A New Star Chapter 40

I still wasn't feeling back up to one hundred percent, but after about two weeks had passed, the damage from the fight was more than gone. Most of the damage from the Tribulation was now healed, which had the Silver Lady pronouncing things like 'miraculous' and 'a very uncanny happening,' but I paid it little mind. Nobody truly had a grasp of how great my power was, or how great my knowledge was, even if I was still learning all the ins and outs of affinities. Body cultivation was my primary focus for more than a millennium, and I also had a healthy dose of some knowledge of the soul and spiritual damage. Not only did every kind of cultivation affect the soul, but the manic empire I had fought in my last life worshiped a dark god, though my relationship with the divine was a little…troubled, and that dark god was capable of twisting and damaging souls. His followers obtained lesser versions of this power as well, though not nearly to the extent he and his Apostles had been able to damage others. I also had one of my other secret weapons, that being the soul-based affinity I had that I had not yet shared with anyone else, which was aiding my regenerative affinity in putting me back together on all levels. 

One of my first tasks was sitting down with the royal knights to pick their brains, as I really had no idea what they were all about. I had read the most preliminary of reports in our library about them, having learned just a couple key facts. Firstly, they were an organization tasked with guarding the country's royal family. Each of the five major nation states had something similar, though the eastern empire of Nomahra called them Imperial Knights, which was a bit of a broad term. The second thing I learned was that they were generally responsible for investigating certain crimes and certain dangerous criminals, things that fell under the purview of the Crown, or even just things or people that were of interest to the Crown. That second reason was why they were here now, investigating something that had been troubling them for months. The captain had asked to speak with me, likely thinking they were going to question me about my involvement in several matters, but I had a feeling I would be getting much more out of the meeting than they would.  

"Captain," I said to Emily as we sat in a meeting room in the estate. Yes, the estate did have meeting rooms, as well as all manner of other rooms, despite the fact we had been using my parents' office for everything for several years.  

"Miss Alexandra," the captain replied politely, sitting across from me. Her second-in-command was also at the meeting, sitting to her right as she organized a few notes and took up a fancy fountain pen.  

"How has the search for the line of credit gone?" I asked, surprising the both of them, if the widened eyes and raised bros were any indication. Also, asking questions and steering the conversation was one way to take control of the interaction, something I'm sure the two knew at least some of the theory behind, but even knowing it, they still went along with the rhythm.  

"We have…some troubling news," Emily said, rubbing at the center of her forehead for a moment. "A connection to the mayor, er, former mayor was discovered. From there, we traced the funds to a private bank in the capital. It took some work, but even such institutions cannot refuse an inspection by the Royal Guard, and we have a paper trail. The money came from an account that is owned by a throwaway, some made-up identity that we are still tracking. The money in that account was sourced from three places, including a walk-in deposit and a transfer of credit from another bank. The most interesting piece, however, is the third source, which involves a debt transfer from a noble house." 

"That's very interesting indeed," I said coldly, examining them both. "And this noble house." 

"Matters for the investigation," the captain said, shutting down my inquiry.  

"Interesting," I said before she could continue. "And what other discoveries have we made regarding these 'unlicensed' assassins?" 

"Four members of a criminal gang that operates out of the capital," Emily said quickly, happy to discuss this part of their investigatory work. "A gang that, unfortunately, hires in help from outside the capital, and outside the country, for that matter. We've traced them to a point two years ago, a time when they started working for the gang and the gang started using more violence to control its territory and businesses." 

"And this gang's name?" I asked with an arched brow. 

"I'm not sure a kid needs to know this, captain," the second said, giving me a wary eye. 

"By all means," I said with a broad gesture, "bumble your way through this. I'm sure you would have had the situation well under control in the first place, had I not tracked the assassins, killed them, retrieved valuable intel, used that intel to track their associates and get even more intel and incriminating evidence from there." 

"There's no need for that," the captain said sharply, resettling herself when she realized she had snapped at a child. 

"What do you need from me, captain?" I asked. 

"Go over the events of that night one more time, in detail, please," the captain said. 

"Of course," I replied, going over the events in more detail than I had given her previously. The captain asked few questions, though those questions were quite pertinent. Eventually, it came to a topic that I had wanted to avoid, one I decided to skate the edge of as best we could. 

"And your relationship with Pietr…" the captain began, trailing off while checking her notes. It was a classic tactic in interrogation, bringing up something related to the main topic and letting it hang, sometimes for a long time as other topics were discussed. I knew the methods to counter such sloppy probing, however. 

"Pietr, despite appearances, is a legitimate businessman," I said, earning a snort from the sergeant.  

"I find this explanation hard to believe," the captain added on to her second's sound of disbelief.  

"Hard to believe or not, it is true, captain," I explained. "He has many connections, some of which I am quite sure are frowned upon, but associations with criminals does not automatically make one a criminal. On top of that, despite the, perhaps, questionable legality of some of his dealings, he does run several fully 'clean' businesses, as it were, and I have dealt with him in such capacity. If he has broken the law, even if he has broken the law in order to secure certain promises or concessions for our deals, I was neither privy to it, nor would I have approved of it." 

"You're telling us you didn't know he was a criminal? That's a flimsy damn excuse," the second said, trying to pin me down with a hard stare. 

"Why, sergeant, whatever do you mean?" I asked. He was quick to jump on that answer, but not quicker than I, as I beat him to the punch, asking, "Are you, perhaps, going to offer some incredible proof that I have broken the law and engaged in criminal actions? And in my own family's duchy, where we have wide latitude to enforce and execute the law 'as the discretion of the noble house finds fit and just'?" 

"Well, no," he answered, somewhat hesitate to be thrown so far off his game. 

"Then, sergeant, let me ask you this: Are you, without evidence or witness, going to accuse me of collusion in crimes or direct involvement in criminal activity? Let me also follow it up with this: Are you going to do such in my family's territory, where challenge to our ducal authority can be considered a challenge against our sovereignty? I would consider your answers rather carefully, sergeant," I said. 

"You are not a nine-year-old," the captain said as she stared at me. 

"Both rude and petty," I responded coldly. "Also, that doesn't answer my questions." 

"I think we were just asking some questions," the captain defended. 

"Oh, just asking questions," I said equitably. "Why do these questions sound like accusations? And why do these questions carry a specific accusation in the first place? Do not think I do not know what you are doing." 

The rest of the discussion was far more productive for me, though it did not last particularly long after the talk had turned to Pietr. I think the captain had gotten the message that she was treading a fine line and had decided that discretion might, indeed, be the better part of valor. I left the meeting with a good bit more information than I had before entering, including a document the captain had given me that had a few details about the investigation that they were willing to share with my family. The paper was of little help, but it did contain one name that hadn't come up in our little talk, nor in my own investigation; Kain. A contact with the Assassins Guild; not the unlicensed assassins that had tried for my sister's life, but the real, fully official Guild that was supposed to be responsible for all assassinations in the Settled Lands. He was, apparently, an interested party when it came to unlicensed assassins operating within our country. I would have to set a bit of time aside to pay the man a visit as some point; I felt a conversation with an official of that guild could be enlightening. 

My next order of business, however, was to restock my healing items, as well as work on some things to sell. Pietr had been questioned, extensively, but had been released to return to his business with barely a slap on the wrist. I spent the next several days involved in those endeavors, working in my lab almost exclusively, though I did spend time on the practice yard every morning. Running laps, doing weight exercises, and even working on my weapon forms wasn't enough to push my body any further at this point, so I focused instead on simply working on my forms and adjusting to my body. I was nearly back to the kind of height and reach I had in my last life, though I was only of just over average height then, whereas now I was going to be something like the top percent of a percent in height. My current practice was trying to take account of that, and I wasn't pushing my skills too hard, thought the fights with the assassins and the pushing of my skills in my already wearied body had given a few jumps. Noticeably, my spear skill had improved by another two stages, taking my level to peak of Expert, while a few other skills had bumped up a single grade. Those were the skills I relied on quite often, however, which meant that, among other things, I had at least three skills in H-grade now, making me an H-rank at nine years of age.  

The third day after my interview with the captain, my morning training was interrupted by said target of my slight annoyance. She was in her full regalia and enticed me to spar, which I did not really need much inducement to do, and we went back and forth for quite some time. The captain was more than passably skilled with the sword, likely a Master, but I had far more than enough experience to see through many of her tricks and techniques. I also estimated her to be somewhere around L-rank, unless I was wildly off, which only put her four ranks above me. Well, saying it that way was a slight bit misleading, as each rank did represent a decent jump in power; one of the things that really let me keep up were my extremely high compatibilities. I could fight as if all of my affinities were a full grade higher because of just how high my compatibilities were, meaning that I more likely had about a three, or maybe even a two-and-a-half rank gap with the captain, rather than a four rank gap.  

The captain had some kind of metal affinity, though I didn't study it too closely, but it was some dark colored metal, maybe tungsten. It was certainly heavy enough to be something of the kind, but she use it almost entirely for shielding and deflecting and redirecting attacks. I thought it was a little bit unimaginative, especially if it really was tungsten, as that metal could be used for all kind of interesting and novel applications. The captain also had a water affinity, one that she was very good at manipulating, which led me to think she probably focused on it the most. Even though most people only really worked on three affinities total, they still would often have one affinity that they were more comfortable with or enjoyed using more, and would focus on that one more. That didn't mean that that affinity would be much higher than the others, but it was certainly easy to notice a difference in some people's control and finesse between their different affinities.  

The captain's third affinity was something that enhanced her physical body. Unlike her body affinity itself, this affinity needed to burn mana to enhance her, and it would drain her stamina faster than when she was fighting without it active. All-in-all, it was a genuinely solid lineup of affinities that likely made her both a challenging opponent and a good find for the Royal Guard. Sadly, it wasn't enough to deal with me, especially since my Pure Ice affinity could freeze her water quite handily, which would make it much harder for her to control. Ice was just frozen water, or water in the solid state, but a little quirk of affinities was that they really did affect what they said; if it said water or was related to water, it affected water, but if it said ice, it would have a very strong control over ice. It would mean the two of us would wrestle for control of the substance and I would usually lose, but only slightly, which wasn't enough to give her an advantage in our sparring. The captain also quite quickly realized that I had many different cards up my sleeve, as she seemed to be counting the different affinities I used and finding the number was too damned high. Very, very few people bothered working on even a fourth affinity, and when her count started the sixth and the seventh affinity, it looked like she was getting a bit upset by the implications.  

The captain and her unit had been working with my parents quite a bit as well, and they were finally ready to turn over the rest of the investigation to them, at least where it concerned our territory, another week later. They were returning to the capital to continue their work directly there, as well as possibly chase down some leads in other cities, though they did have runners that could do some legwork for them without the Guard themselves having to deploy. I was just glad the nosy crew was gone and I could move about more freely without a team of investigators hovering around and asking too many annoying questions. I was also glad to be done with the spars with the captain, as she had been trying to push me to get me to reveal more capabilities than what I was comfortable showing others at this time. I returned to a bit of a routine for a few weeks after they were gone, just to make sure the air was clear and nothing else crazy popped up before I could get on with my business.  

Previous

Next