Ultima, the head of the Ultima Trading Company, had earned the nickname “The Merchant of Fortune” for rapidly building a mid-sized company from aggressive investment strategies that many considered suicidal.

    Rumors circulated around his sudden rise to prominence—some claimed he was a fallen noble from the Empire, others thought he was the reincarnation of Bluegon, the legendary merchant. But those in the know were aware of the truth: Ultima was from Absinthe, the lawless city.

    However, even that was a fabricated identity. In reality, Ultima was from Liqueur, a place from which no one was believed to be able to escape. But the answer to how he had managed to leave Liqueur was in a secret deal with the Godfather of Liqueur. Ultima left Liqueur through some mysterious contract and was pretending to be from Absinthe as he worked as a merchant.

    “W-woah, am I still drunk from the drinks I had last night?”

    Ultima wasn’t someone who lost his cool easily, even staying calm when he dealt with a marquis. But now, he was slapping his own cheek in disbelief.

    To Ultima, Keter was a dreadful existence; he never wished to see Keter, even in his nightmares. Yet Keter—a presence more terrifying than the worst of nightmares—was walking straight toward him.

    “Number Seventy-Eight. No, you changed your name to Ultima, didn’t you? Why the sour face? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

    Number Seventy-Eight was Ultima’s former name. Hearing that name, one he never thought he would hear again, made Ultima dizzy.

    This wasn’t an illusion, and it certainly wasn’t fake. The Keter standing before him was real.

    “K-Keter. You! You!”

    Ultima barely maintained his composure enough to stop himself from blurting out what he was thinking.

    “What… what are you doing coming out of Sefira’s front gate?”

    Meeting Keter in the outside world was shocking enough, but seeing him here, at Sefira of all places, felt like some kind of trap.

    On the other hand, Keter was genuinely happy to see Ultima.

    In Keter’s past life, Ultima had been an obstacle in Keter’s path. Ultima was a formidable enemy that he still remembered.

    In the future, Ultima would become the most powerful merchant in the Lillian Kingdom and a candidate for one of the Four Lords. He was conniving, intelligent and skilled in combat, and also merciless.

    Keter had a rather high opinion of Ultima.

    Before Keter fought Deyal, one of the Four Lords, he went after his subordinates, and one of them was Ultima. Keter remembered Ultima because he was the strongest out of Deyal’s subordinates.

    Keter was happy when he saw Ultima. He had met his future rival before he could fully grow, meaning that, if necessary, he could kill him and eliminate any future threats. However, Keter decided to put the option of killing Ultima on hold for now.

    “...”

    On the other hand, Ultima, unaware that the fate of his life was in Keter’s hands, only felt uncomfortable. Although Keter was acting friendly, the two were far from friends. In fact, they were closer to being archenemies.

    Ultima’s gaze was naturally fixed on Keter’s every move. However…

    “Don’t you think it’s fate that we meet here?”

    “W-When did you…?”

    Even though Ultima had been watching Keter’s every move without blinking, Keter was already beside him, putting his arm around Ultima’s shoulder/

    “I was wondering who had the guts to screw over the Sefira family. If it’s you, Ultima, I guess I can respect that.”

    “...!”

    Ultima glanced at Keter in shock, then quickly became aware of his surroundings. Fortunately, only his workers were around.

    “H-Haha, Keter. I don’t know why you’re here, but how about we both just go our separate ways?”

    “Why? I’m already going the right way.”

    “...”

    Ultima glared at Keter, silently threatening that he would do something if Keter continued to be this clingy. However, Keter poked Ultima in the eye without hesitation.

    Even though Ultima quickly shut his eyelid, he couldn’t prevent the pain.

    “Our dear Ultima has grown up, huh? You even dare to glare at me.”

    Ultima felt the chill running down his spine more than the pain in his eye. Everyone in Liqueur knew that Keter had a habit of poking the eyes of those who glared at him. Ultima had prepared for this in advance, yet all he could do was close his eyelid.

    In any case, it wouldn’t do him any good to upset Keter, who was standing right next to him.

    “Keter, I don’t know what business you have with me, but there are too many ears around here. Why don’t we head to my carriage and talk there?”

    “I have no intention of getting into your shady carriage. There’s an empty field over there. Let’s head there,” Keter replied.

    “Then could you go ahead? Hans and the workers from my company will start looking for me if I disappear all of a sudden. You wouldn’t want to cause a commotion either, right?”

    Keter glared at Ultima for a moment before nodding.

    “You have three minutes.”

    As Keter began walking into the woods, Ultima watched his back with a sly grin.

    It seemed like luck was on Ultima’s side. His guards, who had briefly stepped away, had just returned. They were known as the Jacose family.

    Led by Jacose, the seven members of this group were brutal wanted criminals who used to be called Human Hunters.

    “Jacose.”

    At Ultima’s call, Jacose approached with swagger in his footsteps. As the leader of the Jacques Family, he was a gold-class mercenary who knew how to wield aura.

    Silently, Ultima pointed to the field where Keter had disappeared to and drew his finger across his throat in a cutting gesture. As expected from someone from Liqueur, he had no hesitation in ordering to kill.  Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Jacose quickly understood what Ultima was saying and raised a finger, asking if it was just one target.

    Ultima nodded and added, “Don’t underestimate him because he’s alone. The opponent… is a big shot from Absinthe.”

    “Kek, kek, kek. Don’t worry, I’m from Absinthe, too.”

    With his rotten face and foul odor, Jacose was repulsive to anyone who looked at him. The only reason Ultima kept him as a close aide was because of his exceptional skills in killing.

    From Ultima’s memory, Keter’s abilities were equivalent to a gold-class mercenary, perhaps a one-star knight if he was being generous. Of course, that was based on the past. Even if Keter had grown stronger since then, he wouldn’t be more than a two-star knight or a platinum-class mercenary.

    As such, there was no problem; the Jacose family had experience hunting two-star knights before.

    Without a contract with the Godfather, it was impossible to leave Liqueur. Ultima would have certainly been informed if Keter had left through that contract, but this was the first he had heard of it. This meant that Keter didn’t leave Liqueur through the Godfather.

    Ultima was curious about how Keter managed to escape from Liqueur and ended up in Sefira, but he wasn’t eager to find out.

    Ultima wanted Keter dead so badly that he didn’t care even if the entire Jacose family died. He kept checking his pocket watch, as each minute felt like an hour.

    The thick foliage of the forest and the noisy workers around him blocked out any sounds of battle.

    Exactly three minutes later, Ultima closed his pocket watch and smiled.

    If Keter had won, he would have emerged from the forest by now. The fact that there was no sign of him after three minutes meant that Jacose was likely cleaning up Keter’s corpse.

    Ultima wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand and headed to the forest. He felt like he could only sleep well at night after seeing Keter’s corpse with his own two eyes.

    * * *

    The simplest way to solve a problem was to eliminate its source. There was no reason not to kill an enemy that must be dealt with in order to fight the queen—especially if the enemy was still weak. Keter thought the same; he considered eliminating a future rival he’d encountered by chance before the rival could grow stronger.

    But it was different if that person was Ultima.

    Being from Liqueur himself, these were actions and judgments Keter could understand. From his perspective, Ultima wasn’t doing anything wrong. In fact, he was doing exceptionally well.

    There was still no reason to let Ultima live—especially if he chose to remain an enemy until the end.

    To be frank, Ultima was too valuable to simply kill. He was destined to become the greatest merchant in the Lillian Kingdom, a skilled fighter almost on par with the power of Ein, and a master of schemes. If he could be persuaded, he would be a tremendous asset in building up the Sefira family and bringing down Queen Lillian.

    Keter had come to the conclusion that it was worth trying to win over Ultima. But how could he do it? The plan was simple.

    And if the attempt to persuade Ultima failed…

    At the sound of movement in the forest, Keter, who had been sitting on a tree stump in the empty field, stood up. It wasn’t Ultima who appeared, but the Jacose family he had sent.

    “Nice to meet you, Keter. I hear you’re from Absinthe. Then you must have heard of the name Jacose, right?”

    Jacose was attempting to strike up a conversation. Keter responded kindly—by shooting an arrow at him.

    A hole the size of a coin appeared in Jacose’s forehead. However, Jacose didn’t realize that Keter had shot an arrow nor that he was already dead.

    “Why aren’t you answer...?”

    The meat sack that Jacose collapsed backward, unable to finish his sentence. His subordinates froze in place, utterly shocked. They couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed.

    Keter had been sitting there empty-handed, yet in the blink of an eye, he was holding an jet-black bow. A faint, white blur streaked through the air, and suddenly, their leader’s forehead had a hole in it.

    “An Aura Arrow?!”

    Only the vice captain of the Jacose family recognized what Keter had fired.

    He quickly shouted, “He’s an archer! Spread out and attack!”

    At his signal, Jacose’s subordinates scattered, each running in different directions. The vice captain calculated that even if they lost a couple of men, they could surely take down Keter. After all, the Aura Arrow was a technique that consumed a tremendous amount of aura, and it was difficult to fire multiple shots in rapid succession.

    As predicted, Keter fired only a single Aura Arrow.

    The sound was like a droplet of water falling. It was the distinct noise of Amaranth’s bowstring being released.

    The vice captain saw Keter’s lone arrow flying toward them and became certain of victory.

    But then, that single arrow split into seven, piercing through the foreheads and necks of his subordinates simultaneously.

    Three seconds—that was all it took to wipe out the entire Jacose family, who had once hunted down a two-star knight.

    “If you all charge at once, you’ll only die together.”

    The Jacose family had made a grave mistake: they assumed Keter had shot a regular Aura Arrow. However, what he had actually unleashed was a Mana Arrow. Unlike aura, mana could be freely manipulated, allowing the arrow to split apart.

    “Thanks to Grandpa Volkanus, I can waste mana on these nobodies without a problem.”

    Keter originally only had two years’ worth of mana and couldn’t afford to squander it on such lowly opponents. But his mana had greatly increased thanks to the World Tree Elixir Volkanus gave him, so he was able to expend some without worry.

    Keter sat back down on the tree stump and said, “Anyway, Ultima, you won’t just surrender because I took down the Jacose family, will you?”

    “Might as well show it all.”

    Keter didn’t have a reason to hide anything since he would kill Ultima if he didn’t surrender.

    Three minutes had passed. It was about time for Ultima to arrive. As expected, soon enough, there was a rustling sound from the forest. Ultima had come to check the bodies.

    “..!”

    Upon confirming that the Jacose family had been wiped out, Ultima immediately turned to flee. He didn’t even entertain the hopeful thought that Keter might be in a weakened state. His survival instincts from growing up in Liqueur told him otherwise.

    Ultima halted abruptly when a hole suddenly appeared in the tree right next to him. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek. It wasn’t a missed shot—it was a deliberate warning.

    Ultima gulped and turned around to face Keter, who was still sitting on the tree stump.

    Curling his finger, Keter beckoned Ultima over and said, “You have five seconds to get over here.”