Chapter 16 | The Assassin Breaks It Off
I woke up to find Maha sleeping beside me. I hadn’t seen her face so relaxed since when we lived together. She typically kept up her sharp appearance and never showed any vulnerability, so it was pleasant seeing her like this.
“…Tarte, Dia, and Maha would have died if they hadn’t met me. I may have already known that, but that didn’t prepare me for hearing it directly.”
It was easy to call that fate, but I was no longer a puppet who was satisfied leaving things up to destiny. I was brought to this world to stop Epona from going mad. Looking at Maha’s sleeping face, though, I couldn’t help but feel I had been reincarnated to save those three.
“Good morning, dear brother.”
Maha woke up, rubbing her eyes sleepily. She must have been really tired.
Yesterday, I had let her do as she pleased at first, but I took the lead later on. Just as I’d expected, studying could only teach you so much, and Maha was frustrated by her inability. Being the sore loser that she was, she’d studied my actions fervently so that she could keep up. It was funny to watch.
“Good morning, Maha. Do you feel all right?” I asked.
“No, I don’t… You’re so mean, Lugh,” she responded, glaring at me.
I’d been a little too rough for our first time. She was too lovely, and my passion got the best of me.
“Sorry. I’ll make tea.”
“No, I’ll do that. Giving you tea was always my most important job.”
“Oh yeah, I guess it was.”
Tarte was the servant and did most of the chores when the three of us had lived together, but Maha always took care of the tea.
Maha got up and headed for the kitchen while wearing some comfortable loungewear. En suite kitchens were a selling point of this particular inn. A normal hotel would never have had one in every room.
A pleasant aroma began to fill the area before long.
I heard a knock from outside, and a basket was inserted through an opening at the bottom of the door. That was the inn’s breakfast service. Nice timing.
I went and collected it when Maha brought the tea.
“Let’s eat breakfast,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m hungry after all that exercise last night,” I responded.
“Oh, Lugh, you’re normally so cool, but you have a real habit of sounding like an old man sometimes. That’s sexual harassment.”
An old man, huh…? That hurts a little.
“I’ll try to be mindful of that.”
“Yes, please do. I want you to be the coolest person I know.”
Maha smiled, and I smiled back.
I took a sip of the tea. It was very relaxing. As per usual, Maha had put great care into all aspects of its preparation.
We ate the sandwiches next. They surprised me. I didn’t have high expectations, but they were pretty good.
“This is Mareuil bread,” I remarked.
“Well spotted. The ingredients are top-notch, too. This inn caters to the upper class,” Maha explained.
Mareuil was one of the best bakeries in Milteu, and I’d frequented the establishment when I’d lived here. It even looked like the bread had been made and delivered this morning. I could see why Maha had picked this inn. I needed to remember it.
“Whew, I’m full. I’m going to return to work… Before I do, however, I have something I need to tell you,” Maha stated.
She passed me an envelope containing some documents. I quickly looked through them.
“This seems suspicious.”
“Yes, very. I’m ordering the intelligence agents on site to perform an additional investigation.”
The files Maha gave me detailed some strange happenings in the relatively large town of Bilnore, located to the north of Milteu. The area had been struck by frequent earthquakes, and dozens of people had gone missing over the last month.
That wasn’t all, either. A wire in my telecommunications network had been cut—the same kind of wire that Tarte had been unable to so much as scratch after swinging one of my knives as hard as she could while strengthened by mana.
That part of the telecommunications network was constructed in a ring formation, meaning that if the wire was cut on one side, the transmission could just travel in the opposite direction, so that in itself wasn’t a big deal. But anything powerful enough to sever it was concerning.
Pairing that with the disappearances, something was clearly going on.
“It’s probably a demon, and a smart one, too,” I theorized.
“What do you think it’s up to?” Maha asked.
“We’ve just killed two very strong demons in a row, the beetle and the lion. I predicted the demons might be careful this time and try to catch us unawares. From what we know, I think the one behind this might be secretly preparing a massacre that will wipe out the entire town at once. It will then try to produce a Fruit of Life and run before anyone arrives to get in its way,” I posited.
Until we had more information, I could only offer conjecture, but I imagined the demon was planning to hollow out the ground below the town in order to sink the entire populace at once. That would cause frequent earthquakes and would explain what happened to the cable. A plan like that would kill everyone in the town simultaneously.
Maha nodded. “You may be right. Judging from the beetle demon case, it takes a few days after everyone dies before the Fruit of Life manifests. It probably thinks that killing everyone in town at once will give it enough time to finish everything before we learn of the incident.”
After a typical incident, there’d be an investigation. Then the people who could deal with it would be contacted and sent off to the problem site. Despite everyone’s best efforts, each of those steps would inevitably take multiple days.
If my theory was correct, it would be impossible to stop the demon from obtaining the Fruit of Life and escaping… Impossible for anyone but me, that is.
“I’m growing more and more impressed by the telecommunications network every day,” Maha commented.
Only I could defy the conventional methods. If anything happened in the Alvanian Kingdom, I would learn of it immediately via telephone and then fly there that day.
Even the demons should have had no idea I was capable of that. That was what enabled me to catch them.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Maha said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Why are the demons only appearing in Alvan? If they want to avoid a fight, wouldn’t it be much safer for them to attack a country without you and the hero? The orc, the beetle, and the lion all struck here. If a demon is actually behind this, that will be four in a row.”
“I’ve been suspicious of that, too. I initially thought the demons were targeting this country to draw out and kill the hero. The orc demon even clearly stated that killing the hero was his goal. This time, though, the demon seems to be using tactics to avoid alerting the hero and me. It doesn’t make sense for it to attack another location in the kingdom.”
From what I had read in this world’s old literature, the demons had never attacked one country continuously like this. That was why neighboring nations were trying to secure agreements to borrow the hero in case of an emergency.
The appearance of the demons and the Demon King was a disaster that occurred every few centuries, so many countries had accumulated knowledge of how to deal with it. Each one had a plan in the event of a demon attack, so it shouldn’t have made a difference which nation the demons targeted.
Yet they struck here every time. Something had to have changed. There must have been a reason the demons could only attack the Alvanian Kingdom.
“We don’t have enough information to go off of yet. We should do more digging and deal with the immediate problems… Thank you. I can use these documents to put a plan into action.”
The fastest way to learn about demons was to ask a demon. Fortunately, I happened to know one.
“That’s good to hear. I’m going to shower and return to Natural You. I have an important meeting at noon.”
“You’re really busy.”
“Yes, I am. That’s my role. It’s very difficult, but I’m proud that I can be of so much help to you,” Maha replied before walking into the shower room.
This visit had made me realize all over again what a great girl she was.
It was time that I got back to work as well.
I returned to Tuatha Dé after leaving Milteu.
I had my intelligence agents begin an investigation into the town beset by earthquakes and tried to contact Mina, the snake demon.
I was also settling a variety of other affairs.
“Hello, my lord. You’re working hard,” said Tarte.
“Didn’t take long for you to shut yourself away again,” noted Dia.
“Looks like you both are finished with today’s training,” I said.
Tarte and Dia both nodded. They were making the final adjustments on the homework I gave them when I’d left.
“What are you doing, Lugh?” asked Dia.
“I’m following up with Count Frantrude. He was a big help during the trial.”
“Ah, I’d been wondering about that. He fell in love with the girl you at the party. What are you going to do about that?”
“I’m sending him a letter as Lulu. I wrote that she returned safely to her domain and that she wants to see him. I also said that she’s going to the capital in two months and they can meet up then.”
I wrote the letter with feminine handwriting. That was another assassin skill of mine.
“That’s just stalling.”
“It’ll get the job done. We’ll exchange lots of letters over the next two months. In them, I will subtly change her behavior, tastes, and habits so that she’ll diverge from the ideal woman Count Frantrude has in his head. It’s a bit of a gamble, but I’m sure his love for her will fade before too long. I’ll then meet him in person and put on a performance to end their romance for good.”
Count Frantrude would likely fall into despair if Lulu dumped him abruptly. That was why I wanted to stall our meeting and sully his affection for her little by little. In the end, I would ensure he left her.
“That sounds like a lot of effort,” Dia commented.
“He served me very well. I want to thank him by giving him the cleanest end to this relationship possible. I want him to be at peace about the breakup and have no lingering feelings.”
The human heart was fickle. The love between Lulu and Count Frantrude was dramatic and passionate but ultimately fleeting. He knew very little about her, and upon learning more, he would realize she was not his ideal partner and lose interest.
“That’s terrifying, my lord… I would still love you forever no matter how coldly you treated me,” stated Tarte.
Dia snickered. “You’re such a worrywart, Tarte. Your mind went right to the idea of him doing this to you.”
“Um, well, I don’t think Lord Lugh would ever abandon me. I just got a little scared.”
“It’s okay to feel that way, Tarte. It’s perfectly natural to be frightened of someone who is able to play with the human heart like I can… I’m only sharing this with you because I trust you both. I believe that you will accept this side of me.”
If I was just concerned with ensuring they liked me, I wouldn’t show them the nastier things I got up to as an assassin. I revealed this kind of stuff to Dia and Tarte because they had my confidence. Additionally, I knew they were worried about the Lulu matter, and this would help reassure them.
“Okay! You can trust me, my lord.”
“If something like that was going to turn me away, I never would have liked you in the first place.”
“Really?”
I gave an awkward smile and finished writing the letter. Then I tied it to a carrier pigeon’s leg.
This carrier pigeon didn’t belong to Tuatha Dé—it was one Count Frantrude had addressed to Lulu. He had no clue that the bird he was using to send presents of love would end up leading to his breakup.
The little pigeon flapped its wings and took off into the sky. I was done with the Count Frantrude matter for now.
I cleared my throat. “Tarte, Dia, you’ll both present your homework to me tomorrow. Please be prepared.”
Next, it was time to determine how much stronger they had gotten during my absence.
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