[Lifespan Remaining: 29 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes.]
Eventually making it to the Diamond Merchantry, Amelia’s base of operations. It was safe to say that the place was completely swamped.
The entire lobby had been flooded with nervous and angry merchants complaining about her war with Faust and the crystal mines, resulting in their goods being hassled by his officials.
Several of the larger merchants had responded by withholding their supplies entirely. They could afford to absorb temporary losses and continue to transport good, but that would only allow the officials to extract more money from them.
This caused supplies citywide to dwindle. And of course, as supplies dwindled, demand continued to grow.
Prices for just a single loaf of bread nearly tripled in price, causing the entire city to be quite miserable without it.
’Faust isn’t attacking only Amelia anymore.’
Luckily, the guide that was with them managed to squeeze the two of them past the crowd.
"The mistress is upstairs!" he shouted over the surrounding complaints. "Please follow me!"
Normally, it would look bad for Amelia not to greet her guests properly. But seeing the situation, Noct wasn’t going to make a fuss about it.
Heading upstairs, they found Amelia barely awake at her office. There were about a hundred stacks of different papers and documents that flooded the place.
Amelia barely heard them step in, managing to straighten herself to make her somewhat presentable to her youngest brother and his fiancée.
And compared to the Amelia that he had spoken to in the garden a day or two back, this one was completely different.
Aurora was already inside, making herself at home and sipping a cup of tea. She simply watched Amelia with an amused expression before greeting Noct and Noelle.
"Noct, glad you could make it," she sighed, wiping her face with a wet towel. "As you can see, things aren’t going particularly well."
"I noticed."
Noct removed several documents from the nearest chair before helping himself down onto it while Noelle stood directly behind him with her face lowered and her hands crossed.
"As you can see, Faust is absolutely burying me with paperwork."
She gestured to the mountains surrounding her. "After I reported the undeclared crystals in my warehouse, Faust’s officials used it as evidence of collusion to hassle the merchants aligned with me."
"But Father hasn’t accused you of deliberately stealing from the mine, has he?"
"No," Amelia shook her head. "He confiscated the undeclared stockpile and left the mine sealed. But yes, it was as you said. He accepted that it happened because of poor oversight."
"Then my plan worked."
"You call this working?"
"The fact that you aren’t in prison right now and Father hasn’t directly handed Faust the mines is evidence, isn’t it?" Noct replied. "I never promised Faust would politely accept what would happen after the fact."
"You promised to help me deal with him!"
"After he brought half my business to the brink of collapse!"
Noct sighed and picked up one of the rejected permits. Three separate reasons had been stamped across its surface, each contradicting the one before it.
"He’s giving your merchants a choice. Abandon the Diamond Merchantry and receive approval from his officials again..."
"Or perish..." Aurora finished his thought. "Is everyone from Arcadia really that petty? He knows Amelia is playing a losing hand, yet he wants to dismantle her entire faction."
Noelle muttered softly, but it was loud enough for the three of them to hear. "You’d be surprised."
"Hey, what does that mean?!"
But before the young maid had to defend her statement, Amelia voiced her concerns first. "So what are you going to do? How does my brilliant little brother intend to rescue his poor older sister from this one?"
Well, Noct couldn’t exactly divulge where he knew this knowledge from. So he decided to poke around the bushes a little bit.
"Amelia...have you heard any rumors about people going missing in this city?"
"Going missing...?" she scratched her chin. "I guess I have? But it felt more like rumors going around than anything concrete."
"What kind of people?"
"Mostly laborers. Workers, hired hands, people without much family in the city. Usually, contractors who come from somewhere else to seek a job."
"Well, there’s been a huge outrage recently," Amelia continued. "But most of those complaints have been squashed by the knights already."
Both the master and his maid exchanged a glance the moment "the knights" were mentioned. He leaned forward, clasping both hands together.
"What did they say?"
"Exactly what I just told you," Amelia sighed. "Wait—why are you asking about something like this? How the hell is this related to what we’re doing?"
"Edward, your accoutant was murdered before we could interrogate him," Aurora explained. "A witness alongside him used their final moments to write Altaire in his own blood."
"..."
"And on our way here, we had sent a decoy inspector from Arcadia," Noct explained with a heavy heart. "But due to my negligence, he..."
Aurora glanced at Noct with her mouth slightly open. But he chose to continue on instead of lingering on the fact. "Point is, whatever’s going on with the knights here, it’s something suspicious."
Aurora crossed her arms. "Even if the disappearances are connected, how does investigating them help Amelia’s merchants?"
"Faust’s advantage comes from his control over Altaire’s officials," Noct answered. "Every restriction hurting Amelia only carries weight because everyone chooses to rely on Faust’s connection to Arcadia."
"And if we were to somehow prove that Faust was behind all of this..." Aurora slowly realized. "Then he can no longer present his control over Altaire’s officials as proof that he’s the more capable person to govern the mine."
"Correct," Noct nodded. "His foundations will become shaky."
"Noct, how do you know all this?" Amelia looked between them. "That’s your plan? Chase rumors until you find something embarrassing enough to use against Faust?"
They were already racing against time, and Noct had seemingly proposed gambling everything upon a handful of rumors.
But he knew the disappearances were real.
Because in the original game’s storyline, Faust had gotten away with the exact same thing in Altaire, only being caught later on in the game when he tried the same thing in another city.
Noct leaned forward in his chair. The plan could only work if he could fully get Amelia on his side.
"Look, the inclusion of Edward, the murders that happened and the blood clue which point toward Altaire," he explained. "Even if Faust isn’t involved, with his influence, he knows something for sure."
"I guarantee it."
Amelia sat deep in thought for a while. It was another one of her little brother’s speeches with seemingly unmatched and unfounded confidence.
Yet it had worked once before, on the ’cursed birthday’ that he wasn’t supposed to survive. And with her hands tied, all she could do was trust him once more.
"Alright, fine." She finally nodded. "What’s your plan of action?"
"Well, first..." Noct looked out the nearby window, looking at the various nobles strolling around on the other side of the river. "I need to get into that banquet, preferably undercover."
Then, his eyes shifted to the distance, to the source of the river which lay in the far Altaire mountains.
"If that fails, then I might need to consult someone with higher authority."
"You don’t mean..."
"Yes. The Witch of Black Ice."