Ch 11 - Finding The Mastermind

Siyue pulled Lina away to get changed.

Meanwhile, Kenji stood there thinking hard.

Even though he'd rather not believe it, Lina's words truly highlighted one crucial issue: as the duke, he was probably in serious danger now.

Yes, he had seized control of the court. He held military power. But it wasn't as if he could cram thousands of soldiers around himself nonstop for protection. If he just sat back and waited for whoever was behind this to strike, he'd die eventually—no matter how many times he avoided an assassination. All it took was one successful attempt.

Right now, the priority was to figure out who had hired these assassins.

Clearly, they were death soldiers. That alone showed just how much influence the people behind this possessed. Such trained killers had existed throughout the history of the Camelot Empire, but raising a crew like that was ridiculously expensive.

While Camelot citizens weren't like those Westerners who believed they could do whatever they wanted after praying for pardon from their gods, no one was stupid. Without enough benefits or personal magnetism, who would throw their life away for someone else? Especially in the current era, when the Emperor's power was so strong, raising death soldiers was harder than ever—if the Emperor wanted you dead, having thousands of death soldiers still wouldn't help.

Only someone like Kenji, with three hundred thousand troops at his command, could ever afford that kind of boldness.

The most common way to raise death soldiers was to start from birth. You went looking for babies with no parents, or who had never really met them, collected them under your wing, and trained them before they had any real sense of the world. Over time, you twisted their worldview and personality.

That meant hammering a deep-rooted mindset into them from day one and keeping them under strict control. You'd never let them wander outside or run into ideas that might change the way they think. Combine that with more than a decade of harsh, closed-off training, and eventually you forged a perfectly loyal killer who did exactly what they were told.

This sort of training was unbelievably expensive, but the payoff was huge: these killers almost never turned on their owner. Those recruited as adults or teenagers were just mercenaries at heart; you could offer them a fortune, but if someone else offered double, they'd just switch sides.

Based on what Lina said, it sounded like there were quite a few of these death soldiers.

That pretty much ruled out the idea that someone like a county governor was behind this. Most governors didn't have the resources to keep a personal band of killers, and anyway, many governor positions were appointed after an exam; hardly any had held office more than ten years. It was almost impossible to amass a big group of death soldiers in that time.

As for officials in the central government, that was even less likely. They were almost always under the watchful eye of the Emperor. Sure, the Emperor occasionally turned a blind eye if an official had a small band of personal guards—unarmed or lightly armed—but that was different from death soldiers. Pretty much every central official was monitored around the clock by the Emperor. Who'd be crazy enough to train death soldiers under his nose? Get caught once, and off went your head.

That left only the nobility—those princes and aristocratic families. They were old, powerful houses, and some were even related to the royal family itself. They'd been around for ages and had the foundation and wealth to raise killers. They also had the time to do it.

Thinking it through, Kenji realized that if anyone were gunning for him, it'd be those lords and nobles. He might be a "treacherous minister" or "power-hungry figure," but both the previous Duke Anos and Kenji himself had been pushing through policies that actually benefited Camelot, and those policies definitely threatened the old noble families' interests.

On top of that, many of them weren't happy with Pluvia. But they couldn't openly rebel against her, so they had only one recourse—knock off Duke Anos.

They figured that once the duke was out of the picture, Pluvia wouldn't have a solid grip on the court anymore.

Kenji had a couple of names in mind but intended to talk it over with the emperor.

Kenji wasn't planning to hide this. Tomorrow, he would directly bring it up. After all, this was the perfect chance to show his loyalty: "Look, I'm risking my life to help you, Your Majesty. Surely, you'll trust me now?"

Right then, Lina came back wearing different clothes.

Her outfit looked like something she'd wear around the house—loose but still neat. The hint of fair skin at her collar sent a dryness through Kenji's throat, though Lina herself didn't seem bothered at all. She simply took a seat in front of him.

"So what's next?" she asked.

"I think…sometimes, you've got to handle the dirty work." Kenji sounded resigned.

If he had a choice, he'd like Lina to stay as his guard, not off doing bloody stuff all the time. But the truth was, at this point, the only person both trustworthy and capable was Lina.

"Who am I supposed to kill?" Lina asked calmly.

"I'm not sure yet, but I'll know soon." Kenji poured her a steaming cup of tea. "Here. Give it a taste. I snagged this from the emperor's supply—the Imperial Tribute tea."

"..."

Lina paused. Even though she was close to Kenji, and he often shared expensive things with her, the fact that these tea leaves came directly from Pluvia bothered her a little.

In her mind, anything given personally by the emperor was usually supposed to be displayed at home like some prized treasure.

"Go on, try it. Nobody's here to see." Kenji gave her a little nudge. "If we run out, I'll just ask her for some more."

Lina's nose caught the tea's fragrance right away. She glanced at the leaves steeping in the pot and suddenly felt she shouldn't drink it.

Back when she was making sure Kenji wouldn't be poisoned, Lina had tasted all sorts of teas from every region of Camelot. That allowed her to recognize unusual flavors right away. One of the best teas in the empire was called Mountain Tea, which was so scarce that the best harvest was usually sent straight to the palace.

Apparently only a dozen or so boxes made it to the palace each year. If these were Imperial Tribute leaves, she really shouldn't drink them. Kenji obviously had no idea how limited this stuff was. If she finished them, he might cluelessly show up demanding more from \ Pluvia…which would probably cause a big scene.