Chapter 53 : Chapter 53
Chapter 53. The Black Market
I, along with Michelle, visited the residence where Elliot and Rodrigo were staying.
“As a matter of fact, I was investigating the pendant.”
Rodrigo said, taking out the half-pendant.
“There were no families in Poinus that use a bull as their crest. I suspect it might be the symbol of an organization rather than a family.”
“Have you tried to identify which organization?”
“I apologize. I haven’t gotten that far. But I did find this.”
Rodrigo took out a new pendant.
“I brought it because it’s very similar to the existing pendant.”
I placed the half-pendant and the one Rodrigo brought side by side to compare them. The bull’s face part was identical. Since there was no way to check the rest, I couldn’t say they were the same, but it seemed likely that a similar design was engraved on it.
“Where did you get this?”
“I obtained it from a place called the Black Market.”
At Rodrigo’s words, my brow furrowed.
‘It’s still around?’
The Black Market was a market used by people who lived outside the law. It was a place where all sorts of illegal goods like drugs, slaves, and unauthorized weapons were traded.
Of course, there were also regular goods. But they didn’t sell regular goods in a regular way.
A prime example was the time they manipulated grain prices.
There was a year when there was a particularly bad harvest due to a lack of rain. The amount of grain released to the market was only half that of a normal year. Naturally, the price of grain more than doubled. This was when the merchants of the Black Market intervened. They bought up the grain released to the market, even paying a premium for it.
Then, they sold it to the customers who visited the Black Market. Those customers took the purchased grain and went to the regular market, putting it up for sale at three times the price they had paid.
The price of grain skyrocketed to more than ten times its original price.
‘Trashy bastards who ruin the market.’
People began to starve to death in droves. Not only commoners but also nobles with weak foundations suffered the same fate. In some places, incidents of cannibalism occurred. In provinces where public authority was weak, uprisings broke out. Thus, the flames of chaos spread throughout the country and across the continent.
‘That’s why I mobilized the troops.’
I had done my best to erase the Black Market, and even its shadow, from the world. But they didn’t just stand by. There was no way that people who did illegal things would be empty-handed.
‘It was ten years. Ten years.’
All the battles were guerrilla warfare.
Even if the Black Market guys were strong, they were no match for the regular army, which had experienced numerous battlefields. So, they chose a method to harass the empire’s army. They thought that if the battles continued for a long time, fatigue would accumulate, and then I would give up on subjugating the Black Market. But their opponent was Maximilian Leonhardt, me.
‘I thought I had completely erased it…’
I was wrong. I was just suppressing it with force.
I let out a long sigh and picked up the pendant.
“Where did you say the Black Market is?”
I had to go there and find out who the pendant came from, whether they knew the Hoso Merchant Guild or were members of it, and how the Black Market operated.
***
Hans, with a serious expression, looked at the man sitting in front of him.
“1st Circle?”
“That’s right. You could say he’s 1st Circle. But he’s on a different level from your ordinary 1st Circle. A whole different level.”
The man said, stroking his mustache with a sly face.
Hans took a deep breath and grabbed the sword he had placed next to him.
“If you’re 1st Circle, then block this.”
Slice!
A red line appeared on the hand of the man who was stroking his mustache. The man’s face twisted violently.
“Ugh, uwaaaaah!”
Along with the man’s scream, his hand fell to the floor with a thud! From the wrist that had lost its hand, red blood flowed out in streams.
Hans wiped the blood that had splattered on his face with a handkerchief and snorted.
“You are different from an ordinary 1st Circle, not even being able to block that. Hey! Get this out of here.”
With a clatter, two people entered. They gasped when they saw the man with the severed hand.
“What are you doing? Not getting it out?”
“Ye-yes, Your Highness.”
The two people forcibly grabbed the man who was writhing in pain and dragged him outside.
Hans clicked his tongue as he looked at the pool of blood on the floor.
“Fioren!”
“My, you’re calling so soon… Oh my, what is this?”
Fioren, seeing the bloodstain, covered his mouth and nose.
“You’re making a fuss. Hey, you. I told you to bring a useful bastard, but where did you pick up this trash?”
“Well, I brought him because he said he was good with a sword…”
“A bastard who’s good with a sword. What a load of crap. Aren’t there any others? They should at least be on the level of those Amirios guys or whatever, shouldn’t they?”
“Well… that would mean he needs to be 2nd Circle, which isn’t easy to find.”
“Aish, damn it. You can’t do a single thing right. Are there really none? You’re not just saying there aren’t any after a half-assed search, are you?”
“I did search… But, Your Highness. If you act like this based on uncertain information, it could become a problem later on.”
At Fioren’s words, Hans looked at him with cold eyes.
“Didn’t you hear what Bryn said?”
“I heard. I was with Your Highness, how could I not have heard? But still. Maxim, mercenary.
Weren’t these the only words we could understand?”
“That’s enough.”
“No, Your Highness…”
Hans, who had been listening to Fioren’s attempts to dissuade him, glared and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
“Are you an idiot? Do I look like a moron who can’t read between the lines? Hey, look straight. Do you think those bastards messed up Bryn because they were mad at Bryn? No. They did it for me to see. And you’re telling me to stay put? They’re blatantly challenging me, and you’re telling me to just let it be? Huh?”
Hans glared at Fioren as if he would devour him.
Fioren gasped, expressing with his whole body that he was suffocating and couldn’t speak.
“Get it right.”
Hans roughly pushed Fioren away.
“Gasp! Hmm! I understand Your Highness’s intentions. But we need to stay quiet for the time being.”
Hans raised his fist at Fioren, who refused to back down.
At this, Fioren covered his face with both hands and quickly stepped back. He then waved his hands as if to say Hans had to hear him out.
“At the academy! The academy is watching us. Be-because of Maxim.”
“That’s why I’m not doing it directly!”
“……”
Fioren, looking at Hans who was furious, hung his head low.
Hans opened the window as if he was suffocating.
The cold air of midwinter rushed into the room. The candle illuminating the room flickered precariously in the wind.
Hans, standing by the window, let out a long sigh. But as if his irritation hadn’t subsided, he knocked over the bookshelf next to him with all his strength.
Books spilled out and glass shattered, cluttering the floor. A strong gust of wind blew out the candle. Thus, darkness filled the room. Even the bright moonlight was obscured by clouds and could not illuminate the room.
“Contact the Hoso Merchant Guild.”
In a situation where they could only sense each other’s location, Hans opened his mouth.
“……I apologize. I can’t get in touch with them. It seems they’ve entered a period of inactivity.”
“Find them. Dwight uses them whenever he needs to, so why can’t we?”
At Hans’s words, Fioren bit his lip hard. He felt like he was about to spit out the words that had risen to his throat, the words asking how the 3rd Prince, Dwight, and the 4th Prince, you, could be the same.
At that moment, Hans looked at Fioren with a crazed glint in his eyes.
‘Sh-shit. Did he notice?’
Fioren broke out in a cold sweat. He wondered if what he was thinking had shown on his face.
“We can just find guys like that, can’t we?”
Hans said.
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“Guys like the Hoso Merchant Guild, we can find them too. How long are we going to be dragged around by those bastards?”
“……That’s not something that can be done so easily.”
“Have you tried?”
“No, but still, that’s…”
“Haa, you’re really pissing me off. Saying it can’t be done without even trying. Don’t you have to try something to know? Goddammit! Hey! Do you know that if we give a job to those Hoso Merchant Guild bastards, it all gets back to Dwight? Don’t you?”
“……I know.”
“Exactly! So let’s raise our own dog that only listens to our words.”
At Hans’s words, Fioren just blinked. It was because finding an organization like the Hoso Merchant Guild was not as easy as it sounded.
Slap!
But Hans did not accept this. He slapped Fioren across the cheek.
“If you can’t, make it happen. At least go to the Black Market and look!”
Fioren touched his swelling cheek and lowered his head, forcefully swallowing the words, ‘How dangerous the Black Market is…’.
***
“Why on earth are you guys following me?”
I had clearly set out for the Black Market with only Michelle. Rodrigo had wanted to come along, but I had firmly refused.
‘You’ve already been exposed once. And you want to go to the Black Market and stir things up looking for the pendant’s owner? Are they going to say, "Oh, it is an honor that you have personally come to poke around here and there"? They’d come running out to stick a knife in you. It would be more dangerous to go together.’
Rodrigo couldn’t argue with my words. They were perfectly reasonable.
Rodrigo had investigated various places to find the identity of the pendant. In the process, the trail had led to the Black Market.
The guys at the Black Market, who are sensitive to information, would have already finished their assessment of Rodrigo. In that situation, if Rodrigo were to visit the Black Market, it would be like begging to be attacked. And it wouldn't be just him alone. Everyone with him would be thrown into danger.
‘Well, it’s not like we’d die, but there’s no good in making things noisy.’
There was no need to complicate matters unnecessarily. If we were unlucky, it could be discovered that we were investigating the Hoso Merchant Guild.
‘We need to move quietly. Very quietly.’
That was why only Michelle and I came out, but…
“Be-because three is better than t-two.”
Odekerkh said with a bashful smile. Alright, up to Odekerkh wasn’t so bad. But why those two?
“I had no intention of joining.”
Piontek said with a snort. I didn’t know what kind of mentality it was to pretend otherwise after coming all this way. There was nothing special about the reason he was here. He had followed Adellian. By the way, I had no idea why Adellian came.
“You don’t need to know, do you?”
That was her answer to the question of why she was following.
“The Black Market is different from a regular market. We’re not going for a leisurely stroll.”
“I know.”
“Huh? I didn’t know.”
Adellian’s reaction was as if to say, did you think I wouldn’t know something like that? On the other hand, Piontek seemed completely clueless. Up to this point, their reactions were normal.
“The B-Black Market. Heuk!”
Odekerkh’s reaction was very strange. It felt like… he had some sort of grudge against the Black Market. It seemed to have some connection to the fact that he came from a merchant guild.
“Does your guild supply goods to the Black Market?”
I asked, just in case.
“N-no. T-to a place like that, w-what goods!”
Odekerkh showed an unusually intense emotion. It seemed he definitely had some kind of conflict with the Black Market.
That aside, it would have been perfect if Odekerkh had connections to the Black Market and had an entry pass.
‘E-entry pass? D-do we need something like that?’
Tsk, how great would it have been if he were useful at a time like this.
Then again, since Rodrigo hadn't been there himself, it was natural that he wouldn't know about the existence of an entry pass.
“How are we going to get into a place called the Black Market?”
Adellian asked.
“On foot.”
“Of course we’re going on foot! That’s not what I’m asking! You said we need an entry pass!”
Responding so heatedly to a simple joke, I couldn't help but tease her.
“We have to get one.”
“So where are we going to get one?”
At Adellian’s question, I looked at her silently.
Adellian flinched and quickly glanced around.
At that moment, Piontek squeezed in between me and Adellian.
“How are we going to get the entry pass? You must have a plan, right?”
I looked at Piontek silently.
Adellian patted Piontek’s back and said, ‘Move.’ But Piontek didn’t budge, like a rock.
“Robbery.”
I stated the method to get the entry pass.
Piontek’s face crumpled strangely. Not just him, but Adellian and Odekerkh’s faces crumpled too. As for Michelle…
“Pardon?”
It seems she was taken aback too.
It couldn’t be helped. For now, that was the only way.