Before heading back to the carriage, Henry looked at the bandit leader’s arm.

‘But first.’

Henry ripped off the clothing on the arm. If his guess was right, the bandits would have at least one or two tattoos somewhere that would indicate who they were affiliated with. A spot on the arm caught Henry’s attention.

‘Just as I thought.’

It was a tattoo of two striped snakes wrapped around each other with their jaws open as they looked up at the sky. It was commonly known as the mark of a double snake. It was the symbol of the Viper Knights of the imperial palace, a group led by Salmora, the tenth sword of the Imperial Ten Swords.

‘I didn’t expect that the imperial army would be the institution that commissioned the work.’

It was only then that Henry could understand the operations of the transportation. ‘Aubert must have been in charge of this attack.’

Excluding the imperial family, the power structure of the empire consisted of six Great Families—one duke family, two marquis families, and three count families which all participated in the state administration.

The title of a Great Family was not awarded according to...