Chapter 18. I have a lot of money (5)
Chamberlain Raoul put down a cup of tea and opened the window and said.
“Why don’t you take a break for a while? The wind is nice.”
An unusually warm wind blew today.
Lemain, who would have never heard such a thing even if it had been this time last year, nodded obediently.
“Not bad.”
Soon Lemain went to the window, holding a teacup in his hand.
Raoul, seeing this, smiled pleasantly and went outside.
From one day on, Lemain no longer obsessively devoted himself to work and now slept at the Camilia Palace rather than the Arpia Palace. I even gave up the habit of saving time between my work space and my living space.
LeMaine also knew that he had changed a lot and that Calian and Allen had a big role in that change. And I didn’t know that the starting point of that change was last year’s King’s Birthday Festival.
When I think about it, there were so many things that happened at last year’s festival.
As it is a grand festival, there are a lot of talks and troubles every year, but it was only last year.
“I thought you would be quiet this time.”
Therefore, I thought that this year’s festival would pass quietly compared to last year. In any case, the work related to Silike has been completed.
Lemain walked back to the desk and opened the drawer.
Inside was a letter that had arrived through Jeon Seo-eung.
Originally, it should have been delivered in a proper letter, but due to the delay in selecting visitors, 80% of the content of the letter was an explanation that birds were inevitably used.
I had a strong feeling that he was watching to see if Lemain would be uncomfortable after receiving the informal letter.
What was really important in the letter were just two lines.
An explanation of who comes first.
And for safety reasons, it was requested that visitor information be kept secret until they arrived at the Kairis Palace.
Looking at it, I could immediately understand why the reply was so late and why it was plastered with such attention-grabbing content. Lemain, who felt uncomfortable after receiving an inappropriate letter, was concerned that the visitor might be harmed.
‘How on earth do you look at me and worry like that?’
Lemain laughed.
And soon I looked out the window again and muttered to myself.
“It’s going to be noisy this time too.”
* * *
Kirie took a deep breath and then let it out.
The clerk doesn’t touch it.
It’s a shame, but I’m sending the customer off.
‘Fighting dogs’ in cages are let go.
And ‘they’ kill them all.
‘Can you do it?’
‘yes.’
For Kyrie, it was an obvious answer.
For Kirie, this gambling place was a place she had to visit someday. That one day just became today.
Calian may have planned this for a different purpose, but Kyrie accepted it as permission for the revenge he had been enduring.
– Suddenly!
The head of the man who was collecting the admission fee rolled on the floor.
The man’s body collapsed. Admission fee 2 Florin had two fingers spread out.
Starting with the man’s death, Kyrie’s sword began to distinguish between life and death for those in the gambling house. There were no mistakes and there were no double strikes.
Just like Arsene’s ice spear, life fell without fail wherever Kyrie’s sword passed.
“Aaaahhh!”
Those who were allowed to ‘live’ screamed and rushed up the stairs. More warriors who sensed the commotion on the fourth floor would come in, but it didn’t matter.
– Sigh!
– Suddenly!
Kirie, who was moving forward without hesitation, cutting and stabbing the people in the gambling hall, stopped for a moment.
An iron bar installed in the middle of a gambling hall.
The very place where countless ‘fighting dogs’ fought each other and provided entertainment. A man was hiding in the shadow of the iron bars. Kirie walked towards him without hesitation.
He was a moderator.
He looked at Kyrie’s face.
Two unforgettable eyes of different colors were looking down at the host.
“I didn’t do anything!”
Words full of fear burst out of the mouth that always introduced ‘monster eyeballs’ in a cheerful voice.
‘this. Don’t be too surprised. It happens often.’
That’s what the host said when one of Kyrie’s colleagues died in front of the guests. Kirie suddenly remembered that day and let out a low voice.
“I did.”
– Wow!
The host’s blood splattered inside the cage.
Kirie, who was looking at the blood dripping down the bars, started walking again.
Meanwhile, about a dozen more men came down after learning of the commotion on the fourth floor. So I killed them all.
Kirie’s revenge continued and stopped for a moment in front of the office door. This is because four men were holding sharp swords and blocking Kirie. They also knew Kirie.
They were the four prosecutors who guarded the man in the office.
“Where is this guy?”
As the largest man said these words and extended his sword, the other three swords also fell on Kirie.
However, a small smile appeared on Kirie’s face, which had been expressionless until now.
‘slow.’
When I first got caught here, I was so scared of them.
– Kakang!
Kirie deflected their attack with a single swing of her sword and moved her arm again. With one cut, blood burst from the two men’s necks.
The remaining two also did not survive long.
The head that was screaming fell first, and the head of the last man running away rolled to the front of the iron bars.
Kirie opened the office door without even looking at where the head was going. And then he stopped for a moment.
The office was empty.
The man who had been bargaining over the ransom of Kalian and Kyrie was not there. Instead, a muffled sound came from inside the huge safe behind where the man usually sat.
Kirie stood for a moment, twirling the wrist holding the sword, then quietly walked over and opened the safe door.
– Shhh!
A dagger flew as if it had been waiting.
Kirie raised her sword and easily blocked it.
– Kaang!
The dagger didn’t even bounce off. It fell straight to the floor.
Compared to Arsene’s ice, the speed is ridiculous.
If it had been the dagger that Calian had thrown, it would have pierced both the sword and the neck.
Kyrie stepped into the safe.
Then a man’s shouting, accompanied by a tearing scream, buzzed through the vault.
“Don’t come! If you come any further, I’ll kill you!”
A man full of venom screamed at Kirie, using a woman as a shield. The knife in the man’s hand was touching the woman’s neck.
‘He is the last.’
Kirie took a step forward.
The man’s knife made a thin cut on the woman’s neck.
“Aaaah!”
“Don’t come, you monster!”
Kyrie’s feet stopped for a moment.
Kirie once saw a man holding a woman hostage, whose name he did not know, and a woman being held captive.
Kirie, who was thinking about something for a moment, took a step forward again.
When I entered the office, there were two voices holding my breath. There were no terrified sobs.
Therefore, Kirie stretched out her sword without any hesitation.
The cool day struck the hearts of those standing there.
– Kwasik!
The sound of flesh, muscle, and bone being broken echoed throughout the vault for a moment.
The woman who was holding her breath in the safe along with the manager, whose name I still do not know, lost their breath.
Silence came.
Red blood dripped down Kirie’s light blue hair. It was all other people’s blood. Kirie, who killed everyone in the gambling hall with her own hands, stood in silence for a while.
After a while, Kirie went out to search the surroundings. After that, I took out the books that seemed appropriate among the ledgers piled up in the safe and went outside.
The bar on the first floor was empty.
Both the clerk and the customer seemed to have run away. Thanks to this, Kirie quietly got out, put the ledgers in the bag on the horse’s saddle, and spoke in a whisper.
“Go back.”
Raven’s brother’s speech was not as good as Raven’s, but he was smart enough to understand the words of the boy with elf blood. Therefore, with the bag Kirie had given me on my back, I began to take multiple turns towards the palace.
As I listened to the sound of the horse’s hooves getting quieter and wrinkled my nose at the smell of blood all over my body, the capital security force arrived.
When the security forces saw a boy standing with a sword, his entire body so soaked in blood that even his face could not be identified, they all drew their swords.
“Put your weapons down!”
Instead of saying that he had waited a long time for them to arrive, Kirie obediently put down his sword and raised his hand.
After that, he looked at them and spoke clearly and in a calm voice.
“I am Prince Calian’s servant.”
* * *
Arsene could not erase his dissatisfied expression.
Alan, who was also the temporary commander of the Balkan corps, patted Arsene on the shoulder as if to comfort him and said.
“Think about it. Wouldn’t it be a no-brainer to have that person as your subordinate? But wouldn’t it be a no-brainer for me to step down and make that person the corps commander? That’s why there are two vice-corps commanders.”
Arsene responded immediately, as if to make sure there was no misunderstanding.
“Are you saying this because I don’t want to add one more deputy commander? Are you doing this because you know why I’m opposed to it?”
Arsene’s face and tone of voice were very excited, unlike usual.
Even though it was a royal palace where blood ties were prioritized, wasn’t Calian a person who valued ability and organized talent fairly?
“If it had been Prince Calian who was coming, I would have given up my seat right away. But that’s not true, right?”
Arsene looked like he was not happy with the current situation.
When Arsene, who had followed Calian’s decision without a second thought, protested more violently than expected, Alan clicked his tongue. Alan was also quite embarrassed because Arsene was talking right in front of the person in question.
Arsene turned his gaze away from Alan.
Then he looked at the second prince, who had suddenly been appointed vice-corps commander, and asked with a sullen face.
“Are you a wizard?”
How could a guy who wasn’t even a wizard be the vice commander of the Vulcan corps?
Of course, Planz, who understood the meaning well, curled up one corner of his mouth with a very relaxed expression on his face. And he answered briefly.
“He is a prince.”
Ability is king.
His specialty is Prince.
He is a prince who knows how to do it.
So, even if you’re not that kind of wizard, wouldn’t you be able to be the vice commander of the Vulcan army?
Unlucky. The world is so dirty and shameful.
Planz should have known this from the time he had been going back and forth to the Wilhelm Pavilion for the past few days and watched the Vulcan crews being trained. There was an unpleasant aftertaste somewhere, and in the end, it ended up like this.
Arsene spoke again, his voice still full of dissatisfaction.
“Why is Prince Planz touching Balkan territory?”
It didn’t look like Arsene. I wish I had sworn secretly, but I have never said something like this openly in front of someone. That’s how big the dissatisfaction is.
Of course, it wasn’t without reason.
“I heard that Prince Plants decided to go the same route as Marquis Briesen. If that’s the case, shouldn’t he go to Karen or Raon instead of Balkan?”
Still, Calian kept his life alive and protected him, giving up everything he hid because he was my brother, and kept him alive until now, and then he joined hands with Evan Briesen. So there was no way that a sweet sound would come out of Arsene’s mouth.
Plantz took his gaze away from Arsene and looked at Alan.
“Are all wizards’ speaking habits like this?”
Alan also knew full well that those ‘wizards’ included him himself. He was probably saying this because he had called Plantz ‘crazy’ a long time ago.
Alan smiled softly and nodded.
“All Balkan wizards are like this. The top row’s mouth is like this, so how can we learn from anything else?”
Alan’s words were also full of thorns.
“iced coffee.”
Plantz, who had finally fully grasped the situation, grinned and muttered.
“My brother didn’t tell me.”
Kalian seemed to care a lot about Planz, but surprisingly, he was not very delicate. He even talked to Alan about creating the position of deputy commander of the Vulcan army and putting Plantz in it, but he forgot the important thing that Plantz didn’t actually join hands with Evan.
However, even though Calian did not say anything, Alan was aware of the general situation. All he did was shake off the resentment he felt because his pretty student had helped Plants at the expense of his loss.
Of course, Arsene, who was almost at the same level as Jan in terms of this sense, simply did not know.
Planz, who had been watching the two for a while, leaned back deep into the sofa and sat with his legs crossed. And he raised his head slightly. After taking a posture that was truly prince-like but not prince-like, he looked at the two with drowsy eyes.
“Old wizards do that because they know. Young wizards do that because they don’t know. It’s disgusting.”
On the other hand, Alan, who was caught, smiled slightly, and Arsene made an angry face again.
There were two fortunate things about this situation.
One is that Planz was not the type to punish Alan and Arsene for their sarcasm, saying they insulted the prince.
“I just can’t…!”
– Squeak.
And another thing is that Calian came in right before an angry Arsene said that he would hit the Vulcan vice-commander.
Calian looked a little surprised when he saw the three of them gathered together. However, he looked at Plants as if there were more important issues than that.
“Brother, I am currently carrying out what I told you about before. So, you can keep on bad terms with me starting tomorrow. The Marquis will be very angry, so please appease him.”
“okay.”
Arsene’s expression changed strangely when he realized that there was something a little wrong with this conversation.
Calian’s gaze turned to Alan this time.
“And Master, I have a favor to ask you.”
Alan immediately nodded and looked at Calian, and Calian continued.
“I have to write down Master’s name today.”
It was a difficult word to understand right away.
Calian’s explanation of what was going on soon followed.
It was only then that Arsene’s face turned white as he realized that ‘Planz had joined hands with Evan under false pretenses.’
Calian, who could not have known such a thing, left after speaking with a serious face the whole time, and Alan also hurriedly disappeared to do what Calian had asked.
Now only Plants and Arsene remain in the quiet room.
