After killing that noble I started expanding the Black Hand gang further into the country with help from the few people in Sylvian that know mind magic, including auntie.

With our influence spreading I make sure to befriend more people too, many servants in noble houses receive our help in one thing or another and even a few spies, working for those nobles to spy on someone else, are friends with us.

And with that I can offer information to various nobles to help push them towards a civil war.

Sometimes I give fake information to a spy and then to the noble that spy works for, so when he receives it from me he might not believe it, but when his own spy says the same thing a few days later it becomes harder to doubt.

I already have much of the country primed for war, but I’m lacking a proper trigger, the cinder that will set this whole country on fire.

The old king is already dead, but the two princes both know they might lose everything if they don’t keep their shit together. They even sent a bunch of envoys to other countries to try and get their support.

Sadly for them, the two countries that could actually help, Sylvian and Munsberg (country to the northwest), are the ones they fear would try to exploit the opening a civil war would give. So they are only getting support from smaller kingdoms that wouldn’t be able to send much help.

I already have a plan, I’ll fake an assassination attempt at one of the princes, so I have my men take over the capital’s underworld.

Sadly they are having trouble with one of the current gangs, a handful of my higher ranking boys even died.

If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself, I suppose.

I sneak in the enemy’s base just like I did with that noble, and start killing.

But when I’m heading towards the inner parts of the base, my blood sense detects someone that my magic sense didn’t.

I focus my magic sense and I can sense the bastards only slightly, there are three of them, all well trained in stealth. Sneaking up on a Chevalier is no easy feat.

These guys are probably the ones responsible for the mission failure.

I turn around innocently and ask “Someone there?” They stop approaching me, I can feel their heartbeats quickening. I keep turning my head left and right to pretend like I’m searching for them.

I use a couple detection spells to take something like mental pictures of them. I recognize one of them from a drawing I’ve seen before, he’s a famous general with a confusing name like ‘Brogandoff’ or something like that.

Shit, I can’t kill this guy. That might make the princes unite against me, I need to either run away or knock him out and finish cleaning the place.

After a while I shrug my shoulders and move towards a narrow corridor where they can’t surround me.

Running away would be simple and believable, but I’d need to come back later to clean this gang.

Knocking him out would be harder… there’s a chance he’s very strong. While I have an easy time killing lower knights, this guy is probably on a completely different level, and he has two well-trained helpers too…

Running away it is.

I turn a corner to break line of sight and start using my cloak, hiding my mana and all that good stuff. I also make an illusion of myself entering a room up ahead.

I concentrate on hiding as they move past me and towards my illusion.

When they pass me I start moving towards where they just came from. I exit through the first window I see and close it quietly when I’m done.

By now they must have realized I’m gone. After distancing myself from the place, I quickly dig a hole with magic, enchant its walls and hide in it. Yes, I remembered to leave an opening for air to come through.

Now I have to wait for a long time, this is gonna be really boring isn’t it?

Seems in my hurry I underestimated the people I can’t blackmail, I’m going to have to keep an eye on them while moving in the capital.

~~

Like I expected they organized a big search to find me, some guys even walked over my hole. If I didn’t enchant it against detection spells I’d be screwed, or at least humiliated as I’d need to run away in an unsightly manner.

I realized that I’m not the best at dealing with people that I can’t force to submit, maneuvering in the capital should be left to the spies more used to that kind of thing.

The Black Hand has already spread its influence to much of the country, they should be a big help in making the two factions weaken each other and sabotaging them when we invade.

The cooperation between the two big factions is already breaking down, I should be careful not to get carried away and ruin the whole project…

…I’m still taking down that gang though; just need the right kind of distraction to do it…

~~

With the capital side of things stabilized I left business there to my more competent compatriots and kept working on the countryside (After taking down that gang, of course).

I mostly gave nobles a scare to make sure they didn’t get any ideas and did the same to the men.

The main problem was that the people I left in charge were a little bit too lax for my taste. Well, there wasn’t murder and rape, but some of the minions ended up embezzling some of the protection money.

While doing a general check around the country to see if I missed anything I overheard a complaint that one of my men got someone pregnant and refused to marry her.

The thing is: when I asked him, he said he didn’t sleep with her and my mind magic says he’s telling the truth.

So I visited the girls house and after reassuring them that I wasn’t here to silence them I tried to get to the bottom of the matter.

After asking a few questions I concluded that the girl wasn’t lying either. Since they are saying contradictory things, one of them must be wrong, even if they aren’t lying.

So either the man is wrong and he’s the father even if he doesn’t know it OR the woman is wrong and the father is someone else.

At this point, I just realized I have no reason to be actually looking into this, but since I’m already here I kept going. I ordered a search done to find men that look like the one suspected of being the father.

If this doesn’t work I’ll look for witnesses of the two together.

~~

Like I guessed, the guy simply drank too much that night and forgot about sleeping with her, case closed, don’t care about what will happen between the two… But something else caught my attention while staying in this town.

There’s a haunted house here.

As in a house that is abandoned because of ghost rumors, even when someone tried to demolish it, the workers he hired quit.

Now, you may be thinking ‘What’s the big deal? Just rumors of ghosts, it’s probably a cat in the attic making noise or something like that.’ But you are missing two important facts.

This is a fantasy world with magic and monsters. The basic principles of necromancy I learned heavily point toward the existence of a soul or soul-like thing.

Those two facts together mean there is an actual chance of existing ghosts in that place.

The place itself does give a gloomy feeling, but that could be excused by lack of maintenance.

It’s a three story house, big enough that it could be considered a mansion. First two floors are made with stone, third with wood.

It’s built on top of a hill somewhat separated from the surrounding neighborhood

And yes, I’m dying of curiosity to check if there are actual ghosts in there.

I switch my disguise so that I can heal my eyes (if there’s a ghost I want to see what it looks like with my own eyes) and go in.

Although gloomy, the place was clearly owned by a somewhat rich family. I can see various decorations damaged by time and covered in dust.

Normally every expensive thing would be looted in an abandoned house. I’m pretty sure that cup over there is made of silver.

I use a few detection spells to check the place out. The layout of the rooms is normal, no secret rooms or basements, I also detect no life.

But the attic has something getting in the way of my spells, if my spells made a map, there would be nothing drawn where the attic would be.

This means there’s something or someone interfering with my spells.

I’m getting excited, there’s a high likelihood that even if I don’t find a ghost, there’s something interesting here.

I move towards the attic while occasionally using detection spells.

Until the void in my detection spells starts moving.

Towards me.

I wait for it to come and set up the stuff I prepared in case there’s a ghost.

In various cultures on earth, there is a custom to give offerings to appease spirits and that kind of thing. Normally food, incense or treasure.

I set down and light up some imported, nice smelling incense, a big bowl with a variety of foods including fresh fruits and a piece of raw, bloody meat (who knows what kind of food a ghost would want? I don’t) and a small open bag with a few coins of gold and silver, enough to buy and then maintain a war-horse for a couple of months or provide for a family of five for a year.

There, unless the ghost is extremely specific in their tastes, this should be enough to befriend/pacify it.

The void in my detection stopped around the corner of the hallway I’m on.

I take a few steps back from the offerings, sit down on the ground and start snacking on some cookies.

I also use the magic echolocation I learned from a monster a long time ago, the range for this magic is short when compared to normal detection spells, but it’s much harder to hide from.

The results from the magic are in: there’s nothing there. I smile, it must be an actual ghost, and I must be lucky… Unless it’s the evil kind of ghost, in that case I must be unlucky.

The void stays around the corner for a while before approaching me once again, I can’t see it with my eyes either, but my mana sense can tell there’s something there, although the details are fuzzy.

I’m getting the chills and feeling spooked. Would steel and magic work against it? Maybe mind magic would…

Where the void in my senses is I begin to see a vague and small human silhouette, like I’m looking at someone through some dense smoke or fog.

“It’s for you.” I say while pointing towards the offerings.

The ghost stays a couple steps away from the offerings and from the silhouette, it seems to be looking at me and then at the offerings.

“You don’t want it?” I ask.

I can see the silhouette shaking its head. It then approaches the food and picks up an apple. From my mana sense I can tell this ghost is actually immaterial, not made of matter, but when it’s hand touches the apple, the apple is lifted as if normal.

I pay attention to the area between the apple and the ghost’s ‘skin’ (or should I call it surface?), my mana sense tells me it’s some abnormal form of telekinesis lifting the apple.

The ghost lifts the apple to where their mouth would be and takes a bite… huh? Where does the bite of apple go?

Once again, I concentrate on my mana senses. I can’t ‘see’ inside of the ghost, but I can tell that it still doesn’t have any mass or matter.

While I’m wondering if the ghost can turn matter into energy, the ghost finishes eating the apple.

The vague silhouette slowly becomes slightly more defined and I can see some details. The ghost seems to be a human child, although I can’t tell if it’s male or female.

While I’m trying to figure out the details of the ghost’s appearance I hear a distant voice saying “Thank you…” and the ghost seems to disperse into bits of mana.

The bits of mana come to me and before I can act they are kind of absorbed by my body. Okay, now I’m really getting the chills.

I quickly use a bunch of diagnostic spells on myself, only to find there’s nothing wrong. I then charge up in mind power and dive into my memories.

After a while of looking around I find a memory that’s not my own.

The owner of the memory seems to be laying down in a bed while looking out the window, seeing a group of children play.

I also find a couple other fragments of memories, but nothing as complete as the first one.

I calm down my mind before I get a headache and try to use my own senses to check if I feel bad in any way… nope, I feel great, if a little spooked.

I look around and use various detection spells, only to find nothing at all, not even the previous void.

Damn, I was hoping to use the ghost to study the nature of souls.

Well, if there’s no ghost anymore, there’s no reason for me to be here.

Not long after that I finished stabilizing the gang on the countryside and went back to Sylvian. And not long after going home, the civil war started.