Ch 21

The service worker from Cheldeg's mansion moved to a secluded area as usual, paying attention to whether anyone was following him. He was careful because when he cleaned after politicians and influential people, he was often followed by spies planted by his clients' political opponents. This time however, unlike usual, he ran around the back alley in a cold sweat.

Zzing!

His wristwatch vibrated as the ‘9’ engraved upon it became blurred as if crushed. Slowly, it disappeared entirely.

"Even Team Leader Nine!"

Out of twelve numbers, all but ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘6’, and ‘10’ were now missing from his watch. Unless the clock had suddenly malfunctioned, that meant that there were only four people left among the service company's leaders, including himself.

"Damn! Team Nine had a lot of talented people! Where's the attack coming from?!"

Each team in the service company had its own specialties. Team Seven could be called an assassination team. Team Nine, which had just been erased, could be called a combat team. Among the teams, Team Nine had the highest number of members and the team leader himself was much stronger than most knights. However, the fact that even the formidable Team Nine had been defeated meant that he himself would likely die without a fight, as he was in charge of contacting clients alone and had no team members to rely on.

"I have to go to the hiding place right now…! No, seeing the team leaders die one after another so quickly, the hiding place might be rather dangerous too."

He thought this incident must be the start of a war. He thought that whoever it was must have had preparation and information collected by hostile organizations who had a grudge due to their work, not just one individual. Otherwise, there was no way the team leaders could have been beaten badly enough to potentially cause the collapse of the service company in such a short time.

"Should we evacuate to a place that no one knows of? Or... Ugh! Gasp! Ugh!”

Suddenly, someone grabbed the service worker by the neck and put their hand in his mouth.

Crack!

The hand pulled out a white case containing poison with precision, as if pulling out a tooth. The service worker struggled in pain, panicking.

"With this, I take the lead Master!"

Crack! Zzing-!

When the poison case broke, the service worker’s watch vibrated, and the number ‘3’ blurred, as if crushed.

"Three o'clock! Yay! Good! I got it! I’ll be able to beat Master!" Tristan yelled joyfully as he checked the watch.

"Y-y-y-you, who are you!?"

Blood flowed like a fountain from the service worker’s mouth. Despite his cries, Tristan didn't care. He grabbed the service worker’s chin to prevent him from biting his tongue out, and took out the hypnotic magic tool.

"It's none of your business who I am. Here, look at this. Don't resist. You're the only one who’ll get hurt if you resist for no reason. Of course, even if you do resist, you’ll eventually die."

The service company had tried to assassinate the successor of Representative Zubian. Even if Tristan let them live for now, it was clear that Cain's father would not have rested until they died.

"Ugh..! Ughhhh!"

The service worker tried to resist as he felt a presence penetrating his head through his eyes. This didn’t last very long, and soon his pupils relaxed. Using the hypnosis magic tool was a violent method, and you couldn't get much information because it could only be used for a short window of time, but it didn't matter since Tristan only needed to find out who the client was. Then the watch vibrated twice in a row.

Zzing-! Zzing-!

At the same time, '1' and '10' distorted and disappeared from the watch. The tables had turned on Tristan again.

"Oh, no, I have to hurry up."

Now, the winner would be determined by who found assassination client first. The current time was just past midnight.

* * *

Hermes followed the servant in the butler's uniform and headed to the reception room, where Cheldeg was. When Hermes entered, Cheldeg stood up with a fake smile on his face.

"Welcome! Thank you, Sir Hermes, for accepting my sudden invitation at this late hour," greeted Cheldeg.

Hermes nodded briefly and sat down on the guest sofa. At Hermes’ fairly rude behavior, Cheldeg swallowed the curses rising up in his throat, maintaining his fake grin. He was already a prominent politician, not an inexperienced person trying their first election.

"So what's your business?" asked Hermes straightforwardly.

Cheldeg replied, pouring tea into a teacup. "Ahahaha, what business could there be? It's just that I've known Sir Hermes for a long time, but it seems to be still awkward between us, so I invited you here to get an opportunity to strengthen our friendship."

As usual, Cheldeg started off with chatter unrelated to his business to coax his opponent. As the talks proceeded slowly, there usually came a moment when Cheldeg would take the lead in the conversation and sway his opponent. Therefore, if the opponent was more difficult, the conversation could go on for a long time before they were exhausted.

"At this late hour?"

Cheldeg, who had leisurely been drinking tea, almost choked at Hermes's question.

"Khmm! Ahaha, that's true, but I thought you would be busy during the day..."

When Cheldeg smiled awkwardly, Hermes said with an uninterested face, "If you don't have any other business, please stamp it quickly. I'm quite busy."

Hermes had to finish all preparations before his clever nephew, whose movements couldn’t be predicted, made a move. Unaware of these circumstances, Cheldeg did not like Hermes' stiff attitude.

"Ahahaha, of course I should stamp it for you."

Cheldeg forced himself to calm down. He decided he would have to carefully bring up his business now. He knew that his fiery personality would not work on Hermes, and his relationship with Hermes couldn’t be allowed to fall apart in the political world.

"Actually, I was thinking of asking you a very small favor. It wouldn’t take long for Sir Hermes.”

Cheldeg stifled a sigh, thinking that it was foolish to turn to the straightforward Crow tribe. Hermes looked at him in blatant annoyance. Cheldeg, who had never been looked at like this before, felt his patience thinning. Born into a family of representatives from generation to generation, not only the subordinates, but even his superiors had never treated him so recklessly in his life.

"Didn't the consul-nim tell you to stamp it right away?" asked Hermes.

Cheldeg flinched for a moment. During emergency periods like this, the reason why they had already reached the last stages of the blockade in just three days was because it was a request from the Crow tribe following the ‘official procedure’. Of course, it seemed even more urgent because the Crow tribe usually never made such requests.

"Well, that's true, but…”

While Cheldeg struggled to come up with a response, rolling his eyes and thinking of excuses, Hermes interrupted. "Well, since you said it's simple, I'll hear you out."

Cheldeg brightened up.

"However, please stamp it first. Work will come after." Hermes said firmly, as if to declare that this would be his final concession.

Cheldeg pondered for a moment then took out the consent form and stamp that he had prepared in advance. Either way, whether Hermes did the favor or not, he had to stamp it. Usually, his method would have been to drag out the conversation and fuss about it, but this didn’t work at all against the Crows. He decided that it was better to listen to what they wanted from the beginning then talk about his own request.

Cheldeg spoke as he stamped the sea blockade agreement, "Today… no, looking at the clock, it was yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, I heard information that a man who appears to be a demon king worshipper running wild in the Demon’s Territory has made his way into Peritzbay."

"A demon king worshipper?"

"Yes, it seems like he came in disguised as the escort for a child," Cheldeg lied casually, moistening his throat with cold tea.

Although Cheldeg didn't know the identity of Cain's new escort, there were two main reasons why he lied that the person was a demon king worshipper. One was to have Hermes take care of the escort himself. The other was so that he could blame Cain's death on the escort. It also served as a political blow to his rival, Representative Zubian. It would be said that he allowed a demon king worshiper into Peritzbay, and induce a sense of crisis in the congress. Amidst the chaos, Cheldeg would be able to lead the political situation in the direction he wanted. However, this wasn’t that important.

"If that's true, it'll be annoying.”

Hermes couldn't just sit on the sidelines if the issue was a demon king worshipper.

"That's correct. I tried to do something about it before damage occurred, but I failed. I am sorry, but that is why I asked to meet you, Sir Hermes."

"All right, this needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, so I'll take care of it," said Hermes seriously.

A quick look at bit.ly/3iBfjkV will leave you more fulfilled.

Cheldeg cheered inside.

“Sir Hermes has likely also seen the person believed to be a demon king worshipper. The young man who you fought with yesterday, that is him."

Hermes was focusing on Cheldeg's words, but then felt the tension loosen.

"Oh, is that so?"

It was Denburg Blade who Hermes had fought yesterday, and there was no way he was a demon king worshipper. If Den had posed as a demon king worshipper, it would have been to screw over the demon king worshippers in some way.

Without knowing Hermes' thoughts, Cheldeg made a fuss praising Hermes, "As expected of Sir Hermes! How did you immediately recognize and attack the demon king worshipper in the city center?!"

Cheldeg was confused by Hermes’ sour face. However, he felt better, thinking that if the unidentified escort was gotten rid of, he could ask his henchman or the service company to attempt another assassination.

"Oh, my assistants... Hiik!"

Suddenly, Cheldeg was interrupted by Hermes, who rose from his seat and waved his fist at Cheldeg.

Shatter!

Cheldeg closed his eyes in fear, but he quietly opened them again when he heard glass breaking but felt no pain. Hermes fist, which had stopped right in front of his face, had an arrow in its grasp.

"Seeing an arrow suddenly flying towards you in the middle of the night, it seems that you have caused a lot of resentment."

At Hermes' words, Cheldeg finally realized what was happening. The window behind Hermes' back had been shattered and there was an arrow in front of his eyes. This was an assassination attempt.

"W-w-w-w-who dares to shoot an arrow!” Cheldeg stuttered while grasping his trembling heart.

Ironically, Cheldeg calmly requested assassinations, but became furious when someone tried to assassinate him. Hermes broke the arrow and injected magic into his bracelet.

"Come, Caduceus."

A huge hammer with snakes and wings wrapped around a long handle popped out of the air. It was Hermes’ favorite weapon, that he usually carried in a dedicated pocket space because it was too big to carry around.

"I saved you from death, so let's just look past your house breaking down." Hermes said as he swung the hammer lightly with one hand.

Boo-boo-boom!

The walls burst along the trajectory of the hammer and debris shot out in all directions.

"Ah! Tweh, tweh! All the dust went into my mouth. You have good reflexes, by the way!" said Tristan, who had been hidden under a pile of rubble that was once a wall. He shook off the dust and smiled.

"You were the one driving the horse..."

Hermes recognized Tristan, who had been with his nephew, but before he could ask why Tristan had made a sudden surprise attack, a person came flying from the sky through the broken wall from behind.

"Tch! I’m a step late. Oh? He’s still alive? So the winner hasn’t been decided yet?" asked Den playfully.

Tristan protested. "Ayy! That's not right, Master! I found him first, and if there hadn’t been any interruptions, it would have been over long ago!”

"Is that so? Well, we can go over the details after we're done." Den pulled out his magic wand and smiled brutally. "Shall we wrap this up?"

The sudden confrontation made Hermes nervous. Unlike the light greeting they had exchanged during the day, now they were armed with weapons that could allow them to exert their full strength. In this explosively tense situation, Hermes opened his mouth to speak.