WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Genius Knight of a Fallen Race ◈

Chapter 44: To the Endless Prosperity of the Alto People

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Bolin could not immediately demand to know what Shan was doing by barging into his home in the middle of the night.

Like someone who suddenly encountered a tiger in the forest and dared not shout at it, his mind froze the instant he saw those gleaming eyes.

Still, Bolin was an experienced knight who had lived through all manner of situations.

When Shan strode toward him, he finally came to his senses and shouted.

“Sir Shan! What is this outrage in the middle of the night? Have you no honor?”

As he shouted, Bolin clenched both fists and prepared to fight.

He knew all too well that Shan was far above him as a warrior.

Yet beneath the moonlight, Shan was plainly unarmed. In an unarmed fight, physical build mattered far more than technique, much more than it did when weapons were involved.

Bolin was not especially tall, but he still stood about half a head taller than the boy. He had spent his childhood in the slums and was no stranger to using his fists.

A brat who had probably spent his whole life doing nothing but learning to wield blades and spears-

Before the thought could finish, two green lights traced faint lines through the air.

Bolin raised his arm to block the incoming kick, then panicked when he felt nothing.

‘What?’

He could not see clearly in the dim moonlight, but Shan’s leg had risen diagonally past Bolin’s reach before crashing back down.

Crack.

Bolin took a blow to the temple from Shan’s instep, and his consciousness immediately went dark.

Shan looked down at the fallen Bolin.

‘That startled me.’

He had planned to give Bolin the drug Serin had provided while he slept, then carry him away. He had not expected Bolin to wake the moment Shan closed the door, giving him a brief opening.

It did not matter much now. Bolin was unconscious either way.

Following the plan, Shan dripped the drug into Bolin’s mouth, slung him over his back, and left the room. The two squires staying in the annex slept sweetly without even dreaming, unaware that their lord was being taken away.

“Hup.”

Like a leopard hauling prey several times its size up a tree, Shan easily climbed over the wall with Bolin, who was half a head taller and much broader than him, on his back.

If anyone had seen him carrying someone through the alleys or crossing from roof to roof in the darkness, they would have pointed at him and called him a criminal.

It would not have been an inaccurate judgment.

* * *

After moving for roughly thirty minutes, hiding in the shadows whenever he encountered a night watchman, Shan successfully entered Count Paless’s estate, which Serin was using as a villa.

The princess, her guards, and Roden were waiting inside.

“I’m back.”

“You returned quickly. Did you give him the drug?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. He appears to have been knocked unconscious by a blow.”

“He woke up as soon as I entered, so I hit him once and put him back to sleep.”

“That explains it. Bring him inside. Let us interrogate him.”

A room for interrogation had already been prepared in the estate’s basement.

In the center of the dark cellar, lit only by a few candles, Kagon tied Bolin to a chair while Aran woke him by dumping cold water over him.

Shan and Roden realized anew how naturally the two handled this sort of thing.

It seemed this was far from their first kidnapping and interrogation.

“Cough, cough... W-where am I?”

“Bolin, or should I call you Kadek? Grinding down perfectly healthy teeth to hide the traits of an Alto. Your endurance is impressive. I could never bring myself to do it. It would hurt too much.”

Shock filled Bolin’s, or rather Kadek’s, face.

A secret he had concealed his entire life had come from the mouth of some girl he had never even met.

Just as Serin said, he was not simply a knight supported by the Brotherhood. He was an Alto knight raised by them directly.

He had ground down his long, protruding tusks to disguise himself as an ordinary Westerner.

‘How?’

How could she know a secret that only the Brotherhood’s highest-ranking members knew?

Why had they kidnapped him?

Could it be because of the report he had sent-

“[Razgraphina, Aldiov, Samurgragante-]”

Serin removed her amethyst glasses and recited the spell. Aran seized Kadek’s hair, forced his head up, and made him meet Serin’s eyes.

Kadek’s terrified eyes immediately lost focus.

Shan had experienced this kind of magic through vampires before. It charmed the target and temporarily suppressed their reason.

“N-no...”

“It will.”

Kadek tried to resist by summoning his Spirit, but the circumstances were too terrible for that.

It was difficult to properly wield Spirit, the power of the mind, after being abruptly awakened by a beating and dragged into a basement.

The drug Serin had told Shan to give him also clouded the mind and weakened resistance to magic of this sort.

Its primary purpose was as a sedative, though.

“Good. It has taken hold completely. What is your name?”

“Bolin...”

“No. Your real name.”

“Kadek...”

Roden swallowed a groan as Kadek obediently answered every question that followed.

‘So this was it.’

He felt he had learned part of the secret behind Serin’s overwhelming intelligence-gathering prowess.

If she could extract the truth from others like this, she could certainly build a powerful web of information.

Of course, it required having no fear of getting another person’s blood on one’s hands...

While Roden was lost in thought, Serin continued questioning Kadek.

Kadek had originally been a slum child from a southern port city in Pendia. Because of his exceptional physical ability and features that made it easy for him to pass as a Westerner, the Brotherhood had recruited him at a young age.

Through various connections, he became Bolin, the adopted son of House Anix, received his knighthood, and grew into an accomplished wandering knight.

He was now a mid-level Brotherhood executive. Along with delivering a letter to Shan, he had been tasked with determining how much Shan’s squire, Roden, would obstruct their plans.

Naturally, it had also been Kadek who reported to his superiors that Roden needed to be removed before Shan could be recruited.

That alone meant Kadek would never leave this estate alive.

“Good. You explained everything so well. What a good boy...”

With a cruel smile, Serin continued leading him into revealing information about the Brotherhood’s main safehouses still remaining in the capital and the personal details of its highest-ranking executives.

Unfortunately, Kadek did not know who led the Brotherhood. He knew only one or two senior executives from whom he had received direct orders.

To destroy the organization in one sweep, they would need to capture and interrogate more people.

Only after Serin extracted every useful piece of information possible, questioned him again, and checked for inconsistencies did she end the interrogation.

“Good. There is no more information we can get from him. Kagon?”

“Yes, Princess.”

At Serin’s call, Kagon nodded and tightened a rope around Kadek’s neck.

Cutting his throat here would make the cleanup troublesome, so they chose strangulation instead.

Roden watched Kadek’s face turn blue from lack of air, then asked, “What will you do with the body?”

“We will dispose of it as magical experiment waste. There is no need to worry about it being discovered.”

There was not the slightest trace of guilt on the princess’s face as she answered.

Shan was no different. Only Roden felt inwardly uneasy amid the kidnapping, murder, and disposal of a corpse.

Since it had all begun because of the threat to his life, he did not show it.

“Then who should we capture next?”

At Shan’s bloodthirsty question, Serin briefly felt the temptation to point out one of the forces her brothers had concealed.

With a warrior this powerful, she was sure Shan would return after tearing apart and killing whoever he faced.

After a moment’s thought, she shook her head lightly, overcame the temptation, and gave him an earnest answer.

“Before the next hunt, I would like to make a proposal.”

“A proposal?”

“This organization called the Brotherhood... After examining its structure more closely, it appears more vulnerable than I expected. It would be a waste to simply cut it down.”

The Brotherhood operated on strict hierarchy and secrecy.

Every member absolutely obeyed orders from their superiors, while all information and authority were held by those at the very top.

Roden let out a quiet sigh as he understood.

“Surely you do not mean to seize the Brotherhood instead of destroying it?”

“I do not think it would be a bad thing for either of you.”

Serin looked between Shan and Roden.

“Sir Shan’s dream was to become the lord of a territory where the Altos could live freely, correct?”

“Yes.”

“No territory can be run with only incompetent poor people. Capable bureaucrats, merchants, and warriors are essential. These are precisely the people the Altos lack.”

The Brotherhood had a relatively high proportion of Altos in those classes.

Using fellowship with their countrymen as an excuse, they were secretly infiltrating the privileged classes by sucking the blood of impoverished Altos dry.

If they crushed the Brotherhood, every Alto who had received advanced education or possessed special abilities would either die or lose their foundation and fall.

Serin’s proposal was that they should take over the Brotherhood instead, remove everything unnecessary, and use what remained.

“If we cut off the Brotherhood’s upper ranks and place a suitable person in their position, we can seize control of the organization easily. There is much we can do with it. We could improve the Altos’ standard of living, as its stated purpose claims to do. Or when Sir Shan gains a territory in the future, we could relocate them there.”

“Who is this suitable person? If we put just anyone in that position, it could cause problems.”

Unexpectedly, Serin pointed at Roden.

“But I am not an Alto.”

“Most Brotherhood members do not even know who leads them. Does race matter when the organization is ruled anonymously?”

“Then Your Highness could lead it yourself-”

“I am already busy. I have missed several official events because I have been paying attention to this matter, and I have neglected the movements within the court as well.”

If they seized the Brotherhood, Serin added quietly, it would belong entirely to Shan and Roden.

Roden felt that her proposal was not bad.

Once again, he realized that both he and Shan needed something that could at least detect the hands reaching for them from the darkness, even if it could not stop them.

The Brotherhood, a faction within the criminal organization known as the Council, could serve as those eyes and ears.

They had wanted to avoid becoming involved with such a sinister force, but since the Brotherhood had shown interest first, it would hardly withdraw with a polite, “Is that so?” merely because Shan and Roden pretended to have clean hands.

“What do you think, Shan?”

“If it helps when we create an Alto territory later, then I’m fine with it. I’d feel better if Roden handled it, too.”

“I see...”

Roden closed his eyes for a moment, let out a long breath, then opened them wide.

“Fine. Let us try it.”

* * *

Shan and Roden did not secretly leave Serin’s villa and return to Weavers Estate until dawn. They then slept deeply until the sun was high in the sky.

That night, Shan left the estate alone with a single letter and traveled throughout the capital.

The letter contained the addresses of Brotherhood executives in the capital, obtained through Serin’s interrogations.

They were more varied than expected.

A retired low-ranking official. A respected scholar. A high-class courtesan once pursued by countless nobles. Even an Old Faith priest who ought to hate the Altos more than anyone.

Unfortunately, most of them had not paid much attention to security.

The trivial news that one mid-level executive had disappeared for a day would not be reported to every member.

Even if they had learned that, it was doubtful they would have realized an attack was coming.

After the first kidnapping, Shan’s infiltration skills had become faster and more covert through experience.

Silently climbing walls and scaling buildings was basic. He could also open locked doors with nothing more than two long, thin, flexible metal rods.

His sensitive fingertips, hearing, and sense of space combined to let him understand the inside of a lock as though he could see directly into it.

Thanks to that, Shan drugged the sleeping executives with a few drops placed in their mouths, then wrapped their unconscious bodies in their bedding and took them out through the windows.

The operation began shortly after darkness fell and did not end until just before sunrise the next day.

For several days, the Brotherhood executives Shan gathered through the night were interrogated in Count Paless’s basement, forced to spill everything they knew to Serin.

The identity of the Brotherhood’s Leader they uncovered was more shocking than expected.

“The Marquis of Veshallia’s mistress... You mean his favorite concubine is the Leader of the Brotherhood?”

“That is correct...”

“Not the Marquis himself?”

“The Marquis... is completely infatuated with her and grants her every request... So there was no need... to recruit him...”

It was one thing that none of the highest-ranking executives were nobles, but they had never imagined the Leader would be nothing more than a noble’s mistress.

Shan, Roden, and even the princess’s two guards stared at one another in surprise.

Soon, Roden realized that Serin alone did not appear especially surprised.

It might have been incredible self-control, but his instincts told him the princess already knew.

After all the information had been extracted, the Brotherhood’s highest-ranking executives were strangled to death and packed into sealed wooden boxes.

Their bodies would be thrown into the river the next day as Magic Society experimental waste.

They were all trash who had squeezed the blood of their own people to enjoy paltry power and wealth. There was no reason to let them live.

“What should we do about the Leader?”

“Hmm. Dealing with her immediately would be troublesome. Veshallia is quite far from here.”

Shan could reach it in a matter of days if he rode Awin, but that would attract too much attention.

Would it not be suspicious if a knight riding a Horais warhorse visited, and the Marquis’s favorite concubine was murdered or disappeared shortly afterward?

More importantly, given her position, she was highly likely to share the Marquis’s bed. They would practically need to sneak into the Marquis’s bedroom.

It was a different level of difficulty from kidnapping fairly well-off commoners.

“It would be best to take our time and deal with her later. We have already cut off every executive she could use as her hands and feet.”

They could not touch the brain, but they had severed every head and neck through which its orders could travel.

Now it was time to replace those severed heads and necks.

* * *

A week after the highest-ranking executives disappeared, Brotherhood executives who did not pose as nobles or knights gathered at the Golden Theater.

Some operated from nearby satellite cities rather than the capital, Hasra.

“It has been a long time, Olof.”

“You have gotten quite old yourself.”

“Who are you calling old?”

Even as old colleagues smiled and caught up, the executives kept glancing around them.

It was the first time since the Brotherhood’s founding that all its executives had gathered in one place like this.

Several highest-ranking executives known to some of them had recently disappeared as well.

They assumed this summons was related.

Then two figures stepped onto the theater stage.

“Hmm?”

“That is...”

Both wore animal masks that concealed their faces and heads entirely.

One wore a lion mask and had the broad build of a knight. The other wore a horse mask, stood a little shorter, had a lean frame, and unusually long legs.

The lion-masked figure spoke in a booming voice.

“Those who work day and night for our oppressed people, thank you for answering the summons despite your busy schedules!”

“Who exactly are you?”

“I am the Leader’s lion, sent here as their emissary.”

At the mention of the Leader, every Brotherhood executive became tense.

In the Brotherhood’s deeply entrenched hierarchy, the Leader was practically a king to them.

The lion-masked figure slowly surveyed the executives.

“Recently, an internal conflict within the Brotherhood caused an incident in which the Guides lost their lives.”

The executives stared at one another in shock.

Had the recent disappearance of several senior executives been caused by internal strife?

“To prevent the Brotherhood from collapsing after losing the Guides, the Leader has sent the two of us. From this moment on, we will reorganize and restore order to the organization.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing at all!”

“Do you mean the Teacher has died...?”

The executives whispered among themselves until one of the larger men shouted.

His fierce face was covered in sword scars. At a glance, he looked like a gangster or mercenary.

“Show us proof! Proof that you were sent by the Leader!”

“If I had not been sent by the Leader, how could I have contacted everyone through the organization’s formal command channels?”

The man who had stepped forward groaned at the cold question.

It was true.

Everyone gathered here had received letters written with the Brotherhood’s secret passphrases.

Only an insider could know all their identities and use separate codes suited to each person.

If the highest-ranking executives were dead, then these figures could only be envoys sent by the Leader.

Then the man thought of a way to argue back and shouted again.

“Traitors! You could be surviving traitors who killed the other Guides and want to seize the Brotherhood for yourselves!”

“That could be.”

The lion-masked figure readily admitted it.

The highest-ranking executives, the Guides, knew the secret codes used to communicate with the Leader. Mid-level and lower-ranking executives did not.

There was no way for them to know whether this figure had truly been sent by the Leader.

“But we cannot allow the organization to fall apart just because there is no proof. Choose. Will you submit, or will you rebel? Under the rules, traitors to our people are not allowed to live.”

At the words traitors to our people, the executives all swallowed.

They had seen how many members had been purged under that charge.

As befitted a secret organization, the Brotherhood’s rules were strict and cruel.

The first man to resist was not intimidated by the threat.

If the lion mask’s claims were true, seizing the initiative here would let him swallow the Brotherhood whole.

While mid-level managers like him had worked themselves to the bone, how envious had he been of the Guides who could have everything handled with a single nod from above?

His burning ambition crushed the intuition sounding an alarm inside him.

“You think such threats will scare us? Listen, all of you! We do not need to heed the words of men whose connection to the Leader cannot even be proven-!”

“Horse.”

At the lion-masked figure’s single word, the horse-masked man trudged down from the stage.

The strange gait made him seem almost weightless, and combined with the vacant-looking horse mask, it created an eerie impression.

“Y-you want to try me?”

The gangster-looking man pulled out a hand axe. Several people around him drew weapons as well, including short swords and clubs.

Their job was to exploit the Altos in the capital and collect taxes from them. They were little better than thugs.

They were weaker than the few knights whose identities only the highest-ranking executives knew, Kadek among them, but they were still the Brotherhood’s strongest fighting force.

The gangster thought that bringing extra guards had been worthwhile.

Then the lion-masked figure gave an order.

“Remove the traitors to our people.”

With that command, the horse-masked man’s body shot forward with a thump.

His movement was strange, as though each ankle had two joints.

The gangster swung his axe to attack first, but the horse-masked man drew the sword at his waist with speed too fast to see.

Whoosh.

The gangster’s head rolled across the ground, spraying blood.

“Boss!”

“You bastard!”

The fate of the underlings who charged forward in fury was no different.

Every time the sword reflected the candlelight scattered around the theater, limbs were sliced away and entrails spilled from torn torsos.

“Argh!”

The youngest gangster screamed, realized he was outmatched, and tried to flee.

The horse-masked man leaped across several seats with that same bizarre gait, then drove his sword through the fleeing man’s back.

The luxurious seating of the Golden Theater was stained with blood and gore.

The other executives standing nearby froze.

The Brotherhood was a criminal organization. Even those without skill in battle were not completely blind to strength.

‘A knight...!’

Even if he had not been formally knighted, the horse-masked man was clearly as skilled as one.

How else could someone kill five or six people in an instant with a single sword?

The lion-masked figure looked down at the blood-soaked seats and declared in a gloomy voice.

“So, who will be the next traitor?”

Everyone shook their heads and swore loyalty. A low chuckle came from behind the lion mask.

“Remember this. The Brotherhood knows who you are, where you are, and what you do. The price of betrayal will be paid not only by you, but by your families as well. That is the price of betraying the blood in your veins.”

The executives prostrated throughout the theater had no idea who stood behind the lion mask, but they felt that even meeting the Leader in person could not possibly be this frightening.

Since the figures had contacted them directly, the organization’s intelligence network had likely not collapsed yet.

The thought of that monstrous horse mask coming for them the moment they betrayed the Brotherhood left them no choice but to submit.

“To the endless prosperity of the Alto people.”

“To prosperity!”

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