The Empire was highly vigint toward great nobles possessing extraordinary abilities and imposed strict restrictions upon them. As a seventh-tier great noble of the Empire, Baron Feller was entitled to be guarded by eight knights. At the outbreak of war, he sent six of them to the Duke’s side, where they joined his campaign in South Seraph. Later, during a failed ambush in the same region, Baron Feller and the remaining two knights fell in battle.

  Thus, Silver Dove Castle became vulnerable, with little strength left to defend it.

  Despite his immense wealth, Baron Feller had never considered hiring outsiders for protection, confident in the power of his eight extraordinary knights.

  In the faraway Eastern nations of Earth, where peace had endured for too long, many young people cked the awareness that hiring someone for bor and hiring someone to risk their life were fundamentally different transactions—marked by a vast difference in cost.

  Charlot Mecklenburg had once wondered why Baron Feller didn’t hire a team of detectives or adventurers. But as he grew more familiar with this world, he came to understand one essential truth: hiring a Transcendent for tasks, hiring one for assassination, and hiring one for war were three entirely different price points.

  A few flor could get a Transcendent to handle a minor task. Several écus could secure an assassination. However, it would take at least ten times that amount to recruit a Transcendent for a war.

  After all, the first two services involved selling skills, while the third meant selling one’s life.

  The lives of Transcendents were, indeed, exceptionally valuable.

  Baron Feller had only about 10,000 écus in liquid assets, just enough to hire a dozen Transcendents for no more than ten days of battle.

  The baron was reluctant to part with his money—or to exchange his most prized collection for funds to hire Transcendents.

  Charlot, on the other hand, valued life over wealth.

  He certainly wasn’t going to use his "precious" cash to hire Transcendents. Instead, he saw the baron’s luxury items—those difficult-to-liquidate treasures gathering dust in Silver Dove Castle—as ideal for conversion into funds. With these, he could hire extraordinary detectives and adventurers to increase his odds of survival in the coming conflict. After all, those treasures weren’t Charlot’s; they were Baron Feller’s.

  Only the victor could cim the richest spoils.

  Losers, on the other hand, got nothing.

  Charlot spent an entire day in "secret negotiations" with two individuals at Silver Dove Castle, finalizing two deals: Charlot handed 50 luxury items to Louis Simy and another 35 to Ross Bard. Both merchants agreed to convert these items into cash and use the funds to hire a team of detectives and adventurers for him.

  The two merchants never met and had no knowledge of each other's involvement.

  Driven by profit, merchants couldn’t be fully trusted with one’s fate. Charlot had no intention of entrusting more critical matters to them. His goal was simply to transform the baron’s wealth into forces that could aid him.

  As Charlot focused all his efforts on bolstering Silver Dove Castle’s defenses, Hughes identified over a dozen young men who had studied in Strasbourg, any one of whom could have been the murderer of Johan.

  In this era, photographs didn’t exist, and even painted portraits were rare. Hughes could only rely on written records to deduce which individual had killed Johan.

  By coincidence, the first file Hughes picked up was that of Charlot Mecklenburg. As he read about Charlot’s licentious lifestyle—including an incident where Charlot, pursued by a sword-wielding rival, ran naked through a bustling market—Hughes promptly tore up the file in disgust, muttering, "How could someone like this possibly be the murderer of Johan?"

  A man of discipline himself, Hughes looked down upon individuals like Charlot. Moreover, Charlot had charged into battle and pierced through the South Seraph restorationists’ lines, personally sying Johan with unparalleled bravery.

  If this Charlot Mecklenburg possessed such skill, how could he have ever been humiliated to the point of fleeing naked through the streets? According to rumors, even Charlot’s fiancée had looked down upon him and had long since annulled their engagement.

  Could someone like that have killed Johan in such a valorous manner?

  Was someone pulling a joke on him?

  Charlot, meanwhile, didn’t know whether Louis Simy and Ross Bard would bring him hope and aid or if they’d simply abscond with the luxury items and wait to see if he died at Silver Dove Castle.

  Regardless of the uncertain future, Charlot had to make his move. Betting on this pn was better than sitting atop a mountain of gold, waiting to die.

  He dismissed the two merchants and locked himself in his room.

  This was once Baron Feller’s bedroom—spacious and luxurious, located at the highest point of Silver Dove Castle. With two terraces offering sweeping views of the entire city and the vast pins beyond, it rivaled the most expensive mansions on Earth.

  Charlot id out thirty extraordinary artifacts before him. Although he had possessed these treasures for many days, this was his first opportunity to truly admire them.

  Baron Feller had amassed a collection of forty-five extraordinary artifacts. Six had been taken to the battlefield and lost. Three had been loaned out and could not be retrieved. Charlot had gifted six others—one each to Dolores Soumet and Frederica, and the remaining four to his subordinates Yellow Bear, Dubin, Spotted Deer Gwen, and Gale Wolf Bancroft. That left him with thirty items.

  Among these, Charlot’s favorite was a high-grade artifact called Dark Luxury, a magnificent carriage now reduced to a gemstone ring worn quietly on his left index finger.

  Magical and extraordinary artifacts, like humans, were ranked: low-grade, mid-grade, high-grade, and even saint-grade.

  As a baron, Baron Feller’s collection didn’t include any saint-grade items. It did, however, feature two high-grade artifacts: Dark Luxury and Floating Blossoms, both crafted by the saint alchemist, Stardust.

  Floating Blossoms was a flying artifact. In the Old Continent, only saint-grade individuals could naturally take to the skies. Sub-saint-grade flying artifacts were extremely rare, appearing at major auctions no more than once in a decade.

  Thus, Floating Blossoms was even more valuable than Dark Luxury. Baron Feller had spent years of Silver Dove Castle’s tax revenue to acquire it and had scarcely used it after the purchase.

  Stardust, the saint alchemist, had happened upon a batch of exotic flower seeds from another realm. These flowers bloomed for years without withering and possessed the remarkable property of levitation.

  Having consulted numerous experts who failed to identify the flowers, Stardust named them Floating Blossoms. Inspired, he crafted the artifact Floating Blossoms.

  Stardust never obtained a second batch of such seeds, making Floating Blossoms a truly unique and precious artifact.

  However, like Dark Luxury, Floating Blossoms was not a weapon and could not be used in combat.