After leaving Dwarf’s Goblet, Gale recalled his conversation with Nike.
-There’s a condition for getting you into Oiran.
-A condition?
-If you go south from here, there’s a phantom grass farm managed by Yamaguchi, one of the three major organizations.
Phantom grass.
It was an herb that caused hallucinations when its leaves were dried, burned, and inhaled.
Its side effects were severe, but it had a powerful painkilling effect, so it was a medicinal herb Gale had seen fairly often in the field.
The farm she mentioned referred to a facility that specialized in cultivating such phantom grass.
Since artificially cultivating phantom grass was not easy, Gale had guessed there would be a specialized cultivation facility somewhere. Even so, he was a little surprised that it was closer than he had expected.
-What do I need to do there?
-It’s simple. Just go in and break some things. It’d be even better if you burned the stuff in the warehouse.
Gale’s eyes gleamed.
-Why?
At that, she spoke with eyes that looked somewhat sorrowful, as if recalling the past.
-A little while ago, a friend of mine got hurt badly by Yamaguchi’s people. Call it payback for that. Well, I’d be grateful if you made a few of them companions for the road.
The three major organizations were currently under Miguel.
Keeping them in check was not a loss for Gale either, since he was also trying to keep Miguel in check, so he nodded.
-Keep your promise.
-Of course. I don’t have the slightest intention of making an enemy of the man who says he’s going to strike Miguel in Yoshiura.
Her tone sounded strangely sarcastic, but her expression was sincere.
Gale immediately headed for the farm she had told him about.
It was located in the outskirts, away from Yoshiura’s central district.
“So that’s the farm.”
From the outside, it looked like an utterly ordinary residence, but Gale’s eyes could see the flow of mana surrounding the building.
“They set up a ward.”
Gale approached the building and immediately placed his hand on the ward.
He could feel the thousands of mana circuits densely engraved across the surface of the ward.
Gale focused his consciousness and followed the mana circuits, shifting his awareness to the origin where the formula had been created.
At the end of the circuits engraved in a ring around the entire building.
‘Found it.’
There was a ward stone there, not small, about the size of a person’s waist.
Gale let mana flow from his fingertips and interfered with the mana circuit connected to the ward stone.
Bzzzzzt-!!
In that instant, the circuit went out of alignment, and the mana that had lost its path wandered about chaotically. But Gale settled the enraged mana and sent his own mana backward along the severed circuit, damaging the formula.
Then,
“Hey, this is strange.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The ward stone suddenly stopped working.”
“What? Ha, it’s acting up again.”
As if proving that the work had been successfully completed, the inside of the building grew slightly noisy.
After confirming that the ward before him had disappeared, Gale used mana waves to lightly examine the inside of the farm.
‘At least two mana users.’
There was one major drawback to using mana waves to check the number of enemies.
The opponent had to possess mana.
There were at least two mana users inside the farm.
Gale stepped into the farm.
“Who are you!!”
The reason Gale had accepted Nike’s request was to get into Oiran, but that was not the only reason.
‘Fire.’
“Khaaaaak!!”
“Damn it, he’s a mage?!”
By moving first like this, the number of members in the three major organizations would decrease, which would naturally reduce Miguel’s influence. It was also a good opportunity to indirectly gauge the level of the organization members.
After dropping the charred corpse from his hand, Gale used mana to maximize his bodily senses.
Breathing. Pulse. Footsteps. And so on.
With his enhanced hearing, Gale grasped the enemies’ positions and immediately moved toward them.
The structure of the farm was simple.
On the first floor, with its high ceiling, were the phantom grass cultivation facility and the warehouse. On the second floor were mainly the people who managed them.
Gale took the stairs up to the second floor, and just as he turned the corner, “Fire Wall!”
A massive pillar of flame shot out before his eyes.
But Gale did not stop walking.
“Did we get him…?”
Based on their level, which Gale had grasped through their mana waves, he was certain they could not pierce the Barrier surrounding his body.
Once the cast spell ended, Gale stood perfectly unharmed in the blackened corridor and reached his hand toward the mage.
“He’s fine?!”
“Air Buster.”
A green magic circle appeared at Gale’s fingertips, and the body of the organization member who had used flame magic immediately flew backward and slammed into the wall.
“Kghak…!!”
The collision was so powerful that the organization member’s organs were shattered in an instant, and his corpse was embedded into the wall.
After dealing with the mage, Gale raised his gaze.
[General Management Office]
‘Roughly one left, then.’
When he kicked the door open and stepped inside, a man in a suit who appeared to be the manager was looking at him.
“Whoa, whoa. You’re a very rough guest. I’d like to talk for a moment.”
Gale also had something he wanted to ask him, so he nodded slightly.
“Speak.”
“You’re a man who can be reasoned with. Who sent you?”
At those words, Gale fell into thought for a moment.
“Sent me…. If I had to say, I came because of Miguel.”
“Miguel?”
The man’s face twisted in an instant.
“I knew this would happen someday. He was Imperial Army, and yet he said we should work together….”
Miguel had proposed it.
As Gale turned those words over in his mind, perhaps the man had spoken only to buy time to write a formula.
The man in the suit immediately thrust out his hand and cast a spell.
“Mist!”
Mist spread in an instant and blocked Gale’s vision.
The man, hiding within the mist, said,
“Heh heh. You didn’t think I could use magic of this degree, did you? Ice Spear!”
A spear of ice rushed toward Gale through the mist.
Ting!
But it could not pierce the Barrier Gale, now at the 3rd Tier, had made.
The shattered ice spear clattered to the floor.
“Damn it!”
At that fleeting instant, when a small voice came from within the mist, Gale’s fingertips pointed in that direction.
‘Icicle Bullet.’
A blue magic circle appeared, and a projectile formed in the shape of an icicle shot toward the place where the sound had come from.
The man in the suit must have had the fundamentals of magic, because he had cast a small mana Barrier around his body. Even so, Gale’s spell tore through the Barrier and pierced his leg at once.
“Kgh…!”
When the man in the suit, whose leg had been pierced, collapsed to the floor, the mana scattered and Mist was dispelled.
He gripped his injured leg and breathed harshly.
Gale slowly walked toward the man in the suit.
“Were you bragging with magic of only that level?”
When Gale asked, fear appeared on the man’s face.
“D-don’t come…! I… I haven’t done anything wrong!”
When the magic that had been his only contingency failed to work, the man in the suit cut a pitiful figure as he backed away, scattering the documents piled on the desk.
“How much… How much do you want! Fine! I’ll give you twice that…. You don’t like that? Then three times?!”
He removed a painting embedded in the inner wall of the management office, then opened a safe with fingers covered in blood.
Soon, with a click, the safe door opened, revealing the gold and various other items inside.
Gale continued walking toward him.
“You can take it all, so please spare me… Please!!”
“Icicle Bullet.”
An icicle embedded itself in the man’s hand once more.
“Aaaagh…!!”
Inside the opened safe, there was a pile of gold that seemed to be worth at least several thousand gold.
In front of it lay a bundle of documents that looked like a ledger.
Documents.
Gale picked up the documents and asked, “What is this?”
“Nghhh…!”
“If you stall for time, I will show you something much worse.”
“Hgh… Hup! It’s a distribution ledger for the goods produced here….”
Gale examined the ledger.
Inside, records of dried and powdered phantom grass being weighed and moved in and out of the warehouse were written in dense detail, and the quantity was far greater than he had expected.
‘The warehouse alone held 3,000 sacks.’
With that much, they could fill an ordinary tavern to the brim with phantom grass powder.
If they set their minds to it, Gale thought it would not be difficult for them to addict half the imperial citizens beyond this place.
“That is a tremendous amount. What exactly are you planning to use this for?”
“I don’t know….”
Gale stomped on the hand of the man curled up on the floor.
“Aaaaaagh! I don’t know! I said I don’t know!”
“Icicle Bullet.”
A sharply carved ice bullet shot past the side of the man’s face.
“Hiiiiiik!!”
“This is the last time.”
“Miguel…! Miguel said we should scatter it in the Yoshiura River! That’s all I know… Lethe! He said he was going to make a river of Lethe.”
Scatter it in the river?
The River Lethe was the name of a river from myth.
It was also known as the river of forgetfulness, because drinking its water made one lose all memory.
If they scattered enough phantom grass powder to fill a huge warehouse into the river, far from causing forgetfulness, it could produce many casualties throughout the entire city.
Gale grabbed the hair of the man collapsed on the floor.
“What is he planning to do after that?”
“What do you think?! If the number of addicts increases, he’ll make a fortune!”
Gale rummaged through the memories of his previous life in his mind.
He had never heard that all of Yoshiura had become addicted to drugs.
That meant the plan would fail, at least because of someone.
“Could it be….”
The reason Miguel was neglecting the Guard Unit.
The reason he kept the three major factions under him was because doing so benefited him in some form.
At first, Gale had mistakenly thought it was simply to take the profit generated by distributing illegal drugs, but the Miguel Gale knew was not a man obsessed with money.
Rather, what he wanted was honor.
‘He plans to stage the whole thing himself.’
If what he was aiming for was a promotion, then it made sense for him to do something like this.
If he stopped an imperial terror plot by a large cartel based in Yoshiura and purged them, it would surely be more than enough to serve as a stepping stone toward becoming one of the Twelve Generals.
“That’s enough now, right? I won’t tell anyone else. So please, spare me….!”
Gale looked into the eyes of the man clinging to the leg of his pants and begging.
As he continued to keep the Golden Dawn Society in check, he would inevitably make enemies.
How many assassins would come after him?
How many capable knights would aim their swords at his neck?
In that kind of situation, leaving loose ends behind.
Gale knew very well that it was not a particularly good choice.
‘Dark Severance.’
The man’s scream split apart, and blood streamed across the floor.
From the moment he had resolved to return to the past and change the future, this was something he had prepared himself for. There was no hesitation in Gale’s actions.
Gale rose from his seat and looked down at the warehouse visible through the management office window.
Inside, phantom grass powder was probably piled up like a mountain.
“…Shall I finish cleaning up before I go?”
Gale thought of flame magic in his mind that would not cause a dust explosion and left the management office.
***
Late at night.
After completing Nike’s request, Gale returned to the barracks with his exhausted body. In front of the door stood Anesia, who was preparing for duty.
She looked at Gale and said, “Looks like you didn’t go.”
At those sudden words, Gale asked back, “What do you mean?”
“Joseph went somewhere with the senior duty personnel, then came back and passed out on his bed.”
When he turned his gaze, he saw Joseph sleeping without a care in the world.
“Do you know where he went?”
“Who knows? Just from the smell, it’s definitely not somewhere good. Ask him when he wakes up later.”
She left the barracks just like that, and Gale went to Joseph, who was lying on his bed.
“This smell….”
An unpleasant scent tickled his nose.
Phantom grass.
The smell he had been stuck smelling until moments ago was coming from Joseph.
When Gale shook Joseph awake, “I’m still… not satisfied… Huh, Gale?”
Joseph looked at him with hazy eyes.
Gale clenched his fist.
“Stay lying down.”
When Gale tried to push him away out of disappointment, Joseph suddenly came to his senses and said, “Ah! Gale…! I’m saying this because you might misunderstand, but I didn’t do it.”
“You’re giving off this much of a smell, and you’re saying you didn’t do it?”
Joseph nodded vigorously up and down.
He rubbed his heavy eyes and said, “I followed the seniors to some tavern, but the atmosphere was strange, so I came right back out. Even then, my head hurt….”
Watching Joseph speak passionately, Gale could vaguely tell that he was not lying.
Of course, there was no denying that Joseph bore some responsibility as well, but there was someone else this anger needed to be poured onto.
Gale barely swallowed the fury boiling up inside him.
Rising from his seat, Gale gave Joseph a cold look.
“We’ll talk about this later. Don’t even go near that place again.”
“Got it.”
Leaving the dazed Joseph behind, Gale left the barracks.