Chapter 5: Assassination (Part 1)

As long as there was even a sliver of hope, Jordan would make the effort. Besides, he couldn't—and wouldn't—gamble with his own life.

“Let's make a deal. I'll withdraw everyone stationed around here and let you leave. You tell me how to counteract the poison.”

Gambling Snake replied, “I refuse those terms.”

“What? You're joking. Wasn't threatening me the whole point of telling me about the poison? Haven't I just offered you a chance to escape?” Jordan demanded. He was far more anxious than the other man.

Gambling Snake said, “If I don't give you the antidote formula, you'll certainly die. But if you don't withdraw your troops, I might still escape. So there will be no deal. From now on, you do as I say. If you disagree, you can try solving this by force. The worst outcome for me is that you throw everything you have into killing me, only to die yourself a few days later.” He sounded as though he were pronouncing a death sentence on Jordan. “Everything in this world is a gamble. In this game, I always have a chance of escaping. You, on the other hand, might live if you obey me. Refuse, and you're one hundred percent certain to die.”

Jordan seethed with rage, but he could scarcely afford to show it. Gambling Snake's composure only made him grit his teeth harder. “Fine… tell me… what do you want me to do?”

Gambling Snake replied, “It's very simple. All you have to do is…”

…

December, 2093.

Count Gilson's residence, Double Eagle Commandery, North Asia.

Late at night, Gilson II sat in his study while his financial adviser reported on earnings for the final quarter of the year. Two younger male cousins on his father's side and his father's younger brother were also listening.

After his father mysteriously disappeared following a hunting trip several years earlier, Gilson II had quickly taken full control of the family's affairs.

The elder Gilson was a thoroughly typical aristocrat. Born into privilege, he was domineering, convinced of his own nobility, and contemptuous of everyone else. He spent his days indulging his appetites for drink and sex, his greed and his temper. His greatest pleasure was boasting of his prowess at his various amusements, such as shooting, drinking and women. He often discussed these in public, making no effort to conceal his pedophilic inclinations or his many illegal activities.

Anyone on Earth with the slightest sense of decency or shame would call Count Gilson a pig after meeting him a few times. But with all due respect, that was yet another insult to pigs. Pigs are highly intelligent animals. Over the course of evolution, they adapted to environmental changes, altered their diets, increased their reproductive capacity, and overcame every challenge fate threw at them. If a more advanced species ruled Earth and ate humans as its main source of meat, the way humans eat pigs, I think humanity would be finished in no time.

Still, compared with his supposedly porcine father, Gilson II had an even worse reputation. For that, we have to go back to his childhood. He had, of course, received a good education—or rather, acquired the qualifications expected of an aristocrat. In fact, he had learned very little in the way of useful knowledge or skills.

You couldn't really blame him for that. In schools reserved for the nobility and royalty, some students did very well academically. Some were naturally intelligent, some had a genuine passion for a particular subject, and others had parents whose standing among the nobility was low enough that they had to study hard if they wanted to get anywhere in life.

Gilson II did not belong to this group. His father possessed not only high standing, but real power and wealth. He himself could hardly be called a genius. Even saying he wasn't stupid would have been generous. As for his interest in studying, well, let's not go there.

So Gilson II joined a different sort of group, something like a charitable organization. While commoner teenagers his age worked their way through school, scraping together enough tuition to attend a better public school, Gilson II would often lend a helping hand.

For instance, if a boy was waiting tables at a restaurant, Gilson II would trip him, mock him with his disreputable friends, then give the manager on duty a few large bills to keep his mouth shut. That way, the boy earned a little extra cash. Or if Gilson II hit a boy delivering takeout with his sports car, he would calmly pay enough to make the criminal penalties go away, leaving the boy with a lifelong disability and most of a lifetime's wages paid in advance. Or if a girl was selling a certain intangible asset to buy a new phone, young Master Gilson II would often step forward…

That was more or less the sort of person Gilson II had been in his youth. As the saying goes, taken from the people, spent on the people.

He had mastered this approach before he even graduated from university. So when Gilson II took over the family's affairs before the age of thirty, a wider political stage was already calling to him.

He and the governor of Double Eagle Commandery at the time hit it off immediately and passed the Trade Partition Decree. This local law primarily restricted private merchants' rights in the salt, metals and food-processing trades. It was a brilliant moneymaking scheme that Gilson II had devised after much painstaking thought.

The governor and Gilson II became close comrades-in-arms. Within a few years, they were among the wealthiest men in the region, and tax revenues from the great commandery of Double Eagle had made the Empire's upper ranks sit up and take notice. The merchants doing business there, however, would gladly have flayed them for bedding and eaten their flesh. At the mention of Gilson's name, local scholars would say, “To speak it fouls the tongue; to write it fouls the page.”

Obviously, once public anger builds to a certain point, it erupts…

That night, Gilson II's wife and ten-year-old son had already gone to bed upstairs, while the servants remained at their posts. As a rule, the butler and maids could not rest until their noble master retired. Even if Lord Gilson suddenly decided at three in the morning that he wanted a barbecue in the courtyard, you still had to have the grill set up for him within fifteen minutes.

The five men in the study had finished their business and brought out cigars and spirits. Wreathed in smoke, they chatted and laughed, looking very pleased with themselves. Apparently, they had made another killing in the final quarter.

At that moment, a figure crouched on the pointed roof of Gilson II's luxurious mansion. He was dressed in black and wore light boots, with sharp weapons concealed about his person and a gaze like a hawk's.