Leo extended one finger and gently pressed it against the back wall of the wooden house. Cipher mana rippled at his fingertip, and the density of the plank beneath it dropped to thirty percent of its original value. Before the Cipher mana could dissipate, Leo immediately used the pointed head of his mace to gently break a hole through the board. The faint crack of splintering wood sounded no different from someone occasionally shifting a foot on a wooden floor, making it very difficult to notice.
Leo put his eye to the hole. Looking through such a small opening with only one eye made it impossible to judge distance accurately. Everything seemed pressed right up against his eye, and he needed some time to adjust. There were roughly eight or nine people inside, divided into two groups and seated around a wooden table. A burning candle stood on the table.
Leo first found Old Hank's son. He was easy to recognize because he looked quite a bit like Old Hank. Gaden Hank had curly hair, a face full of freckles, and a tall, burly build. He sat at the end of the three people on the left. In front of Gaden Hank sat a young woman wearing a mask. The purple mask covered everything above her nose, leaving only her eyes exposed.
Light blond hair. Dark brown eyes...
Lydia Murray!
Even with the mask on, Leo immediately recognized the woman sitting in front of Gaden Hank as Lydia Murray. Lydia's gaze was distinctive, with a strange penetrating quality that made her easy to recognize. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but Leo felt as though Lydia had cast an almost imperceptible glance in his direction.
Leo quietly raised his round shield in front of himself and signaled Brad to defend. Brad copied him, bringing his own shield up for protection. Then he watched their surroundings warily. Leo would monitor the enemies inside the house, while Brad would keep watch outside.
By now, the argument inside was becoming increasingly heated. There was another man in front of Lydia, and he was the one speaking. Leo thought the man looked somewhat familiar, as though he had seen him a few days ago. His voice was even more familiar.
A bard. Yes, the bard from the festival for Holy Archmage Hilquins a few days earlier. Leo had seen him there.
The bard said, "Captain Kidd, we're not the same! Please don't lump the two of us together!"
Across from him, a short, stocky, bald, fat man replied, "Poet Field, our enemies are both the nobles. What's so different about us?"
The two people calling the shots in the room were Field the bard and a captain named Kidd. Lydia Murray and Gaden Hank were on Field's side, while the other five belonged to Captain Kidd's group.
Who was this Captain Kidd?
If Koliver were still alive, he would certainly know him. This was the triangle-eyed captain who had sold Kozmo's corpse for five silver pennies.
A vicious gleam appeared in Captain Kidd's narrow triangular eyes. "The West Empire possesses the strongest navy in the world. Right now, I decide what happens along the coastline of Blackport County. The West Empire's man in charge in Blackport City, that Acolyte from the Church of Radiant Prayer, died during the night Blackport City burned. I became their new man in charge.
"The Kidd Pirates have three wandering mages, and you, Field, are a wandering mage too. Isn't your goal to eliminate the nobles, eradicate those parasites, and bring about fairness? We can work together. I can help you eliminate those hypocritical, greedy nobles! Field, it's too late for anything else now! Do you really think you can still walk away so easily?"
Field the bard stared at the candle flame before him, his face filled with grief. "I thought Acolyte Koliver wanted revenge on the nobles and the Bishop. That's what he told me, and that's why I secretly helped him. But I never imagined that the target of his revenge was the whole of Blackport City...
"I don't have much attachment to life. In forty years, I have never found anything truly beautiful or extraordinary in it. You don't need to threaten me with death. I do not fear death. If I feared death, I would never have chosen a road that set me against the nobles.
"This age of weeping, jealousy, and pain... This stifling, accursed age...
"Captain Kidd, you've spent the past few days aboard your ship. You haven't seen the misery inside Blackport City with your own eyes. Have you ever seen someone sitting amid the black ruins after the fire, refusing to leave for hours? That was his home. The ground was black, the pillars were black, his entire home had burned black.
"Have you ever seen someone scrape his own pustules with a shard of porcelain? He could no longer feel pain, as though the flesh he was scraping wasn't his own. Have you ever seen an entire street buried alive because of the plague? I can't even blame the soldiers of Blackport County who buried those residents alive. If they hadn't buried them, even more people would have caught the plague.
"Have you ever..."
A furious roar cut Field off. "Shut up! You spineless weakling!"
Captain Kidd could not sympathize with anything Field had described. He only found the man noisy. Lydia raised her head from her grief and stared at the pirates across from her in disbelief. Sympathy clearly did not belong to a pirate captain accustomed to living by the blade.
Captain Kidd said with disgust, "Enough of that pointless chanting! You don't actually think getting rid of the nobles is easy, do you? Are you expecting the Count of Blackport and every one of his descendants to suddenly drop dead in his castle overnight? Are you expecting every soldier serving the Count of Blackport to die in his own bed tonight?
"Stop dreaming, Field. You're no longer some simple bard. You've chosen a road where you either succeed or end up hanged. You even named your organization after a flower. The Datura Organization? Can those delicate flowers of yours help you cut off the Count of Blackport's head? Can they help you cut off the head of a B-Grade Mage?
"The only power you can rely on is the West Empire! Only the West Empire's fleet can throw Blackport City into enough chaos for you to have a chance to kill those nobles!"
Field the bard raised his head and stared at Captain Kidd with a complicated expression. "The Datura Organization's goal truly is to eliminate the nobles. But our ideal is that after the nobles are gone, more people will be able to live prosperous lives. They won't have to hand forty percent of their income to the Count and his lackeys.
"Not..."
Field continued painfully, "Not burn one out of every fifty residents of Blackport City to death. Not burn five hundred people to death in a single night."
Kidd the pirate waved his hand impatiently. "Give up your childishness, Field! Without sacrifice, without bloodshed, how do you expect to eliminate the nobles of Blackport County?"
Field looked at Kidd. "Captain Kidd, our cooperation is over. Don't try to harm the residents of Blackport City again. Otherwise, I will kill you."
Kidd froze for a moment, then heard his subordinates behind him burst into laughter. He tilted his head and said in confusion, "Jeanne Belleville, my little darling, did I hear that correctly... That frail little Poet Field just said he was going to kill me?"
The female pirate named Jeanne Belleville had a seductive figure. She tried hard to tilt her head back so the tears of laughter in her eyes would not run down her face and ruin her makeup. The motion made the curves of her body look even more alluring. Leo had noticed this female subordinate of Kidd's long ago. She had been holding a glass of martini the entire time, with a green olive soaking inside it.
Her wave-like red hair fell behind her bare shoulders, trembling with her laughter. Once she finally stopped laughing, the pirate woman brought the glass to her lips and drained it in a single gulp. The green olive went into her mouth as well. Her red lips parted slightly as the olive rolled across her red tongue.
At that moment, the female pirate turned her head toward Leo.
Leo narrowed his eyes. Their gazes met!
He had only been watching the show. How had he somehow become part of it?
By reflex, Leo jerked his shield upward, covering most of his head. The green olive rolled, disturbing the pirate woman's red lips.
Suddenly, a green streak shot toward the back wall of the wooden house!
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