Chapter 224 : Chapter 224
Chapter 224
Sihan spread out a map depicting the entire world.
Blue Light's eyebrow twitched.
"No one would believe that a backwater territory like this has a world map that even Imperial headquarters hasn't charted."
"I happen to be insanely good at what I do."
Blue Light said nothing and pointed to a section of the map.
The northeast of the Empire.
Beyond even the Kingdom of Namress and the Kingdom of Triban.
Far past the Empire's borders, at the edge of the continent.
A place where snow-covered glaciers outnumbered any trace of vegetation.
The harshest land beyond the Empire's reach on the entire continent.
Aislard.
"He's there?"
"Do you know what sells the most in Aislard?"
"Ice? Or maybe...... fur pelts from the animals that live there?"
A land of bitter winter year-round.
Animals surviving in such conditions would inevitably have tough hides and thick pelts.
Aislard fur coats were so popular they were considered essential gear for any traveler.
But Blue Light wore a thin, acrid smile.
"That's the story on the surface. The shadow market is different."
"What is it?"
"People."
Blue Light smiled.
"They bear children, and they sell them."
"......"
The story was shocking enough to seal our mouths shut.
Rozalin, Pan, and even Yuria.
All of them appeared to be hearing this for the first time, their faces frozen stiff.
"Of course, they don't bear children to sell them. Who would? They simply have to abandon children to survive."
Blue Light continued with a quiet heh heh.
What Aislard lacked most was food.
The land was so cold and barren that the only things growing were coarse, gnarled trees.
They bore almost no fruit, and the bark was bitter.
Grass grew occasionally, but most of it was poisonous.
People still ate it and starved to death regardless.
Hunting was the only way to get by, and if that failed, they had to import food.
To import, they needed to sell local goods.
Pelts, ice, timber, minerals......
They sold everything, but the most valuable commodity was people.
"Selling a person means one fewer mouth to feed."
"How can they not know how precious their own children are?!"
"It's a question of whether the entire family dies, or one person is sent away so the rest can live."
Blue Light said that with a shrug.
"Children don't survive long in Aislard's environment anyway. Maybe two out of ten make it."
So they kept the children likely to survive and sold the rest.
"In a way, it might even be a better opportunity for them."
Among those sent away, many adapted well to the Empire and survived.
"Of course, most end up in the Underground Magic Tower. Others are taken by intelligence units and raised as assassins. Or...... well, they become entertaining playthings."
It was a horrific story.
Children condemned to misery simply for the circumstances of their birth.
All it would've taken was providing opportunities, sending aid, establishing fair trade......
"Teacher."
Yuria had drawn close at some point and was gently tugging my arm.
Without realizing it, I'd been clenching my fists and grinding my teeth.
"......Right."
I exhaled.
Watching us, Blue Light let out another thin, acrid laugh.
"Sentimental, aren't you."
"If those children had been raised properly, they could've become fine students here. Instead, the Underground Magic Tower...... assassins......"
"As I said, most of them would've died in Aislard's brutal cold anyway. Being sold might genuinely be the happier fate. I mean that sincerely."
I stared at Blue Light.
Skin pale enough to look almost blanched, and deep, dark indigo hair.
"You're from Aislard."
"Blue Moon, Dark Moon, and Red Moon are roughly Aislard's second-biggest customers."
"Who's first?"
"The Underground Magic Tower, but you needn't think too negatively. Plenty of them end up as test subjects, sure, but the ones with talent for black magic become full members of the Underground Tower."
He set down his coffee cup after saying that.
Blue Light had been sipping coffee throughout the conversation.
He looked as though his throat was burning.
His expression had seemed relaxed, but evidently his mouth had been drier than he'd let on.
"That's where Avril has been going."
"......"
"The Goldline Merchant Guild dealt in military supplies to begin with. Avril bet on the safest, most rational, most proven destination he could reach."
Blue Light sank into the sofa, closed his eyes, and leaned back as though he had nothing more to say.
"Ask Abrahal for the details. He'll have answers."
***
"So that's where he went......"
Abrahal let out a very deep sigh.
His expression was a tangle of emotions.
"I suppose I'd half expected it. Given the flow of Goldline's operations, that was the only place left for him to go."
The Goldline Merchant Guild's children had scattered and were effectively at war.
Avril had used my swordsmanship manual as bait to sow discord, pitting Abrahal and the other siblings against each other to seize control of the guild.
That war was still ongoing.
Abrahal had won on most fronts, but Avril alone had eluded him.
He'd vanished completely from the Empire and gone into hiding.
"Honestly, I've never liked Aislard. I despise that whole pipeline."
"That sounds like you, Abrahal."
Abrahal had always walked the straight and narrow.
He had a brilliant intuition that could grasp a situation from just a few scraps of information.
The fact that Avril—a regressor—barely managed a draw against Abrahal spoke volumes.
And yet, despite all that, Abrahal was surprisingly unpretentious.
At first I'd assumed it was calculated—a way to win my favor.
It wasn't.
Even after joining Akarind Academy, Abrahal had remained exactly the same.
A war merchant who nonetheless maintained a minimum standard of ethics and morality.
That was why I liked Abrahal.
"Apparently Avril's been using this as a base for all sorts of schemes. He's made contact with everyone from the Underground Magic Tower to Red Moon."
"He needs to be dealt with."
Even Abrahal was stern and cold when it came to Avril.
He had no choice.
"Whew. What an ungrateful brat of a youngest sibling. Of all places......"
Abrahal hesitated—uncharacteristically—then made an irritated face.
"Look, I don't know where Avril would be hiding. That's not my domain."
I, he'd said. Meaning someone else would know.
And the way he was struggling with it suggested an awkward relationship with that person.
"Another sibling knows?"
"He wouldn't hide somewhere that easy to find. So......"
Abrahal blew out a long breath.
"Our mother would know."
"Your mother?"
"The mother who handed everything in Goldline to her children and disappeared."
The former Goldline Guild Master had been a woman?
I'd thought the head—the father—had been a man.
"She was like a general. Kept her hair short. Anyone who didn't know her well could easily mistake her for a man."
"I see."
I could roughly guess why Abrahal was reluctant.
We were trying to eliminate Avril.
And now we had to approach Avril's own mother and ask for the hiding place of the son we intended to kill.
There was no way she'd tell us......
"She'll tell us."
What?
Abrahal waved his hand as if that wasn't the concern.
"She's the one who quietly encouraged her own children to fight each other in the first place. Think of the Emperor. When the throne's threatened, does any emperor spare his own offspring?"
"No."
"It's similar. Mother will gladly reveal Avril's hideout. But she'll also tip Avril off. She'll tell him his brother is coming to kill him."
"That's...... an unusual person."
"Yeah. Unusual. That's why it's difficult. Dammit. Three years I've managed to avoid meeting her, and now......"
Abrahal scratched the back of his head vigorously.
"Fine. I'll send word to Mother that I'd like to meet. Get ready to travel."
He said that and left.
And three days later.
"Mother says she'll come in person."
"In person?"
"She retired and now wanders the world as a hobby. Her feet were probably itching."
Saying her feet were itching about his own birth mother.
Abrahal's way of speaking was remarkably blunt. I was about to say something when—
"Is that how you talk about your own mother, you brat?"
A crisp voice shot up from behind him.
Before I could react, someone appeared from behind and delivered a solid kick to Abrahal's rear.
Abrahal stumbled forward and faceplanted on the ground.
"I'll kick your backside for real."
"......You already did, Mother."
She was a striking middle-aged woman.
Her hair had faded to a beautiful white and was cropped close to the scalp.
Fine lines marked her eyes, cheeks, and forehead, but what registered first was her vitality.
Her eyes were as sharp as Abrahal's and Avril's, her height appeared to be around 170 centimeters—though heeled boots made her look taller.
Her shoulders were broader than most men's, and her posture, the placement of her arms, her balance—
"Expert?"
"Oh ho. You're the one who coined those standards, aren't you?"
I was surprised.
For someone like Perdius or a few other exceptional warriors, being Expert or higher wouldn't have been remarkable.
They'd already made names for themselves; once they had the fundamentals, they could reach extraordinary heights.
But this woman had never appeared in any historical record I knew of.
"Pleased to meet you. Merea Goldline, Guild Master of Goldline!"
"You're strong."
"Ha ha ha! That's the first thing you notice? Fair enough. But think about it—were my sons and daughters weak?"
Come to think of it, Avril had been strong too.
Skilled enough to tear out one of Sordian's eyes in an instant.
An advanced assassination technique.
I'd wondered where he'd learned it.
"Abrahal is the weak one."
"He always was. His mind spins like a top but his body's as lazy as they come. Rotten discipline."
"Mother, please......"
"What, did I say anything wrong? Hm?"
Merea growled with the face of a wild predator.
That someone so viscerally direct had been the head of the world's largest merchant guild.
It was a curious feeling in many ways.
"So. This handsome young man is going to kill my son?"
But that curious feeling was shattered when she abruptly thrust her face into mine.
Her predatory red eyes radiated a menacing light.
'But......'
The menace was all surface. Strangely, she didn't feel threatening.
It wasn't a matter of skill.
How to put it—this person.
She didn't dislike me.
"Yes."
"I see. Got it. So what are you offering?"
"You want compensation?"
"I'm a merchant. I built Goldline."
She built Goldline.
That single statement said everything.
Right. Avril had been someone who placed even his own honor and pride on the scales as commodities to be traded.
If Merea was the same sort of person—
"I'll offer compensation you can't refuse."
Akarind Academy had no shortage of things to offer.
I immediately led Merea toward Sihan's research wing.
With so many valuable assets there, I figured we'd be able to put forward an excellent bargaining piece.
"What's this? You've brought quite the eclectic entourage."
"Could we show her some of the ore?"
"Huh? Hey, no way!"
Sihan let out something close to a scream and shook his head, face blanching.
"Why would you give that away?! We'll do good research with it! It's great, I'm telling you! If we play this right, we could mass-produce Homunculi and, you know, send self-detonating Homunculi at the demons without a single human casualt—"
"Not that one. I mean the Iron Eater's."
The moment I finished, Sihan's tearful expression brightened instantly.
"Right? You wouldn't?"
"There's plenty of Iron Eater ore, isn't there?"
"Oh, tons! I can even make more! Want me to go rip some off the Belmain Royal Castle?"
"That might not be a bad idea. Once our current issues are sorted, let's do that. For now, though—here."
I stepped aside and gestured toward Merea.
And in that moment.
"Wait...... you......"
"Sihan......?"
The two recognized each other.