Chapter 62

“What are you so worried about? As you said, I’m a guy who doesn’t have the guts to hurt anyone. I’m just going to ask a few questions and let her go.”

As I replied, a flash of bewilderment crossed the man’s eyes.

“And if she doesn’t answer?” the man asked. “If she stays silent, are you just going to release her like you did me? If that’s the plan, you’re wasting your time. Her lips are sealed tighter than mine.”

I answered immediately. “No. She’ll talk.”

“How can you be so sure? I guarantee you, with your pathetic, amateur interrogation—”

“Actually, the interrogation is already over.”

“What?”

“She told me everything. You guys are backed by the Ruler of the Lower District, right? The motive is the upper district’s liquor business. Your plan was to first put Mr. Izack, who lives down here, in a bind, and then target me—the one in charge of the operation.”

“How did you…?”

The man looked like he’d been struck by a bolt from the blue. He stared down at his companion in utter disbelief.

“You probably thought there was no way she’d talk. I understand,” I said. “In fact, that’s exactly what she said, too.”

The man’s trembling eyes met mine. “What do you mean by that…?”

“We woke her up before we woke you. Just as you said, her lips were sealed. So, I changed my strategy. I figured there was no point in threatening her directly.”

I pointed at the man. “I told her that if she didn’t answer, I’d kill you. And then…”

Ta-da. I spread my arms wide.

“She sang like a canary.”

“You little bastard!”

“Adele.”

Adele’s mace blocked the man as he lunged at me. Upon impact, he fell backward as if he’d run into a brick wall. Adele promptly planted her foot on the fallen man’s chest.

I continued. “I got a bit bored listening to her, so I decided to get the rest from you. But it seems your lips are quite sealed as well. That’s why I had to use this little trick.”

“Ugh… you… you said you’d let us go…”

“Oh, I’ll let you go. In fact, I’ll personally escort you back to your master, completely unharmed. How should I greet him? Maybe… ‘These kind folks personally escorted me right to your doorstep’? Something like that?”

I gave him a devious grin.

“No…! Not that…!”

Adele stepped down harder on the man as he tried to push himself up. I leaned in close to his face and whispered.

“Of course not. That man isn’t like me—he actually has ‘guts.’ How do you think the Ruler of the Lower District will react when he finds out you two spilled his secrets? Oh, I’m far too soft-hearted to even imagine it.”

The man’s face turned pale with terror. Conversely, my smile grew wider.

‘Phew! I was breaking a sweat. It would have been so much easier if you’d just been cooperative from the start!’

“Now, you understand, don’t you? If you don’t want me to personally hand this lady over to the Ruler… you’d better start talking.”

“You really are interesting,” Adele said, following behind me. We were ascending the slope leading out of the lower district.

I asked without looking back, “Usually, just looking at a handsome face is enough to be entertaining.”

I made a light joke, but Adele’s nod was surprisingly grave.

“I agree. But that’s not the only reason you’re interesting.”

“Then what is it?”

“I was thinking about how you could tell such blatant lies right to a person’s face.”

‘Yeah. Lies.’

I had lied. To that man.

I never actually woke the woman up, nor did I threaten her with the man’s life. It was a pure bluff designed to extract information.

Adele asked me, “How did you guess who was behind them without even asking? Did you know from the start?”

“Hmm. From the start, huh?”

You could say that. I pulled a small note from my pocket and handed it to Adele.

She read the contents aloud. “‘Ambush on lower district raw material carriage. Second time already.’”

She handed the note back and asked, “What does this mean?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I came down to find a missing employee. I found this note in his ledger. It’s in his handwriting.”

“And?”

“It means the carriages supplying raw materials for our business in the lower district were attacked. Twice. I didn’t think there were many people with the nerve to pull something like that.”

“And that person is the ‘Ruler of the Lower District’ you mentioned?”

I nodded. I looked back across the dark alleys of the lower district we had just left.

I think I mentioned it before. The lower district is a lawless zone where the authority of Denabi Castle doesn’t reach. Before coming to this world, that was the extent of my knowledge.

However, after arriving in Denabi and interacting with the people here, a question arose.

‘Why is the lower district lawless?’

“The administrative power of Denabi Castle is lacking”—sure, that’s a valid explanation. The Denabi government is currently busy enough to drop dead from other problems. That happens in the real world, too. Developing nations with vast territories and weak administration often have terrible security in rural areas.

“But the upper and lower districts are separated by only a single gate,” I said as we passed through said gate.

Adele nodded. “True. It’s not that far.”

“If administrative power still doesn’t reach despite that, it’s only logical to assume there’s a force resisting that power.”

“So you figured there was a separate Ruler of the Lower District, distinct from the Lord of Denabi?”

“Exactly.”

Adele stroked her cheek. Then she asked, “So everything you said to that attacker was just a guess?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm.” She leaned her head in toward me. “Do you have a hobby of putting yourself in danger?”

“I don’t have a hobby like that.”

“But everything you do points to it.” She began counting on her fingers. “Entering a lawless zone with a separate ruler all by yourself, releasing the one attacker you managed to catch, and squeezing out a confession using a complete bluff.”

She looked at me sideways and asked, “Are all the young masters of Denabi this adventurous?”

“Hmm.”

I glanced at her sideways.

“I’m only strong when I need to be. Besides, I had you with me this time, didn’t I?”

Her eyes widened.

“A hundred of those thugs wouldn’t be a match for you,” I added.

“Well, that’s true.”

She fell silent for a moment, stroking her cheek again. Then, she looked back at me as if struck by a sudden realization.

“Wait, were you just hitting on me?”

“…Excuse me?”

“You said it like you really trust me. And here I am, sent to spy on you. Hmm. What should I do? My heart actually fluttered a little.”

What is this woman even talking about?

I put on a dead serious expression. “Absolutely, definitely, most certainly not.”

“Oh, don’t be shy.”

I was speechless.

Just as the male attacker had confessed, Izack had returned to the upper district brewery.

‘Should I be happy that I finally found the man I’ve been looking for since morning, even if it’s already evening…?’

I entered the brewery. From a distance, Izack spotted me and approached.

“I heard you were looking for me. But…” Izack’s gaze shifted to my side. “Who is this?”

He was looking at Adele, who was practically clinging to my arm. I shook her off.

“She’s nobody. We ended up traveling together due to various circumstances… but this isn’t the place to talk about it.”

“?”

Izack hadn’t met Adele yet. I also hadn’t told him that she was here because of the Sword of Four Seasons. If I let them interact carelessly, I risked exposing my true intentions.

I turned to Adele. “Adele. I have things to discuss with this gentleman, so if you could give us some space…”

“Between us?”

“What exactly do you think is ‘between us’? Please stop talking nonsense and step aside.”

“But my mission is to watch you.”

‘That’s your problem, I’m not obligated to cooperate…!’ If I said that, she’d probably just become more annoying.

“If you do this for me, I won’t complain if you stick to me all day long afterward. Please, I’m asking nicely.”

“Oh…?”

Adele backed off quite easily. “Well, in that case, fine.”

Taking advantage of the opening, I quickly led Izack up to the site office. Even as we moved away, I could feel Adele’s eyes fixed on my back.

-Thud.

Izack closed the office door.

“So, why were you looking for me?” he asked.

“First, I owe you an apology,” I said, handing him a note. It was the one I had taken from his ledger.

“This is…”

“I won’t mince words,” I said. “That was the third ambush.”

I explained everything that had happened in the lower district to Izack.

“I see… I’m sorry. I’ve put you in a difficult position.”

“It’s not your fault, Mr. Izack. It’s because I was wandering around without being on guard. Regardless, I want to know more about this ‘Ruler’ figure.”

“Malik…”

Malik. So that was the ruler’s name. Izack seemed to be deep in thought.

“The situation regarding him is a bit complicated. Either way, the Denabi government—no, Alejandro—tacitly acknowledges his control over the lower district.”

“…Acknowledges his control?”

“Yes. Even the lower district needs order. He is the focal point, for better or for worse.”

“A focal point,” I repeated his words.

He nodded. “He controls the power of the lower district. That power can be seen as the district’s potential, but in other words, it’s suppressed violence.”

Violence, huh.

I think I understood. Izack meant that the resentment the lower district residents felt toward those in the upper district ran deep. Malik used that to rule the lower district and turn a profit for himself. However, it was also true that he was preventing that resentment from escalating into full-blown violence.

“But I don’t think my father would have tolerated an ambush like this,” I said.

“…True. If Alejandro were here, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Especially the part about touching you directly…”

I looked at Izack. “I don’t mind what happens to me. But I won’t tolerate them touching my people. What happened to the ones in the ambushed carriages? And what did they do to you, Mr. Izack?”

Izack stroked his chin. “The boys in the carriages are fine. They weren’t badly hurt. The targets were the carriages, not the people. At least, until they came for you…”

“Then what have you been doing for the past two days?”

“I intended to go to them. But they came to me first.”

“They came to you?”

“I taught a few of them a lesson and tried to find Malik, but he was nowhere to be found. It seems he intends to refuse any dialogue.”

Izack seemed to know Malik personally, but he appeared reluctant to talk about it.

‘Is Alejandro involved in this too?’ my intuition whispered.

I felt the need to dig deeper into this matter. I spoke the words that suddenly came to mind.

“Mr. Izack. What would you do?”

“What do you mean, all of a sudden?”

“If—just hypothetically,” I whispered the words, letting them hang in the air. “If I said I wanted to… crush the lower district. Would you help me?”