The carriage stopped in front of a secluded courtyard.

Though the place was remote, when Muen stepped down from the carriage, he could no longer smell that faint sewer stench. That meant the area was kept extremely clean, almost no different from many wealthy districts.

He looked up and realized that at some point, the misty drizzle had stopped as well.

Dong...

A distant bell tolled through the air, and for an instant his mind seemed to blur.

“So the Kingdom’s bells don’t sound any different from the Empire’s after all,” Muen murmured, rubbing his temples, weary from running nonstop for so long.

“Huh?”

Tyron had not heard clearly. “What bell? Was there a bell?”

“Enough nonsense. Lead the way.”

“Y-Yes...”

Tyron walked ahead. Very soon, several men slipped out of the courtyard with obvious wariness. Only when they saw it was Tyron did they relax.

“Lord Tyron, why are you here so late?”

“I need to see Lord Raskin about something.”

“Something urgent?”

“Very urgent.”

“That’s rare. Didn’t think even you could be in such a hurry.”

The man at the front only swept his eyes casually over Muen, taking him for one of Tyron’s subordinates, then stepped aside.

“Go on, then. See Lord Raskin yourself. He’s got a nasty temper when he wakes up, so we don’t dare disturb his sweet dreams without a good reason.”

“Understood.”

Tyron nodded and led Muen into the courtyard.

Compared to the tight security outside, the courtyard itself was strangely empty, as though the guards were there less to ensure safety than to keep the place quiet enough.

“We got in that easily?”

Muen glanced around, puzzled. “And no one’s even accompanying us. Aren’t they worried we might be here to do something dangerous to this Raskin?”

“Ahem... probably not.”

“Why?”

“Because... my strength is just a little inferior to Raskin’s.”

Tyron rubbed his nose awkwardly.

“So in their eyes, there’s no way I could do anything in a private meeting like this.”

“...For them to feel that secure, the gap between you and this Raskin sounds a bit larger than your so-called ‘little,’” Muen said meaningfully.

“Well... that’s because Raskin got himself connected to some mysterious grand noble!”

Tyron ground his teeth.

“Thanks to that noble’s backing, his strength managed to edge past mine. A few years ago, that bastard wasn’t even qualified to raise his voice in front of me!”

“And now?”

Muen said flatly, “Now the Beast of Xipos doesn’t even dare speak loudly in his courtyard. Mr. Tyron... your title of King of Darkness seems to be carrying a lot of water.”

“...I-I told you, it was exaggerated rhetoric.”

Tyron shrank his neck.

“Of course, the bigger reason is that Raskin is no ordinary piece of work. For his gang to rise from total obscurity a few years ago to sitting firmly among the top three now, the overwhelming reason is Raskin’s own terrifying strength.

“Raskin doesn’t lack a nickname because he lacks fame. It’s because he hates nicknames. Anyone who’s ever carelessly given him one has been killed. These days everyone just calls him Lord Raskin.”

“I see. He does sound frightening.”

Muen narrowed his eyes. “Then I suppose I’ll have to take this a little more seriously.”

“I just hope you can handle it. Otherwise, since I’m the one who brought an enemy right to him, I’d be as good as dead myself.”

Tyron trudged miserably to the room at the deepest part of the courtyard.

Truthfully, he had not wanted to provoke Raskin as the first option. But compared to Muen’s earlier idea of gathering all ten-plus leaders at once, this already counted as the less terrifying choice.

A clash between the Dark Emperor of Belrand and one of the most fearsome gang leaders in the capital...

After the fear passed, Tyron found himself feeling a strange flicker of anticipation, eager for the sheer bloodiness and violence of the confrontation itself.

Maybe he could even use this opportunity to rid himself of both of them.

“Lord Raskin.”

Thinking that, Tyron stopped hesitating and carefully knocked on the door.

“Are you awake?”

“...”

No answer.

“Lord Raskin?” Tyron knocked harder. “Are you in there?”

“...”

Still no reply.

“Huh?”

Tyron frowned.

“That’s strange. Why isn’t Lord Raskin answering? Is he not here? But all his men are outside.”

“Sleeping too deeply?”

“No way. He clawed his way up through gang life from childhood. Someone who sleeps that deeply wouldn’t have lived this long.”

Tyron thought it over, considering whether to knock harder. But just as the man outside had said, Raskin truly did have a vicious temper upon waking. If Tyron actually startled him awake in the middle of deep sleep...

At the thought of that awful scene, Tyron shuddered involuntarily.

“How about... we call it a night?” Tyron asked tentatively.

“...”

Muen shot him a glance.

“Move.”

“That’s probably not a good idea. Setting Raskin aside, if we make too much noise, his men—”

“I said move.”

Muen’s face was expressionless.

“Can’t you smell it?”

Tyron froze. “Smell what?”

“The blood.”

With that, Muen stopped paying attention to him and began feeling along the door in front of him with both hands.

The door was locked from the inside. It was inscribed with a fairly decent defensive magic array, the sort that would make it hard to blast open by force in a short amount of time. It seemed that the very formidable Raskin Tyron had been talking about did at least retain the good habit of locking his door even while sleeping.

But a magic array that reinforced only the door itself, and not the lock, was meaningless to Muen.

He casually plucked a beard hair from Tyron’s face that seemed stiff enough, and under Tyron’s horrified gaze, picked the lock open in three to five seconds.

He was so fast that using an actual key would hardly have been quicker.

“Inside.”

The instant the door opened, Muen stepped through without the slightest hesitation.

At once, a dense wave of blood stench rushed straight at them. Muen’s expression did not change, but Tyron was still recovering from the horror of what had just happened to his beard, and now this shocking sight hit him as well. For a moment he seemed unable to decide what his face should be doing, leaving his expression absurdly comical.

Muen ignored him and entered the room, examining the surroundings first.

The windows were all shut tight, locked from the inside, and appeared to have some degree of defensive reinforcement as well. As an experienced gang leader, Raskin would not have left behind such an obvious vulnerability.

As ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) for the door, there was no need to mention it. Before Muen had picked it, it would have been able to hold back even a fifth-rank powerhouse for over a minute.

Doors and windows sealed. Locked from the inside. No other visible entrance or exit in the room.

And yet...

Muen’s gaze fell on the center of the room, where a figure was slumped against a chair. His upper body hung limp, his face pale, his eyes vacant as they stared at the ceiling.

Blood was still flowing, nearly painting the floor red.

Muen walked over, turned the man’s body around, then looked at the seven or eight arrows buried deep in his back.

After a brief silence, he said:

“This is... suicide?”