[Vol. 9] Chapter 113: Wind and Fire
After leaving the Mercenary Guild, Violet took Valesia and went straight back the same way.
When they returned to the Spirit Veil Merchant Guild, Ming Yu and Grey were already gone. Veranica and a few of her men were staying behind as Violet had ordered. Violet called in the still-confused Ice Demon girl and also brought another guard.
“Tell Manager Yu when he gets back that the operation is delayed for now. We have something important to handle first. Everything else can wait until we return.”
“Uh… okay. And big sister, what about her…?”
“She’s coming with us. Remember, if anything bad happens in Salzburg before we get back, you run to the Spirit Veil Merchant Guild main hall and hold it. Wait there for help and don’t go wandering off, understand?”
“Understood, big sister!”
“You people sure use that title in a very simple way…”
After giving a few quick orders and feeling things were mostly set, the priestess, the blue dragon girl, and Veranica left at once, riding hard toward the camp outside the city.
Because they were searching for a former princess, Salzburg wasn’t fully closed off, but leaving the city required a lot of paperwork. Violet didn’t want to waste time on small matters, so she showed the city guards the Spirit Veil Merchant Guild’s token.
That token was very useful in some situations. Just like before, the squad leader who had been trying to make trouble for them suddenly changed his whole attitude. After a quick check, he practically treated the three women like honored guests and escorted them out the city gate, which drew some scornful looks from the people waiting in line.
You could tell those people probably thought Violet and the others were from a powerful noble family.
Violet didn’t care about those looks. Once outside the fort, she led them straight to the large army camp.
The area around Salzburg is mostly hills, built on several towering snowy mountains that form a natural barrier. With mountains on three sides and an open road on one, the capital of the Preston Kingdom sits in a place that is easy to defend and hard to attack, a perfect location.
But the rough, hilly terrain also makes it easy for people to hide near Salzburg. Violet had already noticed on the way here that in addition to Veranica’s former Scavenger Gang and the more than a hundred Silver Claw mercenaries, there were nearly a hundred temporary camps and settlements within ten kilometers.
Some of those groups were like theirs. People who set up camp outside because there were too many of them, or they didn’t want to pay the large tax for entering the fortress. But some groups felt strange to Violet.
They were secretly carrying many weapons, and their members acted very different from normal traveling merchants. Their behavior was unusually strict.
At first she didn’t know what it meant, but after talking more with Grey, even though she didn’t bring it up directly, Violet had a rough idea.
Many of those scattered people were probably rebels from the Preston Kingdom in disguise. The little princess had quietly placed troops around Salzburg long ago. Once things inside the fortress went wrong, those forces would likely use the chaos to attack and try to seize power.
Violet hadn’t followed the rebels’ details closely, but it was clear that against the official army, they would have almost no chance in a straight fight. So they planned to split into small groups and use surprise attacks to start a coup.
Of course, Violet had no intention of getting too involved in these troublesome worldly affairs.
Although she had agreed to help the little princess with her plan, she also had her own goals. She would only step in at key moments; as for all the messy, complicated work, Grey could deal with that slowly on her own.
After all, another queen in the southwest had gone through things in much the same way back in her day.
When the three women arrived at the camp they had chosen earlier, it was already close to noon. Violet had used her contract link to send a message to Xiao Guang who stayed behind. She thought the little one would be waiting nearby in advance, but to her surprise, the person they met outside the camp wasn’t the dragon god at all, but—
“Tina?”
“Eh… Miss Violet?”
A young female mercenary stood there in silver light armor with a sword at her waist. Her outfit and style looked about seventy percent similar to Gladys’s. At that moment, she was standing there like a lonely stone, waiting anxiously.
When they saw each other, both froze for a second, but Violet reacted first.
Right.
Unlike the sensitive Scavenger Gang, this camp still had over a hundred Silver Claw mercenaries who had gone with Gladys to Icefang Island before. Violet had even mentioned this to Gladys yesterday, so Tina had probably left the city early this morning to gather the troops. No wonder the girl wasn’t at the Mercenary Guild earlier.
But judging from her expression, things clearly hadn’t gone smoothly.
Violet exchanged glances with the two women beside her, then looked toward the strangely quiet camp in the distance, frowning slightly.
She hadn’t paid much attention before, but now that she checked, she realized something was off. Her dragon’s position had changed since morning. The contract link still existed, and she could summon her, but the sense of distance between them had become very unclear. She couldn’t even tell exactly where the other party was.
That kind of reaction clearly meant the Dragon God was inside some kind of powerful domain or alternate space. The interference in the contract link was caused by the surrounding environment, and for it to affect their bond like this, the outside force involved had to be extremely strong.
“What happened? Where’s Xiao Guang?”
“Uh…”
Tina, who had rarely seen the priestess look so serious, was at a loss for words. After taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she spoke awkwardly.
“Well… early this morning, I followed Miss Gladys’s orders and came out of the city to meet up with the mercenaries here. But just as I arrived, Miss Xiao Guang suddenly appeared and said she needed to go out for a while. She asked me to watch things here, and then she just… rushed off in a hurry.”
“I was confused too. Then I asked around and found out something weird happened last night. They said there were strange tremors and cracking sounds coming from underground, and later, lights were flashing in the mountains. But even though there was no sign of an enemy attack, when we woke up this morning, almost one-third of the people in the camp were just… gone.”
“What did you say?!”
At those words, Veranica’s face instantly changed.
Most of the people stationed here were her Scavenger Gang members. Her own loyal subordinates she had personally brought out of Icefang Island. Every single one of them was important to her. Hearing such news all of a sudden, how could she not be both shocked and furious?