Chapter 90.
Chapter 90.
After arriving at Marquis Baltain’s residence, I infiltrated the mansion, evading the guards and servants. The goal was to locate documents or items that would prove Marquis Baltain’s corruption before sunset.
To be honest, I was reflecting on the past. When I robbed him previously, I knew he was a scumbag solely because he didn’t reimburse my clothes. However, I didn’t realize he was trash that couldn’t even be recycled.
I felt a kind of dereliction of duty from not knowing the extent of his trash character even after having robbed his mansion once. If I had stolen the evidence back then, I wouldn’t have had to visit the jail, and I wouldn’t have suffered the humiliation of having my drawing skills mocked by the burden.
So let’s take this opportunity to completely erase those with a laurel tree and silver wolves on the family crest. First, I decided to rob one room at a time and headed to the area where the safe used to be.
To rob the safe without any interruptions, I attacked the guard in front of the door from a blind spot and knocked him out. Then, using magic, I made the unconscious guard keep standing and carefully entered the room.
"Oh my?" When I sneaked in, the visitor who was already in the safe room looked at me with surprise.
What is this? There were definitely no signs of any presence in the room, but why was there a person?!
I spoke to the visitor in the red mask without revealing my surprise, "Oh man, I didn’t realize there was already a visitor."
The woman in the red mask spoke with her ear still leaning against the safe, "Since I didn’t know a visitor would be coming either, aren’t we the same?”
"Haha, is that so? Then let’s consider it the same and move on." I smiled but stayed vigilant against the woman in the red mask. I couldn’t see her face because of the red mask, but I could make out signs of her wariness towards me.
"However, since I was here first, I’ll eat this meal,” she said.
I shrugged at the woman in the red mask. "Really? I’m here to collect a debt from the marquis, so it’d put me in a difficult position if you eat here."
"Is that right? What should we do? I have a debt to collect from the marquis too.” Red Mask looked at me with greedy eyes that penetrated beyond the mask. Given that she was gradually increasing her aura, it seemed she was getting ready for a possible fight.
It wasn’t that I didn’t feel like fighting, it just wouldn’t be desirable if the fight demolished the marquis’s mansion and all the evidence disappeared.
"Hmm, I see. Alright. Then I’ll let you have this place. However!" I paused.
"However?"
"I’ll eat the other places." I gave a playful smile. Red Mask seemed to have understood my meaning and smiled back.
"Oh, is it a competition?”
"It’s good that you’re quick to understand. Do you agree?"
Red Mask set the correct code for the safe and opened its door, nodding at the same time. "Sounds good to me, but what are you going to do if I have something you want?"
I rubbed my chin and replied, "We’ll exchange it for something of mine. And vice versa if I have something that you want.”
"How clear-cut."
As soon as we had agreed, we set appropriate rules.
"We’ll come back after one hour. The safe will belong to the person who entered the room first."
"This is where we will meet again. And of course, we’ll have to show everything we gain, right?”
After we nodded at the same time, Red Mask and I quickly left the room. I assumed that there would be no overlap in things that she and I both wanted. I was already aware there’d be a battle if there was overlap anyways.
Then, it’s a competition from now on.
* * *
Soldiers stormed into the alchemy workshop after all the sleeping gas had disappeared and dragged out the drug offenders sprawled on the floor.
Following procedures, the White Deer knights tried to tie up the drug offenders with rope once more. It was unknown what the ropes were made of, but when they failed to untie the rope, the knights tried to cut it and still failed. Thanks to this, they had no choice but to handcuff the offenders over the rope using a large wooden board with iron on it.
As a result, the drug offenders’ hands became bluish, as if the blood flow to their hands had stopped. These drug offenders would be executed anyways, so no one cared about whether their blood was flowing well or not.
"Kkeung!" Lying amongst the collapsed soldiers who tried entering the building full of sleeping gas, the vice-captain groaned and woke up.
"Are you awake now?"
"Cap...Captain?" The vice-captain grasped his head as if he had a headache and spoke in a rough voice as if he had just woken up.
"Yes, it’s me."
The vice-captain tried to get up but then noticed the note and flowers stuck to his left hand. "Oh, why isn’t this coming off?"
The captain looked at the vice-captain, who was currently trying to remove the flowers and note somehow. "The court magician who was dispatched said there is magic on it to prevent it from falling off your hand."
"Yes?" The vice-captain was perplexed by the captain’s remark and read the note.
"Ah damn, how unlucky."
When he saw the phrase, "I fell asleep here trying to fight drug offenders," the vice-captain frowned.
The captain sighed, "The court magician said that the note had magic on it that resisted half of the sleeping gas. Flowers were the catalyst."
Den’s intention of blocking ‘half’ of the sleeping gas was to prevent the vice-captain from overdosing on it while still making sure he would inhale it and not wake up.
Of course, only the magic formula on the back of the note meant something, while the phrase written on the front meant nothing. Unaware of the truth, the captain and the vice-captain moved on, thinking that the phrase was part of the magic.
"However, I’d rather be briefed on what has happened so far. Why were you sleeping here like this?”
At the captain’s indifferent glance, the vice-captain shrank back and told him what had happened.
"...that’s why that cheapskate trainee wore a gas mask alone and blew up a sleeping bomb before running away." The vice-captain muttered that he was a cheapskate, but the captain thought differently.
Although the vice-captain worked well in situations where he was surrounded and outnumbered, the captain judged that the vice-captain would have been seriously injured if he had tried to protect Den. Under such circumstances, if there were a sleeping bomb and only one mask, the most effective method would be to wear the gas mask himself and set off the sleeping bomb.
From Den’s point of view, he must have considered that he was still a suspect and could be accused of being the criminal if he could not find evidence. If that was the case, he likely chose to move by himself rather than trust the vice-captain, whom he had only met today.
The problem was that the use of this sleeping bomb could not be ignored by the White Deer knights. If it were just an accident, it would have ended up as a fine, but if it were used intentionally, there would be problems. That wouldn’t be good for Den, who was currently a suspect.
"We will treat this sleeping gas incident as an accident."
"Yes?" The vice-captain was surprised by the captain’s unusual response. The captain was usually strict about protocol.
This was the result of Den’s suggestion and the hypnosis from earlier.
"I have to repay him for saving my friend."
It was a welcome change for Den, as he was planning on handling it by threatening the vice-captain with his weaknesses (damage to military supplies and sympathizing with an impersonator).
* * *
After a breathless hour, I arrived at the room with the safe where I first met Red Mask. There were 38 safes that I went through, including some secret safes, while Red Mask had 51.
Although I lost in quantity, I don’t think that I lost in the value of the safes’ contents. No, rather I was definitely ahead in terms of quality.
"Oh, I only knew of 64 safes. Where did the other 25 safes come from?” Red Mask asked.
"Oh, these 25 vaults had no magic on them at all. It took me a while to find them because of it,” I said.
This was the reason some safes escaped my grasp the last time I robbed this place. It felt like there was still a lot to learn in this world. I missed those safes because I was tricked by the opposite of what I had thought.
"Hoh, indeed a greedy raccoon,” Red Mask gritted her teeth.
Judging from her reaction, it seemed that these safes didn’t have magic on them specifically because of her. In fact, most of the things in the secret safes were piles of documents with no monetary value. However, it was mostly evidence of Marquis Baltain’s corruption and crimes, so I managed to accomplish my goal.
"Let’s make a deal." Red Mask took out what used to be Marquis Baltain’s fortune and offered to make a deal.
"I wonder? I don’t know if there’s any benefit for me.” After I deflected her offer, Red Mask opened her pocket space and began taking out various rare magic materials.
Many of the magic ingredients were things I didn’t have. The only magic materials I didn’t have were materials found deep in the demon’s territory or ones exclusively managed by the fairy tribe, one of the battle races situated in the southern part of the continent.
"What would you like, customer? Just tell me. This isn’t your everyday opportunity."
To be specific, this wasn’t a common opportunity for me. My mouth was watering over the rare magic materials. My desire was so great that I wanted to get my hands on them even if it cost all the platinum coins I had in my pocket space.
In the past, I went to an auction run by the Magic Tower as an excuse to buy the necessary materials for the magic class taught at the training center. However, except for a tiny amount of rare materials, most of them were things already overflowing in my pocket space. After disguising myself, I bought all of the rare magic materials, buying so much that even they were overflowing now.
When I rubbed my hands and put down the documents, Red Mask looked at me with a ridiculing smile, but it didn’t matter. Even without this evidence, regular friendly visits once a month would be enough to bring about his downfall.
"Among those documents, is there a book called ’The North Continent’s Cry,’ and documents called ’The End of the Holy Family,’ ’The Prophecy of the Holy Family,’ or ’The Breath of the Holy Family’?" Red Mask asked.
"Let’s see. There’s a book called ‘The North Continent’s Cry’ and a document called ‘The Breath of the Holy Family.’"
Both were old documents that seemed to be hundreds of years old.
"Is there anything else?”
I answered Red Mask, imitating Mac hyung, "Hahaha, there isn’t. Would you like to take a look?"
"Yes,” Red Mask answered immediately and rummaged through the documents.
Yet, unable to find it, she glanced at me. "You’re not hiding it by any chance, are you?"
"Aigoo! How could I do such a thing? This is everything.”
At my playful banter, Red Mask’s hands trembled, almost as if she felt it was a waste, and she handed over Marquis Baltain’s entire fortune and the various rare magic materials.
"Aigoo, I’m thankful!” All these documents had been copied anyways.
I didn’t know why she wanted those documents, but I decided to read them slowly later. I put all the magic materials and the fortune in my pocket space. Maybe because he wasn’t able to accrue much since the last time I robbed him, the fortune wasn’t that grand.
Now, let’s put some of these corruption ledgers back into the safe and send a few of them as a gift to the prime minister.
"Did you know that this is the first time someone has taken this much away from me?” Red Mask was about to leave through the window, but she turned around and spoke.
I responded by bringing in my arms exaggeratedly and said goodbye, "It is an honor.”
"You just wait and see. Hohoho!" The laughter was not pleasant, but what could I do? My pocket space was already full; it was time to go back now.
* * *
On the way back, I retrieved the old butler and the real criminal, heading back to the interrogation room. Once there, the burden nagged me in the interrogation room.
Of course, I let it go through one ear and out the other as I handed over the real criminal, accomplice, and evidence to the captain to become a free man... Or that would have been nice, but I had no choice but to sleep in jail for today.
That jerk’s principles...
The next day, I sent back the visiting crybaby siblings and the Butterfly siblings. Then, as I was taking a nap and enjoying life in jail, there was news that Director Pelgrant had woken up. The captain took me out of jail and brought me to visit the imperial hospital where Director Pelgrant was hospitalized.
I didn’t know why he was taking me with him, but as I entered the hospital room, I had no choice but to see Director Pelgrant with tears streaming down his face.
"I’m sorry. I heard you’ve had a hard time because of me,” he said.
Surprised by the sudden situation, I put on my usual fake smile. "No, it’s not your fault, director, so don’t blame yourself so much."
Suddenly, he grabbed me by the arm and began to mutter words of thanks over and over again. I thought that being at death’s door had fried his brain, but since I saved his life, I felt that he might give me around an average score.
However, when I checked my grades later, I had received a perfect score on the evaluation. Still, it was unexpected that he would give me a perfect score for saving his life.
Wait. Doesn’t this mean my grades are too high now? Damn it; I’m f**ked!