Chapter 36
Ariella quickly read through the letter and frowned.
“Looks like we’ve got another crazy person. What a headache.”
Richmond nodded in agreement.
“I didn’t expect him to respond like this.”
Still swinging his legs in his chair without even glancing at the letter, Ludwig asked,
“What? He’s coming to our Demon King’s Domain, right? That’s good news. Saves us the trouble.”
He made a motion of slicing his neck with his hand.
“We just wait for this Vaggis guy to walk in, then kill him. Done.”
“This isn’t something you can solve with a few swings of a sword!” Ariella held up the letter.
“It seems the news about my construction adhesive has spread outside the domain.”
“Oh, the slime one?”
Ludwig had seen it himself at the construction site.
“The Fedwick Trading Company wants to make a deal. They think it’s so important that the company head himself is coming here.”
The funny part was that they weren’t planning to deal at all — in fact, they were planning to kill him.
Ludwig’s eyes lit up. “I have an idea!”
He smacked his fist into his palm.
“We pretend we’ll trade with them, lure the company here, and once the head shows up, we kill him!”
Ludwig looked proud, as if it was a genius plan.
“How’s that? Brilliant, right?”
But instead of being happy about Ludwig’s “growth,” Ariella stared at the letter again.
“There’s more to it than that.”
“What?”
“After mentioning the slime compound, Vaggis also wrote a long complaint about our domain — related to the Bephar incident.”
Ludwig’s eyes filled with question marks.
“A complaint?”
If anything, their side should be the one complaining and demanding compensation. But instead, the trading company was acting offended.
Ludwig summed it up in a few blunt words:
“What kind of crap is that?”
Ariella almost wanted to throw the letter at him to read for himself.
“He says after Bephar died, they did an internal audit… and claims that they suffered huge losses from dealing with our domain.”
“…?” Ludwig’s face showed growing confusion.
Ariella explained Vaggis’s claim:
“They say they had a normal trade contract, but Bephar siphoned off huge amounts of goods in the middle.”
“What?”
Meaning — according to him — it wasn’t the company’s fault at all.
But Ariella knew, and the records proved, that Bephar couldn’t have done it alone. The company had to be involved. It was a shameless lie.
And it didn’t stop there.
“He also says the payment for goods they delivered here has been overdue for a long time.”
“What?”
“He claims that during Bephar’s time as treasurer, the debt piled up, and now we owe them money. He says their losses are even bigger than ours.”
To make it worse, he was asking the Demon King’s Domain to pay off the debt — naming Ariella personally, since she took Bephar’s place.
Richmond laughed dryly.
“So they want to escape all blame, and even demand we pay them? Clever. In a dirty way.”
Vaggis even claimed to have documents proving Bephar’s “damage” to the company — obviously forged.
It was clear what he was thinking.
“You can see right through him, can’t you?” Ariella said.
A big trading company like his had much more military power than a small domain like Ludwig’s. They traveled through dangerous monster-filled lands for trade, so it was natural.
In other words, they weren’t afraid of a tiny Demon King’s Domain.
The end of the letter made that clear. Vaggis said he’d drop his “compensation claim” if they gave him one thing:
The formula and exclusive rights to Ariella’s slime compound.
“…?”
It took a moment for Ludwig to process it — then he exploded.
“He wants to just steal it? What kind of insane bastard—?!”
He was ready to draw his sword right then.
“Perfect! He was already a dead man — now we have another reason! Tell him to come right away, I’ll wait at the door!”
“It’s not that simple,” Ariella said.
Ludwig’s anger burned hot, but Ariella’s own anger turned cold and sharp.
“This bandit’s assassination is fine with me. But we have to make it look like it has nothing to do with us.”
“…What?”
“If their company head gets killed, they won’t just sit back.”
Richmond nodded.
“Indeed. For a trading company, reputation is everything. They’d retaliate to protect their honor. And we’re at a clear disadvantage. We can’t leave any evidence.”
Ludwig blinked, realizing he hadn’t thought that far.
After a moment, he said,
“Then I’ll just cut his head off without using magic. Anyone can swing a sword.”
“Even if that worked, there’s another problem — it would happen while he’s visiting our domain.”
Circumstantial evidence would be against them. If the company head came here to collect a debt and died here, of course they’d suspect Ludwig.
Richmond added,
“They could use that as an excuse for an actual war.”
“So what, don’t kill him?”
“We have to kill him,” Ariella said firmly.
At first, she wasn’t sure if she should really follow through with the assassination Geru wanted. But now it was clear — if they didn’t strike first, they’d be the ones attacked.
It was time to draw the sword for survival.
“Grrr…” Ludwig glared at the two of them, as if asking what exactly they expected him to do.
Arms folded, Ariella said,
“We need to find a way. A method to kill him that looks, to everyone else, completely unrelated to us.”
