“Wow! There are so many people here!”

The moment she entered the garden, Tie’s eyes widened in shock.

An enormous crowd had already gathered in the Imperial Palace’s grand garden.

Beside her, Bale grumbled irritably,

“They really are incredible people. How do they keep smiling nonstop for hours?”

He looked so exhausted that Tie stood on tiptoe and lightly patted his waist.

“It’s okay, Brother Bale. It’ll be over soon, so hang in there just a little longer~?”

After saying that, she started walking forward in tiny steps.

Bale stared at her in disbelief before following behind.

But they barely made it any farther.

People immediately crowded around Tie.

“The King of the Dead!”

“The King of the Dead! It seems you’re very close with Her Highness the Princess! Do you know how long you were gone?”

“What did you talk about? Did Her Highness perhaps hint at what title you’ll receive?”

“A viscount, right? Definitely a viscount?”

“What do you mean viscount? It has to be marquis!”

Tie’s head started spinning again.

People had been tormenting her with conversations like this all throughout the banquet hall already.

‘At this rate, Tie’s ears are really going to start bleeding...!’

The child was just about to cover her ears with a miserable expression when—

“Lord Bale!”

Someone pushed through the crowd.

‘Brother Raul?’

Tie tilted her head.

Maybe because they belonged to Marquis Veyvril’s family.

Raul and Enzo, who had looked busy throughout the entire banquet, had suddenly gone deathly pale.

Raul approached Bale and reported in a trembling voice,

“A carriage just arrived from Ashfall.”

Tie froze.

‘Ashfall...?’

Tie knew that place.

Because Ashfall was Bale’s hometown.

She remembered helping him hire a coachman several days earlier.

‘Get them here safely. From Ashfall to the capital—if you only use the inspection roads, nothing will happen.’

‘You can leave it to me! How could I possibly slack off while working for such important clients as Agavert?’

The coachman had been hired for Bale’s younger siblings.

Because the journey from Ashfall to the capital took at least four days, and there was no other way to bring the children safely.

While seeing the coachman off, Bale had repeated the same thing to him several times.

‘Only travel using the inspection roads.’

Inspection roads.

As far as Tie understood, they were basically like highways in Korea.

Among the roads outside the capital, they were considered the widest and safest, with checkpoints and guard posts stationed along the route.

‘He said the Magic Crystals around there get cleared out quickly, so it’s safe...’

Tie slowly looked up.

‘Then why does Brother Raul look like that?’

Like something had happened to the carriage along the way.

“What. What happened?”

Bale had turned just as pale.

Raul hesitated.

“The thing is...”

“Huff... huff...!”

By the time they reached the Imperial Palace’s main gate, Bale was breathing heavily.

A crowd could be seen gathered in the distance.

“B-brother... are you okay?”

Tie asked tearfully from Raul’s arms.

Bale didn’t answer and kept walking forward.

His face looked so terrifying that even the nobles gathered to watch instinctively moved aside for him.

Once the view opened up, everything became even clearer.

The axle of the carriage standing before the gates had been split completely in half.

Even the iron ornament on the front, which the coachman had proudly bragged about before leaving, was now drenched in blood.

“...Ha.”

At the sight of the dozens of arrows lodged in the carriage, Bale let out a quiet laugh filled with despair.

No.

No, not this.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Lord Bale!”

Raul supported him when his legs nearly gave out beneath him.

After climbing down from Raul’s arms, Tie desperately held back her tears.

“Are you the owner of this carriage?!”

At that moment, one of the men inspecting the carriage noticed Bale and waved him over.

Quickly approaching them, the man clicked his tongue sympathetically.

“This must be a terrible shock.”

He nodded toward something covered with a white cloth nearby.

“Ah, I’m a merchant. I transport poultry from the south for the nobles of the capital.”

The man turned back toward the carriage.

“The gods truly are heartless. Just imagine it—they found it near an inspection checkpoint in this condition. Everyone was already dead...”

Bale’s face emptied completely.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the thing lying beside the carriage beneath the white cloth.

“At first I thought about just leaving it there and moving on, but I couldn’t quite do that. I’m only human, after all.”

The merchant walked toward the carriage, gesturing for them to follow.

Bale forced himself to take a step.

Every time he staggered, Raul steadied him.

Finally, the man placed a hand on the cloth.

“There were a lot of children in there. I can’t imagine how terrified they must’ve been.”

He grabbed the edge of the cloth and lifted it.

A blood soaked body appeared beneath it.

Bale’s eyes widened so far he seemed to forget how to breathe.

His fists clenched so tightly that his whole body shook.

And just as the pale face beneath the cloth was about to be «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» revealed—

“Brotheeer!”

At the sudden scream, Bale jerked his head upward.

“Brother! Wuaaah!”

“Brother Bale!”

Five children came running toward him.

Yvonne, Rozak, Jeanne, Ed, and even Noy.

Bale’s lips trembled.

“You all...”

The youngest, Noy, reached him first and clung tightly to him.

“Brother, hic! The coachman... waaah... Mister Coachman...!”

Bale slowly turned his head.

The corpse beneath the lifted cloth—

“Ha... haa...!”

Bale collapsed heavily to the ground.

The body under the cloth was not one of his younger siblings.

It was the coachman he had hired.

Central branch of the Rewards Bureau.

“Then please take care of everything, Director.”

Tie politely bowed to Director Ornel.

He hurriedly waved both hands in panic.

“Oh no, no need for such formalities! Please use it comfortably! The room was empty anyway...!”

Instead of answering, Tie looked around.

A meeting room with the curtains drawn shut.

A round table and neatly arranged chairs.

“Then I’ll be going! If you need anything, just call for me!”

Ornel closed the large doors behind him.

Only after that did Tie finally let out a breath.

“But it’s still good that the Rewards Bureau was nearby...”

Bale still looked frozen in shock and silently nodded.

They had moved to the nearest Rewards Bureau branch.

They needed to sort out the situation, and leaving the dead coachman’s body in front of the Imperial Palace had been deemed disrespectful.

Looking out the window, Basto spoke.

“It seems Duke Valentis is also on his way here. The inspection roads are overseen by the Holy Knight Order, so if an investigation begins, we may learn something.”

Tie sadly shifted her gaze.

In the corner of the meeting room sat Bale’s younger siblings, sniffling quietly.

‘Not all of them are as little as Tie.’

Their ages varied.

The oldest and most composed among them appeared to be Yvonne.

She spoke first.

“The coachman... was trying to sell us.”

Tie’s eyes widened in shock.

Bale also jerked his head upward.

Yvonne looked at him seriously.

“When we last contacted you, you said you specifically ordered him to stay on the main road.”

“...Why. Did he leave the inspection road?”

One of the younger children, around Tie’s age, lifted a tear stained face.

“Waaah, he did! He said he needed to use the bathroom and drove down some weird winding road!”

Bale frowned deeply.

Yvonne picked up the crying child into her arms.

“Noy’s right. Honestly, I already thought it was strange back then. Why would someone go that far just for a bathroom break? And he kept stopping the carriage to count us.”

Yvonne’s gaze darkened.

“It’s a good thing we got out while he stopped the carriage. Otherwise...”

She placed an object onto the table that she had been tightly clutching this whole time.

It was a silver button with an intricate emblem engraved in the center.

“Ah...?”

Tie’s eyes widened.

She knew that symbol.

[Right, next! This symbol is usually used by assassin monks under the direct command of the pope.]

‘Assassins...?’

[Exactly! Officially they’re called the Dark Spirit Squad, but they’re basically just the pope’s old hunting dogs.]

Right after it had been decided they would travel to the Central Continent,

Marbas had constantly seated Tie beside him and taught her about the Church.

He said she needed to recognize symbols, history, and things like that in advance so she could immediately understand what she was dealing with in a dangerous situation. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Maybe that was why—

The moment Tie saw the far too familiar emblem on the button, she swallowed hard.