30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?!-Chapter 274: A Knight Fears People More Than Ghosts 2 (4)

If anything, he trusted them—and when his gut told him something required deeper investigation, he dug for answers.

“...I need to hear it firsthand.”

“Hear what?”

“Living information is always at the scene. If I go out and start moving, things will fall into place.”

“Isn’t that a bit too optimistic?”

“Optimistic or not, I have to try something.”

“...Fine. I’ll get everything ready for departure.”

“Mm. Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. This is my job.”

His secretary smiled and helped him put on his coat.

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Simon was prepared to run himself ragged until he got what he needed.

If knights fought their wars with swords—

Then my battlefield is wherever information flows.

—Thud!

“...What battlefield, my ass...”

Unlike his confident stride at the start, Simon was now slumped in exhaustion at the center of an empty lot.

His shoes and pants were caked in dirt from hours of running around.

Yet, despite spending seven whole hours gathering intel, he had turned up with almost nothing.

And then—

“...You ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ really didn’t find anything, Simon?”

“Mm?”

“The Simon I know wouldn’t give up over something this trivial. You must have found something.”

“......”

“Simon?”

“...I really do have a good secretary, huh.”

Simon sighed. He had spent enough years with her to know that lying was pointless.

“You know how my information-gathering style is a bit... unconventional?”

“Oh, you mean that pseudo-scientific puzzle theory of yours?”

“...Pseudoscientific, huh? That’s real rich coming from you...!”

The Puzzle Piece Method

Simon’s Puzzle Piece Information Theory wasn’t just a talent—it was the very skill that had propelled him to his position.

The method was simple:

He memorized everything.

Every minor detail, every insignificant anecdote, every piece of gossip he heard, no matter how trivial.

For example—

A couple next door fought over something petty.A certain man was caught cheating.Some shopkeeper mysteriously closed early.Nothing was too small to note.

Then, later—

“All of those little details can be pieced together into something bigger.”

His brain broke everything down into fragments, reassembling them like a puzzle to extract useful information.

“This is how I once uncovered the real culprit behind a murder case.”

“...Okay, but how the hell did you figure that out from gossip about cheating husbands?”

“The important thing isn’t the infidelity itself—it’s why it happened. Reading human behavior lets me identify patterns. And those patterns? They create new puzzle pieces. By combining and cross-referencing those small details, I eventually end up with a single reliable piece of intelligence.”

“......”

“Easy, right? But whenever I teach someone this, they just call me a lunatic. Do you know how unfair that is? I’m literally giving them knowledge, and they just get mad at me—”

“Why would they not get mad?”

“?”

Simon, despite getting beaten up like a drum on a regular basis, was actually a genius.

That was the only reason his absurd reasoning even worked.

In some twisted way, this guy really is amazing.

His secretary sighed in both admiration and exasperation.

But more than being impressed, she was just eager to hear what he had discovered.

“So, Simon. What did you find?”

“You really don’t know? You were with me the whole time.”

“I’m not an abnormal freak like you.”

“...I’m perfectly normal.”

“......”

“W-Woah, woah, don’t get mad.”

Before she could get really annoyed, Simon coughed and decided to get to the point.

“Mm... Where do I even start...”

“......”

“Alright, let’s cut to the chase. I didn’t figure out how the wraiths are created.”

“Then what did you find?”

“I found the location of [Bidong]—the place where Mordred’s bloodline is hiding.”

“!!?”

“Yeah, that much, I did uncover.”

“W-What?! How?!”

Her eyes widened in shock.

Out of everything they had been investigating, Bidong was one of the greatest mysteries.

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The direct descendants of Mordred were the only ones who knew where it was.

That was why, even after the fall of Mordred’s knights and his household, no one had been able to track them down.

But now, Simon had found it.

If anyone else had made that claim, she would have called them a liar.

But this was Simon.

She wasn’t stupid enough to doubt the man who ruled over all of the Southern Guilds.

“...Did you figure this out using your puzzle method?”

“Pretty much.”

“...That’s incredible, Simon.”

“Incredible, my ass.”

“So, where is it?”

“The location? Well...”

She leaned in closer, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“...Wait, aren’t we a little too close?”

“...Ah. Sorry.”

She suddenly realized just how close she was to him.

Even if she had been caught up in the moment, the way she leaned in had been... bold.

“No, I mean... it’s not that I mind—”

“Simon?”

“......”

“You...”

For a moment, she was reminded that, at the end of the day, Simon was still a man.

Even in a dire situation, the way he was looking at her now...

...Was incredibly tempting.

But she didn’t mind.

It wasn’t as if she disliked him.

And she had to admit—Simon was a rather attractive man.

So if he was giving her that kind of smoldering gaze—well, there was no reason to refuse, was there?

“Come here.”

“......”

“Hurry.”

“But...”

“A man shouldn’t be this shy. Be bold.”

“...Alright, then...”

Slowly.

Simon raised his hand.

It reached toward her—toward her hair.

She welcomed his touch, her eyes fluttering shut—

And Simon gazed at her with an expression of pure regret.

Because—

Thud.

“...Sir Ihan was right. He said he could smell the rot on you. And now, I can, too.”

“!!?”

“Die, you disgusting monster.”

With a flick of his wrist, Simon flung a cloak around himself.

And in the same instant—

A Fire Scroll ignited on the top of her head.

—BOOOOOM!!!

An ear-shattering explosion erupted.

***

Fwoooosh!

The Large-Scale Monster-Grade Fire Scroll.

Even among rare flame scrolls, this was a particularly difficult one to obtain.

A single sheet of parchment soaked in an alchemist’s Explosion Water and infused with the combined mana of ten high-ranking mages—an absolute weapon of destruction.

It was the kind of thing only a select few in the military were authorized to use.

Under normal circumstances, no amount of money could buy one.

But, fortunately for Simon, he happened to know a certain knight who had casually tossed him one, saying—

"When you’ve got a bunch of magic-wielding servants at your beck and call, getting one of these isn’t a big deal."

Simon wasn’t sure what that meant, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Normally, he hoped he would never have to use it.

But today? He had no choice.

And the result—

“I-I nearly just died....”

His entire body trembled as he gasped for air.

If not for the barrier-enchanted cloak that knight had also given him, he would have been burned to a crisp in the blast.

As it was, the cloak had been completely incinerated, leaving not a trace behind.

Simon himself had been flung nearly ten meters by the explosion, rolling across the ground with enough force to leave his whole body aching.

But pain didn’t matter.

Survival did.

He reached into his coat, retrieved a potion, and downed it in a single gulp to steady his breathing.

And then—

Step.

“You were reckless, old man.”

“He’s right.”

“...H-Hey, I didn’t have a choice! When an opportunity presents itself, you have to take the gamble.”

The twin beastkin siblings, who had been secretly guarding him, stared down at Simon with expressions full of pity.

Being looked at like that by two kids way younger than him? That stung his pride.

But, unfortunately...

“The knight’s gonna be pissed.”

“He told you not to do anything reckless, remember?”

Flinch!

...Yeah.

They had him there.

“C-Can’t you two just keep this a secret?”

“For free?”

“Nope.”

“......Now I get why Sir Ihan calls you little brats insufferable.”

Simon grumbled, while the twins stuck their tongues out at him.

But even as they played around, their sharp eyes never left the burning clearing.

“Tina.”

“Mm.”

“It’s still alive, right?”

“Yeah.”

“...Persistent.”

“I hate that thing.”

“Same...”

The twins’ expressions twisted into grimaces.

Not because of the burning flesh filling the air—

But because of something far worse.

“Disgusting...”

“The smell of rot...”

It was a stench worse than burning garbage.

An unbearable, gut-churning odor that made them physically nauseous.

It was viler than the stench of a rotting corpse—

And the most horrifying part?

It wasn’t coming from something dead.

It was coming from something alive.

...Or rather.

“—You filthy little rats.”

“Who the hell said my beautiful body stinks, huh?”

The thing emerging from the flames—

Was not human.

Fwoosh!

The fire burned bright, licking at flesh that simply wouldn’t die.

Even as the monster’s body continued to burn, it regenerated just as quickly.

Slowly, a head began to take shape—

And with it came an overwhelming killing intent.

A malice so suffocating it made even seasoned warriors tremble.

But.

“Everything about you...”

“Reeks.”

The beastkin twins?

They weren’t normal humans.

So the creature’s murderous aura didn’t so much as faze them.

Simon, however?

He was frozen solid, his entire body locked in a state of pure, primal fear.

‘...Sir Ihan was right.’

He remembered what Ihan had said the other day—

"People are scarier than ghosts."

At the time, he had taken it as a joke.

But now, seeing this?

‘...Yeah. This is way scarier than any ghost.’

Compared to this thing, a regular monster might as well be a pet.

...Then again.

Maybe calling a vampire a “person” was a mistake to begin with.