Chapter 32: Sudden Change (2)
After finishing my morning routine, I was sitting on a bench as usual, waiting for Luis.
A spider scurrying through the grass, diligently moving its legs, caught my eye.
Seeing it reminded me of my summoned creature, ‘Peter.’
Peter, named after the protagonist of the movie Spider-Man, was the second of my three summoned creatures.
For reference, the first was Sylph, the wind spirit, and the youngest was the skeleton I obtained last time.
And the skeleton’s name was Clatter.
“…….”
Anyway, Peter was my spy, planted in the conference hall to keep tabs on the professors’ movements.
Being a tiny creature, it was barely noticeable and consumed very little mana, making it an excellent ally for me.
Its cost-effectiveness was top-notch.
Even if I kept it summoned all day, it used less mana than a flask of Lumigan root tea could replenish, making it the ultimate champion in terms of efficiency.
“And yesterday, it achieved something quite commendable.”
I recalled the information Peter had relayed from the conference hall yesterday afternoon.
Most of the meeting consisted of pointless power struggles among the professors, but digging deeper, it was clear the disputes revolved around one individual.
That individual’s name was Ged.
He was the one caught as the culprit in my place for the incident I caused.
Honestly, I never expected Ged to get caught.
In the mainstream storyline, Ged wasn’t someone who’d be used up like this.
In fact, he was supposed to outlive even Gerard, aiding the Beltus Cult.
But somehow, in this worldline, he got caught earlier than I did.
When I first heard the news through Peter, I was so dumbfounded that I let out a hollow laugh.
What kind of butterfly effect would this bring in the future?
“Hmm.”
As I sat on the bench, lost in thought, I suddenly heard a rustling sound beside me.
Luis, disguised as a wrinkled old man, approached with a broom and a trash can.
Without preamble, he sent a Whisper.
[What will you do now?]
Pretending to drink water, I replied.
[About what?]
[The Academy has caught on to Master’s existence, haven’t they?]
[That’s right. They’ve figured out I exist.]
Tapping my foot, I noticed Luis glance at me before sending another Whisper.
[You seem awfully relaxed. Do you have some sort of plan?]
[Plan?]
[Yes.]
Well, no.
I didn’t have one.
But admitting that outright would surely lead to a lecture.
[Of course I do. A plan.]
[Don’t lie.]
[?]
[Do you think this is my first time dealing with you, Master?]
If he knew me so well, why even ask?
For the next ten minutes, I had to endure Luis’s nagging.
[Look, listen. This was unavoidable, okay? It was bound to happen. This was my best shot.]
[There’s no such thing as unavoidable for a thief. Especially not for you, Master. You must be flawless and perfect in your conduct.]
I was starting to think he was trying to raise me into some kind of god of thieves.
[And to begin with, none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t targeted the Vault.]
[But thanks to that, we recovered Shadow’s lost Vision, Dagger Shift.]
[Sigh. That’s…]
At that point, I cut off his nagging.
[Alright, enough. Stop there. What’s with you? There’s good news too, isn’t there?]
[Good news?]
[Yeah. First, the results of the request. Why haven’t you reported on that?]
Luis’s sweeping grew more vigorous.
He was clearly annoyed at my attempt to change the subject.
But that aside, he still had to give the report.
[Guartes. He was wearing a hooded robe, so I couldn’t see his exact reaction, but he seemed quite surprised.]
As expected.
I had completely uncovered the spy they’d planted, Rachel, right under their noses.
Even if it was a test for me, it was only natural they’d be shocked.
[And the payment?]
[As promised, I received double.]
[Oh!]
That meant any complaints or distrust toward me within the cult should now be completely dispelled.
A very positive development.
[What about the laboratory in the Cemetery? Did you check it out?]
[Yes. There were plenty of useful things.]
[Right? It’ll definitely help with the guild’s finances, won’t it?]
[The equipment reeks of corpses, but there are always buyers out there, so I plan to handle it through a broker.]
With a sly grin, I asked.
[So, who do we have to thank for all this?]
[Sigh. Yes, fine. You pulled it off. I really don’t want to admit it, but you did.]
Not wanting to admit it, huh.
Even though he grumbled on the surface, it was obvious Luis was secretly proud of the results I’d brought.
How did I know? His sweeping had softened.
That put me in a good mood too.
[See? I can deliver when it counts.]
[Yes. Well done.]
Next, I heard the report I’d separately requested about the conflicts and gossip circulating among the first-year cadets.
Ivan, Gwyn, Karina, Yuria.
Why had those four gone to the Cemetery at the crack of dawn?
Something must’ve happened during the Late-Night Mock Battle, but asking Yuria would only get me a denial that it was “nothing.” So, I’d tasked Luis with investigating.
After all, Luis, posing as a janitor wandering around, had better access to information than I did.
Soon, I got a rough rundown of the situation.
[What? What rumor?]
[They’re saying you and that female cadet, Yuria, are… involved.]
[Involved how?]
[It seems they mean romantically.]
What a load of nonsense.
I couldn’t help but scoff.
Come to think of it, I remembered the sneaky glances from the other cadets during the last lecture.
So that’s why they were staring at me like that?
It all made sense now.
The source of this nonsense—cough, I mean, the starting point—could only be one person.
Karina Zain.
Who else could it be?
Yuria must’ve been trying to quash the rumor herself and prevent it from causing me trouble, fighting her own battle in her own way.
Ugh.
What am I going to do with Karina?
I didn’t want to get tangled up with her, but she kept buzzing around like a fly drawn to food.
[It’s absurd, but I don’t think it’s worth worrying about.]
[What? Why not?]
[Drawing another line on a watermelon doesn’t turn it into a different fruit. A rumor like that isn’t going to affect you, Master.]
He didn’t get it.
Did he know how hard I was working to clean up my trashy image?
…But he wasn’t entirely wrong for now, so I couldn’t argue back.
[Anyway, so what’s your next move?]
[Stop asking what.]
[The existence of a thief has been exposed to the world. I’m asking about your plans moving forward.]
Plans, huh.
I answered immediately.
[Nothing changes. No one knows that I, ‘Gerard,’ am the thief yet.]
I couldn’t prevent the thief’s existence from being revealed.
It was bound to come out eventually.
It happened sooner than expected, but that’s all.
So, nothing changes.
I’d just keep doing what I’d been doing.
The only thing that worried me was the same thing I’d been mulling over before Luis arrived.
The future altered by Ged’s capture.
How the butterfly effect would impact me was something I’d have to think about slowly going forward.
But the answer to that concern came surprisingly quickly.
[There’s one more matter to discuss, Master.]
[A request?]
[Yes.]
[They’re giving me a request in this climate? Is it urgent?]
I looked at Luis, expecting an answer, but his expression was oddly strange.
[I’m not sure.]
[Not sure? What’s the request about?]
[I don’t know that either. They said they’d explain the details in person.]
In person?
With whom.
[Me?]
[Yes. To be precise, they want to meet the thief doing the work. But that’s you, isn’t it?]
The first thing that came to mind was a question.
‘Why on earth?’
Meeting me wasn’t exactly difficult.
To them, I was just the master of a washed-up thief guild, not some big shot.
I’d also half-expected they’d eventually request a meeting like this.
The issue was the timing.
The timing made no sense.
Icata was in an uproar over the thief incident at the Academy.
Requesting a job in such a sensitive period was risky enough, yet they wanted to meet the operative directly?
[Is this because of the thief uproar?]
[That seems the most likely reason, doesn’t it?]
No matter how I thought about it, that was the only explanation.
[When’s the meeting?]
Luis didn’t answer my question.
He tripped over a rock protruding from the ground that he hadn’t noticed.
“Whoops!”
The trash can he was carrying tipped over, spilling countless pieces of garbage onto the ground. I watched the scene silently.
“Damn it!”
Cursing loudly, Luis scrambled to his feet and started picking up the trash to put back in the can.
I got up from the bench and approached.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“Are you mocking me? Does this look alright to you!?”
“…No.”
“Then why are you just standing there gawking? Help me clean this up!”
“Oh. Right.”
After finishing the cleanup, he left the rest area without so much as a goodbye.
I stared blankly at his retreating figure before turning toward the dormitory.
Fiddling with a note I’d picked up from the ground, now tucked in my pocket.
* * *
Icata.
The capital of the Frey Empire, one of the two great powers dividing the continent.
A central hub of the empire where countless people, diverse races, and various gems and goods flowed, entwined with myriad interests.
Its history spanned a thousand years, earning it the title of the eternal golden city.
But even the radiant golden light cast shadows.
The Sewer District.
This was the shadow obscured by Icata’s brilliance.
A place where the dregs and refuse of civilization gathered.
Foul-smelling sewage systems and garbage dumps.
The stench of rot and decay birthed all sorts of sinister urban legends.
In its depths, unidentifiable corpses floated by.
Naturally, chunks of what were once human were among them.
This district, where all manner of surplus waste converged, was administratively marked as part of the same region but was considered entirely separate from Icata.
Its residents were debtors, beggars, vagrants, and orphans.
People here would cling to anyone for a handout, making even the guards shake their heads and avoid the place.
When I set foot in the Sewer District, the time was 11:43 PM.
Seventeen minutes remained until the appointed midnight meeting.
The layout of this place was vividly clear in my memory.
Navigating the tangled alleys to reach Block 12, the meeting point, was easy.
Soon, a mark carved into the edge of a wall forming the alley caught my attention.
It was a crack, perhaps formed naturally from the wall’s weathering, or maybe deliberately etched.
What mattered wasn’t how it got there.
It was a landmark indicating the meeting spot.
Without hesitation, I stepped into the alley marked by the sign.
A dead-end alley.
The air inside was thick with an unimaginably putrid stench.
Even with my skull mask on, my face instinctively scrunched up, and I couldn’t help but mutter.
“This smell is absolute crap.”
In the corner of the dead-end alley, a figure stirred.
Tattered clothes, caked with dried filth and grime.
A beggar.
I approached and asked abruptly.
“Where’s the answer to life?”
“……Ugh.”
The beggar’s groans, which had been constant, stopped abruptly.
His fearful, furtive glances sharpened into clarity.
“What’s your business?”
“Meeting the courier.”
The beggar slowly stood.
A hole previously hidden behind him came into view.
A manhole leading to the sewers.
I stared at the beggar for a moment before jumping down without hesitation.
──Thud.
Inside the dark, dank sewer.
[Night Vision] revealed every detail of the surroundings, but no amount of thievery skill could block the rancid stench of decay assaulting my nose.
Damn it.
Even in sensitive times, who the hell picks a meeting spot this shitty?
I was starting to get curious about the courier’s face.
Looking at the putrid water flowing through the channel and the various debris floating in it, I felt like I was about to revisit my dinner menu.
I hurried my steps.
Thud, thud──
After walking a short distance, I reached a small space, about three pyeong, at a bend in the sewer.
The source of the stench and miasma.
In the corner of the space, piles of bones caked with red flesh were stacked high.
Alongside grotesquely mangled, rotting corpses, a desk on the opposite side held bottles of unidentified reagents sloshing inside.
Suddenly, with a pop!, a crimson corpse burst, spraying a fountain of blood mixed with entrails.
Yellowish gas seeped from the ruptured hole.
So concentrated, it carried a horrific smell and corpse poison.
I swear, even that stoic Baron Tesda would’ve screamed, “Holy shit!” at this scene.
The only reason I held back my own curses was the single gaze watching me from the round table.
I turned to meet that gaze.
And so, I came face-to-face with the person I’d been curious about.
Slit-like eyes and protruding cheekbones.
Yellowed teeth visible through a sneering grin.
“You’re right on time.”
I cursed myself for wondering.
I hate to say it, but that was one hell of an ugly face.
It looked like it smelled.
“Take a seat.”
And it did.
As I sat across from him, an indescribable odor pierced through my mask and assaulted my nose.
I pushed my chair back slightly.
“Smells bad.”
“What’s that?”
“Just saying.”
His expression shifted oddly at my blunt tone.
So what.
In this situation, speaking politely would make me a saint, wouldn’t it?
“……Care for a drink?”
I shook my head.
I could barely breathe the air here, let alone swallow water.
I was starting to miss that hellhole of an Academy.
“Let’s get to the point and wrap this up.”
“…….”
“Why did you want to see me?”
On another note, I maintained a condescending attitude toward him.
First impressions matter.
Even if it’s just bravado, leaving a strong impression ensures that, whether they admit it or not, they’ll instinctively recall it every time they speak.
And the advantages of this influence were significant.
It could give me a better position to negotiate in future dealings.
It also let me gauge how he viewed us thieves, which would make planning future moves easier.
“……I heard you’re the master of Shadow.”
Of course, he was displeased with my attitude.
“Did my subordinate tell you?”
“He did.”
“That’s right. Given the difficulty of the request and the nature of the matter, I’m personally handling it. How’s Bishop Cristiano doing?”
At the sudden mention of the bishop’s name, he flinched and nodded.
“Oh. O-of course. The bishop is still grateful for your help with his concerns the other day.”
“Grateful, huh. Thanks to that, we’re sitting here now.”
“Haha! True enough. Well said.”
“I should pay him a visit sometime.”
“He’d be delighted. Ahem.”
He let out an awkward laugh, his eyes darting between his narrow brows.
Right now, his mind was probably steaming with calculations about how deep my connection with the bishop ran.
Once he seemed to finish his mental math, the cleric spoke.
The displeasure on his face had vanished cleanly.
“Let me formally introduce myself. I am Guartes, a cleric of the Darkness Council.”
He flipped back the hood he’d been wearing.
Probably trying to show some courtesy.
But as a result, the concentrated stench of his hair hit me full in the face.
Caught off guard by the surprise attack, I adjusted my mask to defend myself.
“If I may, could you show me your face, Master?”
He was asking me to take off my mask.
For a brief moment, I wondered if this was an assassination attempt.
“……A thief never shows their face to anyone but their brothers. Naturally, even the bishop has never seen mine.”
“Oh. I see. I nearly committed a faux pas.”
Oblivious to the many faux pas he’d already committed, Guartes grinned and spoke again.
“The reason I requested to meet you, Master, is because I have a question for you.”
The main point.
What could it be?
I ran through a few possibilities in my head.
As expected, the most likely was something related to the thief uproar.
But.
The question that came out of his mouth was completely outside my expectations.
“Have you ever heard of an adventurers’ guild called Bandarok?”
A forgotten name resurfaced.