Trichitas and Scantilla both came from nameless families, but their duties were somewhat different.
Trichitas mainly handled internal information within the Intezeruto House.
Scantilla, on the other hand, dealt primarily with external spies.
“Isn’t this just a way to dump the work on you with pretty words and then run away?”
When I asked inside the carriage, Scantilla gave a bitter smile.
“That could be the case. But the more merit and money you monopolize, the better.”
“Aren’t people supposed to say, ‘Joy grows when it’s shared’ in moments like this?”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be. Hehe. But if everything ran the way it was originally meant to, nameless families like ours wouldn’t need to exist.”
In other words, they were people who had no choice but to act outside the bounds of common sense.
I could only nod.
“Are we going alone, or do you have soldiers waiting on site?”
“Of course, it will be just the two of us, Sir Anplus.”
Scantilla slid close beside me, smiling with eyes heavy with makeup.
She put strange emphasis on the word ‘Sir.’
There was no mocking tone, so it sounded rather pleasant.
Had she heard from someone that I liked being called that?
Whatever.
It wasn’t exactly classified information.
Shaking off the brief question, I asked again.
“What if they break through the encirclement and escape?”
“Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ve already informed the gate guards of Intezeron, so you can rest easy. Once they’ve entered this city, they’re nothing more than rats in a jar.”
“Rats in a jar?”
I looked out the window.
Streets lined with four- and five-story stone buildings stretched far enough to reveal the horizon.
It was the vista of a massive city where nearly 300,000 citizens lived, and when you added permanent residents, merchants, transient populations, and uncounted slum dwellers, the total approached 550,000 souls.
In the distance, the fifty-meter-high stone walls of Intezeron, spanning dozens of kilometers in circumference, cast a majestic shadow.
“That’s a pretty big jar.”
I hadn’t meant it sarcastically, but the words slipped out.
Scantilla replied confidently.
“I’ll control the slums. We won’t need to scour the entire city. Once you see it for yourself, you’ll understand. Ah, have you ever been to the slums?”
I shook my head.
Up until a year ago, I’d been a crippled mage, but even so, I’d never sunk low enough to wander into the slums.
“Then take this. I’ve been there several times for work, but you’ll need time to adjust, Sir Anplus.”
Scantilla handed me a mask.
It was a double-layered cloth mask, stuffed with strongly scented herbs like mint and other botanicals.
Recalling what I knew of medieval and early modern slums, I frowned.
“Isn’t the sewer system here well maintained? This is still Intezeron.”
The sewers, created by magic by our ancestors, should have been able to handle waste even from densely populated areas.
“Even the slums aren’t at the level where filth is scattered across the streets. Hehe. Just go and see for yourself. That ingrained stench. Oh, and wearing that won’t dull your senses, will it?”
I took several deep breaths.
“No problem. Why?”
“The herbal scent is so strong that some rookies get dizzy from it.”
“So I’m being treated like a rookie. That hurts my pride.”
“Forgive me, but haven’t you only been a knight for a little over a year? Even for red bloods, one year is a short time.”
“That really is rude.”
***
Standing before the slums, I immediately understood why this place was called that.
As if trying to make excuses that it hadn’t always been this way, several three-story stone buildings still stood.
But beside and atop them were countless shacks haphazardly slapped together with wooden planks.
“There should definitely be building laws in Intezeron that prohibit things like that.”
“If they were the kind of people laws worked on, they wouldn’t be red bloods.”
Scantilla stepped down from the carriage, whip in hand.
I politely extended my hand to escort her.
“Careful.”
“Seems like a habit ingrained into your body. I wasn’t expecting such treatment.”
“It’s a habit from escorting Lady Ribelia.”
“‘Lady’? Hmm.”
Scantilla made a strange expression.
“She’s your younger sister, yet you still call her ‘Lady’ even when she’s not around?”
“There’s also a noble from a nameless family standing right in front of me. That’s basically the same as having the house head here.”
She smiled in satisfaction.
“Hehe. Ninety points.”
“I figured. More importantly, I understand now why you gave me the mask.”
“You can tell why this is the slums, right?”
There was no filth strewn across the streets.
Graffiti or illegal extensions were things I’d expected.
But here, the air reeked as if rotting food waste were everywhere.
From the walls, from the ground, from every narrow alley.
It wasn’t the smell of ordinary food scraps.
It was a stench that made something deep and instinctive recoil in discomfort and unease just from smelling it.
“This.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t this the smell of rotting corpses?”
It was the smell of decaying meat, not vegetables or fruit.
But meat wasn’t common enough in the slums to rot like this.
That left only one answer.
“It’s not just corpses. The stench of offal brought from slaughterhouses, grime that’s built up from not washing, all of it mixed together.”
“Do information branch families get used to smells like this?”
Noble blue bloods would never have seen a world like this.
Even I, who had somewhat anticipated it thanks to memories from a previous life, felt my skin crawl.
“It took me several years. But I’ve been rolling around in this for decades.”
I nodded.
In the end, only time could dull it.
“And besides.”
“Besides?”
“If we manage a world like this properly, the precious people of the main family won’t have to set foot in places like this, will they?”
As she said that, Scantilla wore a smile full of sadistic delight.
“Shall we go in? It’s time to teach manners to the rabble and the spies.”
I followed a step behind Scantilla.
I walked carefully, watching the sides, the front, and the rooftops on both sides.
The slum dwellers hid in the shadows between buildings.
Those who had been roaming the streets immediately bowed their heads, prostrated themselves, or slipped into gaps between buildings the moment they saw Scantilla.
Just counting the eyes glinting from the darkness, there had to be hundreds.
“It really is the perfect place for spies to hide. There’s no administrative control at all.”
“Yes. Because they live so densely. And that’s not all. Sometimes plagues break out, fires start, and things like rebellions happen.”
“Rebellions?”
A cold light flashed in Scantilla’s eyes.
“The spies hiding in this slum do one of two things. They either use this place as a base because there’s no surveillance, or they incite those red bloods to stir up trouble.”
“By trouble, you mean?”
“Think of it as a riot.”
I looked around.
“Are there any signs of an impending riot?”
She tapped her lips lightly with her index finger.
“Disrespectful gazes, gatherings in plazas, possession of weapons.”
“And how do you suppress it?”
“You bring in one officer-mage and burn them all to death.”
“Are you an officer-mage as well?”
As if I’d touched a nerve, Scantilla stammered in flustered indignation.
“Na-nameless family mages don’t take the officer-mage exam because we must hide our abilities and traits as much as possible, but our skill is no less than that of formal officer-mages! Why would you even ask that?”
“Because it looks like all the signs you just mentioned are right here.”
The eyes staring at us from between buildings were filled with hostility, and in their hands were rusted kitchen knives, wooden spears, nail-studded clubs, and the like.
In the distance, at an intersection, I could see a man giving a speech atop a makeshift platform made from stacked wooden crates.
Below the platform, slum dwellers from all over the district had gathered, shouting at the top of their lungs.
“Go out and speak for us! Give us bread too!”
“Our third child starved to death!”
“Damn nobles!”
“A plague is spreading, but they say they won’t catch it, so they don’t give us medicine or quarantine measures!”
As I listened to the slogans and shouts, I placed a hand on my sword hilt and muttered with a sense of regret.
“Not one of them is asking for land to farm. They could start a new life on the Serenus reclamation lands.”
Scantilla laughed sadistically.
“That’s why they’re rabble, isn’t it? Ungrateful things who don’t even remember the favor of being allowed to breathe.”
That, I couldn’t agree with.
If the Serenus Marsh reclamation project had been carried out properly, these capital slum dwellers could have been dreaming of new lives as independent farmers by now, not rotting in the city.
The man giving the speech had merely provided an outlet for that resentment.
“Are we suppressing them, or attacking? Decide.”
But it was awkward to explain that to Scantilla, so I hesitated and changed the subject.
“The man on the platform is my target.”
I flinched as I checked his face.
It closely matched the description on the list.
The outlet hadn’t appeared by coincidence.
“Would it be better to capture him alive?”
“Yes. It’s better to expose an agitator as a spy through a trial and then execute him. There’s no need to make him a martyr.”
“Then I should move.”
As I was about to loosen my cloak, I felt a doubt.
“You said there’s someone managing a base in the slums too, right? Wouldn’t it be better to capture him first? He might flee once he hears the commotion.”
“He’s up there. He seems to be directly overseeing things, given how much effort he’s put in.”
Following the direction of Scantilla’s finger, I saw a man standing precariously atop a two-story shack built on a three-story stone house.
“I’ll fire one shot into the middle of that intersection and then go after him. Sir Anplus, please make sure you capture that agitator. If you slip up, the ideology could spread and rebellious elements might start appearing on their own.”
“I’ll handle it properly.”
If we failed to deal with it cleanly, more people would start voicing discontent, just as Scantilla said.
Then the tradition-bound blue blood nobles would send officer-mages.
These people needed to be sent to the frontier as soon as possible, while preventing discontent from erupting in irreconcilable ways.
She smiled sadistically.
“Then prepare to run.”
Blue light gathered in Scantilla’s hand.
It was bright enough to make me squeeze my eyes shut even in broad daylight.
In an instant, the dark alleys flared with blue light, and the slum dwellers hiding in the shadows clutched their eyes.
Even the masses gathered at the intersection over two hundred paces away all turned to look this way.
“B-blue light!”
“Run!”
“Oh gods!”
“We said we’d fight! Go out and shout!”
Some ran at the sight of mana’s light, others gripped their weapons more tightly, some hesitated in indecision, and others collapsed where they stood.
Looking at them all with contempt, Scantilla swung her arm.
The blue light shot into the sky, split into hundreds, thousands of fragments, and drifted down in waves.
At first, I couldn’t tell what kind of magic it was.
Only when the fragments hit the ground, swelled dozens of times over, and exploded in blue and orange light did I finally understand.
Scantilla was a flame mage.
And an extraordinary one, capable of blanketing an entire district at once.
Half of the blue embers fell in a circle, forming a wall of fire, while the other half fell randomly, devouring the surroundings.
Slum dwellers who tried to flee and those who stayed where they were alike were engulfed in flames and collapsed.
The mana-infused embers spread across entire bodies the moment they made contact.
Watching people turn to ash and fall in an instant, I frowned.
Without realizing it, I grabbed Scantilla’s wrist as she smiled sadistically at the scene.
“What are you doing?”
She stared at me, eyes wide, as if she hadn’t expected this at all.
“Is this really necessary? I could just bring back the agitator.”
Scantilla let out a small sigh.
“Sir Anplus. An uprising is a plague. If you let it spread even once, what could have been stopped with a hoe will require an earth mage to stop. The more horrific the example, the better.”
“Wouldn’t it be enough if I cut down a few of the main instigators, those whose words and actions are truly severe?”
She nodded firmly.
“Acts of cruelty must leave a deep impression all at once. I know you’re still young, but you mustn’t make such soft judgments.”
I knew I was young and inexperienced.
At nineteen, even as a knight, I was young to be deployed on the front lines.
Even counting my previous life, I’d lived just over forty years, most of which had been spent in emotionally immature childhood and adolescence.
Still.
Even so, I was certain of this much.
If I turned my eyes away from this scene, I would be disappointed in the ‘noble aristocrat’ I aspired to be.
“It may be a soft judgment. You have your experience, and there are precedents repeated over thousands of years.”
I chose my words carefully.
First, I made sure to clearly convey that I respected Scantilla’s experience, position, and judgment.
That kind of phrasing was essential to keep a noble’s towering pride from interfering.
“But they were originally people who could have started new lives in the Serenus Marsh.”
“Once they’ve raised a hand in rebellion, they’re nothing but unforgivable rebels.”
“I was present at the negotiations when we obtained that marshland from the Imperial Family. It was my first mission.”
A flicker of color passed through Scantilla’s violet eyes.
She continued in a slightly softened tone.
“They live and breathe on this land to serve us blue bloods.”
Before she could finish, I spoke again.
“And when the Imperial Family tried to play tricks with that reclamation land, I was the one who took it back. That was my third mission.”
“The fact that they can live on land made prosperous by magic is a grace they should weep with gratitude for.”
“And it was originally my task to take them to that reclamation land.”
Scantilla’s eyes twitched.
Her hand glowed blue, and the embers raining down froze in midair.
The circular wall of fire remained, but the flames that had been burning people lost their blue light and died out.
“Please, continue.”
“I feel a kind of responsibility toward them.”
“What kind of absurd nonsense is that!”
She snapped, looking ready to hurl curses if I hadn’t been a pureblood.
“Those ignorant wretches forget kindness entirely and remember only the whip. It’s been that way for thousands of years.”
In this era, responsibility or a sense of duty was something one felt only toward blood that was darker than one’s own.
In the Eternal Empire, a blue blood feeling responsibility toward red blood — especially rebellious red blood — was stranger than a person feeling responsibility toward livestock that attacked them.
“You don’t intend to remember or personally care for each and every one of them either, do you, Young Master!”
“That’s true. It’s a responsibility I’ve taken on arbitrarily. Perhaps it’s just my greed to want everything — from territorial acquisition to urbanization — to succeed cleanly. Maybe it’s not responsibility, but hypocrisy.”
“But,” I continued, deliberately shifting my tone.
“I believe direct-line purebloods need to be hypocritical. That it’s acceptable to be hypocritical. Especially when the lives of thousands of people are at stake.”
Scantilla wore a strange expression.
I drove the point home.
“For my sake alone, close your eyes just once. I’m not asking you to save everyone. If they’re on the wrong path, it’s only right for a ruler to correct them.”
“Just don’t burn them all to death. And if someone still blocks my path after I’ve gone this far to ask, I’ll use them as a test subject for my new swordsmanship.”
At the end, I even added a light joke.
Scantilla looked toward the two-story shack built atop the three-story stone house.
The man who was supposedly managing the base and handling communications was still stuck there, unable to move.
With a small sigh, she spoke.
“I’ll withdraw it. Properly capture that agitator. But if you waste time swinging your blade around trying to save even one more person from the explosions and let someone slip away, then!”
She stared at me, emphasizing each syllable.
“For the sake of shortening the operation period, I hereby give prior notice to the nameless family’s cooperating party that a large number of collateral casualties may be unavoidable.”
The moment she finished speaking, I kicked off the ground.
Behind me, Scantilla’s incredulous voice faintly reached my ears.
“That’s fast enough to lose track of with the eyes. Just what kind of training do you usually do for one stomp to crack paving stones?”
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