Chapter 4: New Revelations

Chapter 4:
New Revelations

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

“LADY AMELIA and Lord Akira, I presume?”

At the central fountain, in almost the same spot we’d found Lia that morning, we were greeted by a man in a butler uniform. Startled, Amelia and I looked at each other.

“Yeah, that’s us,” I said.

The man sighed in relief and bowed his head. “I am on orders from Lord Crow to lead you both back to the inn. My name is Emile.”

He bowed his head again, and the tension left my shoulders; there was always some anxiety whenever someone you didn’t know addressed you by name.

“It’s a little bit of a walk from here. The ground is also quite slippery, so do watch your step,” Emile said.

Even this city of water had sidewalks for pedestrians, as well as bridges dotted here and there crossing the canals. This led to a confusing network of intersecting pathways, and since all of the buildings adhered to the same general architecture and coloring, it was unreasonable to expect any first-time visitor to find their way around the city on foot without a guide. Apparently, a retired adventurer tried to make a map of this labyrinthine city once, but he got so discouraged by its complexity that he gave up after a year and change. However, thanks to his efforts, a basic outline of the major roads and landmarks was made, which led to a huge boom in tourism, so his work was not for nothing. Emile told us all of this as we made our way to the inn, before revealing he was the grandson of said adventurer.

“My grandfather always used to say, ‘There is nothing you can’t achieve through hard work and determination, except when it comes to that blasted city.’ I hope the two of you will be careful not to lose your way if you ever decide to go out on the town alone.”

 

After about a twenty-minute walk, we arrived at the entrance to our lodgings in the middle of a ritzy hotel district. The building was so tall that even attempting to see the top made my neck hurt.

“Welcome to the Caesar Hotel. We’re so very honored to have not only the elven princess, but a summoned hero gracing our humble establishment.”

When I saw they had lined up the entire staff just to greet us as though this were a traditional Japanese inn, I wanted to do an about-face and walk right out the door. First the Hotel Raven, and now this—why did Crow only choose hotels fancy enough to make a scrub like me feel extremely out of place?

“Aren’t you coming, Akira?”

“Er, yeah, sorry. Be right there.”

At the very least, we could be sure to sleep soundly in any hotel selected by Crow. The man had connections. We were led up to a glamorous room on the top floor that was clearly intended for more than three people. I didn’t even want to know what the nightly rate was.

“Oh, good. There you guys are,” said Crow, greeting us between sips of tea.

“What is it with you and picking only the fanciest-schmanciest hotels, man? We’re not made of money, you know,” I said as I set down the luggage I’d been carrying, and Amelia nodded in agreement. That was somewhat amusing, since Amelia’s expensive appetite was a big reason for our dwindling funds.

“Don’t worry about that. This place owes me a favor.”

So he was just walking around the city looking for a place that would let us stay for free, then? How many hotel owners were in this one man’s debt?

“I’ve stopped an awful lot of hotel bar fights in my day. During this one, though, I’m pretty sure a rival company, jealous of how well these guys were doing, released a bucking bronco into the lobby to try to trash the place, and I stopped it.”

Damn. That went beyond simple harassment—that was actual property damage. I wondered what the punishment was for something like that in this world. In Japan, that’d be grounds to press charges, but over here, the law wasn’t so rigid. Morrigan was a world where there was no standard procedure for judgment and prosecution, not even for murderers. I wondered what it felt like to only have a vague idea of what constituted a crime. I’d been in this world for quite some time now, and to me it felt like there really weren’t any universal sets of rules, spoken or otherwise.

“How did you ever stop that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“I got the horse pinned down, and luckily someone nearby was a vet and had some horse tranquilizers handy, so he helped knock the sucker out.”

It would take an awful lot of strength to pin down a bucking bronco. Granted, my impression of Crow’s physical abilities was pretty high, but I couldn’t even imagine how strong he must have been in his heyday. It was sure convenient that there had been a vet with horse tranquilizers right nearby.

“What happened to the rival company?” I asked.

“They’re still kicking around, right across the street. Their reputation took a massive hit, though.”

As Crow and I chatted about ultimately pointless things, I noticed Amelia starting to nod off, then realized it was well past her normal bedtime.

“If you’re sleepy, Amelia, you can go on ahead into the bedroom and get some rest,” I told her.

“R-right…” she murmured, rubbing her eyes but making no attempt to move.

“C’mon, quit rubbing your eyes. You’ll only make ’em red.”

“Mmnh… Akira, carry me…”

Amelia turned quite needy when she got sleepy, and I was fortunate to have grown up with a clingy younger sister—it allowed me to put Amelia to sleep when she got like this without feeling any undue urges. As I cradled Amelia in my arms, Crow and I resumed our conversation. Her body heat helped ward off the chill of the hotel room.

“You’re a lot like an elf, you know that?” said Crow, possibly referring to my hunger for knowledge in all its forms.

He may have a point. I chuckled softly to myself, readjusting my hold on Amelia.

“When I look at you, I’m reminded of a man I once knew. He wasn’t an elf either, but he loved to ask all sorts of questions, just like you,” Crow went on, a sad look on his face. “You’re both like sponges who wanna suck up as much knowledge as they can, desperate for anything new, almost like you think you’re gonna die tomorrow.”

I couldn’t help but glare at Crow.

“I know, I know. You don’t intend to come off that way, but that’s how this other guy always seemed to me—he was so dedicated to his pursuit of knowledge that people started calling him a ‘sage’ eventually. He was the sort of guy who could look at the exact same thing you’re looking at and see it on two or three deeper levels than you ever could. Shame I never got to say goodbye to him, though I never got to say goodbye to my own sister either, so maybe I’m just unlucky like that.”

Was Crow implying he hadn’t been able to say goodbye to a friend on his deathbed? It was a little strange to hear Crow calling anyone a friend. Maybe I was biased, but he struck me as the sort of guy who preferred to be alone, but apparently, I was wrong. As I leaned forward to pour myself some tea, I decided to casually inquire as to who this other person (who apparently resembled me so much) actually was.

“What was his name?” I asked as I shifted Amelia to my lap and poured myself some tea.

Crow took a moment to think about it. Could he really not recall this supposed “old friend’s” name without mulling it over? “Let’s see, uh… Saran Mithray, I believe it was. Been so long since I saw the guy that I almost completely forgot, heh.”

My teacup fell from my hand, and the contents spilled all over the table. It didn’t make a very loud noise, but it still managed to wake Amelia. I was so stunned, I barely noticed.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

“I said the man’s name was Saran Mithray. He had golden hair, an almost frustratingly handsome face, and while he always acted like an ignorant old geezer, he was actually quite the cunning mage, specializing in light magic… Why do you ask? Did you know him?”

I’d thought maybe I’d misheard him, but with the added description, it was clear Crow was talking about the same Saran I’d known and not someone else with the same name.

“But wait a minute, how could you know Saran? Where did you two meet?” Crow asked before I even had the chance to answer his first question. He seemed to have assumed that I really did know the man, perhaps due to our similar personalities, but he was now dubious as to how that would even be possible. To be fair, it did seem a little outlandish for someone so new to this world to just randomly have met one of Crow’s old friends. It was quite the coincidence.

Amelia chimed in then, saying, “All I know about the ‘sage’ known as Saran Mithray is that even the Demon Lord acknowledged his abilities, and that he was a famous wanderer who never stayed in one place for very long. When I heard Akira say that a man by that name had been his mentor, I found it very strange. He didn’t sound like the type of person to take on pupils to me. So I thought maybe it was someone with the same name, but Akira never wanted to talk about him much, so I didn’t pry. Hard to believe you knew him too, Crow…”

“Well, the man Crow described sounds like the Commander Saran I knew, and it’s not like there are many light mages out there to begin with. We must be talking about the same guy,” I concluded. Though I found it a bit hard to believe Saran was so famous, especially if he didn’t stay in one place for long.

“Okay, let’s back up a bit and review what we know,” said Crow, trying to get us all to calm down a bit. He handed me a fresh cup of tea, which I sipped to calm myself. I wasn’t the biggest fan of black tea, but it did seem to help me relax, as my flustered brain quickly fell back into listening mode. “For starters, the Saran I knew never stayed in one place for long, but he also went completely off the grid a while ago. And you called him ‘Commander’ Saran, correct?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “He was the Kingdom of Retice’s Knight Commander.”

“Oh, then he must’ve been Gilles’s superior too. The subject never really came up, but I guess there wasn’t much of a reason for it to, especially since we fell out of touch for a good while. Hard to believe Saran became a knight of all things… Doesn’t sound like him at all,” Crow said. He rested his elbows on the table and gazed at me inquisitively. “How much did you know about him?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I replied, taking another sip of my tea and grimacing at the bitterness.

“Maybe you aren’t aware of this, but every time someone says the name ‘Saran,’ you immediately tense up and give off some serious murderous vibes. Do you know something about how he died that I should be aware of?”

Observant as ever, this one. Or perhaps I was just much too easy to read. “I mean, yeah, you could definitely say that… It was my fault that he died, after all.”

We’d been traveling with Crow for a decent while now, but this was the first time I’d ever spoken with him about my first weeks after being summoned to this world. Hell, I’d only even talked about it to Amelia once before, so she was listening intently too, with her head in my lap.

I told them all about my encounters with the king and princess of Retice, as well as how I’d bumped into Lia briefly outside of the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen, and about Commander Saran’s final moments. Though perhaps it wasn’t right for me to call them his final moments, since he was already long dead by the time I got there.

“I see. Sounds like Retice is much worse off than I thought… That assassin team the king has on standby—the Night Ravens, was it?” Crow muttered something as a thought occurred to him. “Sounds like you owe Saran your life, then. He taught you everything you knew about this world, and he even helped you escape from the castle. He knew he’d be putting his life on the line to help you, but he did it anyway… Now, that sounds like the Saran I knew,” Crow said with a snort. Crow had been so genuine with us lately that it was a relief to hear sarcasm. “Did you ever speak to the assassins, Akira?”

After thinking it through, I replied, “No. In fact, I don’t think I ever even saw them. There was a group of soldiers I didn’t recognize who tried to surround me when I escaped the castle, so it could have been them, but they also could have just been ordinary soldiers who I hadn’t encountered before.”

One would think a special team like the Night Ravens would have a uniform or some sort of identifying marker, but I never saw anything like that. Though it was possible they wanted to blend in, since no assassin worth his salt ever wanted to stand out from the crowd—especially if they were a member of a supposedly elite team.

“Well, it just so happens that I came across a rather interesting bit of information while I was digging up dirt on Gram,” said Crow, looking up after a few moments of silence. His lips were curled into a smirk, and I was immediately intrigued. “Those strength-boosting drugs Gram loves to use? Let’s call ’em ‘boosters’ for lack of a better word. Anyway, I found out two very interesting things about ’em—how they work, and where they’ve been exporting them to.”

I wasn’t sure what this had to do with the Retice assassins, but I kept listening.

“The boosters work by dramatically enhancing the combat abilities of the subject—whether they were originally a combat-oriented class or not—at the expense of turning them into mindless fighting machines. I still don’t know if it takes more than a single dose to reach that point, or if they have to keep taking the drug to maintain the effect.”

Amelia and I nodded to show we were still following, and Crow went on.

“At present, Gram’s only been using the boosters on his beastfolk mercenaries, but it turns out they work on humans as well, and I found proof that a bulk quantity of the drug was exported to the Kingdom of Retice ten or so years ago. It was sent to an ordinary doctor, but that doctor just so happens to be one of the king’s closest advisors these days.”

So the king was the real intended recipient, is what you’re telling me.

“Saran was so powerful that even the Demon Lord respected his strength. There’s no way he could have been killed by ordinary humans easily, especially given that his light magic specialties lay in protection barriers and purification spells. An average assassination attempt via ambush or poisoning wouldn’t have any hope of succeeding… No, these assassins must have been juiced beyond reason.”

I bit my lip.

“So you’re suggesting that these ‘Night Ravens’ were physically enhanced by the same boosters Gram uses on his mercenaries?” asked Amelia. “But wouldn’t that make the king of Retice and Gram the real murderers of Saran Mithray, as the ones who created and gave orders to those killing machines?”

My eyes widened. I looked incredulously at Crow, who was watching me, amused.

“Is this why you’ve been doing so much intel gathering lately? You knew about all of this already, didn’t you?” I demanded, but Crow simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I knew a little bit about you, yeah, but I had no idea you and Saran were pals. Honest. Pretty funny how all the loose ends sorta tied themselves together, huh?”

I scowled; I certainly didn’t see the humor in it. Amelia, who was lost at this point, kept looking back and forth between me and Crow.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize the glint in your eyes as the look of a man who’s hellbent on revenge? Me, the guy who’s spent his whole life going after one man? Sorry, but I’m too old to play ignorant at this point,” said Crow, his expression turning cold. “But we’re here now. And it’s time for you to get revenge for the both of us.”

Amelia gasped and looked at me, finally realizing what was going on. “Akira… Are you telling me that in exchange for Crow being our guide on the demon continent, you’re going to…?”

I didn’t answer her unfinished question—I simply glared at Crow, who started laughing.

“That’s right. That little ‘favor’ I asked of Akira was to assassinate Gram, and to exact revenge for my sister, since I’m too old and frail to do it myself anymore. But since Gram’s also technically responsible for his beloved mentor’s death, that just sweetens the deal, no? Not to mention, Gram’s the one who made a deal with the demons to get them into the Great Labyrinth of Brute and kidnap Amelia.”

Crow made eye contact with me, having forced me into silence. If I were the protagonist of a popular fantasy story, I would have been able to brush off everything Crow just said. To say revenge was pointless, and it was never what the deceased would have wanted. But I just couldn’t do that. Because I wasn’t the hero.

After traveling with Crow from Mali to Uruk, I’d learned he was really a good person deep down—he just had no people skills. I’d also learned that he was a good friend of Commander Saran’s. I had seen the sort of pain and helplessness he lived with every day, wanting to avenge his sister but being physically incapable of doing so. After picking up on these things, I found it extremely hard to avert my eyes from his plight. Empathy could be a real pain sometimes.

Regardless, the information about the king of Retice using boosters from Gram to brainwash his assassins, and about Gram having brokered a deal with the demons who kidnapped Amelia—all of it was intel I’d received directly from Crow. I still had to do a little independent research of my own to verify these claims.

 

POV: NIGHT

 

“UGH, would it kill Master to not overwork his familiars?”

“Yeah, or his demons…”

There were few people out and about that night, and the streets were currently empty, save for a single prowling black cat and the person trailing him. Nights in Uruk were much quieter than in other major cities. While in most places, the lights would still be on and plenty of people would still be about, all the stores in Uruk closed quite early, and there were hardly any lights to speak of—not even streetlamps. This made the stars quite visible.

“I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to tag along, Lady Latticenail.”

The Lady Latticenail I knew had always been an extremely self-minded princess, never following orders or hearing out requests. She spent each and every day trying to pull pranks on someone new, and she caused nothing but trouble for those around her. Her free-spirited nature caused His Majesty innumerable headaches, and not even Mahiro could thwart her mischievous designs.

“Hey, I’m just out here to have fun! Coming with you seemed like the most interesting thing to do today. Your master’s pretty intriguing, though. You think he anticipated that I’d wanna tag along with you?”

I truly did not understand this girl. My entire life, I’d felt she and I simply did not mesh well, likely because I could not for the life of me wrap my head around the way she chose to conduct herself, let alone her way of thinking.

Her lavender eyes filled with glee as she scanned the surrounding area. “Okie-dokie, so next on our to-do list… He wanted us to find hard evidence to support the info we dug up, right?” she asked.

Resisting the urge to let out a heavy sigh, I nodded and tried to focus on the task at hand. “Correct. We need to expose Guildmaster Gram’s wrongdoing. Ideally by finding where they keep the drugs he’s manufacturing and determining how and where they’re being distributed.”

And if we could find evidence that they’d been shipped to the Kingdom of Retice, that would be even better… Honestly, where did Master get off making his familiar do all the footwork? If Lady Latticenail weren’t here, it would be all but impossible for me to handle alone. Though maybe it was like she suggested, and he’d anticipated her coming along.

Our standard procedure thus far had been for Lady Latticenail to distract our targets (since her Mana Suppression Extra Skill made her indistinguishable from a human) while I snuck inside and gathered as much intel as I could find. In the event that I got caught, she could simply use her Mesmerize skill to smooth things over and make a clean getaway. She wasn’t a huge fan of the plan, since she thought it made us no better than common burglars, but I needed her to get over it for Master’s sake. It was, after all, the same exact method we’d used to gather intel back in Mali. I was hoping the same process would work equally well in Uruk, but it seemed the people of this city went to bed quite early, which would make it more difficult. The plan had been to arrive in Uruk with plenty of time to spare for investigating, but because Lady Latticenail kept getting sidetracked along the way, we hadn’t made it until the sun had already set. How were we to fulfill Master’s wishes now?

“Come now, my dear Night!” Latticenail said pompously.

I looked up to see her gazing at the Uruk Adventurer’s Guild with an eerie glint in her eyes. What exactly did she have in mind?

“Are you quite prepared?”

“Um… Prepared for what, might I ask?”

Lady Latticenail suddenly grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and picked me up before dashing around the corner and into an alley behind the building.

“Okay, have a nice flight!” she said, then flung me into the air.

“H-have you lost your MIIIND?!” I screamed as I careened upward before landing on the rooftop. I knew screaming was a surefire way to get us caught, but she hadn’t left me much of a choice, slinging me to the roof without so much as a word of warning. I looked down over the eaves to give the perpetrator a piece of my mind, only to find her smiling sheepishly.

“What in the world were you—” I started, but then I realized she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the mouth of the alley.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing here at this hour, little girl?!”

As a bunch of light sources flooded into the alleyway, I saw that Latticenail was completely surrounded by city guards, but she didn’t seem fazed by the intimidating soldiers in the slightest and just kept on smiling.

“Oh, well, y’see, I’m just a simple traveler, and this is my first night in town. But before I could even find an inn to stay at, everyone suddenly disappeared! Looks like I’m gonna have to sleep outside tonight! But I guess I got a little lost, tee hee. Could one of you big, strong guards lead me out to the city gates? Heck, I don’t even know where we are right now!”

I was surprised at how quickly she’d thought up a story, especially given how much she vehemently hated liars. Even if it was for the purposes of avoiding a fight with the city guards, I never thought she’d lie. Everything was riding on her story, and one little slip-up could mean curtains for us.

“Whaddya mean, kid? We’re in the alley behind the Adventurer’s Guild—it’s about as far from the city gates as you can get. And didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to go wandering in this city without a guide?”

“No way! Seriously?! Gosh, I guess my sense of direction’s even worse than I thought! Oopsie, tee hee!”

Apparently, this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, and the guards quickly walked off with Lady Latticenail in tow. As soon as they took their eyes off her, she looked up at me and gave a little wink to wish me luck. I nodded back, then snuck in through the (thankfully) unlocked skylight.

When it came to sensitive information, most people kept it somewhere it wouldn’t accidentally be discovered. The attic I landed in fit the bill. At first glance, the only things that seemed to be stored in the attic were a broken broom and a bunch of trash, but it was still worth taking a look. Gram didn’t seem like the type to go to great lengths to destroy the evidence, so it was entirely possible that I’d find something damning without much trouble.

Being in cat form was awfully convenient when searching for hidden things—I could sneak into tight spaces, and with great olfactory senses, I could easily sniff things out. For really tight spaces, I would probably need to shapeshift into a slime, but I really didn’t want to do that unless absolutely necessary. Using Shapeshifter cost an enormous amount of mana, and all the slimes I’d encountered that I could turn into were bright and gaudy colors, hardly good for stealth; I hadn’t personally seen the black slime that Lady Amelia described, thus that color wasn’t an option. And while a dog might have had a better sense of smell than a cat, I had a predisposition against canines and preferred to avoid them whenever possible.

“Doesn’t seem like anyone’s been in here for quite some time. I’m not catching a whiff of any scents, unfortunately.”

The room hadn’t been cleaned in quite some time, so the entire place was caked in a thick layer of dust. It seemed safe to assume there probably wasn’t anything mission-critical hidden up here, but just as I was searching for a ladder leading downstairs, a corner of the floor opened up. I hid under a nearby desk. Presumably, this was the door to the attic I’d been looking for, and someone had just opened it from down below.

“Ugh. Why do I gotta climb up into this musty old attic just to hide his dirty laundry?” I heard someone mutter as they clambered up the ladder. “I get that I’m basically a slave to him, but would it kill him to take care of this junk himself? Like, what would he do if I did a crappy job of hiding it and someone else found it? I dunno what the king was thinking, making a guy like that guildmaster… Though it’s not like King Dingaling’s all that great at his job either.”

I held my breath as though my life depended on it, but thankfully, the grumbling man never came anywhere near the desk I was hiding beneath.

“Lord knows the world would be a better place without ’em… Both Gram and the king.”

I could only assume he was talking about King Igsam (whom Master had met earlier today), but I was struggling to imagine what sort of person he must be for his citizens to loathe him so much. I doubted this disgruntled man was the only one who referred to him as “King Dingaling.”

“Why doesn’t he just burn these documents, anyway? All they are is a potential liability for him.”

The man grumbled and complained but still did as he’d been told, which I was very grateful for. If what he claimed was accurate, then these documents were exactly the type of evidence Master was looking for.

After a moment, the man left the attic.

“This was the easiest stakeout yet!”

Everything Crow had said was true. Gram had bought a human woman with a chemist class as a slave and forced her to create the boosters for him. Her name was Amaryllis Cluster. She had won the Mali beauty pageant a few years back, and she’d been sold shortly after. I didn’t want to believe the rumors of a burgeoning slave trade in beastfolk territory, but I couldn’t argue with facts. I knew Lady Amelia had been pursued by organ traffickers, but if the common folk were to learn that the royal family was involved in slavery, respect for the crown would crash to an all-time low.

“All right, now I just have to bring this paperwork back to Master, and I can finally be by his side again.”

Since the pageant in Mali, Master and I had only communicated telepathically, so we hadn’t actually met face-to-face in quite a while. I folded up the documents detailing Gram’s misdeeds and held them in my mouth as I exited through the skylight. It didn’t feel like I’d been in the attic for very long, yet the sky was already lightening. Once morning came, I’d need to use Telepathy to ask Master which inn they were staying at, but before that, I needed to regroup with Lady Latticenail.

 

“Hey, you made it out alive! Nice work!”

I sought out the highest hill on the outskirts of town, and sure enough, that was where I found Lady Latticenail. Whenever she ran and hid from us back at the Demon Lord’s castle, she’d always go somewhere up high—and as His Majesty always said, “Where smoke will rise, fools will climb.” I didn’t quite understand his meaning, but it always managed to make Lady Latticenail puff out her cheeks in displeasure, so I assumed it was an insult.

“So how’d it go?” she asked.

“Quite well. Look here—written evidence showing Gram not only owns slaves and forces them to make illegal drugs, but also exports them to the human continent!”

Lady Latticenail’s eyes went wide as she scanned the papers I’d found. “Where in the world did you find this stuff?”

“Erm, up in the attic of that building you threw me on top of. Why do you ask?” I said.

She narrowed her eyes for a split second before resuming her usual smile. “Well, that’s great news.”

“Indeed. Thank you very much for your assistance, Lady Latticenail. I do feel bad for making you lie, however…”

“What? I didn’t lie. You know how much I hate liars, don’t you?” she said, genuine confusion on her face.

“B-but when those soldiers surrounded you, you said…”

“All I said was that I was a traveler who was new in town, and that everyone was already off the streets by the time I got here, which is true. As was me saying I was gonna have to sleep outside for the night, and that I didn’t know where I was. After all, all I did was follow you the whole time, don’tcha remember? I wasn’t paying any attention to where we were walking. I didn’t tell a single lie.”

“A-as if! How else would you have known which roof to throw me on top of?!”

“Oh, yeah, that…” She flashed a devilish grin. “Guess I just happened to throw you in the right direction and you just happened to land on the roof of the Adventurer’s Guild, which had an unlocked skylight leading into the attic where someone just happened to leave the evidence we were looking for, huh?”

Her mischievous smirk was beginning to creep me out, so I took a step backward, but this only made her grin wider.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, big guy. Sometimes coincidences happen, and you need to embrace that… Now your master gets what he wants, and I got to have a fun little time too. All’s well that ends well!”

I feared I would never understand this girl. Unlike Master, who had a clear goal in mind at all times—returning home—I had no idea where Latticenail’s motivations lay, nor what purpose she was living her life in pursuit of. And I found that genuinely terrifying.

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, I got a telepathic transmission from Night asking where we were staying, and only a few minutes after I told him, he and Latticenail arrived at our hotel room door. The sun wasn’t fully up yet, so Amelia and Crow were still fast asleep in the room next door.

“Here is what you requested, Master.”

I grabbed the documents from Night’s mouth and gave him some pets and chin scritches as a reward, and he started purring loudly. “Thanks, this is huge. And thanks to you too, Latticenail.”

Latticenail smiled and stuck her head out toward me.

Confused, I tilted my head. “What are you doing?” I asked.

She turned her eyes up at me and pouted. “Ugh! I’m sayin’ I want head pats too, numbnuts! How come you recognize when she wants ’em, but not me?”

“Because Amelia’s the only woman whose body language I care to understand—ever think of that? And no, I will not be giving you any head pats.” I was so confused; why was this demon acting so entitled?

She let out a heavy sigh and gazed upward. “Sheesh, I got first place in that beauty pageant too, y’know. Way to make me lose confidence in myself.”

Personally, I was convinced she’d only won by a fluke—something about the lighting must have shown her off at the perfect angle or something. Growing tired of dealing with Latticenail, I shook my head and turned to Night, who had been watching her with a pensive look.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, scooping him up in my arm, and he looked at the documents in my other hand. Right, I still need to take a look at those. Whoops. I blame Latticenail for distracting me. I unfolded the sheets of paper and gave them a quick once-over, and then I understood why Night was so on edge. “Night, where exactly did you find this stuff?”

“In the attic of the Adventurer’s Guild,” Night replied with a puzzled look. “Why do you ask? Lady Latticenail asked the same thing. Is something strange about those documents? Are they forgeries?”

I gave him some pets to reassure him, and he purred loudly once more.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that they’re almost too perfect, is all. But I’m pretty sure all the info written there is legit,” said Latticenail.

But therein lies the problem.

“Thing is, if these were really just lying around in the attic of the Adventurer’s Guild, then that probably means there’s someone else out to assassinate Gram. Someone who’s much closer to him than he even realizes, most likely.”

I nodded in agreement. If we didn’t act fast, someone might steal this hit job right out from under our noses.

“W-wait a minute! How can you know that for certain just based on where the documents were hidden? Couldn’t it just as easily have been an oversight on Gram’s part?”

“I mean, look at this. Doesn’t it seem a little funny to you?” I said, holding the papers out in front of Night. I felt kind of bad that he was still having trouble seeing what the problem was, so I decided to lay it out for him (though I couldn’t resist a little chuckle). “First off, why would anyone keep a neat and tidy list summarizing all of their crimes up in their attic? What would the point be? I mean, look at this stuff… Human trafficking, organ trafficking, murders, the names of all the mercenaries under his employ. It’s almost like these documents were prepared specifically to tell someone like us about Gram’s crimes. Hell, you could probably start a war with something like this. Slavery’s totally illegal among the beastfolk nations, after all. Even assuming someone close to Gram was instructed to hide these somewhere no one could find them, they clearly did it in a way that suggests they wanted them to be stolen, or maybe that there was someone else who was supposed to come pick them up. You just beat them to the punch.”

Now that Night had a handle on the implications of all of this, his expression grew grim. “It wouldn’t just lead to war. It would mean the utter dismantling of the royal family of Uruk. And if that were to happen, Lady Lia’s life would be in danger too.”

Of course it would lead to a revolt. Just the word slavery was enough to fill any beastfolk with disgust, so the idea of a royal family member doing it? And according to these documents, it wasn’t just beastfolk slaves, but humans and elves too. Some of these names were probably those of the elven wives and children I’d sworn to save. I couldn’t exactly turn a blind eye now, when I’d stumbled upon where they were being held.

“To be honest with you, I really couldn’t care less whether this or any country in this world falls apart,” I said. “However…”

Now that we’d stuck our heads into this conspiracy, it felt like we had a responsibility to do whatever we could to stop it. I wasn’t sure how much I could do to protect Lia’s family, realistically, but she had cast that barrier that saved our hides down in the Great Labyrinth of Brute, and she’d helped us out of a bind yesterday. Not to mention, Amelia had taken a real liking to her. I let out a heavy sigh. The only thing these documents didn’t tell us was who had been meant to find them.

“It’s the Kingdom of Retice,” said a voice from the next room. I turned to see Crow standing in the doorway. How did he always know exactly when to make the perfect entrance? It was starting to really freak me out. Only this time, I was less surprised by what he had to say and more repulsed.

“The Kingdom of Retice? What about it?”

That was the country that had summoned us to do its bidding, and the one that had killed Commander Saran. If I hadn’t run away when I did, I would probably be pushing up daisies right next to Commander Saran. There was no doubt in my mind they’d summoned us for nefarious purposes, and if it weren’t for my classmates still stuck there, I would be happy to never hear the name “Retice” ever again.

“I heard the gist of your conversation, and I think your supposition is mostly correct. Think about it: What country would benefit the most from having documents that would give them an excuse to go to war…? If you ask me, it can only be Retice,” Crow said as he trotted into my room and plopped down on the sofa.

“I’ll go ahead and refrain from asking what the hell a demon’s doing in our hotel room,” Crow went on, looking suspiciously at Latticenail, who shivered uncomfortably in response. Since Crow didn’t have World Eyes, he shouldn’t have been able to see through her Mana Suppression skill and recognize her as a demon. He must have known her, but he continued speaking before I had a chance to ask. “Anyway, you wanna know how things are going over in the Kingdom of Retice right now? You’ve got a lot of acquaintances over there, don’t you?”

“More like comrades, but yeah,” I said. They were more than acquaintances, but certainly not friends. It was hard to express the concept of “classmates” in a world where that term didn’t exist. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they had schools. “To be honest, I couldn’t care less what becomes of them, though I suppose I might lose a little sleep if they were to die due to my own inaction.”

“Gotcha… Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any intel to share about the other summoned heroes. All I can say is that the amount of food being shipped into the castle hasn’t changed.”

I was surprised to hear myself sigh in relief—apparently, I cared more about my classmates than I thought. I didn’t regret running away from the castle the day they tried to pin the commander’s murder on me, but I did wish I could have done something to break all my classmates free of the curse they were under beforehand. I’d been too caught up in my own business and still reeling from Commander Saran’s death. I liked to tell myself they’d be safe so long as Gilles was there to look after them, but now he had left the castle behind, and I could only speculate as to how they were doing now. I didn’t know why the hero and his party had left the others behind, but I could assume the vast majority still hated my guts.

“As long as they’re not dead, I guess. Anything else you’d like to share? I assume you’ve got good reason to believe the kingdom’s trying to start a war?” I asked, and Crow gave a solemn nod, his expression grim.

“I do,” he replied. “When you were back at the castle, did you ever hear rumors circulating about how the king had taken an interest in the art of resurrecting the dead?”

I searched my memory, then nodded. I recalled Commander Saran telling me something along those lines in the castle archives. About how the king had lost his beloved wife in a tragic accident, and how he’d devoted his life to bringing her back, even at the expense of completely neglecting their daughter. I had to wonder if the same sort of obsession would consume me were I to lose my mom or my sister.

I had shrugged off the story when I first heard it because I was under the impression it was impossible to bring back the dead, even in a world with magic. Hell, even with Amelia’s Resurrection Magic, it wasn’t possible to bring back people who’d been dead for decades. Things like that only happened in fairy tales.

“But what does it matter?” I asked. “It’s not possible, and I don’t see what that could have to do with them trying to pick a fight with Uruk.” If bringing people back from the dead was possible, then we wouldn’t need to go on this dangerous revenge quest to begin with.

Crow’s face remained deadly serious. “What if I told you it was possible, at least theoretically?” he asked, and I could almost feel the blood of everyone in the room run cold.

“Oh, come now, surely you jest? One can’t simply bring back the dead,” Night muttered incredulously.

But Crow wasn’t the type to say something like that lightly, and if it was true, then there was a chance we could bring his sister back.

“Hate to break it to you, but you actually can… Only problem is it costs tens, or even hundreds of thousands of lives in exchange. Not sure I know anyone who’d want to come back from the dead if they knew it meant sacrificing that many innocent people, but hey, to each their own.”

I was taken aback by this information, but also a little relieved to hear Crow had no delusions of attempting something like that to bring back his sister.

“How does it even work? And why does it cost such an exorbitant amount of lives just to bring back one person?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell you; all I know is the price for bringing one person back to life via the Equivalent Exchange skill is an ungodly amount of lives. Hence why the king of Retice is itching to start a war. At first, he was trying to pick a fight with the human nation of Yamato, but Gilles and company put a stop to that.”

I see. That would explain why he had been forced to resign from his post. I didn’t know which country was stronger, but a war between them would have certainly resulted in countless deaths. I wondered if the people of Retice were in support of this warmongering, or if the king was just too cruel to care what they had to say.

In any case, this Equivalent Exchange skill seemed like quite the game-changer. From the way Crow made it sound, it was capable of letting someone do just about anything they pleased, so long as they could pay the necessary price. Such a skill would be invaluable not just in combat scenarios, but for everyday purposes as well.

“And how exactly did you come into possession of this intel?” I asked, finally giving voice to the biggest question I’d wanted to ask. Where in the hell was Crow getting all this precious information from?

Crow simply laughed and tousled my hair. “That’s a secret,” he said before waltzing out of the room.

God, why did he have to act like such a typical overconfident pretty-boy? Especially when he was old enough to be in a nursing home.

 

“Okay, folks! Today, we’re gonna make up for the guided city tour I didn’t have the chance to give you yesterday!”

After the sun had fully risen, and Amelia was drowsily eating her breakfast, Lia paid a visit to our hotel room. When Amelia had first woken up and seen Latticenail and Night hanging out, she’d stood there dumbfounded for a minute before gleefully embracing them both as I explained the task I’d asked them to perform. Amelia had not seen Night in weeks, after all.

Given that we hadn’t given Lia our hotel information, Crow must’ve told her. As I watched Lia and Crow converse happily with each other, I couldn’t help but wonder at the relationship dynamic between them. It remained a mystery to me.

With Night on my shoulders for the first time in ages, we stepped out into the city. Latticenail decided to tag along, albeit with her face concealed under her hood. Beastfolk had awfully good noses, so there was a chance they’d be able to sniff her out as a demon even with her Mana Suppression skill on. How they could possibly recognize the scent of demon, I didn’t know, but it was better to be safe than sorry, especially considering that if anyone were to discover her identity, there’d be nothing but trouble. Latticenail herself was initially opposed to the idea, but she eventually caved to reason, donning the monster-repelling cloak Mahiro had made (which could also conceal her presence).

“Glad you decided to come along today, Crow!” Lia said happily.

“Yeah,” said Crow, who was walking beside her.

Lia seemed to be feeling a lot more chipper today, at least judging by her tail swinging rapidly to and fro. I remembered hearing that dogs wagged their tails when they were in a good mood… Or was that an indicator that they liked someone? I forgot. In any case, Lia seemed to be really enjoying herself today.

“Someone sure looks happy,” Amelia remarked as she watched the two of them.

“She must’ve really been looking forward to seeing Crow, eh?” Latticenail teased.

Night and I looked at each other, neither of us quite understanding what they were getting at. The two women sighed as though we were the most hopeless men on the planet.

“Can’t you guys tell? Lia’s totally got a thing for Crow. As in, a crush kind of thing. Anyone with eyeballs can see it.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Night looked just as shocked as I did.

“God, guys are so dense about this sort of thing. I literally just met the girl this morning, and even I could tell.” Latticenail sighed.

In my defense, today was the first time I’d seen the two of them interact. But if she did have a crush on him, that would explain why she seemed weirdly jealous that Amelia had learned Inversion from him before she did.

“Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t realize it, but isn’t the age gap between them a little too wide?” I wondered aloud. After all, Crow had to be at least a hundred years older than her.

“Oh, age doesn’t matter one bit in beastfolk relationships! Especially since beastfolk don’t generally show the physical effects of aging. Hence why most people wouldn’t really bat an eye to find out that a youngster like Lia was dating a geezer like Crow. Y’know, hypothetically.”

I had to admit, the words coming out of Latticenail’s mouth were giving me serious culture shock, but I tried to wrap my head around it as I looked up at Lia, who was blushing from ear to ear. This was unmistakably the face of a girl in love. Then again, I felt like I’d seen Yui make faces like that whenever Kyousuke was around, so maybe not.

“Let’s give the two of them some alone time, shall we?” Amelia suggested.

“Yeah, good idea,” Latticenail said, and the two of them turned down a nearby side street.

Figuring Crow would be able to sense we’d taken a different route, I decided to follow after them.

“Wait a minute. Isn’t this the street where…?”

As we turned the corner, Night started looking around nervously. Latticenail, too, narrowed her lavender eyes upon noticing a particular signboard.

“Yeah, we came through here last night. Which means if we follow this road all the way, it’ll take us straight to the Adventurer’s Guild.”

It was off the main road, yet plenty of people were still using the side street—many of them clearly adventurers, and many more than even in Ur.

“Would you like to stop by the Guild, Akira?”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t been to a Guild branch since we left Ur. I had no reason to, especially since Crow had been ensuring we didn’t have to pay for our hotels, but I was interested to see what the largest Guild branch in the beastfolk kingdoms looked like. Especially since Gram was the guildmaster of said branch.

“Sure, why not? I’m curious as to what it’s like.”

“Then let’s head on over there!” Latticenail said, taking the lead. I asked if she knew the way, and she said she never forgot a path once tread. I liked to think I had a pretty good memory for those sorts of things too, but the labyrinth that was Uruk city had made me reconsider. “This was the place, right kitty-cat?”

“Yes, this is the one.”

It was a fairly dingy looking building from the outside, featuring the same crossed swords emblem painted on a sign outside the Ur branch. Presumably, it was the emblem of the Adventurer’s Guild.

“I’ll wait outside. Just holler at me when you’re done! I might be behind the building,” said Latticenail.

“Got it. Will do. Well then, shall we?”

I watched Latticenail turn the corner, then placed my hand on the door to the Adventurer’s Guild and stepped inside.