Upon reaching Visril, we found an inn and set up our base of operations there. Once we knew Neme’s general whereabouts, the rest would be a piece of cake. With Mapping and Enemy Search, the instant she was in my range, I could identify her presence and pinpoint her location.
It turned out that Neme was confined to a room within the main church in the city center. From what I could tell, her life wasn’t in any danger—a relief for now. She was being held at Salengre Cathedral, however, which doubled as the highest administrative body in Aifan. Whereas our country was ruled by a king, Aifan was governed by the Cecinaist pope. In other words, Neme was basically being held prisoner at the royal palace. There was no way regular adventurers could sneak in, much less bust someone out.
Thus we decided to take Riece’s advice and seek the aid of the strongest thief in town, Suiz Myran. If Cardinal Fuge had taken Neme in on official business, our attempt to rescue her would be seen as an act of hostility against Aifan. At worst, we’d be branded criminals here. That would make it difficult to enlist the help of Suiz Myran if he was a resident, but it would also make it extremely difficult to get Neme back in a city we knew nothing about. We’d have to find the famous thief first.
The hitch was that we had no information on his whereabouts. All major cities had guilds for different battle styles where the locals could register their roles. Visril was no exception, so I promptly headed for the thieves guild. I didn’t want to go alone, but traveling in too big of a group would only draw attention. I’d decided to bring just Erin along. Staring in from outside now that we were here wasn’t going to help us, though, so we proceeded inside.
“Hello...” I said.
“Hello there,” replied the receptionist at the counter. “Are you here to register? Or to post a request?”
As I worriedly turned over how best to bring up our business, Erin took a deep breath.
“Is there a thief named Suiz Myran around?” she asked. “We heard he’s skilled, so we have a job for him.”
She was really dependable at times like this. I was jealous of her fearlessness.
“Suiz Myran, you say?” The receptionist frowned, troubled.
Was there something wrong? As Erin and I exchanged a questioning look, a man sitting on a sofa in the lobby stood up and staggered over, a beer in one hand.
“If you came to the thieves guild looking for Suiz Myran, you must be outsiders,” he said.
“What? Who do you think you are, sidling up to us and calling us outsiders? Even if you’re drunk, isn’t that a little rude?”
To think the day had come that Erin, of all people, called someone else out for being rude... As I was reeling in shock, the man brushed his hair out of his face.
“Whoops, yeah. You’re right. My bad. I just thought I’d pipe up since it was clear you don’t know anything.”
“Do you know Suiz Myran?” Erin pressed.
“Hmm. I’m not sure how I should answer that...” the man mused, leaning against the counter. “At any rate, he’s a thief shrouded in secrets. Only a handful of people in this city actually know the guy. Word on the street is that he lives here in town, but anything more than that is a total mystery.”
That sure sounded familiar. When I stopped to think about it, the strongest assassin was also treated as an urban legend. I knew the Headhunter’s identity and had been asked to keep it hush-hush in order to keep him safe from anyone who might be seeking revenge, so perhaps Suiz Myran was in a similar situation. Thief jobs were often infiltrations and undercover work, so it was possible that he was trying to keep his identity a secret. I guess the rumor mill worked the same way even abroad.
“In other words, you don’t know anything,” Erin said in summation.
“Well, that’s a harsh way of putting it.” The man put his beer bottle down on the counter and scoffed. “But when two young strangers come around asking for him, it’s pretty obvious they’re outsiders, so don’t take it personally. Nothing to be mad about.”
“I’m not mad. I’m always like this.”
“Ooh, what a strong-willed lass.”
“I could get mad at any moment, though.”
When Erin shot the man a challenging glare, he raised both his hands in surrender. Thank goodness. If we got into a fight with this guy, it’d only delay us from rescuing Neme. Erin really needed to keep the peace.
The man opened his mouth to dispel the tense air. “As an apology, I’ll tell you something else I know about Suiz Myran.”
“And what’s that?”
“He never chooses a job based on the reward. There’s one tale of how he didn’t agree even when a noble offered him hundreds of millions in gold.”
“Are you saying he has his own standards for accepting jobs?” I asked.
“Well, I guess you could say that. The details are a bit hazy,” the drunk replied.
That sounded like a stroke of luck for us. The Arrivers were a front-running dungeon party, but we were also perpetually broke. We were currently struggling to afford a replacement for Force’s Gleaming Beast. We all wanted to help him out, but we couldn’t give him money we didn’t have. In light of that, we actually had a prayer of getting Suiz Myran’s help if he wasn’t financially motivated.
“So, what business do you two have with Suiz Myran?” the man asked.
“That’s—”
Revealing our goal to some random thief seemed risky. We didn’t even know this guy’s name. All we knew was that he was drinking at the thieves guild in the middle of the day, and he was apparently a bit of a busybody. If we told him we were here to retrieve Neme, he might sell that information to the church. Even if he didn’t go that far, he clearly liked to talk. There was no guarantee that word of our plan wouldn’t reach Cardinal Fuge’s ears.
The man seemed to sense our wariness and opened his arms with a jesting expression. “Come on, there’s no need to be so wary. I’m asking so I can help you out, you know?”
“Help us out?”
“That’s right. Despite appearances, I’m a bona fide thief. Open to requests anytime. I’ll even give you a discount. You guys don’t have much coin, do you? I’ll take your job for dirt cheap.”
“You will, will you? Aren’t you just saying that because you can’t get any other work?” Erin sighed, disinterested. “There’s no point in talking to a drunk, Note. He could just be messing with us. Let’s go ask other thieves for more intel.”
“Whoa there, lass,” the man interjected. “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh on the guy who just offered to do you a favor?”
“Unfortunately, we need a first-rate thief. If you want cheap work, look elsewhere. Let’s go, Note.”
She grabbed me by the sleeve and tried to steer us out the door. I was hesitant to follow, however, and dragged my feet.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Ignoring her, I turned back to the talkative thief. “Can I ask something?”
“Hmm? What is it, lad?”
“How do you know we don’t have money?”
“Huh?” His eyes widened as though he didn’t understand my question.
I organized my thoughts and explained. “Well, if you judged just based on our equipment, you should’ve pegged us for successful adventurers. She clearly has an expensive staff, and even if you didn’t know anything about mage gear, you’re a fellow thief. You should’ve been able to tell the quality of my dagger.”
“Isn’t he just too drunk to look closely?” Erin asked.
And she might’ve been right. Maybe I was just overthinking it.
“That’s one possibility,” I said. “But I get the feeling this man deduced that we’re broke based on our behavior rather than our appearance. It’s just a hunch, though.”
“Even so, what does it matter?”
“I can’t really explain it, but I don’t think this guy’s as drunk as he looks.”
“Oho...” The man gave me an impressed look.
Then and there, I came to an important decision. “Would you be willing to accept our job after all?” I asked.
“Are you serious?” Erin asked in turn, stupefied.
I knew entrusting the fate of a party member to this suspicious thief was a gamble, but it wasn’t a completely blind one. I had my reasons.
“This guy’s probably the strongest thief here based on what Enemy Search is telling me.”
“I see...”
After hearing me out, Erin understood. We’d known each other for a long time now. She trusted me at least that much.
“Well, aren’t you an interesting visitor?” The man smirked, plugging the cork on his bottle. He then stashed it in an item bag concealed on his person and turned away. “We can’t really talk here, so let’s relocate.”