25.

In order to make him remember us

Dominic continued to attend exhibitions at the arena beside the countess, stifling the emotions that burned every time he saw her excited. Thelo had mentioned not long ago that he was getting close to something. He just had to hold on a little longer to keep anyone from getting suspicious.

The crowd cheered as Ian held up another heart and crushed it, the blood splattering down. He had continued to play and win despite being free, and always finished his matches in the same way.

The boy looked over at the front row where Dominic was sitting alongside the countess. He turned his head slightly and refused to look back.

“What a wonderful fighter you’ve picked, Lio,” the countess remarked, smiling.

“I was simply lucky,” Dominic replied.

“You selected him yourself. Is that not more skill than luck?”

“Well, I couldn’t have expected this much,” he lied. “I just wanted to see what a fighter so young could do.”

“I admire that kind of decisiveness.”

Ian turned away from them, making his way calmly back down the arena steps to the holding area. The corpse of his opponent was slowly cleaned up, the broken chunks of his heart scraped up from the ground. Dominic watched as they worked, holding back the urge to cough at the stench.

“Madam,” he said, trying to fix his mind on something else, “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.”

“Is it serious?” she asked.

“No, just curiosity.”

“Ask away.”

“When you watch fights like this,” Dominic said, gesturing towards the arena, “does it ever make you want to participate yourself?”

“Hmm…”

She leaned her chin on her hand, smiling as she thought.

“You know, I did, as a young demon,” she replied. “The idea excited me. Of course, Maylia Arena had not been established yet, but there were always similar attractions. I admired the passion with which people fought, tooth and nail. It was beautiful to me—and still is—but back then it was different.”

She watched as the corpse on the ring was hauled off by cleaners.

“I wanted to be part of it once, as you mentioned,” she said. “But once I tried it, I realized it was not the same.”

“Was it disappointing?” Dominic asked.

“No, honestly, I was just rather neutral about it,” she replied. “The blood stank from up close, and the feeling of flesh between my fingers was far slimier than I had expected, but these did not surprise me.”

She let out a small sigh.

“I guess I had just assumed that from such close proximity, holding death in my fingers, I would have felt something. Passion, fire, anger, anything. The fact that I did not made me realize that there was no point if I was the one standing in the ring. I could never imitate the desperation, the sheer will, that a slave has.”

She looked over at Dominic, their eyes meeting.

“I can’t create a good show on my own.”

Dominic smiled and considered his next words, but the countess began to speak again before he could respond.

“Were you thinking of participating, Lio?” she asked.

He quickly shook his head.

“No,” he replied, “I’m a scholar, so I’m no good in a fight. It just crossed my mind that perhaps the founder of Maylia Arena might have more experience.”

“Well, you guessed right that I tried before,” she said, chuckling. “But I’m too old for that kind of behavior now. It’s much more fun to simply be a spectator, anyway. What do you think?”

“I agree,” Dominic replied.

He thought back to his days working as a mercenary and doing other odd jobs around Vaine. It had been lucrative, but more than anything, it was tiring.

“I enjoy things much more when I can sit back and not have to lift a finger myself.”

The countess laughed.

“Well said.”

From the stands, an arena worker appeared, approaching Dominic nervously. There was a familiar scent of tea and bitter poison dusted over his uniform.

“Are you Lio, sir?” he asked, leaning in.

“That is correct.”

“Lord Helwin has asked me to summon you.”

“Lord Helwin is here?” Dominic replied. He was a bit surprised that Thelo was in attendance as well.

“He must have come with some of his new friends,” the countess remarked.

“I suppose so.”

Dominic stood from his seat, bowing slightly to her.

“It seems I must leave you for a moment then, Madam.”

“Go on,” she said, waving him off with a chuckle, “your lord is calling.”

He gladly followed the servant away from their seats, into a hallway that led below the stands. As they approached a set of stairs that opened up onto a different section of the stadium, Thelo appeared, making his own way down. Their eyes met, and he nodded towards Dominic.

“That will be enough,” he said, glancing at the servant. “You’re dismissed.”

The man bowed hastily and left. Thelo’s gaze moved back to Dominic.

“Are we going up?” Dominic asked, looking towards the staircase, the roar of the stadium just outside.

“No,” Thelo replied, leaning his back against the wall. “I’m sure neither of us want to be out there.”

There was no need to argue with that.

“Why’d you call me?” Dominic asked.

“It’s done.”

“What is?”

Thelo took a pipe from his sleeve and lit it, taking a long drag and exhaling.

“Everything,” he said, fragrant smoke floating out with his breath. “I got confirmation just now. The king knows.”

Dominic’s expression darkened.

“Tell me in detail.”

Thelo glanced around, wary of listening ears. There were still a few people wandering around in the halls, making their way between different sections of the stands or looking for food vendors. Dominic let his mana ooze out, forming a thick, almost viscous layer around them. Mana conveyed intention, so he’d just have to forcefully disrupt it for anyone outside.

“No one can hear us,” he said. “Now talk. I’ve been waiting a while for news.”

“…You can do things like this?”

“You could do it too, if you tried.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not a magical genius—apologies for that.”

Dominic glared at him pointedly. He was more impatient than normal, and with good reason. Thelo took another drag of his pipe before starting to talk.

“I’ve been looking into the lower nobles,” he said, “as you already knew. They were desperate to look cool around the new lord of Helwin, so a few showed me their ‘collections.’”

“I’m assuming they weren’t collecting stamps.”

“Correct. They were perverts.”

Thelo blew a cloud of smoke. It smelled herbal.

“I couldn’t do anything purely because they owned people,” he said, “since using seals is still legal. So I dug a bit further.”

“With Aster?”

Thelo froze, gaze drifting.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Sorry. That kid’s really useful as a spy.”

Dominic had noticed the boy was more tired than normal, but let it be. If Aster had agreed to it on his own, it wasn’t his business to intervene.

“And what did you find?”

“He brought me an awful lot of shiny things.”

Thelo tapped his pipe against the wall, a bit of ash sprinkling out.

“Buttons. Lockets. Brooches. Mementos of dead people. Even though seals aren’t illegal…”

His gaze met Dominic’s.

“…murder still is. And unlike how it is at the arena, the nobles are the ones doing it.”

“Prosecuting a few low nobles is not much,” Dominic said, unconvinced. “Did you find anything on trafficking?”

“I was just about to get to that,” Thelo replied, nodding. “I looked into that new kid of yours, Ian. It was hard to find any real records of him, since he didn’t even have a name, but he came into existence here, at Maylia Arena, as 110.”

“What does that mean?”

“The first record I could find is him being acquired by the countess,” he explained. “But it states that he was traded to her from a baron who has no history of owning slaves.”

“So he’s a supplier.”

“It’s possible.”

He took another drag from his pipe.

“I can’t say for sure if he was taken against his will or went with the baron on his own,” Thelo said. “But I found while digging into Ian that these kinds of trades happen all the time in Maylia Arena. And if any one of those trades turns out to be illegal, or coerced or whatever—”

He exhaled, letting a thin stream of smoke out through his teeth.

“—then this entire place turns into an illicit marketplace. And the king can prosecute it.”

“Is that enough?” Dominic asked, still skeptical. “Even if a few nobles are trafficking, seals are still legal, and I’m sure many of the buyers would be able to just play dumb. There’s nothing stopping things from staying the same.”

“That’s not the point,” Thelo replied. “What the king needs is a reason to make a fuss. We may have never met him in person before, but he’s a political entity that has stayed in power for over a thousand years. We can trust him to finish the things we start.”

He swirled his pipe in the air, drawing a circle.

“Some low nobles kidnapped and killed their slaves,” he said. “Their reasons were probably completely perverse. If low nobles can participate in such things, then what about those at higher ranks? It will stir up unrest in the people, who were already uncomfortable with this practice in the first place. And then His Majesty will probably do something like expose Maylia Arena and other ‘attractions’ to disgust the public further at just how decrepit these people can get.”

He took another drag, blowing out a whiff of smoke.

“Nobles will argue that the slaves put themselves up for it, so it’s not their fault!” he continued. “But then people will question: what if that’s not true? What if they were forced to? How can you prove that you didn’t kidnap them? And that is when His Majesty will swoop in and ride on that bandwagon and investigate everyone involved, then use the excuse of finding corruption and human trafficking behind the scenes to ban seals altogether, if he’s in the mood.”

Thelo turned towards him.

“We’re not the king’s police, Dominic,” he said. “We’re just here to make an excuse for him to start a political purge of his own. He knows now, so he’ll take care of everything.”

Dominic frowned. Thelo was right, but he didn’t feel good about it. That was it? All they had to do was snitch?

“This isn’t enough,” he said. “I need to get his attention, and this won’t work. We’ll both be brushed to the side.”

“Why? We helped greatly.”

“Because it’s boring.”

Thelo looked up at him with an expression of mixed confusion and irritation at his dismissive tone.

“The king might thank you for your work,” Dominic said, “but he isn’t going to remember your face.”

“You speak as if you’ve met him.”

“I’ve met the duchess,” he replied. “Someone who’s over a thousand years old won’t care unless something about you surprises them. That was the only reason she sent me an invitation in the first place.”

His eyes wandered towards the light that fell in from the staircase nearby, the stands still roaring from behind the muted barrier of mana he had put up around them.

“I hate to sound like the countess,” he said, “but this is not enough. We need to make our role more interesting than just being rats. Anyone could do that, if they wanted to kiss up to the king.”

Thelo stared at him in slight surprise.

“You’re a little weird today, Dominic,” he commented. “I never took you for this type. I thought you’d be fine with the minimum amount of effort.”

He wasn’t wrong. That was how it had always been. And despite all that he’d said about Thelo’s plan being boring, despite the fact that he knew he was logically right, part of him also felt like his dissatisfaction had nothing to do with getting the king’s attention in the first place. The crowd roared. The stands rumbled. Blood splattered and stained the floor. Dominic was not going to leave the arena quietly.

“Did you want to cause a spectacle, then?” Thelo asked, taking another drag from his pipe.

Dominic thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.

“Let’s just flip the order,” he replied.

“How so?”

“You said he’d probably start with the more minor nobles’ crimes,” Dominic said, “and then release information on Maylia Arena later to stir up public sentiment. Instead of that, let’s deal with Maylia Arena first.”

Thelo was quiet for a moment as he thought it over.

“That could work,” he said. “It’s a little risky to take on a big fish first, but if the slaves go free, it would also provide us with a lot more first person testimony on what happens in this trade. The people would go into a rage faster.”

Thelo nodded to himself.

“Alright, let’s do that. I’ll suggest it to His Majesty. It might take a bit more time to get approval than before, though. He’ll have to have justification prepared against the countess before we can start.”

“I can wait a little longer.”

“You sound like you’re ready to explode.”

Thelo chuckled to himself.

“You’ve worked hard, Dominic,” he said. “It must have been hell to have to sit by the countess.”

“It hardly helped at all, in the end,” Dominic replied. He’d gained barely anything from doing it, aside from freeing Ian.

“Then give me your help from now on.”

Thelo’s smile was a little sly as he spoke.

“Maylia Arena will probably be treated as something like a black market by the king,” he said, “and they’ll raid it to make it disband. Of course, they’ll need all the nobles alive for interrogation, and it’s a place with tight security in the first place. Plus, we can’t guarantee that the slaves won’t be forced to protect it against their will, and even if we freed them, many would die because of the loss of their healing seals.”

He pointed at Dominic.

“So what we need most is a powerful healer. Someone who can deal with hundreds of lives at once, if not more. Someone we can trust won’t back out in fear, and—even better—someone who isn’t afraid of catching the attention of everybody here.”

He lowered his hand, tapping the pipe to his lips.

“When I inform the king of our change in plans, I’ll recommend that he put you at the head,” he said. “What do you think?”

It made sense. At the same time, Thelo was telling him to take responsibility for his mess. If he wanted to make things more difficult than they were in the original plan, then he’d have to do it himself.

“I’m fine with it,” Dominic replied.

“Good.”

Thelo pushed himself away from the wall.

“I’ll organize the rest, so do your best dealing with the countess until then,” he said, putting a hand on Dominic’s shoulder as he walked past. “I’ll let you know when I get confirmation.”

Dominic nodded.

“I’ll be waiting for your call.”