Those Who Live Without the Law

Chapter 82

Mercenaries

The first ones that caught my eye were the guys Lukas’s Children had hired.

“Three of them.”

At first, I thought it was an awkward number. But once I looked into it, I could understand.

“If they were originally a trio, then this makes sense.”

If you just tacked on one more, they wouldn’t mesh well together, and their fighting strength might even weaken.

“How did they end up hiring warriors from the Daeyeon Kingdom?”

They were three warriors from Daeyeon, calling themselves the Three Stars.

“If they’re from Daeyeon, they must be good with swords.”

At Irena’s words, Kairus answered briefly.

“These guys are hunters. They don’t use swords, they use bows.”

At Kairus’s words, Irena let out a questioning sound.

“In a place like the sewer system, wouldn’t bows put them at a disadvantage?”

Kairus gave her a short answer.

“Hunters are psychos.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

Irena showed interest at Kairus’s words.

“They’re the kind who’ll still fight with bows even if an enemy with a sword is right in their face.”

“Well, yeah. In a pinch, they could swing the bow around and deal with it.”

It wasn’t uncommon for those who used bow-type battle gear to fight that way.

But that wasn’t what Kairus meant.

“No, hunters shoot arrows even at that distance.”

They were utterly obsessed with bows and arrows. They’d pull the bowstring with their feet, their neck, even bite it with their teeth…

They’d do whatever insane thing it took just to fire an arrow and hit their opponent.

“… That’s impressive, but I don’t know if that makes them especially dangerous.”

“You’ll find out naturally once you face them.”

That was all Kairus could say for now.

“Still, what a start.”

I hadn’t expected hunters from Daeyeon to appear right on the first page.

And not just one of them, but the whole group being those crazy bowmen.

“Lukas’s Children quickly finalized who they were hiring.”

The other groups, though, were still only speculating within the Rose Garden.

In truth, the speed at which Lukas’s Children hired people right after the meeting ended was extraordinary.

The phrase ‘reckless fools who charge ahead without looking back’ seemed made for a group like Lukas’s Children.

“The fact they’ve already been hired means they could storm in here at any moment.”

Tanya spoke with a slightly surprised look. Kairus was thinking the same thing.

“Since they’re under Lukas’s Children now, they won’t need to bother with keeping guys like Geumdaeji in mind.”

“Then you mean they could attack us right away?”

Melvin spoke in a flustered voice. But Kairus shook his head.

“Hunters aren’t the hasty type.”

Kairus opened the window and looked outside. If they were hunters, by now they would already have begun their surveillance.

‘Drink it for three months and I’ll see what a hawk sees, drink it for three years and I’ll see the shape of falling raindrops.’

At least when it came to sight, the efficacy of the decoction hunters drank surpassed the Early Sense that direct descendants of the Featherwing family gained through the procedure.

But there was a side effect.

If they ate any plant belonging to the leek family, the decoction would react with it and blind them.

The problem was, hunters couldn’t clearly distinguish which plants belonged to the leek family and which didn’t.

“So they just don’t eat seasonings at all.”

Leeks, garlic, spring parsley, and other leek-family plants all had their own distinctive smell and were often used as seasonings.

So, worn out from trying to tell apart what they could eat and what they couldn’t, hunters simply erased the concept of seasonings from their lives.

“They’ll be watching the surroundings.”

There was no way to find them. Kairus already knew from experience that hunters had sharper vision than he did.

It was difficult for Kairus to find and eliminate them right now.

In any case, the hunters would eventually come looking for him. There was no need to go looking for them.

“Hmm…”

Meanwhile, Irena was pulling out a tissue and repeating the training Kairus had instructed her to do.

‘If nothing triggers her, she’ll succeed in about a week.’

After checking her level, Kairus came to that conclusion inwardly.

Without a trigger, she would manage after about a week of effort. But with a trigger, she could succeed in controlling the Peerless Wind right away.

The problem was, that trigger didn’t show up right when you needed it.

“Uaaaaaah!”

After repeating it for about an hour and a half, Irena finally lost patience with herself and let out a scream.

“Whaaaaat?!”

At the same time, Melvin, who had been dozing off, jumped to his feet and shouted as well.

“What a pair of lunatics.”

Kairus looked at the two of them with an exasperated expression, then took a sip of coffee.

There was a knock at the door. Kairus got up and opened it.

And for a moment, he was seized by a shock and fear that nearly made him faint, but he managed to break free of it.

“The Representative.”

“Hello. It’s sleeting outside, you know.”

Cecilia had come in person.

As she brushed the raindrops from the shoulders of her raincoat, Kairus swallowed hard.

“Would you like a warm cup of tea?”

“There should be citron syrup in the cupboard I sent you, right?”

Kairus immediately began making hot citron tea.

At the same time, everyone in the office tensed up, none of them knowing who reacted first.

For everyone except Kairus, this was the first time they had ever laid eyes on Cecilia.

But Kairus had already told them, over and over, about her infamy.

“I don’t eat people, you know.”

Cecilia, who had taken the sofa as if it were the most natural thing in the world, spoke to the ones watching her nervously.

But she didn’t actually turn her gaze toward any of them.

“I didn’t think you’d come in person like this.”

When Kairus set down the teacup, Cecilia lifted hers and answered.

“There ended up being more to convey than I thought. You’ve confirmed the information on the hunters Lukas’s Children hired, haven’t you?”

“Of course. I’m not looking to die just yet.”

Cecilia put down her cup and smiled.

“It’ll take quite a bit of effort to reach your goal. One of the groups is currently negotiating with the Lunaseeker Agency.”

“Lunaseeker.”

Kairus and Irena stiffened at the same moment.

Cecilia gave the two of them a brief assessment.

“A well-known agency of the Republic.”

It was a company under the label of a private detective agency.

But the work they actually did was far removed from that.

“They call themselves a private detective agency, but I’ve heard they’re really a government-run spy agency and hired thugs.”

At Kairus’s words, Cecilia smiled.

“A government agency in the form of a company—yes, that’s not wrong. Different from a state-run enterprise, though. Hired thugs, you said….”

Cecilia looked at her fingernail as if it were nothing much, then continued.

“In fact, the Rose Garden is no different. Take away the large scale and the fact that it has many strong members, and it’s just thugs too.”

Kairus couldn’t answer that. And in the dim office, Cecilia’s murky eyes turned toward him.

“What matters is always scale and quality. How many quality members an organization has. How quickly it can invest a certain level of funds.”

The founding purpose of the organization, or the dignity of the work it did, meant nothing at all.

“Since it’s a highly capable organization, it’s better not to take it lightly. Unless, of course, you consider your life that cheap.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Even without her saying it, Kairus already knew well the danger of Lunaseeker as a Featherwing.

The Featherwings and Lunaseeker considered each other archrivals, sworn enemies, natural foes.

The elders of the family had often warned Kairus about Lunaseeker.

And more than that, in the Featherwing library there were dozens, even hundreds, of books prepared on possible engagements with Lunaseeker.

Even without the warnings, Kairus was already tense and serious enough.

“Hunters from Daeyeon and agents of Lunaseeker… I’m already worried about what kind of excellent people the other two groups will bring in.”

“Is that so? But those of you here now have every reason to feel proud of yourselves.”

After all, Cecilia hadn’t taken back the opportunity she had given Kairus. She was not the sort of person who valued human lives.

If Cecilia had judged that Kairus wasn’t suited for this task, the opportunity he had been given would have vanished in that very moment.

The fact that it hadn’t meant Cecilia rated Kairus’s abilities quite highly.

“I’ll live up to your expectations. By the way, when will we be receiving the supplies?”

Cecilia checked her pocket watch before answering.

“They’ve all been moved to the fifth floor. I’ll also tell you a few additional things you should know.”

She set a handkerchief down on the table as she spoke.

“The organization that knows the structure and features of the sewer system best is the Areumdri Pawnshop.”

It couldn’t be otherwise. Kairus had expected as much.

The other groups didn’t like to admit it, but if there was a king of the underground, it was the Areumdri Pawnshop.

“I’ve heard the organization itself was rooted in the underground to begin with.”

“And that was exactly what everyone tried to check against during the meeting.”

The ones each group hired would all be fighting in the sewers—territory of the Areumdri Pawnshop.

That meant the Pawnshop had far more possibilities than any other group.

“Even if someone knows of hidden or collapsed passages, the Pawnshop knows more.”

They would also know best where the dangers lay underground and what had to be avoided.

“When it comes to information about people, isn’t the Rose Garden superior?”

“Yes, but when it comes to the battlefield itself, the Pawnshop is superior.”

Information about participants belonged to the Rose Garden.

Information about the terrain belonged to the Pawnshop.

“What about the Lumis & Wesson Transport Company?”

“It was Barenza Onui who entered negotiations with the Lunaseeker Agency.”

Though it was called a transport company, Lumis & Wesson was in truth a human trafficking syndicate. It seemed they had used the connections built by selling people to make contact with Lunaseeker.

“And Lukas’s Children hired the hunters from the Daeyeon Kingdom.”

Cecilia let out an “ah.”

“About that—there was an additional report. It seems it wasn’t just a simple hiring.”

“Then…?”

“Do you know what this means?”

She lifted her teacup and made a motion, rotating it clockwise.

The moment he saw it, Kairus let out a small sigh.

“Are you saying the leader, Lukas, attended the hunters’ ritual?”

“My, so you already know.”

That meant the three hunters Lukas had brought weren’t here for money.

“They probably even forged a sworn brotherhood.”

At her words, Kairus nodded. Unless it was something of that level, hunters would never allow an outsider into their ritual.

“Hunters who fight as if to die are already burdensome. Like this, we can’t predict the outcome even if they clash with Lunaseeker.”

Hunters who worked for money tended to be very cautious. That was a nice way of putting it—in truth, the moment a situation turned even slightly odd, hunters would abandon the job.

But the hunters Lukas had brought would not. That alone doubled their threat level.

“Seems everyone’s desperate to get their hands on Pontus.”

“Not confident?”

Cecilia asked the question in passing, directing it at Kairus.

“I’ll admit those bastards are formidable, but compared to what I pulled off in Rezantin City, they’re nothing.”

At his words, Cecilia broke into laughter.

“I can’t help but agree with that. Yes… that’s not something just anyone could do.”

He had infiltrated the Rezantin Royal Museum, guarded by Dana Watson, the Red Comet and Captain of the Scarlet Leaf Order, stolen the vault’s artifact list, and succeeded in returning alive.

The hunters of Daeyeon were impressive, and the Lunaseeker Agency was formidable.

But the Kairus standing before Cecilia now was every bit their equal, lacking nothing in ability.