Black Iron’s Glory

Pegg stood at the entrance of the stone building with an old goatskin pulled over himself. He watched as a person approached the jetty from a distance with a lit torch.

“Claude, is that you?” yelled Pegg.

The figure climbed up the jetty with some difficulty. “Yes, Uncle Pegg, it’s me.”

“So, you didn’t find Eyke’s boat? What happened to you here?” asked Pegg.

Claude seemed a little haggard in his gait. “Oh, don’t bring it up… I circled the place a long time and didn’t see them at all. I don’t know where they sailed the ship to. And when I’m on my way back, my crappy luck just had to come and bite me in the back when I slipped and fell hard…”

“Are you alright?” Pegg could see the mud on the boy’s body with the light of the torch. It seemed like he had taken quite the rough fall.

“I’m fine, Uncle Pegg.” Claude made his way to the carriage parked at the jetty and loaded his backpack within. He then got into the driver’s seat and hurried Jemmy to the entrance.

“Thank you, Uncle Pegg, for waiting so long for me. It’s a shame I didn’t get to see Eyke and Wero. Since it’s Sunday tomorrow, they’ll probably only return during the afternoon. Just tell them that I came. I’m going to take a hot bath when I get back to wash off the stinking mud. I’ll come over with some hares I hunted at the wood in a day or two for you,” said Claude politely.

“No problem, I’ll be sure to let them know. Make sure you be careful on the way back. Don’t drive too fast.” Pegg proceeded to open the jetty entrance.

After bidding Pegg goodbye, Claude left for the wood without any obstructions. When he arrived, he put Jemmy back into the stable, filled up its feed and water before going to greet the Sioris at their chicken coop. They had come out after hearing the noise. He asked them whether something occurred during the night, to which they replied nothing, before he entered the small wooden hut with his backpack.

Claude lit the oil lamp and took out the materials he bought. He hung the hunting bow of the bearded man on the wall before getting a bottle of potion out and applying some on his wounds. After all that, Claude took a dark-colored robe from his clothes drawer and put it on, slung the shortsword he got on his waist, and loaded the magic crossbow before fastening it to his right arm.

After that, he took two bottles of gran wine which he bought to boil to make alcohol for his experiments. There were twelve bottles in a carton and he had used seven up so far. He put the two bottles into the now-empty backpack and left with it, not forgetting to blow up the oil lamp with him. He used the cover of the hut and trees to sneak away from the wood and headed down the hill.

There’s still so much to do, but so little time… I have to make the best of it. He looked at the half-obscured silver moon in the sky and sighed before quietly resuming his trip.

Driving a carriage to the private jetty took around 40 minutes, but it would take around two hours to make that trip on foot. But given that it was already past midnight, the streets were completely empty. There wasn’t a need for Claude to watch out for people he knew. He could travel quickly on the side of the main path and only had to be careful about the nighttime patrol.

It was around one at night when he reached the jetty. He didn’t go in and instead went to the bank of the lake where the entrance to the alley was located, retracing his steps from before on the bank.

After ten or so minutes, Claude once more arrived at the small forest where he was assailed by the bearded man. He raised his magic crossbow as he gingerly approached the small forest, keeping his ears open for the slightest sound in the surroundings.

Taking a moment to make sure that nothing was amiss, Claude relaxed and passed through the forest to arrive at the other side of the embankment. After checking his surroundings once more to make sure, he climbed down into the embankment.

The bearded man’s corpse was hidden down in the embankment. Claude had used his bloodied robe to cover him. He folded the dirty robe and put it aside before he used Featherfall on the corpse and tugged on the clothes it wore. The corpse was raised like a light feather and Claude walked along the embankment with the corpse in hand in the darkness.

He didn’t have a choice. The bearded man’s corpse could definitely not be discovered at the embankment, not even in the forest. Claude was worried that the town police would start investigating the matter once the patrols discovered the corpse. Word of him looking for Eriksson and Welikro’s boat near that area would definitely be known then. Even though he might not be treated as a suspect given his father’s reputation, it was still something to be suspicious about and Claude didn’t want to draw any attention to himself if at all possible.

That corpse had to be dealt with.

While he could report that he had been robbed on the way and had to kill the assailant in an act of self defense, he would have to explain his reasons for being within the forest during the late night. Hurian would also find out about his identity if he found out about it, and that was something Claude wanted to prevent as best he could. Who knew if the bearded man had been tasked by the shopkeeper to rob him in the first place? Even if he wasn’t, there was a chance that Hurian would tattle and leak his identity to the world. By then, he would no longer be able to spend his days in peace.

Though Claude wasn’t capable of completely eradicating the corpse and all evidence, letting others take care of his trouble for him wasn’t beyond him. In the slums and the public docks, there were many who could make one disappear without a trace. Claude was going to get one such person to deal with the corpse for him. He wasn’t concerned, however, with whether they were willing to go through the trouble.

The tavern at the docks, Mermaid, was an L-shaped, three-story building made of stone and wood. The longer wing of the building was the lodging and the first two floors of the shorter wing made up the tavern. The third floor on the other hand was where the owner and his family lived.

Even though Claude hadn’t been to Mermaid before, he heard from Eriksson that the owner, Aleksim, was a powerful man in the underworld society of Whitestag. It was said that he used to be the captain of a whaling ship in his youth and had even took up life as a pirate for a time. He only returned to start Mermaid after one of his legs was crippled.

The building itself was located on part of the lake’s embankment. Claude could walk all the way down and arrive at the bottom of the building. As the embankment was slightly lower than ground level, it would be hard for anyone to spot him. Instead, he would easily be able to detect anyone walking on higher ground and hide so as to not be noticed.

His walk to Mermaid required twenty minutes given the corpse of the 1.8-meter-tall bearded man he had to carry with him. Though Featherfall came in rather handy and made the corpse light as a feather, each cast lasted only a short two minutes.

Claude had cast seven Featherfall spells and felt his mana drying up. In the end, he had no choice and had to carry the corpse on his back to the part of the embankment where Mermaid was built upon.

The lodging wing of Mermaid had two entrances. One of them connected to the tavern wing. A guest would have to register at the counter of the tavern and pay before getting their key to their room and making their way to the other wing from within the building itself. The other way to enter was located at the other end of the building, but it was guarded 24 hours a day.

Claude circled Mermaid twice and carefully inspected the terrain and the paths he could take. It was around two thirty at night and most of the people that went drinking had left. There were two drunks who were sleeping on one of the tables and another worker at the counter, who seemed to be on his shift. He ignored the sleeping drunks and went about his business without looking up.

Claude didn’t want to pass through the tavern to the lodging wing. Even though there were few people there, it was darker inside than out, with the hall almost fully lit with oil lamps. His true form could easily be seen under such lighting.

When he turned to the rear entrance of the building, he could see that even though the building was lit, it was considerably darker. Perhaps he could pretend to be one of the drunk patrons to make his way through. After some consideration, Claude removed the robe, pants and shoes of the bearded corpse, gave them a check, before he wiped them off with the bloodied, dark-colored robe.

Only after the bloodstains on the pants and the robes were completely wiped away and the clothes no longer smelled of blood did Claude put them on over his own. He took out the two bottles of gran wine from his backpack and sprinkled a whole bottle on himself and on the robe.

Claude took out another charcoal pen from his backpack and scribbled his face to make it seem like he was bearded like the man. He wasn’t counting on being able to look completely identical to the man; all he wanted was to be able to pass as him in front of others.

After that, Claude opened the other bottle, poured half of it on the ground, before climbing out of the embankment. He inspected his empty surroundings before pretending to be a bumbling drunk, stumbling with a bottle of gran wine in hand and mumbling incoherently for more wine and toasts as he made his way towards the rear entrance.

A metal gate had been pulled over the entrance. Claude patted on the gate and called out in a blurry voice, “Open up!”

A huge man stepped out of the building. “Who are you?”

Claude obscured his face with the wine bottle and pretended to be drunk. “Oooh… Ooh… I need… a key to open… ‘m I right?”

He took out the bronze key numbered 219 and handed it to the man. “He… here ya go… Key… O-open the door…”

The huge man looked at the number on the key and smiled. “Ah, Mister Edmigar, why have you returned so late and so drunk? Please wait a moment, I’ll open the door for you now. That’s your room key for the door upstairs, not for this gate.”

Claude pretended to choke from some alcohol vapor and lowered his head in a coughing fit. He blocked his face with his hand. As long as the man didn’t see his face directly, he wouldn’t realize that Claude was an impostor.

The huge man pulled the gate open. Seeing Claude coughing so badly, he asked with concern, “Mister Edmigar, do you need me to take you upstairs?”

Claude replied in a hoarse voice with his head lowered, “I… I ain’t drunk… Gim… gimme one more bottle… you.. you drink too…”

He pushed the bottle in his hand to the man, who looked at it and was glad to find that it still contained much gran wine. “Make your way upstairs then, Mister Edmigar.”

The man couldn’t be bothered to send Claude upstairs, lest he snapped alert and took his wine back. Seeing Claude slowly make his way to the stairs, the man closed the gate and returned to his room. With such a large bottle of gran wine left, the rest of his shift would be much more pleasant than before.

Claude intentionally stumbled his way upstairs. There wasn’t anyone walking in the corridor. Sounds of humping and women moaning on the other hand could be heard from the guest rooms on both sides. The soundproofing of the rooms doesn’t seem good…

When he found the door labeled 219, he took out the key and unlocked it. After turning to both sides of the corridor to make sure nobody was there, he zipped into the guest room.