-Don´t be so hard on him, majesty, youth should be enjoyed, that includes the princess.
Who talked was one of the nobles sharing the table, all his being was the representation of licentiousness, a trained sunbathed body covered by multiple gems, silver chains, and golden rings. He had the clothes of a businessman and the freshness of a surfer. His yellow unbuttoned shirt and long brown hair were well known in the district he supervised. A griffon-shaped badge of translucent metal was on his chest, giving to understand how high his rank was and his relation with Lafonia´s kingdom.
-I thank your efforts to help me mister Algimatas, but please stop.
-C´mon, don´t be so cold, for something we shared saliva.
-If you´re going to talk like that then don´t.
-Gehehe.
Algimatas Ashwin.
Although his appearance and way to talk were a bit carefree, he's the archduke that watches over the west district, where all the tourism and entertainment of the capital is.
Thanks to his great ideas and skills regarding business, he climbed to the rank of archduke from a bed of golden coins and naked bodies of both genders.
Funny fact, there was a statue about that on his territory.
I just hope to forget that soon.
"Share saliva?" Asked both women to my sides with a gaze carrying deception and astonishment.
-We drank from the same jar of beer playing, I assure you is nothing your minds are telling you.
-... A jar of beer... I see... Good.
-... A-A game eh.
Before they could throw away my heterosexuality I managed to explain the confusing words of that excentric bisexual.
In the closest part of the wall, there's a zone known as "The bed of Aphrodite", where the brothels and pubs are opened all night.
For business reasons, I visited some establishments with this guy, once we were done talking about money we had a party, and effectively I ended up on a brothel´s bed, but I was accompanied by a beautiful woman of silver hair, not him.
Algimatas and I had a deal wherein exchange of knowledge about cocktails and sex toys, I obtained a percentage of the earnings generated by the places that sold the product.
I have a friend on earth whose uncle is a bartender, and I met the toys thanks to one of my bondage fanatic ex-girlfriends.
I wonder how Lea would look with a dominatrix costume...
Hella hot I bet...
-Mister Roberto, We have created a new recipe based on his advice, please come to the restaurant when things calm down, I ask of you.
-Hm? Ah, great, you can be sure I will, mister Romero.
-Okokoko, Splendid!
Romero Wellington.
It was a fat man that was always wearing his green chef uniform, the bandana on his left arm had the same badge as Algimatas. The man had a kind face and huge never-ending smile, out of work he was a very calm and accessible person, but inside the kitchen, he turned into the cousin of Gordon Ramsay.
Romero wasn´t just a chef, he was "The chef".
He was who took care of the dishes served to the royal family and the servants, according to his colleagues, he´s considered as one of the best human cookers in existence.
All a gourmet expert of foods and ingredients from all around the world.
Some people consider him as some kind of saint of food, so he was very respected and admired by the people in the kingdom.
Everything related to food and lodging was under his jurisdiction, making the south district his responsibility.
Like Algimatas, we had a deal where I taught him recipes and culinary secrets of my word in exchange for a percentage of the money generated by his restaurants and inns.
Learning to cook is a complete blessing when you´re living alone.
-Algimatas, take this more seriously, Romero, if you have time to be so calm then use it to fix the problem instead of talk about food, Or by any chance, you think this is a game?
A deep voice that barely came as feminine. Despite the scolding was being given to the archdukes, her sharp black eyes were on me.
A long scarlet hair covered half of a delicate face raised by rectitude. A well-developed body for combat that didn´t cease to be appealing. The black military german uniform embracing her body and the badges hanging on her chest gave her an air too intimidating to start any casual chat. Her military hat had the same badge that the other archdukes.
-Easy Mayi, the mood is already quite dense with those pictures, we don´t need to get intense.
The eyes of death finally stopped to stab me, now they were doing it to the yellow guy.
-... Intense?... Do you think I´m being intense?...
It was never good to leave a short temper woman near a carefree man, I remembered that when I saw these 2.
-A bit, yhea.
Thump! *
If it wasn´t because the table was enchanted sure would have broke.
-To begin with, This wouldn´t have happened if we had mobilized the army! Now not only do we have to deal with the cult, but now we also have a fucking serial murderer out there! This is not the moment to relax with prostitutes or the food of a fucking restaurant!
OHHHH SHIIIIIT.
What she said was true, but I would never have said it that way, much less when I have the fucking king at my side.
-... Mayida.
The voice of Fardan was way too calm for this situation, however, It managed to paralyze the woman that had hit the table.
-You´re in the presence of the king and the royal family, control yourself.
After noticing what she had done, the redheaded woman deeply bowed her head.
The other archdukes did the same.
Damn, what a change of attitude.
-I´m so sorry your majesty! I lost my temper for a second! ... I´ll accept any punishment!
-My apologies majesty, I should have been more conscious of my words, I´m the reason for the archduchess rage, so I´ll receive the punishment.
-No food is more important than life, I apologize for my indulgence, my lord.
Looking at the king you would think he's not mad at all, but something was telling me that the jokes were over... For the sake of our necks...
-... Raise your heads.
The adults obeyed.
-Algimatas, Romero, if you have something to discuss with the hero do it after the meeting, right now I need you focused on what we have in front of us.
Both men nodded as they apologized.
-Archduchess Mayida, for the sake of your post, I hope this never happens again.
-... It won´t majesty...
-Good.
All returned to their seats.
Archduchess of the north district; Mayida Berenguer.
Weapons, soldiers, beast taming.
All the north district was made for the war, and who controlled said district was this woman.
Unlike the other nobles, I tried to stay away from her, I didn´t want to have something to be with the army.
It´s not like I didn´t have anything to offer, in fact, I had a whole world of weapons and machines for the war in my head, and I knew how to build a good quantity of them.
I´m sure she would be capable to make most of my knowledge to defeat the demons and increase the kingdom's security, and that´s fine by me.
The problem is what will happen after that when the demons and the cult have been eradicated.
Once the common enemy has been defeated, Who will be next? Against who will they use their weapons? With what purpose?
It was easy to get an answer to those questions, and even though I was unable to see the future, I had an idea of what would happen.
I´m already leaving a puddle of blood in this world, is not necessary to make it a sea.
-If there aren´t more comments, let´s continue, forgive the interruption, mister Roberto.
A bit anxious about being put in the spot again I showed my work smile as I said "No problem sir".
Guess it´s time to work.
I shut down all unnecessary feelings and began to talk.
-All right, our problems here are the traitors in the guard, the location of the cultists, and the person hunting them.
-In that case, we have to deal with the traitors first.
Mayida went directly to what she cared, however, I agree with her.
-General, How possible is an infiltration?
-Not much, the only possibilities are that they stole the uniform and supplanted the guard on his patrol or used magic to change their appearance. If they were in the barracks we would have noticed the infiltration due to the corporal exams and mana ID.
Identity falsification was something very rare in this world thanks to the existence of mana.
The mana coding of each ID was as unique as the fingerprints and only the dealers and the royal family know the production method, so is not hard at all to know where to invest if there´s an information leak.
-They had to have help from inside anyways.
-What makes you think that? Asked Samanta.
-Tattoos can be hidden by clothes and makeup, and it´s not like the mana ID can tell us if a person is a cultist or not, if they could we would have identified them all a while ago. Also, the situation appears quite convenient to me, I mean, a cart with corpses arrive, people come out of curiosity, and 20 of them are kidnapped by the guards patrolling that zone at that moment.
-If you put it that way it definitely sounds suspicious, But can´t we say the same of all the other patrols if something similar happened?
Algimatas had a point, death was quite common in this world, so met with the carts is not that weird, there are always groups of soldiers patrolling the whole capital so be surprised by their encounter with said carts would be exaggerated.
Thanks to that normality murderers are so easy to do.
-Someone has the patrol records?
To answer my question Mayida gave me a pile of documents.
-Let´s see...
Names, routes, patrolling times, affiliations.
A good amount of information was written in these papers.
Before keep reading I established a connection with Fei Xue.
-How can I help you?
-The names of the agenda, repeat them to me.
-Right away.
Confused by her formal speech I began to focus on the documents.
After some minutes I found similarities.
Curious enough, a lot of the guards were linked to several of the noble houses that supported the cult. Wouldn't be weird to think that some of them were doing their crap inside the guard.
-Can someone give me a pen or something to write?
Samanta gave me a feather and a jar of ink.
After thanking her I started to mark all the guards that patrolled the zone where the rituals occurred, I did the same with the noble houses that they represented.
While the feather painted the paper my sides were invaded by stares.
-Did you find something?
-I think so, results that a lot of the guards that patrolled the zone where the cultists acted are linked with the same noble houses, I´m marking them so you can invest and interrogate them later. Be discreet, I know that inspections are notified to the houses a week in advance, but I recommend you to act as soon as possible with all the houses at once, that way they won´t have time to hide any possible probe nor advice their allies to prepare themselves.
-Wait a moment! Wasn´t that too fast?!
The words of Mayida contained the feelings of everyone, no one expected to have a list of possible traitors so quick.
-This is the best hint we have, if we wait for more incidents to happen we´ll only sacrifice more civilians.
I finished putting marks and returned the documents to Mayida, who shared them with the other members of the table.
-Most are houses with not much authority and land, but several of their members are part of the guard, they don´t have notable achievements so their ranks are quite low. To me, they are the perfect suspects for a betrayal.
-... It is good logic and it seems like a good hint, but...
-Is this really fine?
-... Mister Roberto...
-Yes?
-Can we trust this? If things end up wrong a lot of the houses will lose their confidence in the crown.
-And with that, an inter conflict might explode, I know.
I got up from my seat and looked at the king´s eyes with a comforting smile.
"I got the information directly of the death and cold hands of the cultists, so you can be sure it's reliable!". I would like to say that, to avoid losing time, but then I would be the condemned one.
So I have to offer insurance.
-That´s why I offer my life as compensation in the case that no traitors are found.