Chapter 45
This was a little while ago, before Karon and Mist were appointed to [Dark Shadow].
The current Duke of Nebula had been poisoned without anyone realizing it.
'What on earth?'
Sebastian was horrified when he first saw the state of his master.
The Duke of Nebula was a monster one could proudly call the Empire's strongest ability user.
But the Duke had been poisoned?
'Ah, it's nothing.'
While everyone was horrified by the situation, the Duke said so in a calm voice.
What did he mean by nothing?
The Nebula ducal family, known as the king of the underworld, was filled with experts who used and combined all kinds of poisons.
Poisoned?
Even if he had been poisoned, there were countless experts capable of creating antidotes for every poison.
'This is... a poison none of us has ever seen before.'
But every one of those experts clicked their tongues and shook their heads.
Of course, they continued researching an antidote using the Duke's blood, but their progress was painfully slow.
Amid that situation, the Duke accepted his circumstances with remarkable calm.
Seeing his strange composure, everyone in the ducal family understood what was happening.
Ah, so some sort of deal had been made with the people who poisoned the Duke.
It was strange when one thought about it.
Yes, even granting that there was someone skilled enough to poison the Duke while he was away,
if such a person had appeared and confronted the Duke, there should have been some trace left behind.
He had no wounds, his stamina had not diminished, and his mana was still abundant.
There was nothing there except the Duke, sitting alone after being poisoned.
And he responded to his subordinates' demands for an explanation with nothing but silence?
Then there could only be one possibility.
The Duke had poisoned himself through some sort of deal.
Moreover, that deal must have included a clause forbidding the Duke from revealing their information in any form whatsoever.
Otherwise, the Duke could not have reacted that way.
'...'
After explaining his hypothesis to the Duke, Sebastian made one final verification.
Seeing the Duke remain silent without saying a word, Sebastian instinctively realized it.
His hypothesis was correct.
'I understand. I apologize for disturbing your time, Duke. Then, may I ask one last question?'
'Go ahead.'
'May we track them?'
The Duke said nothing. He merely raised the corners of his mouth and looked at him.
Although the Duke had not said anything, Sebastian, who had served him for a long time, could sense what his expression was telling him.
[It won't be easy, will it?]
Thus, Sebastian and Nella of [Dark Shadow], Velias—the Duke's blood relative—and a select few members of [White Shadow] began the investigation.
They kept it secret from Karon and Mist, who joined later.
In hindsight, it was only natural.
They were investigating an unknown enemy who had made some sort of deal with the Duke.
If that enemy learned that so many people were tracking them, it would obviously become more difficult to catch their trail.
Moreover, they had judged that it was still too soon for Karon, who had only just joined [Dark Shadow], and Mist, who had joined even later, to handle such a matter.
And so time passed.
Sebastian put the investigation on hold for a while so that he could attend to the Duke, whose condition was rapidly worsening.
Moreover, by the Duke's order, Nella had also been tasked with finding his illegitimate child, so she had no choice but to suspend her investigation as well.
Thus, Velias, the boss of [Dark Shadow], was now the only person left tracking them.
[...]
She accepted the black tea Sebastian handed her, took a sip, and slowly shared her thoughts.
[I caught the trail.]
"..."
Even though they were desperately short on manpower, a master-level assassin had gone after them.
If they had still been unable to find any information after that, it would have been stranger.
[This time, it was real.]
When Sebastian and Nella had been actively investigating, they had at least managed to catch a trail as well.
The problem was that the trail they caught back then had been severed like a lizard's tail, preventing them from learning anything further.
Hearing her words, Sebastian unknowingly felt his mana begin to boil.
She had just confidently declared that she had personally caught the trail of the people who had poisoned his master with such a deadly toxin. How could he remain calm?
Krrk.
The threads of mana that had begun to spill out without him realizing it.
The razor-sharp mana threads, sharp enough to sever everything around him, were just about to move.
Thunk.
"Calm down."
Nella had appeared in the room where Sebastian and Velias were.
"You know better than anyone, Lord Sebastian, that there is nothing to gain by venting your emotions like that right now, don't you?"
It was a dry voice, utterly unlike the relaxed, perhaps even airheaded, woman she usually was in private.
Hearing that dry voice, Sebastian slowly reined in his boiling mana.
"I'm sorry. I showed you an unsightly spectacle."
[Ah, it's all right. And it's been a long time, Nella.]
"It truly has been a long time, Lady Velias. I came in a hurry when Lord Sebastian's mana suddenly burst out, but what happened?"
Nella's expression clearly showed that she could more or less guess what had happened.
As far as she knew, there was only one thing that could make Sebastian display emotions so openly, so it was easy to deduce.
[I caught the trail.]
"..."
"..."
[The catalyst was the [Mirage] drug incident that occurred in the Imperial capital.]
"That..."
Sebastian naturally recalled Abel, who had solved that case and was now the chosen heir of the ducal family.
[Yes. The incident that Abel solved was the catalyst.]
Velias readily nodded and slowly began her story.
[Heros, who created [Mirage], isn't anything special. He's unusual in that he can use both an ability and magic, but that's it.]
[Someone like that managed to create such a massive quantity of a drug—one that could even awaken other people's abilities?]
Velias took a paper containing the information she had compiled on [Mirage] from inside her robe and handed it to the two of them.
"...This is."
"..."
There was not a great deal of information densely packed inside.
In the first place, they did not need specific information about [Mirage] at this point.
[As it says there, there were countless sums of money secretly funneled to Heros.]
There were more than dozens of separate streams of funding.
The records were packed with evidence that the money had been laundered several times before flowing onward and eventually reaching Heros.
Tap. Tap.
Velias waited for the two of them to slowly read through the information she had handed over, tapping her fingers on the table and sipping her black tea.
After slowly taking another sip and looking over the two of them, she saw that they appeared to have finished checking all the information.
Seeing that, she smiled faintly beneath her robe and continued speaking.
[I was about to raid the people at the end of the trail I had barely managed to catch based on that information...]
As she continued, Velias slowly lowered her head and began to tremble.
Yes, it really was a trail she had barely managed to catch.
It felt as though she had seized it too quickly and pointlessly, but at least she had found significance in the fact that she had caught the trail.
Just as she was preparing the raid, information reached her.
It was news of Karon's actions, which were nearly turning into a rampage because of her request.
If Karon's actions had had nothing to do with her, she would have carried out the raid.
She had thought that if she did not strike at the trail just before it vanished like mist, she would never get another chance.
It was a hasty conclusion, but that was genuinely what she had thought at the time.
But the fundamental cause of Karon's actions was her request?
And it concerned the successor whom her grandfather, the Duke, had recognized?
[Karon...]
Even through telepathy, her voice rang out as if she were gritting her teeth.
Velias turned and looked at Karon, who was tightly bound all over with ropes and tossed aside like trash.
Sebastian and Nella had also known Karon was there ever since they arrived, but they had deliberately ignored him. Seeing Velias's reaction, however, they involuntarily looked at Karon with cold eyes.
"Ahaha..."
Facing the gazes of all three, Karon, bound up like a caterpillar, bowed his head and shouted from the pit of his stomach.
"I'm sorry!!!"
.
.
.
[Sigh... Well, now that I think about it, even I can see that was an overly hasty raid. It would be a bit much to say anything more, wouldn't it.]
Her head had cooled somewhat.
With that cooler head, Velias reconsidered her earlier judgment.
Why had she hurried to act?
Of course, she had spent years tracking an enemy organization and thought she had finally caught a trail leading to its core, so perhaps her reaction had been natural.
But the enemy belonged to an organization with a monster capable of negotiating with the current Duke on equal terms.
And she had tried to charge in alone to seize the true trail of an organization like that?
[...]
Thus, without even realizing it, Velias escaped a death that had been fated for her.
"Uuugh..."
Of course, Karon—the fundamental cause of her escape from that death—had half lost his mind under the interrogation, or rather pseudo-interrogation, conducted by the other three.