W1.A1-22: The Scared Landlord

I watched as Lena finally placed the corpse inside her storage ring with a reluctant expression on her face.

"Let's check the room once, then we'll see what can be done with the rest of them," I said to Lena.

She nodded, as that was all we could do now that our target had "ran away."

The room was quite expansive, covering an area of about a thousand square feet. Actually, calling it a chamber would be more apt, as it contained more rooms within.

After checking through the random stuff inside the room, we didn't find anything of value.

We had already expected that, as people who owned storage rings usually kept all their important stuff within. But I was in no hurry to check it due to my prior experience with those people.

We were done with the main hall in no time and were about to shift to the other room when I heard some noise coming from outside.

As the sound drew closer, Lena also heard it before we identified it as someone's footsteps.

Knock! Knock!

Soon, the footsteps had arrived outside the door before their owner knocked on it.

"Lord?" A gruff but enthusiastic voice was heard from behind the door.

Lena and I shared a glance before I finally decided to act.

Just as the person outside was confused due to a lack of response, the door was suddenly pulled open.

Before the person standing outside could react, a hand suddenly clamped on his shoulder like a steel plier before dragging him inside.

"Sir!?" The man was bewildered as he was pulled in, but then his expression changed when he finally got a good look at us standing opposite him.

"Who are you two?" His initial panic seemed to have calmed down as he suddenly spoke with confidence in his voice, "Do you even realize what you have done by invading this mansion?"

"Let me go before Lord Ortan decides to teach you a lesson," he threatened while trying to get his shoulder free. "He's a member of royalty, you know?"

Too bad neither his words nor his actions yielded the results he wanted.

As he continued on with his rambling, I finally realized his identity.

It was Vilet, a rich landlord in our town. Everyone in the town was quite wary of him, as he had trained up a lot of goons to do his bidding. But that was only the case for ordinary folks.

The ones in the know were more afraid of his connections.

On the surface, he might seem like a normal landlord who bullied and exploited a bunch of farmers.

In reality, he was actually a middleman dealing with many shady deals on behalf of some major merchant houses in the capital.

Of course, he was only one of them and quite insignificant in the whole system.

But in my town, he was basically an overlord.

Only people like other merchants or my family could deter him from acting out of line, as even with his backing, he still had to live in this town.

I had always been curious as to who his backer was, so when I finally went to the capital, I took the chance to inquire about the same.

The result was more or less the same as I had expected. His supporter was basically a member of one of the merchant houses in the capital.

But given the complex political situation of a kingdom, it was nothing too surprising for connections like these to exist.

I also had not paid much attention besides the initial investigation, as he was not worth wasting my time on.

Never had I thought that this guy could become involved with what was classified as a master-class mission.

As I was contemplating, the guy finally seemed to have lost his cool after the repeated failed attempts to intimidate us.

He looked around the room to search for his savior. The dead guy was probably the "Lord Ortan" he had mentioned earlier.

Too bad he won't be able to answer his distressed calls anymore.

Thack!

Just as I was about to speak, Lena suddenly pulled out the sword along with the scabbard she was carrying before smashing it on Vilet's head.

"Aaaargh!!" The guy screamed again, but this time in pain.

"Shut up!" Lena shouted before giving the guy another rap at the same place.

The pain he was feeling made Vilet want to scream, but the glare coming from the violet woman in front of him deterred him enough to close his mouth and endure the pain in silence.

Lena then turned to me as she asked, "You seem to know him?"

I nodded before looking at Vilet, who was looking at me in confusion after hearing Lena and I speak.

He stared at me for a while before his eyes suddenly widened as he shouted in disbelief, "It's you!" She shouted. "Celine's son!"

"You've got that right." I nodded before a frown appeared on my face as I said, "But you better speak my mother's name respectfully, or it won't prove to be very good for you."

But Vilet seemed to have not heard what I had said as he began to mutter incoherently, "How could it be you?" He kept mumbling, "There's no way that's possible."

Suddenly, his eyes glowed as he seemed to have arrived at a conclusion.

"You're a scout, right?" He suddenly smiled, though it looked as vulgar as usual.

"You must have some here for recommending yourself, right?" he said. "Celine should have informed you about the news of today's party, so you came here to visit Lord Ortan, am I right?"

He then looked at my hand that was holding him in place before saying, in a disdainful tone, "Then shouldn't you be releasing me already?" He spoke in an authoritative tone. "After all, I'm on very good terms with him; you should even apologize to me now."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" I asked.

Slap!

"And I just told you to be careful with how you talk about my mother!" I gave the annoying guy a slap, as his disrespect towards my mother displeased me greatly.

"You!" He looked at me furiously, but I didn't feel like tangling with an ignorant person like him anymore. So I turned to Lena and said, "Take it out and let this guy know how his "Lord" is doing."

Lena did as I said. She waved her hand, and as mana entered her ring, a fluctuation appeared within the room. Following the disturbance, something materialized out of nowhere that made the surrounding air get pushed away with a swooshing sound.

Vilet was also on the scene with his eyes wide open, as he was knowledgeable enough to recognize a storage ring.

But his shock seems to have just begun, as when he saw the thing that had been taken out of the ring, his eyes widened until they could not anymore.

"Lor- Lord Ortan!!?" The sight had made him wordless for a while before he suddenly let out a shrill shout.

Thwack!

Lena once again struck with her sword as she scoffed, saying, "We have yet to begin with the butchering, and you've already started to scream, you pig!"

The strike this time hit him squarely in the face, making him appear in so much pain that his heavy body began to convulse on the spot.

But the strike and Lena's words seemed to have brought him out of his stupor. Not paying any more attention to the pain he was experiencing, the guy just started to stare at the two of us as his eyes suddenly began to fill with horror.

Vilet seemed to know the real strength of that Ortan guy. So it didn't take long for a cunning person like him to arrive at a terrifying possibility.

"You two…" He muttered, "You two killed him?"

"Who else do you think it is, then?" Lena snorted before turning to me. "Why are we wasting our time with him?" she asked. "Let's just finish him off and wrap this mission up; I'm feeling hungry."

I pursed my lips before saying, "Alright."

Then, looking at Vilet, who was horrified after listening to our discussion, I said, "You heard her, right?"

"Now, you better start speaking about everything before we need to make you spit it out."