“There shouldn’t be any inns that way. The buildings thin out quickly into open fields,” the archer and sole woman of the group said.
“Is she leaving the capital? No, she can’t be...she’s on a long-term guard contract.”
“Maybe her client’s waiting at the city outskirts?”
“Why would the client risk something that dangerous?”
The party whispered back and forth, but there was no point in speculating.
“She’s been walking for almost twenty minutes now...” the leader said grimly, and the party shared worried looks.
Right after Can had left the guild, another party had followed soon after. It was a four-person, mid-tier C-Rank veteran party with a lousy reputation. Being a veteran and middling C-Rank group sounded somewhat intimidating, but it meant they’d hit their ceiling after spending years as hunters. They had no hope of reaching B-Rank, and had no choice but to scrape together retirement funds or otherwise hope to hit a big score before their strength faded.
If Can had stuck to the crowded boulevard on her way to an inn, they might have given up, but a lone girl heading to the deserted outskirts might have been too tempting of a mark. The Phantom Bow had been thrilled when they first left the guild, thinking there would definitely be trouble for them to cash in on, but they couldn’t help but worry about the girl now... Perhaps they were too soft for their own good.
After Can had left, the shady C-Rank party had followed, then the Phantom Bow—who had been summoned to the guild master’s office by Karen—had departed soon after. It was rather clear to the other hunters what was going on, and no one else thought to follow. They imagined the fate of the party chasing the “maiden” and shrugged.
“Hey, missy, hold up a sec!”
Here we gooo!
Reiko was thrilled; it had been some time since she’d last heard such a typical thug line.
Aaaaaah!
Meanwhile, the five Phantom Bow members screamed internally now that they were faced with the trouble they’d previously wanted.
“Heard you delivered something rare. Care to share where you got it?” the man leered, flanked by three others.
Four of them...
Reiko observed, then responded, “No thanks!”
“Now, now, don’t be like that... Your purse looks a bit heavy. I can help lighten the load for you,” the thug said, but her gold was stashed in her Item Box, so it wasn’t weighing her down at all.
Reiko had no mercy for criminals, but he had only stopped her and asked something so far. They needed to cross a line by grabbing her, taking a swing, or reaching for a sword before she could obliterate them in self-defense, so she decided to speed up the process by provoking them a bit. However...
“Hey...”
“Do we have a problem here...?”
As the Phantom Bow had rushed to intervene, a girl of about fourteen or fifteen with a sword at her hip stepped out from a nearby house and cut them off.
It was Falsetto.
Apparently, the men had stopped Reiko just as she was about to reach the house they had rented. Falsetto’s usual spot in the living room faced a window, where she could clearly see any suspicious passersby. She’d noticed what was happening immediately and sprinted outside.
“What’s going on?!”
Several guards rushed out from a nearby building in a panic. Naturally, Kaoru’s house sat right across from a temporary guard outpost. The building wasn’t fully set up yet, and didn’t have bedding or a dining table, but elite royal guards posing as regular guards had been stationed there around the clock. They were quite on edge, having been briefed on the severity of what was at stake.
Ugh...
Reiko was quite disappointed, her moment having been stolen.
Ugh...
The Phantom Bow groaned internally, realizing their bonus payment was at risk.
Huh...?
The four thugs thought they’d hit a triple jackpot: the source of the unicorn horn, a giant bag of gold, and a pretty young woman. Even considering the risks, the potential gains were life-changing. They could cut ties with the guild and change their names, living the rest of their lives comfortably in another country. They’d chosen a high-stakes gamble over scraping by with small-time hunter work...
But the moment they’d acted, three groups had appeared out of nowhere and intervened. The sword-wielding girl would be no issue. She looked about fourteen or fifteen, likely a rookie hunter or knight apprentice, and hardly a threat. But the other two groups would be big trouble for them. The five-man B-Rank Phantom Bow outnumbered them by one, but numbers weren’t the real problem; it was that their C-Rank party had no hope of winning. Even worse were the guards. Unlike hunters, guards received formal training specifically to fight other humans, not monsters. Plus, fighting a guard was a serious crime, unlike squabbles between hunters. They would spend the rest of their lives as criminal slaves working in a mine at best, or get hanged or beheaded at worst.
“Oh, uh, i-it’s not what it looks like...” the leader stammered, trying to think of a way out of the situation.
“They planned to rob me and force me to reveal confidential information,” Reiko said. “Oh, and it seems they wanted to make me a plaything afterward, then illegally sell me as a slave or kill me and dump my body somewhere...”
“What...?!”