Chapter 14
I was about to say that they seemed to get along better than expected, but I swallowed the words, realizing it wasn’t something to blurt out carelessly.
“It looks like the Third Prince really likes Your Highness.”
“Right. He follows me around on his own, which gets troublesome at times.”
Vidler’s face looked a little pleased as he spoke.
“It’s late, so head on inside. It’ll be trouble if you catch the eye of someone strange while wandering around.”
At the mention of ‘someone strange,’ the name of the First Prince—whom Seniel had told me to be wary of—inexplicably crossed my mind.
“Yes. Have a good night.”
On my way back to my room after parting with Vidler, I faced a massive internal conflict over whether to scout out the office or not. But thinking I might get caught by Vidler, whose skills seemed even greater than I had anticipated, I quietly went back to my room.
The next day.
I woke up at the crack of dawn intending to leave the imperial palace immediately, but I was caught by Seniel, who was already awake, and had to eat breakfast. Afterward, pretending to know nothing, I followed him into the office and glanced sideways at the documents, figuring out the kind of information they were gathering.
Though Seniel had gathered the documents more carefully than yesterday, I managed to pick out a few key words using my wits.
Keywords like ‘Map of the Capital,’ ‘Mana Stone,’ ‘Prince,’ and ‘Guild Master.’
As soon as I slipped out of the imperial palace, I headed straight home. Since it had been a few days since I arrived in the capital, I figured the guild would have sent our location after sensing my arrival.
Fortunately, the moment I turned the key in the lock, the door swung open, and a few letters fluttered to the floor. Since the owner of this house was Orvis, I gathered every single one of them before heading inside.
Placing them on the table, I scanned the letters thoroughly until one stamped with a crow crest caught my eye.
“So it did come.”
Finding what I was looking for, I tore the letter open to check its contents. Inside was a flyer.
[Parrot Fortune-Telling. Parrots love the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. World’s Strongest—Rainbow—Power!]
It looked like a bizarre flyer, but it was actually revealing the location of the intelligence branch. After memorizing the location and the password, I tossed the flyer into the fireplace and burned it completely.
‘Letters stamped with the crow crest will be dangerous. I’ll have to instruct them to contact me through an entirely different route.’
Now that I knew Seniel was investigating Raven, I couldn’t leave anything associated with crows out in the open.
“I need to make a decision quickly.”
My mind had been so cluttered with my own problems that I hadn’t even considered the possibility of another group targeting our guild. But now that I had seen the threat with my own eyes, I resolved to secure the guild’s safety first. Everything I built over the past ten years was in Raven. My comrades, too.
Since I no longer had the luxury of idling around, I immediately sought out the address written on the flyer.
At the end of a dead-end alley, I spotted a stall plastered with all kinds of feathers. Brushing past a translucent curtain that allowed a clear view inside, I saw a man sitting behind a crystal ball, looking up at me with a bright smile.
“Here for a fortune? Upfront payment, please. 100,000 Jerry.”
With his heavily made-up face and the surrounding props, he looked like a fortune-teller to anyone passing by.
“Why just stand there, miss? What are you curious about? Love life? Or a curse?”
“I came to see the rainbow.”
At my words, the light in the fortune-teller’s eyes shifted. The beaming grin vanished, and his aura turned icy cold.
“And the parrot?”
“Whew, world’s strongest. Seriously, who on earth came up with this password?”
“Rainbow?”
“……Power.”
Once the verification was complete, the fortune-teller tossed the feathered fan he was holding into the air and rushed toward me.
“Prince! This is our first time meeting in person, isn’t it? We finally meet. It’s an honor.”
“Just guide me.”
“This is the branch.”
The branch, which I naturally assumed would lead deep into some building, was literally just the fortune-telling stall itself. The man gently pushed me into a chair as I stood frozen in shock, then stroked his crystal ball.
“I am William, the head of the intelligence branch.”
“Are you really the head?”
“Exactly.”
Judging by how his gaze had shifted earlier, he probably was. Feeling a faint sense of disappointment after expecting a massive intelligence facility, I got straight to the point.
“Look into Seniel and Orvis of the Black Eagle Knights, and the Second Prince. Find out everything about them in detail.”
“If it’s the Black Eagle Knights, we already have a lot of information on our side.”
“Do you also know that they plan to swallow our Raven whole?”
At my words, William couldn’t hide his displeasure and slammed his hand hard against the desk.
“Oh, shit! What kind of nonsense is that?”
“It’s the truth. The day the Map of the Capital was stolen, the Second Prince was in the same room as me.”
“What? An official knight order, let alone a Prince, came to steal the map instead of a dark guild?”
“That’s why it’s strange. Find out exactly what kind of operations they’re running behind the scenes.”
True to his title as head of intelligence, William’s eyes began to dart back and forth as if he had realized something.
“……It seems we’ve missed something. We will investigate thoroughly and contact you.”
“Make sure to pass this message to Rayleigh at headquarters too. Tell him there are people targeting the guild, so he must protect it at all costs.”
“Yes, Prince. But.”
I couldn’t stay long at a stall like this and was about to head straight out when William caught me, spinning his crystal ball.
“Don’t you need a fortune? I’m actually getting quite good at it lately.”
“……I’m leaving.”
Naturally, it was a useless offer.
After leaving the intelligence branch, my next stop was the Imperial Bank, which only had branches in the capital. I was running low on cash and planned to withdraw some. I was also curious to see how much I had left.
“Your name?”
“Rose Marlin Aisha.”
“You brought the stamp and the key, correct?”
“Here.”
Rose Marlin Aisha was the old lady’s real name. Until now, she had managed my commissions on her own. After she passed away, her will was made public, and it stated that she was leaving the key to this bank to me.
After a brief wait, an employee brought over a document listing the deposits and items in my vault.
“Please verify it.”
Opening the document with zero expectations, I blinked in sheer disbelief.
“Is this really mine?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“The amount…… is just too much.”
There was far more money sitting in the vault than I had ever anticipated.
3 billion Jerry. With this much money, wouldn’t I have more than enough left over even after paying off my father’s debt?
“Here is a simplified ledger. If you want a more detailed breakdown, you’ll have to wait a few days.”
Seeing my confusion, the employee handed me a stack of documents recording the history of deposits made into the bank over time. Looking through it, I realized that even the old lady’s share—which I thought she had taken as her cut—had been deposited entirely under my name.
“Did she think this would touch my heart?”
I clenched my teeth, recalling the old lady who had only ever spat harsh words at me.
“Would you like to make a withdrawal?”
“Just this much.”
Startled by the sum, I left almost all of it in the bank after some deliberation, withdrawing only a tiny fraction. Then, while reviewing the vault contents again, I noticed an odd item on the list.
“What is this?”
“Ah, we also hold physical goods for our clients. Shall I retrieve it for you?”
“Yes.”
There was one more thing the old lady had left for me.
When I accepted what the employee brought out, it turned out to be a land deed and a key.
“She left this to me? Why?”
“We wouldn’t know about such matters. The location is written on it, so why not go check it out yourself?”
Judging by the listed price, it didn’t seem to be a valuable piece of land. I couldn’t understand why the old lady would leave me land.
Unfolding my map, I traced it with my finger to find the location written on the deed. It happened to be right around the area I had circled.
“Could this place be…?”
If my guess was correct, this land was likely where my parents used to run their shop. While I couldn’t know for certain, I had already planned to wander around the circled area to search for their shop anyway.
“Should I just go check it out, assuming I’ve got nothing to lose?”
Kayan, the chief researcher, was at the peak of his exhaustion due to a recent string of continuous laboratory failures. Rubbing his bloodshot, veiny eyes, he leaned his head back against his chair.
“We don’t have a single useful new researcher this time either. What am I supposed to do?”
There were plenty of people who wanted to enter the research institute, but because most couldn’t last long before dropping out, they were always plagued by a labor shortage. Perhaps because rumors had spread recently about how grueling it was, the number of applicants had dropped significantly.
“It’s a shame to let them go. A conundrum, a real conundrum.”
Sinking deeper into his chair, Kayan removed his glasses and pressed firmly against his eyelids. He rolled his eyes blankly to relieve the strain, but the very next moment, his eyes widened so wide they looked ready to pop out.
He had discovered something utterly impossible.
“Why…… did the color change?”
What shocked Kayan was the black stone Rosia had touched—a mana stone. The way the pitch-black stone now held a reddish glow was highly unusual.
Kayan immediately put his glasses back on and rushed into the lab to conduct a precise examination. The mana stone, which had been in its raw, unprocessed state, had transformed to a degree where it could be turned into an artifact right this second.
After confirming the change in the mana stone, Kayan summoned everyone to find out who had caused this phenomenon.
“Who entered this room?”
“You don’t let anyone in without permission, do you?”
“Exactly. Who on earth… Ah, could it be?”
There was only one person who had entered this room with his permission.
