Chapter 44 – Indeterminate Polyhedron (3)

“I thought this was the only thing that has gotten simpler compared to the past.”

Heretia glared at Juan, who was wiping off his bloody fist with her handkerchief.

Meanwhile, Kelmori was screaming and threatening to kill Juan after Juan had punched him and broken his nose.

However, no one was paying attention to the man screaming with a bloody bandage covering his face.

“Stop pretending like you didn’t understand what I really meant. I know you intentionally punched him,” Heretia scolded.

Juan avoided Heretia’s gaze and played innocent. Heretia had only been speaking metaphorically when she said to ‘beat the heck out of the opponent,’ as there was no other way to regain the tarnished reputation of the lady at the moment. However, Juan pretended to understand her words literally.

“It’s going to be impossible to avoid a duel,” Heretia muttered with a serious expression.

“I thought duels weren’t allowed?”

“Legal duels aren’t allowed; however, a simple spar is okay as long as you have the opponent’s consent. But you won’t be protected by law in case the opponent gets seriously injured or ends up dying. You would be treated the same as a typical assailant or murderer.”

“That’s just a brawl then.”

“That’s what we call duels nowadays. It’s really hard for me to understand where you come from. One second you come off as a kid from the capital, then the next second you come off as a clueless barbarian… Or maybe even someone who used to live during the time when His Majesty established the empire,” Heretia complained.

Meanwhile, Kelmori had gotten first aid; his face covered with the bloody cloth and bandages was a sorry sight. He was still angry at Juan, and was screaming at his servant to bring his sword.

“A duel can’t be avoided, considering that he was humiliated by a servant in front of the whole crowd. Thinking about it now, it might be for the best,” Heretia said.

“What do you mean it’s for the best?” Juan looked at Heretia quizzically.

“If you can, take your time and drag out the fight for as long as possible. That way, everyone’s attention will be focused on the both of you, and in the meantime, I can meet up with Earl Henborn without rushing,” Heretia answered. She looked at Juan and asked, “Kelmori has been trained in proper swordsmanship. Do you think you can handle him?”

“I don’t know… Didn’t you say there would be no danger in helping you with your plan? I think using a sword would be considered dangerous,” Juan shrugged.

“I personally think that you asked for this. But if you don’t want to fight, I’ll apologize and pacify Kelmori.”

“Okay, don’t ever do that.”

“I knew you would say that. By the way, you mustn’t kill him.”

“That’s a difficult request.”

Kelmori huffed and approached Juan. His already drawn sword was thin and splendidly decorated, but its edge was nevertheless sharp. On the other hand, Juan held out a blunt imitation sword that almost had a round edge rather than a sharp one. Juan’s sword was bound to break like glass if it met Kelmori’s sword.

“Duel? A duel, you said? Fine, you little punk. It looks like you’ve only dealt with animals in a barbaric land, but I’ll teach you what a real duel is! Come out here right now!” Kelmori screamed.

Not only did he scream at Juan, but he also shouted at Heretia with bloodshot eyes. “Don’t think about interfering, my lady! It will be less painful for him this way than reporting him to a Priest!”

Kelmori said as he stormed out to the garden without waiting for Heretia’s reply.

Juan chuckled and followed behind Kelmori. When Juan turned his head, he could see Heretia waving her hands at him, then immediately taking off.

‘

This feels a little strange.’

Juan noticed Earl Henborn’s daughter looking at him with a nervous look amongst the crowd surrounding him. She looked confused, as if she didn’t know whom she should cheer for between Juan and her fiancé, but her gaze was more often directed toward Juan than Kelmori.

“You’ll understand what a duel is after bleeding like a dog! I will teach you some manners!” Kelmori shouted as he violently shook his sword up in the air.

Juan sighed. There wasn’t a single duel involving Juan where the opponent hadn’t ended up dying. It was certainly going to be a difficult duel.

***

Taking advantage of everyone’s attention being focused on the duel, Heretia headed to Earl Henborn’s office. She was concerned that Earl Henborn might attend and observe the duel, but he was nowhere to be seen amongst the crowd. Although Heretia hadn’t received a message from the Earl yet, she was certain he was in his office, as she had asked one of the servants.

‘

Maybe he is having a meeting with someone else first.’

As the Lord of Hiveden, it wouldn’t be strange no matter who he had a meeting with.

As Heretia was walking down the hallway to get to Henborn’s office, she noticed two people standing by the terrace. One of them was Earl Henborn, while the other was someone Heretia hadn’t seen at the banquet, but it didn’t take long for her to recognize him.

‘The Order of the White Crow? He seems to be a Captain… is he Ethan Etil? What does he have to do with the lord of Hiveden?’

Their conversation was hard to overhear as they were talking very quietly. Heretia quickly began her analysis. There had been chaos in the south recently, and even the activity of the Order of Huginn had been detected. It wouldn’t be strange for the Order of the White Crow to ask Hiveden for support, as it was an area where the Order of Huginn had a powerful influence. Heretia figured that he was likely requesting permission to conduct a search or an inspection.

‘That’s going to be difficult.’

Attempts to request support from Hiveden had often been made even before this. Yet, no matter how powerful the Order of the White Crow and their Templars were, Hiveden’s strength was much greater. The nobles who had their hand in Hiveden’s business often bribed and suborned the Priests to limit the movement of the Order of the White Crow.

As Heretia expected, Earl Henborn’s and Ethan Etil’s expressions were uneasy. It seemed like Ethan was continuously requesting for something, but Henborn waved his hand dismissively and backed away. Ethan came out into the hallway with a disappointed look on his face, although it didn’t seem like he had held high hopes in the first place.

Heretia walked past Ethan and deliberately pretended not to see him. Ethan inadvertently moved to greet her, but soon turned his head in the other direction and walked past her as if he had remembered something. In the world of nobles, it was a common courtesy to pretend not to recognize others that you ran into when you were going to talk about business.

“You must have had a tough conversation,” Heretia said.

When Heretia got to the terrace, she saw Earl Henborn frowning with a pipe in his mouth. He quickly put away his pipe as he belatedly noticed Heretia.

“You can continue smoking. It seems like you are in a predicament after the previous conversation. You have to be at ease to talk about business.”

“I appreciate your consideration, Lady Heretia,” Henborn said as he smiled bitterly and put the pipe back in his mouth again. “Even the scent of tobacco tastes sweet when you receive the kind consideration of a lady after dealing with a Templar. How can the Templars always be so rude and step over the line…”

“And you would think the empire has enough of those blockheads in the capital,” Heretia agreed.

Henborn’s eyes widened a little with surprise, then he burst into laughter—talking behind someone’s back tended to bring two people closer quickly, especially if that someone was hated by everyone.

Henborn was a little hesitant, but figured it would be okay to tell her. “Apparently, the Order of Huginn is in this city. The Captain of the Order of the White Crow requested for a lockdown of the city.”

Heretia was surprised. She had expected maybe an inspection or a search, and a lockdown of the whole city was something else entirely.

“Pardon? Is it new that those apostates roam the city? That’s not a good enough reason for a lockdown. How ignorant do they have to be to make such a request? They don’t even know what a loss it would be to put the city under a lockdown every time Hiveden gets one or two of those Huginn bastards walking in and out of here.”

“Exactly. It was a request that I couldn’t possibly accept. But this time, their justification for the request was a little concerning,” Henborn said as he glanced around.

“They said Ras Raud has appeared in the city,” Henborn whispered into Heretia’s ear.

Heretia’s eyes widened. A few of the knights of the Order of Huginn going in and out of the city was not really a big deal. But Ras Raud was different. It was only natural for all of the nearby soldiers to be deployed as soon as one of the Six Apostates that had led the assassination of His Majesty was located. Because of this, Ras had kept his movements covert more than anyone—no one had even known if he was alive or dead for a few years after he had failed to assassinate Barth Baltic.

“It’s just a hypothesis. It seemed like the Order of the White Crow wasn’t too certain about this information either. They are always suspicious about everything anyway, as there are more places to hide in the city rather than in the forest outside. If they were sure about Ras Raud being in the city, they wouldn't even bother to ask me for permission; they would probably directly tell me to evacuate the city as they are ready to attack, don’t you think?”

Henborn burst out laughing as he saw the look on Heretia’s face and shook his hand.

“That’s…a relief.”

“There are more than just a few people in the capital who will be in trouble if this city collapses,” Henborne said with a hearty laugh.

“Shall we get down to business now? I bet talking about business will be more enjoyable than the boring stories of Templars and heretics.” Heretia got straight to the point as she figured they had had enough chit-chat.

“Agreed. To be honest, I didn’t expect the Helwin family to be interested in this business as well. I thought the Helwins were stubborn people, but I knew right off the bat when I saw the young boy you brought along—the big wigs of the capital have started to move. I could tell that you’ve put in a lot of effort for the boy.”

“Well, legal slaves are basically moving gold,” Heretia smiled.

“You are right. They are the type of gold that grows and gets bigger on its own even if they are left unattended. It’s such a shame that it is only limited to demi-humans. But I am planning to ease the restrictions in the south, since slaves are quite familiar here. For that purpose, the acquired item is important,” Henborn agreed with Heretia’s metaphor.

“You are talking about the Indeterminate Polyhedron, right?” Heretia asked.

Earl Henborn stared at Heretia and tapped the ashes off his pipe. “Once again, I am in awe of the Helwin family’s information-gathering power. I don’t know how you found out about it, but you are correct. The brothers of Hiveden and I are planning to hand it over to Bishop Rietto. If the Helwin family joins our plan, we couldn’t be more reassured, not to mention the higher chance of expanding the business. Oh, but please don’t tell the others about this, as there will be quite a few brothers that don’t want to further split their profit.”

“I see. What an honor,” Heretia said with a big smile. “But what I want to offer you is a little different from what you just said. Hand over the Indeterminate Polyhedron to me.”

Henborn’s smile stiffened. He was left speechless with the pipe in his mouth, and stared at Heretia. He nervously chewed on his pipe, only to realize that Heretia was no longer smiling.

“Lady Helwin. As I’ve already explained to you, this item is…”

“Meant to be handed over to Bishop Rietto.”

“Yes, not the previous owner of the item, but the owner before that. I won’t ask you why you need this item. But if you know how much Bishop Rietto covets this item, you would also know that I cannot accept your offer, Lady Helwin. You couldn’t possibly want this item just because it’s a pretty gem, right?”

“Who knows, that might be a possibility.”

“If someone were to tell me that they thought that the young head of the Helwin family was someone who chased after pretty gems and squandered fortune, I would've thought that I heard a massive joke.”

“I’m not saying I want it for free. I will give you sufficient compensation for it.”

“Sufficient enough to compensate for the loss of not being able to expand our business of slave trade, as well as handle the anger of Bishop Rietto? I’m not sure if that’s possible even with the Helwin family’s entire fortune.”

“Instead of expanding your slave trade, I can introduce you to a new business that’s good enough to maintain your family’s wealth as it is now—you would have to give up on the slave trade though. By the way, personally, I think your business is disgusting, especially so in the way that you’ll mobilize the imperial soldiers. I also plan to make you lose all the fortune you have accumulated if you refuse to accept my offer.”

“And you think the Ilde family will let you get away with that?” Henborn glared at Herettia.

“Do you seriously think that I even care about those peddlers? As I’ve already told you, all you have to do is hand the Indeterminate Polyhedron to me. By doing so, you will also be given an opportunity to break away from the world of crime and start a legitimate business. How could things get any better than that? If you don’t want that, you can just choose to go under with your current business.”

“Does the Helwin family even have the power to do that?”

“What makes you think we don’t?” Heretia smiled coldly with her arms crossed.

Henborn felt a stream of cold sweat running down his back. The Helwin family was likely no longer as powerful as they used to be during the time when the empire had been established, but their strength from their previous royal status that they had held for generations, as well as the connections they established and the resources they earned from their contribution in the establishment of the empire, were not things that could be overlooked.

Furthermore, the Helwin family had managed to survive even after the expulsion of Harmon Helwin, one of the Six Apostates. Henborn had a feeling that Heretia’s words might not be just a bluff after all, especially when he considered that this young head of the Helwin family was called ‘the reincarnation of Harmon Helwin’ according to the rumors.

“...Damn it,” muttered Henborn.

Seeing Earl Henborn quietly curse under his breath, Heretia realized that he had finally given in.

Henborn looked back at Heretia with a distorted expression and tried to say something.

And just at that moment, a loud noise of glass shattering was heard.

“We have an intruder!”

Henborn’s face turned pale as he realized that the sound had come from his office. From where the glass had shattered, a thin shadow was running away while holding something tightly. The object the shadow was holding was the size of a trophy, and it gave an ominous purple glow under the moonlight.

“That bastard has the Indeterminate Polyhedron! Chase after him right now!” Henborn screamed in despair.

Heretia felt dizzy at this sudden turn of events, just when she had thought that everything was turning out according to her plan.

‘Who would steal the Indeterminate Polyhedron in the midst of all this?’

Even Heretia had barely found out the information on the Indeterminate Polyhedron. Just as she tried to hurry back to the hallway to take care of the settlement, someone grabbed her wrist—it was Earl Henborn, his face full of anger.

“What is this action supposed to mean, Earl Henborn?” Heretia asked as she did not understand the Earl’s angry expression toward her.

“Don’t tell me that all of this was just a coincidence. The thief broke into my office as soon as you demanded the Indeterminate Polyhedron. I’ll track him down. In the meantime, you are going to have to prove your innocence.”