I asked around about him and found out his reputation was quite solid. His coworkers and the adventurers themselves had only good things to say. He was friendly and responsive. When he was asked questions, he was forthcoming. He was considerate and talkative. All things that set him in stark contrast to a certain Beardo. I even asked the gentlemen of the street if they’d noticed him getting up to anything funny, but they had nothing to add. On his free days, he stayed indoors or went to a nearby pub to drink. He’d down two pints, then go home.
So he was a nice young man. Wonderful. The problem was that nice young men didn’t come to this place. And they certainly didn’t get jobs with the Adventurers Guild. Not even a saint would choose to help these disgusting grown men wipe their own asses.
I staked out a spot near his apartment and waited for him to come home. I already knew Donald’s work schedule. For now, nothing was out of line. At least, nothing was outwardly wrong, but true human nature rarely showed itself. Even the inquisitor of a different religion and the innocent-looking vegetable seller had been believers. Anyone could be one.
The voice of the beggar sun god would come unbidden to my ears.
He wanted to use the Astral Crystal to return to his true form. But his power could not reach the dungeon, so he shared some of his power with his “preachers,” who were still not capable of conquering the dungeon. Which was why he wanted more “sufferers,” who became his slaves of their own volition.
The recoil from the explosion of monsters in the stampede meant there were fewer than before in the dungeon. This would be his golden opportunity. He wanted to send his slaves into the Millennium of Midnight Sun and conquer it, once and for all.
If Donald was a sufferer, then there would be others working with him. We had to question him or torture him to get that information. I squeezed the temporary sun in my pocket, feeling the rough surface. It felt like the crack had gotten bigger. A shiver ran down my back at the thought of it shattering. But until then, I just had to keep getting the most out of it.
I took a swig from my bottle to quell my irritation and saw the door to the Golden Stagecoach across the street open. It was exactly the person I did not want to see. I spun around, determined not to say anything, but it was too late.
“Why, if it isn’t Matthew. Day drinking, huh? I could use a bit of that,” said Natalie the moment she saw me.
“What’s with the outfit?” I said, ignoring her comment. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and a tattered brown coat, and she carried a small lute in her hands.
“I’m a bard now.”
“What happened to selling stuff on the street?”
“It wasn’t making any money. I’ve changed careers.”
“A wise choice.”
She would be able to build a house with her customers’ corpses before she actually built her own shop.
“I’m thinking I’ll just play my instrument and lead a peaceful, quiet life.”
“You know how to play?” I asked. I had to wonder how she intended to play the lute when one of her arms didn’t work.
“You doubt me? Have a listen,” she said smugly, lifting her fingers to the strings.
“Don’t.”
If she started singing there on the street, it was going to attract attention.
“And what are you doing here, then? This isn’t where you or Dez live.”
“I’m going to an acquaintance’s house,” I lied. Natalie had every reason to hate that fraud of a sun god, too. I considered using her as a bodyguard of sorts, but she would only screw things up and make a mess of the situation. I could use her help later.
“Oh, a woman? Disgusting. You should die.”
Let her talk. She wouldn’t believe me even if I denied it. That was the kind of person she was.
“Well, if you want to show off your singing, you’d do better around the pubs on the main streets.”
“I heard about a fun story and thought I’d go check it out. It’ll make for a good tale. Have you heard this one?”
“If you’re talking about the story of the swordsman who drunkenly cut a priceless set of armor in two and nearly got executed for desecrating a national treasure, I’ve already heard—”
She pressed a knife to my throat. “That was an accident. It was an emergency. Justifiable self-defense. I have evidence.”
“Something tells me it won’t be admissible in court.”
That was her assertion. But she had even dumped a pile of clothing on top of the armor in full view of a group of shocked dignitaries. There was no defense for what she did.
“I’m talking about that,” she said, taking me to a building two streets south of Donald’s place. There was already a crowd present. Thanks to my height, I could look over their heads to see the scars of what looked like a battle. Walls were cracked, windows were broken, doors were smashed, and a huge hole gaped in the middle of the wall.
The onlookers were saying something had gone down there the night before.
“See? Isn’t this fun? I wonder if it was a monster.”
“Don’t say that where people can hear you.”
People were still on edge around the concept of monsters. Many hadn’t only lost their homes in the stampede; they’d also lost their peace of mind.
“They’re saying it might have been the work of a monster that escaped the dungeon during the stampede.”
“Seems like it,” I said. There was no denying the possibility. I’d just come across such an instance the other day.
“It doesn’t seem to be a mating situation, so perhaps it was a battle for territory,” Natalie noted.
“Why do you think that?”
“Have your eyes gotten worse in the last few years?”
She pointed at the way the walls were destroyed. One of them seemed to have been gouged out by something sharp, like fangs, while the other was busted down in a way that looked more like brute strength. There were huge footprints in the dirt but also trails of something slender that had been dragged along.
“Ahh, I see now.”
So at the very least, two monsters had fought there.
“What I’m more curious about is where they went.”
“Good question.”
With a battle this vicious, one would think there had been victims, witnesses, injured, dead—but so far it didn’t sound like anyone had suffered in the fight.
“Two shapes in the shadows…that came here to blows ♪, but where their storm went…only the moon knows. ♪”
“I told you not to sing.”
She strummed the lute, but only in a haphazard fashion, with no real melody. She was just making noise.
“Hey!”
There, you see? A burly man came over to confront her.
Natalie took off her hat and held it upside-down with a smile. Apparently, she was going to charge him money for that.
“Thank you for listening. But really, your attention is all the payment I need.”
“Fuck you!”
He took a swing at her. It was a good punch, with his back put into it, but Natalie could evade it easier than she could scratch her own ass. She darted out of the way by the slimmest of margins, then brought down her lute on the man’s head as he was unbalanced. The strings twanged and broke inharmoniously, and the man’s head poked through the belly of the lute like a turtle’s. Then she kicked him in the balls. The large man toppled backward, unconscious and foaming at the mouth.
“Why’d you go and destroy the tool of your trade?”
“I’m switching careers,” she said, hurling her hat with disgust. “I thought singing and playing an instrument would be fun and easy.”
“You think the world’s just one big joke, don’t you?”
“You’re the last person who should be talking.”