Chapter 55. Traces (2)
A man hurried out from the back of the shop and bowed his head to me at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
He was none other than Edlen, the owner of the Edlen Merchant Company and an executive of the Freche Merchant Guild.
An executive of the Merchant Guild was by no means a person of low status in Freche.
Within Freche, such a position could be considered comparable to that of a noble.
“I’ve been waiting for you to arrive, Lord Adrian!!”
Despite that, Edlen treated me with the utmost respect.
His courtesy was somewhat excessive, leaving me momentarily bewildered. However, I quickly recovered and spoke.
“What happened with the matter I mentioned last—”
I suddenly stopped and closed my mouth again.
I had naturally spoken down to him.
Freche was a Free City.
It was a city with social strata but no formal class hierarchy. Even though I was a noble, my status held no authority here.
Naturally, I couldn’t simply speak down to anyone I pleased.
Edlen was clearly older than me. Even so, informal speech had slipped out automatically.
It was a habit.
It wasn’t so much a habit from living as a noble as it was one from my days in the Coalition Forces.
The Coalition Forces operated under a strict rank system.
As the Special Warfare Unit’s Covert Operations Commander, I had usually been the person issuing orders.
Since orders needed to be delivered quickly, I had become accustomed to speaking informally.
That old habit still remained, so the words had slipped out naturally.
It might have been acceptable in the Kingdom of Vatenberg. But since I had come to a Free City, I needed to follow the laws of a Free City.
“Ah, my apologies. It’s a habit of mine, so I spoke informally without realizing it.”
“Not at all!! Please don’t concern yourself with it!”
Instead, Edlen waved both hands as though my apology were completely unnecessary.
“Lord Adrian, aren’t you the esteemed young master of a Count’s household? This lowly one is merely a humble commoner and insignificant merchant. Please feel free to speak informally with me! Hehe....”
Edlen rubbed his palms together as he spoke.
On the surface, he looked like the very picture of a flattering sycophant, but he harbored no ill intentions.
Rather than malice, he regarded me as his benefactor.
That was understandable, considering Edlen primarily traded in wine.
Since wine was an expensive luxury product, his main customers had been limited to the upper class.
However, thanks to me, the number of nobles deliberately traveling to Freche to purchase monster meat had surged.
In a way, Edlen could be considered the merchant who had benefited most in all of Freche.
Besides.
Since he was going that far, there was no reason for me to insist on speaking formally.
“Then I’ll speak comfortably.”
“Of course! Of course! Only now can this lowly man finally feel at ease!”
Only then did Edlen release a relieved sigh.
He treated me almost like a king.
It seemed he had earned far more profit than I had imagined.
And here in Freche, money was absolute power.
Whether one was a Merchant Guild executive or something else, everyone was equal before money.
“So, what happened with the matter I mentioned last time?”
“You mean your request that we investigate a man named Ian?”
When I nodded, Edlen adopted a confident expression.
“Following Lord Adrian’s instructions, our Merchant Guild dispatched people to every Free City across the continent!”
The strength in his voice suggested that he had achieved something.
When my eyes lit up, Edlen quickly continued.
“....Unfortunately, however, we were unable to find any traces of the man named Ian.”
Edlen immediately became dejected.
The confident expression he had worn only moments earlier vanished without a trace.
Now he merely watched my reaction nervously.
….If that was all he had to say, I wondered why he had looked so confident.
In any case, they hadn’t found any traces of Ian.
‘Ian, where in the world are you wandering while supposedly searching for me?’
Whether in the past or the present, I could never understand what went on inside his head.
Strictly speaking, however, it had been my past self who wandered around.
Regardless, this didn’t mean the investigation had produced no results whatsoever.
I had at least learned that Ian wasn’t currently in any of the Free Cities.
In other words, the scope of the search for Ian had narrowed.
More importantly, the Merchant Guild’s information network remained active.
Even if Ian visited a Free City later, I would immediately learn about it.
Just as I swallowed my disappointment—.
“There is one exception.”
Edlen watched my expression once more before slowly continuing.
“We were unable to investigate Violess.”
“Violess?”
If he meant Violess....
“Are you referring to the Lawless City?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Violess.
Like Freche, Violess was a Free City.
However, it wasn’t a city specializing in a particular industry such as commerce, livestock farming, or mining.
It was a city without law or order.
In other words, it was a Lawless City.
Free Cities had no absolute authorities such as Monarchs or territorial lords.
That also meant they lacked the power to control various criminal organizations and armed groups.
Extreme freedom had destroyed even the most basic law and order, allowing powerful people who enforced their own rules to seize control.
Consequently, ‘military power’ was the absolute authority in the Lawless City of Violess.
That was why merchants didn’t visit the city.
With law and order having collapsed, no contract could be trusted.
Merchant Companies that traveled there were frequently robbed of everything they possessed.
Most merchants didn’t even dare attempt a trading expedition there.
Even so, one Merchant Company continued operating within the Lawless City—
“The Dark Merchant Company has Violess completely under its control....”
“The Dark Merchant Company?”
“Well, they’re an extremely shady group.”
Edlen continued explaining the Dark Merchant Company. But there was no need for me to listen to his explanation.
I already knew about the Dark Merchant Company.
In fact, I knew far more about it than Edlen did.
All the information I had obtained through investigation during my service as the Special Warfare Unit’s Covert Operations Commander remained within my memories.
The Dark Merchant Company.
As its name suggested, the Dark Merchant Company was a secret alliance of merchants that operated within the shadows.
“They primarily conduct illegal transactions and distribute prohibited goods such as slaves. They usually accumulate enormous wealth through black markets.”
Naturally, they ignored matters such as law and morality. They would use any means necessary to obtain a profit.
They readily distributed unethical and repulsive commodities.
“You can assume that the Dark Merchant Company distributes nearly every illegal weapon, poison, ancient artifact, magically forbidden item, and cursed object found across the continent.”
It was an enormous organization operating a continent-wide black-market network.
Through that network, it maintained deep connections with criminal groups, corrupt political figures, and even noble society in various nations, sharing profits with numerous factions.
“However, every member and executive of the Dark Merchant Company maintains complete anonymity. Consequently, no one knows anything about the organization.”
Even its clients remained completely anonymous.
“Who operates the Dark Merchant Company? Who belongs to it? Where is its primary base, and how does it operate? No one knows.”
Edlen awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
If even a merchant sensitive to information spoke like that, it was safe to assume the organization was completely shrouded in secrecy.
That was also why people called it the ‘Dark Merchant Company’.
The organization’s actual name wasn’t the Dark Merchant Company.
People had given it that name because no one knew its true name.
More precisely, the concept of ‘unknown knowledge’ had been replaced with the word ‘dark’.
It signified that nothing about the organization could be known, as though it were surrounded by darkness.
Technically, ‘Unknown Merchant Company’ would have been a more accurate description.
But because that sounded strange and was unnecessarily long, people simply called it the ‘Dark Merchant Company’.
In any case, everything about the Dark Merchant Company, including its identity, was concealed behind a veil of secrecy.
However.
I knew the truth.
During my time in the Coalition Forces, I had investigated the Dark Merchant Company and uncovered its true name.
The Devotees of the Fallen Souls.
That was the Dark Merchant Company’s true name.
It sounded more like the name of a religious organization than a Merchant Company, and that was indeed what it was.
The Dark Merchant Company wasn’t a merchant organization.
It was a type of ‘religious organization’.
It was a dangerous religion that worshiped darkness and forbidden knowledge while wielding the world’s hidden powers.
Its objective was to destroy the continent’s established order and lead the world into chaos and ruin.
I had also investigated each of its key members.
I knew the identities of everyone from the small number of leaders at its highest level to its middle managers and trade brokers.
Ultimately, I had even uncovered the identity of the Dark Merchant Company’s leader and the ‘god’ whom its devotees worshiped and followed.
One of the Six Monarchs who served the Emperor.
The Monarch of the Abyss.
He was the god worshiped by the devotees of the Dark Merchant Company.
* * *
Because of that, there had been no way to counter him.
Neither the Saintess’ miracles nor the Archmage’s mental-defense magic could resist him.
Neither the Spirit Wielder’s spirits nor the Blacksmith’s armaments could resist him.
Nothing had been effective against the Monarch of the Abyss’s [An Unknowable Terror Beyond Explanation].
Consequently, the Coalition Forces couldn’t obtain any information about the Monarch of the Abyss.
What kind of being was he?
What were his abilities?
We couldn’t even determine his appearance.
Of course, information concerning the other Monarchs could be uncovered to some extent by piecing fragments together.
However, the Monarch of the Abyss—one of the Six Monarchs serving the Emperor—was different.
The Coalition Forces called the Monarch of the Abyss [An Unknowable Terror Beyond Explanation].
True to its name, it couldn’t be explained.
◆Player’s Will[EX] resists the Void of Memory!
Whenever we approached the truth concerning the Monarch of the Abyss, everyone inexplicably went insane from overwhelming terror and fear.
The same thing happened whenever we encountered the Monarch of the Abyss.
During the war against him, not a single member of the Coalition Forces confronted the Monarch of the Abyss directly.
Neither I nor the heroes of the Coalition Forces were exceptions.
There was only one person.
Ian, the Coalition Forces’ Commander-in-Chief and Hero.
Only Ian could confront the Monarch of the Abyss.
That was because Ian alone refused to succumb to the Monarch of the Abyss’ [An Unknowable Terror Beyond Explanation].
Player’s Will[EX].
However, even that ability didn’t grant complete immunity to mental attacks. It merely prevented his mind from collapsing immediately.
Like the rest of us, Ian still felt afraid and trembled in terror.
Even so, Ian overcame it.
He confronted the Monarch of the Abyss alone and ultimately succeeded in annihilating him.
Afterward, when Ian attempted to describe the Monarch of the Abyss, he said—
—Should I call it the final evil that rises from the center of eternity while whispering chaos?
—What?
—Or should I call it the last blasphemous entity, born at the edge of the abyss after thrashing violently throughout endless time?
—What are you talking about?
—Perhaps it was a formless evil created by chaos within the abyss of infinite perpetuity, ceaselessly surging at the center of eternity—the final unclean being formed at the bottom of hell.
He spouted so much nonsense that I couldn’t understand him.
Whenever we asked him about the Monarch of the Abyss, he said things like that.
Therefore, the Coalition Forces assumed that the damage Ian had suffered from the Monarch of the Abyss remained within him and was clouding his mind.
We believed that although the Monarch of the Abyss had been annihilated, merely remembering and recalling him inflicted psychological damage upon Ian.
I hadn’t known it at the time.
But Player’s Will[EX] didn’t grant complete mental immunity either.
Since the Monarch of the Abyss had already been annihilated, we saw no reason to interrogate Ian about every detail.
As a result, we stopped asking him about the Monarch of the Abyss.
‘If I had known things would turn out like this, perhaps I should have questioned him more thoroughly.’
There was nothing I could do about regretting it now.
In any case, the Dark Merchant Company.
In other words, the Devotees of the Fallen Souls worshiped the Monarch of the Abyss.
They were beings who had received power and authority from the Monarch of the Abyss.
That was why the Dark Merchant Company couldn’t be dismissed as a simple smuggling organization.
Although it remained hidden, it was an enormous faction that manipulated wealth and power from behind the continent’s public facade.
“I’ve even heard rumors that they control kingdoms by turning their kings into puppets.”
Edlen spoke cautiously.
However, it wasn’t merely a rumor.
It was the truth.
The Dark Merchant Company was deeply involved in the politics and economies of various kingdoms.
That was what made the Dark Merchant Company so terrifying.
It maintained political patrons and collaborators within the noble societies of every kingdom.
It could even mobilize a kingdom’s army, which meant that official law-enforcement institutions couldn’t easily interfere with it.
It wasn’t an opponent that the Merchant Guild of a mere Free City could handle.
Later, when the Emperor invaded the continent, that influence played a decisive role in causing the continent to collapse almost instantaneously.
One year.
That was all the time required for every kingdom and city on the continent to disappear from the map.
All of this pointed toward a single conclusion.
‘Has the Dark Merchant Company already begun moving...?’
It meant the Emperor had already begun making preparations.
The Dark Merchant Company might worship the Monarch of the Abyss, but he was ultimately one of the Six Monarchs who served the Emperor.
In other words, the Dark Merchant Company was moving according to the Emperor’s will.
‘They’ve already completed the experiment involving the Lycanthrope as well....’
The Emperor was truly meticulous beyond measure.
Naturally, I couldn’t leave the Dark Merchant Company alone.
Like the Lycanthrope, it had to be completely uprooted.
It seemed that.
To search for Ian’s traces and to investigate the Dark Merchant Company.
‘I’ll have to visit Violess personally.’
It seemed I would need to visit the Lawless City of Violess.
However, going alone would be impossible.
The strength of a Monarch was on another level.
Even the heroes of the Coalition Forces were incapable of dealing with a Monarch.
Only Ian could oppose one.
But Ian’s whereabouts remained unknown.
‘For now, I need to treat Seraphia first.’
The only being capable of opposing the Monarch of the Abyss was the Monarch of Frost.
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