Chapter 159 - Damn Reincarnation

The Capital

Levera led the way through the alleys. The shops on this street differed from those in the central district in size alone. Most shops there occupied an entire building from the ground floor up, whereas here, at least two or three shops were crammed together in each building.

Some had no doors at all, their entire ground-floor front walls torn down to display rows of merchandise. The sight piqued Mer’s interest.

Most customers who frequented this market street were mercenaries or adventurers. As a result, there were plenty of suspicious weapons looted from somewhere or other, along with unidentified artifacts.

“Doesn’t this happen all the time in novels? Some old weapon sold dirt cheap in a place like this turns out to have incredible power hidden inside.”

“Personally, I think the stallholders who sell stuff here slip writers money under the table to advertise for them.”

With an indifferent expression, Eugene scanned the equipment on display. Three hundred years ago, he had made a name for himself as a mercenary. The quality of equipment sold at stalls hadn’t changed much since then.

Weapons that offered good value for money.

“It’s not like the seller’s a moron. Why would he sell something dirt cheap without knowing its val—”

Just as he was saying that, Eugene remembered buying a fragment of the Moonlight Sword for next to nothing at the auction house on Bolero Street.

“Why did you stop midsentence?”

“... There could always be a diamond hidden in a pile of garbage.”

“A diamond?”

“No matter how expensive a jewel is, if it’s covered in shit and filth and reeks, how are you supposed to tell whether it’s valuable or just shitty garbage?”

“We only just ate. Please don’t talk about disgusting things.”

“Shit.”

The answer came immediately. Mer’s face crumpled in utter dismay. Were those really words that should come out of a three-hundred-year-old hero’s mouth? Levera, walking ahead, was thinking something similar, though her perspective was slightly different.

‘He doesn’t act like a noble.’

Anisilla, the mistress of the main family, was the very picture of an aristocratic lady. Gerhard at the annex might not seem quite so thoroughly blue-blooded, but he, too, carried himself with the ingrained dignity of a noble.

Eugene, however, felt nothing like a noble, despite being considered more worthy of the Lionheart name than anyone else.

‘Though that’s not for me to judge.’

Levera was an elf, but little of her elven identity remained. A life of slavery riddled with abuse had obliterated her sense of self as an elf. Nor was she alone. Narissa, who worked alongside her as an apprentice servant in the annex, and most of the elves living in the Lionheart forest had lost that sense of identity as well.

To Levera, Eugene was a master she wanted to serve. What did it matter if he didn’t act like a noble? The majesty she had felt from him was not an aristocrat’s, but that of someone overwhelmingly powerful. In the Great Forest of Samar, after escaping the slave market, they had encountered a noble and a barbarian—both utterly typical of their kind.

No matter how often she recalled what happened then, the memory sent a shiver through her.

The barbarian was someone an elf should never encounter in that jungle. He had looked fiercer and stronger than any barbarian Levera had ever seen, yet Eugene had treated him like an infant and sent him flying beyond the sky.

The noble had eyed the elves obscenely, taking it for granted that they were objects and making no effort to hide his intention to play with them however he liked until he broke them. He was precisely the sort of noble Levera knew so well. Yet before Eugene, he had fallen to his knees and begged for his life in the most unsightly fashion imaginable.

“... This way.”

Levera tried not to acknowledge the warmth creeping through her chest.

The shop was tucked inside an alley. It wasn’t far in, but it was out of sight of the main street. Its location had been chosen to keep casual browsers from wandering in, and to let its actual customers visit without worrying about the eyes of passersby.

When they opened the small door beneath the weathered sign, a mixture of smells drifted out. Eugene picked out painkillers, oil, and dyes.

“Did they make Narissa’s prosthetic leg here, too?”

“Yes. A knight from the main family recommended this shop. I’m told its owner is quite famous among mercenaries and adventurers.”

It looked the part. Eugene surveyed the prosthetic arms and legs displayed on the shelves like ornaments. One artificial hand had all its fingers spread wide. As he stared at it, an urge stirred within him. Could he touch it? He wanted to fold down every one of those fingers except the middle one...

“You’re not a child...” Mer muttered quietly, having read his thoughts.

“Ahem...”

“Right on time to collect it.”

The door to the workshop at the back opened, and an old man with a bushy beard and thick glasses stepped out. His eyes lit up behind his spectacles at the sight of Eugene’s Lionheart uniform.

“You needn’t worry about me.”

Eugene raised both hands to put him at ease. The old man bowed, then glanced at Mer beside Eugene before speaking.

“There isn’t much to see here, but please feel free to look around.”

“May I touch the merchandise?”

“The items on the shelves are samples, so yes. You’re welcome to touch them.”

With that, the old man turned to Levera.

“It should fit perfectly, but come inside so we can check. I need to have another look at the symmetry and coloring, too...”

“Yes.”

Once Levera and the old man entered the workshop, Eugene reached for the artificial hand as though he had been waiting for this moment.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not. I’m just touching it.”

Eugene cleared his throat and fiddled with the prosthetic arm. Perhaps because they were made for mercenaries and adventurers who had lost limbs, some of the artificial arms and legs concealed bizarre mechanisms. Arrows fired when a wrist bent, blades sprang out of fingers, cannons were mounted on knees...

There were also a few prosthetic eyes displayed as samples. They weren’t top-of-the-line models that connected to the optic nerve, but they were so realistic they looked like actual eyeballs plucked from their sockets.

While examining them, Eugene suddenly sprang into motion. He didn’t know what had happened. Not a sound had come from the workshop.

But the presences had vanished. The two presences he had sensed inside until a moment ago were gone. He didn’t know how they had disappeared, either. The workshop door, only a few steps away, flew open.

Neither the old man nor Levera was anywhere to be seen. And it wasn’t just them. There was truly “nothing” in the workshop Eugene had entered.

“... What... is this?” Mer asked haltingly.

Eugene inspected the room without answering. Oil stains and dyes had seeped into the wallpaper. The smells of a workshop still lingered in the air. This place couldn’t originally have been as empty as it was now.

Eugene took Akasha out of the Cloak of Darkness and examined the workshop again. He could see spells for soundproofing, dustproofing, humidity control, and the like. Given the shabby building and neighboring shops, it was only natural for a workshop to have such spells in place.

“... None of the spells have been breached,” Mer murmured, her expression tense.

The spells inscribed on the walls and floor had been neither breached nor damaged. No wall had collapsed. No new magic had been added. Nor had anyone used Blink to enter and take them away. Had that happened, neither Eugene nor Mer could possibly have missed it. Spatial jumps inevitably caused distortions in space.

The workshop had no windows. The only door was the one Eugene had entered through. It was a perfectly sealed room, both physically and magically. Yet from that sealed room, one elf, one human, and all the workshop’s contents had disappeared.

No.

Not everything had disappeared. Eugene examined the workshop again. Shelves and decorations hung on the walls. Various tools hung there, too... The things attached to the walls were still there. Only the things resting on the floor had disappeared.

Silently, Eugene looked down at the floor. There wasn’t a speck of dust. Only the ingrained oil stains and dyes remained.

“... Something... appeared on the floor...?”

“It was overlaid.”

Eugene bent down and ran his hand over the floor.

“Like a shadow.”

The ceiling lamp cast a shadow stretching from Eugene’s body. With cold, still eyes, he stared at the shadow spreading from him.

“I didn’t expect them to pull something like this.”

Muttering those words, Eugene straightened. There was no more information to be gained from this workshop. Tracking down the missing Levera and the old man was impossible, too. Not even an archmage could identify with certainty the magic used in this disappearance.

It couldn’t be helped.

What had been used here was magic, yet not magic.

‘Three hundred years is a long time.’

Eugene clicked his tongue and rose. Reading his thoughts, Mer approached with a grim expression and slipped beneath the cloak he lifted for her.

“I didn’t expect our outing to turn out like this.”

Muttering under his breath, Eugene opened the workshop door.

The shop was lined with prosthetic arms, legs, and eyes. At some point, other customers had entered: three figures wearing large hoods. Eugene stared at them without surprise.

“Come with us.”

The voice came from within a hood. Eugene gave a short laugh and flicked a finger.

WHOOSH!

Wind swept through the shop, though no window had opened. It blew the customers’ hoods back.

“Why don’t you introduce yourselves before telling me what you want?”

Three dark elves glared at Eugene. The man who had spoken first regarded him through narrowed eyes.

“... We are Fury’s Independence Army.”

“I know.”

An inverted mountain goat’s skull was tattooed over the left side of his chest, by the collarbone. Fury’s soldiers had worn that tattoo three hundred years ago.

“We would rather not resort to force here.”

“And you’re confident you could drag me away by force?”

“Arrogant human bastard,” spat another dark elf who had remained silent until now.

Eugene burst out laughing and tilted his head.

“Who gave a corrupted black-skinned bastard who’s abandoned his own race the right to run his fucking mouth?”

The dark elf’s face twisted at the vicious retort. Two of them reacted furiously. The man who had spoken first showed no emotion.

“If you refuse or resist, we cannot guarantee the hostage’s safety.”

“If you wanted to talk to me, you should have offered a handshake first.”

“My apologies for that. So, what will you do? Come with us, or be dragged there?”

“Can’t you tell me where it is so I can go on my own? After killing all of you, I mean.”

“You have quite a violent temper.”

“Well, you pulled this shitty stunt just as a pleasant outing was coming to an end.”

He wasn’t merely speaking out of emotion. Throughout the conversation, Eugene continued examining his surroundings. Three dark elves. He sensed no others.

There was no change in the floor, either. Their leader must be watching this place. Was she not going to intervene directly? Even if he killed her subordinates? She seemed needlessly devoted to her own race. Would slaughtering them make her appear?

The atmosphere grew so icy that either side could have lunged first at any moment. The two hot-blooded young dark elves prepared to spring. The man said nothing more and simply glared at Eugene.

“Forget it.”

Eugene shrugged.

“Killing you won’t bring my abducted servant back.”

“You think you could kill us?” a young dark elf sneered with a snort.

“You think I couldn’t?”

Eugene stared at the dark elf without smiling. Killing intent intense enough to make him shudder focused upon him. It was not the sort of killing intent a human who had lived only a few decades could exude. Unable to say another word, the dark elf trembled and backed away several steps.

“Lead the way.”

Eugene brought the cloak draped behind his shoulders forward to cover both arms. This would let him draw whatever weapon he needed at any moment, but the Cloak of Darkness was also excellent armor in its own right.

“... Would you prefer to walk? Or...”

“I’ll walk. No other methods. That princess you serve might try something underhanded.”

“... It isn’t very far.”

The dark elves pulled their hoods back up.

They left the shop. The dark elves led the way deep into the alleys, and Eugene followed without hurrying.

Several things puzzled him.

The Lionhearts had anticipated that Iris and her dark elves would make contact. That was why Carmen and the Black Lion Knights’ Third Division were staying with the main family.

That wasn’t their only precaution, either. All manner of necessary intelligence flowed into the main family, including information about the dark elves. They were monitoring their movements in preparation for an approach.

No dark elves had entered Kiel. This was Seyris, the imperial capital, where every arrival’s identity was thoroughly checked.

‘They sneaked into the country.’

In other words, things had gone wrong from the very first step.

Iris had no intention of obtaining the elves from the Lionhearts through legitimate means.

‘I don’t remember her being this stupid three hundred years ago.’

He had heard that Iris had been driven into a corner in Helmuth. She wanted to become a new Demon King and succeed the Demon King of Fury. But Helmuth had high-ranking demons who didn’t even consider her a rival, who were far closer than she was to becoming the “next” Demon King.

Helmuth’s Three Dukes.

The Black Dragon Raizakia might not be the real Raizakia, but even so, there were two other dukes superior to Iris.

‘What Iris critically lacks is a power base.’

Iris insisted on building her forces exclusively from dark elves. Her stubbornness had supposedly eased lately, but even then, her compromise was to hire beastfolk mercenaries rather than expand her own following.

That was why she was so desperate to increase the number of dark elves.

‘Even so, she’s going to just steal them outright?’

It was an act of sheer, brutal tyranny. Feeling murderous intent boil within him, Eugene glared at the backs of the dark elves’ heads.

“This way.”

The dark elf pointed toward an iron door leading beneath a shabby building.

Bullshot Mercenary Company.

That was what the door said. Had they taken over a mercenary company’s office? How long had they been here? Thinking this, Eugene jerked his chin.

“Open it.”

The door opened onto stairs leading underground. There were no lights, making it difficult to see even directly beneath his feet. What if he conjured a light? No, that would be useless.

Iris’s darkness could not be illuminated by light.

The Demonic Eyes of Darkness. What they created was darkness, yet not darkness. No light could illuminate it.

At the bottom of the stairs, in the middle of an office that was spacious but utterly shabby, a dark elf sat leaning back on a red sofa, her legs stretched out on the table.

“Kid.”

The leader of Fury’s Independence Army.

The Rakshasa Princess.

Iris smiled, nudging the liquor on the table with the tip of her foot.

“Do you drink?”

Compared with three hundred years ago, little had changed besides her clothes and hairstyle.

Her once long, flowing white hair had been cut to shoulder length. Instead of leather armor, she wore a red suit, her shirt casually unbuttoned at the chest. A gold necklace hung around her neck, rings adorned her fingers, and an ornate watch sat on her wrist.

“... You look more like a mafia boss than a princess.”

Eugene voiced his honest impression, and Iris grinned, baring her white teeth.