"Yeah, with his childhood friend... I wonder how you get a girlfriend?"

Kasim and Zeno were both staring into the distance.

That reminds me, Braga and his single companions were saying the same thing until this spring,thought Vandalieu.

"Vandalieu, you probably don't understand at your age, but... make sure you get along with girls," Kasim told him.

"... I'll do that." This was the only response Vandalieu could give, as he imagined how they would complain if they learned of his circumstances.

Also, he was staying silent about Froto, who was currently convulsing inside Vandalieu's body.

After that, Lina, as an employee of the village's branch of the Adventurers' Guild, reported that twenty bandits had been repelled and paid Kasim's party the reward... The villagers didn't even know about the existence of the other thirty that had been defeated by the Golems.

The horses that Karcan and his men had been riding were now all Vandalieu's. He was the one who had defeated most of the bandits, after all, so the rewards went to Kasim and Vandalieu got the horses.

But Vandalieu had no use for the horses, so he divided them among the cultivation villages. They would live new lives as farming horses.

"I'm currently still just a civilian, so if I receive money, it would count as doing business and I would have to pay taxes. So please just pay however much you want to the adventurers," Vandalieu told the people of the other villages.

"Hmm, are you sure about that? We don't really have anything we can offer you as a collateral..."

"It's fine. I'm leaving all of the responsibilities of taking care of the horses to you, after all."

And besides, if Vandalieu brought living horses back, Sam would be upset.

Vandalieu had accidentally been given a farming horse when he was collecting livestock from this region's villages. This was the conversation that had taken place when he brought that horse back to Talosheim:

"Bocchan! You have me, and yet you would use a living horse as your legs?!"

"Sam, you don't have to say it like you're reprimanding your husband for having an affair..."

It seemed that Sam felt threatened by the fact that Vandalieu could spend long hours flying through the sky and had now even gained the ability to teleport between Dungeons.

Maybe I should register at the Commerce Guild as a horse leasing business.

This idea suddenly occurred to Vandalieu, but where he had obtained the horses would be problematic to explain, so it was probably best to see how things went for a while.

After that, having prepared themselves mentally during the fight against the bandits, Kasim's party apparently managed to get through their D-class promotion exam that they took at the city of Niarki.

At that point in time, nothing had happened yet.

『The levels of the Insect Binding Technique, Coordination, Strengthen Subordinates, Strengthen Followers, Death-Attribute Charm and Throwing skills have increased!』

『You have acquired the Thread Refining skill!』

Shortly after the new year, Lord Lucas looked at his completely-petrified subordinate, feeling no desire to bring his mouth to the mulled wine that had been poured into his cup.

Lord Lucas's office preserved the heat well, but his subordinate looked as if even his innards had frozen solid. His face and shoulders were completely stiff.

Perhaps it was not Lord Lucas that needed the hot wine, but this subordinate. However, it was not warmth, but a businesslike question that Lord Lucas gave.

"So, where is Karcan Lassen and his unit?"

The subordinate's face stiffened even further.

The problem was that the knight named Karcan Lassen, who had planned to go on a two-week expedition, as well as his entire unit, had gone missing.

To Lord Lucas himself, Karcan's name and face were things that he could barely recall from the corner of his mind. Karcan was the man in charge of one of the background operations conducted in Lord Lucas's dispute with his younger brother Belton over the succession of the Hartner family.

Karcan was a man from the Lassen family, who had served as knights for the Hartner family for generations... In other words, he was a man from a family who had never risen above the mere status of knights despite having been around for generations; a very ordinary knight.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with being a mere knight. They had the splendid duty of protecting the land from monsters, criminals and enemy nations, as well as acting as role models for the soldiers and the people.

However, Karcan had desired a position above his own ability. The petrified subordinate before Lord Lucas... The captain of the Red Wolf Knights' Order, Pablo Marton, had noticed him and entrusted him with one of Lord Lucas's plans.

"That is... There has been no contact despite the expedition's planned duration having already passed, and when we sent people to investigate, it was found that they were not at the expedition's destination. Also, the Adventurers' Guild apparently received a report that a cultivation village was attacked by about twenty bandits on horseback, but the bandits were repelled safely."

Hearing Pablo's response, Lord Lucas felt dizzy despite not having drank any of the wine.

"I see," he said. "That cultivation village was attacked by twenty wealthy bandits with horses, but they repelled them successfully. That small village? ... Pablo, is there any chance that there were fifty of those bandits, not twenty?"

"No; according to the Adventurers' Guild's records, there were twenty. However... I am thinking the same thing," said Pablo.

In other words, it was likely that Karcan had led his unit out of the city, pretending to go on an expedition, then attacked the cultivation village disguised as bandits, where they were defeated.

A small cultivation village had annihilated a unit of three True Knights and fifty Equestrians. Even considering that they had lowered the quality of their equipment in order to disguise themselves as bandits, it was difficult to believe.

However, numerous unbelievable events had occurred in the Hartner Duchy last year.

Both the actions Karcan had taken and the fate that he had met were nothing more than more of these unbelievable events.

"I believe I ordered him not to lay a hand on the cultivation villages... No, I believe I ordered the cancellation of every secret plan after Belton's scandal, did I not?" said Lord Lucas.

Lord Lucas had ordered all of his secret plans to be cancelled, knowing that it was no longer the time for him and Lord Belton to be pulling at each other's feet.

Belton himself was apparently innocent, but the fact that several influential noblemen had connections to the Pure-breed Vampires caused an unbelievable scandal. If this wasn't dealt with correctly, it wasn't a matter of the Hartner family losing the trust of the other duke families. It was more than possible that many would demand that the Hartner family's status as a family of dukes be revoked.

No, before that, perhaps rebellions would begin occurring all over the duchy.

It was a critical moment that could have spelled the end of the Hartner family if Lord Lucas and Lord Belton had continued dragging each other down, which was why Lord Lucas had ordered all secret plans to be cancelled, but... Why had Karcan made a move?

"That is... It seems that he was desperate for success," said Pablo.

"I see. With people like this selected to work for us, I suppose it cannot be helped that things turned out this way." Lord Lucas sighed as he thought about how to deal with this problem.

It would not be good to treat all of them as having gone missing in an accident during their expedition. It wouldn't be good, but it wouldn't be a big problem, either.

The Equestrians led by Karcan were apprentices of knights; there were the second and third sons of noble families among them as well. Of course, their families were those that supported Lord Lucas. Naturally, they knew of the conflict between the brothers.

That was why they would probably not be satisfied with the explanation that they had simply gone missing. Although it would cause some displeasure, it would be possible to silence them by brandishing the power of the nation.

However, the problem was that there was something ominous going on in this cultivation village.

"What do you think of the people in this cultivation village?" Lord Lucas asked.

"Most likely... they are threatening us, perhaps," said Pablo.

"My thoughts exactly," said Lord Lucas.

The Adventurers' Guild had received news that it was twenty, not fifty bandits. Lord Lucas interpreted this as the cultivation village declaring to him, "You know that we're keeping quiet about this for you, don't you?"

In fact, a scandal at a time like this would be bad. Normally, scandals would be dealt with one way or another, but the king and the other dukes were currently scrutinizing the Hartner Duchy. There was no telling what kind of faults they would find with the Hartner family.

That was why knowing the truth behind the incident was more than enough for the cultivation village to blackmail him.

Thus, Lord Lucas thought that the villagers and adventurers from the village somehow managed to kill Karcan and his men in retaliation.

If Lord Lucas and Pablo had received a detailed report on Vandalieu, they would have come to a different conclusion. However, until the moment of his death, Karcan had believed that Vandalieu was someone who could be dealt with by his unit alone, so he hadn't provided much detail in his reports out of fear that his ability would be doubted.

"Perhaps knights of the Sauron Duchy were among the refugees," Pablo suggested. "It could even be that they are planning to establish their own independent power. There are no Devil's Nests around there, and that incident occurred in that slave-run mine, so not many will approach those villages from now on."

Lord Lucas sighed as he listened to Pablo's words, realizing that he couldn't just leave the cultivation village alone after all.

He had treated the refugees cruelly and tried to turn them into disposable, low-grade soldiers, and he had even intended to use secret plans to destroy several of the other cultivation villages. Thus, he was now unconsciously thinking of this village as an enemy that would harm him if given the opportunity.

And he couldn't leave these people from the Sauron Duchy alone when they possessed an unknown amount of military might and political power in the Hartner Duchy that he would soon be in charge of.

"Pablo, this is your responsibility," said Lord Lucas. "Use the Red Wolf Knights' Order to deal with this."