Chapter 359
“Currently, the biggest problem in the capital is factionalism, and the groups locked in these factional struggles are now even preparing for war.”
Andrew spoke with everything he knew, and Encrid layered Rem’s report over it, piecing things together in his head.
“There’s nothing worthwhile. Everyone’s just selling junk.”
That was Rem’s verdict after wandering through the capital’s markets.
There were plenty of people and plenty of goods, but when he tried to buy anything—
“That’s not for sale. It was ordered by so-and-so of such-and-such family.”
Everything was being treated like military supplies.
Weapons and food weren’t circulating properly. And what did that mean?
‘They must be stationing their troops around the capital.’
They were watching the situation from inside the city, ready to call their soldiers in the moment something went wrong.
The problem was, they were doing all this without the Queen’s approval.
“Even the Royal Guard is split into factions now. Because of that, ridiculous things are happening.”
“Ridiculous things?”
That kind of question was just habit for Encrid.
It was the simplest way to show he was still listening.
Andrew continued without a pause.
“Yes, ridiculous things. They’re assassinating each other. Some Inquisitor comes in and drags people off as heretics. And lately, there’ve been beasts howling at night, and people go missing every few days.”
“This is the capital.”
“Yes, it’s the capital. I know. It’s a huge city—people going missing isn’t unheard of. But this is happening too often. And there’s no commander to investigate the assassinations or any of the incidents. The gate guards try, but with their hands tied, what are they supposed to do?”
Encrid crossed his arms.
He could see Andrew’s face flushed red across the scarred old table.
This wasn’t something he could talk about calmly.
Encrid looked at that flushed face and asked,
“In the middle of all this, one of the royal bloodlines shows up here?”
“It’s like throwing oil on the fire. The faction nobles, who were just watching, have started drawing swords. I know what the official line is. They say they came to end the factional fighting. That’s why they entered the capital.”
End the fighting? The obvious question came next.
“How?”
He was simply curious about the method.
Andrew raised both hands and shrugged.
“I don’t know how.”
Whatever Krang planned to do was Krang’s business.
Then what should Encrid do?
What had he been looking forward to most when he decided to come to the capital?
‘Am I going to have to go back without even meeting a single royal guard?’
A chance to fight, a chance to train, a chance to open his eyes—that was all he wanted.
If they just listened and watched Andrew, wouldn’t the hidden forces of each noble faction surface sooner or later?
They would rush out and fight, with their lives on the line.
Thinking about that made his anticipation stretch out ahead of him.
Just like he’d realized while training the trainees, there would be new opportunities waiting if he entered the Royal Palace.
If thinking too hard didn’t give him an answer, sometimes the right thing to do was to follow his gut.
Encrid did just that.
Stand at the side of a friend he liked and cross swords together, just once.
He decided to do that—warnings and all.
Was that decision impulsive?
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
Rem asked beside him. He was the sort who would accept whatever conclusion Encrid reached.
“I was thinking about beheading the Queen and becoming a faction noble myself.”
He just said whatever popped into his head.
“What, you want to fight? Good. Good.”
This lunatic had only heard the word “fight.”
Truly Rem.
“What did you just say…?”
“Just kidding.”
Encrid calmed the startled Andrew.
As he sorted through what he needed to do, a prickling chill brushed down his back.
He naturally turned.
In the corner of the reception room, Jaxson was leaning against a pillar, half swallowed by shadow.
“Hey, want to take a walk?”
The look in his eyes said he’d cause trouble if left alone.
When had Encrid seen that expression before?
Right before he was about to draw his sword as things with Rem tipped over the edge.
In other words, Jaxson looked like he was standing on that line now.
Why all of a sudden? Had Jaxson been attacked too?
No. This was something else.
Encrid knew it instinctively.
‘He said he had to come to the Royal Palace.’
This had to be about that.
“Sure.”
Jaxson answered and walked outside. It even looked like he was holding some impulse in check.
“Did he take something?”
Rem muttered.
“I’ll be back.”
Encrid followed Jaxson.
They left the mansion and slipped into the shadows.
The wind blew, lifting his hair.
Soon, the two were walking side by side.
Encrid nodded to himself as he looked at the moonlight, starlight, and the distant fire pits burning here and there.
They walked along the mansion wall on the dark road.
“There’s something I absolutely have to do.”
Jaxson spoke first.
“Hmm. Okay.”
Encrid nodded.
Jaxson would take care of whatever it was by himself.
“To do that, I have to do something else first. It’s a bit of a hassle, so I’m thinking about it.”
“Thinking?”
It didn’t sound like a word that fit Jaxson at all.
Encrid thought for a moment. He’d come out because he felt Jaxson had something to say, but was there anything he could actually do?
“It’s about killing someone.”
Jaxson said.
Yeah, that figured.
Judging by the pressure rolling off him, it was even more likely. So what should Encrid say?
After thinking it over, he opened his mouth.
“Good luck.”
He wasn’t the sort who asked for help, and he handled most things on his own.
So the answer was obvious.
Encrid nodded and patted Jaxson’s shoulder.
After a few pats, he turned away, thinking that Jaxson’s eyes already looked calmer than before. He meant to go back inside.
Jaxson stopped where he stood.
He stared at his captain’s back, moving away under the moon and stars.
‘I knew he wasn’t normal, but…’
The thought came to him again.
He’s cheering me on like this?
‘Because he trusts me?’
Trust? Faith? Was it something like that?
A faint worry crept back into Jaxson’s eyes. Encrid, walking ahead, had his own thoughts.
If Rem or Ragna caused trouble, it would be something loud and external. Jaxson wasn’t like that.
They didn’t call him a sly wildcat for nothing.
Jaxson would do whatever he had to do. Quietly. Secretly.
That was what Encrid believed.
To his turning back—
“It’s about an enemy and revenge.”
Jaxson said. His voice, pitched just right, carried clearly to Encrid.
“What?”
Encrid turned. He was the type to listen to any story if someone started talking. This time was no different.
He turned all the way and gave him his full attention, as if to say, “Are you really going to talk?”
When Jaxson just looked at him in silence, Encrid naturally walked over to a pair of stones by the wall.
He sat down, pulled out jerky, and then a canteen from his belt.
Was this careful preparation, or coincidence?
The canteen smelled of alcohol. Not sweet apple cider, but harsh brandy.
Jaxson took it and drank.
Heat flared from his stomach to his throat.
It was strong liquor.
Of course, Jaxson didn’t get drunk. He’d been chewing poisonous herbs since he was young, building resistance.
A body used to poison wouldn’t go down to alcohol.
The time he’d spent biting and swallowing poisonous herbs suddenly came back to him.
What had pushed him to endure all that?
It started with death. (T/N: Oooohh. First was with Rem, now Jaxson? Are we getting backstories now for each of the members? )
The death of his family, his parents, everyone he knew.
He’d seen death, and turned death into a weapon.
That was the path he’d walked.
Encrid took the canteen back, took a swallow, and asked,
“Who’s the enemy?”
“There used to be a group called Black Lily.”
Jaxson began his story in a slow, level tone.
Simply, without a trace of sorrow. That was how it began.
—
His father was cruel, his mother merciless.
“Stab even your friend in the back if you have to.”
That was what his father said. Those words became his last words.
From then on, Jaxson lived by them. If necessary, he stabbed anyone in the back.
“You’re a stubborn bastard, you know that.”
Then he met his master.
He went through a lot. By the time he came to, his position was different.
It had been a life of chewing poisonous herbs and carving knife marks all over his body.
The path Jaxson walked was soaked in blood. No—he carved a bloody path himself and walked down it.
He walked, and walked, and walked again.
He had been the son of a noble house.
Jaxson Bensino—that was his name.
House Bensino had once been a powerful noble family.
They had leaped into trade and struck it rich, but his father wanted even more.
Was that the mistake?
He didn’t know.
Jaxson decided not to bother with right and wrong. He set a single, clear goal.
I will take revenge. I will kill everyone involved.
“Hey, you’ll die young if you keep that up.”
His master had scolded him for it.
Jaxson ignored him. He kept going straight down one path.
“When is that guy going to be human?”
“Is that something a man who runs an assassination guild should say?”
He remembered his master chuckling at that answer.
“Yeah, go ahead and be angry instead. That suits you better.”
It was a trivial memory.
His goal was clear. He chased information and dug into things.
The family hadn’t collapsed because of a string of bad luck.
That was nonsense. It was someone’s scheme.
Jaxson decided the one who’d woven that scheme had to pay the price.
That was the name he found.
Black Lily.
The name of the group. What did they do when they gathered? They were people whose only purpose was filling their own pockets.
Some of them served cruel lords and became bandits.
Some became nobles somewhere else. Some vanished like smoke.
The first one Jaxson found was a man who had lost everything, thrown his life away, and rotted in ruin.
“Why did you do it?”
He truly wanted to know. They had ruined a family and swallowed several merchant houses.
Many had died because of Black Lily.
There had to be a reason.
“The reason? It’s you, brat.”
The ruined noble laughed.
“Tear apart a house like Bensino, how much is that worth? Brat, everyone lives by ripping someone else off.”
A man who had given up everything didn’t cling to his own life either.
Killing him quickly would have been mercy.
Sending him straight to hell would have been something he should thank Jaxson for.
Cutting his throat with a single slash would have been a blessing.
So Jaxson refused to use his own knife.
Instead, he cut off the man’s limbs and threw him into a beggars’ den.
Four days later, he was torn apart alive.
That year, because of drought, people killed for a handful of wheat.
When even a single blade of grass was worth killing for, he had no chance of surviving in a beggars’ den.
The dead man’s last words stuck in his ears.
Everyone lives by ripping others off.
The man had once been his cruel father’s friend. Once.
“Just keep looking forward. No need to look back.”
His merciless mother’s words remained in his heart as well.
Was it right to do anything for the sake of a goal?
If that was what it took, then he would.
He spent several more years tracking down Black Lily’s leaders, and in that time, his master died.
He never understood his master’s last words. So he let them go.
He buried them.
“Stab even your friend in the back if you have to.”
“Just keep looking forward. No need to look back.”
Instead, he repeated his parents’ words. Their voices tangled and knotted in his head.
“Everyone lives by ripping others off.”
The words of the man he’d first killed tangled in there too.
After that, he killed four of Black Lily’s leaders.
When he was closing in on the fifth, he learned that one of those leaders had been the one to target House Bensino.
Was that the real enemy?
He didn’t know the man’s name or face.
After chasing clue after clue and drawing conclusions, he met Avnair.
Avnair told him to go to the Naurilia Royal Palace.
So Jaxson came.
While Encrid was being attacked, while Rem, Dunbakel, Ragna, and the others were roaming the markets and complaining about terrible goods, Jaxson entered a mansion in a residential district.
The old house was strung with cobwebs, and any signs of habitation were faint.
There, he met the one who had lured him in.
A white-haired man wearing a monocle.
His body was thin, but he held a cane sword, and his eyes were narrow and small, making his gaze hard to read.
Jaxson knew at a glance.
He was in the same line of work.
“You’re from the Daggers of Gaor, aren’t you?”
The man called out his background. That much was obvious—Jaxson had leaked that information on purpose to get here.
The Daggers of Gaor were the greatest assassination guild on the continent.
Even so, the man showed no fear. Was it because he trusted his own skill? No. It was because he believed he was holding Jaxson’s weakness.
“I know what you’re looking for.”
The white-haired fellow professional said.
“What is it.”
Jaxson asked. His brown eyes, with a red sheen in the darkness, seemed to swallow the room.
“Aren’t you the legitimate son of House Bensino?”
Well, yeah. You should at least figure that much out.
“I’ll give you all the information you want. Everything. Anything.”
Jaxson waited for the rest.
“In exchange, stab that man.”
Which man? There was no need to say.
The owner of black hair and blue eyes—the captain of his unit.
“Encrid. Stab him.”
It was a request to stab the man he called captain. The price was the information he had chased his entire life.
(T/N : And the twist is twisting…)
—
Encrid sat, quietly looking at the moon. The canteen in his hand sloshed.
Jaxson watched him and spoke of revenge and enemies.
He mentioned that one of them was somewhere in the Royal Palace, and that was why he had to go inside and find him himself.
He left out the part about the white-haired counterpart.
“Yeah, let’s find him.”
Encrid said. He wasn’t laughing. It wasn’t a joke.
He was serious.
There was clear willingness to help in those words. If Encrid didn’t refuse, he would help.
He would give it everything he had.
Jaxson knew.
That’s the kind of man he was.
But even after wandering this far, could he really find an enemy he hadn’t been able to reach no matter how much effort he poured in?
There was an easy path laid right in front of him.
His father’s words, his mother’s words, and the first enemy’s last words tangled together.
– “Stab even your friend in the back if you have to.”
– “Just keep looking forward. No need to look back.”
– “Everyone lives by ripping others off.”
It was the path Jaxson had walked until now—a path drawn in blood, blades, and poison.
If he walked it again this time, that would be the end of it.