Chương 100: Chapter 95: No Damsels In This House

That night, a couple of hours after the dinner bell, Lira slipped from the castle once again. She activated every concealment spell she knew. By the time she finished layering the enchantments, even her footsteps had disappeared into the night. Then she scaled the outer wall with her paper rope before dropping lightly onto the opposite side. After making certain no one had seen her, she headed straight toward Salvek's establishment. The city felt strangely subdued.

News of the duel had spread through Halthar before sunset, and taverns throughout the capital were undoubtedly still filled with people discussing the death of one of the kingdom's most famous knights. Lira expected to find the brothel sealed by the city guard. Instead, she found chaos. Several guards stood outside the entrance, accompanied by Prince Aric and Sir Deren. The knight looked to be doing fine, although his arm was bandaged.

A small crowd had begun gathering across the street, whispering among themselves as city watchmen prevented anyone from approaching. Dario stood in the middle of it all. Salvek's former guard looked nothing like the soldier who had stood next to Salvek in his final stand. His trousers were stained with blood around the knees, as though he had knelt beside a body. His face had gone pale, and he looked ready to explode.

"Pika. Cipos. Hishar. Kaldris. Velar." Lira cast her Focused Hearing spell just in time to hear Dario shout.

"This is absurd!" he yelled, nearly stepping into Aric's face.

"Those whores killed Grom!" Prince Aric remained perfectly calm.

"I examined the crime scene myself."

"And?"

"I concluded it was self-defense."

"Self-defense?" Dario almost choked on the words.

"They slit his throat!"

"Yes." Aric didn't raise his voice.

"But judging from the blood spatter and the blood covering Grom's baton, he was beating someone when it happened."

"Of course he was beating them!" Dario snapped.

"They were trying to escape!" For the first time, Aric's expression hardened.

"Escape?" he repeated quietly. His voice had become noticeably colder.

"Since when do private guards possess the authority to imprison free citizens of Halthar?"

"They…"Dario hesitated, "they signed contracts."

"With whom?"

"With Sir Salvek."

"Exactly." Deren spoke before Dario could continue.

"Sir Salvek was a noble. Noble law allowed him to create indenture contracts." The knight took a single step forward.

"You are not Sir Salvek." His eyes never left Dario's.

"Neither was Grom."

"But..." Dario stammered.

"They still murdered him."

"The body was still warm when we arrived," Aric replied.

"Word of Sir Salvek's death had already spread throughout the district." He folded his arms.

"The contracts ceased to have any practical force the moment Salvek died." He looked directly at Dario.

"Grom had no authority to imprison those women." He paused.

"And he certainly had no authority to beat them." Dario opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Finally, Deren spoke.

"Count yourself fortunate." His voice remained calm, yet somehow sounded more frightening than shouting.

"We have no evidence tying you to any crime." His hand rested casually upon the pommel of his sword.

"I seem to be developing a taste for the blood of bastards." A faint smile crossed his face.

"If I were you... I'd keep my head down." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. The color drained completely from Dario's face. For a brief moment, he seemed ready to argue. Then he remembered who stood before him: the prince of this kingdom and the knight who had executed his boss only hours earlier. His shoulders sagged. Without another word, he turned around, disappeared inside the brothel, and slammed the door behind him.

Lira watched from the rooftop opposite the street. It seemed the women had managed to escape after all. Not only that... they had killed one of their abusers in the process. Good for them. She found herself smiling. A small part of her had worried they would simply remain trapped even after Salvek's death, trading one jailer for another. Apparently, they had decided otherwise. As the city guards began dispersing, Deren looked toward the surrounding streets.

"Should we search for them?" he asked quietly.

"One of them could have been injured. Grom clearly landed several blows before they escaped." Aric remained silent for several moments before shaking his head.

"No." He glanced toward the guards standing nearby.

"The last people those women are likely to trust right now are armed men sent by the authorities." His gaze lingered on the brothel.

"They escaped together. I think they're resourceful enough to survive." Deren frowned.

"And if they aren't?"

"Then we'll probably frighten them into running farther."

"The best thing we can do tonight..." Aric let out a tired sigh, "is leave them alone." The two men began walking back toward the palace, the city guards gradually following behind them. After several minutes, Aric spoke again.

"I think..." He searched for the words.

"I'm beginning to understand why the commoners fear us." Deren looked toward him.

"We allowed men like Salvek to abuse them." His eyes drifted across the silent brothel.

"And when they finally fought back, our first job was to investigate them." Neither knight spoke again after that. Lira remained crouched on the rooftop until the last guard disappeared around the corner. Only then did she let herself think. Should she look for the women herself? Unlike Aric and Deren, she wasn't a prince or a knight. She was only a palace maid. She understood the undercity, knew where frightened people tended to hide, and if someone truly was injured, she could help them. On the other hand…

Perhaps Aric was right. Those women had spent years being controlled by powerful people who claimed to know what was best for them. The kindest thing anyone could do now... might simply be to let them choose their own future. She shook her head. No. Those women needed as much help as they could get. Leaving them to fend for themselves after everything they had endured felt wrong. She waited until the street outside had quieted before slipping across the road.

Still hidden beneath layers of concealment magic, she climbed through the open office window for the second time that week. The room still carried the lingering scent of wine. The desk remained as she had left it after staging Salvek's drunken night. The office looked untouched, unaware that its owner would never return.

"Ladar. Oshkan. Ogllou." The Find Wealth spell spread through the room. Several faint pings immediately appeared within her vision. A handful of loose coins rested inside the desk drawer. A pair of ornate golden cufflinks glowed from inside the wardrobe, but what caught her attention most were two brilliant lights shining beneath the floor. Lira crossed the room and crouched beside the desk. A cleverly hidden false wooden panel lay beneath it.

Had her spell not revealed it, she doubted she would ever have noticed the nearly invisible seam between the floorboards. She carefully lifted the panel, unconcerned about the slight scraping sound thanks to her Sound Isolation spell. Inside the compartment rested two heavy leather coin pouches. She lifted the first one and opened it. It was full of gold. The second pouch contained a mixture of gold and silver, along with a few gemstones wrapped in cloth.

Together, they represented enough wealth to purchase a respectable manor in the noble district. Lira's lips curled into a satisfied smile.

"Looks like those girls are going to get their late pay after all." She reached to fasten both pouches to her belt before something made her pause. A strange feeling brushed against her senses.

"Pika. Maja. Syneth." As Mana Sight activated, the world shifted as streams of magic became visible, and immediately one of the pouches lit up. Lira let the pouches slip from her hands. They both fell to the ground, their contents spilling halfway out. No. It wasn't the pouch that lit up. It was the gold inside one of them. A faint magical disturbance covered every single coin. The mixed coin pouch, however, remained normal, without the glow of magic.

Just in case, her eyes swept across the room, searching for hidden enchantments or traps. There was nothing. The office itself contained no lingering magic. Only the contents of one pouch. Slowly, she picked up the second bag and examined it. Nothing... no magic whatsoever.

"Interesting..." Using a ruler from Salvek's desk, she carefully returned the glowing coins to their pouch, making sure not to touch any of them directly before sliding the pouch back into the hidden compartment. She then examined the second pouch once again from every angle, making absolutely certain it contained no magical surprises before fastening it securely to her belt. Why only one bag? It didn't seem like a security measure. Otherwise, both would have been protected.

"No... it feels similar to something else..." She had seen a glow like this before, on coins passed around by Steward Harwin. Was he somehow involved with Salvek? She decided to investigate.

"Ladar. Linasara. Oshkan. Cognar. Turat." A single ledger pinged, containing the answer she was looking for.

"Pika. Linasara. Cognar. Coopar. Nagla." Knowledge flooded into her mind as the pages were absorbed. The document contained the bookkeeping for the brothel. Several entries detailed payments for acquiring girls, transporting them, and bribing officials. Most of the names had been replaced with initials or coded descriptions, but one title appeared repeatedly. Mr. Investor.

The man appeared to have bankrolled Salvek at the start of the operation, and now that Salvek was making a substantial profit, Salvek was ready to repay his debt... in gold. So the glowing gold didn't belong to Salvek. It was the property of Mr. Investor. Her heartbeat quickened. Had Salvek cast the spell on the money? Or was this mysterious investor somehow able to enchant it while it remained in Salvek's possession? Her thoughts couldn't help but return to Harwin.

She had seen Cedric handle glowing money on his behalf as well. Was he involved somehow? She closed the ledger and made sure everything had been returned to its proper place before climbing out the window and sliding down her paper rope. She could think about the glowing coins later. Right now, she had distressed women to find.