“This bastard now what…?”
Did I get the evidence myself?
While Patrick was confused, his followers quickly approached Elijah and began chattering:
“You madman!
This is not Patrick, it is Terence, the eldest son of the Duchy of Ricci!”
"Yes!
How can this Terence be an illegitimate son?!
Are you out of your mind?"
One of the gang members pointed his hand at the blade that was pointed at her neck.
“If you have eyes, take a good look at the tip of this blade!
Here, the tear of the Sword God…”
His eyes twitched.
“…Why is there no tear?”
Looks of astonishment appeared on the faces of the followers.
“Guys, what are you talking about now?
Sword God’s Tear?”
When Patrick responded questioningly, his followers' faces froze.
As for Elia, she watched the scene with great interest.
'Just like the original novel.
He's an illegitimate son, so naturally he doesn't know anything about the Sword God's Tear.'
The Tear of the Sword God is a precious artifact said to contain the aura of a Valkyrie, the god of the sword and one of the powerful protector deities of the empire.
The nobles of the empire make a special sword that contains this teardrop at the tip of its blade, and present it as a gift to the eldest son who will inherit the family when he turns eighteen and celebrates his birthday.
This custom symbolized a wish to preserve the family he would take over in the future, and to be officially recognized as heir.
As for Erhan, Elia's brother, he also received this sword shortly before his death, on the occasion of his eighteenth birthday.
That sword was now hanging from her waist.
'Of course, my family didn't have enough money, so the sword was made with a teardrop of extremely low quality.'
However, even if Duke Richie had succeeded in completely concealing Patrick's illegitimate son's identity and making him look like his son, he would not have given him the sword with the Sword God's Tear in it.
Because granting it to him would have meant officially recognizing him as the heir of the family.
‘Anyway, using personal items is not allowed after enlistment, so the Duke probably didn’t care much about this matter.’
If things had gone quietly without him having to take out the sword before then, no one would have known about it.
Her pushing Patrick into this predicament to get his sword out was not in vain.
“Terrence, are you asking now because you really don’t know anything about the Sword God’s Tear?”
When his followers looked at him suspiciously, Patrick just realized that he had made a mistake, so he quickly made an excuse:
"I, of course I know!
L, I slipped my tongue for a moment!"
"Really?
But why isn't there a tear on your sword?"
With the followers insisting on questioning, he hurriedly made up words.
"That sword is in my room.
It's a precious sword, so I kept it well...
And, of course, the tip of the blade has a lot of teardrops on it, a lot, a lot, a huge, unbelievable tear!"
He uses all kinds of verbal embellishments and exaggerates unnecessarily.
It seemed like he was in a hurry.
Then, it's time to deliver the final blow.
Elijah completely changed her facial expressions now, and agreed with his words in a voice mixed with envy:
“Of course, the Great Richie Family is a very powerful family even in the Empire, so the blade tear forms so abundantly that it wets the sword hilt!
Unlike my rootless family, right?”
Patrick, who thought she had been fooled by his weak lie, now replied with a victorious face and an arrogant voice:
“Of course!
It's not just the tears forming, they're completely soaked!
Unlike your rootless family, our family brought the Sword God's tear by the bucketful and soaked the sword in it when it was made...”
"Oh Terence!
What nonsense are you making up now?!"
One of the followers could not control himself, so he rushed out and shouted:
“The Sword God’s Tear is a stone, not a liquid!
Are you an idiot?”
“Yes, look at this!”
They took out their swords from their belts.
A small, transparent, jewel-like stone was clearly set into the tip of the blade.
"…Yes?"
Patrick stared at the blue stone in amazement with his mouth wide open, and Elia grinned as she watched him.
Yes, that's true.
The Sword God's Tear is a stone, not a liquid.
It is called this name only because the transparent, sparkling stone resembles a tear drop.
Elia now looked at Patrick, whose mouth was wide open, and muttered a bitter sarcasm:
“Did the Richie family melt the stone into a liquid?
Hmm, really strange, how did they manage to melt the Halo Stone which is said to be harder than diamond?”
The faces of the followers who now realized everything contorted.
“This bastard was not the eldest son of the Richie family!”
“Oh, oh… It seems that he was truly an illegitimate son!”
Patrick hurriedly shouted:
“You guys even believe this nonsense...”
"Go to hell!
You lying bastard!"
Book!
Book!
They attacked Patrick's head mercilessly with the hilts of their swords.
Patrick fell unconscious from the severity of the beating.
“Damn it!
We don’t know anything about this…!”
They left the fallen Patrick and ran away.
Children without loyalty.
Now, these scoundrels, fearing that any harm would come to them, would begin to spread Patrick's true identity throughout the unit more diligently than anyone else.
And soon, Patrick will be punished and kicked out of here.
‘As for the Ricci Duchy family that allowed fraudulent recruitment, they will be stripped of their position.’
She stared blankly at the unconscious Patrick.
Although his situation is a bit unfortunate, that doesn't excuse the evil actions he committed here.
'And I, I will never let my identity be revealed to anyone like this bastard.'
Anyway, with this, the hurdle is gone.
Illya approached the black-haired boy who was shivering in the corner.
"Are you well?"
When I addressed him, he jerked up, still curled up in himself.
How much did these scoundrels torture this child?
Elia addressed him again with eyes that pitied him:
“Those bastards are gone.
You can feel safe now.”
Hearing her words, the boy slowly stretched his shrunken body and looked up at her cautiously.
'It's really bad.'
The other party's face was full of dark blue bruises and hideously swollen.
His brown eyes, staring at her, were trembling.
“…Thank you so much.
For saving me.”
A very beautiful resonant sound.
Elia introduced herself:
“My name is Erhan.
You can call me ‘El’ for short.”
“El” was also a pet name for Elijah.
She thought it would be less confusing if others here called her "El."
The boy answered in a low voice:
“I...my name is Lennox.”
This precious name of yours, I already know it.
The name of this weak-looking black-haired boy is Lennox Claude.
He is the youngest son of the Claude business family.
In fact, the Claude family is currently a worthless small business enterprise, and even a family without origin or noble title.
‘For this reason, Patrick’s followers belittled, ignored, and tortured him.’
But right after the enlistment ceremony, things change completely.
Claude's family discovers an untapped gold mine and immediately becomes the best trading company in the empire.
At least in terms of wealth, they surpass the Vonberg family!
The situation of Lennox, who has suddenly turned into the youngest son of a very wealthy family, changes completely overnight here.
‘All factions will do their best to bring him onto their side.’
At that point, it would be almost impossible for her, with nothing, to get past the powerful rivals and befriend Lennox.
That's why she wanted to meet him before the recruitment ceremony.
Later, the Claude family, which had become the best trading company in the empire, could of course provide anything.
‘Because Lennox, the precious youngest son in the army, if he wrote just one letter and ordered something, it would be delivered on the same day by express delivery.’
Obviously, she can get any civilian items she needs through Linux, without having to leave here.
'With this, the personal items distribution project is more than half completed!'
Thinking like this, Illya smiled brightly at Lennox standing in front of her.
“Nice to meet you, Lennox.”
From now on, I hope my quiet life as a secondary character here will go well thanks to you.
•
“First, we should treat the wounds on your face.”
Elia said as she looked at the bruises and cuts on Lennox's face, after she brought him to her room on the first floor.
“I will bring medicine to put on the wounds, so stay here and rest.”
“Elle, thank you so much.
You are my savior...”
Lennox's eyes, looking at her, were full of confidence.
Haha, it's the least you can do for your business partner.
She left Lennox in the room and went out alone.
‘The medical clinic was definitely on the third floor of the annex building.’
She started walking up the stairs, the walls of which were dimly lit.
But as soon as I reached the second floor, I heard a loud noise.
Dang dang dang!
Kwong Kwang Kwong!
'What is this?'
There were three or four people lying on the ground in front of the stairs leading to the third floor.
They were all groaning, and had cuts everywhere.
“Ah… save me.”
Illya, seeing this sight, sighed inwardly.
'Damn, it looks like the determination of ranks and hierarchies has already begun here.'
As expected of energetic young men, they had already begun to roughly define their hierarchy by exchanging brutal blows before the recruitment ceremony.
It wasn't just in front of the stairs, there were three or four other fallen young men in the corridor as well.
In the midst of them, a black shadow seemed to stand alone.
'He took those down single-handedly.
He's completely crazy.'
I should never get involved with him.
While Elia was thinking like this and passed the bodies of the fallen young men, heading towards the stairs of the third floor.
“Where are you trying to escape to?”
Tok.
In the dark, someone grabbed her shoulder.
“If you started the fight… shouldn’t you have attacked?”
I never started any fight?!