Chapter 67
Chapter 24. He Has Arrived (4)
Jade's praise made Noes rub his large nose together, producing a pleased sound.
He was happy to hear that he had been helpful.
But the job wasn't over yet.
“You lot have a storage room, right? Bring out everything valuable. I'll return it to the original owners.”
Pwoohing!
Noes, who understood perfectly even from the rough explanation, nodded vigorously and disappeared.
He had moved underground and was searching through every corner of the hideout.
-We would have made excellent thieves!
-We might even have become legendary thieves. But stealing would be a waste of our talents.
-Still, it sounds like it would have been fun! We'd become righteous outlaws! We'd target only fatcats who squeezed their people dry and amassed fortunes, then rob them blind!
Silestin once again spread the wings of his imagination all by himself.
Jade and Elestera, however, took it in stride.
It wasn't the first or second time this had happened.
Instead, Wheid, who was still in his true form, landed in front of them and pounded the ground with his forepaws.
-Wheid would have fun too, right? Steal everything and smash it all to pieces!
Grrr!
With all traces of cuteness gone, Wheid nodded, his face now looking like that of a real drake.
Yet his eyes were still the same ones he'd had when he was small.
Swish.
While Silestin and Wheid were cheerfully playing along, Noes returned with every valuable thing from the bandits' hideout.
He had simply taken everything that sparkled or looked expensive by human standards.
But perhaps because there was so much of it, the haul was considerable.
“Gold bars and silver bars. These guys really did a proper job of banditry.”
“Mmph! Mmph!”
The fully bound bandit chief babbled something, but Jade paid him no attention.
Instead, he stuffed the valuables Noes had swept up into his subspace.
“Shall we go, then?”
Grrr!
“Hm? You want to give us a ride?”
Sniff!
Since Wheid had grown huge, he could no longer make the cute noises he had when he was small.
Even so, Jade and the two spirits heard it as adorable.
Only the captured bandit chief's face grew deathly pale.
Every time Wheid answered, hot breath kept blasting into him.
-Let's ride! It's about time we tried riding him!
-It might not be a bad idea to fly for practice. If we keep the altitude high enough, people won't even notice us.
Swish.
Wheid lay down.
He lowered his body so Jade could ride comfortably.
At the same time, Wheid firmly gripped the bandit chief with his right foot.
“Oh-ho.”
Slightly surprised that Wheid had thought to bring the bandit chief along, Jade climbed onto his back.
He slowly lay prone on Wheid's back and wrapped his arms around his neck.
-Let's go, Wheid!
Roaaar!
Once Jade had settled into position, Silestin shouted excitedly.
He was sitting atop Wheid's head instead of in his usual spot.
Even so, Wheid let out a refreshing roar as if he had no objection and took to the sky.
He shot up into the heavens in an instant, whipping up fierce winds.
“Oh-ho.”
-The ride's pretty smooth, huh?
Silestin spotted Jade's surprised expression, grinned, and asked.
He could tell from Jade's expression what he had been thinking.
Grr.
Wheid also turned his head while flapping his wings.
To check Jade's expression.
“It's really good. There's barely any difference from riding Silaphe.”
-Of course! Our Wheid has secretly studied and practiced so much!
“You did?”
Jade asked as he gently stroked Wheid's neck.
Wheid's mouth curved into a crescent.
Jade's praise had put him in a good mood.
Even so, Wheid's flight remained perfectly steady.
-I told you he's grown so much. They say children grow by the day.
Elestera gave Wheid a mother's proud smile as he flew carefully, worried that Jade might be jostled.
She was proud that he was paying attention to his flying while carrying Jade like this—a feat impressive enough on its own.
“Mmmph! Mmph!”
Meanwhile, the bandit chief clutched in Wheid's foot was suffering terribly.
Jade was accustomed to flying, but he wasn't.
Besides, unlike Jade, who was riding comfortably, the bandit chief was being held in a way that made it seem perfectly possible he could fall at any moment, making it all the more terrifying.
‘Just kill me instead! Please, just kill me!’
The bandit chief, unable even to scream properly with his mouth gagged, wailed, but no one understood his feelings.
Alfredo skimmed through the documents with sharp eyes.
Jade had left the castle early that morning, but Alfredo had not had a moment to rest.
There was a mountain of work to do.
In particular, he dug more deeply into the administrators than into the bandits.
“There are no problems on paper, but something feels off. The reporting system obviously needs an overhaul, too.”
Decisions were not supposed to be made by underlings.
Yet they had done so without permission, which was why Alfredo had thundered at them yesterday.
There was only one person who could make decisions in the marquisate.
“Should I replace every last one of them again?”
A chill settled in Alfredo's eyes.
If he disliked every one of them, replacing them all outright was not a bad idea.
The marquisate had the ability to do exactly that, after all.
“You could wait a little longer before deciding whether to replace them or not, couldn't you?”
“What do you mean by that, Lady Arellia?”
Alfredo did not react even when Arellia entered through the castle window as naturally as could be.
It had happened so often that he had long since stopped being surprised.
Instead, Alfredo showed interest in her confident declaration.
“You know Jade went somewhere this morning, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you suppose he went?”
“Didn't you say he had some personal business, Lady Arellia?”
A mischievous smile formed on Arellia's face.
She looked as if she were saying, Why pretend you don't know?
“Don't play dumb. What personal business could Jade have here, seeing as he just arrived?”
“He could have a connection we don't know about. There is more I don't know about the lord than I do.”
Alfredo said this while taking a sip of his favorite tea.
Though he treated Jade casually, he knew well that an invisible line existed between himself and Jade.
He also understood why.
“The same goes for me.”
“Do you know something?”
“I have an idea. Jade may look gentle, but he is not someone to take lightly.”
Roaaar!
No sooner had Arellia finished speaking than a familiar roar came from outside the window.
It was Wheid's voice, howling as if to announce that he had arrived.
“……It seems you went out riding Wheid today.”
“That's right. And he brought something in his foot, too.”
“What?”
Following Arellia, Alfredo turned his gaze toward the window.
And then he saw it.
Some strange thing being held grotesquely in Wheid's foot.
“Let's go out and see.”
“Yes.”
Alfredo peered intently at Wheid's foot, then answered and rose from his seat.
But people were gathering in the training grounds where Wheid was landing.
The group had learned Wheid was coming and had come out to greet him.
Those seeing Wheid in his giant form for the first time had also come out to gawk.
“Welcome back, my lord!”
“Right.”
Moikan, who had run out first, greeted him with a formal, humanlike bow.
As he did, he looked questioningly at the figure Wheid was holding with his foot.
“Who is that?”
“The bandit chief.”
Ged, who had also run over at once like Moikan, looked surprised at Jade's answer.
He hadn't expected Jade to capture and bring in the bandit chief so quickly.
Jade hadn't even made any separate inquiries.
“So you did capture him?”
“What's the point of dragging our feet? If we can do it, we should finish it quickly.”
Jade answered Arellia, who had come down with Alfredo.
But among the administrators following behind them, Jade gave one a meaningful look.
It was an older man struggling desperately to keep his expression under control.
“Who are you looking at?”
“The man who provided the bandits with inside information.”
“M-My lord?”
As if he had felt Jade's gaze, the middle-aged man jolted in surprise and looked at him.
At that, everyone's eyes in the training grounds, including Arellia's, turned toward the middle-aged man.
Alfredo and Ged in particular had ominous looks in their eyes.
“You look pretty surprised. I suppose you didn't expect to face him here like this.”
“No! Absolutely not! I've never seen that man before! I was surprised because you suddenly captured the bandit chief and brought him back, my lord!”
The middle-aged man, who could be considered a high-ranking administrator, frantically waved his hands and shouted.
He had strongly emphasized that he had no connection whatsoever to the bandit chief.
But the more he did so, the deeper the smile on Jade's face became.
It was a smile that made unease creep up just by looking at it.
‘There’s no evidence! I just have to deny everything! The evidence in my room is hidden perfectly away…….’
The middle-aged man's eyes widened until they could hardly get any wider.
Because the evidence he had hidden securely in his house suddenly dropped from the sky.
“Silaphe went on an errand.”
“Huh, wha?”
The middle-aged man's eyes shook violently.
He had no idea what to do about the evidence that had appeared out of nowhere.
Unlike him, however, everyone else stared at the objects dropped before Jade with looks of curiosity.
“No cross-examination. There’s no need for one when we have conclusive evidence. Let's see... this was brought directly from Tereira's room.”
“I-I’m innocent! They’re not mine! This is unfair! While I was at work, someone must have framed me to……!”
Even in his panic, the middle-aged man's quick thinking was impressive.
He had rapidly racked his brain for any way to escape.
But no one sympathized with his impassioned, heartfelt protest.
Everyone merely watched the middle-aged man with cold eyes.
“I expected you to say that. The writing on what came from your room isn't yours. That's why I brought this separately.”
Gulp!
Tereira's protest did not erase the smile at the corners of Jade's mouth.
If anything, it grew deeper.
At the sight of Jade like that, Tereira swallowed nervously.
He could instinctively sense that Jade had something else.
Rustle.
The earth tightly wrapped around the bandit chief suddenly broke apart.
Several letters and a small magic communication orb emerged from within.
Like Tereira, the bandit chief had also collected evidence just in case.
But everyone's eyes were drawn to the small, beadlike communication orb.
“Looks like he received quite a lot of money and valuables in exchange for revealing inside secrets. He even has a magic communication orb, albeit a low-grade one.”
Brrrrr!
From the moment the magic communication orb appeared, Tereira began to tremble.
He knew that once that orb was used, he would have no way to deny anything.
Yet even knowing that, there was nothing he could do.
Bzzzt!
Before long, the magic communication orb connected.
Not only that, but the recordings they had made of each other began playing as well.
“Anything to say?”
“……Nothing.”
Faced with irrefutable evidence, Tereira's body went limp.
Alfredo then dragged him away, fixing him with a terrifying glare.
The other administrators grew tense as well.
They were worried the fallout might reach them too.
“Deal with it thoroughly.”
“I will make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Alfredo replied with a grim expression.
His pride was deeply wounded, and the sight of him turned the administrators' faces ashen.
They could easily predict what was going to happen.
“Ged, take charge of the bandit chief.”
“I'll make him spit everything out.”
“I trust you to handle it well.”
“……Leave it to me.”
Like Alfredo, Ged's expression was just as grim.
He stared at the bandit chief with a terrifying glint in his eyes.
“I knew you were capable. You solve a problem the moment you arrive.”
“It is my territory, after all. It's best to get rid of anything that bothers me as quickly as possible.”
Having finished what he had to do, Jade coolly walked away.
In Jade's arms was Wheid, who had shrunk back down at some point.