Boom boom boom!

The guards stormed into the peaceful quarters of the Third Knights. The knights opened their eyes wide in surprise at the sudden commotion.

Before they could ask what was going on, the guards started yelling.

“We’re in trouble! Arendt von Eckhart has killed a man!”

“What?”

“People, people were killed! Four of them!”

The knights who were in the dormitory made a dumbfounded sound.

Among them, the first to come to his senses was Laius.

“Arthur!”

Arthur, startled, answered and moved his body like lightning.

Arthur, who followed the guards, encountered Arendt facing off against a group of guards.

“I was the one who was attacked!”

“This is such a crazy knight, I knew something like this would happen someday!”

Arendt growled at the guards surrounding him, and the guards raised their weapons and shouted threateningly.

Arthur, who witnessed that sight, couldn’t help but feel a little dizzy.

‘It’s not like they’re catching an animal that escaped from its cage.’

He felt a sense of foreboding somehow; it was like the scene he saw when he was very young. A mad bull broke through the fence at the local stable and escaped, and the adults were making a fuss about catching it…

But once they had surrounded the bull, the adults couldn’t even get close enough for fear of being struck by the horns of the rampaging bastard. Honestly, considering Arendt’s usual behavior, the situation didn’t seem all that different from then.

What woke Arthur from such a strange thought was Arendt’s voice, whose patience was starting to run out.

“Oh, fuck this! If this is the case, then let’s just fight! Let’s assume that the person who stands on his own two feet until the end is right!”

“Hey, hey hey! Calm down!”

Arthur rushed into the crowd quickly.

Arendt, seeing Arthur’s face, grinned and sharpened his sword.

Looking closely, he didn’t look all that well either. Arthur clicked his tongue and shooed the guards away as he saw his junior bleeding profusely from his forearm.

“Disband, disband! Dispose of the bodies, and throw these guys in jail!”

“Yes? But Sir Arthur…!”

“You guys are getting paid, but you can’t even understand the situation? Have you forgotten all the training you received just because you’re working security? Hey, can’t you see that corpse is holding a knife?”

Arthur kicked the buttocks of the guard who was trying to protest. Only then did the guards slowly begin to put away their weapons.

Arthur snapped again.

“Get out of here quickly!”

Arthur, who successfully handled the situation, took Arendt to the dormitory.

Laius shooed away all the other knights who were crowding around them out of curiosity and doubt, and took only himself, Arthur, and Richt into his office.

Even while receiving emergency treatment from Richt, Arendt was unable to control his anger and continued to fuss for a while.

“What did they call the person who was attacked? A crazy knight?”

“They… they said that they didn’t know anything and to please forgive them. It might have been scary to an ordinary person. I heard that the assassins were disguised as guards and servants.”

“No, but what did I do? Ouch!”

Arthur offered comfort with an awkward expression.

Arendt, who was glaring at Arthur with annoyed eyes, screamed at the sharp pain that was transmitted from his arm.

“It hurts!”

“Now that it’s done, don’t joke around.”

Richt re-wrapped the remaining bandages and tossed Arendt a clean shirt. Arendt grumbled and hurriedly put it on.

Laius, who had been watching quietly, finally opened his mouth.

“Do you have any other injuries? Are they interfering with your movements?”

“It’s okay. I’m not seriously hurt,” Arendt replied curtly while buttoning up his clothes.

If it were the original world, it would have been a wound that would have required immediate stitches at the hospital. However, in this world, humans who trained with magic had different levels of physical strength and resilience.

In addition, the bandage used was an item that greatly increased the healing power of the magic user, so an injury of this level would disappear without a trace in just a day or two.

The real problem was that his magical power had been forcibly drawn up until there was almost none left, causing him to feel sick, but this was also easily resolved. Arthur opened a recovery potion and stuck it deep into Arendt’s mouth.

“So, what the hell happened?”

Arendt couldn’t answer right away because he was busy swallowing the potion that was suddenly poured into his mouth. After gulping down the potion that tasted like an ionic beverage, Arendt opened his mouth, holding the empty bottle in his hand.

“I was just walking back from work. As I was heading towards a place where there were no people, those guys suddenly attacked me. All four of them used their invisibility scrolls and even created a barrier.”

“Do you have an idea of who the mastermind is?”

“What do you think?” Arendt answered sarcastically.

“…”

Everyone was silent.

That was true. Honestly, in the current situation, there was no one who would say they didn’t know.

Arthur clicked his tongue.

“Why didn’t you just make a fuss about it?”

“I think it was more out of the ordinary for a person to have sent assassins just because one knight was making a fuss. Anyway.”

Arendt, who had been grumbling, blurted out with a strange emphasis.

“That’s not what we need to worry about right now. That damned invisibility scroll. Do assassins usually carry those?”

“No, high-level assassins are so good at stealth that they don’t bother using that. It’s useless against someone who knows how to use magic.”

That is what Arendt himself proved.

Arthur groaned.

“And a low-level assassin can’t afford to get that. It would be different if the client gave it to him separately.”

“If Marquis Grieg has sufficient financial resources, it is certainly possible.”

Richt, who had been silent, spoke up.

“Maybe there was no intention to kill.”

“That’s right. If there was an assassin capable of infiltrating the palace, they must be skilled.”

Arthur nodded.

“If he had enough money to hire several assassins and even gave them magical items, he could have easily hired one skilled one. If he really wanted to kill you, he’d be better off going that route.”

In the end, it seemed appropriate to interpret that Marquis Grieg’s goal was not to kill Arendt, but to beat him up and destroy his spirit.

It was a situation full of malice towards Arendt from beginning to end.

Arendt scratched the back of his head in annoyance.

“That’s true, but the method of using a invisibility scroll; didn’t it seem familiar?”

“Yeah, it’s similar to what the guys who raided the East Safe did.”

Laius nodded.

It could be a coincidence, but that possibility should have been fully taken into consideration.

There were two routes by which invisibility scrolls were produced. Arendt recalled the contents of the novel.

Most magic items were produced in magic towers.

The invisibility scroll was no exception.

Originally, the invisibility scroll was supplied to civilians for hunting, and to the nobles and royal family for military operations.

As such, it was strictly managed to prevent it from being used for private crimes. It usually went through a very rigorous process from production to supply, such as being assigned a serial number as soon as it was made.

But that didn’t mean there was no other way to obtain them.

Wizards who committed sins in the Magic Tower were expelled from the magical world, and those expelled wizards began to produce illegal scrolls and sold them to the Assassin’s Guild and gangsters.

Things made that way were difficult to trace.

Because there were few people making them, they were several times more expensive than regular scrolls, but that was why there is a steady demand.

That didn’t mean that there was no information to be found out.

After thinking for a moment, Laius opened his mouth.

“Are the items seized during the East Safe incident still there?”

“They must not have been disposed of, because we haven’t found the mastermind yet.”

As Richt answered, Laius began to give clear instructions.

“The invisibility scroll they used will probably still be there. Compare it with the one the assassins had today. Even if it has already been used, there will still be some magical power remaining.”

“All right.”

“And.”

As the conversation settled down, Laius brought up a new topic.

Arendt could guess roughly what would happen next.

“I’m talking about the wounds left on the assassins.”

Arthur and Richt also looked at Arendt without realizing it.

In fact, this issue was the most important of all. The assassins were found unconscious with parts of their bodies frozen.

It was not the season for ice to freeze, and it seemed too strange for Arendt, the perpetrator, to say that the wounds were from a battle.

Laius asked calmly.

“Did you do it?”

“Of course. Then who else would have?”

Arendt responded bluntly.

“I’ll tell you later. I don’t feel like explaining it right now.”

“…I get it.”

After a brief pause, Laius answered.

Richt and Arthur also tried to say something, but just kept their mouths shut. It seemed like they didn’t want to ask any more questions.

‘The captain will have some guesses.’

Arendt had personally handed over the artifact, so there was no way he wouldn’t have been aware of the current situation. The same was for Arthur, who had been dealing with Bethel with Arendt.

Richt was not the kind of person to come forward while those two were silent.

“I’ll give you a rough rundown and then give you a silence order.”

“Okay, good job.”

After saying that, Richt nodded as if he was going to do what he had to do, and left the office.

Creak.

The door closed and Arthur changed the subject.

“It would be difficult to file an official complaint or lawsuit, right, Captain?”

“I guess so, but I must still try. The crime of pointing a sword at His Majesty the Emperor’s knight is by no means light.”

“I’m determined,” said Laius stiffly. Arthur nodded as well.

A very solemn atmosphere flowed, but the person who destroyed that atmosphere was none other than Arendt.

“Then shouldn’t we arrest and put away all those guards from before?”

“Shut up. Please.”

Arthur gritted his teeth and growled, but Arendt, who always brushed it off cleanly, shrugged and added:

“If you’re not going to do that, then don’t say anything like, ‘I should file an official complaint,’ or ‘I should protest.’ Why would you do something so meaningless?”

“It’s meaningless?”

“Those kids, even if you torture them, will they open their mouths? The Marquis will just deny it and say he doesn’t know anything, so just leave them alone.”

Besides, Marquis Grieg had not yet been sent to prison.

Laius, who had no idea what Arendt was thinking, frowned.

“It’s not something we can just let pass. If we interrogate the assassins, we can get information. If we get them to testify about who commissioned it…”

“Who would just let it pass? I have to take care of it myself.”

Arendt cut off Laius’s speech mid-sentence.

Laius, who had been speaking seriously, froze.

“Even if we try to judge them with the law, it’s not clear whether it will work or not, so why bother using such a cumbersome and time-consuming method?”

Arendt’s golden eyes, sitting on the sofa, caught his eye.

His dreary monologue continued.

“It’s not polite to ignore the trouble they’ve been causing. I’ll make it so that they’ll think it’s better to just die.”

“…”

Laius opened his mouth to say something more, but instead of saying anything else, he let out a deep sigh.

After a brief silence, Laius finally opened his mouth.

“Arendt.”

As Arendt raised his head, Laius added blandly.

“Just don’t do anything that will get you arrested.”

“…”

The Captain, who had quietly taken something out of his pocket, was holding a pill in his hand.

Arendt just blinked his eyes a few times.

Arthur’s mouth, which had been blankly staring, opened wide.

“…Wait, wait, wait a minute, Captain! Are you saying that you’re just going to let that guy cause trouble?”

“…”

“Sir! You can’t do that! That guy doesn’t know when to stop!”

Laius remained unmoved.

When Arthur looked at him with empty eyes, Laius averted his gaze and started a staring contest with the air.

While the two men were arguing, but not really arguing, Arendt glanced at Laius.

The two people didn’t bother to ask Arendt what he was hiding.

They weren’t even on guard. At least it meant they didn’t see him as a threat.

In other words, it was like he was being trusted.

The defended East Safe, the alive Arthur… the trusted traitor, Arendt von Eckhart.

Although it was an unexpected disaster, it wasn’t a bad development.

Arendt smiled faintly without anyone noticing and sank into the sofa.