9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 208 - Fire (1)

District 3, Lüdelheim’s most affluent neighborhood, was quiet. No, it was more than quiet—it felt ominous.

While other areas were filled with protesters clashing with each other and poor people turning to robbery, making everything chaotic, this place alone maintained the feeling of being a last fortress. Police regularly patrolled the streets, cracking down on suspicious individuals.

If they deployed just half the police force from here, all of Lüdelheim would probably be a bit less turbulent.

With that thought, Ian smiled coldly and raised his wine glass high.

“Cheers! To Schufaben’s victory! And to the prosperity of our business!”

“To victory!!!”

People dressed in fine clothes shouted cheerfully. Every one of them was plump and pale-faced with a greasy sheen.

Ian’s grand mansion sparkled with brilliant lights. The banquet hall was filled with luxurious foods that were hard to come by these days, and amid overflowing laughter, people enjoyed music while gossiping about all sorts of trivial rumors.

“Hey, over here!”

At Ian’s gesture, a maid with long braided red hair approached and poured wine for the guests. Over there, a tall servant was following guests around, attending to them.

In this huge house, there was only one maid and one servant. And these young people had rather rough movements, lacking any refinement, but no one cared.

These days, everyone’s circumstances were difficult, so there was a trend of letting go of expensive, well-trained servants. Instead, it was becoming fashionable to bring in trustworthy relatives’ children, feeding and housing them while using them for free labor.

Even in times like these—or rather, especially in times like these—the wealthy and powerful sought to band together for safety.

To their eyes, Ian, a retired air force officer, was a desirable talent. And Ian was happy to associate with them.

For today’s purpose.

Those who had been secretly trying to survive by finding ways to get by underwater didn’t know this would become poison instead.

“Come on, shall we dance? A day like today won’t come twice, so everyone should enjoy themselves.”

Cheerful music poured from the gramophone. The woman who had been greeting guests with an elegant smile now grinned and stepped into the center of the banquet hall.

Erika Brightner.

She wore a beautiful sky-blue dress and gracefully began dancing with Ian, their hands clasped together.

“Oh my!”

“I guess that rumor was true after all. They seem too close to just be friends…”

“Surely not. Secretary Redan would know who his girlfriend is seeing and whom she meets.”

Despite hearing the whispering voices, Erika only smiled.

Deep into the night. The moon rose and the lights went out in Ian’s mansion.

Ian, the master of the house, moved silently. A shadow slipped past the stairs and into the basement. There, the guests were tied to chairs, unconscious.

“Wake up, everyone!”

Splash!

With a slightly frowning expression, Ian dumped a whole bucket of ice-cold water.

“Blugh!”

Startled awake by the freezing water, the guests looked around in bewilderment.

They had definitely been in the banquet hall just moments ago, but this was clearly a desolate warehouse no matter how you looked at it.

“Hick! I-Ian, sir?”

“Everyone listen up. Make a sound without permission and you die. Move even a finger and it’s the same.”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

“You can scream all you want anyway. This is the basement.”

Ian and Erika, holding pistols, spoke alternately. The maid and servant from earlier were also pointing guns at them.

They were actually Nina and Georg in disguise.

“Please don’t do this! There are police carriages patrolling in front of the mansion…!”

“Police? What’s faster—them hearing your screams and rushing over, or me pulling this trigger?”

One person tried meaningless resistance but was quickly subdued.

“From now on, if you open your mouth without permission, I’ll shoot your fingers off one by one. Keep that in mind. Now then, shall we begin?”

Erika spoke coldly as she looked around at the guests who had turned deathly pale.

“All the relief supplies you’ve been embezzling. Where are they?”

***

Lüdelheim was seething.

That was the only way to describe it.

Every day protesters clashed with each other, police violence grew increasingly severe, and crimes occurred frequently every night. Timid people had either already fled or were staying locked in their houses, afraid to come out.

It felt like a third of the buildings were closed, and even those that weren’t had blocked up all but the minimum entrances with wood or iron sheets. Now that winter had arrived, even those were being stolen for firewood.

The White Raven Order’s intelligence network was working more furiously than ever.

Even as several newspaper companies went bankrupt, Georg never let go of his newspaper selling work until the end, and Oscar continued visiting gambling halls, evading the increasingly lax surveillance.

Richard continued operating his clinic at practically bargain prices. Thanks to this, customers flocked in and information constantly flowed in.

He also visited the Golden Fox tavern to talk with Ameli and pick up rumors. Though less frequently these days.

“The police have loosened their grip on enforcement, but I don’t think this is the time to do business carelessly. You should all gradually stop coming too. We’re short on ingredients anyway, and with robbery incidents happening every other day, I can barely keep the shop open.”

Ameli confided cautiously.

Anyway, after sifting and re-sifting information and repeatedly verifying it, the White Raven Order finally began their assault one day.

“It’s been a while.”

A few months before the party at Ian’s mansion. On a sunny autumn day. Erika greeted a small, nervous-looking man.

“Ah, y-yes, Miss Brightner. It’s been several years indeed.”

This was the District 13 office where Lucas had once worked. And the man was Walter Schlik, the District 13 office director who had been Lucas’s distant superior.

Around the time Redan Company was established, Erika had often met with Office Director Schlik regarding the District 13 shopping district reconstruction project that Lucas had left in her hands.

Back then they had treated each other with courtesy. It was a relationship that naturally dissolved when Redan Company collapsed and Erika was put on the wanted list.

Naturally, Schlik looked quite shocked.

He hadn’t expected Erika, who had been in hiding until recently, to suddenly request a meeting like this. Even though Lucas had arranged for her wanted status to be lifted, the infamy Erika had been saddled with wasn’t going anywhere.

“Um, what brings you to see me…?”

“Office Director Schlik. I’ve heard some stories about relief supplies being diverted and sold by certain groups.”

“Gulp!”

Schlik nearly choked on his tea, but Erika calmly savored the taste of her tea. Tea leaves were precious these days too.

“Why are you so surprised?”

“Gulp, ahem, cough! At least in our District 13, no such wicked person could set foot here.”

“Office Director, you know very well what my relationship with Secretary Redan is, don’t you?”

“Well, you’re lovers, aren’t you?”

Schlik answered with a deeply uncomfortable expression, recalling Lucas Redan’s crazed look.

“Since you know, this will be quick. I’ve heard everything. There are people in each district who systematically monopolize relief supplies and ‘redistribute’ them. District 13 may not have the office director directly involved, but you’re keeping quiet about it because you’re afraid it might leak to the Supreme Leader.”

“Cough! Cough!”

“Don’t worry. I won’t report this anywhere. Quite the opposite. Secretary Redan wants to ‘control’ this situation. He wants to fix things before the Supreme Leader finds out.”

“Through you, Miss Brightner…?”

“Yes, exactly. Simply put, it’s a plan to centralize the relief ‘redistribution’ business around me. Since the supply chain bringing relief goods from the center to each district is in his hands anyway, now we just need to ‘control’ that business and it’ll be perfect.”

“But control, how do you mean?”

Office Director Schlik showed his safety-first nature by hesitating.

“You just need to build a bridge between me and the organization running this business. It’s troublesome, but since we need to avoid the Supreme Leader’s eyes, the secretary can’t give direct orders.”

“Why did Secretary Redan choose me specifically…?”

“Well, perhaps he trusts you?”

Erika smiled gently.

“Don’t forget. One report from the secretary could change the owner of this office.”

In the end, Office Director Schlik gave in, and Erika was able to enter the embezzlers’ organization. She enticed them by claiming she could procure supplies delivered to the air force, and got Ian involved too.

Today’s party was planned to be a meeting to introduce the two of them and convey Lucas’s orders.

That’s what the embezzlers thought they were hearing.

***

“All the relief supplies you’ve been embezzling. Where are they?”

At Erika’s words, the guests’ faces contorted. They all came to the same realization.

‘We’ve been tricked!!!’

“Now, Lüdelheim is divided into 16 districts and there are 16 embezzlers. Sixteen is too big a number, so let’s stop at eight. Only the first eight people to confess will keep their necks attached.”

“W-wait!”

“I’ll give you eight seconds to spill everything. Otherwise, I might have to shoot you and open your families’ mouths instead.”

“What is this—”

“Eight.”

“Calm down, Miss Brightner!”

“Why are you doing this?!”

“Seven.”

“We don’t know! We don’t know anything!”

“Six.”

“We agreed to do business together!”

“Five.”

“What do you really want?!”

“Four.”

“Please, spare us!!”

“Three.”

Click!

“There’s a rental warehouse near the District 13 office! The officials there are leading the embezzlement!”

The sound of a gun being cocked—one person, frozen in terror, shouted out. That started an avalanche of confessions.

“The textile factory!”

“It’s in the basement of the office director’s mansion!”

“Hidden at an abandoned school!”

Erika nodded, memorizing everything. Georg covered Nina’s ears as they left the basement, and Erika followed.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sixteen gunshots.

Ian stared at the blood flowing freely, trying to calm his pounding heart.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t angry.

Officials colluding with the powerful.

If all the relief supplies they had embezzled and sold were combined, it could have reduced the starvation deaths in the slums by half.

With ruthless conscription reducing the workforce, the countryside was withering away, and even with a good harvest, it was impossible to feed the entire population. That might have been different if there weren’t armies consuming food like ravenous beasts.

With import and export bans from all sides, the government released stored grain, but rations kept getting smaller.

Even among those, the truly needy—those crawling on the ground from hunger—few could actually receive those rations. All because of these bastards!

Instead of pork, they caught and ate rats that had grown fat by devouring human corpses. Instead of white bread, they ate dough made from ground turnips mixed with low-grade flour. Instead of hearty stew, they drank broth made from fish bones.

Even someone as wealthy as Ian would be in the same situation if he didn’t engage in dirty business. If it hadn’t been for the food he had steadily stockpiled since before the war, his friends living in his house, two dragons, and one dog might have already starved to death.

But.

Seeing the corpses that had died twitching, the bloody memories from the battlefield flashed before his eyes… piercing his heart so sharply.

‘This is what I wanted.’

He slowly took deep breaths to soothe himself.

There had been a brief dispute over who would take the embezzlers’ lives, and in the end Ian had insisted strongly on killing them all himself.

After all, he was the one with the most blood on his hands here. He would take responsibility for everything.

Yes, it was his choice.

“Ian, are you okay?”

Oscar came in and asked carefully. He had agreed to help with the cleanup, but seeing Ian standing there dazed in the room made him worry.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Let’s get started.”

The two men began wiping and washing away the corpses’ blood and untying their bonds. Erika, Georg, and Nina helped clean the basement and move the bodies to the garden carriage.

By the time that backbreaking work was finished, the sun was already up.

They decided to rest and wait a day for dramatic effect before beginning the operation.

Everyone was going to bed exhausted when suddenly the doorbell rang.

“Is it Richard?”

“At this early hour?”

Wondering, Oscar opened the window and looked out over the garden, then jumped in shock.

“Daniel!!”

***

“Hello, Oscar.”

Daniel greeted Oscar, who had hurriedly opened the gate for him.

His shabby clothes, tired face, and tanned skin like an elf made him seem like a different person. And there was something subtly different about his atmosphere too.

“How did you know to come here?”

“I heard from Miss Ameli.”

“I see! Did things go well in the Great Desert? Oh, we shouldn’t talk out here—come inside.”

“Daniel, you’re back.”

“Brother! I really waited a long time!”

Daniel warmly embraced Erika and Georg. He shook hands with Ian and Nina, whom he was meeting for the first time in several years, though it was a bit awkward.

“By the way, Erika, did something happen? Everyone smells like blood…”

After all the greetings were finished, Daniel hesitantly asked. Then he smiled somewhat awkwardly.

“I don’t know what it is, but should I help? If it’s something I can do.”

Ah, Daniel.

Daniel was still Daniel after all.

Whether he had founded a nation in the Great Desert or not, he was still the same good-hearted friend Daniel they knew.