“. . . Does that mean the refugees from Talosheim are still in the mine today?”
“Probably. Giantlings are tough. They might have been imprisoned as criminal slaves, but since that’s not really the case, they’re probably getting worked not quite to the brink of death. The old folks may be gone, but the ones who were kids at the time are probably still alive—although maybe not all of them. The mine is like a village for slaves, operated by the military. One of the spirits around you told me that.”
“. . . Where were Princess Lebia and her guards interred?”
“Got all the questions, don’t you? We’re still out here away from the capital. Spirits who know secrets like that rarely reach us. However, if someone wanted to really bury something—the truth along with the bodies—there’s a perfect catacomb. They say one of the heroes sealed away a piece of the Demon King there, long ago. That means any evil is unable to escape once placed inside.”
“Where is it?”
“Below the ducal castle. Take care on your visit, okay?”
“Take care? You make it sound like I’m going to visit this place.”
“I’ve been doing this even longer than it looks,” Mother Milan said with a sigh. “I can tell just from the spirits around you that you’re close to boiling over with rage.”
Vandal was indeed seething. The spirits around him were basking in that anger, raging and rioting. After all, if what she had just said was true, what other response could there be besides anger and cursing the names of all who took part?
He wanted to leave the fortuneteller’s place and tear apart every living thing that he saw. He was incensed to the brink of mass murder.
However, the calmer part of him knew that such an act would be meaningless and that it wouldn’t make him happy.
Yes, the people of this domain had abandoned the refugees from Talosheim. None of them—not even the old elf in front of him—pleaded for them to be saved. That said, the Olbaum Electorate Kingdom was another feudal state. The regular folk didn’t have a chance to get involved with politics. Almost no one alive today would even know what happened back then, anyway. To top it off, the people of Talosheim—Nuaza, Borks, Zulan, and the others—didn’t believe in pushing the crimes of the parents onto their children. Vandal agreed with that. It was wrong to ask the people of today to pay for crimes from 200 years ago.
At least, for crimes that had actually taken place 200 years ago.
“Okay,” Vandal said. “Let me ask you this. If the slave mine were attacked and all the slaves were to vanish, would you sell information to the people investigating the incident?” Instead of avenging those crimes, the first thing Vandal needed to do was free the giantling slaves—regardless of the laws of this nation.
But freeing them wasn’t enough. They needed to move the hearts of these giantlings and get them to come to Talosheim. And they needed to trick Duke Heartner concerning their true purpose.
Mother Milan watched Vandal for a moment. “No. I value my life more than coin. But I will warn you about revenge, as one old woman—actually, forget that, too. As soon as I started talking to the dead, I realized the living have little perspective on that topic.”
The ideas that the dead no longer wanted for anything, or that they only wanted the living to be happy, were horrible and foolish delusions. There were some spirits like that, but Mother Milan also knew of far more that longed for and celebrated the destruction of those they had hated in life. It would be especially silly to try and sell any other idea to Vandal in particular.
“I’ll be leaving this town tomorrow. Is there anything I can do before then to repay you?” Vandal asked, pushing down his anger. He managed to sound like the lady had just given him a nice fortune.
“Payment for this information? I’ve got quite a nest egg, don’t you worry. I could live out my days in comfort if I quit today. But there is one thing I might ask of you.”
With all the spirits around Vandal, her business as a Medium was on the rocks for now. Mother Milan had been thinking she might shut up shop for a while, or even move to another town. With that in mind, there was a fragment of something lodged in the corner of her memory.
“This would have been about fifteen years ago. One of my regulars fell in with a bard who would sing at a place called the Scarlet Dream. I warned her that he was a conman, and she told me she’d break things off. But then . . .”
“Three days later, that woman appeared again—this time as a spirit, with a sad look on her face—then promptly vanished. My client just wants to know what happened. We followed up on the incident and got a good line of information, leading us to you. You did it, didn’t you?”
Vandal’s voice was light as he explained, but Zagi was dripping with sweat. This freaky kid is going to kick something off in this domain, Zagi thought. And we’re going down as collateral damage!
“Actually, most of you are still alive. Apart from your bodyguard and a few others. The rest are just bleeding a bit. Their hearts are still beating.”
Did he just read my mind?! Zagi was too surprised to even speak. In fact, the spirit of his bodyguard had spilled the beans to Vandal, chuckling about how dumb his former employer was.
“Well? Do you know what I’m talking about?” Vandal asked again.
Zagi didn’t reply, but actually, he did have some idea. The details had come back to him as Vandal laid out the story.
It happened 15 years ago, when Zagi was still just a grunt in the organization. He had been blessed with a violent nature, criminal skills, and good luck even back then, and the boss at the time had taken a liking to him.
One of Zagi’s jobs was to go after a foppish bard who had been tricking women out of their money without paying his dues. However, Zagi screwed things up and let the conman get away. In order to cover his mistake, he had snatched one of the conman’s marks, killed her in a horrific fashion, and dumped her body in the room the conman had been using. That made it look like the man had killed the woman and fled to escape his crime.
He bought off his companions and turned in the money from the women that the conman left behind, saying it was the conman’s payment. That should have been an end to it.
If I admit it, I’ll be killed for sure! Zagi thought. No! I’m not going to die for the sake of that pathetic woman! “I don’t have a clue!” he yelped. “It must have been . . . the work of the bodyguard you already killed! He loved to kill women. A real headcase!”
“He’s lying! I killed five people, maybe, but they were all men!” the dead man’s spirit quickly reported.
Zagi was trying his best to wheedle out of this, but his efforts were in vain due to Vandal’s ability to talk to the dead.
Gah! Where’s the boss?! Zagi thought. Why isn’t he here yet—ah!
The door suddenly opened from the outside with a creak. A man with red eyes and pale skin entered, accompanied by a giantling with his face covered by a black mask and a number of smaller individuals.
“Boss! You made it!”
The man leading the newcomers was a vampire. He had been posted here as the resident agent of the progenitor species vampires who worshipped the Demon God of Living Pleasure Hihiryu-Shukaka. He was the one backing Zagi and his criminal dealings. Zagi had become the vampire’s lapdog, and in return, he got to play the big boss of this small city, without any interference from other organizations. Zagi didn’t recognize the giantling or any of the others, but they were probably other subordinates.
“Boss, please! Kill this shitty brat and his shitty woman! I’ll do whatever you need me to do!”
“Zagiiiii! You have been loyal and worked hard for me. I always thought highly of you . . .” The vampire continued forward, looking for a moment like he would do as Zagi requested.
But then he walked right past Vandal and Eleonora, only stopping to stare down at Zagi. “But look at you now, worthless mongrel dog! How dare you speak ill of these exalted ones!” Then he kicked Zagi in the chest with his pointy heel and proceeded to stomp on him.
“Gwaaah! Boss! What are you doing?!” As he listened to his ribs cracking—not for the first time today—Zagi spotted something. The clothing of the man he thought was his boss was stained with dark red.
“Enough,” Vandal said. “We aren’t finished with him yet.”
“Of course . . . my master.”
Seeing the vampire bow his head to Vandal and then kiss his feet, Zagi realized what was going on. This man, this undead vampire, was the source of Vandal’s information. Zagi’s only hope of salvation had been removed from the table before Zagi’s hideout had even been attacked.
“This can’t be . . . can’t be! My organization, my life, for that worthless, worthless woman!” All hope lost, Zaki’s face looked more like a corpse than the actual corpses littering the floor.
Vandal tilted his head as he replied. “She was a worthless woman to you, and you didn’t care whether she lived or died. But you’re a worthless thug to me, and I don’t care whether you live or die. That’s all we’re dealing with here.”
With that, Zagi, boss of the Night Fangs, died.
However, the following morning, he was seen giving orders per usual, without a single mark on him.
Zagi was a lot more cheerful than before, and ruled the shadows with a fairer, more even hand. It would be some time before the activities of a certain adventurer revealed that he was actually undead.