We Go For It First! (7)

The accessory’s design was simple, but its material looked anything but ordinary at a glance.

It looked like a bracelet, and I first asked Hare.

“Can you take that item to the Demon Dragon and have her confirm it?”

“Will that knight hand it over?”

“If they want to make a deal, they need to earn trust, and if they try to skip the confirmation process, we can simply refuse.”

Hare nodded as if she understood, then immediately spoke to the knight.

“How am I supposed to believe that it is real?”

“Is this not the Minor Kingdom of Ingrad, where beastkin make up half the population? I believe you can have the Demon Dragon confirm it directly.”

“Then, if there is someone who can confirm it, will you hand it over?”

“I shall give it to you. However, if you lose it or attempt to deceive us… our relationship will flow into a situation from which there is no return.”

It was enough to make me laugh softly.

“We are also people who make trust our profession, so you may believe us.”

Then, when I nodded to Hare, Hare walked over personally and received the wooden box, and the knight looked surprised as she soon stepped back a suitable distance and drew a magic circle at high speed.

A little while later, the knight’s expression became blank at the sight of Hare disappearing with light, and soon, after realizing her own state, she shook her head and looked at me. It was then.

Hare returned immediately, to the point that it seemed meaningless to say she had disappeared. The problem, however, was that she was not alone.

“You are the one who brought this, were you?”

At the question thrown at me without warning, I spoke in disgust.

“Would it be me?”

“Hmm, then it must be those things wearing lumps of metal.”

The Demon Dragon said something amusing, and despite the sight of the girl who had suddenly appeared and pointed that out, the knight did not panic and calmly bowed her head.

“Are you perhaps the Demon Dragon?”

“You are a quick-witted human. Are you the owner of this?”

At the Demon Dragon’s words as she held out the bracelet, the knight shook her head and opened her mouth.

“No, I am not. That belongs to my lord, Branne de Ishtain.”

“Ishtain, is it…?”

The nuance seemed to suggest there was some story behind it. So I slipped in and asked.

“It seems to be genuine, and they say they are requesting support with it. They presented it to us as a trade item, but can it be transferred?”

“…Was she a foolish human who could not recognize the value of an item?”

At the Demon Dragon’s venomous gaze and tone, the knight hurriedly explained.

“There are circumstances, and we are in a situation where we absolutely need the items supported by Ingrad. We had to obtain them no matter what, so it was a choice we had no choice but to make. My lord merely wished to embrace many people by offering a family heirloom.”

“A family heirloom… Even so, it seems it was kept as a precious bond.”

Unlike the way she had spoken venomously as if rebuking her, I felt that the Demon Dragon seemed somehow proud, as though satisfied with the word “bond,” and she immediately threw the bracelet to me and spoke.

“It can be transferred. The covenant I placed on the bracelet will not disappear, so do as you please. However… if you intend to make a request that harms humans, you had better be prepared.”

I had to feel a slightly chilling sensation at her last words, but I wondered if it was not too much as compensation for a trade. I would receive an item that allowed me to make one request of the Demon Dragon in exchange for merely giving out some medicine?

It was a profitable deal.

I carefully examined the bracelet and spoke to the knight.

“Shall we discuss how much you need?”

At those words, the knight looked back and forth between me and the Demon Dragon with a complicated expression.

After that, the quantity of medicine we agreed to hand over to the Ishtain Region was an enormous amount equivalent to roughly five million great gold coins, but honestly, I thought it was still a profitable deal even if we gave that much away.

It was because I had a feeling that although I did not know right away how I should make use of the Demon Dragon, if I used this well, it would literally become an incredible deterrent against war.

The people who knew the truth would probably be everyone here and a small portion of Count Branne’s House.

If so, depending on how we spread the rumor, the value of this item could skyrocket endlessly.

So I had to add one more condition to the trade.

“Silence about this item, and no leaking the truth about it to the outside, no matter what rumor we spread!”

“Understood.”

“However, if it is leaked outside, I must also give you a stern warning that you will need to be firmly prepared.”

“…A warning?”

“This item now belongs to our Ingrad. If your side attempts to lower its value for any reason, I will firmly warn you that we will make you pay the appropriate price in return.”

The knight had a stiff expression, but after a moment, she said she understood and bowed her head.

After that, detailed discussions remained, such as how the items would be transported and by when they needed to be delivered, but this was literally something for the people who had come with the knight, Linda, Matilda, and the others to discuss.

After putting away the wooden box and the bracelet separately, I asked the Demon Dragon, who still had not left.

“It seems you came under the pretext of this, so would you like to drink some alcohol before leaving?”

The Demon Dragon grinned at my words, and I looked at the knight, who was surprised by the sight of the Demon Dragon and me, and asked.

“You should come as well.”

“…Is it all right for someone like me to join you?”

“The phrase ‘someone like me’ does not seem to suit you. I heard that Sir Branne de Ishtain has an old friend, and I have heard by rumor that there is one person expected to soon reach the realm of Master… Is that not you?”

“It is an exaggerated rumor. I am merely a lowly knight who serves my lord with all loyalty.”
Thinking it was humility, I spoke to those around me.

“This is the moment after a good trade has been completed, so all of you may moderately leave work… And since you will also be staying for a few days, let us go.”

The knight said she understood and followed me. And when I later heard that her name was “Garea,” I was able to confirm that she was the person I had guessed she was.

To be honest, because of Garea, who began drinking heavily together with the Demon Dragon, we had to consume quite a lot of alcohol, but it became a useful occasion where I could hear information from various perspectives.

Afterward, after seeing off the Demon Dragon, who left with a large amount of Royal Rum packed away, I was able to arrange a seat close to a private meeting with Garea, and she said to me.

“My lord… is in love with the Monarch of Ingrad.”

It was a sudden story, and its contents were also so absurd that I asked.

“I do not think it is good to put lies in your mouth.”

I thought of it as a private occasion, and my words were flowing out as usual, but neither Garea nor I, nor even Hare beside us, seemed to care.

“It is not a lie. In fact, my lord intended to come to this place, but… the nobles’ opposition was severe, so she could not come. The person who opposed it the most among them… was Tilda Josephine, the one called the little fox of House Josephine. But to think… she came here and did something. I did not know that.”

“It seems their relationship is very bad.”

“Tilda Josephine… is a woman with great ambition. She is someone who does not choose means or methods in order to become the head. She is extremely jealous and afraid of my lord.”

To be honest, I did not know much about relationships between women. I did not particularly want to know, either. But because I was hearing something unexpected, my head was becoming a little complicated.

That proud Branne de Ishtain was in love with me?

It was something that made me laugh softly. I had not had many points of contact with her. But that did not mean it was a light relationship either. I was her lifesaver, and we also had a business relationship. We had said we would share the achievements, but I had not yet received my share, and because of the sudden independence declaration and war, there had been no time to exchange with her.

“How much result do you think this help will show?”

“I do not know. It might be different if the Empire does not launch an all-out war, but… in truth, the person appointed as Commander-in-Chief this time is no ordinary person…”

“No ordinary person?”

“Rumors are widespread that the Tiger of the South will move.”

I remembered hearing of him. The Tiger of the South was the noble who was moving enormous funds through the Dust of Sands Trading Company.

I remembered hearing that he was of an archducal house and a blood relative of the Empress. Since he was an influential noble of the Empire, he was one of the people I had been able to examine first when I received the list of names.

‘Was it Archduke Pearl…?’

He was a hero who had lived as an Imperial Family member under the name Grevados de Terakan, then achieved the feat of subjugating the “great bandit horde” that had been a problem in the south and received the title of “Archduke.” From what I had heard, he was known as a fairly warlike person and also exceptionally sharp.

“They say he is moving personally?”

“It seems his son will be appointed as commander.”

“His son, not himself…”

In terms of status, I wondered if he was in the same position as Princess Riana.

‘Is it a fight over succession rights…? Or simply a contest of strength? Restraint? If not that… weakening a faction?’

Whatever it was, I thought that among the information I had heard now, this might be the most valuable. After that, I had Garea, whose eyes were half-glazed and who had started being drunk by the alcohol rather than drinking it, rest, and was able to end the gathering.

And the next day, while hearing news that Garea was suffering from a hangover, I called Linda and Matilda and brought up the story I had heard from Garea yesterday. The two women looked at me with serious expressions.

“It seems that rumor was true, then?”

At Matilda’s words, I first asked a question.

“Is Archduke Pearl that threatening of a person?”

“He is such an amazing person that even explaining it is tiring. If you say the Tiger of the South, everyone on the Central Continent would know him.”

“What exactly is he like for the rumors about him to be that widespread?”

“There was a bandit group that practically controlled the south about twenty years ago. They were called ‘horse bandits,’ but they were famous for riding earth dragons called ‘Sand Lizards’ that lived in places like deserts, rather than riding horses.”

“Earth dragons… earthworms?”

At my words, Linda spoke with an incredulous expression.

“No, they are lizards. They are large enough for people to ride…”

“Hmm, the earth dragon I know is… Anyway, he subjugated those bandits?”

“Yes. Together with the vassals who still follow him with loyalty now, he subjugated the bandit group, and that anecdote is still circulated across the southern region like a fairy tale told to children.”

“How did he subjugate them?”

“I heard that when a sandstorm was blowing, he personally went to the bandits and cut off their heads one by one.”

“…Was he a Master or something?”

“That is right. The Tiger of the South is also a Master.”

I wondered if Masters were scattered all over the world to this extent, and seeing my expression, Matilda spoke.

“He went around one by one to find the bandits trapped in the sandstorm and unable to come or go, and killed them all over the course of one night. They say it was a bandit group numbering a thousand… And by leading the Sand Lizards he took as spoils and presenting them to the Empire, he had his achievements recognized and was granted the position of Archduke. And even now, he is famous for carefully managing the earth dragons handed over to the Empire at that time and forming an Earth Dragon Knight Order.”

I thought he was an interesting human. A knight order that rode lizards… So I quietly asked.

“Do they have a Wyvern Knight Order somewhere, too?”

The two women looked at me as though asking what kind of obvious question that was. It seemed one really existed. I was jealous of the wyverns.