The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 109

“Ugh, so violent. It’s pitiful how beings with such low intelligence can’t resolve their emotions with words,” Scott grumbled, touching his nose where Ismael had punched him.

“Shut up, unless you want to get hit again. And I hit you because you were hitting on Midiam.”

“Hitting on her? How could you think that was hitting on her after hearing that conversation? Is your comprehension of vocabulary that low? The stupidity of you dullards always surpasses my imagination.”

“……”

“Let me explain it clearly. I was worried that you might develop some sexual fantasies about my intellectual charm and superior looks, so I was warning you not to. For orcs, having physical relations with low-intelligence species like you is an unbearable, horrific crime.”

-Clank….

Ismael couldn’t hold back and placed his hand on his sword hilt.

“Wait a minute. What part of what I said is infuriating? If I teach you something you didn’t know, shouldn’t you be grateful? Oh, is that what you call inferiority? How interesting. I’ve never experienced such a feeling, so I wouldn’t know.”

Scott was flustered by Ismael’s anger.

“Enough. Let’s move. We don’t have time,” Azadin said, starting to move south to avoid Count Rantark’s forces.

“If the Sellsword Guild mercenaries don’t return, they’ll realize something happened. Fortunately….”

The thought that they wouldn’t think the Sellsword Guild members failed to kill Guillaume Valt because he was such a terrible fighter lingered in Azadin’s throat.

‘Even so, saying it out loud would be rude.’

Fortunately, Guillaume Valt wasn’t completely clueless.

“If that many mercenaries were all trying to kill me, they’d surely believe they succeeded. If contact with the soldiers is lost, they’ll probably think there was some mistake or that I was lucky to escape.”

“…Sorry.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

“More importantly, you seem to be the leader of this group, which is unusual. Not the paladin Jibek, but you? What are you people anyway?”

“We could be called treasure hunters.”

“Treasure hunters?”

“We’re looking for the Count’s memoirs.”

“My father’s memoirs? Why?”

“Because the memoirs contain clues to the location of the treasure we’re looking for.”

“So, you’re going to help me?”

“Yes. After all, we need a reason to enter Count Rantark’s mansion or castle, right? It’s better to enter through the main gate with the help of a legitimate heir and explore rather than sneaking over the wall, avoiding guards, and searching for things. It’ll take a while to properly search the study anyway, so how else would we get information under the cover of night?”

Obtaining the necessary information from the Count’s memoirs or bundles of letters would be very difficult. The help of the scribe, Brand, who had already done it, was desperately needed, but Brand was now a brass knight, once again consumed by madness.

“By the way, how long does it take to get to Rantark from here?” Midiam asked.

“If we hurry, it’ll take four days. However…,” Jibek said, frowning.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get there safely.”

“It’s okay. Isn’t that why I left the letter?” Azadin shrugged.

“Come to think of it, you left a letter at the place with the corpses? What kind of letter was it?”

“Well, let’s leave that for later and get going.”

*********

Count Rantark’s vassals were in trouble.

Everyone knew that Count Rantark was pushing his youngest son, Adler, as his successor rather than his eldest son. So, they had Guillaume Valt trained by the paladins and were preparing to have him leave the family to sort out the succession.

However, the paladins who trained Guillaume Valt were perplexed.

‘He has no talent at all.’

‘Even if he joined the paladin order, he wouldn’t have the ability to carry out missions.’

Nobles who inherited the blood of the Yegas gods were stronger than ordinary farmers, no matter how inept they were. It was natural since they could focus on training and education while others did the work for them.

And not all paladins were great swordsmen. Swordsmanship and combat ability were only required at a minimum level, and there were those who had never taken on outdoor missions after becoming priests or paladins.

Yet….

Yet, the paladins refused to accept him as their trainee because he was so incompetent.

‘Is he doing this on purpose?’

The vassals suspected that Guillaume Valt knew his fate and was deliberately acting incompetent to delay his departure. However, that suspicion soon faded because….

Guillaume Valt was so unsightly. His long face and slightly cross-eyed eyes were not handsome by any stretch of the imagination.

Moreover, his actions were so foolish that everyone thought Guillaume Valt was genuinely incompetent, not acting.

“But… why haven’t we heard anything?”

The vassals had entrusted the Sellsword Guild with dealing with Guillaume Valt.

They were going to report that monsters had appeared and killed Guillaume Valt.

However, the Sellsword Guild members who had gone out on patrol in the morning had not returned by nightfall.

“Let’s send an investigation team when it gets light.”

They wasted a day guarding the fortress.

*********

The next morning, the patrol found the Sellsword Guild members lying dead in the reeds.

“W-what is this?”

“What happened?!”

The vassals looked around at the situation. It seemed that ambushing archers had attacked the Sellsword Guild members with arrows, and they had been completely killed with swords and blunt weapons.

Since there were no other bodies besides those of the Sellsword Guild, it seemed that it had been a one-sided battle.

“An ambush, an assault? Who on earth?”

“Could it be the monsters that attacked the Count?”

“Or the messengers who approached the Count?”

“Since it was arrows….”

As the vassals were speculating, one of them found something.

“Wait! This corpse is holding a letter!”

“A letter?”

“Let’s see. Ah?”

They found a signet ring imprint made with mud on the top of the letter. Although they used mud instead of wax, they could recognize that this signet ring belonged to Guillaume Valt.

The letter read as follows:

‘A capable hawk hides its claws. I understand your disloyalty since I deceived you first. However, I am the one who must rule Rantark and Adirof. How can I manage state affairs if I do not strictly enforce rewards and punishments? Therefore, I urge you not to tarnish your honor by staging a clear rebellion. A slight disloyalty will be forgiven depending on your future actions.’

“!!!!”

The vassals who read the letter were shocked.

“N-no way!”

“Guillaume Valt?”

“Good heavens.”

The vassals passed the letter around, bewildered.

So, Guillaume Valt had been hiding his skills and living as a complete fool all this time?

Now that Count Rantark was missing, he had thrown off his fool’s mask and was starting to show his true abilities? To compete for the succession in earnest?

“No way. How could that be an act?”

“He doesn’t have any money or subordinates?”

“But isn’t that the very purpose of hiding it? He might have secured human resources and funds without us knowing!”

“What should we do? Should we send a signal to Duke Adler with a beacon or flag?”

“No, then he’ll know that we’re informing Duke Adler, won’t he?”

Beacon or flag signals were relayed through fortresses placed on the imperial road. In other words, anyone could see them.

If they started lighting beacons or raising flags at the fortresses to send signals, Guillaume Valt would also know, and wouldn’t that be seen as the vassals staging a clear rebellion?

“If Guillaume Valt was really hiding his abilities and he becomes Count Rantark, won’t he punish us for sending signals with flags or beacons?”

“We’re already traitors anyway. We can only survive if Duke Adler becomes the Count!”

“But the letter says he’ll forgive us.”

“He might say that now! But what if he wipes us all out after becoming Count? We’ll have already handed the sword to the enemy, and we’ll just have to passively beg for his mercy!”

“But we don’t know his capabilities. What if we try to harm him now and fail? If we betray someone who promised forgiveness and get crushed, then hell will be our fate.”

The vassals began to argue about how they could survive.

In the end, they decided not to raise beacons or flags because Guillaume Valt might find out. However, they agreed to send a separate messenger to warn Adler.

“To be so afraid of that horse-face that we can’t even use flag signals and have to send a messenger.”

Count Rantark had been preparing for war against the Salasma County for a long time, so he had established a flag signal system with fortresses and flagpoles between Salasma and Rantark.

It was a shame that they couldn’t use this proud flag signal system, which had cost a lot of money and manpower.

*********

“Good. It’s working well,” Azadin said, seeing that no beacons or flag signals were being raised and realizing that the letter he had Guillaume Valt write was having the desired effect.

“Isn’t it just that they haven’t found the bodies yet?”

“No way. Since the mercenaries haven’t returned, they would have sent out a patrol, and there’s no way they wouldn’t find the scene where 20 people died.”

Azadin’s group had considered erasing their tracks and escaping, but cleaning up 20 corpses was no easy task. So, Azadin had created a letter to buy time and left it on the corpses.

“Even a slight hesitation is enough to achieve the effect. The problem is….”

Azadin looked at Brand’s condition. Brand was excitedly talking to Guillaume Valt.

“If you become Count, will you accept me as your vassal?”

“Ah, yes. If that happens.”

“Wow. Then I’ll become a knight at this age. Although it’s a knight bachelor [a non-hereditary, lower-ranking knight], becoming a real knight is a dream I’ve had since I was a child. I’m deeply moved.”

“Ahahaha.”

Guillaume Valt was embarrassed. If what Brand was saying was true, he thought of Count Rantark as an irreconcilable enemy, and that anger and hostility were directed at Guillaume Valt as well.

Even though he knew that Guillaume Valt was a neglected son who wasn’t loved by the Count, he was so consumed by anger and hostility that he was once again consumed by madness.

Moreover, his age was already considerable. Even if he received a non-hereditary knight bachelor title, there was nothing to gain, but the fact that he was so happy meant that becoming a knight itself had meaning for him.

He was deeply realizing that the person in front of him was not the scribe Brand he knew, but the brass knight, Sir Brand.

‘My father and his agents did such things to make this man like this.’