The lobby of this one had a bar in it. I was seated at a table with a cup of tea in my hand.
We’d learned two main things at the Merchants’ Alliance. Number one was that although said guild was associated with the Lions of Patriotism, it functioned as its own separate entity. Similar to Ms. Kaori’s Crimson Moon Brigade and the Adventurer’s Guild.
Okay, well, maybe a little different. The Crimson Moon Brigade filled the upper echelons of the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters with players, but the Lions of Patriotism kept the Merchants’ Alliance as a completely lower-level organization. The leader of the Merchants’ Alliance headquarters wasn’t even a player. Their position allowed them to have a means of contact with the parent organization, the Lions, but nothing else.
Number two was related to that. As of that moment, I had no means of contact with the Lions of Patriotism. The bastard was probably keeping his guild and the merchant’s separate because of his wariness.
The rest of the five grand guilds followed Ms. Kaori’s formula, for better or worse. For example, every successive leader of the Holy Church would be one of the members of the upper echelons of Dragon’s Roar, who controlled it. Ms. Kaori currently operated as the guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters. So long as the natives didn’t find it suspicious, the players were able to be in the public eye in ways like this.
That bastard was different, however. For four hundred years, his approach was to use a native as his puppet to do his bidding. He was able to get exactly what he wanted that way. According to Ms. Kaori, he was wary of war breaking out between the players—to the point of throwing away his opportunity to move as he pleased, as well as suppressing his lust for power.
I had to sigh. “It’ll be kind of hard to fight with the Lions when we don’t even know where they are.”
“They’re quite troublesome enemies with how thorough they are. They hid themselves because they predicted this would happen, didn’t they?”
My own father had been killed because of the bastard’s thoroughness. It started with the extensive loans from his banks, and then eventually his company had to declare bankruptcy. In Megumi’s case, the bastard never ended up sexually assaulting her in any way. Crazy as he might have been, he wasn’t stupid.
“If push comes to shove, we could probably find players the Lions put within public reach if we use Brainwashing Magic on the Merchants’ guildmaster, but...”
The Lions apparently had hideout shelters hidden around the world. Not even the members themselves knew where all of them were, and intentionally so, to prevent information leakage. Finding the bastard himself would be a game of cat and mouse.
At any rate, we wouldn’t be able to find him if we couldn’t get ahold of any of his members. That made it all the more appealing to use Brainwashing Magic on the guildmaster and get him to fess up. If we did that right off the bat, though, the bastard would find out just how gung ho we were.
“So, what are we going to do, Master Shinobu?”
“For now, we’ll just do what we planned.”
“Um... You mean searching for the girl who looks like my lady, your sister?”
I had some opinions on Alice calling Megumi “her lady,” but she probably wouldn’t stop even if I asked her to.
“That’s right. It’ll be two birds with one stone.”
“Two birds with one stone? I know we’re going to investigate her case, but what’s the other thing?”
“We’re going to find out where the Lions of Patriotism are hiding.”
“But didn’t you just say that would be impossible?”
“The main goal of their guild is to make money. So doesn’t that lead you to believe that they’ll use criminal organizations to make money efficiently, in addition to the Merchants’ Alliance?”
“That does seem likely.”
“In which case, if we track down a criminal organization, there’s a high chance it’ll lead us to the Lions.”
Alice cocked her head, so I kept going. “If the Lions’ goal is to steal the profits from these organizations, then those transactions will have to take place somewhere. Make sense so far?”
“Ah... Yes.”
“For such an ambiguous institutional system, it’s possible that when you open up the lid, it’ll turn out that the Merchants’ Alliance itself is also a criminal organization. Isn’t it a bit hard to believe that unlawful organizations in this city aren’t under that bastard’s control?”
“As long as back market trade is occurring, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“B-But how are we supposed to track down a criminal organization?”
“Follow me.” I slowly stood up.
“Wh-Where are you going, Master Shinobu?”
It would be faster for her to see it than for me to explain, so I didn’t answer.
I led her to one corner of the lobby, then pointed at the bulletin board placed there.
Alice looked sincerely mystified. “The Adventurer’s...request board?”
Alice gazed at the request board for a solid five minutes, occasionally darting her eyes to me and then back to the board.
“Hmm...” She scrunched her face up. She didn’t ask for help, but she clearly wasn’t understanding. Seemed like she wasn’t even getting the starting point, so it was about time I explained it myself.
“This is what we’re going to do.” I pointed at a flyer on the board.
“It’s...asking us to search for a girl who went missing while gathering herbs for her village.”
“Yep. That’s the one.”
The title of the request was exactly that, and the details written on it said the girl had gotten lost in the forest near her village, a fairly safe area. Depending on the situation, it was possible she’d been the unfortunate victim of a goblin kidnapping.
“So we’re supposed to go search around a goblin nest for this?”
“That’s how I’d interpret it.”
At a first glance, it wasn’t any different from your perfectly average adventurer request, but this one had a catch.
“Take a good look at the rewards and requirements.”
“Uh... Wait, huh? Why would that be what’s required for a goblin nest search? It’s not like we’re gonna be hunting ogres!”
Alice had every right to be surprised—one of the strange things about this request was that they were looking for strong adventurers ranked C or above. And the rewards were extraordinary; they rivaled that of A-rank monster hunt requests.
Thinking rationally, the only reason it could’ve been like this was if there were a lot of circumstances involved.
Ms. Kaori had told me about this flyer in advance, so I’d come here specifically for it. That was why it was a little painful for me to explain all this to Alice as if I knew everything.
“This is a request to gather strong fighters to rescue either a noble or rich girl who was captured that can’t be revealed to the general public.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ms. Kaori told me.”
“Oh, okay. That makes sense since she’s in charge of the Adventurer’s Guild. But why did the requester use such a roundabout way of calling for help?”
“It’s simple. This whole city is run by criminal organizations, the guys we’re after, right? No matter how bad things get, the guards and security here pretend they don’t see it. Their only choice was to ask individuals for help.”
“But I don’t think normal people can win against criminals.”
“Even if they get the girl back, the chance that they’ll run into trouble is still high. So they made a very bold move by putting this request out there, albeit in code. Seems to be a sort of warning.”
“A warning?”
The existence of the players was information that couldn’t be known to anyone except those with central power among the natives. In which case, since this request was putting pressure even on the average person’s level, they were really making a statement here. According to Ms. Kaori, it was common knowledge that there was an even more powerful entity that stood higher than the Merchant’s Guild and crime syndicates in this city. Some sort of military organization from a large kingdom was controlling things behind the scenes...was what the average person believed here. In the end, they all agreed that going against such an entity would be a terrible idea.
“First thing we gotta do is hear what this requester has to say.”
I pulled the flyer off the board and walked with Alice to the reception desk. That was where we encountered the harpy we’d met half a day before.
“Master Iijima?” She opened her eyes wide.
“Ah, Ms. Mimi. Thank you for earlier.”
“Right, you’d called yourself an adventurer earlier...”
Glancing at the paper in my hand, her eyes widened. “What in the world are you thinking?! Do you understand the gravity of that request?!”
Don’t tell me... I locked eyes with Alice.
Ms. Mimi charged right up to us. “I thought I told you! You can’t just throw yourself into danger as you please! And besides, it’s written on there that only powerful C-rank adventurers or above are qualified!”
Bingo. This mission was to rescue the princess of the harpies. “Er, so that makes you the requester, Ms. Mimi?”
“Take a guess! We’re acquainted at this point, so I won’t berate you for this, but you need to return that flyer immediately!”
As she said, we were acquainted. Things would get even worse should this rescue mission be set into motion, then inevitably backfire on us.
“I can’t do that. I can hold my own, believe it or not.”
I couldn’t just let this princess die either. I said as much to Ms. Mimi, and her expression clouded over with confusion.
“You can hold your own? Are you...really a C-rank adventurer?” Her gaze was blatantly asking me how that was possible with black clothes like mine. Adventurers in this world apparently carefully crafted their appearances. I supposed it wouldn’t be good for them to have their rewards lessened by clients because of how they looked.
“Anyway, things will go much faster since you’re here,” I changed the subject. “Would you please come to the reception desk with me?”
“Well then, things will go faster for me as well. I can’t put our savior in danger. Ah, and even if you are a C-rank, I will be refusing your offer.”
“Aw, don’t say that. Humor me.”
She gasped. “You plan to raise an issue with the receptionist if I refuse just because you’re a C-rank, as listed on the flyer? That’s what you want?”