Resistance Will Be Met with Severity!

Rorschach walked down the street, occasionally drawn in by the shops.

"Boss, how much is this pewter Wine Cup?"

"Ma'am, are those fresh little fish?"

Most merchants had already closed for business. The few shopkeepers still open changed expression the moment they heard Rorschach's nonlocal accent and immediately refused to sell him anything.

In the end, Rorschach only bought three jugs of ale and some small fish, the latter benefiting Gassediaz.

"Caw! Caw caw!"

As he passed the entrance to a dead-end alley, Rorschach suddenly turned around. He raised a hand and clenched it in the air, tightly gripping the man who had been behind him.

He was practically the dark side of Force magic, as though he held the other man's life in his hand. If Rorschach wished, he could command Mage Hand to snap and end him, or dislocate his spine and leave him permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

Surprisingly, neither the man nor his companion made a sound. Though gripped by an invisible hand, the man showed not the slightest panic, merely coming to a natural stop. Rorschach tilted his head toward the dead-end alley. The two understood, and all three entered the alley together.

"All right, confess honestly. Resistance will be met with severity!"

"Mage Rorschach, His Majesty the Emperor above, we're colleagues!"

Rorschach felt that the burden brought by Kirin Arm was getting a little too heavy, so he simply released the man and began drawing a small amount of magical power from the surroundings instead. "You're right. Let's go have some tea!"

The only restaurant still open was nearby, a small establishment run by a Half-elf family. The lovely waiter revealed pearly teeth in a slight smile, her voice like a singing bird. "Tea for three, with honey and sugar ordered separately. Please enjoy."

"Thank you! Thank you!"

Rorschach was somewhat speechless as he watched the two men across from him. In this era, sugar was not yet cheap enough to be placed directly on restaurant tables. They had specifically ordered honey and sugar, then scooped up a heaping spoonful with their little copper spoons and dumped it into their cups, then scooped up another heaping spoonful and dumped that in too. Their teacups, filled eight-tenths full, absorbed half a cup of sugar. In the end, they even sucked their honey-coated spoons clean.

Sugar was expensive now, sure, but was that really necessary? Rorschach could not help feeling a little contempt for the Agency officers. As a man who had guzzled Oriental Leaf in university and had drunk plenty of herbal tea on the road in this world, Rorschach did not add a speck of sugar and elegantly took a sip.

The freshness of vegetation, a subtle bitterness, even the fragrance of soil—this tea tasted like boiled branches! Six silver coins! That Half-elf swindler dared to sell boiled sticks for six silver coins!

Rorschach's face darkened. "Fine, we can indeed be considered colleagues. But seniors, I'll say it again: resistance will be met with severity!"

The senior did not budge and even gave a thumbs-up. "Kid, we like someone as wild as you! You've got potential! As long as you're tough enough to survive!"

The other senior ignored him. "Two weeks! We've spent two weeks sleeping rough and eating whatever we could find, and now we've finally had tea this sweet! Good tea!"

"So you've been following me all the way from the Imperial Capital?"

"What do you mean, following? We were ordered by our bald boss to protect the promising young talents of our Agency. Mage, please watch your wording!"

"Brother Rorschach, you had to go and decide not to take an airship, and you made us suffer! What should have been an easy field assignment like a vacation—we finally got a cushy job, only for it to turn into wilderness survival!"

"Get to the point! And don't be the only two calling me Rorschach. Seniors, introduce yourselves first."

"Codenames, kid. We can only tell you our codenames. I'm Scouting Falcon."

"Night Owl."

"Then what's our boss's codename? Vulture?"

...Brother Falcon was nearly unable to resist applauding. "Brother Rorschach, you really are fearless!"

Night Owl took another sip of tea. "Kid, could you tell us how you discovered us? Was it that ranger girl on your team?"

Rorschach had no intention of selling out his captain. The intelligence organizations of this era were still underdeveloped. Most powerful figures, such as kings and archbishops, simply maintained their own networks of informants.

The Agency was currently subordinate to the Imperial Army and still existed in a mixed state between a military force and an intelligence organization. His captain was a pure Imperial Army officer and had merely assumed that the three of them had all come from the Agency headquarters in the Imperial Capital. If she had been the person in charge of an intelligence node, she would never have exposed the existence of Scouting Falcon and Night Owl.

"It had nothing to do with the caravan. Under Magic Detection, one of you had Magic Auras at your waist and underarm, while the other had one on his right leg. I cast it several times, and both of you were within my detection range every time, even though I stopped several times along the way. That was enough to prove you were following me."

They corresponded to a Magic Gun, Alchemical Bullets, and an enchanted dagger.

"Isn't Magic Detection only able to target the fan-shaped area in front of you? We always stayed at your side or behind you."

"Nothing is impossible in this world, especially magic." Rorschach had no desire to tell them that his modified detection had no blind spots.

While Magic Detection was active, it required him to remain in a state of concentration. Once Fireball was cast, for example, he no longer needed to mind it and could proceed to the next casting action. Mage Hand and Magic Detection, however, required him to stay in a casting state and maintain their operation at all times. Simultaneous casting was a difficult technique only high-level mages could master.

Rorschach's browsing by the roadside and close inspection of goods had been a cover for casting Magic Detection. During his stop-and-go journey, he had confirmed the presence of the two tails behind him.

"Now that I've caught you red-handed, shouldn't you show some goodwill?"

"We're carrying out official business! What goodwill?"

"It seems my report to the Agency Chief must remind him just how easily the Agency's officers expose themselves, and analyze whether the cause is objective circumstances or personal failings..."

"A bet's a bet! Brother Rorschach, just say the word. It's only right for us seniors to help out a junior!"

"Fine. Help me with something. Do you know anything about the Luowei Merchant Guild?"

"We do, we do. That ruler of the Holy Kingdom has secretly invested in it, and he also has that fat man collect luxury goods, rare treasures, and intelligence on the Empire from the northern part of the continent."

I actually ran into this? Maybe it's the fate of a transmigrator... Rorschach took a sip of boiled-branch water to calm himself.

"The favor is simple. I want to find out exactly what goods Arle is delivering this time, and why they drew the attention of a cult. The caravan has already passed the checkpoints between the Imperial Capital and here, so a simple inspection probably won't reveal anything. As for the specifics, listen to me..."

After Rorschach left, the captain stopped interrogating the caravan. But for Arle, even greater trouble began. He alone was taken into a small separate room, where a Young Person questioned him in isolation.

Arle noticed that the slogan in the main room was "Confession Will Be Met with Leniency," while the slogan in this small room had changed to "Resistance Will Be Met with Severity."

"Merchant sir, we found two identity documents on you. One is from the Empire, and the other is from the Kingdom of Valois."

"In the Empire, I am an Imperial citizen. In the Kingdom, I am a subject of the Kingdom. But at the end of the day, I am a businessman."

Mr. Arle explained calmly, "If one presents the documents of one country while in another, one will be taxed heavily as a foreign merchant."

Number 6 was hit with sixteen recommendation votes by a reader. It was this newcomer's first time seeing something like that. Thank you for the encouragement!