The old man was pierced right in his leg, unsaddling him. He was skewered to the ground.

The horse he was on continued to run without him.

Looking back, Vince saw the guards had managed to kill all the other guys as well. Though four out of the six guards were dead, and one of them was heavily injured.

‘Mmh, the other side is settled as well. Well then, time to have a little chat with this old pig.’

Taking his time walking, he soon reached the old man. He was lying on the street, with one of his legs impaled.

“Old pig, you tried to steal in the thieves’ home! Now, now. If you want a painless death, I recommend you tell me where you left your other goods!”

‘I at least want to get some free stuff considering how much trouble I’ll have to go through to hide what exactly happened here!’

“Y-you! Do you know who I am?”

“Of course! Undersecretary to the ministry of finance’s accounting department, Kian Robbins. Given the honorary title of a knight because of his long service in the office.”

“You clearly don’t know how high the sky is! You surely know what would happen if I were to be found dead!”

“Yes, of course. The government will investigate. And they will find out you were attacked by a group of outlaws. The ones you hired three buildings down the street from the slave market.

Our convoy, on its way back from helping the orphanage down the alley —which I will thoroughly bribe— stumbled upon you by chance. The guards from the Harlow family, noticing what was happening, courageously ran in an attempt to save you!

Sadly, the attempt wasn’t successful. Five of them regrettably lost their lives in the process. But thanks to them, at least your remains could be brought back.

Hearing this touching story, the magistrate will award all the fallen guards with an honorary medal and will pay their families a few gold each.

Nobody will doubt anything as the most talented descendant of the Harlow family was involved. And even if someone questioned us, just digging a little, they would find out he was together with a boy from a ducal house and would think twice about going any deeper.

The government will be happy with this outcome as you will be pictured as a mere victim of a tragedy. The guards who knew what you were really doing will be told to stay shut, as having them say in a public courtroom that one of the state officials was buying a few girls for him to play with at the slave market would bring about disgrace. Especially when that money comes from public funds, right?”

Hearing what the child said, the old man couldn’t help but tremble. This kid was so versed politically he wouldn’t doubt he was a strategist for one of the factions in the royal court.

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“You’re a dead man anyway. Telling you how I picture things going sounds fun. I just wanted to see your reaction.”

His biggest regret in life was never being able to climb any higher because of his lacking political skills. It was ironic for him to die at the hands of one of the people he kept on seeing climbing higher than him.

“Now, with that out of the way, I’ll be taking your pouch. That money will be used to bribe the nuns. Now, if you tell me where the girls you bought earlier are, I might think about letting you off painlessly.”

“I won’t say anything! If you truly think you have it all figured out, go ahead and kill me.”

“I wasn’t clear enough, then!”

Having already previously retrieved one of the swords from the bandits, he started by giving him one cut.

“I have to turn your body enough in a mess to make the story believable anyway. You decide whether I should do this while you are still alive or if I do it after you die.”

“I won’t budge!”

Or so he said. But just roughly ten cuts later, he was already singing.

“They’re three alleys from here!”

“Good, good. Do any of them have a soul contract?”

“N-no! None of them!”

“Very well. They were left alone, right?”

“Y-yes. They are in a cage! The key is in my pocket!”

“Mmh, fine. I’ll go and check. You’ll stay here very nicely and wait. If you lied about anything you’ll witness hell while still being alive, got it?”

As he was saying this, Gero reached his side.

“V-Vince? Is everything alright?”

“You’ll have to help me with something, Gero. For now, just watch guard that this pig doesn’t try to get away. If he tries to run away, impale him. Here, have the spear.”

“O-okay.”

Gero was trembling. The sight of Vince smiling, all dirtied in blood, had terrorised him.

After walking down three alleys, as the old pig had said, there was a carriage with a bunch of girls inside.

‘There’s more than ten here… I doubt I can bring all of them back to the academy… Well, there’s only something I can do then.’

“The old pig is dead. You all have two choices. You can either be set free, but I don’t want to see your faces in Duskburg ever again, or you can become my slaves instead. I’ll give you five minutes to choose.”

After a short moment of silence, one of the older girls spoke.

“What kind of slaves would we become, what would we do?”

“That, I don’t really know. Currently, I have no use for you lot. But be sure it won’t be an easy life. I’m very demanding when it comes to my subordinates. I’m no saint, I won’t take care of all of you for free.”

“Then, why do you want to never see again the ones that’ll pick freedom?”

“Because I murdered that old pig, and you all are an essential piece of the puzzle. If you freely run around in Duskburg, my whole plan of covering up what happened might fail.”

***

In the end, out of the ten girls who were there, eight decided to follow Vince. The two oldest ones decided to tempt their luck instead and picked freedom.

Gero was staring at the old man as if his life depended on it. That was how seriously he took Vince’s command.

“Gero, anything happened while I was away?”

“Well… the heavily injured guard died of blood loss.”

‘As I had predicted… nobody survives with an open stomach and a cut-off leg without perfect medical treatment.’

“Anyway, you can send the old man off. I retrieved the goods.”

Hearing this phrase Gero prepared himself to stab the dying old man, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t muster up the courage to do it.

Noticing what was happening, Vince decided to intervene. He grabbed Gero’s hands and…

“Wait! I’ll do it instead!”

A fifteen years old looking girl decided to be the one to commit the deed.

Looking at the old man with disdain, she put her foot on his head, and closed her eyes.

“Wait, we’ll do it all together!”

The other girls decided to all put a hand on the spear.

One of the girls started counting.

“On my three. One. Two… Three!”

Splat.

The old man’s heart was pierced.

‘I don’t know which one of them came up with this idea, but I must say they did a great job. They probably saw through why I wanted Gero to be the one to do it.’

“Well, since we are done here, let’s move on to the next stage of the plan. Let’s go corrupt the nuns. You, you and you. Come with me. You are the girls in the sorriest states. You’ll be useful to move the nuns. Since I said how I picture things going, I’d better turn it into reality.”

***

Once they reached the orphanage, Vince knocked on the door.

After a short while, a nun came and opened the door. Looking at their sorry states, she probably thought they were seeking refuge. But then she noticed Vince’s clothes.

It was clear he was a noble. Thus, what had been a look of pity, soon turned into a look of bewilderment.

“May we come in and talk? I need your assistance with something.”

“My assistance?”

“The whole orphanage’s to be precise.”

“Ah… sure, come in.”

After they sat one in front of the other, Vince started talking.

“I’ll be honest. I came across someone trying to kidnap those girls through some outlaws’ help. I ordered my guards to help the girls, and the old man who was trying to kidnap them ended up dead. It turned out he was a state official. I need the orphanage to be my alibi. If I don’t have someone external supporting my version of the facts, they could say I was the one who hired the bandits to assault the state official.”

“Asking a nun from the temple of light to lie… Are you sane? You know we made a vow to never lie?”

“So you would rather have an innocent arrested? Worse, wouldn’t you be encouraging the ‘don’t interfere’ policy everyone has? If I get punished for trying to save some girls, wouldn’t it just be a confirmation that staying out of others’ business is right?”

‘I’ll go mad. If it weren’t for me being related to the Von Sideria, I could have just told the truth…’

The nun made a troubled face. She was an old lady who had clearly seen how unjust this world was.

‘I just need a little push…’

“See it this way. You won’t save just me.”

Saying this phrase, Vince threw a pouch half full with gold coins on the desk that was between the two of them.

“I’m sure your god doesn’t care about a little lie for a just cause. Plus, you’d be able to give those kids a future.”

“So you’re also trying to bribe me now? Who do you take me for?!”

“Someone who knows how the world works. Everyone knows the world runs on money. That’s what I’ve been taught. Hell, I was sold myself. I might be dressed like a noble, but I’m just a noble’s slave. Look at this mark.”

Saying this, Vince lifted his shirt. Precisely on top of his heart, there was a tattoo. Its shape was a mysterious insignia. Many chains stemmed from this insignia as if binding his whole heart.