In the meantime, a festival commemorating the first anniversary of the peace treaty with Verseum was announced. Rumors that discussions about the emperor’s marriage were in full swing swept through the capital once.

However, there were also unfavorable news that several conflicts had broken out in the north, bordering the Moot Kingdom, which was the only allied nation that had opposed the end of the war.

While various news was conveyed in many ways, the duke’s mansion maintained its tranquility as before. Just as such a peaceful day was passing, the duke who had been away from the mansion for a while finally returned.

The time Claude returned was late dawn. The mansion, with lights on only in the corridors except for the entrance, was engulfed in darkness.

Entering his room, Claude exhaled a long sigh.

It had been an exhausting day.

For several days, he had mobilized knights to raid the remaining nineteen branches of the Heide Guild. It was an achievement made by practically turning the entire capital upside down.

While the guild was smashed almost to the point of collapse, in the meantime, the guild master, the most crucial figure, had noticed and escaped.

It was truly a futile result, but there was an unexpected gain in the process. Heriot, who had been tapping on the floor of the building operating under the most splendid signboard, discovered something.

Under the torn wooden floor was a secret ledger.

Whether they hadn’t managed to take it, or they thought it would never be discovered. The ledger they opened contained quite detailed information.

‘Your Grace, it appears to be a ledger of illegal transactions.’

‘My lord, here it’s organized by period.’

Baren handed over one of the documents he had opened. Claude read through it based on the recorded dates.

Sure enough, the names of nobles who had traded with the Heide Guild were densely written. The offenses ranged from private matters like receiving luxury goods from enemy countries to major crimes like noble assassinations.

And he discovered a particularly suspicious list of transactions. It recorded the quantity of wagons that had continuously flowed from the capital to the west over quite a long period.

‘Your Grace, this seems to be the ledger we’ve been looking for. Look here, all destinations are in the west.’

‘I think the same. Just looking at the records of regular comings and goings is suspicious enough. Judging by the size of the wagons, they must have contained quite a lot of goods, wouldn’t you say?’

Heriot and Baren’s opinions aligned. Claude was suspecting the same thing.

‘So these must be the bastards who were diverting weapons.’

It was the moment when the identity of those he had been pursuing for years was finally revealed. Claude’s expression became quite serious.

He discovered that the Heide Guild was a large organization that wielded influence over other regions and was closely connected to those he had been monitoring.

It also perfectly overlapped with the movements of those carrying out Claude’s secret orders in the west.

‘How could a newly established guild that emerged just a few years ago…… It seems we were digging in the wrong place while the answer was so close.’

Heriot grumbled with a very regretful face. It was truly frustrating to have spent time investigating only the guilds in the western region.

‘These are people bold enough to divert weapons through battlefields during the war. They must have grown their power in the meantime.’

Claude drew a clean conclusion. Now that the war was over, they would have even fewer scruples; they might have joined hands with the Heide Guild to increase the supply of weapons to Verseum, where civil war was breaking out.

His gaze darkened as he looked down.

It was around the time when he was fiercely battling enemies on the southern front. Despite the relentless momentum of the allied nations pushing in more forcefully than expected, Claude’s unit was recording consecutive victories.

Then, from a certain point, the situation began to change gradually. Those who had only engaged in frontal battles with swords suddenly advanced with the latest weapons such as shells.

Basically, the condition of the imperial army’s weapons was top-notch. Dull swords with missing teeth or corroded bows were nowhere to be found, and the weapons of the enemies, who were geographically far from their home country, were relatively much inferior.

It didn’t make sense that they had urgently procured weapons, considering the timing. It was an even more puzzling move because just a few months earlier, he had completely cut off their military supply routes.

The tide of battle turned sharply.

The emboldened allied nations began to pour in fierce attacks. The enemies continued their fierce offensive at a very rapid pace, showering shells from massive siege artillery.

Under his command, running through the barracks, the formation was quickly assembled, but the previous duke’s unit, unable to handle the situation, suffered fatal wounds.

The soldiers scattered everywhere, unable to maintain their positions, and in the midst of it, many lives were lost.

After barely leading them to victory, he first investigated the cause of the allied nations’ sudden increase in combat power.

And he identified that many imperial weapons were mixed among the weapons they used. To say they had picked up the weapons of the fallen soldiers seemed implausible, as several high-quality items that had not yet been supplied were also found.

Based on the circumstances, there was only one possibility to consider.

‘Someone is diverting weapons to the enemy country.’

Moreover, judging from their identical condition to the weapons that had just arrived in the south, it must have been someone of quite high rank.

The act of handing over weapons to the enemy constituted treason against the state, and even those of imperial blood would be immediately hanged.

Therefore, Claude promptly issued a separate order to find out the route through which they were receiving weapons, and as a result, it was confirmed that they had been delivered from the western region.

Afterward, he selected a few trustworthy subordinates and ordered them to be deployed to the western front. Since it wasn’t an official activity reported to the imperial family, their existence was kept secret.

And his intuition proved correct.

[We have identified forces secretly diverting military supplies. The passage point is the western front.]

What kind of brazen person would divert weapons during a war, and through a route teeming with their own country’s soldiers?

The baron newly appointed as the western commander emerged as the most likely suspect. The man who had taken that position without showing any particular merit in military affairs, to the puzzlement of all nobles.

[Secured time and location for weapons trade contact.]

On the day he finally received a messenger bird that imperial weapons were scheduled to be moved to the enemy’s arsenal, Claude ordered a raid on the location.

However, as if they noticed their tail had been caught, Verseum’s side made the first move, and all evidence vanished into thin air.

After that, they kept coming up empty-handed. Moreover, even the baron who commanded the west died an unnatural death.

A typical case of cutting off loose ends.

The one who recommended the baron for the commander position was none other than Marquis Bishrom Sternbrow.

The man who succeeded as the family head right before Claude joined the war, due to his brother’s death. Rumor had it he had become the emperor’s right-hand man.

From that day on, Claude began collecting information about Bishrom.

The more he dug, the more outrageous it became. The marquis was an extremely hypocritical and two-faced person.

A cunning snake consumed by a sense of authority, he laughed obsequiously before the emperor, but casually took revenge on those who fell out of his favor using his newly acquired status.

The covert movement to find the mastermind behind the gradually revealing outline continued. Claude exercised extreme caution this time, but suddenly futile news arrived.

The end of the war. More accurately, the Empire’s defeat.

As a result, all the information he had gathered became useless.

It was about five months after the end of the war when unexpected contact came from his subordinates who had been standing by with no other options.

[Suspicious movements have been confirmed since immediately after the elite knights’ final withdrawal. The pattern of contact with Verseum people is undoubtedly similar to before. Judging from the several new faces seen, we suspect they’ve completely replaced those involved last time.]

In addition to the report that they had started moving again after staying quiet for nearly half a year, they had witnessed circumstances of weapons trading taking place.

Thus, Claude could once again confirm what he had suspected. Instead of ordering them to return, he commanded them to continue keeping a close eye on the place.

Just then, the emperor conveniently provided an appropriate pretext by ordering the 12th Division soldiers in the west to be withdrawn, so he could go there himself instead of sending an adjutant.

Even on the day he met Flora, he had deliberately gone there not to bring back the 12th Division soldiers, but to make contact with them.

And now he knew for certain.