Chapter 22: 20

Now we start going to the past(?)

-Mr.Graverobber

Twenty Fourth Run, Why did you kill me?

“……but, I still don’t know the motive huh.”

Time winded back to just after the poisoning incident.

Klein, who returned to his mansion after he’s done dealing with Saga, felt a sense of discomfort.

At first glance, it seemed like Hermes was the mastermind behind his assassination attempt but he has no evidence.

“I should have sent someone to spy on them beforehand. There were those that have that set of skills among the people that came to serve me after all.”

He had spent a large amount of money to gather talented human resources. Among the people that signed up, there were several people who excel in that area.

For example, there was a locksmith with 30 years of experience who boasted that he would be able to unlock even the vault inside the royal palace.

A self-proclaimed journalist who said that he can infiltrate any organization and obtain any kind of documents.

Besides those, there were also all kinds of strange people like a former thief

Since Klein didn’t want his staff to be that colorful, he did not hire them though.

However, now he started to think that he should have at least hired a few of them.

“Even if the former thief were out of the question, maybe hiring the people that are good at infiltrating might be good for me…….well, I will think about it next time.”

Right now, Klein only has a few pieces that he can move.

Rather, there are only a few people that he can trust.

In terms of domestic affairs, he only has Klaus, his head butler.

For his personal protection, there’s his guard captain, Hans.

For the economic matters, he has Vargas the head miner.

And for small matters, he has Marie to rely on.

Besides them, several vassals have served the Asgard house for a long time but even so, Klein still doesn’t recall that they have any special skills.

“At some point, I will have to increase the people that I can use. The people that will only follow my order, my personal servants.”

If the situation changes even a little, the official from the royal palace will probably leave his side.

Half of them would leave with just one order from the First Prince, and the rest would withdraw too if the King ordered them so.

Even if that’s not the case, these people are the ones who survived in the royal palace. If he isn’t careful, they might even try to take over his territory.

To put it simply, borrowing someone else’s human resources is like a double-edged sword.

He can use them to efficiently strengthen his territory but the stability will be lost. Even now, he’s sure that some spies have already infiltrated his territory.

“Haa……well, there’s no use complaining anyway. Right now I have no choice but to move on.”

His ultimate goal is still the prevention of Marquis’s Laguna’s invasion and to save the lives of his people and his own.

Klein has taken various measures to achieve that goal but there are still many issues that he has to solve.

Right now the only thing he can do to increase the number of his direct subordinates is to talk to the people who came to his proposal tournament.

Perhaps, approaching the merchants that seem trustworthy through Trek might be a good idea too.

Klein sighed at his limited options.

“It’s okay, I still have my greatest weapon.”

Even if Klein dies, he can go back to the past.

He still doesn’t fully understand how it works but it is still his weapon.

After being killed by Brynhildr so many times, his fighting skills have improved even if it’s only by a small amount.

He has also learned the skill to assess people just by looking at their complexion by interacting with the First Prince.

“I don’t feel like I can beat that knight no matter how hard I train though…….well, it’s not like I have to go fight an army by myself anyway.”

Marquis Laguna’s invading army was around 30,000 strong.

It was obvious that no matter how hard he trained, he would never be able to win against that number.

He concludes that the right move would be to strengthen his territory and expand his options.

“If the Asgard house steadily develops at this pace, we will have around 10,000 troops in three years……..at most I guess we would have about 13,000 huh.”

A hurriedly constructed army with 10,000 troops.

Against a well-trained army of 30,0000 of Marquis Laguna who has many battle exploits.

It is doubtful at best if they can compensate for such a big difference in number. In the first place, even if he gathers everyone that can fight in his territory he would be able to add only about 3,000 to his army.

Considering how the Asgard territory was in the past, this number is already extraordinary.

In other words, as a result of his repeating lives so far, it is expected that the number of soldiers he has can be increased from 8,000 to 10, 000.

Since Klein can’t fight tens of thousands of men by himself, he only thinks that martial skills are just something that is nice to have.

“Still, I want to expand my army a little more than this. At least if I can get it to half their number, if I have 15,000 men………with a good general, I should be able to stall them.”

As long as he can repel the Marquis’s army, he doesn’t even dream of a counter-invasion.

If he can protect his territory then he’s already won.

In the worst case, he at least wants to bring the battle to a stalemate to buy some time.

In the first place, at that time, the Laguna house had just acquired new territory in the west so they should be wary of rebellion.

If 30,000 soldiers were assigned to invade his territory, some of those western territories might launch a surprise attack on them.

“It would be nice if things go stable from now on. I have to eliminate the sources of my anxiety.”

After muttering so, he runs through the city at night.

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His destination is the main branch of the Hermes company inside the Asgard territory.

Although there was only one branch inside the territory at the moment, they still named it the main branch. It seems that they want to construct more branch stores here in the future.

“I welcomed you since you said that you were going to help me develop my territory but I can’t allow a group of people that tried to assassinate me to grow any further right.”

Now, this is a little off topic but,

Even while considering his various circumstances, Klein’s action right now is a little out of the ordinary.

“……I would never dream that a lord like myself would be out here acting like a spy.”

It is past one at night.

Klein is dressed in black and is now lurking in the black alley.

The Lord himself came to infiltrate the Hermes company which showed suspicious movements during the assassination.

Right now, he has no subordinates who are skilled in intelligence gathering and there’s no time for him to train one.

With that being the case, Klein changed his way of thinking.

He should just go spy on them himself.

After getting killed by Brynhildr so many times, he’s getting better and better at avoiding her sword.

He also dabbled a little in swordsmanship so he now has some rough ideas of what kind of attack he could or couldn’t avoid.

If he can learn such things by getting killed repeatedly then he should be able to become a good spy if he repeats this a few times. That was his thought.

“In a sense, this might be the strategy that suits me best huh.”

If Klein didn’t find out more about Hermes now, the same thing would happen again in the future.

He has to find out who is his enemy, who’s his ally, and what’s going on behind the scenes.

If he’s prepared to fail from the beginning, all he needs to do is shake it off and try again if he fails.

Since he already knows most of the things he needs to, Klein doesn’t feel anxious at all.

He already identifies the traitor and knows the exact time they will betray him so all he needs to do is to set up a countermeasure before they even get wary of investigation.

On the other hand, he can even launch a surprise attack on them when they don’t even know that they were suspected.

“Now, I guess I can torture Hermes until he spills everything huh. Or maybe I can find some evidence from his office—-it might sound terrible but I can do whatever I want anyway.”

He will just go back in time if he dies. If so, he can cross such dangerous bridges as much as he wants.

As long as everything is reset, no matter what he does, he won’t have to face the consequences.

If he repeats his investigation without choosing his means, he will get the correct information eventually.

“As expected, the front desk is guarded huh……..that’s right, I can get in through the window.”

Klein, who peeked at the Hermes main branch from the back alley, found that they had a couple of strong-looking people standing guard there and gave up going in from the front.

He collected the wooden boxes in the alley, piled them up, and climbed over the wall to reach the window.

“Of course, it’s locked. Still, I’ve already thought about this. I will make use of that now.”

Here, Klein utilizes the thing he heard from the former thief at the proposal contest.

According to the professional thief, if he sticks clay on a window, he can break the window with a hammer without making any noise.

The glass wouldn’t scatter everywhere with such a method so it’s unlikely that the owner of the house will notice too.

Actually, he should have prepared more and relied on some specialized tools.

He should be able to prepare them in no time but for now, he has nothing but this.

“If I fail then I can come up with another way after all.”

Klein muttered as he stuck clay on the window.

The windowpane squeaks and a dull sound rang out many times. After he hit it 4 times with a small hammer, the window finally cracked.

“Hmm, it’s surprisingly difficult to adjust the forc—-.”

His voice cuts off at that point as his vision tilts.

When he noticed it, his head was already on the ground.

He’s now looking up at a pair of familiar boots.

“What a terrible person……no, I don’t mean you, Klein-sama, it’s His Highness.”

Of course, it was Bryngildr, Klein’s natural enemy, that muttered such a thing with a regretful voice.

Her straight sword is dripping with blood but who does that blood belong to?

Of course, it was Klein’s.

“Anyway, I’ve fulfilled my duty. Now,—–ah, you are still breathing. I’ve made you suffer.”

Brynhildr gently smiles and stabs Klein again.

With his fading consciousness, Klein looked at the mouth of his attacker.

It seems that she’s praying for him.

It appears that he was cut from behind when he was messing with the window.

Finally, the reality finally set in for Klein.

Once again, Klein was murdered by Brynhildr.

Klein understood that but

——why did you kill me?

Such a question came to him as his consciousness faded to darkness.

Kingdom calendar Year 500, August 22nd.

With its lord missing, the Asgard territory was transferred to the Royal Family’s direct control.

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