My Slain Dragon Bride

Chapter 88: Chapter 88

Chapter 88 - You Truly Have No Shame

As the sun sank completely into the west, night descended.

Leaving behind the group of refugees led by William, Ferda returned to the castle.

Seated on the sofa in the reception room, Ferda looked at the man sitting across from him.

It was Stephan.

The gaunt appearance unique to someone who had been cornered had faded somewhat, but his hollow eyes still remained.

Looking at him, Ferda spoke.

"I have good news."

"W-What kind of good news?"

Stephan asked with an anxious expression.

Ferda slowly explained the information he had pieced together.

"Stephan, the mercenaries you hired were harboring far more malicious intentions than we had imagined."

They had not been third-rate mercenaries but assassins organized specifically to sow chaos.

At the rendezvous point, they slaughtered every merchant and laborer.

They scattered all the cargo and even pulled out part of its contents to make it appear as though it had been a robbery.

"However, staging it as a robbery carried too much risk."

"Because of the anti-theft magic, I presume."

As a branch manager, Stephan knew very well.

The anti-theft enchantments placed on valuable goods.

The moment anyone touched them, they would be branded as criminals, making it the worst possible situation for assassins.

For it to be considered a robbery, the valuables had to disappear.

But if the valuables remained untouched, the irony would only make it even more obvious that it had been an assassination.

"So two of the mercenaries laid the groundwork."

"What do you mean?"

"They must have forcibly broken open the chests containing the valuables and taken the contents out."

"But the tracking magic would still activate. Why would they do something so foolish...?"

"They were probably set up themselves. Either they were never told about it, or they were known to be greedy enough that eliminating them afterward was simply part of the cleanup."

Stephan found the explanation reasonable and gave a slight nod.

"So taking the valuables out was the foundation of the plan... but what exactly was that foundation meant to accomplish?"

Ferda continued.

He moved a pawn.

"The foundation for drawing the refugees into the robbery."

The refugees shivered as they moved through the early winter cold.

Since the mercenaries had departed from the Empire, they must have known that refugees were making their way toward the far eastern frontier in search of hope.

That was when they found the refugee group led by William.

According to the plan, they tempted the refugees by promising them food, offering them a glimmer of hope.

"The refugees had no choice but to head there. After all, they desperately needed something to eat."

Even if it had been a lie, starving people could not afford to ignore such information.

So they hurried there.

What awaited them was not a generous food distribution center but a horrific massacre.

"All they needed was for the refugees to stir up the feast that had already been prepared."

Ferda flicked the pawn with his index finger as he spoke.

"What would the refugees see? Food, weapons, and precious treasures made of gold—the kind they might never see even once in their entire lives. Everything they needed immediately, everything they desired, and everything they could never possess in a lifetime was gathered in one place."

It was as though they had stepped into a temple of desire.

Stephan could already imagine how the scheme unfolded.

Through the involvement of the refugees, the assassination would be transformed into what appeared to be a robbery.

Since most of the looting would be carried out by the refugees, everyone would naturally assume that they were the culprits and slaughter them all.

There would be no need to pursue the remaining stragglers.

They would already have served as a sufficient example.

However, there was one strange point.

Everything Ferda had explained so far described an assassination disguised as a robbery.

Which meant that everything the conspirators had intended afterward had ultimately failed.

"So the refugees never touched the jewels?"

"There was an unexpected variable."

Ferda nodded.

"No one could have predicted it. Rather, the possibility was so absurdly unlikely that no one would even have considered it. It was like being struck by lightning from a clear sky."

Beside the tilted pawn, Ferda placed a knight piece.

"A knight who upheld his convictions happened to be leading that group."

William.

The man who had become a knight understood duty and honor.

He looked upon the gold before him as though it were mere stones.

Instead, he gathered the bodies and prayed for the dead.

Although he did take some supplies, he chose only what was necessary for survival, amounting to less than one Golden.

It was an offense that could easily be overlooked.

"That allowed us to confirm without a doubt that this had been an assassination."

That was the story they had pieced together so far.

Naturally, it led to the next question.

"Then who was the one who commissioned the assassination?"

"The most likely suspect is this man."

Ferda handed over a personnel file from the Pascal Trading Company.

"The only one among the twelve merchants who remains missing. A man named Frank Fontaine."

"Frank Fontaine..."

The moment he heard the name, Stephan instinctively frowned.

"It seems you never thought highly of him."

"He worked here for ten years, constantly complaining that he never became a branch manager and was stuck doing carriage work."

"And why was that?"

"It’s nothing dramatic. He simply had poor performance. To put it plainly, he just wasn’t cut out to be a merchant."

Grinding his teeth, Stephan stared at the face in the file.

"He acted like some old-fashioned know-it-all more than once, so we clashed quite often. I even considered firing him."

"Then why didn’t you?"

"He had five children to support."

"Too soft-hearted."

"I suppose I was."

Crunch.

The personnel file crumpled in his hand.

"That bastard... You’re saying he ordered the deaths of my eleven merchants...?"

A little compassion.

Was that weak-hearted compassion the reason so many other families had ended up destroyed?

"Not exactly."

Ferda shook his head.

"I’m certain Frank Fontaine was involved, but he couldn’t have been the mastermind."

"May I ask what makes you so certain?"

Though he felt it might be overstepping his place, Stephan needed an explanation he could accept.

"The report says that, excluding the refugees’ footprints, there were tracks from twelve other individuals moving through the area. That means thirty-two mercenaries took part in the assassination, correct?"

"That’s right."

"Even if we estimate generously, the loot was worth about two hundred Golden. Split evenly among thirty-two people, that comes to roughly three Golden and twenty-five shillings each."

Three Golden and twenty-five shillings was certainly a respectable amount.

But it was little considering they had earned it by staining their hands with blood.

"If they had merely been cheap labor, that would be one thing. But these men were skilled at erasing their own traces. Do you know how much people like that charge?"

"I don’t."

"They start at no less than fifty Golden per person. Even at the lowest estimate, hiring them all would cost over one thousand Golden."

"One thousand... Even if Frank emptied his soul along with his pockets, he could never have afforded that."

Stephan set Frank’s personnel file back down.

"If there’s someone else pulling the strings behind all this... then who in the world are those damned bastards...?"

"That," Ferda said, "is precisely the good news."

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat.

"We’ve identified the mastermind."

Ferda took something out and placed it on the table.

It was a green scarf.

The very item that had been found in the hands of the young refugee boy.

"This is..."

Stephan recognized it immediately.

"It belongs to my brother’s company... Why is it in Your Highness the Regent’s possession?"

"A refugee boy said one of the conspirators dropped it, so he picked it up."

"Don’t tell me... the mastermind... the mastermind is..."

Stephan could not finish his sentence.

But both he and Ferda already knew exactly whose name belonged there.

Overwhelmed with shock, Stephan finally dropped the cup he had been holding.

Crash!

The cup shattered, its contents spilling across the floor.

Neither of them paid it any attention.

Ferda also ignored the trivial mess.

Stephan covered his face with both hands.

At that moment, he did not even know what expression he was making.

"...Are you certain?"

"So I’ve been told."

Stephan reached out and accepted the scarf.

His pupils, shrunken from shock, slowly traced the embroidery.

His gaze settled on the emblem of the Pascal family.

Behind it, two swords crossed one another.

He checked it again and again.

There was no mistake.

It was an authentic scarf from the Pascal Mercenary Company.

"My brother’s company..."

Stephan said while staring at it.

"There’s a saying that signing a contract with the Pascal Mercenary Company is the same as making a contract with a demon. Do you know what that means?"

"I don’t."

"It means... once you sign a contract with them, you can never escape."

A hollow smile appeared on Stephan’s face.

Moments later, it twisted.

Every emotion swirling through his mind seemed to spill directly onto his expression.

"They say that once a contract with the Pascal Mercenary Company ends, the bandits that had remained quiet immediately begin targeting the merchant caravans, as if someone had deliberately informed them."

Stephan’s voice trembled.

"It always seemed strange. The very first merchant expedition after the contract expired would always run into trouble. Whether they were attacked by bandits, betrayed by their own mercenaries, or abandoned... eight out of ten would always suffer disaster. And among those eight, seven would come crawling back to sign another contract with my brother."

"You believe Merchit staged all of that himself?"

"There’s a saying: demand can be created. In the security business, the key is convincing people that they need your protection."

Stephan recalled the recent conflict he had had with Merchit.

His brother had told him that without him, he should see just how well he could survive.

This went far beyond the rumors of ordinary ambushes.

It was something incomparably more vicious.

Those people had been like family to Stephan.

Some had been seniors who were like fathers.

Others had been juniors who were like younger brothers.

Some had been colleagues who were like lifelong friends.

Merchit had taken them all away.

Simply because Stephan had dared to oppose him.

The scarf in Stephan’s hand crumpled.

He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lip.

It hurt.

He wanted to cry, but no tears came.

He wanted to scream, but his throat tightened.

The agony was unbearable.

And because he had no idea what to do with that pain, it became even more suffocating.

At that moment—

Luri entered the room and stood beside Ferda.

"Lord Ferda. You have a visitor."

"At this hour of the night?"

Her eyes briefly glanced toward Stephan, who was clutching his head.

"Yes. More specifically, someone who wishes to see both Lord Stephan and Lord Ferda."

"Me?"

"Who is it?"

The name that left Luri’s lips stunned them both.

"He asked me to tell you that his name is Merchit Pascal."

***

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness the Regent."

Merchit Pascal sat across from Ferda in the reception room and greeted him.

Looking at the two brothers, one thought crossed Ferda’s mind.

’Do they really share the same blood?’

Stephan had smooth, fair skin with a healthy sheen.

Like a proper merchant, he carried an air of wealth and looked like the kind of model citizen who might leave the imprint of an enormous peach-shaped backside in his chair.

Merchit, however, had bronze skin and wore his hair in a short, rugged regent cut.

His thick neck, broad shoulders, and the intimidating lines of muscle visible even beneath his uniform made him look more like the leader of a gang than a businessman.

Had their hair and eye colors been different, no one would have believed they were brothers unless they introduced themselves as such.

"Welcome, Sir Merchit."

" ’Sir’ is too generous. I’m nothing more than a captain commanding a handful of insignificant soldiers."

With an awkward smile, Merchit feigned humility.

Far from the entrance one would expect from a ruthless villain, he gave off an open and easygoing impression.

Ferda could tell with certainty.

This man had no idea that he had already become the prime suspect.

No—he was acting as though it had never even crossed his mind that anyone on this side would suspect him.

"I heard that my younger brother has been having a difficult time, so I went looking for him. That eventually brought me all the way to the castle. Thank you for receiving me so graciously at such a late hour."

"Not at all. When times are difficult, it’s only natural to seek out one’s family."

After the brief exchange of pleasantries, Merchit’s eyes shifted toward Stephan.

Stephan’s gaze was icy.

Whether aware of his brother’s feelings or not, Merchit spoke to comfort him.

"Stephan. I heard the news. They say the Eastern merchant caravan was wiped out?"

"..."

"What a tragic thing. I know how loyal those men were to you. Their absence must leave an enormous void."

"..."

"I’ve already had our people deliver the news to their families. We’ll also take care of the funeral arrangements. For now, just take some time to compose yourself."

Everything he said made him sound like the perfect older brother.

But that was only to those who knew nothing of what lay beneath the surface.

Stephan was neither blind nor deaf.

He was a man who saw, heard, and thought for himself.

That was precisely why he knew what was hidden beneath that shameless façade.

"You truly... have no shame."

"Hm?"

As indignation boiled inside him, Stephan calmly continued.

"You’re the one who sent people to have them all killed, so why are you sitting there pretending to be the caring older brother?"

"...What?"

One of Merchit’s eyebrows shot upward.

The smoldering ember in Stephan’s heart suddenly burst into flames.