Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga – Chapter 38

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
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The information the soldier had was quite useful.

The fact that Count Pavera, whose real name was unknown until now, had only acquired the vineyard about half a year ago.

That this strange scheme had only begun a little over a month prior.

That he was not a traditional noble, but had purchased his title with money.

Lastly, that his soldiers numbered around 40, and an additional 40 mercenaries had been hired to carry out this operation.

“What kind of count employs 40 personal soldiers and hires mercenaries on top of that?”

“Truth is, he had around 30 men who were with him even before he obtained his title. Officially they’re referred to as security forces for maintaining order, but they’re no different than personal soldiers. Since his estate is considered an outskirt of the capital, there are limits on private soldiers, but no issues with employing mercenaries.”

“And the additional 40 men?”

“Well, I don’t know for certain, but the rumor is that they’re lower-quality mercenaries he hired secretly…”

He seemed adamant on proving he had no room to even consider lying, readily answering in an almost instantaneous manner.

From his account, this Pavera fellow sounded like someone whose mind worked in rather unsavory ways.

The fact that he had around 30 men in his possession even before this, implied he had been up to no good previously, although this soldier seemed unaware of those prior dealings.

By chance, the one I had spared happened to be among the recently hired soldiers, not one of the 30 who had been with Pavera longer.

“What absolute shit luck.”

Pavera and around 10 of his inner circle were stationed at their main camp, while the remaining 20 were stationed in the dilapidated ruin in the forest as a forward base.

The 40 additionally hired mercenaries were deployed throughout the woods, systematically massacring the adventurers as part of the scheme.

“Did this bastard lose his parents to adventurers or something? Why go to such lengths?”

“I’m just a grunt, so I don’t know that much…”

“Hmm, seems ambiguous.”

While operating in secret, luring and killing adventurers in this manner was an extremely dangerous act.

Of course, that’s precisely why these men had carefully planned and prepared tactics within the forest.

But getting caught would still mean asset seizure and execution at minimum.

For Pavera to take that risk, there must have been a significant benefit motivating him – but what exactly, I couldn’t fathom.

“Oh, oh! There is one strange thing I know!”

My muttered remark about the ambiguity must have seemed to imply the information was sorely lacking compared to the value of his life, as the soldier began frantically rolling his eyes before blurting out.

This man had been quite actively cooperating by lowering his tone from earlier, so I had intended to spare him regardless – but this desperate reaction was making me feel a tad sorry for him.

“On Count Pavera’s orders, the bodies of the adventurers killed so far have been collected and kept somewhere in those ruins!”

“What?! What kind of f**ked up psychopath does that disgusting shit? Why?”

“I, I don’t know! But I did hear instructions like ‘don’t worry about their condition since they’ll be burned anyway’, so they’re just being roughly gathered for now!”

“Burned anyway…?”

It made no sense.

Collecting the bodies of adventurers who came to subdue them, deliberately escalating to draw in even more adventurers…

And not even bothering with confirmation kills on the disabled ones outside the forest, as if those who happened to die were of no concern.

Why? According to this man, for the initial subjugation request, they lured adventurers into the forest and took them out through coordinated ambushes.

They had been operating with such calculated tactics, carefully selecting skilled combatants to carry out the operations.

So why resort to such a sloppy, chaotic method now?

“Th-That’s really all I know, I swear! Please spare me…!”

“Hey, don’t worry. I, Eldmia Aega, don’t have a habit of killing cooperative friends. Unless you turn out to be one utterly vile bastard, that is.”

His face flushed with relief at those words as he thanked me profusely.

But I couldn’t just leave him be, just in case he tried anything, so I’d have to knock him out.

“Look, while I won’t kill you, we’re not close enough friends for me to just let you go in one piece, you understand? I’ll just knock you out.”

“O-Of course! A wise decision, Lord Eldmia!”

“I do appreciate that cooperative attitude. And when you wake up, you’ll likely find all those around you dead, you know? If my hunch is right, this whole affair is the doing of that Pavera guy, so today might just be his funeral.”

“Heh…heh…”

“It won’t be a small incident by any means, so once the rumors start spreading…as perhaps the sole survivor, you’ll likely be asked to recount what happened, no? When that time comes, consider this payment for your life and pass on this message.”

“Wh-What message?”

“If you find some guy named Eldmia Egga mixed up in your shitty schemes, just drop everything and run for it. Easy enough, right?”

“O-Of course! If anyone asks, I’ll properly convey that!”

“Good. You seem smart enough, so I believe you. Now relax. I definitely won’t kill you. Alright…huh?”

After striking the man’s carotid to knock him out and gently laying him on the ground, a sudden realization hit me as I was thanking him one last time.

“Leaving a survivor?”

Those who entered the forest were killed.

But those who couldn’t even make it into the forest were allowed to live.

From how they avoided confirmation kills, that much was certain.

However, most of the rest would likely die.

So what rumor would spread? That a subjugation attempt against bandits, escalated in a second wave to draw in over 60 adventurers, had failed catastrophically.

How would people react to such a rumor? Cheryl had said that if this subjugation failed, noble soldiers would be deployed.

But the noble behind this whole incident was the culprit.

The surviving adventurers would speak of deranged bandits systematically waging combat with bows and all.

The rumor would spread rapidly.

How could it not, when nearly 60 adventurers had been virtually wiped out in the vicinity of the capital? The palace would surely take notice.

Then if Count Pavera led his soldiers in a successful subjugation…

“This f**king bastard wanted more reputation after making his money, huh?”

Charred bodies would serve as sufficient evidence of the subjugation.

By collecting the adventurer tags from those killed this time and submitting them to the guild separately, there’d be no need to examine the bodies.

If he could dispose of the bodies of the adventurers they killed by burning them, leaving only convincing false evidence of bandits thieves, his rise to fame would be instantaneous.

Perhaps even more dramatically, he could turn in just the recovered adventurer tags to the guild.

Had it not been for us, this scheme might very well have succeeded in becoming a monumental, heroic tale of the newly rising noble, Count Pavera.

Once I deduced that much, I couldn’t contain myself until confirming whether the truth matched my wildly speculative imagination.

The thought of my insane conjecture being just a fanciful imagination or the actual reality had my entire body tingling with the urge to verify it.

So I picked up a serviceable shortsword from among the fallen soldiers and dashed as quickly as possible through the forest, seeking the ruins and Cheryl.

Every so often, I dispatched any patrol units I encountered by hurling the shortswords at them.

Pushing deeper into the dense woods, hints of a gray structure began emerging between the thick foliage.

“Eldmia, over here.”

Cheryl’s voice rang out, and I stopped to scan around.

She descended from the trees like a cat, quietly approaching me.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, I ran into a cooperative friend and got some information. Turns out these bastards might just be the biggest bastards around.”

“Cooperative, you say?”

I relayed to the bewildered Cheryl the details I had learned from the nameless soldier, which visibly shocked her.

“What in the world were they trying to do?”

“I don’t know, it just kinda happened that way?”

“They don’t seem the type to be so careless for things to ‘just happen’…”

While an ominous exchange, that wasn’t the priority now.

So I shared my speculation with Cheryl.

“Hey, I think this Count Pavera guy is behind it all, and his goal might be building a reputation for himself.”

“A reputation? You didn’t misspeak and mean infamy?”

“They’ve been collecting the bodies of the adventurers they killed. But he said something about burning them anyway later on. You mentioned earlier that if this subjugation failed, the noble landowner would mobilize his soldiers to handle it directly, right?”

I laid out my carefully thought-out theory.

Cheryl’s pencil-thin brows furrowed in fury as she instantly processed the information and judged its implications.

“What a demonic scheme deserving of being torn to shreds and more…”

“It’s just my speculation, but doesn’t it seem to add up?”

“Deceiving and killing adventurers wasn’t enough – he means to pin the blame for his atrocities on those very victims, black wash their names as ‘thieves’ to further exploit them? Could such a conception truly arise from a human mind?”

This is a world without modern forensics.

A world where countless lives are lost not just to natural disasters, but all manner of monstrosities and human-caused calamities.

It’s undeniable that verifying the circumstances of each death one-by-one is something that only happens under very special cases.

The guild would be no different.

While dismayed at the decimation of 60 green and blue-ranked adventurers, they would only step in seriously if even noble soldiers suffered heavy casualties and failed to subdue the supposed bandits.

Of course, that won’t happen here.

Count Pavera will simply dress up the collected adventurer corpses in some makeshift guise, burn them all to mimic thieves, and if aiming for an even more dramatic spectacle, turn in just the recovered adventurer tags to the guild.

Had that occurred, it would have become a monumentally heroic tale elevating the newly famous Count Pavera.

Our absence alone would likely have seen his scheme succeed.

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