Chapter 91

Three days flew by in a blur of work. The news of the gate reopening had already spread far and wide through both the upper and lower districts.

The market was already bustling from the crack of dawn. To meet the demands of the lower district consumers, twice the amount of goods would be needed. I rubbed my eyes, which were still heavy with sleep.

“The guards have been stationed, I assume?”

Avenger replied, “Yes, I’ve made sure they patrol the major areas without gaps from the time the gate opens until it closes. Naturally, the gate’s defenses are at the highest level.”

“We mustn’t let our guard down even after the gate closes. Malik might leave his people behind to cause trouble after hours.”

“I will give the guard detailed instructions on that matter.”

We were heading toward the gate in time for its opening. Reopening the gate was my declaration of war against the lower district leaders. However, at the same time, it was an opportunity for Malik to attack.

In any case, I held the absolute advantage in the market. If I just maintained a thorough defense against riots like last time, the tide would naturally turn in my favor. That was my calculation.

However, there was just one thing. One thing making me uneasy…

‘Perhaps Malik’s attack began even before the gate opened?’

“…No way.”

I had paranoidly checked the upper district several times, but there were no omens. At least, not at a level I could understand. I entered the street where the gate was located, trying to shake off my anxiety.

Upper district residents were already waiting in front of the gate for it to open.

“There are many of them.”

“Indeed.”

I exchanged those words with Avenger as I climbed onto the gate’s ramparts. From there, I looked down at both sides of the gate.

“Wait a second…”

“Young Master?”

“Doesn’t something seem strange?”

“…….”

Avenger also looked down below the gate with a tense expression. I asked him.

“Doesn’t it look like…… there are more people trying to go to the lower district?”

It was a question to which the answer was already obvious. The difference was clear to my eyes.

“No, saying it like that…”

But Adele approached our table without a single word of warning. Adele peered into Lucille’s mask with half-closed eyes.

“So you’re the mage who’s been snatching this Young Master away every night?”

“Wrong. He’s the one snatching my time,” Lucille replied bluntly.

Lucille’s mask and Adele’s face continued their staring contest in the heavy silence.

“Hey now… let’s not fight…”

I tried my best to dispel the awkward tension between the two.

“Young Master!”

Fortunately, a messenger arrived from the gate just in time.

“Whoops! It looks like word has come from the second gate. I’d better go hear it immediately…”

“Wait…”

I quickly pushed Adele’s back, ushering her with me toward the gate.

“Lucille, I’m sorry! I have some business to attend to!”

The messenger waiting inside the office was gasping for breath. I asked him, “So, what happened? How many people did they say exited through the second gate?”

The panting soldier barely managed to hold up two fingers.

“Twenty people?”

“Hah… No, sir. It’s two.”

“Two…?”

For a moment, I wondered if I had misheard.

“Then are you saying twenty-three upper district citizens remained in the lower district even after the gate closed?”

“Yes… it appears so.”

This was absurd news. It was already late at night, three hours past closing time. At this point, it was impossible to view them simply as people running late.

“What on earth…”

Thump, thump.

Just then, a sound echoed from outside the door. I stood up instantly.

“Let’s go out.”

The noise was coming from beyond the gate. A guard cautiously opened the gate’s small sliding observation window.

“Who goes there!”

“Ugh… It’s me…”

The man beyond the door sounded as if he were intoxicated.

“I won’t know who ‘me’ is if you speak like that! State your name and affiliation! Are you from the upper district?”

“It’s me, I said… Jors…”

It sounded like a name I had heard before. The voice was also somewhat familiar.

‘Where have I seen this person?’

I spoke up. “Let him in. I need to check his face and condition.”

The Captain of the Guard nodded. “Open the gate!”

Finally, the gate swung open, and the man calling himself Jors stumbled inside. However, he clumsily tripped over the threshold and collapsed in a heap.

“Uuuugh…”

The Captain brought a torch close to the man named Jors. He tilted the man’s chin up to reveal his face. He was bare-chested.

And I knew him.

“You are…”

“Do you know this man?” the Captain asked me.

There was no way I wouldn’t. I had even visited his home.

“This is the man who went missing a while ago and then reappeared without any apparent issues.”

“This man…?” The Captain looked down at Jors in surprise.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

Suddenly, the sound of many footsteps echoed from beyond the open gate. Every guard fell into a defensive stance. Adele stepped in front of me, shielding me as she drew her mace.

“Uuuuuugh…”

“Aaaahhh…”

“What in the world is happening?”

However, the figures emerging were just ordinary people. They were fellow upper district residents, all appearing equally intoxicated.

“I don’t smell any alcohol,” Adele noted, sniffing the air.

Now that she mentioned it, though they seemed drunk, there was no scent of liquor.

“Wait! There’s a wound on this man’s back…! No, something is written there!” one guard shouted upon seeing Jors’s back.

The Captain quickly hoisted Jors’s limp body up and turned him around.

“It’s carved with a blade…”

On Jors’s back, a short sentence had been etched with shallow cuts. I read the words aloud, very slowly.

“You are all already… poisoned.”