“So, I’ll be going now,” Tales said as he took his leave.

  The knight’s expression was visibly more exhausted than it had been at the start of the morning, heavy shadows beneath his eyes.

  Lucius merely waved indifferently, shifting his gaze to Liam, who had replaced Tales as his babysitter.

  “How was your day?” Lucius asked with a sideways smile.

  The knight’s expression clouded at the question, which made Lucius nod in understanding.

  “Let me guess—you were reprimanded by the duke, weren’t you?” Lucius said as he touched his face.

  He had taken three blows from Liam in total. That was enough to leave his face quite… battered. There was no way Cedric hadn’t noticed. And once he did, he certainly must have had a talk with Liam, the knight responsible for the bruises on his face.

  Liam clenched his fists, directing an angry glare at Lucius, which only made Lucius’s expression grow more mocking.

  “You really are an idiot, aren’t you? Did you really think the duke would just overlook the fact that a mere knight attacked his eldest son?”

  “That’s because you can’t shut your damn mouth,” Liam said with an indignant glare.

  But that only made Lucius look at him with even more disdain.

  “Idiot. What I did hardly matters. The fact is that you attacked me. To the duke, what do you think matters more—the integrity of his eldest son, or the pride of a humble knight?”

  “I already told you—!”

  Liam punched Lucius in the stomach.

  “Agh…!”

  The blow was so strong that Lucius fell to his knees, his hands pressing against his stomach as he expelled a dry breath.

  “Why don’t you shut that fucking mouth of yours? You think I’m just going to listen to your bullshit in silence?”

  I know you won’t.

  Lucius laughed inwardly.

  Liam was a knight who had mastered the use of Aura, which firmly placed him among the imperial elite. Even without a noble title, his pride was certainly that of one. To him, being belittled by Lucius must have been one of the worst humiliations imaginable.

  “Not so talkative now, are you?”

  Liam looked down on Lucius with contempt, who laughed as he returned the gaze.

  “Yes, I’m at a loss for words in the face of your stupidity—agh!”

  Lucius was struck in the ribs by a kick from Liam, rolling across the ground as he groaned in pain.

  “Listen here, brat,” Liam said as he grabbed Lucius by the collar. “As long as you don’t shut that damn mouth, you’re going to keep getting beaten.”

  “Noted,” Lucius said with a crooked smile.

  “Hmpf.”

  Liam finally released Lucius, letting him fall to the ground and catch his breath.

  This is going to be a long day.

  Lucius thought as he stood up.

  …

  “Your Excellency, Lord Alistair of the Norz Merchant Union requests an audience,” Joseph said in a formal tone.

  Without even lifting his eyes from the documents on his desk, Cedric nodded for Joseph to bring him in.

  “Then, if you’ll excuse me.”

  With a bow, Joseph left the office, returning a few minutes later accompanied by another man.

  After signing the document, Cedric finally turned his attention to the “guest.”

  Alistair was a middle-aged man. Short and corpulent, he wore opulent, luxurious clothing, his body adorned with chains and rings of precious metals and gemstones.

  “Your Excellency,” he said, making a slight bow before lifting a smiling gaze toward Cedric. “I requested this audience because there are some matters I would like to discuss with Your Excellency.”

  “You may speak,” Cedric said indifferently.

  Alistair did not speak immediately. Biting his lips, he seemed to search for the right words. Pulling a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped the sweat gathering on his forehead.

  “It concerns Your Excellency’s new edict,” he said after several seconds. “The one regarding the transit of non-human slaves through Your Excellency’s territory.”

  Hmm, so that’s what this is about.

  Cedric rested his chin on his fist, tilting his head slightly to the side.

  “Yes. And what of it?”

  Alistair offered a small smile. Asking for permission, he withdrew a stack of papers from his coat and presented them to the duke.

  “These are financial reports,” he explained. “Data on trade flow from recent years, as well as future projections. As Your Excellency can see…”

  He pointed to several specific lines.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “…the transit of non-human slaves through Norz has always been conducted in an orderly and highly profitable manner. The new edict interrupts this flow, causing considerable losses.”

  Cedric gave the documents only a cursory glance before pushing them back across the desk.

  “Do you take me for an ignorant man? Do you think I do not know what comes into my territory, and from where? Profit or loss, I am well aware of the consequences of every decision I make. I do not need you to come here to explain them to me. Unless…”

  Cedric narrowed his eyes, the mere action causing the pressure in the room to increase exponentially.

  “…you think I am an idiot,” he finished coldly.

  Alistair’s smile vanished, cold sweat covering his forehead.

  “No, no, not at all. It was never my intention to do anything that might seem to insult Your Excellency’s intelligence,” he said hurriedly before continuing. “What I mean is that the Norz Merchant Union has always valued maintaining good relations with Your Excellency. Many agreements have been forged over the years.”

  As he spoke, the panic slowly faded from his expression, his eloquence returning.

  “What I was trying to say is that perhaps… there is room for a revision of the edict. Adjustments. Specific exceptions.”

  “There isn’t,” Cedric replied without hesitation.

  The blunt answer made Alistair swallow hard.

  The man’s eyes, disproportionate to the rest of his face, wandered hesitantly around the room before finally settling on Cedric.

  “Your Excellency,” he insisted, now with a slightly lower voice, after a long pause he used to steel his resolve, “this does not concern only the Union. Several noble houses in the South depend on this trade. Interrupting it creates… unnecessary friction.”

  So he finally brings that up.

  Cedric had already learned of the close relationship between the Norz Merchant Union and certain southern noble houses. He had fully expected that, at some point in this discussion, Alistair would invoke them as leverage.

  With anyone else, that might have carried some weight. But—

  Cedric cast a cold look at Alistair, who instinctively recoiled as he swallowed.

  “Tell me, merchant—where are we?” Cedric asked indifferently.

  Sweat once again beaded on Alistair’s forehead. He reached for his handkerchief, only to realize it was already completely soaked.

  “…In Notwen, Your Excellency,” he finally answered.

  “Exactly,” Cedric nodded with an arrogant expression. “My Notwen. The Notwen of my Aster family. Do you truly think that, in my territory, in my city, I would fear a few noble families from the South?”

  Cedric’s final words, in particular, were laden with contempt.

  His tone frightened Alistair, who lowered his head, not daring to meet Cedric’s eyes. But beyond fear, there was anger, evident in the merchant’s clenched fists.

  “This discussion is over. You are free to leave,” Cedric said coldly.

  Taking a deep breath, Alistair raised his head. In silence, he stared at Cedric for a few seconds, finally restoring his earlier commercial smile.

  “As Your Excellency wishes,” he said, making an exaggerated bow. “Then this humble merchant shall take his leave.”

  Escorted by Joseph, he left the office, leaving Cedric alone.

  A shrewd fellow, indeed.

  Cedric pondered.

  “Well, that was a friendly meeting,” Joseph said with a crooked smile.

  Cedric nodded, wearing the same kind of smile.

  “As friendly as a fox can be.”

  Joseph’s gaze drifted toward the office door, his brows furrowed with concern.

  “Do you think he’ll try something foolish?”

  Cedric shrugged.

  “Who knows. You can never underestimate just how foolish a greedy man can be, no matter how intelligent he appears.”

  Agreeing, Joseph nodded before suggesting, “Then would you like me to deal with him?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Cedric considered Joseph’s proposal, shaking his head in the end.

  “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  Surprise crossed Joseph’s face, making Cedric wonder if that decision seemed so unusual coming from him.

  But Joseph, being as perceptive as he was, understood Cedric’s reasoning without him needing to explain.

  “It’s because of the imperial family?”

  The old assistant moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

  “Indeed. Assassinating that man could incur the wrath of His Highness, the First Prince.”

  Cedric nodded.

  The Norz Merchant Union was a commercial guild created only recently, no more than a few years ago. Yet in that short time, it had expanded its influence throughout the Empire, becoming one of the wealthiest merchant guilds on the continent.

  And one of the reasons for its rapid rise was the backing of the First Prince, who—according to rumors—maintained a close friendship with the Union’s leader.

  Friendship, huh.

  Disdain surfaced on Cedric’s expression.

  To this day, no one knew the identity of the Union’s leader. It was entirely possible that he was, in fact, the First Prince himself, having created it to amass resources and solidify his claim as heir to the throne—a position that had yet to be formally decided.

  In that sense, ordering the assassination of a high-ranking official of the merchant union would be equivalent to declaring the First Prince an enemy.

  “So we’ll just let him go?” Joseph asked with displeasure.

  Leaving a potential threat alone ran counter to all of the old assistant’s instincts, and Cedric agreed with him on that.

  “Have one of our men keep watch on him. If there’s any suspicious activity on his part, report it to me.”

  “As Your Excellency wishes,” Joseph said with a bow before taking his leave.

  How troublesome.

  Cedric clenched his fist. It would be so much simpler if he could just crush him.

  But things were never that simple.

  Politics truly were exhausting.

  …

  “How dare he! How dare he! How dare he!”

  Alistair delivered one, three, five, ten punches to the face of the woman beneath him. The woman, tears streaming down her face and panic filling her eyes, screamed and begged him to stop, but none of it was enough to quell the rage in the man’s heart. He kept punching and punching until the only sensation his fist met was something soft and lifeless.

  “Haa… Haa… Haa…”

  Panting heavily, he collapsed beside her, his belly rising and falling as sweat poured down his body.

  “That bastard…!”

  Yet even after everything, he still couldn’t forget the humiliation he had suffered in the duke’s office. Never in his life had he been humiliated so thoroughly.

  No—only once before…

  “Agh…!”

  Shaking his head, he did not dare complete the thought.

  That’s in the past. I won’t dwell on it. Damn it, all because of him…!

  Who did Cedric think he was? Just because he’d been born with some idiotic noble title, he thought he could look down on him like that?

  He would see. He would pay for it.

  The Norz Merchant Union was one of the wealthiest guilds on the continent—perhaps the wealthiest in the entire Empire. Its influence stretched to every corner. Cedric was sorely mistaken if he thought Alistair was just a humble merchant he could trample so easily.

  Gritting his teeth, Alistair tried to stand, but with all that fat, the task proved impossible.

  Damn it.

  With some effort, he rolled onto his stomach and finally pushed himself upright.

  What a tragedy…

  Turning his gaze to the woman lying on his bed, a look of pity appeared on his face. Of all the slaves he had brought this time, she had been one of the most beautiful—and now look at her.

  All because of that damned duke…!

  If Cedric hadn’t angered him so much, he wouldn’t have lost his temper and ruined such valuable merchandise.

  Even if she wasn’t a virgin, I could still have sold her for several hundred gold coins.

  After all, virgin or not, a female elf was a highly coveted commodity in the South.

  Speaking of which—

  “Hector!” Alistair shouted.

  The next moment, the door to his room opened, and a frail young man with glasses entered. The young man’s gaze flicked from Alistair to the woman’s corpse, then quickly back to Alistair—this time tinged with fear and apprehension.

  “You called for me?” the young man asked hurriedly.

  “Yes, I did,” Alistair said with a foul expression. “Tell Lord Villa to reinforce the spell he placed to protect our merchandise. I don’t want any of the duke’s men snooping around and finding things they shouldn’t.”

  “Did the meeting with the duke go that badly?” Hector asked with a hint of panic.

  That only served to irritate Alistair further, who slapped the young man across the face, knocking him to the ground.

  “And since when do I need to explain myself to you?! Now go do what I told you before I kill you!”

  “Y-yes, sir!”

  Terrified, Hector rushed out of the room.

  Stupid brat.

  Alistair clicked his tongue. If Hector weren’t so good with numbers, Alistair would have gotten rid of him long ago.