We had some dinner back at our room, and once I’d confirmed that Ralph was asleep, Hester and I headed out into the nighttime streets.
My other reason for coming out to the capital was to look into Claus’s whereabouts, and it felt like the right time now to start making some headway on that.
It was already pretty late, so Hester and I weren’t going to be doing anything too intensive. For today, we just planned to pay the informant a visit who’d helped her find Vlad.
According to Hester, he was offering his services at a room in a bar, but...
“Is this the place, Hester?”
“Yes. The bar’s on the second floor of this building.”
The old, four-story building wasn’t in the black market, but it was pretty close.
It was hard to be sure what was on the first floor, since it was already closed for the day, but it looked to be a clock shop of some sort. On the second floor was the bar.
There were other establishments on the third and fourth floors, the former being a shady-looking place with a bunch of portraits of women plastered outside, and the latter on the fourth floor—which announced itself in pink letters as a massage parlor—looked equally shady.
All of the establishments here earned full points for seediness. I wasn’t really sure if it was a good idea to go inside.
Hester didn’t seem the least bit fazed by my concerns, though. She just marched right into the building without a second thought.
We went up the stairs and pushed open a wooden door that said “Open,” then stepped inside the bar.
Unlike its dubious exterior, the bar was actually pretty clean and nice on the inside. A handful of customers were chatting animatedly, so the atmosphere wasn’t bad either.
I was honestly surprised. I would’ve expected a bar like this—far from the center of town and sketchy looking from the outside—to be patronized exclusively by hoodlums.
“Which one’s the informant?” I asked Hester.
“Wait just a minute, please. I’ll go talk to the bartender,” she replied before walking up to the bar and sitting straight in front of him. She produced two silver coins, which she plopped down onto the counter, and ordered something to drink.
The bartender poured her a glass of water and placed it on top of a coaster in front of her.
Hester proceeded to down the glass of water in one full gulp, then gave the bartender a little nod and came back over to me.
“Did you just make some kind of deal with him?”
“Yes. Follow me, please.”
I did as I was told and followed her to a door, which had a thin slot as if for receiving letters. We stopped in front of it and she dropped the coaster that the bartender had given her through the slot.
After a few moments of waiting, I heard the sound of a door unlocking. Hester knocked four times, and then we entered the room.
“Welcome. Oh...? You’ve come to see me before, haven’t you?”
“Yes. It’s good to see you again. I’ve come looking for some more information,” Hester replied.
“I see. And were you able to put the information I gave you last time to good use?”
“Thanks to what you told me, we were able to find who we were looking for. Thank you for your help.”
Sitting in the center of the dimly lit room was a man with what appeared to be some sort of crests or seals tattooed all over his body. His head was completely shaved, and he even had tattoos on his face, so it was hard to tell exactly how old he was.
If you’d told me he was twenty, I’d have believed you; if you’d told me he was forty, I’d have believed that too. That’s how difficult it was to discern his age.
The informant chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it. And what information have you come for today? It won’t come cheap, but I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know,” he said.
Hester turned to look at me as if prompting, and I spoke.
“I’d like to know any information you have on a man named Claus.”
“Oh...? I like the look of you. And who might you be?”
“My name is Chris. Hester here and I are in a party together.”
“Chris, hmm? I’ll remember that. Now then, what was it you were after again...? Oh, right. You want information on Claus, correct?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“By Claus, I’m assuming you mean the Claus? Of course I have information. It’ll come at a hefty cost, though,” the informant said, lighting a cigarette. “Are you willing to pay for it?”
I felt like information about a potential future hero was bound to become public knowledge soon enough, so I wasn’t sure it was worth quite what he was making it out to be. At the same time...maybe there was something juicy in the information he had?
In any case, I wasn’t about to be stingy when it came to information about Claus.
“That’s fine. I’ve got the money.”
“I’ll tell you, then. Claus was blessed with a sword god affinity at the Heaven’s Blessing Ceremony. The king is expecting great things of him as a potential future hero. Roughly half a year ago, he left his hometown to move to the capital, and he’s currently attending an elite royal academy where only the brightest are allowed to study.”
“And...?” I pressed him.
He rubbed his thumb and pointer finger together as if to say, If you want more, pay up.
I pulled out a gold coin and flicked it at him.
“Why, thank you,” he said, then jumped right back in. “This year’s Heaven’s Blessing Ceremony must have yielded quite the abundant harvest of new talent, because the lineup of new students includes a sage, a necromancer, a holy dragon knight, and a mighty ruler. Oh, and not to mention a paladin who was in the Royal Guard before receiving their blessing, as well as the king’s own daughter, a war princess.”
“But,” he continued, “the new student that’s held in the highest esteem is none other than—you guessed it—the young man you’re asking about: the sword god Claus.”
That’s an insanely powerful collection of people. But even compared to them, Claus holds the top spot, huh?
At the very least, it came as a relief to know my brother wasn’t slacking off.
“Apparently, they’re going to take on a dungeon soon, and the question everyone’s dying to know is: Who, among the seven people I’ve just mentioned, will form a party? For your reference, Claus holds all of the power in making that decision.”
“I see. Well, thanks for all of that detailed information. You’ve been a big help,” I said.
I’d managed to learn a lot more than I’d expected from this informant.
In the half year since I’d run away after almost being killed, I felt like I’d progressed a lot. But it seemed like Claus had been progressing just as much—no, probably even more.
“Huh? You’re...happy with just that?” the informant asked.
“Why? Is there more?”
“Is there more? Listen... You haven’t heard anything yet. This is where it actually starts to get interesting.”
“Well, come on, then!” I said, practically lunging across the table.
I’d been more than satisfied with the information he’d already given me so far. I couldn’t believe there was more...
What in the world had Claus been doing in the sixth months since he’d moved to the capital?