Chapter 364: The Decoy
[Child of the Magnolia II Quest]
[Arrest Inspector General Mort]
[Reward - 3,000 points, 30 silver coins]
[Item Reward - Mort’s Map]
[Danger Rating ★★★☆☆]
The evidence and circumstances discovered at the Viscount Neunil family’s mansion pointed to the Count of Basel. Most of the men investigating assumed the fugitives had headed for the south gate, toward the Count of Basel’s territory.
Amid all that, I set my sights on the harbor town of Breisach.
Until now, nearly every piece of evidence had been buried deep out of sight. Heinlein’s evidence had been concealed in the depths of a mansion storehouse, and if it hadn’t been for me, finding it would have been nearly impossible.
So I couldn’t trust evidence that pointed the way like a signpost.
Above all, I had confirmed through the Searcher Scouter that Mort’s trail wound its way toward the west gate, a completely different direction from the one the circumstantial evidence suggested.
Even if they’d made it out of the mansion safely, the duchy army’s encirclement was still in place, and even if they slipped past that, there were still the checkpoints at each gate. Yet no report of any kind had come to me.
Had they escaped through yet another passage?
If not, then...
"What do you mean? No one has come this way."
To leave the northwest district through the west gate, one naturally had to pass along the roads leading to it. Mort’s trail ran that way, and following it, we came upon a small unit of soldiers.
"Who are you, and what unit are you with?"
"I am Dietrich of the venerable duchy knight family of Solvay."
"Sir Solvay, are you absolutely certain no one has passed through?"
"I swear to God, Viscount Neunil did not pass this way."
The footprints Mort had left were glowing plain as day right beneath our feet, yet the duchy army commander lied without batting an eye. A venerable duchy knight family? What a joke.
"Stake the honor of the Solvay family on it."
"Why do you doubt me, a man who has served long and faithfully in the duchy army?"
"The trail leads this way, and you intend to deny it to my face?"
Solvay’s gaze wavered violently.
I gave a signal to Anton beside me.
My men moved like lightning.
Thwack! Thud!
"Drop your weapons!"
"Aaargh!"
"Wh-what is the meaning of this?!"
"These men have committed a grave crime! Arrest them all!"
In an instant, the place erupted into pandemonium. On the surface, it looked like the Gale Knights attacking duchy army soldiers, but the problem was that these bastards had been bought off by Neunil and had opened the way for him.
The number of duchy soldiers guarding this sector was unusually small, so we subdued them with ease. The bigger problem was that the west gatekeepers turned out to have been bought off as well.
And so Viscount Neunil and Mort had strolled out of the capital at their leisure. Faced with this absurd situation, I was at a loss for words. I’d suspected as much, but it was a far bigger mess than I had imagined.
They say to beware the enemy within more than the enemy without, and this was a textbook case.
Apparently, with a fortune dangling in front of them, the operation and everything else had vanished from their minds. When the report reached Viscount Loewenbert, he came charging to the west gate like a wrathful demon, utterly unlike his usual gentle self.
"Baron Kaislern! How will you answer for this?!"
"I will execute that good-for-nothing with my own hands! Please, I beg you, calm your anger!"
The head of the Baron Kaislern family, which managed the west gate, trembled before the enraged Viscount Loewenbert. It was a colossal blunder on the baron’s part, a failure to keep his own kin in line. A disaster of the highest order, brought about by his second son.
I clicked my tongue.
"Tsk tsk, those bastards must be laughing at us right now."
"To think the Kaislern family, famed for their thoroughness, would do such a thing..."
"You know them well?"
"Yes. Before I entered your service, my lord, my main source of income was work for the Kaislern family."
Knights and nobles without official posts mostly drift from one odd job to another. I too had once taken work handed out by government bureaucrats to earn money. Beort had a long history with the Kaislerns.
It was only after meeting me that Beort’s income improved dramatically. He’d been scraping by in poverty while providing for his own direct retainers. On top of his salary, I made sure he received a bonus every time he took part in a battle or an operation.
"I wonder just how many families have been dragged into Mort’s schemes."
Streit, Reinfeldt, Elsheimer, Heinlein, Neunil, and now even Kaislern and Solvay. Every family except mine was about to suffer a devastating blow. It was practically mutual destruction.
"They may have reached the harbor already."
"This is bad. Are the horses still not here?"
Since it was an operation in the city center, horses had been unnecessary, and we’d left them all at the royal ranch. I never imagined that decision would come back to trip us up. If Mort had factored even that into his calculations, it was truly chilling.
Old man Adolf had procured horses ahead of us and raced on to Breisach.
For the Storm Knight, who had won such renown in the past, it was the perfect chance to settle his long-standing feud with Viscount Neunil. So I had no choice but to let him act alone.
I’d been under the impression he’d lived a leisurely life since retiring, but he had quite the hot temper and an impatient streak. Perhaps that was why, in the great war, he had fearlessly led a charge of a hundred riders from the Beren Lance Cavalry of that era.
But he was such a legendary figure that the members, and even the nobles under my command, considered it an honor to fight alongside him. Even a minor battle at his side was something a family could boast of as a point of pride.
He himself made a show of humility, calling himself a washed-up knight living in the age of the Gale, but his eyes still burned bright, and he flaunted his old vigor, radiating undisguised killing intent toward Viscount Neunil.
Will I be like that when I’m old?
Though I doubt I’ll have the impatience.
The distance between Breisburg and Breisach is about thirty minutes on horseback, and we had already been waiting here for twenty. It left us a margin of only ten minutes, and I was starting to sweat.
"Master, I’ve brought all the horses!"
"Good. Everyone, mount up!"
Thankfully, Ted arrived with the horses just in time.
Leaving Viscount Loewenbert to handle all the cleanup, we rode out through the west gate. It felt like ages since I’d ridden this hard. Mont Blanc, who’d been cooped up, seemed to be in high spirits too.
Thud thud thud thud!
The more I thought about it, the more I had to admit how meticulous these bastards were. They had deceived us into thinking they were getting help from the Count of Basel, all while planning to flee by way of the harbor. If not for the Scouter, I would never have seen through the decoy.