Chapter 26

On the day the first snow fell in the capital, the true curtain of war was raised. The start of winter is when the value of every resource soars. Duke Valois waited for the moment to dominate the market by releasing the vast grain he had purchased from the Aster estate.

Just then, strange rumors began to spread through the capital’s poor districts and back alleys.

“Have you heard? That place called ‘Dawn Guild’ is selling ‘white coal.’ No smoke, and it lasts twice as long as regular coal!”

“You think that’s all? The dried rations made from ‘glowing moss’ can keep you for three days for the price of one piece of bread!”

‘Dawn Guild.’ It was the new name Rian had given to the ghost guild he absorbed from Reinhardt. Instead of large-scale advertising, the guild targeted the poorest and most desperate. Through Argos’s information network, they secretly sold prototypes at rock-bottom prices to slum leaders, supply officers of low-ranking knight orders, and small restaurant owners.

The effect was immediate and explosive.

Those who tried the white coal were stunned by its overwhelming efficiency. On cold winter nights, the ability to heat a room for a long time without choking smoke felt like a blessing to commoners. The preserved rations made from glowing moss solved the winter food problem for the poor, as if mocking Duke Valois’s price-hiked grain market.

Word of mouth spread faster than any advertisement, and people lined up to get Dawn Guild’s goods. But the guild strictly controlled supply, torturing the market.

By the time Duke Valois sensed this unusual movement, it was already too late.

“Dawn Guild? White coal? Where on earth did these things come from!”

His enraged shout echoed through the duke’s mansion. His loyal lackey, the ‘Silver Scales Guild,’ had flooded the market with the grain bought at great expense, but the expected explosive demand never happened. People had already found a cheaper, more efficient alternative.

To make matters worse, terrible news arrived from the Aster estate.

“Your Grace! There’s been a disaster! A mysterious fire broke out last night at the largest grain warehouse the Silver Scales Guild had temporarily set up near the Aster estate!”

Of course it was no accident. It was the work of Rian’s shadow left in the estate, Kael. Kael had perfectly mapped the guild’s transport routes and the guards’ shift schedules. He recruited some workers who resented being expelled from the estate and staged it as an ‘accidental fire,’ driving a dagger into the duke’s core.

Duke Valois crumpled the report and flung it across his office, trembling. The economic war he had launched at great cost; he was sure he was choking the Aster family, but reality was the opposite.

The grain he had bought at high prices had turned to ash or he had been shunned in the market. The skilled workers he had taken from the Aster estate were secretly hired by Dawn Guild on better terms, working at the white coal and new textile plants.

Worst of all, the most horrifying fact was that Dawn Guild’s initial funds were precisely the money he had paid to buy the Aster estate’s grain. He had, in effect, used his own money to fashion the noose tightening around his neck.

“Aster… Rian Aster…!”

For the first time, Duke Valois recalled the name of that young boy. He was not the naive rural nobleman favored by the Crown Prince. Behind him stood an invisible architect who saw through everything and set the board.

The cunning fox thought himself the hunter, but before he knew it he felt a cold noose tightening around his neck.

Rian flicked the black fox piece placed on his room’s map with his finger, toppling it.

“The first stage of the hunt is over. Now it’s time to drive the fox into a corner.”

The shadow’s counterattack had only just begun.