Not long after Aldren’s fall, his supporters also started going down one by one in strange ways.
One of them simply didn’t wake up the next day.
He had been completely healthy the night before, but by morning, he was dead.
There were no marks on his neck.
No wounds.
No signs of violence.
He had simply died.
Nobody was sure how.
Only two people knew exactly what had happened.
Evran, the one who had carried it out.
And Adrian, the one who had taught him how.
The method itself was incredibly simple.
So simple, in fact, that Evran had been shocked when Adrian first explained it to him.
How did this child of a Prince know something that nobody else did?
Not even the people who had taught Evran everything he knew about assassination had ever taught him this method.
The method was suffocation.
It left almost no obvious marks on the victim.
In the modern world, it could be detected through a nominal post-mortem examination.
But this was a medieval world.
The very concept of a post-mortem examination was practically unheard of, let alone the ability to determine the exact cause of death through one.
For Evran, this made things much easier.
Previously, the only method of assassination he knew was slitting someone’s throat.
It was effective.
But it was messy.
There was blood everywhere.
The moment someone was found with their throat slit, everyone immediately knew that an assassination had taken place.
Security would be tightened throughout the area, and Evran’s work would be disrupted for several days.
But with this method…
There were almost no consequences.
The man simply died.
And nobody knew why.
After that, another one of Aldren’s supporters fell down the stairs.
He hit his head and died.
This, too, had been engineered by Adrian and executed by Evran.
They had simply made the man slip on the stairs, causing him to fall and die from his injuries.
The third man’s death was even more straightforward.
A group of people came to rob him.
The robbery went wrong.
The victim ended up dead.
The robbers were none other than Evran and his trainee assassins in disguise.
The fourth man simply disappeared one day.
Nobody ever discovered what had happened to him.
Four deaths.
Four different causes.
And yet, there was one thing that connected them all.
They had happened within four days.
One after another.
Without a break.
To the rest of Valewood, they looked like absurd coincidences.
But the people being targeted knew better.
They knew exactly what was happening.
And they knew who was behind it.
Unfortunately, they were now powerless against him.
Still, they had no intention of simply sitting quietly and watching the purge of Valewood’s ruling class.
To protect themselves, they went to the capital and tried to convince the King to stop the madness being carried out by the Prince.
But King Aldric was too busy to meet them.
So they used all the power and connections they had left to secure a meeting with one of the King’s confidants, Denry Wallis.
They explained their situation to him.
Denry wasn’t particularly interested.
But when they offered him bribes, he immediately assured them that the King would definitely hear about the matter and help them.
Denry also contacted the Royal Bureau and requested that an investigator be dispatched to Valewood to investigate the mysterious deaths.
The inspector assigned to the case was Reynold.
Reynold had been born a commoner.
Because of his background, he had received many of the difficult and unfavorable assignments within the Royal Bureau.
He had risen through the ranks through merit, along with the favors of several high-ranking nobles whom he had helped by solving various problems for them.
He had made it this far despite being a commoner.
But discrimination still followed him.
He had no choice but to endure it if he wanted to continue working as a Royal investigator.
Reynold didn’t want to go to Valewood.
The territory was considered a backward region, and he had no interest in spending his time there.
But his opinion didn’t matter.
He was sent anyway.
Upon arriving in Valewood, Reynold decided to greet the local lord first.
And that lord was none other than Adrian.
Adrian gave him a warm welcome.
Because even if Sherlock Holmes himself were reincarnated into this world, Adrian doubted that he could catch him with any material evidence.
And as a Royal Prince, the benefit of the doubt would always lie with him.
Reynold, too, understood that he probably wouldn’t find anything.
Nevertheless, he continued his investigation.
At the very least, he had to pretend to investigate seriously.
It was necessary to calm the ruling class, even though they were no longer in much of a position to rule anything.
As Reynold continued his investigation, a Royal decree arrived for Adrian.
To receive a Royal decree, anyone below the King was supposed to kneel.
Adrian, however, didn’t wanted to.
He didn’t even kneel to the gods.
So he pretended to be sick and told Ronald to receive it on his behalf.
But the land was technically in Elara’s name.
And since she was present, she went forward to receive the decree.
Elara took it and handed it to Ronald, since she couldn’t read it herself.
Ronald opened it and read it aloud for Adrian.
The decree stated that Adrian was to stop the circus he was playing with law and order.
If any more suspicious deaths occurred in his territory, he would be answerable directly to the King.
And if the Royal investigator found any evidence of Adrian’s involvement in the previous four deaths, he would be held responsible.
Adrian was furious.
He wanted to rip the decree into pieces.
But Ronald stopped him.
Adrian’s anger remained.
He thought about the situation for a while.
Perhaps he had been too lenient with those bastards.
And then he thought of another way to deal with them.
His bank.
Merchants from all over the kingdom had begun coming to Valewood one after another.
They wanted loans from the Royal Bank.
Adrian decided to use them.
He had prepared a list of the families who had opposed him and challenged his authority.
When a merchant came to request a loan, Adrian gave him the list.
Then he gave them a choice.
“Choose one.”
The merchant would select any one family from the list.
And if they succeeded in destroying that family…
They would receive loans from the Royal Bank which were cheaper then anywhere else in the kingdom.
Adrian didn’t need to personally eliminate his enemies anymore.
He decided he would simply make other people do it for him.