it were someone else's business.
“As a condition for granting this request, the Intelligence Bureau Director has given you an order, Lady Ellen.”
“An order?”
“Yes. He says that you are to find the Grand Heir.”
It meant to stop playing around and go to the capital at once.
“…Pardon?”
Ellen denied reality for a moment.
She didn't say anything else.
To my eyes, it seemed she couldn't say anything else.
‘She can't do anything against the Intelligence Bureau Director.’
It was a strange power dynamic.
Grand Duke Aratus couldn't say a word to Ellen, and such an Ellen was weak against the Intelligence Bureau Director.
‘The Intelligence Bureau Director.’
I don't know the details.
The Intelligence Bureau operated mainly on the continent.
So in my past life, there was no particular connection.
The current Intelligence Bureau Director dies before Elaine becomes the Grand Duke.
‘I have to stop that too.’
In terms of timing, there was still plenty of time.
If I get a chance to meet him before that, I'll have more time.
The more you know, the easier it is to deal with.
‘I'll probably meet him this time.’
The regressed Harad was not Elaine, but Ellen's escort.
The Intelligence Bureau Director, who acted as her mother, would have no choice but to bite.
“And, mage Harad. The Intelligence Bureau Director is very interested in you.”
As expected.
I grinned.
“Tell him I'm looking forward to it too. That I would like to see him soon.”
“……”
Jenkinson did not answer.
He was displeased, but he seemed to be holding back because of Ellen next to him.
Unlike the Knights, I had not yet been recognized by the Intelligence Bureau.
With the Intelligence Bureau, we were just from the same Serzila, but we were on distant terms.
“Anyway, Lady Ellen.”
“……What.”
“The Intelligence Bureau Director said he will check personally. Whether you find the Grand Heir and go to the capital or not.”
It was the final blow.
Now, Ellen had to go to the capital, even if it killed her.
“I'll try.”
“He says you must succeed.”
“……”
“He says you can do it, Lady Ellen…”
Ellen had a face of resignation.
I had wondered why Elaine had grown up so stiffly under the coddling Grand Duke Aratus.
‘The Intelligence Bureau Director was the reins.’
For Elaine to truly live as she pleased, she had to get rid of the obstacle that was the Intelligence Bureau Director.
‘But for now, I'm glad.’
Ellen might not know, but I wanted to go to the capital.
‘I should take a look at the capital too.’
The timing was important.
-Enverque is an idiot.
The Elaine of the past life always said that.
But at this time, there is one exceptional Enverque in the capital of the Empire.