Chapter 419: A New Way to Die

When it came time for the trading segment, the atmosphere cooled somewhat.

The interval since the last gathering had been so short that no one had found time to fully restock their inventory.

The liquid in Dionysus's cup had stabilized, but he still wanted to run a few more tests.

Neither Richard nor Nemesis offered anything this time; the materials they held were either awaiting processing or being kept for personal use.

Only two people actively traded. One was Prometheus, who had just advanced to Minor Adept.

He laid out the first batch of products from his new furnace, mostly a few bottles of newly blended stabilizer.

Naturally, these stabilizers were of slightly lower quality than the ones his master made, but there were more of them.

He also offered two ether condensates he had refined himself. Their purity was quite good.

"These are all from my furnace's first batch. If anyone wants them, I can offer a discount."

Demeter selected a bottle of stabilizer and gave a bag of seeds from her own fields in return.

As usual, she then set out a pile of materials from the mystical side.

She pulled out a bag of spores and offered it to Richard.

"Hermes, do you still need Silence Fern?"

Ever since Richard achieved mediumless casting for the Silence Spell, his need for the spores had dropped.

Still, keeping them to amplify his own Spell Formulas later, or for other purposes, would be useful.

He accepted the bag of Silence Fern.

"Of course. Do you want appraisal services or money for this?"

Demeter waved a hand.

"You helped me appraise that bowl last time, and the report was perfectly clear.

"I handled it exactly as you said, and nothing went wrong. Consider these spores my thanks."

Richard nodded and asked casually, "How are things in the fields lately?"

Demeter seemed to be in a foul mood. "Not quite right."

"What exactly is wrong?"

She gave a brief explanation.

"The grain is growing faster and faster, but it's also getting stranger.

"They are all empty husks. Like I said last time, a forced harvest is always hollow.

"The ether seeping through the veil also causes certain special crops to mutate."

"How did you handle it?"

"I burned it all, of course. I didn't dare keep it. Sometimes, other things burrow into those empty husks."

Demeter cut the topic short.

"Let's drop it. I'll deal with the wheat myself."

Heracles looked as though he had been holding back for a long time before suddenly blurting out a question.

"Hermes, don't mind my bluntness, but I have something I want to ask you."

"Go ahead."

"That Caduceus of yours..."

The way he weighed every word looked far more strenuous than when he swung that Great Club of his.

"...Can it be used to collect debts?"

Demeter glanced over with some interest.

Heracles hurriedly explained, "There's someone up north who owes me money. He's a middleman. He took my deposit but hasn't delivered the goods for three months.

"Every time I go there, he locks his doors and has a few Practitioners under his command block the entrance to 'reason' with me."

Richard thought for a moment.

"I can walk in holding the staff, say my piece from start to finish, and walk right back out without losing a single hair."

"That works then!"

"But the moment I take a step toward him, or place a hand on his shoulder, the ability is instantly voided.

"Once a messenger strikes, they are no longer a messenger."

A muffled voice came from beneath the Lion-Mouth Mask.

"Then it's absolutely useless to me."

Beside them, Dionysus laughed so hard that the little liquid in his cup nearly spilled.

He raised his cup toward Richard.

"How about we partner up? You walk in holding the staff, and I'll use my wine to get him dead drunk right on the spot. We'll split it thirty-seventy."

Demeter asked, "Who gets the seventy?"

Dionysus considered it. "Hermes gets it, of course. I'm just in it for the fun."

The whole table laughed.

On Nemesis's tilted scales, two words surfaced: 'For money.'

Dionysus set his cup down.

"Nemesis, that's unkind. I'm just a brewer. What else is there for me to want all year round?"

Suddenly remembering something, Heracles pulled an item from his coat and slapped it onto the table.

"Speaking of which, on my way back this time, I picked up something interesting off a tavern counter."

Richard's gaze fell upon it, and he nearly choked on his own breath.

"The owner said paperboys were selling these for a penny a copy, spreading all the way over from Manchester."

Heracles flipped the booklet open.

"I treated it as a joke at first, but when I saw this page, I stopped laughing."

He pointed to six lines of text and read them out, stumbling over his words:

"'If a name is called three times without answer, and the body is wet, that is not your kin...' Everyone, whoever wrote this is definitely an insider."

Dionysus chimed in.

"It's spread across the Imperial Capital as well. Last month in the South District, I saw a patrolman crouching on someone's steps, reading it line by line to an old lady."

Demeter said, "The little children in the countryside use it for their jump rope rhymes.

"The daughters of a few tenant farmers near me were skipping to this exact tune in the yard. No answer to the first call, no answer to the second... They jumped in perfect unison."

Richard sat in his stone chair, pretending as if nothing were wrong.

Heracles closed the booklet and patted it solemnly.

"I don't know whose side the author is on, but if we ever meet, I absolutely have to buy him a drink."

"He'd better be able to hold his liquor, then." The one who spoke was Nemesis.

Richard cast a cautious glance her way and noticed that no more words appeared on the scales.

"That would be nice. It's a shame I can't find him." Heracles stuffed the booklet back into his coat.

At the head seat, Hecate raised her hand.

"We will now begin the intelligence sharing."

Dionysus spoke first.

"Usually, I'd be the one to start this segment, but I don't have any intel tonight.

"I've been busy with other things this month."

Heracles asked, "What have you been busy with?"

"Finding places to drink."

An unidentified chuckle echoed through the hall.

Dionysus picked his cup back up.

"Those of you not in the Imperial Capital probably don't know what happened on the sixth of this month. The King swore an oath."

"What oath?"

"A public oath," he said. "He swore not to touch a drop of alcohol until the war is won. Then he had the royal wine cellars locked up and handed over the keys.

"Since that day, every family with any face in the Imperial Capital has emptied half their liquor cabinets.

"A few families even set up plaques in their foyers reading 'Bound by the House Oath'."

"The Minister of Munitions said something in a speech last month that is now spreading across the entire Empire."

"What did he say?" Richard asked.

"He said that alcohol does more harm to the Empire than all the enemy submarines combined."

After finishing his sentence, Dionysus was the first to laugh.

"As you all know, since I bear the name of the god of wine, it's naturally easier for me to gather intelligence in taverns.

"But the higher-ups are already discussing restricting tavern operating hours.

"They've already restricted the ones next to the factories, so I truly have no intel this month."

Prometheus spoke up at this moment.

"Lately, more than half of the raw materials wanted by alchemists and the chemical materials wanted by factories are being bought up by the same group of people. You all probably didn't know that.

"Steel cylinders, in particular, were bought out almost entirely in one go.

"There's a broker over in a neutral country. I've dealt with him for several years."

He continued his explanation.

"Last month, he took an order that bought out that factory's entire production volume for the year all at once.

"He told me the money for this order was routed very strangely. On paper, it was a private firm, but the funds came out of the accounts of The Military."

Demeter asked, "So what was put in the steel cylinders?"

"Gas."

"They are all seamless steel cylinders. The ones filled with liquid or powder don't need to be seamless. Seamless ones are the most expensive precisely because they don't leak gas."

He added another detail:

"Furthermore, that order also required brass valves lined with lead.

"Lead is soft and heavy. If it can be avoided, generally no one wants to use it.

"Unless the substance inside is something that would even corrode copper."

Heracles asked, "Isn't that just like coal gas?"

"Coal gas doesn't need to be lined with lead."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know either.

"There's one more thing. The price of sulfuric acid has tripled in the past three months.

"This stuff can be used to make explosives, as you all probably know. Factories across the entire continent are fighting over it.

"Sugar has gone up too, ridiculously so. You can hardly find white sugar on the open market right now."

Heracles followed up on this thread.

"It just so happens I have a piece of intel concerning the front lines."

The gaze of everyone at the table shifted over.

"I have an old friend who fought wolf dens with me up in the north. He was drafted last autumn.

"Now he's assigned to a Hunter squad across the sea.

"In a letter he sent me last month, he mentioned that all the rats have abandoned their recent section of the frontline."

Richard frowned, silently taking note.

Heracles continued explaining.

"You all probably don't know the conditions in the trenches over there. There are more rats than people.

"When a man falls asleep, rats will gnaw on his boots. When a man dies and they don't move the body in time, his face is gone by the next morning.

"After half a year of fighting, the rats there have grown fatter than cats.

"But starting last month, not a single one is left in that sector."

Demeter asked, "Where did they all go?"

Heracles said, "They likely headed for the rear. Traveling in swarms, moving even during the day, scurrying back along the communication trenches.

"Engineers smashed dozens of them to death with shovels, but the rest kept running all the same.

"The birds are gone too. There used to be a few flocks of crows there living off the dead, but now the sky is completely empty."

Nemesis's scales tilted slightly, and words surfaced.

"The hunting flocks in the sky have also changed their routes recently.

"They used to follow the old battlefields, but starting this year, they follow the airships."

When it was Demeter's turn, she volunteered that she had no intelligence tonight.

Mostly because the issues in her fields hadn't grown severe enough to be brought to this table yet.

When it came to Hermes, Richard also began to share the information he had gathered.

"The Academy System has been quietly pulling people away recently, mainly classical Scholars, along with archaeologists and surveyors."

Heracles thought nothing of it.

"Secondments happen to everyone, especially under the current circumstances."

Richard continued speaking.

"Secondments aren't unusual, but the people they want are quite unusual. They want those familiar with Homeric geography."

Dionysus asked a question.

"Familiar with Homeric geography? Where are they heading?"

"In March, the Admiralty lost several capital ships in the strait. Colleagues who returned from there say that an anchorage on an island in the Aegean Sea is now packed with ships.

"The peninsula they intend to land on is directly opposite the ancient ruins of Troy. Now, tens of thousands of men are going to cross through there."

After everyone had spoken in turn, Hecate spoke:

"Combining everyone's intelligence today, a new way to die might be about to be created.

"The day it is unleashed, many people might die with the exact same expression in the exact same instant.

"The dead whose bodies remain perfectly intact are the hardest to send off."