Chapter 24

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The basement dining room of the Red Glove Inn.

“Basto! Do you have no conscience? After showing up for the first time in forever, the thing you ask about is those damned holy knights?!”

A burly mercenary slammed down the orc mug he had been holding with a bang!

One of Basto’s eyebrows twitched.

But before he could even open his mouth, Veil stepped in.

“This guy’s ridiculous. So do we need your permission before we ask anything? Do we have to raise our hands and ask questions, is that it?”

“Wh-who are you now! That’s a face I’ve never seen before.”

“Of course it’s a face you’ve never seen before. Do you think it’d be a face you’ve seen twice? Lunatic, does he think he knows every face in the world? Arrogant and unlucky bastard.”

“N-no, I……!”

“Enough. If you know anything about House Luminen, then spit it out already, didn’t you hear? I said my time is precious.”

The burly mercenary hesitated, lifted the orc mug again, then opened his mouth while avoiding Veil’s eyes.

“Th-that House Luminen, I mean, that holy knight family is……”

The mercenary’s expression became complicated.

House Luminen.

The place crawling with people worthy of being called the strongest holy knights in the Empire.

The head of the house, Valentis Luminen, had four sons under him.

And each of them held one significant rank or another inside the order of holy knights.

“What was it, the eldest son Edmund Luminen is a tactical advisor. The second one was some corps commander, right? The third one should be the chief of the medical division.”

“Is that all? You were talking like you knew some incredible information, but you’re not anything special at all, are you.”

“No! There’s more!”

The mercenary, now flustered, hurriedly added,

“The fourth! These days the whereabouts of House Luminen’s fourth son are unclear. Whether he’s doing secluded training somewhere or whatever.”

Basto and Veil exchanged glances.

Sharing signals, they asked in turn.

“What. Does the fourth one have a child or something?”

“You heard he has a woman? Had a baby with her and everything. A baby around four years old?”

The mercenary’s eyes went round, and he asked as if dumbfounded,

“What are you talking about now. How would a brat that young have some kid?”

As if telling them to listen, he held up folded fingers toward Veil and Basto.

“The youngest Luminen only had his coming-of-age ceremony last year or something like that. If a guy like that were supposed to have a four-year-old child, then the math would be……”

“Then it isn’t the youngest.”

“Yeah. Not the youngest.”

Basto and Veil’s eyes flashed again.

“Then what about the other sons of that house?”

“The other sons would be the first, second, and third?”

“……Seriously, you dimwitted bastard. If you exclude the youngest, of course it’d be those three and not someone else, right? Is there even a brain in your head? Huh?”

“I-I only asked just in case!”

The mercenary, shouting awkwardly, began groaning again.

“They’re definitely old enough to be married, yes. But I never heard any story that any of them had formed a family or had a child.”

House Luminen was a great noble house.

It had always maintained friendly relations with the imperial family, and above all it was the leading force behind the holy knights called the Guardians of Light.

“If House Luminen had some happy occasion like that, there’s no way we wouldn’t know. Obviously they would’ve held a huge wedding in the imperial capital.”

“……Yeah, well. If they’re holy knight bastards, they probably would’ve invited the Emperor and Empress and indulged in disgusting luxury.”

If so, then there was only one possible case left.

Leaning closer to the burly mercenary, Veil tilted his body forward.

“What are the odds that Valentis Luminen, the head of House Luminen, had a late child with some other woman?”

“Valentis Luminen?!”

The mercenary was startled and opened his eyes wide.

Then he vehemently shook his head.

“That man isn’t the kind of great person who’d do that! Everyone in the Empire knows he loved Richard’s saint with his whole body his entire life, so what are you even……”

Richard’s saint.

That was the title used for Eleonora, Valentis Luminen’s wife and the mother of Luminen’s four sons.

Eleonora was the woman who had displayed the strongest holy power in history.

And the love story between her and Valentis Luminen was so famous that there wasn’t anyone in the Empire who didn’t know it.

And in fact, the two had four children between them, so it was obvious without even seeing it how good the affection between husband and wife must’ve been.

But Veil thought a little differently.

“Don’t make me laugh. Why do you think there’s a saying that no one knows what goes on between husband and wife, you idiot.”

The mercenary looked flustered, but Veil continued sharply.

“They can put on a show outside about how affectionate they are and how it’s the love story of the century, but in the end only the two of them know what’s really going on between them, right?”

It was something Veil had naturally come to understand while working as an assassin.

Requests from noblewomen to poison cheating husbands came almost once a month.

Of course, the opposite case wasn’t uncommon either.

The funny thing was that none of them outwardly let on about it at all.

To laugh cheerfully arm in arm in public, while behind the scenes searching for ways to kill each other.

“If Valentis Luminen had an illegitimate child, then the incident with Saint Eleonora too……”

“Basto! Veil!”

At that moment, someone came tumbling down the stairs in a rush.

It was none other than Nordix, who came running with his white hair flying.

With everyone’s eyes focused on him, Nordix shouted,

“Th-the little commander has disappeared!”

* * *

“Damn it, where did the brat go?”

Veil wiped off the sweat streaming down as he rounded the corner of an alley.

Because he was running so fast, he had to catch hold of the installed pipes and practically swing around through the air.

“Astie! Astie-!”

From far away came Basto’s desperate voice.

Maybe because he had lost a young child before, but the moment Basto heard the news that Tie had disappeared, his eyes had gone half wild.

He had even all but destroyed a whole dining table while getting up from his seat.

Nordix was at the square right then, checking whether there were any pedestrians who had seen Tie.

“Ha……”

Veil, rubbing his temple, suddenly stopped.

His gaze had fixed itself on the pipe he was holding.

The next moment, without hesitation, he grabbed onto it and started climbing upward.

‘If I get up higher, I’ll see something.’

It had been a while since he had moved around gripping things like this, so cold sweat ran down his temple, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

How far had he climbed?

Veil grabbed onto the roof and stood on top of it.

As expected, the sight of the streets came into view all at once.

Within that widened view, he saw Nordix’s figure in the not-so-distant square.

The old man was talking to a passerby, then suddenly started running toward the dock.

Veil’s brow furrowed.

“No way.”

His eyes turned to the black sea wavering below.

He too started running toward the dock, leaping over the rooftops of the buildings.

“Stupid little idiot.”

A curse burst out at himself.

She had known Astie was an unusual little kid.

That was why he had thought she’d be okay.

Leaving her alone in the room for about two hours or so.

“Even so, she’s only four years old, you idiot……”

Grinding his teeth, Veil put even more force into his legs.

When he reached the last building, he jumped down onto a pile of grain sacks on the ground.

By then Nordix and Basto had already reached the dock.

“Someone saw Astie heading toward the dock!”

Sure enough, the moment Nordix spotted Veil, he floundered.

“N-no, it can’t be. Surely the sea, I, I didn’t mean for her to stay in the room, I……”

Basto’s complexion had gone past drained and all the way to deathly pale.

But at that moment, something caught Veil’s eye.

“……What’s that?”

At the very end of the dock.

Where abandoned cargo was piled up.

He saw something like a small crouched dot.

“Tie!!”

“……Brat!”

“Astie!”

The moment the three men realized it was Astie, they all started running that way at once.