The mercenary blinked. “You teleported them?”
“I did. I also altered their memories of the past few minutes.”
Liliana’s frank admission of mental interference drew an exasperated look from Gildo. Even with his limited understanding of magic, he knew it was not only forbidden but also beyond what humans were meant to be capable of.
“You really aren’t human, are ya?” he asked. “Teleporting seven at once while tweakin’ the memories of five of ’em? The hell even are you? No wonder you put down that swarm all by yourself.”
“Who said I did?” Liliana replied, subtly warning him not to tell anyone. Not that she expected he would.
Gildo only chuckled.
“Wait,” Liliana said, a new thought striking her. “You said I tweaked the memories of five of them. Were the other two immune?”
The mercenary looked as though he’d already said too much. Still, he replied, “Georg and Ingeborg are immune to magic.”
“The same as you?”
He hesitated—but only for a moment. “That’s right. It comes with conditions and exceptions, but we children of Alvaldi are immune to magic.” Since Liliana already seemed convinced, he saw little point in hiding it.
In her past life, Alvaldi had been the name of a titan from Norse mythology. It had never appeared in the game, however. Northerners had always been just that—northerners—though there had been passing mentions that some were different. And now that she thought about it, they hadn’t even entered the story until the third game. When the marquess had spoken of northern immigrants, Liliana had assumed he meant northerners, but it was still strange for them to be appearing so early.
“‘Children of Alvaldi’?” she repeated.
“Yeah. Nomads from the far north. People in these parts don’t even know we exist.” A hint of disgust entered his voice. “To the locals—and the people in Yunatian too—we’re all just ‘northerners.’”
Slivegrandia was cut off from the northern lands by a steep mountain range, and its ties with them were almost nonexistent because of it. The Empire of Yunatian maintained some diplomatic contact with the northern countries, but it, too, was largely insulated from them. The result was widespread ignorance. Most people couldn’t even distinguish between the northern peoples and their ethnic groups.
“What about everyone we left lying around the church?” Gildo asked. Obviously, kidnappers ought to be handed over to the authorities, but Liliana wanted to question them before leaving them to the marquess’s people or the knights’ order.
“I want to learn what I can about their employer,” she said. “Those children weren’t the only ones taken.”
“All right. Then let’s go back, I guess.”
Gildo started walking, and Liliana fell into step beside him. His muscles were still swollen, his frame enlarged enough that just looking up at him made her neck ache.
“There are many northern countries,” she said. “How did you know those two were your kin?”
“The patterns.”
“What patterns?”
Gildo explained that he had noticed the decorative woolen fabric on Georg’s belt, where a strap would normally sit. “Those patterns are special to us children of Alvaldi. Weather’s rough up in the mountains, but if one of us dies, the others can identify the body by those designs.”
That made sense. In Liliana’s past life, fishermen on the Aran Islands had worn knitting patterns for much the same reason. Apparently, the patterns differed by family and made it possible to identify a fisherman who washed ashore after a tragic accident at sea.
“We’ve got no country of our own,” Gildo continued. “Most of us live in communities, but not all. There’re misfits like me scattered around too. If we ever cross paths, we’re expected to drop everything to help each other. Betrayin’ our kin costs us our powers. That’s the rule.”
Their solidarity was intense. It had never come up in the game.
“Do you wear a pattern too?” Liliana asked.
Gildo looked away. After a long pause, he awkwardly said, “No.”
Liliana decided not to press him. Silence reigned for a while before Gildo spoke again, as if forcing the words out.
“I ran away from my parents when I was a kid, so I don’t have one.”
“Oh.”
Liliana didn’t say anything else. Gildo’s past didn’t seem easy to discuss.
Before long, they reached the site of their last fight. The men were still there, bound and sprawled across the floor. It had been some time since Liliana and Gildo left them that way, yet no one had come to help them. Liliana frowned.
“What is it?” Gildo asked.
“I was wondering why they’re still here.”
“Would you have rather they escaped?”
“No, but...”
If no one had come for the mages, then they had most likely been abandoned. It was hard to believe their employers had entrusted them with running this place simply because they assumed it would never be discovered.
I can’t imagine the sort of people even the marquess couldn’t track down would leave such an easy trail. We should be grateful we rescued the children, but I doubt interrogating anyone here will give us answers.
Oblivious to her thoughts, Gildo hauled one of the nearby men to his feet. The mercenary’s eyes burned with anger.
“I’m sure you won’t be able to make them talk,” he said, “so look away. Unless you wanna puke.”
Liliana thanked him for the warning—then chose to watch anyway.
Even in their daze, the men squirmed on the floor, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the pair as they could. The mercenary clearly terrified them, but so did the little girl who had acted so calmly on the battlefield.
“No running, now,” Liliana said, mercilessly restraining them with her magic.
Gildo slapped one mage lightly on the cheek to wake him, looking used to the process. He yanked him upright by the hair—hard enough that strands tore free—then slowly traced the tip of his sword along the man’s body.
“Talk if you ever wanna walk again,” he said. “Or would you rather lose your eyes? I don’t care either way. They say you can still hear even after your ears are messed up, so should we start there?”
“I... I don’t know anything...”
The man looked unused to violence. He grew paler by the second, trembling as he insisted he was a short-term hire—a mediocre mage, barely more than a con artist.
One day, while he was drinking at a bar, a well-dressed man he’d never seen before had offered him a lucrative job: keep watch over children in the basement of a church for a few days. He was to fend off intruders and hand the children over when the boss arrived. That was all.
“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me! I never agreed to this kinda treatment!”
“When were you supposed to hand them over?” Gildo pressed.
“T-Tomorrow night! Look, man, I’ve told you everything! Now let me go!” the man pleaded, still being held by his hair.
Gildo glanced at Liliana. She gave a small shake of her head. They wouldn’t get anything more useful from their current line of questioning.
The mercenary rounded on the mage again. “Describe the man who hired you.”
“He looked like some stuck-up noble in a robe. Couldn’t see his face ’cause of the hood. Oh, and I think he had a wound between his thumb and index finger on his left hand. He probably wore a ring on his left middle finger, but it wasn’t there when he met us.”
“How observant of you.”
“It’s part of the job.”
Perhaps he hadn’t been lying about being a scammer. He must have made a fair sum of money in his trade.
Gildo released the mage, who hit the floor hard. Then, ignoring the man’s cries, he walked back to Liliana.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Let’s leave them. The marquess’s men should arrive soon.”
“Fine by me. Less trouble that way.” He paused, then added as though it were obvious, “You’re gonna wipe their memories too, yeah?”
Liliana nodded. They couldn’t risk the marquess learning they had freed the children and captured the men. “Take care, everyone,” she said with a smile, then erased the mages’ memories of her and Gildo.
All that remained was to bind them with magic so they couldn’t flee before the marquess’s men arrived, then return home. As they headed for the exit, Liliana rewrote the memories of the men collapsed elsewhere as well.
When they reached Gildo’s horse, still tied to a tree, Liliana turned to him.
“Are you returning to my estate?”
“Yeah. I’ll never be able to repay you for tonight.”
“Repay me...?” Liliana asked, genuinely surprised.
“Yeah.” Gildo’s usual half-joking tone was gone, and his gaze sharpened. “I never would’ve found them if you hadn’t used a hex. And before that, you saved my life. No exaggeration.”
Indeed, this was the second time Liliana had helped him. The first had been during the swarm.
“Can I take that as an offer to extend your contract?” she asked with a smile.
“What...?”
Gildo looked completely caught off guard. His and Olga’s contracts would expire soon. Olga had asked to renew hers the other day, but Gildo hadn’t said a word—he seemed to have forgotten about the matter entirely. When realization finally struck him, his mouth twisted into a sour curve.
“I’m not against it.”
“Then let us continue as before.”
“I can’t with you nobles...”
Yet for all his grumbling, he never said no.
✦ ✦ ✦
Marquess Kenneth watched fondly as his youngest son rejoiced at being reunited with Georg. Even after withdrawing to his office and settling behind his desk, he had to fight to keep a smile from his face.
It hadn’t been long after his men reported that there was nothing suspicious in Entrepôt when word arrived of Georg’s return to the manor. Several other children had come with him, none of whom the marquess had seen before. He had dispatched a trusted team to inspect the place where the captives had been held, and they had found the kidnappers already tied up on the floor.
The interrogation yielded little. Each culprit insisted they had been restrained before they even realized what was happening. They also claimed they were to hand the children over to their employer the following night, but that employer surely wouldn’t appear now.
“Didn’t see that one coming...”
Marquess Kenneth’s butler twitched as he watched from nearby. His master sounded almost impressed as he stared into empty space.
After a long moment, the marquess turned to his attendant. “Tell Brendon to meet me in the usual place the night after next.”
“Understood.”
After the butler bowed and left, the marquess lit a cigar. “Liliana Alexandra Clarke, huh...” It had been his first time meeting her. At a glance, she had seemed graceful, sweet, and even frail. She was also the strongest candidate to become the crown prince’s fiancée with a reputation as a talented student.
But there was more to her than that.
“I suppose she really is the daughter of the Cerulean Flame...”
As the night wore on, Marquess Kenneth gazed out the window, losing himself in thought.