Chapter 20
The discovery of the assassins' corpses was a serious matter in many ways.
In truth, who had killed the assassins was not a major issue.
There were people we could suspect, and everyone believed I had killed them with a kitchen knife in my sleep.
The real question was, ‘Who sent the assassins?’
Even in a medieval world where killing and being killed were everyday occurrences, there were lines one did not cross.
Assassination was the act that crossed the line most hated by all lords, and if a lord attempted one carelessly and was discovered, that lord would become a common enemy, be attacked by the surrounding lords, and meet destruction.
It was that dangerous an act, and even 『Blackrose House』, the family most specialized in assassination, had carried out so few assassinations in the original story that they could be counted, and they had never been discovered until the very end.
Under such circumstances, the castle was naturally thrown into an uproar, and Hart shouted at the top of his lungs in fury.
“It must be those lion bastards! Those insane lion bastards have finally crossed the line!!!”
“Calm down, Hart.”
Hart, who most suspected House Ryan, which had been involved in trouble until recently, shouted loudly.
I understood Hart's feelings, but since it wasn't House Ryan, I calmed him down.
Hadem of House Ryan was ‘trash,’ but he was a ‘warrior.’
He liked killing his enemies with his own hands, so he would never do something as boring as sending assassins to deal with me.
While I was calming Hart down, Noah also said something.
I thought calm Noah would say something to soothe Hart.
But then…
“I don't know what bastards tried to take our lord's life, but I'll chase them to the ends of hell and deal with them. So don't worry, my lord.”
“Th…thank you, Noah.”
Noah spoke with a frightening grin, eyes that looked as though they really intended to kill someone, and for the first time, I looked away because Noah scared me.
Before I knew it, I was the one calming my retainers, and I wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible.
Then the door opened as if salvation itself had arrived.
“My lord.”
“Sharen! So, is the autopsy finished?”
I had called Sharen to examine the assassins' corpses.
With Sharen's knowledge, I thought they might be able to find more information within the assassins' bodies.
Sharen was wearing black autopsy clothes that covered their mouth instead of their usual robe, and spoke to me with an extremely serious expression, as though they had seen something.
“I think you should see this yourself, my lord.”
“Me?”
My retainers and I headed to the autopsy room together.
The dead assassins were there.
From their appearance, they seemed to be sturdy men in their thirties and forties.
Looking at them this way, their rough appearances really did make them seem like people from House Ryan.
“At first, they looked like ordinary corpses. But the residual mana was so strange that when I traced it back…”
Sharen placed their hands on the corpses and chanted a spell.
A red light appeared, and static began to ripple across the assassins' corpses.
And then…
“What is this!?”
Their human appearances disappeared, revealing different forms beneath.
They had black skin and long ears, giving them an appearance much like dark elves, and I knew what race in World Archive looked like this.
“Bloodkin…”
『Bloodkin (Blood Clan)』
They were a race that worshipped the Demon God Dantalion, who was sealed at the northern edge of the world, occupying the same position as the demon race in this world.
I hadn't seen the ending in which their purpose was revealed, so I did not know their exact objective, but I did know what they were trying to achieve.
Their goal was ‘weakening the Empire,’ and to accomplish it, they constantly caused all sorts of problems, including assassination, sabotage, and terrorism.
But why were they targeting me?
Why me, when there were princes, princesses, and so many other lords?
As my thoughts became tangled, Lana suddenly cut in.
“I thought something about them felt… no, looked strange, and now I understand that it was because they were Bloodkin.”
“You startled me!”
“La…Lana! When did you get here?”
“I was behind you the entire time, Noah.”
We were all startled when Lana suddenly appeared behind us without making a sound.
She had been behind us the entire time? I hadn't sensed her at all!
“More importantly, Sharen, I was taught that the Bloodkin are a fanatical group sealed behind a barrier in the abandoned lands to the north. Why did they come all the way to our territory?”
“I don't know either. There hadn't been any reports at the Mage Tower of Bloodkin infiltrating.”
The Bloodkin were basically sealed behind a barrier in a place called the abandoned lands at the northern edge of the world.
Since even the event where part of the barrier opened did not occur until the middle or latter part of the game, I honestly hadn't been paying attention to them.
Amid those questions, Noah opened their mouth.
“Come to think of it, there was news a while ago that part of the barrier had opened in the north and that there had been a clash.”
“Part of the barrier opened!?”
This is insane! Why is it opening already!?
Noah spoke to me with an extremely apologetic expression.
“Yes. I heard that it didn't open very far and was suppressed immediately, so it wasn't announced publicly, but to think that Bloodkin who infiltrated through there would come to assassinate you, my lord… I was too careless.”
“This isn't your fault, Noah.”
Right, this wasn't Noah's fault.
Who would think that because a sinkhole formed in a neighboring town, I would be assassinated the next day? This was that kind of situation.
After the autopsy, we summarized the situation as follows.
First, Hart would report the appearance of the Bloodkin assassins to the capital.
I had luckily survived, but other lords, nobles, and members of the imperial family could become their targets.
We would also strengthen the castle's defenses, while Noah would obtain materials for magical tools so that Sharen could set up an Imperial Palace-grade detection barrier.
It was magic that constantly monitored dangerous situations involving important figures, and I objected because it seemed like it would detect even my happy time, but Noah and Hart pushed for it so forcefully that I had no choice but to accept.
“Phew… what is going to happen now…”
Once I was finally alone in my office, I let out a sigh.
The reason was that the timing of the Bloodkin's appearance differed far too much from what I knew.
The Bloodkin, who should not have appeared for several more years, had already come to cut off my head. Just thinking about it made my knees go weak.
The bigger problem was that there was a high chance this was only the beginning.
The Bloodkin caused various disturbances to weaken the Empire.
Among them were cases where they used assassination not simply to kill someone, but to cause a political conflict.
It was a tactic like ‘killing with a borrowed knife (借刀殺人),’ making a specific faction benefit through an assassination, then driving a wedge between the two sides and making them fight until both were destroyed.
When I first experienced that strategy, I cursed my head off.
Hoping that I would not have to experience anything like that this time, I fell asleep.
* * *
The territory of 『Dreihart』, located in the southeastern part of the Empire
It was the most unusual city in the Empire.
In an ordinary territory, slaves made up no more than around 20 percent of the population.
But this territory was different.
In Dreihart, slaves made up a whopping 80 percent of the population.
This was because of the 『Colosseum (Slave Arena)』.
Dreihart had been a city with no special products at all.
As a result, it was extremely poor, and while pondering how to solve that problem, Dreihart's first lord came up with an idea.
It was a way to make use of the war slaves, the only thing Dreihart had in abundance at the time.
Dreihart's lord knew that people liked showing off their slaves.
So he built an arena and set the stage by holding ‘slave dueling tournaments,’ where masters could prove the strength of their slaves through duels.
The masters eagerly entered their slaves into the tournaments, and people seeking exciting spectacles flocked there.
In no time, Dreihart became the Empire's most famous destination for slave duels and began earning huge sums of money from its enormous crowds.
The problem began after that.
Having profited from slaves, Dreihart's lord began cultivating the slave industry and managing it intensively.
To avoid the imperial law that made a person a freeman if even one of their parents was free, he rigorously forced slaves to marry only other slaves and made them have many children.
On top of that, he began selectively breeding slaves as though they were dogs or cattle, creating armies of superior slaves and even starting a mercenary business that dispatched them to other territories for money.
After doing this for 300 years, Dreihart's population had somehow become 80 percent slaves.
The reason that 20 percent of the freemen could control 80 percent of the slaves was magical tools.
Dreihart's first lord had also known that the risk of rebellion would increase if there were too many slaves.
So he made a special request to the Mage Tower, and the result was the 『Purple Iron Chain』, a magical tool that weakened the wearer's strength to that of a child whenever its owner wished, and which became a symbol of slavery throughout the Empire.
Using this magical tool, the nobles of Dreihart had oppressed the slaves and believed they would be able to continue doing so.
Until now, that is.
It happened one day, without warning.
“Hm? Who's there!”
Whoosh-!
“Huh?”
The assassins who infiltrated the city under cover of darkness began killing the mages who managed the ‘Purple Iron Chain.’
The Purple Iron Chain was a magical tool that consumed mana, so it required mages to manage it, and dozens of mages were stationed throughout Dreihart.
Yet every one of those mages was killed overnight.
Once all the mages who supplied mana had been killed, the Purple Iron Chain lost its power, and the slaves regained their strength.
“Wha…what?”
“Even with the chains on, my strength hasn't disappeared!!”
Once the slaves realized that their strength did not disappear even while they were wearing the chains, a catastrophe began immediately.
Having regained their strength, the slaves easily destroyed their prisons and began killing the freeborn soldiers who had oppressed them.
And at the forefront was one man.
“Stop them! Stop the slaves!!”
“You're going to stop me? What a joke!!”
He was one and a half times the size of an ordinary person, with muscles that looked ready to burst and blue horns sprouting from his head, and he charged at the freeborn soldiers trying to subdue the slaves.
The soldiers tried to stop him with their spears, but ordinary spears could not pierce his skin. Instead, they were struck by his charge and sent flying.
His name was 『Zarha Regon』,
a descendant of the dragonkin, a race said to have been born between dragons and humans in the distant past, and a monster who had never once lost in the slave dueling arena because of his overwhelming strength.
He moved forward, slaughtering with his bare hands both his fellow slaves and the soldiers trying to stop him, and finally reached his destination.
Crash-!
“Eek!!”
When Zarha broke down the door, the lord was there.
Soran Dreihart, the current lord of Dreihart, had been unable to flee from the sudden rebellion and had holed up in his room.
But no matter how sturdy the door was, to Zarha it was no stronger than cotton.
Zarha entered the lord's room.
It was a lavish room made of dazzling gold and silver, and the slaves who entered with Zarha could not take in the splendor of the room they were seeing for the first time in their lives.
“H…how dare you! W…where do you think you are, barging in here!!”
Soran shouted at them with them standing before him.
At his words, Zarha approached him without even blinking.
“Hey, my lord, before saying something like that, don't you have something to say to us?”
“S…something to say!?”
Zarha remembered everything he had endured in his life.
Before he could even speak, he had been separated from his parents and subjected to hellish training and abuse.
After that, he had been forced to participate in the slave arena against his will.
And there, he had survived until now by killing with his own hands the comrades who had been like friends to him.
The reason he had endured all of that and continued living was for this very moment.
“Apologize. To me, everyone here, and my friends who died!”
“A…apologize!? Ha! Don't talk nonsense! An apology is something humans give to other humans.”
Lord Soran had been taught this since childhood.
Slaves were not human beings like them.
Being the lord of Dreihart meant becoming the slaves' god.
He had learned that teaching from his father and lived by it ever since.
To him, Zarha's words sounded so absurd that they made him forget even his fear of death.
“I am your god! Gods don't apologize for things like that!”
And his words were also enough to blow away what little reason remained to Zarha.
Zarha approached the lord and said,
“If you're a god, try stopping this.”
Zarha swung his fist straight at the lord.
The fist containing thirty years of Zarha's rage was like an exploding meteor falling upon an ordinary human.
Since a meteor had fallen on a defenseless human, the aftermath was obvious.
Crash-!
Crunch!!
One punch from Zarha reduced Soran to minced meat, splattering his bloody remains against the wall.
Seeing that, Zarha threw out one remark, laden with all the resentment that had built up inside him.
“Hmph! The god is a weakling.”
Thus, a rebellion broke out that day in the slave city of Dreihart.