Chapter 191. The Mastermind
Having secured the information from Clarisse, Jurgen returned to the North without delay.
He travelled from the capital Albion to Nortaris by express train. The scenery outside the window blurred into dots, the speed was so great—and yet even that time felt like an eternity.
The moment he arrived at the base, Serena came out to meet him, having already received word.
"Jurgen! What about Penelope?"
"We're going to find her now."
"Take my car! It's the fastest one!"
Without a word of question or complaint, Serena handed over the keys to the Caliburn X.
"The tuning isn't finished yet, but it should still do the job."
"Thank you. Stay safe."
After giving Serena those parting words, Aiden immediately took the wheel.
Vroooooom—!!!
The vehicle slid across the rain-soaked dirt road. The Caliburn X roared and tore through the rugged terrain, delivering exactly the speed Serena had boasted of.
"Rosemore's reach really is something. Obscenely vast piece of land, this."
"They've been the North's shield since time immemorial."
Aiden shook his head as he turned the wheel. He hadn't expected the Rosemore main family's Territory to be quite this extensive.
It encompassed an entire mountain range, so no matter how long they drove, the end was nowhere in sight.
"Stop here. We'll continue on foot."
"Yes, sir."
Jurgen and Aiden pulled the car to a halt in the middle of a forest path dense with conifers. The engine noise posed too great a risk of shattering the forest's silence.
Going any further would risk drawing unwanted attention.
"Haah……."
After stepping out of the car, Jurgen and Aiden spread a wide camouflage tarp over the conspicuous red body of the vehicle.
"Move out."
Their destination was the first-priority location Clarisse had marked on the map. A bunker-type cave that had once served as a military supply depot during wartime before being decommissioned.
The two moved through the forest like shadows. Without making a single sound, they descended a sheer cliff face. There, concealed behind dense undergrowth, a heavy iron door revealed itself.
"……."
Aiden sent a hand signal. Jurgen gave a nod, drew an Alchemy Catalyst from his coat, and approached the door quietly.
Something of this level didn't even call for the Dice.
Shwww.
Jurgen's hand moved, a flash of Magic Power—and the thick iron door melted away in an instant. Without hesitation, he threw himself into the darkness.
Each covering the other's blind spot, they assessed the interior structure, any possible personnel, any traps. Aiden had a dagger ready; Jurgen trained a low-lethality wind-type Alchemy technique.
"……."
"……."
Silence. Empty. Nothing but the damp smell of mildew, the sound of the wind, and water droplets falling from the ceiling.
Jurgen tapped two fingers forward twice.
The two advanced in perfect sync, like serpents crawling through the dark.
The interior was vast. High ceilings hewn from bedrock, wooden crates stacked and mouldering with damp. The unmistakable appearance of a military installation.
Moving with quiet precision, Jurgen swallowed a low sound.
"Hmm……."
"Nothing here."
"Nothing on your side either?"
"No, sir. Not even a trace of anyone coming or going."
That was the whole of it. Not a person in sight—not even a bat.
They conducted a thorough search for any hidden shelter or concealed space further inside. That too came to nothing. If people had been passing through, there should inevitably have been at least some small trace—but not so much as the tiniest clue remained.
Jurgen exhaled a long, slow breath.
"A dead end."
"Damn it!"
Aiden kicked a rusty storage shelf in frustration.
"Sir, are we sure we can trust that woman? What if she sent us here just to waste our time?"
Aiden's concern was not unreasonable.
"Might as well have been a trap—at least then we could've grabbed someone and had a proper interrogation. I'm starting to wonder if we're just going to keep running in circles until it's over."
This too was something Jurgen had considered.
"I don't think so."
Still, Jurgen believed Clarisse had told him the truth.
He couldn't be certain. As he had said before—those who lived in the political arena were creatures whose faces and hearts were entirely different things.
And yet—that crumbling expression, those trembling lips and quivering eyes. She resembled Penelope the way a sister would.
Jurgen had his dull moments, but had he not spent nearly three years by Penelope's side? Just as he could read Penelope's mood from her face at a glance, he had been able to read sincerity in Clarisse's wavering eyes.
"Now is the time to trust."
Jurgen drew the neatly folded map from his coat again. Red crosses were scattered densely across it.
"On to the next location."
Jurgen and Aiden surveyed a total of three locations. The key sites Clarisse had pinpointed.
"Damn, another dead end."
The second location was just as empty as the first.
The third was a Villa built beside a hot spring area.
At least this one had people. The servants who maintained the Villa, that is.
"……This one's a dead end too."
But there were no guards, and no hidden spaces. Despite a reasonably thorough search, there was not a trace of Penelope to be found.
Jurgen unfolded the map again. 'Suspicious Locations'—densely marked across it.
He felt nothing but a bleak sense of futility.
"This approach doesn't seem to be working."
"……Agreed."
"When are we ever going to get through all of these?"
Aiden glanced at the map and clicked his tongue.
"Even if we searched this entire vast territory one by one, it would take days. Today alone, we've only managed three locations."
Jurgen's eyes trembled faintly with barely contained urgency. His usually cool-headed logic kept faltering in the face of the variable that was 'Penelope's disappearance.'
Vroooom—!!!
Returning to the Y&P Trading Company manor without a single lead. The car came to a stop in the front courtyard.
The manor was as silent as a dark and lightless ossuary. As if the bright, cheerful days that had filled it day after day had never existed.
Penelope was gone; Brigitte and Serena had already been evacuated to a Safe House Aiden had prepared in advance. There was nothing to be done about that.
"Back to square one."
Aiden struck the steering wheel with his palm and sighed. His body felt as though weighted with lead, and the psychological pressure was mounting.
Both men knew from experience that moments like this were precisely when rest mattered most.
"Let's eat something and rest."
"You're cooking, sir?"
"Of course."
And so, just as the two were about to head inside the manor—
Click.
The front door—which should have been locked—swung open smoothly.
"……!"
Jurgen's hand stilled. The brief, hopeful thought—could Penelope have come back?—flickered and was immediately extinguished.
Aiden, following close behind, reacted instantly, drawing his short blade from his coat.
"Ah, damn it, this is going to drive me mad. After all that running around."
The two entered the lobby without a sound. In the darkness, the silhouettes of familiar furniture emerged.
Jurgen moved instinctively toward the second-floor office.
As he opened the office door, moonlight filtered through the window and fell across the desk.
And there, at the centre of Penelope's personal desk. Her empty seat, its owner gone.
An entirely incongruous object had been placed there.
An elegant crimson letter envelope. And beside it, a single glass vial.
"That's……."
Aiden hastily covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve.
"Step back outside. It may be a toxic substance."
"Yes, sir."
Aiden retreated quickly. Jurgen approached slowly and picked up the envelope.
He broke the seal with a letter knife and examined the contents.
[Good day, Jurgen.]
A letter from Rupert, most likely.
Rupert's handwriting was remarkably neat.
[Please do not worry yourself too much. Penelope is doing very well.]
The moment he saw Penelope's name, Jurgen's jaw tightened.
[I understand from Penelope that you are a capable businessman. Now that fate has brought us together, allow me to propose a constructive business arrangement.]
For a letter of extortion, the tone was as casual as an invitation for a cup of tea.
[I hear that Y&P Trading Company's Cola has made its way to the capital Albion as well. I would ask that you include an 'additive' in the logistics shipment bound for the capital. A businessman of your calibre will surely recognise the value of this arrangement.]
"……."
Even extortion letters had a conventional form to them. The act of taking a hostage and issuing demands felt, in the usual way of things, like a crude means to an end.
But this letter was preposterously vague. Neither the intent nor the meaning was clear.
Not remotely serious—it had the easy, unhurried feel of someone playing a game.
Jurgen lifted the glass vial Rupert had conspicuously left behind.
He channelled Magic Power through it to perform an 'Analysis'—but could not determine its precise properties. At the very least, it was not any chemical compound he knew of within the bounds of his knowledge.
Most likely something connected to dark magic.
Its effect was unknown. It was possible it had no significance whatsoever.
As Clarisse's case made plain, Rupert was a twisted individual who derived a thrill not merely from achieving his goals, but from toying with others.
He had noticed the nature of the bond between Penelope and Jurgen. He might simply be watching closely, curious to see what choice Jurgen would make.
"……Haah……."
Jurgen felt a breath rising from deep in his chest.
He had thought that after everything he had been through, he had grown numb to most emotions. And in truth, he had.
Insults, setbacks—he could brush them aside now without much difficulty.
All the hardships in life were nothing but a wind that passed briefly through. What felt like a catastrophic trial in the moment invariably shrank, with time, to no more than a storm in a teacup.
But. Rupert was savouring all of this as entertainment. He wanted to watch Jurgen agonise, struggle with himself, and flounder in helplessness.
Looking at that arrogance, that self-satisfied sense of superiority— It kindled a feeling Jurgen had long since forgotten.
Rage.
"Sir? Are you all right?"
Jurgen drew the Dice from his coat. Seeing his expression, Aiden's mouth hardened too.
"Are you all right? I imagine…… this sort of life is not something you can sustain indefinitely."
Aiden was right. Using this would mean the Culinary Revolution ended here. All the days of laughter and tears shared with Y&P Trading Company would become nothing more than a page in a memory album.
"Of course. I intend to make that bastard Rupert weep tears of blood."
Even so, Jurgen smiled—sharp and dangerous.
Jurgen's hand sent the Dice spinning. With a light metallic ring, like a coin flipped into the air, the cube soared upward and began to spin wildly, scattering rainbow-hued Magic Power in every direction.
Creating something from nothing. The Alchemy that only Hanbin—Britannia's greatest Alchemist—could use.
"Material Creation."
The Secret Burial Unit had been officially disbanded. Ghosts who had vanished into history without so much as a record, once their duty was done.
But the members of the Secret Burial Unit had not disappeared. They had simply been holding their breath, living their own lives—waiting, each in their place, for the order to come.
"Summon."
The spinning Dice collapsed in a blaze of brilliant light and was launched into the sky.
Like a meteor shower, points of light scattered across the skies of the continent.
A drunkard drinking in a back alley of the capital Albion. A swordsman working as a mercenary on the Southern front. An old man fishing at a resort in the East. A woman living out a leisurely retirement in a forest in the West.
Each of them, where they stood, lifted their heads at the same moment and looked to the sky.
In that beacon visible only to those chosen to see it—
A single line of message was contained.
All members, converge on Nortaris.