Five nights ago.
The height of the darkness was conveniently taken advantage of by dozens of n, as they covertly sneak inside the Vesala Estate.
Going through the secluded passageways, the mysterious n assembled one by one. There seed to be an unspoken rule to convene into certain groups despite not saying a single word.
After so ti, Duke Vesala and the dark knights Visam, Das, and Orel appeared at the center of the rendezvous area with flat expressions on their faces.
Upon seeing the Duke, the n all knelt and saluted respectfully, "We greet Master!"
Duke Vesala nodded perfunctorily. Without delaying any further he gestured at the three knights to reorganize Hasta and Igor's platoon before finally announcing his orders.
"We have received specific instructions from the lord to create so chaos in the capital. Das, Orel, and Visam will select from their team to go and kill people every day." Duke Vesala handed down a list of nas to the three knights.
"This.. Master.." The three knights were surprised to see the nas on the list.
Duke Vesala just shrugged and explained, "I know that everyone has been itching to get back on these people for stepping on our family while we are in trouble. Since the lord asked us to create so trouble, why not use his orders to also get revenge on the people who wished for our clan's demise?"
Das, Orel, and Visam understood Duke Vesala's line of thought.
What surprised them was that the first nas on the kill list were actually the descendants of vassals under the Vesala Duchy itself. However, these vassals were proven to have attempted to dissociate themselves from the duchy during the sanctions.
They also understood Duke Vesala's intention; if the first victims were from his estate, then the suspicion would not go to Vesala first. Another thing was that the lives that they would be claiming could be used to strengthen their curse magic and make them strong.
The operation was indeed hitting three birds with one stone!
"Now, you will go around every night to kill these people in random order. As to how you will do that, I don't care as long as these people are eliminated! I will only tell you when you will have to increase the murder count after a few days." Duke Vesala lazily instructed the dark army.
In his mind, he had already trained them to carry out things with minimal supervision. As long as the orders were carried out in a manner that would not point to the Vesala, he didn't care how violent his army could be.
At the end of the day, the people on the kill list were just a mix of irrelevant descendants or even servants of the enemies of their house. This way, the killings would appear random and not deliberate.
However, when the lord still didn't get what he wanted, he could probably start ordering the army to start killing the prominent ones!
And so after that night, the mysterious killings started and brought an indescribable fear in the capital, most especially to the nobility who were the main targets of the assassination.
And every night they finish killings, the n who were assigned to kill would even make fun of the victim's terrorized reactions in their last mont whenever they convene on the usual spot. They would gloat and mock the futility of their struggles not knowing that no matter how they beg or cry out, they would inevitably die.
After two days of killing, however, the Emperor started to move and increased their patrols during the nightti.
This triggered the Duke's excitent as he gave out an order, "Hahaha! Who said that you only have to kill during nightti?! Show the Emperor how foolish he was and kill double the number of victims during dayti!"
He couldn't help but imagine the Emperor's face when he hears the report of the murders happening in broad daylight.
"Hahahaha! That would be a direct slap in his face!" Duke Vesala couldn't help but laugh hard in his study while swirling the wine in his hand upon releasing his orders to the army.
True enough, upon receiving the report, Emperor Valentin almost destroyed the table in anger. How could he not know that Duke Maxim was taunting him from having no ans to retaliate against the cursed weapons?
"Calm yourself down Old Valentin, the only advantage we have is that they didn't know that we have already figured out that he is behind this all." Afraid that his good friend would lose his cool from the provocation, General Farauld imdiately visited him and gave his words of advice.
But a day after he was able to calm Valentin down, a mysterious letter, along with the news that the victim count doubled again, ca to the Imperial palace made matters worse.
"Have you seen my gift to you, Emperor of the Seirende Kingdom? I will give you more of these until you search and hand over the Subject of the Oracle. I know that you know that this person exists, and I am pretty sure that the person is sowhere in your Empire since the oracle had descended in your place.
My request is just simple, knowing the renowned greatness of the Seirende family, I guess you won't have any difficulty doing this right?
Waiting for your affirmative response,
Lord Raven"
"Abominable people!!" Emperor Valentin's rage heightened to the next level.
It was clear that the person behind the Vesala Duchy was the one who ordered these things to happen, and they only want one thing from him - his precious future daughter-in-law!
How could he not get imnsely mad about this?!
So random Lord Raven and the Vesala Duchy thought that they could get what they wanted by rcilessly killing the citizens of the Empire. They thought that by doing this they could have him, the Emperor of the Seirende Empire do what they want?
These impudent people!
Emperor Valentin rubbed his aching head in distress while summoning the two princes out in the hall.
"We greet His Majesty, Father Emperor!" Prinze Kazimir and Prince Antoine respectfully greeted their father and silently waited for his orders.
Although they were not directly involved yet in the investigations of the killings, they have a hunch that their father summoned them for the sa reason.
"You know that the capital is now in chaos.." Emperor Valentin straightforwardly explained the reason why they were called. "Due to the scale of your armies, I will assign the two of you and your troops to increase the security of the capital day and night. The goal is to prevent any killings and apprehend the killers."
"We heed your commands, Your Majesty!" Although taken aback as to why it was only the two of them who were called and not their youngest brother, the explanation from their Father Emperor imdiately dispelled their confusion about the matter.
Perhaps it was also because ever since the clean-up operations, this was the second ti that their Father Emperor tasked them with an official duty of this level.
Before, when it cos to a direct threat to the Empire, their father would always call their youngest brother first.
All that was left for them were missions revolving around comrce, economy, and the developnt of the empire.
They were seldom involved in military affairs. Only when Leon's and General Farauld's knight corps were occupied do they get missions regarding battles.
But the last two assignnts proved that their Father Emperor had no plans to let them stick to just building their reputations and abilities in developing the Empire.
With new motivation, their eyes lit up with hope, and promised that they will do their best in carrying out their duties.
However, even after leaving, Emperor Valentin's worry didn't reduce even a little bit.
The reason why he involved the two was to buy ti for Leon to co out of seclusion and finally deal with the enemies from the dark.
It may seem to the public that he looked down on Leon's ability to solve this case because the people involved were the aristocrats. But only a few knew that he intended for Leon to eliminate the people secretly.
Among his three sons, only the youngest could do it because he had a natural talent in battles.
"Now let retire to my quarters..." Standing up to his throne, Emperor Valentin waved to dismiss his royal guards and aides indicating that he wanted to take a rest.
He sneaked a look at a certain junior aide who has been identified as the spy from the Vesalas and also one of the dark knights - Roman.
He wanted to see if his actions would trigger sothing on Roman's face but Emperor Valentin didn't see any change in his mood or expression.
He wanted to give everyone the impression that he felt secure and relieved upon ordering his sons to be on top of this issue.
His eyes glinted with mockery, "Vesala, Oh Vesala... You sure brought an aide that is talented to the core!"
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