3 bar menu

Volume 6 Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1 Maelstrom

A painful scream resounded in the basement of the Rossini family’s castle in the city of Laxia.

There are several prisons located there, and various torture tools are available for the staff stationed there. Since this place was built, more than 1,000 sinners against the Rossini family have lost their lives after being tortured there, even though prisons are meant for temporary confinement, and the people laced in them are not meant to be confined for long. Death or flogging are the usual punishments employed by the Rossini family, and any crime committed could always be mitigated with a high-enough payment.

「How dare you run away after letting Salvador die?! 」

Pederico Rossini’s eldest son, Doni, was raising his voice.

「P-Please forgive me… have mercy… 」

The people who were chained to the walls desperately begged for mercy. They are the children of a subordinate Lord who accompanied Salvador Rossini, the third son of the head of the Rossini family, in hunting down Theo Cornero. It was an entourage of his who always acted together.

Their faces were now red and swollen, and their noses and mouths were bleeding.

「Why didn’t you protect Salvador? You were supposed to be his friends, and isn’t friendship all about throwing your life away for your friends when they need it without a second thought? 」

Doni beat the men one after another while raising his voice even higher.

Salvador managed to corner Theo in his home village, but the villagers sided with Theo and rebelled against the Rossini family. A battle ensued, and in the following skirmish Salvador was defeated and killed by Theo.

「It would’ve been better if you cut them some slack, you know?

Juzel, who was leaning against the wall and watching the situation unfold called out to his older brother. Doni held his fist up and turned his face towards him.

「Why? They’re the reason Salvador died, you know? 」

「Really? Because I don’t think so. Apparently Salvador challenged Theo Cornero because he was confident in his own swordsmanship. 」

If they were engaging in a regular duel, then Salvador probably wouldn’t have lost against Theo Cornero, but they were on a battlefield where his opponent was wearing armor and had a shield, and since Salvador excelled at fighting with a rapier, then it would’ve been difficult for him to best his opponent without an overwhelming difference in skill.

In a duel, Salvador might not have lost to Theo. But on the battlefield, your opponent wears armor and has a shield. With the rapier that Salvador excelled at, without this difference in skill, it would be impossible to defeat the opponent.

「According to the report from the soldiers that survived, when the situation on the battlefield took a turn for the worse, they went and tried to flee before anyone else!」

Doni said so and started swinging his fists at the people chained to the walls again, causing pained groans and the sound of vomiting blood to reverberate across the prison again.

(Good grief.)

Juzel knew that when his brother ended up getting himself into such a foul mood, there was no stopping him until he was done. Petitions for sparing the lives of the youths written by their parents have already arrived at the Rossini family’s mansion, but if Doni’s behavior was any indicator, then it was highly unlikely that any of them would actually be granted.

It’s probably true that they fled the battlefield early. But even if they had stayed there and continued to fight, he doesn’t think that they could have saved Salvador. Their presence there would only result in more casualties on the Rossini family’s side.

(It all ended like that even though Boltz was there…)

He is an excellent assassin. The only time he failed to assassinate his designated target was when Pederico Rossini ordered him to take out Theo Cornero during the Lord’s Conference in Halusia. Even then, the only reason why he managed to survive was because apparently Theo Cornero had an excellent Chamberlain on his side as well. And then there was also the misfortune of him choosing to attack at the moment when he was secretly visited by Alexis Ducet, the Marquis of Halusia and the leader of the Fantasia Union.

(Salvador would never be capable of using Boltz to his full potential anyway.)

Probably Salvador wasn’t good at using bolts)

His brother also took a Black Witch named Yana with him to Marza village

The Black Witch was the one who assassinated the two Archukes during what later came to be known as 「The Tragedy of the Grand Catedral」, so even if she continued to hide on the continent, she’d risk turning the entirety of it against her at one point or another. The Rossini’s wanted her to show them the ability that would match what she did back in Elam, but at the current moment, all that Juzel could say about her performance was that she fell short of his expectations.

There was no information that Boltz and Yana were killed in battle. However, as of now, neither of them had returned to Laxia. The only time they’ll probably be back is when they’ll have any kind of accomplishment to their names that would clear the blunder that they made.

(Show me how much your pride is actually worth.)

Juzel muttered that to himself.

His brother’s beating of the young men continued. His fists looked badly damaged themselves, but he didn’t seem to care about that at all, almost as if his fists were filled with the anger and sorrow of death itself.

Even if all the men here are going to be beaten to death, Juzel’s brother will not stop until he’ll be utterly done with them.

However, after a while, the Chamberlain and the contracted Mage who served their father Pederico came down to the basement and told them that their father was calling Doni and Juzel to see him.

Doni clicked his tongue in displeasure and hits the men before him one more time before heading up the stairs.

One by one, Juzel checked the weak, drooping men. Two have already died, and the rest were in critical condition.

「Take care of them so we could exchange them for their families’ money. 」

Juzel whispered to the contracted Mage and followed his older brother to their father’s office.

When they entered the room, they saw their father, Pederico Rossini, sitting in a chair with a dejected look on his face. It was the first time in their lives when they saw their father looking like that.

「Father… 」

When Juzel called out, their father slowly turned his face towards them.

「After what happened at Marza village, were there any villages who also rebelled against us? 」

Their father put his hand on the armrest and slowly stood up.

「Not for now, at least. 」

There have been those who tried to rebel against the Rossini family before, but they have always been killed before they could even start anything that would even remotely resemble a rebellion. But once an actual rebellion ignites, it will not take much for it to flare up out of control, and This is what the Rossini family feared the most.

However, in the villages around Sistina, there were also those who remained loyal to the Rossini family, and merchants, peddlers and travelling entertainers are also their hidden spies. In accordance with his father’s orders, Juzel was the one who was responsible for coordinating and controlling their actions. Thanks to all of that, the Rossini’s thought that they had an accurate and ironclad grip on the island and that they could know about everything that’s happening all around Sistina… but apparently they were wrong.

「The inhabitants of Sistina are still afraid of us, and that’s what’s the most important right now. 」

「This Theo… I thought that his father has been killed by our people after someone reported him for building a secret granary at the outskirts of Marza village. If that’s true, then why isn’t he resenting the people of the village for what they did? 」

「If I were to guess, then he probably hates us, the people who executed his father, more than he hates the people of the village for ratting him out. 」

Pederico Rossini has ran a thorough research in regards to Theo Cornero’s origins. His father owned a relatively large farm with several tenant farmers who worked on it for him. But if he build such a secret granary, then he must’ve tricked the tax collectors and hid whatever he stole from the Rossini family’s rightful share to keep it as rations for the cases of emergencies

It was against the law established by the Rossini family, but even so, they were not actively cracking down on such activities, because they didn’t want the island’s inhabitants to actually starve to death or cause it to become deserted.