Chapter 125.1
The land of the county died, and as a result, the Rondel Canal was contaminated. And in the novel, the cause was never revealed to the very end.
‘I thought it was just thrown in because the story needed a scene where Aria shines and shares emotional moments with Sylvester…’
As Grace flipped through the research log, she formed another hypothesis.
‘What if someone deliberately covered it up?’
That explanation actually made more sense. This was no longer just a novel, it was reality for Grace now.
‘If the Rondel Canal was contaminated, the obvious thing would have been to trace it back to its source from the beginning. But no one ever did that.’
Even though the Magic Tools Association had been criticized at the time, not a single artificer proposed such an investigation.
Grace had once assumed their thinking simply hadn’t gone that far. When trouble strikes, people often fail to consider even the most straightforward solution.
‘But what if they were involved from the start?’
During the process of recycling mana stones, research revealed the possibility of creating artificial mana stones. When a mana stone is formed, the life force of surrounding living beings is shattered. Therefore, Ardel County, one of the regions richest in life force, was selected…
“Research results indicate that while we succeeded in reproducing the form of a mana stone… but it possessed no value as an actual mana stone.”
So that mine had been the result of artificial mana stone experiments.
An enormous amount of money must have gone into this. Which meant that a portion of Benjamin’s funds, the largest source of support for the Magic Tools Association, had been drained here.
Not just money, but likely high-grade mana stones obtained through the Felton Duchy had been squandered as well.
‘Benjamin didn’t know.’
She could have suspected that he had knowingly supported and concealed all of this. But if that were the case, he would have stopped Grace when she tried to enter that mine.
Unless that, too, had been an act.
Still, judging by the entries listing “Date of Visit by the Great Tree” and the names of documents to be submitted, it seemed they had been falsifying ledgers to deceive him.
The Great Tree referred to the symbol of the Felton Duchy, the tree said to uphold the sun.
Grace’s hands trembled as she gripped the documents more tightly.
Failing an experiment using Benjamin’s money was one thing. Turning an entire region into a contaminated zone was another matter entirely.
As she kept reading, she found records of meetings held to cover the budget shortfall caused by the failed experiment.
To fill the gap left by unreported expenditures, they had decided to conceal the truth about the Ardel County mine.
‘They must have informed the acting lord of Jikel Barony in advance.’
The sum paid to him had been enormous. That explained why he hadn’t provided separate support to Count Ardel.
He already knew the contamination was a side effect of research, and the acting lord of Jikel had agreed not to interfere with their experiments.
‘But what is this?’
Aside from the Magic Tools Association’s own budget, there were marks indicating funding from two other organizations in the ledgers tucked in between.
However, the sources weren’t clearly named. One was marked with an ‘F’ decorated with geometric patterns, and the other bore the symbol of a pitch-black sun.
‘One of these is probably the Temple, if my guess is right. But the other…’
If she could identify which symbol belonged to the Temple, the other would reveal itself. Grace hurriedly skimmed through more pages.
‘… This feels strangely familiar.’
A mana stone with properties like a beautiful gemstone, something never seen before. The Magic Tools Association planned to hand it over to the Kingdom of Arsia and pass it off as an Arsian gemstone.
Then, they would put forward a merchant guild within the Byman Empire, install a fake representative—a so-called figurehead—and disguise the operation as a mineral import business to recover the wasted funds.
‘The guild is based in another country, but they move the goods to Arsia first, then back into the Byman Empire.’
The process was complex and labor-intensive, but routing the goods through two foreign nations made laundering money far easier.
‘…A merchant to use as a front.’
To select such a merchant, they deliberately leaked rumors through the acting lord of Garetta, to a small-time trader known for freely traveling beyond the Empire’s borders.
“Well, it’s the same southern region, so it’s not that far! I’m heading west next!”
“Wasn’t the west in turmoil recently because of the contamination?”
“Even non-merchants know that the Saintess went west, don’t they?”
‘So that’s how it happened…’
Linden County wasn’t commercially developed, so there were few major guilds, mostly small and mid-sized merchants passing through.
It was a backward, out-of-the-way territory on the southern route, but low customs fees and cheap lodging made it attractive nonetheless.
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