How a Second Life Knight Lives

26. Still, the minimap is useful.

In my previous life.

The survival in this world, which began five years ago and ended with my execution, left me with a great trauma.

The first year was a healing life in a medieval rural village, but the next year was forced labor in a rock salt mine, and the following three years witnessed many deaths as I switched jobs from a pirate to a bandit.

I can recall it calmly now, but

I, who was an elite salesman,

made a living by killing people and stealing things!

I cannot deny that part of my soul was broken at that time.

Of course, there were reasons.

No, there couldn’t have been no reasons.

Still, as a modern person from an educated, advanced country, I wouldn’t have recklessly taken up a sword to rob people, would I?

Nevertheless, I don’t think the reasons are important.

No matter what reasons I come up with, the pre-possessed me would not have accepted them.

Because he couldn’t imagine what kind of hell I had gone through.

The current me feels sympathy for my past self.

To my past self, who was thrown into a medieval world with the sensibilities of a modern person, I want to say, you did your best.

Modern people live in a divided world.

Many people eat meat but have never experienced slaughtering a pig or even breaking the neck of a chicken with their own hands.

So, even if they fall into a medieval fantasy world full of violence, they can’t immediately pick up a sword and stab someone.

They’re not psychopaths.

It’s not something you can do easily just because you resolve to do it.

There are many people who are inherently incapable of such things.

But still.

If you barely escaped from a rock salt mine and were dying on the roadside and then saved,

if the state of the village, which had been repeatedly looted during the war, looked like heaven compared to Somalia,

if the neighboring village you were going to rob was in a similar situation,

“`

Damn it, I had no choice but to close my eyes tightly.

I just put a band-aid on my conscience.

I got used to living a life with a knife.

Of course, I rarely killed people or stole things.

I mostly showed off my power with numbers, revealed weapons, and occasionally threatened, but most of the time, I negotiated with good words and collected tolls.

I had no choice.

There was a realistic problem that I couldn’t rob hardcore mode with a bunch of refugees who hadn’t even received military training,

and no matter how cornered we were, we couldn’t ignore the fear of the Count of Kalmar, who would come at us seriously if people died and logistics were blocked.

But it seemed I was the only one who thought that way.

From the perspective of the Count of Kalmar, in this chaos, it was something that could be overlooked if a gang of thieves settled on the passage and took a little toll.

As long as it wasn’t excessive.

However, blocking the flow of logistics itself was absolutely unacceptable.

It was no different from strangling the Count of Kalmar.

There had already been cases where they had dealt with those who had gone too far.

But it seemed the others didn’t understand that.

Maybe they didn’t even think about understanding it.

The rapidly increasing number of former refugees, now bandits, were not satisfied with just tolls.

Too many numbers became poison.

They couldn’t resist the temptation of the passing carriages and goods and robbed them entirely.

I instinctively knew that catastrophe was imminent.

That’s when this double agent appeared.

Goffrey Norge.

A city councilor of Kalmar.

A director of the insurance company Broom Union.

The young head of the Norge baron family, one of the vassal families of the Count of Kalmar.

An elite incomparable to me, who was a knight aspirant from a rural baron’s manor knight family.

The only similarity was our age.

He was a few years older than me.

Two years ago, he

held the countess’s pardon in one hand

“`

Holding gold from who knows where in the other hand,

He threatened and coaxed us to maintain the passage.

He made us kill each other.

The refugee village his finger pointed to was always set on fire.

And in the end, his finger pointed at me.

*

Goffrey’s fingers were still long and white.

They were delicate hands that wouldn’t look strange even if they were painted and adorned with rings like a woman’s hands.

Those hands held a document and handed it to me.

“Read it, Sir William. It’s the report you wanted. It contains the interrogation results of the captured mercenaries.”

I took the document and began to read quickly.

I had to sift through all the nonsense to extract useful information.

Moreover, it was obvious that the really useful information wouldn’t be recorded here.

The conflict between the Kalmar city guard and the city council was so famous that even an outsider like me could know about it.

“It won’t be of much use. I’ve already read it, but most of it is nonsense from ignorant mercenaries who were tortured and just blurted out whatever came to mind. The places and people mentioned have already been investigated by the guard.”

Goffrey conveyed the information he knew while I quickly flipped through the report.

Without taking my eyes off the report, I responded to his kindness.

“A person with no connections here can only try to confront it. But I can’t just crash into anything, so I requested the minimum information.”

“Do you trust information obtained through torture?”

“No, I don’t. Torture is a means to get the desired answer, not a means to reveal the truth.”

“Then why are you reading the report?”

There was a hint of confusion in Goffrey’s tone.

“I don’t think the mercenaries are trained enough to fabricate false information while being tortured. It’s more likely that they mentioned names or places they heard somewhere or remembered, or fragments of conversations that were stuck somewhere in their memory. I believe that such things come out fragmented under torture. So, by carefully investigating this garbage information, something might come out. Well, that’s what I think.”

“Sir William, are you interested in insurance investigation?”

I took my eyes off the report.

In front of me was a headhunter looking at me with bright eyes as if he was going to devour me.

I involuntarily called up the minimap.

I had already checked it once when I entered the city council office, but I wanted to check it again.

As expected, there were no red dots.

Councilor Goffrey was not hostile to Kalmar city or to me.

At least he wasn’t someone with a hostile intent strong enough to want to kill me.

So, that proposal means he is doing it out of goodwill towards me.

Why?

I thought it was too much of an offer for someone who had just recently become a knight apprentice.

Insurance investigator, huh.

Isn’t that a job for veterans who need some experience, even on Earth, after working in the police or prosecution?

It wasn’t something to be proposed to someone as young and inexperienced as me.

“Did you say insurance investigator?”

“Yes. If you wanted to be formally knighted and serve under the Grand Lord, it wouldn’t be a suitable proposal, but if you want to settle here in Kalmar, becoming an insurance investigator isn’t a bad option. The pay is quite good. Surprisingly, you get to meet a lot of high-ranking people, so if you show your abilities, getting knighted won’t be difficult. The advantage and disadvantage is that you won’t have to go into battle, but that also depends on your will. The Broom Union doesn’t exclude self-help, you know.”

It was indeed a proposal made out of goodwill towards me.

However, I refuse to be too closely entangled with Congressman Goffrey.

This man.

He uses people as tools.

He is someone who can drown me at any time according to his interests.

He may be friendly now, but who knows what will happen later.

Congressman Goffrey even has connections with the Elector.

He will have to decide between Countess Linnea and his Elector at some point.

And if I continue to stay in Kalmar and build a business here.

Then, depending on his choice, there may come a time when I have to hit that man in the back of the head.

For that time, not too far, not too close.

That would be best.

“I am looking for a lord worthy of serving. Unfortunately, I will only accept your goodwill with gratitude.”

“As expected. But if you change your mind, you must contact me first before anyone else.”

“Understood.”

I placed the report on the desk with a smile.

Congressman Goffrey’s gaze focused on the places and people I had underlined in the report.

“So, these are the people who got caught in Sir William’s trap?”

“Probably? But I don’t know yet. I need to see and talk to them directly to be sure of anything.”

“I can’t attach the guards of the garrison to you, and the council doesn’t have its own troops, so that’s a problem. There are some bodyguards under the congressman, though.”

“It’s okay. I don’t travel alone. Thanks to the generous pay, I’ve already hired mercenaries as bodyguards.”

*

The mercenaries who stepped up as my bodyguards were Zhukov and his comrades.

They all gladly accompanied me, saying they had nothing but time to spare.

Moreover, it was fortunate for me that the news was shared that there would be no long-distance trade from the Powell merchant group for the time being.

The mercenary group that the Black Wolf Graf belonged to was, as expected, a place with quite a long history.

The Red Dramen Mercenary Group.

The name was given because most of the early members were from the city of Dramen. It is said that now there are almost no members from Dramen city left, but they have been roaming the battlefields under the same name for over ten years.

Graf was ranked around third, and the mercenary leader and deputy leader had not yet been captured.

Still, thanks to the quick actions of the guards, most of the mercenary members were able to be arrested.

At this point, it is natural to feel that something is strange.

“These people are not ones who specialize in assassination. The battlefield is their workplace. They might be familiar with reconnaissance, vigilance, and group battles, but attacking and killing a noble guarded by knights is a completely different matter.”

“That’s right, Sir William. I also thought it was strange when I heard the story. Sending mercenaries into a place guarded by knights is no different from pushing them to their deaths, is it? Moreover, the mercenaries who were left to monitor the outskirts were also left unattended without any separate instructions, so they were almost all caught by the guards. Something is strange.”

“There is an old saying I know, ‘Silence the mouth by killing,’ or ‘The dead tell no tales.'”

“That’s a terrifying saying.”

“So I’m a bit curious. Is this really about silencing mouths, or did something go wrong and the plan fell apart? We’ll find out if we meet the mercenary leader or deputy leader in person.”

So, I was wandering around investigating the places and people obtained through torture.

Of course, since the guards had already investigated and passed through, I couldn’t get any significant results.

Naturally.

I might have put on a plausible act, but I hadn’t professionally learned investigative techniques, nor did I have tools for scientific investigation.

I didn’t get a sense of things by directly interrogating the captured mercenaries either.

Even if I were to interrogate them myself, I doubt I could have done better than the guards.

I believed in something else.

The minimap.

There might be those who could deceive the minimap, and it sometimes showed dumb reactions, but there was nothing I could trust more than this right now.

It shows those who are hostile to me or my faction. Not just hostile, but hostile enough to be killed without hesitation.

So, what about the Red Dramen Mercenary Group?

Their leader and deputy leader, right?

I couldn’t imagine the extent of the anger and hostility of those who had lost their entire mercenary group.

So, I was expecting a very red dot to appear on the minimap.

As expected.

My expectations were not wrong.