Ch. 121: Talk about Investigations and War
There was a rumor that a few villages had been destroyed.
It wasn’t something unusual.
Villages appeared and disappeared all the time, so it wouldn’t grab any attention whatsoever.
But this time it was different.
There was also a rumor that it was due to a vampiric calamity.
Vampiric calamities referred to disasters caused by vampires.
A vampire appearing in a village, converting a few people into its slaves, then those lesser undead would attack others, and after continuing that bloody cycle, all the humans would be replaced with undead.
It would result in a horde of undead that the nation couldn’t ignore, so even though it was a rumor, the government launched an investigation in case such a situation would happen.
“I don’t think they would find a horde of undead anywhere, though.”
Looking at Lapis, who chimed like it was none of her business, sitting in front of him, Loren tilted the cup of liquor in his hand and swirled it slowly.
As Lapis had said, there was zero chance that a horde of undead would be found.
It wasn’t that Lapis had received a revelation from the Knowledge god.
A little while before, Loren and Lapis had received a job straight from the client, instead of through the Adventurer’s Guild.
It was during that job, that the villages were turned into undead, resulting in an undead horde, that was used to attack them.
But the horde, along with the True that caused the vampiric calamity, were completely wiped out.
Loren hadn’t reported this to the guild.
It was because he thought that if they wanted to know, they should ask the Elder that caused all of it.
Apparently, the Adventurer’s Guild was a powerful organization, and had connections to monsters that could converse with humans.
If not, there was no way the guild could get their hands on some of the information they possessed.
In any case, the job was a direct contract from their client, so he and Lapis had no responsibility to give the guild any information on what had happened during it.
If they didn’t report and the Elders didn’t say anything either, there was nothing the guild could do about it.
Even if they knew something had happened, they couldn’t carelessly aggravate the Elders, and if they tried to do something to Loren and Lapis and they found out about it, it could offend them as well, so there was nothing they could do.
That was why Loren thought that the guild was letting them move around freely.
“I feel sorry for the people investigating.”
No matter how hard they investigated, they wouldn’t find anything.
The Elders had all left, and the undead horde, which was the main point of the investigation, most of them were defeated by Loren and the sunlight and were back to being immobile corpses.
Loren thought it was harsh to send people on an investigation which nothing would turn up, but since it was still a job they would be paid according to the number of days, so Loren hoped that the adventurers that he didn’t know the names or faces of wouldn’t think of it as wasted time.
“Well, that’s the least of their worries.”
Loren said quietly as he looked down at the notice from the guild that was spread on the table.
It was a form that the guild used to spread important information far and wide throughout the adventurer community.
The contents were so shocking that it almost made Loren forget a lot of things that were on his mind.
“They’re skirmishes, but still an official war between nations.”
Unlike Loren, Lapis wasn’t interested in it at all.
On the paper that Loren was looking down on told him that the Kingdom of Wagenburg, the nation that Kauffa resided in, was warring with the nation of Schoenbryn, which was located to the northeast, and the battle was going on in an unnamed plain on the border.
The reason for the war wasn’t specified.
Loren thought it was a pathetic reason anyway.
Wars never started with a good reason, and many were started over the smallest of things, but rather than that, because of them, the circulation of goods got slower, people were drafted from cities and villages, and because of that, there would be less soldiers policing areas, leading to increase in crime.
“The guild always remains neutral, though.”
Even though they were neutral, they still had to receive jobs from both nations.
In fact, most of the jobs on the board were straight from Wagenburg.
They spanned from recon missions to guarding important people to guarding bases and fortresses.
It was probably similar in Schoenbryn, and because of the influx in jobs, the guild was quite packed.
“As a mercenary, does it make you tingle with excitement?”
When Lapis asked him, he asked it again to himself.
“Not interested. No intention of participating. Also, I’m a former mercenary, alright?”
“But it seems like you would make quite a bit, don’t you? This might be your chance.”
Until a short while ago, he had been thinking that if a war broke out, he could pay his debt in no time.
But currently, when he asked himself Lapis’ question, he realized that he wasn’t interested at all, and he raised the glass he was swirling and gulped the rest of the contents down.
“No interest at all. I’m content with how I’m living right now.”
It was his true feelings.
In any case, it was a lot lighthearted and safer than on the battlefield, constantly on alert and the air prickling around him, missing meals and sleep all the time.
Although, he had been exposed to dangers far worse than anything on the battlefield the past few jobs, but he had made it out alive every time, so he thought that complaining was too much of a luxury.
“Hearing that makes me a bit happy.:
Seeing Lapis’ gaze on him as she smiled happily, Loren averted his own, feeling slightly embarrassed.
A complaining look appeared on Lapis’ face for a moment when he did so, but she immediately stood up and changed the subject.
“Then that means avoiding jobs related to the war…which there aren’t many of.”
The guild wasn’t an organization to pass on jobs from the nation that paid well.
Not just because the guild was a mutual aid organization to adventurers, but because the guild itself was a profit organization.
With so many good paying jobs, there was no reason for them to pick up ones that didn’t look promising.
“Loren, do you have enough money saved up to last you until the war ends?”
Loren scowled at Lapis’ sudden question.
It was a topic he didn’t want to hear about, but it didn’t seem like he could get away without answering, so he managed to spit out a reply.
“You’re asking even though you already know that I don’t, aren’t you?”
With all the debt he had, there was no way he had anything saved up.
In fact, all his debt was from Lapis, and even with no interest nor deadlines, Loren wasn’t the type of person to keep any money when he owed some.
“Of course. Then I guess we can’t go without taking any jobs at all. You won’t survive until the end of the war.”
“I’m ashamed to say so, but yeah.”
Loren did have a bit of coins in his wallet.
But since they didn’t know when the war would end, whether it be a few days or a few weeks or even longer, if one was to ask if he had enough to last without working at all, Loren would have to shake his head.
If he used all his coins with no income.
He would be slowly going dry.
“Then I guess we need to find work.”
Loren couldn’t deny Lapis’ words.
As if she had seen through all of this, she pulled out a piece of paper from an inner pocket and spread it out on the table.
“There’s really nothing much other than jobs related to the war.”
It wasn’t that there weren’t other jobs, but the guild didn’t recommend jobs that weren’t related to the war, so naturally, those were the ones that would catch one’s eye.
“I tried to find one that’s as unrelated as possible.”
“You already investigated…?”
Usually, having the needed information already investigated and gathered beforehand would be something to be praised, but it was Lapis he was looking at.
He couldn’t just praise for what she did because he couldn’t put aside the possibility that she could have secretly induced many factors to engineer the current situation, so all he could do was look at her bitterly.
“This is the one I recommend we should do…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
Whether it be that she predicted correctly, or everything went according to her planning, it wouldn’t change what came next, so Loren gave up and told Lapis to go on.
Lapis cocked her head as she looked at Loren, but she soon pulled herself together and started explaining the job to him.