The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] novel Chapter 1238

Chapter 1238: Overlapping Trails

"Whoa. Pirates?"

Luca’s golden eyes immediately widened.

For a brief moment, the cadet’s expression filled with genuine wonder as he tried to recall everything he knew about pirates, which unfortunately wasn’t nearly as much as he would’ve liked, considering the amount of trouble those people seemed capable of causing.

Sure, they’d already had a run-in with pirates before, but Luca still didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to paint an accurate picture of how they actually operated. Especially not after D-29 helpfully informed him that the so-called pirates weren’t even one unified group, but an entire complicated structure made up of countless crews and coalitions.

Killian nodded.

"Yes. From the looks of it, whoever’s behind the spread of the incense burners had no intention of handling the distribution themselves. They outsourced the manpower instead, using existing pirate networks to handle the circulation while making the trail considerably harder to follow."

That explanation left several people around the room looking thoughtful.

If whoever was behind this had been primarily interested in making money, going through pirates would’ve been an incredibly risky way to do it. Between the cost of hiring them and the very real possibility of the merchandise being stolen by either the contracted group or one of their rivals, there were enough opportunities for things to go catastrophically wrong that anyone chasing profit would’ve probably reconsidered their options.

But it was an entirely different matter if profit had never been the priority.

If the goal was greater reach, those same pirate networks suddenly became incredibly useful. Expensive and notoriously unreliable, perhaps, but also a convenient shortcut for getting something distributed across a much wider area as quickly as possible.

As for the young guild leader, however, the mention of pirates apparently brought up another matter entirely, because the eldest Nox soon glanced down at the information he was relaying before mentioning that Marshal Julian had raised a question earlier, one that the Chief of Staff surprisingly believed would be better answered by Luca.

The golden-eyed cadet’s lashes fluttered in confusion as Killian’s gaze settled on him, and after a moment, his finger slowly rose to point directly at himself.

"Me?"

Why was the Chief of Staff suddenly looking at him like that?

The young official gave a small nod, his expression becoming strangely difficult to decipher.

"Safe to say, the moment it became known that this particular investigation might lead them into pirate territory, Marshal Julian suddenly received two extremely enthusiastic volunteers."

"Really? Who?"

"Deputy Officer Curtis Karswell and Tech Specialist Eden Harcrest."

"!"

For a moment, Luca simply stared as he processed the information.

Then his golden eyes widened as he finally remembered why those names and pirates suddenly belonged in the same conversation.

"Oh! Right!"

Luca suddenly struck his palm with the side of his fist as the connection finally clicked into place.

"Lady Eden’s missing older brother!"

Of course!

However, after straightening in his seat, the golden-eyed cadet only ended up tilting his head in even greater confusion. He would’ve understood if they needed something from Veeka of the Riftmaw Ravagers, but when it came to those two from the military...

"Uhm... how could that possibly be related to me?"

"And depending on how far the investigation goes, there’s a possibility they’ll learn more about what you can do."

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