Eisen left the room and made his way back out of the Inn without saying a single word, not even to Caria or Melissa who were both noticing that Eisen wasn't himself and tried to console him in different ways.
And when the woman at the counter was trying to talk to him, he simply ignored her and left through the door without a second thought.
Only when Eisen was out of range in a completely different area of Ornier, did he stop for a second to take a deep breath, sitting down on a bench by the side of the road. "Well then, this was really messed up, wasn't it? Thanks for helping me back there, you two." Eisen said with a smile while looking at his two tamed monsters, rubbing both of their heads. "Now then, let's take a look at this."
[New Quest - Stolen Shards]
[Description] A group of adventurers destroyed the amulet in which the Mist Spirit Kirisho was sealed,
taking the majority of the shards with them. This left Kirisho in a state that only barely allows her to
consciously exist. You want to help, and thus the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth asked you to find
the adventurers, and as such hopefully the shards of the amulet, with the help of one of the
adventurers' identification tag. Find the stolen shards and combine them together again.
After you found the first of the Adventurer party, you got the shard from him and got him to tell you where the other are, while making sure that he would be forever terrified of you. One of them died and the shard was taken by a criminal loan business, while the other went to live in a magic town.
[Reward] Kirisho will be able to live a normal life again
[Failure] Kirisho will continue living the life she currently has
"I see, so that quest was updated. And this really is the shard of the amulet I'm looking for." Eisen chuckled lowly to himself as he played around with the shard between his fingers, placing it back in his pocket before standing up from the bench and deciding to ask around for more information.
Since right now he had the chance to spend the day figuring out more about those loan sharks without involving anyone else, Eisen chose to use this time wisely. And there was usually one spot where such criminal organizations were most frequent.
Entertainment districts, such as redlight or gambling districts. It would be especially easy to find loan sharks in the latter of those two, preying on those that just lost their money in a gamble.
So the easiest way for him to find any hints about them was to go there and ask around. It took a while until Eisen found the right area in town, but in the end, he stood in front of the largest casino in town. It was only just starting to get busy in the afternoon, and Eisen would probably have the best chances to find anything out later in the day, but it would be a good start.
He decided to stand and wait at the wall opposite to the casino to simply wait for anything suspicious, before opening his backpack in a dark corner and releasing the five bee soldiers inside of it, commanding them to position themselves around the casino and relay to Melissa if they find anything suspicious or any type of hostility in the immediate surrounding.
But just a few minutes after they flew off, a new notification popped up in front of Eisen.
[Congratulations! Melissa's Hive Control skill ranked up! The range of the types of bees she can create will grow]
[Current Types]
-Worker Bees
-Soldier Bees
[Choose one of the following new types]
-Scout Bees
-Warrior Bees
Surprised that he was able to choose this type of thing even for his tamed monsters, Eisen carefully read through the list. Scout Bees would probably be incredibly useful in a situation just as this, but Eisen didn't want to choose for Melissa. He wanted to guide her into being more utility-oriented rather than combat-oriented, but that didn't mean he wanted to control important parts such as this.
So, Eisen left the choice over to Melissa, but it didn't seem like he had to worry since she seemed to be more excited at the idea of the scouts rather than the warriors, so Eisen decided to choose the prior of the two options.
"Melissa, would you be able to lay an egg for one of the scout bees so that we can take a look at what they are like? The five soldiers seem quite harmless, so it shouldn't be a big problem to have some more bees if they are similarly docile." Eisen muttered to himself, and Melissa replied with a quick nod before laying an egg down onto Eisen's hand.
"Now, let's just wait." With a sigh, Eisen looked around until he saw a nearby bench and sat down on it, carefully holding the egg that was significantly smaller than those of the soldiers' in his palm.
After an hour of waiting, the egg cracked open and a small Bee, only about half the size of Melissa or the soldiers, appeared in its stead.
But that wasn't the only difference that could be seen when compared to the other bees. Its stinger was basically nonexistent and its wings were a lot larger than usual, which was probably meant to make sure that it could move faster. The Scout Bee's body was a lot more narrow and lean as well to make it a slight bit more nimble. Eisen sent the scout out and was able to immediately confirm that this was the case. Within only a second, the scount managed to reach the other side of the street and placed itself on the wall of the casino.
"Well, it's pretty quick, for sure. Think you can lay a few more, Melissa? Just four more would be fine, we shouldn't go overboard." Eisen asked, and Melissa nodded before laying four more eggs onto Eisen's palm, which he then held there for another hour while waiting for anything to happen.
After the new eggs hatched, the four scout bees flew off and scattered in the area, basically surveying everything that was going on.
It then took another hour until the bees started reacting to something and one of them flew back over to Eisen. The sun would be setting quite soon, so more and more people made their way to the casino, meaning that the dark side of town came out as well.
The Scout Bee that came back to him then led him through an alley to the back of the casino, where Eisen was able to listen to a conversation.
"P-Please, give me one more week! I'll have the money by then!" A middle aged man begged loudly while on his knees in front of three men, one of them more on the business side of things, while two men behind him were apparently just goons that were meant to intimidate others.
The man in the front then began to chuckle quietly, before ruthlessly kicking the man on his knees in the face. "Do you think I'm an idiot? You already told me this last week. Don't try and fucking test me, old man. Either you give us the money now, or you'll regret it." The loan shark barked out, and the man stumbled backward while holding his face.
"N-No, p-please, I have a family! I need to feed them!"
"Should have thought about that earlier, you hear?" Angrily, the loan shark ground his teeth and kept kicking the man while he was cowering on the ground. Eisen wanted to do something about that, but he wouldn't be able to fight these three all at once. At least not without proper preparation.
The ten bees directly under Melissa's control spread around the area while Eisen took a look around to make sure the alley couldn't be seen from the streets.
Eisen then looked down at Caria, pointing at the roots that the group of three was basically standing on, telling Caria to make them grow as fast as possible to restraint their legs. Of course Eisen made sure that he was actually able to take these guys on, and since they were just around Eisen's own level, it should end up fine as long as he really properly prepared for everything.
And even though it wouldn't do much combat-wise anymore, Eisen even spread some of his magic element down on the ground around the men, and once Eisen gave Caria his signal, she extended her hand and the roots immediately shot upward and slung themselves around the mens' legs while Eisen waved his hand to command the soldier bees to use their stinger attack in the back of the mens' necks. Two for the goons and one for the main loan shark. Immediately after stinging the men, the bees flew off before Eisen turned his element all the way to flames in order to catch the roots on fire.
And even though Eisen didn't have his sword with him, he would hopefully still be able to do a little bit of damage with a thick branch lying on the ground nearby.
Eisen hit the branch onto the back of the goon's knees, causing them to fall onto the ground while the roots continued swallowing them up together with the flames of Eisen's element, causing them to be unable to move further. In order to conceal his identity, Eisen transformed his face into his element as far turned toward the earth side as possible, turning the flames around the men into rock to further constraint them while making sure that the loan shark could look at Eisen closely.
The old man stepped in front of the trapped individual while the man that was just begging these three to let him go was backing off into a corner. "Tell me. Did your loan business kill the leader named Thomas of a party of Rank 4 adventurers?"
The loan shark stared at Eisen full of confusion, while the old man sighed and decided to turn it up a notch. He closed his eyes and transformed only them all the way toward flames while also activating his Truth Seeing Eyes. This combination made Eisen's eyes burn in golden flames while Caria's vines slowly crept up the loan shark's face.
"Did you, or did you not, kill the leader of a Rank 4 adventurer party? Tell me now." Eisen whispered slowly, and the Loan shark slowly nodded.
"Y-Yes, we did… I'm sorry if he was your friend, I-I'll try to make up for it! Do you want money? I've got some with me!"
Eisen sighed out loudly, the heat created by his element causing steam to pour out of his throat. Even though this man didn't really do anything to him specifically, it would still be a good idea to scare him out of continuing this type of business. After all, they killed a man in cold blood just after he paid back his dept. At least that was according to John, and Eisen doubted that he could even think of lying to him.
"I don't want your money. The man that you killed had a shard of an amulet with him. It is a cursed item that I need to acquire. Can you tell me where it is?" Eisen asked, and the loan shark nodded in a hurry.
"It's in our headquarters, in my office! J-just follow this alley to the other side of the street, there will be a dark red building. That's our headquarters, and my office is at the top floor, behind the window in the top right. It's on my desk, so please, just take that wretched thing!"
Eisen sighed once more and shook his head in response to this, turning around and walking through the alley. This was basically the same reaction that John had, and if that was the case, this guy would just be completely filled with fear at this point.
Commanding the bees to follow him while Caria and Melissa did so as well, Eisen left the alley while the loan shark was yelling at Eisen to not leave him like that, just stuck in rock and vines. But Eisen didn't care and just continued walking to where the Loan Shark described the headquarters to be.