A Bloodsucking Demon in a Snowy Town (3)

The dwarves responsible for trade were investigating the Fodor Empire's movements through fluctuations in prices, merchants' rumors, and the like.

But what sort of espionage could I, someone who inevitably stood out in human towns, possibly conduct?

The answer was, of course, to gather the words spoken by officials and military commanders rather than relying on numbers or rumors—something far more reliable. In short, eavesdropping.

Naturally, I had no stealth techniques that would let me sneak into a lord's manor or military facility and gather information by seeing and hearing what went on inside.

But I always had dependable friends nearby who could handle the things I couldn't.

"Ahh, it's cold again today. This winter feels especially cold."

"Potatoes and wheat have gone up in price again. What on earth is going on?"

"I wonder if my big brother who went to the imperial capital is managing to serve as a soldier..."

...Many voices drifted into my ears.

The air outside was cold, but I opened a window of the mansion where I was hiding just enough not to attract attention and listened carefully to the many voices.

It went without saying that no matter how large and pointed an elf's ears were, they weren't large enough to hear conversations from all over town.

These voices were being carried to me by the wind spirits from all across Coltoria.

I started by gathering voices from a broad area.

Since I'd obtained a map of the town through the dwarves, I could also determine through the wind spirits where each conversation had taken place.

I listened to randomly selected voices one district at a time, and whenever anything particularly caught my attention, I had the spirits focus on that conversation.

If the wind spirits set their minds to it, they could probably gather every voice in town at once, but that would drive me mad, so I absolutely didn't do it.

The wind spirits were excellent at picking up voices, but my brain wasn't nearly as capable of processing them.

At most, I could listen to ten conversations at once and make a rough judgment about whether they were worth pursuing.

"The person handling the robbery in the Eastern District is..."

"What on earth is His Majesty the Emperor thinking..."

"The supply stockpiles aren't looking good..."

Among all the voices gathered from around town, the ones containing the most important information came from public facilities such as military barracks and the lord's manor.

Conversations held at major merchant houses were also important for understanding the Fodor Empire's movements.

Of course, this method of gathering information was by no means perfect.

Unlike the hot days of summer, in this bitterly cold season every room was shut tight, leaving plenty of places the wind spirits couldn't enter.

Even so, they somehow picked up indoor voices through cracks in walls where drafts could pass, ventilation holes, attics, and even chimneys connected to fireplaces.

Naturally, the wind spirits were the ones directly suffering, but soothing them and attuning my mind to theirs was fairly exhausting for me as well.

At the same time, I wrote down important conversations, marked the places where they had taken place on a map, and worked to make the process more efficient as I gathered information.

Without rushing or forcing things, little by little.

After three weeks of this, the Fodor Empire's movements had become considerably clearer.

By exchanging what we'd learned with the dwarves and supplementing each other's information, there was no longer any doubt that the Fodor Empire was preparing to invade the Rudoria Kingdom.

Supplies for the invasion—food, materials, weapons, and the like—were being brought in small shipments to the southern towns, including Coltoria.

Since they were going to the trouble of transporting supplies during a season when the roads were often buried in snow and travel was difficult, the invasion would probably begin as soon as the snow melted.

And as for the crucial means of invasion—in other words, how they planned to open a route through the mountains... apart from the fact that it had been entrusted to the man who proposed it, nothing was known.

Normally, this would be an undertaking on a scale that called for mobilizing an army. Setting aside ordinary soldiers, it was unthinkable that even the lord responsible for stockpiling supplies would not be told the details.

Even if they had some such method, an invasion plan would be drawn up around it, and preparations would be made accordingly.

The amount of materials and manpower needed to clear a route through the mountains, along with the food required to sustain them, should have varied greatly depending on the invasion plan.

Yet throughout the Fodor Empire, preparations for the invasion of the Rudoria Kingdom were proceeding while the details remained unknown.

Apparently, this was because the emperor of the Fodor Empire had placed his trust in the man who proposed the invasion and given him full authority.

Even if the means of invasion remained undisclosed, questioning it—much less openly opposing it—would be seen as disloyalty to the Emperor.

In fact, one general had objected that an invasion without even a proper plan would only waste soldiers' lives, and had already been executed on charges of treason.

Even though he had faithfully served the Fodor Empire for many years and enjoyed the Emperor's deep trust, neither his arguments nor the defenses offered by those around him had been heeded.

What on earth was happening in this empire?

To find out, I would have to investigate the man named Reihon who had proposed the invasion.

Reihon was not a native of the Fodor Empire. He had drifted into the country several years ago, won the Emperor's favor, and been taken into his service.

Before long, he had seized real power within the empire and begun meddling in the affairs of state.

Naturally, there were many people who disliked Reihon's presence, and apparently there had been repeated attempts to remove him.

Yet, strangely, every one of those attempts had failed, and those who opposed Reihon were either pushed aside by the Emperor or met suspicious deaths.

There was also a rumor—truly nothing more than a rumor—that loose-tongued people called Reihon the Slave-Eater.

In the Fodor Empire, owning slaves was not illegal. People sold off from impoverished villages and foreigners taken prisoner in war were bought and sold as slaves.

Reihon bought up slaves in huge numbers, and most of them disappeared without a trace.

Far too many slaves were bought and then vanished for them all to have been needed merely to work at his mansion.

That was why people whispered that Reihon ate the slaves he bought.

Such imaginings probably arose from resentment toward an upstart who had ingratiated himself with the Emperor, along with fear of an uncanny outsider.

But whether or not he actually ate people, it was certain that Reihon was hated enough for such rumors to arise—and that he was a deeply mysterious figure.

Ultimately, I wouldn't be able to grasp the whole truth without seeing Reihon for myself.

There were several things I could infer.

For example, that the Emperor had probably been brainwashed.

Of course, it was unclear whether this brainwashing involved controlling his mind with some kind of special power.

I knew of many examples from my previous life of suspicious people ingratiating themselves with those in power and manipulating them at will.

The world of my previous life had no spirits or magic, but... people could still manipulate others.

With words alone—or with drugs as well—they wormed their way into the gaps in people's minds.

However, considering the suspicious deaths of Reihon's opponents and the fact that he seemed to be concealing a means of opening a route to the Rudoria Kingdom, it would be more natural to assume that Reihon possessed some kind of power.

Brainwashing the Emperor, secretly eliminating opponents, and opening a road blocked by the mountains.

Considering the breadth of its applications, could it be magic?

But the empire had mages as well, so if the Emperor had been brainwashed through magic, surely someone would have noticed.

Besides, aside from eliminating opponents, a spell powerful enough to open a route through the mountains wasn't particularly realistic.

Of course, I knew only the tiniest fraction of magic as a whole, so if Reihon was a mage vastly superior to all others, I couldn't rule it out entirely.

Alternatively, divine arts were another possibility.

The things called divine arts or sacred arts—miracles brought about by mental strength and deep faith—were, in a sense, a kind of superpower.

A telepath, capable of reading minds or transmitting thoughts to others, might be able to brainwash people.

Likewise, if he were a powerful telekinetic, causing his opponents' suspicious deaths should have been easy enough.

Still, it was hard to imagine even that being enough to move a mountain.

Yeah, I had no idea.

In any case, Reihon was probably an extremely dangerous and troublesome person.

Even so, compared with a situation in which the Fodor Empire as a whole fervently desired to invade the Rudoria Kingdom and was trying to capture a great many elves and use the power of spirits to open a route through the mountains... this was far better.

After all, if Reihon was the cause of everything, simply removing him might be enough to resolve the situation.

In other words, the necessary sacrifices could be kept to a minimum.

...I suddenly remembered something when I heard the rumor about Reihon eating people, but... no, surely that couldn't be it.

Because that would be an utterly horrible possibility.