Proofreader: Xemul
Loren and Lapis returned to the inn from the sewer entrance and welcomed dawn without a wink of sleep. As the sky brightened, they began to remove the threads that Nig had wrapped around the inn the previous night. They did not know what the spider’s intention was in sealing off the inn, but as long as there were people inside, they thought that they could not keep the inn locked up.
Loren did not know how Nig felt about their action, but the spider did not act out of control and just clung to his shoulder as usual.
Using daggers whose blades had been heated, they somehow managed to cut up the exceedingly durable spider threads. When they opened the door, their eyes met those of the innkeeper, who had been sitting behind the counter since who knew when.
Loren felt that this was a situation that deserved his anger, but the innkeeper did not say a word when he saw Loren’s group standing at the doorway, as if he did not understand what situation his inn had been until then.
“Ah… Are you mad?”
Loren awkwardly asked the silent innkeeper, and the guy simply replied in a murmur.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well… You know how the windows and the doors of the inn were shut?”
“I don’t know.”
The cold, emotionless voice made Loren scratch his cheeks, unsure of what to make of it.
“So you’re not mad?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is hopeless.”
By this point, Loren had come to understand that this innkeeper was not normal.
Whatever the cause might be, no matter how long he talked with someone he could not communicate with properly, the situation would not progress. Loren gave up and decided to leave the matter with the inn behind, and left for the soldiers’ station of Suest.
No matter how remote a city was, soldiers were still dispatched from the capital to keep public order. Basically, the soldiers were in charge of catching and investigating criminals who committed crimes in the city, and Loren thought that they needed to report the disappearance of the group of people that they had seen last night.
As an adventurer, Loren was not sure how much of his testimony would be accepted, and this caused him some anxiety. However, he knew that the guards would not hesitate to act if more than a dozen people had disappeared to who knows where. If those at the station were not enough to settle the matter, the soldiers were sure to request assistance from the capital, and hopefully the power of the state might be able to shed some light on the mysterious disappearance.
But when Loren took the others to the soldiers’ station, he came across a sight that made him think that it might not go as he planned.
The station had a room for taking complaints from the citizens, and that was where Loren and his team went. However, as soon as they entered the place, they saw three men who looked like adventurers at the reception counter and a guard sitting behind it, answering their questions.
“Like I said, the priest of our party hasn’t been seen since last night!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m telling you that our party’s priest has disappeared!”
“I don’t understand.”
“What the hell do you mean you don’t know? It’s impossible to talk with you! Get me somebody more important!”
The man was so enraged that ‘furious’ was barely an appropriate word to describe his state. He even tried to grab the guard behind the counter. But the guard who was talking to them did not change his expression at all, and remained nonchalant in front of the men’s angry voices.
“Our commander is absent.”
“Then someone lower in rank!”
“The vice commander is also absent.”
“Then who is here?!”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
A man, probably a swordsman, leaned over the counter and tried to grab the guard by the chest.
Loren could tell that the man was probably a few years older than he was. If he was not stopped, he probably would climb over the counter and grab the guard, and if he did, they could all be imprisoned as criminals. Knowing this, a bandit-looking man and a magician-looking man from each side grabbed the swordsman-looking man by the shoulders and arms to stop him from doing so.
“Let go of me! You bastard!”
“Stop him! We’ll be arrested if you cause a scene here!”
“Shut up! I have to give him a punch to the face!”
The two men tried to stop him, but the swordsman was too strong and dragged them with him. The bandit and the magician desperately tried to hold the swordsman back, because they knew that if he really touched the guard, it would end badly.
Loren felt a sense of déjà vu when he saw no signs of fear or dismay from the guard no matter how furious the swordsman was. What was more surprising was the appearance of the swordsman, who was about to attack the guard.
“That guy, I remember seeing him somewhere…”
“You have a male acquaintance, Loren?”
“Hey, what do you mean by that?”
Loren reached out to grab Ivy, who was feigning surprised. But Ivy was faster, she fled and hid behind Gula as if using her as a shield.
“Ah, hey, don’t use me as a shield!”
“Don’t worry. You won’t lose, right?”
“Stop messing around! If he does something with his power, I’ll lose!”
Loren stared at his own palm, wondering if he had enough power to win against an Evil God. But Gula and Ivy continued to joke around, but just as Loren was thinking that it was time to put a stop to their noisy behavior, the swordsman, who was still struggling with his friends at the reception counter, yelled at Loren’s group as the bandit man held him back by the arms.
“You’re too noisy! Get the hell away if you have nothing to do!”
“I’m sorry if we offended you. I’ll shut them up, forgive us.”
If you made noises right next to a dispute, even if you were bystanders, you couldn’t help but be yelled at. Thinking this, Loren glared at both Ivy and Gula once to make them quiet, then slightly bowed to the swordsman who had yelled at him. The fault was on their side, so he thought he should apologize for now.
When Loren lifted his head, for some reason, he caught the swordsman staring at him with a gaping mouth. From the look on his face, Loren felt that he definitely knew the man from somewhere, so he decided to confirm it.
“By the way, have we met somewhere before?”
“Where… Aren’t you Loren?”
The bandit released his hold as the swordsman ceased his struggle. He was frozen with a look of surprise on his face as he looked at Loren, and Loren, who was also looking at him, was lost in thought. He was still unable to remember where he had seen the man before, although he looked familiar.
“I want to say ‘How dare you forget my face’, but I guess it can’t be helped. After all, you and I were just members of the Muttschild Mercenaries, nothing more.”
Loren wondered to himself if that was the name of the company. He didn’t remember paying much attention to the company’s name. He probably had heard about it somewhere, but rather than having forgotten about it, it was more like he couldn’t recall it even if told.
“Did this person work in the same mercenary company as you, Loren?”
As he listened to Lapis, Loren finally realized that if he recognized the man in front of him, the only possibility was that the man was someone he met during his mercenary days. If it was someone he had met after becoming an adventurer, he would remember most of them, and he would not have to wonder about it.
“You became an adventurer, huh? I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Aren’t you in a similar situation? Ehh…”
Even after realizing that the other man seemed to have been in the same mercenary company as him, Loren was still unable to recall the man’s name. Perhaps he had only met the guy in the group and did not know his name. After all, there were quite a few members in the company, and Loren did not know all of them.
“My name is Mills. You’re right, I’m an adventurer now. It’s the only way for people like us, who can only fight, to survive after quitting the mercenary business.”
Thinking that most people had the same thought, Loren asked just in case.
“If you have good manners, you can become a soldier or something, can’t you?”
“You’re an idiot, aren’t you? There are only a few who have good enough manners to work for the state… You could have done it, couldn’t you? Why did you become an adventurer then?”
“Aren’t you an adventurer too? My manners aren’t good either. You overestimate me. By the way, what’s your problem?”
As Mills was in the same company as him, Loren thought that no matter how bad-mannered he was, he would not attack a member of the general public for no reason. In that case, there must have been some reason for the attack, and when he asked Mills about it, Mills turned his reproachful gaze to the guard who had been watching the exchange between them without a change in expression before replying.
“One of our party members disappeared last night, and we came here to inform the guard that something might have happened. But this bastard keeps saying he doesn’t know what’s going on and I can’t talk to him.”
“There were no signs of vandalism in the room he was staying in, but we are concerned because this is not a man who would go somewhere without telling us.”
The magician spoke with concern for his party member, then glanced at the expressionless guard, who gave no clue about whether he was listening to their conversation or not, and said in a whisper.
>”The poor quality of the guards on the frontier is troubling.”
“Can you tell us a little more about that?”
The story of the sudden disappearance of one of their party members was somewhat similar to what Loren had seen last night, and Loren thought he should ask Mills for more information. Mills immediately nodded.
“No problem. But let’s go somewhere else. This place is disgusting.”
Mills intentionally wanted to be heard, but the guard, who probably could hear him, did not change his expression. He kept his eyes fixed in their direction with a blank expression as if he was wearing a mask or something, and it was difficult to determine whether he was really seeing them or not.