“So, as long as we don’t send a force to remove them from Silver Lake, the monsters will not venture outside the forest, and they will not attack anyone traveling over the stone roads. Is that all?” Allan finished the steak and put his cutlery to the side.

  It was one week after our return to the Capital. We were in the same dining room where Allan entrusted the mission to solve the monster problem in Silver Lake Forest to Uther. It gave a sense of closure that the final debriefing would be given the same way it all started.

  And once again, I was listening to state secrets while serving food by merit of being socially invisible.

  “That is basically it, but this obviously only apply to the monsters in that settlement.” Uther replied, stretching on the chair after having eaten more than he should.

  “How can you be sure they will honor this deal?” Allan asked with justifiable concern.

  “I defeated their champion in a duel and got approval from their leader,” responded Uther smugly, but then he adopted a more cautionary tone. “This is a deal with monsters. I don’t know how long it will last, but for now, I believe they will follow this treaty. The village leader is old. When he dies, they are as likely to attack each other as they are to attack us. If the worst happens, at least we will be in a better position by then.”

  I moved silently and topped their wine cups, my presence meriting no reaction from them.

  Allan placed the elbow on the table and rested his chin on his knuckles. “How you were able to negotiate with their leader?”

  My grip on the wine bottle tightened.

  “He can speak imperial.” Uther replied, trying too hard to not look in my direction.

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  “Convenient…” Allan lowered his head slightly without breaking eye contact. “And how did you know that before going there? How were you able to get to him in the middle of that village full of monsters?”

  “I was lucky, I guess…” Uther quickly grabbed his cup and chugged the wine, almost choking.

  “Lucky…” Allan repeated the word like he was tasting it and finding unpleasant.

  “Those monsters came from Cartographer’s Bane, so I imagined they would have at least a few capable of understanding our language.”

  Allan’s expression did not change, both remained locked in a staring contest. That room was starting to get really uncomfortable.

  Finally, Allan closed his eyes, sighed, and recoiled back to his chair. “Fine, let's go with that for now.” He returned to the main topic. “I would really prefer that you had purged the forest, but beggars can't be choosers, this will have to do. Good job.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. At least for the time being I did not want to be exposed, and Uther was on the same page.

  They talked until they got to the subject of the scout's betrayal.

  “We are unraveling this but will take time.” Allan explained, since he had taken charge of the investigation. “What we know is that the two scouts that attacked you and the other two that escaped were supposedly remnants of the South Frontier Army, but we discovered that their documents were forgeries. Captain Ectar was probably bribed, he had a lot of debt and was close to be declared insolvent by the Guild.”

  “Do you think Duke Azure is involved?”

  “He is the one with most to gain if your mission failed, but we can’t accuse him without solid proof. If we go for him now, we might get dragged into a civil war.”

  After that, they wrapped things up, but just before leaving, Allan took a letter from inside his jacket and handed it to Uther.

  “It is from Nariel. It looks like they accepted our proposal.”

  Uther nodded, accepted the letter, and read it with an ambiguous expression. He stole a quick glance in my direction as he pocketed it. With a renewed desire to avoid getting dragged into more trouble, I ignored it, intending to keep quiet and leave all that mess with my powers behind.

  I was proud of what I had done. I was able to prove to myself that I could act despite all my fears and do something of relevance, especially for someone of such low status as I was. That gave me some peace of mind. It had been only two weeks, and I had not had a single nightmare since then.

  However, I had almost died and felt enough stress for a lifetime. At that moment, all I wanted was to get back to my daily routine and resume my normal life.

  Yeah, like that would happen...