While Dieta was still struggling to understand what on earth was happening, Pasion whispered in her ear. His knight’s eyes had noticed something.

“All three have broken fingers. He broke their knees and ankles, too. He smashed them with just enough precision to leave them able to limp on one leg.”

Pasion murmured in astonishment, “This isn’t something he’s done just once or twice.”

Dieta swallowed hard. She had certainly bet on four days in her wager with Pasion, but even that had been an optimistic estimate. Those three fugitives came from the back alleys and gave even bounty hunters trouble.

And he had done it in a single night?

It was an unbelievable achievement. She knew she had to acknowledge that the boy had completed the commission and pay him, but she could not immediately find her voice.

“Oh, and...”

Before she could recover from her shock, he added, “Could you check these for me?”

Najin set a leather pouch on the office desk. Pasion, standing beside Dieta, checked that there was nothing dangerous inside before emptying its contents onto the desk.

Out spilled gold coins and falsified ledgers, along with expensive jewelry and gold bars.

Najin had tracked down and brought back all the money and goods the three fugitives had acquired by tampering with the Dieta Trading Company’s accounts, as well as the tangible assets they had converted the proceeds into. When Dieta realized this, she let out a disbelieving laugh.

“How did you get all of this?”

Najin almost answered that he had become something of an expert at this sort of thing, but stopped himself. There was no need to explain his former occupation.

“I have ways of making people talk.”

‘Bend a few fingers, and they tell you everything,’ he added inwardly.

“I’d like to ask that myself. Seriously.”

Merlin’s incredulous voice echoed in Najin’s ears. Even after watching him work from close by, she could not make sense of the whole process.

He had tortured them by bending their fingers and obtained scraps of information. After briefly considering those scraps, Najin had gone straight to their hidden safes. Merlin could not understand how he had possibly reached those conclusions from such fragments.

Watching him, she felt as though he were performing magic.

Najin merely smiled at Merlin’s voice and Dieta’s incredulous gaze. Neither of them knew it, but he had originally been both an executioner and his organization’s debt collector.

‘There are only so many places to hide it.’

The ways men like these hid their money were predictable. With even a little information, finding their safes was hardly difficult.

“Aha...”

A smile appeared on Dieta’s lips, breaking her silence. The corners of her mouth rose, and her narrowed eyes sparkled. Their vivid yellow was more intense than it had been yesterday, making Najin’s shoulders twitch.

“You’ve exceeded my wildest expectations.”

Dieta beamed. She took a sheet from a stack of papers in one corner of the office and swiftly wrote on it with a quill. Then she stamped it with her seal as company head and handed it to Najin.

“Your payment for the commission. Show this at the transaction counter on the first floor, and they’ll cash it immediately. Our company also operates as a bank, so you can leave the money with our vault keepers for safekeeping, if you like.”

“... There’s one more zero here than in the payment you mentioned yesterday.”

“I’m that pleased with your work.”

“And...”

Dieta rose from her seat. Removing her pristine white glove, she extended her hand to Najin.

“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Shall we introduce ourselves properly? I don’t think I asked your name yesterday. As I mentioned yesterday, my name is Dieta. What’s yours?”

The girl asked with a charming smile.

And Najin...

3.

A little while after the boy left the office, Dieta stared blankly at her hand, still held out in midair. Her slender, pale fingers were exposed without the glove. Removing it to bare her fingers was a signal of sorts for her.

I like you. Let’s see more of each other... Something along those lines.

Dieta was reasonably confident in her looks. Before she had run away from her family, marriage proposals had come time and again, nearly seeing her sold off as a short-term business deal. In looks, at least, she was the loveliest of House Arbenia’s daughters.

And here she was, smiling as prettily as she could, removing her glove to offer a handshake. Wasn’t that a sight that ought to inspire at least a little affection in a man?

‘Surely it should...’

The boy had not taken her outstretched hand. He had simply said, “I don’t have a name worth giving yet,” and strolled out of the office.

She felt rejected without even having confessed.

With a decidedly strange feeling, Dieta closed her hand on empty air several times. She might reasonably have been offended, yet she smiled instead. Well, it would be no fun if he were so easy to catch.

“He was impressive, wasn’t he? That boy.”

Dieta sat back down and put her glove on. Pasion, standing beside her, nodded.

“He certainly exceeded expectations.”

“I think so, too. Who could he be?”

Dieta had seen countless adventurers and mercenaries in this city. That was how she knew that even professional bounty hunters could not work as quickly and cleanly as that boy.

Just who was he?

Resting her chin on her hand, she mulled over her conversation with the nameless boy. The skill he had displayed was too remarkable for someone with no backing at all.

‘He works more cleanly than a professional bounty hunter.’

Had he worked in this field before?

As far as she knew, only Rangers displayed such exceptional skill in this line of work. They specialized in covert movement, ambushes, and pursuit.

... Could he really be a former Ranger?

Of course, the boy looked too young to be a Ranger. If he had been one, he would have been the youngest ever, and she had heard no such rumors.

‘Then a former Ranger trainee?’

An ordinary trainee would hardly be this skilled.

“Oh.”

At that moment, a piece of information flashed through Dieta’s mind. The Rangers of the Techel Mountains were considered the finest of all Rangers. Only the very best gathered there, and rumor had it that even their candidates were in a different league.

From a very young age, those candidates learned how to kill people, set traps, lie in ambush, pursue targets, and torture them.

Once their training was complete, they spent their entire lives intercepting enemies in the Techel Mountains near the border, knowing nothing of the wider world. Dieta knew that only a tiny handful graduated from that hellish place to be called Rangers of the Techel Mountains.

How could she not? One of this city’s most famous mercenaries was just such a Ranger.

‘Could that boy be one of them, too?’

It might be nothing more than wild speculation. Yet at that moment, her conversation with him flashed through her mind.

[“Have you been training deep in the mountains, by any chance? This is practically common knowledge.”]

It was a question she had tossed out to a boy who seemed to lack common knowledge. To that casual question, he had replied, “Something like that.”

“Oh!”

Dieta caught her breath. She slapped her palm against the table and turned to Pasion at her side, bubbling with excitement.

“I told you this would turn a profit!”

For the price of one meal, she had established a connection with a Ranger candidate from the Techel Mountains—or so she presumed. That ought to qualify her as an investment genius. This time, even Pasion could not deny it. As an accomplished knight, he could see that the boy was extraordinary.

Dieta beamed, working an abacus in her head.

Ah, she could smell it.

The smell of gold coins.

The Snake That Swallows Gold had caught the scent of gold.

She had left a decent impression on the boy and established a relationship. Now she merely needed to draw him to her side little by little.

Dieta knew there was no business more efficient than investing in someone destined for greatness before long. A connection to an exceptional talent could elevate a trading company’s standing all on its own.

“Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

The boy would be settling in this city. She did not yet know how many gold coins he was worth, or how much his value would rise. Since she did not know, she would have to find out in time.

As she considered what offers and commissions might win his favor, Dieta’s eyes shone an even brighter yellow than usual.

COUGH!

A brief cough.

Someone had broken Dieta’s concentration. She lowered her gaze to the three fugitives bound before her. The moment she looked at them, her eyes turned cold.

They had no value whatsoever.

Worthless trash who might not cough up even a single gold coin if she squeezed them dry. Dieta had no interest in trash like that. In a chilly voice, she ordered her secretary:

“Drag them out and dispose of them. Sell off whatever parts will fetch a price.”

4.

His purse had become heavy in an instant.

Najin immediately found an inn to stay at and paid a month’s rent up front. He had earned more than expected, so even after paying for both lodging and meals in one go, he still had plenty left.

‘This is where I’ll be staying.’

A window that let in sunlight, and a soft bed. Better still, he could get his meals simply by going downstairs. He could not have asked for more. It was apparently a fairly ordinary inn in this city, but none of it was ordinary to Najin.

“I won’t have to go hungry or sleep on the ground for a while.”

“That’s good. Does that cover the basics?”

Najin nodded.

He had successfully secured his starting funds. He had found lodging, arranged his meals, and even obtained a nameplate. Najin took it out from inside his clothes.

For now, it was merely a piece of metal.

The employee who had issued it explained that only after he completed several commissions and had his trustworthiness verified by the guild would it become valid identification. The nameplate was proof that he had become a member of the city, not proof of his identity.

So now he would have to prove himself.

“It really does seem like the perfect stage for me.”

Najin smiled.

“I can start from scratch, and it’s a good city for honing my skills. As long as I have achievements to my name, I can find all the means I need to prove myself.”

Najin turned the nameplate over in his hand. It was only a piece of metal now, but if he built up his achievements and skills, it would become identification that proved his existence.

“About that.”

Merlin grinned.

“You heard the explanation of the ranks earlier, didn’t you?”

They started at Black and went all the way to White. The lighter the color, the higher the rank, granting access to higher-level commissions and better facilities. The rules were simple and clear: anyone could rise as long as they had the skill.

“You walk the king’s path,” Merlin said. “You must leave records wherever you go and rise to the highest point of every place you set foot in. That is the path of a king, and the path of a hero.”

As Arthur had done, he would have to do the same.

Set records no one else could approach, and climb higher. That was what Merlin was telling him.

“I don’t need to tell you what you should aim for, do I?”

Najin nodded.

“White rank, of course.”

White rank. White Horn.

The highest rank, the pinnacle of this city.

At present, only five people in the city held White rank. Two of those five were swordsmen, and Najin had seen their level of attainment listed on the guild’s noticeboard.

Sword Seeker.

That was the first height he needed to aim for.

“Shall we set a short deadline of two years to start?”

Two years. Najin knew what that meant.

It was the time Arthur had taken to rise from Expert to Seeker. Only after coming to this city had Najin learned how absurdly short that was.

‘From Expert to Seeker.’

With proper support, a talented Expert ordinarily took around fifteen years to reach Seeker. Those called geniuses took ten years with support.

Even Sword Saint Karon, master of the Order of the Sword and hailed as a once-in-an-age genius, had taken seven years to rise from Expert to Sword Seeker.

Knowing that, Najin understood just how unreasonable Merlin’s two-year deadline was. Yet he smiled all the same. With a laugh, he declared his ambition.

“Two years? No.”

The corner of his mouth curled upward.

“One year will be enough.”

He would shatter records, rewrite every record for the youngest to achieve anything, and head for the highest heights. Naturally, the records Najin intended to break included Arthur’s.

He would not follow behind. He would overtake him.

Whatever anyone might say, the boy’s goal was to rise higher than King Arthur.