Chapter 102:
Enemies
“HELLO, CRIMSON VOW! The guild master would like to speak to you.”
The girls had just returned from what they had hoped would be a lucrative monster-slaying trip to the mines when the guild clerk flagged them down.
“Ah…”
The members of the Crimson Vow were less than enthused at this news. Whenever they were called up to the guild master’s office, it was only ever for some kind of outlandish request or a scolding.
Incidentally, the Vow had not gone into the mines on any actual job request, but because Pauline had proposed that, with Mile’s search magic, it should be fairly easy for them to find any ore that had been dug up and left behind. Of course, the scheme relied on the fact that if they did find a large amount of ore,
it could be transported in Mile’s “storage” space… Though of course there was no way any professional miner would leave anything of value behind, and any places that were easily mined would scarcely have any valuable ore remaining.
In other words, it was a swing and a miss, one which had left Mile, Reina, and Mavis disappointed but Pauline downright downtrodden. Not only had this foray been, in essence, a loss of profit, but she also felt incredibly guilty at having wasted her friends’ time.
“Guess we better get up there. We may not be employees of the guild, but as hunters we are still a part of this organization, so we have to listen to what the higher-ups have to say,” said Mavis, ever the rule-follower.
“If it’s something ridiculous, we’re definitely gonna refuse it, though,” said Reina, who had no such compunctions.
“That all depends on the money!” interjected Pauline, profit-minded above all else.
“All of you seem pretty certain that this is gonna be about some kind of special job request, but there’s also the chance it might just be another dressing down or lecture—like last time…” Mile pointed out.
“Guh…”
“Well, won’t know until we go up there. C’mon, everyone!”
“All right!”
“Here you are! I’ll cut to the chase. There is something I want to ask of you girls,” said the guild master, much to the party’s relief. They had been rather worried that there was a lecture in store for them.
The guild master thought it a bit suspicious that the members of the Crimson Vow, who usually hated being called on for special jobs, appeared to be relieved, but as that served his own ends, he simply continued.
“There’ve been rumors recently that something strange is going on in the Kingdom of Aubram. And so…”
“Do you want us to guard some more fake merchants?” Mile asked.
“No, we don’t need to do all that… This isn’t that sort of situation. What we want is for you all to go on your own, as typical journeying hunters, and do whatever you like there.”
The members of the Crimson Vow had no reply. There was something fishy about this. According to the guild master, this request was based only on rumors. Plus, the Crown already had its own intelligence division, with its own spies and intelligence operatives stationed in place. So, what was the point of asking a group of civilian hunters—amateurs at that—to handle this?
There was no way this request had come from the guild itself. This was obviously an official request from the Crown, which meant, frankly, that it had to have come from either the military or the palace itself.
“Before we discuss the details, could you give us a moment to discuss this among ourselves?”
In many cases like these, once you heard the details of the request, it was already too late to turn it down. Therefore, it was not at all unusual to have a discussion at this juncture in order to determine whether it was best to refuse the job without hearing further details—or, alternatively, whether it was worth hearing the guild master out. Just listening to the whole story didn’t necessarily mean that they had to accept…
With the guild master’s consent, the members of the Crimson Vow regrouped in a separate room.
“So, what do we think?” Mavis asked.
“Sounds fishy!!!” the other three cried.
“I, of course, agree. Still, I don’t think the guild master would ever intentionally trap or deceive us, and there are a lot of potential benefits here. First off, we’d be doing this as a job, but the job is to pretend that we’re just on a normal enrichment journey, so we can travel as normal and take on jobs wherever we go. In other words…”
“We’d be getting paid double!”
Pauline was already on board.
“Yep. Naturally, we’d be getting paid for the whole time we’re on the road, and it’s not like they could ask us to hand over any other money we make along the way… Which means, as Pauline said, we’d be getting paid double. Plus, just like any real journey, this will be another chance to improve both our knowledge and our experience. Furthermore, since this is an expedition we’d be taking on behalf of the ‘authorities,’ there’s no way they could say that it doesn’t count toward our years of required service for Tils. In other words, even while we’re outside the country, the clock counting down to the end of our required service as repayment for our scholarships to the Prep School won’t stop ticking. Though I know that’s not that big of a deal, since I’m pretty sure we don’t have any reason for, or intention of, relocating to another country anytime soon…”
As she spoke, Mavis glanced toward Mile. Indeed, she was the only one who might be in a position to leave the country anytime in the near future. After all, Mile held peerage, lands, and responsibility for their inhabitants in another country. Reina and Pauline noticed the direction of Mavis’s glance, but Mile, naturally, did not.
“Also, this is probably a request from the upper brass, so we can pretty much assume this will net us a lot of contribution points. Plus, if we refuse this, it’ll probably hurt the guild’s standing with whoever made the request, which means that by accepting the job we’d really be doing the guild master a favor, which means he’d be in our debt. Honestly, this might be a pretty good deal.”
“It’s tempting,” said Reina.
“Too tempting…” Pauline agreed. Mile and Mavis nodded.
“Why do you think they asked us to do this, though?” Mile asked.
“Probably for the same reason they chose us to do that job in the Empire.” Mavis ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “We’re a party of young ladies, so chances are pretty slim that anyone would suspect us of being spies. We still seem like rookies, but we’ve got a strong track record and a high rate of return… Plus, I’m assuming we’ve got an endorsement from those ‘merchants’ we helped last time.”
“Ah, of course…”
It seemed they were all on the same page.
“I’m assuming that this was a direct request from our potential employers, rather than the guild’s recommendation… Though even if it had been left up to the guild master, it’s entirely possible he still would have picked us. Of course, once we hear the details, we can still refuse if it’s something that’s super ridiculous or just something that doesn’t suit our needs. There’s no reason for the Crimson Vow to make fools of ourselves. But let’s at least hear him out. And this time…”
“We’ll make sure to lay down our own terms!!!!”
Back in the guild master’s office, Mavis spoke on behalf of the party.
“All right, we’ve agreed to hear your request.”
“Oh, perfect!” Though the guild master had likely already expected this response, being generally aware of the Crimson Vow’s modus operandi, he still seemed relieved to hear Mavis’s words. “You are, of course, still within your rights to refuse the job once you’ve heard the details. However, I would like to avoid that outcome, if we can.”
Sure enough, it seemed that it would probably put the guild master in a bind if the Crimson Vow were to refuse this job. Still, he was unable to compel them to agree to anything, which put him in a tough position.
“First, can we ask you one thing?” Mile asked.
“Sure. What’s that?”
“Where exactly is the Kingdom of Aubram? Is it far from here?”
“………”
Silence fell throughout the room.
“Mile, you…”
“Mile, that’s—how could…”
“Mileeee…”
The three other members of the Crimson Vow were lost for words. Into their silence, the guild master barked, “It’s the kingdom right next door!”
“What? Next door? I mean, to the west we’ve got Brandel, to the southwest the Albarn Empire, and Marlane to the east. And north and south of us is the ocean, right?”
“We share a small border with Aubram to the northeast! It’s a narrow kingdom that runs from east to west bordering the northern sea, so it has pretty long international borders, compared to its overall area. To the south, it runs alongside Marlane and Trist, and shares another border to the east as well. They have the ocean to the other side, so if they were ever to be invaded, their capital would probably be surrounded in an instant, thanks to their relatively limited area and lack of an escape route.
“As you can imagine, they make a lot of effort to maintain a good relationship with the countries around them in order to ensure that they’d be able to levy flank support from their neighbors, should anyone ever show up to attack. Basically, they put a lot of resources into diplomacy. It’s doubtful that a country like that would ever be plotting anything suspicious. However…”
“There are these rumors you mentioned—but there’s no way that our side could do any overt fact-checking or questioning on the matter because that would have an impact on international relations!”
“Bingo. Glad you all catch on quick,” said the guild master, sounding as though the question of the Crimson Vow accepting the job was already settled. Of course, that was likely all part of his plan.
But the Crimson Vow were not green enough to fall for such cheap tricks.
“So, what specifically is the job that you want us to do?”
“We’re not taking on any jobs that would have us do anything illegal or wind up kicking off any wars—anything that we could not proudly confess before the Goddess when we die.”
Reina and Mavis made their positions clear with a preemptive strike, keen to take the upper hand in the negotiations. That said, experience taught them it was unlikely that they would be asked to do anything particularly corrupt. In any event, the guild master could see right through their beginners’ gambits. However, he had the grace and maturity to at least respond to them appropriately.
“I understand that. This may be an assignment from the Crown, but the guild would never broker a job that would require anything illicit or dishonest. Accepting only legitimate jobs is one of our most basic tenets. I would never do anything that would cause people to lose faith in the guild—if I did, I would be ousted and… Well, at best, they’d have my head. At worst? The gallows.”
“Ah ha… Not really much difference in those, though, uh…”
Mavis let out a dry laugh, uncertain if the guild master was speaking in jest or in earnest.
At any rate, the requisite conversational tug of war was over. Now, all that was left was…
“All right. I guess we’ll hear you out.”
…the real conversation.
***
According to the guild master, it seemed that some troubles had begun to arise within the neighboring Kingdom of Aubram. It was not a matter of an uprising or rebellion or any other obvious trouble, but instead, a series of lesser events: some smaller village abruptly falling to ruin, a sudden uptick in attacks from monsters, and more frequent losses of merchant caravans.
Taken individually, none of these issues was particularly bizarre. An influx of monsters wiping out a single village, or even a monster stampede wiping out several towns or villages, or a large bandit troop rising up and attacking more caravans were all issues that often arose in this world.
So then, what made these rumors so strange?
Were the kingdom truly in trouble, there would have been an official alert put out to the surrounding lands or perhaps a formal appeal for aid. For Aubram to refrain from doing so meant that they were not truly in dire straits, or at least not dire enough that it would warrant notifying others. Or else, they did not want to notify others…
Understandably, beseeching other nations for aid would put them greatly in debt and was generally an embarrassment for a country—it was no wonder that such things were generally thought of as a last resort. Tils, likewise, would never be heavy-handed in asking allies for their assistance. However…
“If there was really something going on, wouldn’t our spies be able to get information about it? It’s not like this is some far-off place—Aubram is right next door. So there’s no telling what effects any trouble might have on this kingdom…” said Mile.
She was, in fact, correct. Despite the rumors, the higher-ups could make no official moves, and the spies could not easily obtain any information. And yet, it was too worrying a situation to leave alone… Which was how it came to be that the best course of action was to strike out and attempt to collect information from the common people, at the sites that were the actual sources of these rumors. Quietly, under the radar, so that the officials of Aubram would not notice…
“And wait—what about the spies that are already embedded in Aubram?”
No matter how good one’s relationship might be with a neighboring country, there was no forgoing the employment of spies. You never knew when a government would be overthrown and replaced with some antagonistic regime. Particularly in this world, it was not uncommon for regimes of uncertain legitimacy, such as those established by rebelling or usurpation, to redirect the discontent of the people by making enemies of foreigners, uniting the kingdom against a common enemy by starting a war shortly after taking power. It could actually be quite an effective way of crushing one’s political opponents amid the chaos.
“Apparently they’ve heard that such and such village was destroyed, or such and such caravan was wiped out, but it’s unclear how any of it lines up.”
“Ah… Can you tell us more about these allegedly strange rumors? Hearing about a village or caravan getting destroyed is just a report of some damages. There’s nothing strange about that, is there?”
“That’s what the job is about—confirming that’s the case,” said the guild master.
“What the heck does that mean?” the members of the Crimson Vow wondered.
Indeed, finding out someone’s secrets was one thing, but it was impossible to learn something that even they did not know. As such, it would be impossible to figure out what was happening in Aubram if even the people there didn’t understand it—especially working with just a few spies who had to remain discreet.
“Hmm… This is pretty different from that other job.”
“I mean, that’s a good thing. If we just kept repeating the plot, there’d probably be some complaints,” Mile said, smiling mysteriously.
“From whom?” Mavis asked, but her question went ignored.
Truthfully, Mile had been considering writing a series about hunters based on the Crimson Vow’s adventures. She had been keeping a diary in preparation, should she find herself strapped for plots in the future. She had been a little concerned that it wouldn’t go over well if she kept writing the same stories, so she was a bit relieved to hear that even though this job would contain similar elements to those introduced in the Empire arc, at least the actual details would be different.
Still, I can’t let my guard down; I’m sure there are readers who will start complaining by the time they’ve only read the introduction. Listen, guys, you know that there are always going to be callbacks and explanations of any foreshadowing. The answers to the riddles are going to appear in the next volume, so don’t go asking me about what’s going on or what’s going to happen next! Seriously, who asks an author to spoil their own work?! Please just have a little patience!
“Mile, you okay? You’re making a really weird face…”
“I’m fine!”
“………”
“S-so anyway, what you want is for us to travel through the Kingdom of Aubram and report anything of note we pick up on?” Reina redirected the conversation to the matter at hand, getting the sense that it was best not to disturb Mile right now.
“Y-yeah, that’s right. Of course, it’s not a big deal if you all don’t find anything. There are plenty of official spies—well, in as much as a spy can be ‘official’—as well as merchants that have the backing of the Crown, diplomats, and other parties. Ultimately, your job is sort of just to see if anything unexpected pops up. It’s, uh, how should I put this? They aren’t really expecting much out of you? Er, no, that’s not it. You’re…expendable? Wait, no! Forget what I said! Er, uh…”
The guild master suddenly seemed frantic, aware he had talked himself into a corner.
“I believe what you’re trying to say is, don’t hurt yourselves out there…”
“Y-yes! G-good!”
The guild master accepted Mavis’s life raft, with relief. The Crimson Vow seemed to have more or less grasped the gist of the situation.
“To be honest, there was an individual who strongly recommended that you girls be the ones to take this job.”
“Knew it…” they sighed.
Based on the reports from their previous job, the guild master seemed to have some idea of who it was that had given the Crimson Vow their endorsement. Seemingly lost for words, he simply looked at them with the expression of a man who was somewhat exhausted by the matter at hand.
***
“Well, we took the job…under the condition that we get a fifty percent increase in contribution points.”
“We had to, didn’t we? Since it’s not the guild who’ll be funding our pay and they won’t shorten our required service years, the guild master can’t do anything about our compensation. Plus, I mean, interesting jobs have been pretty sparse lately. We’ve kind of been getting into a rut…”
“We get to double dip on pay, earn extra contribution points, and both the guild and the kingdom’s upper brass will be in our debt. Not bad at all!”
“Plus, the countdown clock keeps on ticking toward the day when we’re done working off our tuition and board for the Prep School.”
“So the only real trouble here is…”
***
“How are you leaving on your second training journey this soon?!?! You just got back from the first one! Then, you were gone for ages on that escort mission in the Empire, and after that you were gone for days on other jobs, like going to that elf village or whatever… Try and have a bit more self-awareness as guests of this establishment! What are we supposed to do if you’re never here to heat water for the baths and attract more guests?!” Lenny roared, genuinely enraged.
“Um, I really have no idea what it is you’re saying, Lenny…” Mile muttered, bewildered.
“Don’t worry, Mile, neither do I!” added Reina.
“Nor do I,” noted Pauline.
“Ah ha ha…” Mavis laughed dryly.
“I did kind of expect this reaction,” Reina allowed.
“I suppose this is ‘within the hypothesized range,’ as Mile would put it.”
“Exactly how much service are guests of an inn supposed to owe the inn?”
“Ga ha ha…”
***
“Okay, we’re heading out!”
After successfully shaking off Lenny, the Crimson Vow departed the capital.
Until they reached the national border, they would be traveling by the capital’s Arrow Express carriage service. (The Arrow Express was equivalent to the bullet express trains in Japan, but as they did not have the word “bullet,” an arrow was the next closest way of denoting something that was swift and nonstop.)
If Mile were on her own, it would have been faster for her to run, but even if most of their luggage was in her “storage” space, the rest of the party wasn’t quite as speedy. Slowing their pace to accommodate Pauline, for example, would cause quite a delay, given the length of the journey. Thus, they decided to take a nice, speedy carriage to their destination. If they had decided to proceed on foot, they could have easily accepted jobs within Tils along the road, but part of their assignment had been to waste as little time outside of the target area as possible, so they quickly decided on this plan of action.
“A maiden’s time is precious, after all. Not a moment of it should be wasted!”
“Plus, we can put the carriage fare on our tab as a job expense. I’m already annoyed they are not letting us charge our room and board costs…”
“I mean, I guess we can’t really argue. Their argument is that we’d be paying for room and board even if we weren’t on the job, and as such, they can’t recognize that as an added expense. At least he acknowledged that if we just so happen to go to a pub to gather intel, no one could stop us from writing in some entertainment costs. Even you didn’t have anything to say to that, Pauline,” Mavis pointed out.
“Guh…” Pauline gritted her teeth, unable to argue.
This information about expenses had come out in the Crimson Vow’s conversation with a representative of their employer—clearly one of those people.
Petty complaints aside, they had landed a pretty great deal. The fact that they got to bill anything to their employer was pretty great—although, it would have been nice if they had agreed to foot the bill for all of the Crimson Vow’s meals.
“Even so, this is gonna be a pretty good haul,” Mile said.
Pauline still did not seem convinced. They had already been offered high enough pay that they shouldn’t need to sweat the details, so why was she still quibbling so much over the money part of things?
It was simply because she liked to save money. Nothing more and nothing less.
Humans tend to find fulfillment and satisfaction in their work. For artisans, it’s their skills and their products; for farmers, the yield of their crops; and for teachers, the growth of their students.
So then, what of merchants?
Indeed, a merchant enjoys success via the accumulation of wealth. It is their reason for working, their reason for living. That accumulation is all the more joyful when one has a goal in mind that can only be achieved with increased funds.
If we praise a martial artist for seeking strength, and a scholar for pursuing knowledge, then there’s no reason a merchant pursuing wealth shouldn’t be praised as well!
“Don’t you all agree?!”
“I mean, no need to be so insistent, Pauline…”
“You all never say anything when Mavis wants to improve her skill as a swordfighter! So, why do you all always bad-mouth money or act like I’m some kind of miser just because I want to save money and strengthen my financial power as a merchant?! Sounds unfair to me!”
“Ah, no, that’s…”
“Mile, say something! Mavis is no match for her!”
“Er, no, I mean, why don’t you help her, Reina?”
“No way!”
Nowhere among their party was Mavis’s savior when she needed them…
***
“We’re finally here!”
“So this is the border town, huh?”
The Crimson Vow disembarked in a border town just at the edge of the kingdom. Their investigations would begin once they crossed the border officially. As soon as they got out of the carriage, Mile insisted that she felt a tangible something coming from the other side of the border—a truth that the others accepted without question.
There were other passengers who disembarked from the carriage in the same spot, as well as other travelers getting on, so the Crimson Vow did not stand out in particular. To any observer, they would look like nothing more than your average travelers.
“I don’t see anything strange here,” Reina observed.
“Well, we still haven’t left our home turf yet. Plus, if things were bad enough that you could tell at a glance, things would already be way past the point where it would be useful to hire us,” Pauline replied soberly.
“Er… W-well, I guess that’s true…” Reina stammered.
Mavis and Mile could only feel a little bad for her. Pauline hadn’t meant to shut her down so aggressively; it was just that she didn’t hold back in stating what she thought was obvious. Perhaps she was still a bit miffed about having to cover their own room and board…
“Anyway, we’ll spend the night here, and tomorrow night, we’ll sleep in the border town on Aubram’s side!”
“All right!” the hunters agreed.
As both towns were near the border, they would not have to journey far between them. However, it was important to this investigation to compare both towns—or rather confirm if there was, indeed, any difference in the atmospheres between them.
The members of the Crimson Vow were no dummies. When it was time to get down to brass tacks, they could come up with a pretty decent plan.
***
Morning, two days later…
“So, there really wasn’t anything different around here, was there?”
The Crimson Vow had stayed overnight the evening after they crossed the border but didn’t learn much of anything. This was as they had expected. They had begun their inquiries here for the sake of a thorough investigation and leaving no stone unturned.
“Nope. On to the real work then!”
The Kingdom of Aubram was a narrow territory running from east to west. If one were to proceed straight ahead after entering from Marlane or Trist, you would quickly end up butting into the sea to the north. However, when entering from Tils at the west end, one could travel in a straight line for quite a distance without running into the eastern border.
Given this geography, the members of the Crimson Vow thought it best to head directly eastward from the capital, not diverging too much from this path. This made things much easier for the party, since it meant they could stick largely to the main highway that ran through the central vein of the country—without having to canvas every corner of the land in their search. Of course, they would still make detours onto the back roads and stop in at more remote villages now and then. And, naturally, they would also be cutting through the forests and mountains for some good old hunting and gathering.
This was supposed to look like a training journey after all, and it was just as necessary to make investigations into places off the beaten path…
***
“Oh, are you little ladies rookie hunters?” asked a peddler as he approached from the opposite direction. The Crimson Vow were preparing lunch in one of the open areas along the side of the highway, the sort of space that travelers and merchants usually used for overnighting. The man looked to be around forty, and though—as someone who carried his wares on his back—he was clearly sturdy in build, he also had a gentle countenance.
Young ladies or not, there were four members of the Crimson Vow, and they were all clearly armed, so it stood to reason that a man on his own who was stopping to speak to them likely had no untoward ulterior motives. With this in mind, the party decided that this was as good a time as any for them to try “casually exchanging information with a fellow passing traveler.”
It was almost never a mistake to take advantage of the opportunity to chat with someone you met on the road like this.
Though it might result in only small talk, it was not uncommon for these conversations to contain information that could save one’s life—such as that a landslide had buried a mountain road or a heavy rain washed out a bridge so that one had to take a detour, or that bandits were showing up and it was best to change routes. It was only customary to share whatever food and wine you had on hand in exchange for such valuable information. And it actually was considered boorish to give money as a thanks in such a case. The idea was that travelers helped each other out with no expectation of earning coin in exchange—and there were good reasons for these customs.
Mile dove right in, “We just got here from Tils. Anything strange going on lately around here?”
Of course, just because the man was coming from the direction of the capital did not mean that he had actually come from the capital. Wandering peddlers, who carried all their wares on their backs, often operated in a small territory, which meant they were not typically the most well informed about events in a kingdom at large. If obtaining information were this easy, no one would ever lift a finger to do the hard work of gathering intel. Still, Mile figured, it couldn’t hurt to ask.
“Actually, there has been.”
“Wait, really?!?!”
“Miley, you’re moving way too fast!”
“Mile, you’ve really gotta pace yourself…”
“Mile, have some self-restraint!”
“Wait, what? Did I do something wrong?”
Mile was baffled at how everyone was treating her.
Mile, not seeing the problem, ignored her fellow party members and continued her conversation with the peddler.
“So,” she said, “what were those strange occurrences?”
“Well, uh, there seems to be a lot of commotion around the kingdom lately…” he began. “There haven’t been any uprisings or any rumors about us going to war with another country or anything like that, but the atmosphere has just been kind of heavy. Some really bad vibes, I guess you would say. There’ve been more hunters than usual messing up the jobs they take and having to take out loans to cover their breach-of-contract fees so they don’t end up in the red. That would be bad enough, but there have also been a number of folks who’ve ended up having to retire due to injuries. Things really haven’t been going well for the hunters, which obviously has an impact on the guild.
“And then, when business is bad among hunters, it also suffers at the bars and inns and red-light districts. And when that happens, the folks who work there end up being a little tighter with their purse strings, too, so it has an effect on a lot of different industries. Hunters tend to have a lot more money than most to blow at the inns and pubs and restaurants and such, after all…”
This made sense to Mile when she thought back to what she had heard in her previous life about towns with US military and JSDF bases. Those bases were full of single people who made good wages and had all their necessities provided for them on base, so they had tons of disposable income.
“In a town where one hundred bars just barely manage to stay in the black, how many of them do you suppose would fold if sales at all of them suddenly dropped by twenty percent?” the man asked in a tone that implied he already knew what the girls might answer.
“How should we know?!” asked Pauline. The man looked taken aback. Apparently, that was not the reply he had expected. “There’s no way you could answer that question without knowing their profit margins, fixed expenses, and annual sales revenue.”
“Wh…?”
Reina piped up, “Putting aside whether a shop’s earnings have fallen completely to zero or if they still have any revenue, the percent loss also depends on the scope and industry of that business. Plus, whether the business can withstand that decline in sales depends on whether it owns or rents its premises. There’s just way too many factors at play for us to calculate…”
The merchant looked utterly taken aback.
“C’mon you two, don’t give him a hard time. The polite response here would be to confidently say, ‘Twenty of them!’” said Mile, landing the finishing blow.
The man was shocked speechless, but Mavis could only offer him a rueful smile. Unfortunately for him, the Crimson Vow were not interested in playing ignorant for the sake of polite conversation.
In truth, the man had hoped to take this opportunity to educate a group of rookie hunters who knew nothing of commerce—so though he was stunned at their unexpected replies, he did have some respect for the knowledge these young girls had displayed.
“W-well yes, that’s correct…but that was just a hypothetical for the sake of explanation, so like the little miss here said, just play along for a moment,” the merchant said pitifully, pointing at Mile. The members of the Crimson Vow suddenly looked a bit guilty, realizing just how aggressive they had been.
Finally, Mile softly spoke. “One hundred of them…?”
Obviously, answering “Twenty of them!” at this point would be too absurd, even for her.
“That’s right, all hundred.” His resolve renewed, the merchant continued. “If sales at every shop dropped twenty percent, it would put all of them into the red, and they would all fold… Of course, in reality, once about half of those shops folded, the places that had dug in their heels would probably get a new influx of customers, but let’s just keep working under the original assumption for a minute. Even if the shops did survive, their customers still have less spending money, which means they make less money per customer. Considering they’d already be in the red, it’s not a great prognosis.”
Two of the members of the Crimson Vow were merchant’s daughters, and two of them were nobles. And furthermore, one had knowledge from another world. In short, there was no one in the party who would not understand such logic.
“So I’m guessing things would get pretty gloomy around town…”
Pauline and the others nodded at this, faces glum. This was a tale that the merchants’ daughters felt down to their cores—and it was no happier a story for the noble’s daughter, who relied on the tax money collected from those merchants…
“Not just that. Decreasing numbers of hunters and more failed jobs means more failed monster exterminations in the countryside or simply not enough people to take these sorts of tasks. Merchant caravans can’t hire enough guards and end up being forced to hire guys who aren’t actually up to the task…”
“Ah…”
It was a vicious cycle. To dismantle the enormous well-oiled machine known as the economy did not require sabotaging every single little part. If the smallest bit of grain got caught in the gears, or the lubricating oils ran dry, the whole thing could grind to a halt and collapse in an instant.
“Anyway, that’s pretty much what’s up. I’m guessin’ you girls are out here on some job? Or is this a training journey? If you take on any jobs, take care. There are a lot more risk factors than usual right now. If you stop in at any guild branches that are backed up on jobs and need help, they might push whatever old job off on you. Make sure you take into account the difficulty and danger before you accept anything, all right?”
“………”
After what had turned out to be a particularly productive conversation, Mile treated the kindly peddler to a warm lunch and a bottle of spirits she had stored in her inventory as thanks. She impressed upon him that he should only drink it after he had set up camp for the night, finished his dinner, and secured his surroundings, but regardless, the peddler was thrilled at this unexpected gift, which was more than a fair reward for the information he had given them. The man thanked them profusely and repeatedly, and then took his leave.
“…So, everyone, thoughts?” asked Mavis, once he was gone.
“Hmm. Well, that is a pretty strong candidate for a ‘strange rumor’…” said Pauline.
“But is it enough to warrant a foreign investigation?” Reina wondered.
Mile only sat deep in thought, until…
“The real question here is why all those hunters have been so unlucky. I think we’re all aware of certain circumstances that might impact a large number of hunters’ ability to succeed…”
“Huh?”
The other three did not know what to make of Mile’s words, so she continued.
“Suppose some hunters encountered the monsters they were sent out to exterminate, only to find that for some reason, the monsters were one level stronger than they ought to be…”
“Ah…”
Indeed, the four of them were aware of these circumstances.
“Abnormally strong orcs…”
“Unusually strong ogres…”
“The dwarven village!”
Yes, Mile was thinking of the aberrant monsters that had seemingly been appearing from the mysterious rifts. If more of such rifts had started appearing, and more monsters were being spawned from them…
If someone went out to fight some orcs and encountered super orcs as strong as ogres…
If someone went out to fight ogres and found a horde with the strength of high ogres…
It would be like a reenactment of the incident at the dwarven village, resulting in nothing but destruction.
“But would that be enough to get us to this point?” Mavis still did not seem to buy it. “In the case of the dwarven village, they were basically half-independent and pretty far away from any human villages. It only got as far as it did because they let their pride keep them from asking for any help or sharing any information about what was happening. If stronger than usual monsters appeared around any normal human village, word would spread immediately, and either the guild or the army would be dispatched to deal with it.”
“I suppose you’re right… Also, I’m sure that the intel we shared about those new monster types in our reports has already gone to the guild branches in all neighboring countries by now. Aubram is right next to Marlane, and they’re on friendly terms. Plus, our report wouldn’t have only been the talk of the guild; it would’ve made it up to the royals as well. Though it still hasn’t really been addressed, which means…”
“Yep. I think we’re looking at four possibilities: One, they think they can’t trust the reports, and so they’ve ignored them. Two, they haven’t yet put together how the information in the report is connected to what they’re seeing here in Aubram. Three, they’ve put the pieces together, but they’re intentionally ignoring the problem. Or four, they’re perfectly aware of the whole situation, but they are too distracted by other matters to do something about it.”
“………”
The other three members of the Crimson Vow were silent. Strange as Mile could be, this was clearly a situation where only she could be trusted to grasp the full scope of possibilities. The conversation paused as the three other members of the party considered the various options Mile had outlined.
“I suppose that even though it seems obvious to people like us, who were there at the scene of the incident and fought those creatures directly, it’s likely that the hunters here are not wont to take a report from some green, young hunters in another country all that seriously,” said Reina. “So, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ignoring the reports out of any sort of malice. Combine that with the fact that saying that you failed a job because the enemies were stronger than usual makes you look like an F-rank newbie, and most people in their right mind would never…”
“Yeah. I can’t really blame them, either. The idea didn’t even occur to us until Mile said something about it,” Pauline agreed.
“And anyway, this is just Mile’s theory. There’s still a possibility that there’s some completely different cause for this,” Mavis added.
All three of them felt that what Mile suggested was possible, but it was not certain. They had merely added one possible explanation to the list… One of many, many possibilities.
“Well, we’ve only just crossed the border. If we solve the whole thing on our first day, we won’t be earning our pay!” said Mile.
“Ah ha ha, that’s true!” Mavis laughed.
Indeed, this sham training journey had only just begun.
“And so, from there on, our journey would continue…”
Reina, Pauline, and Mavis all spoke in unison. “Is this the last episode?!?!”
Mile grinned. Ah yes, I’ve trained them well…
***
“It’s been four days since we talked to that merchant, but…”
“We haven’t gotten anywhere at all!”
“Are you telling me that the first bit of information we got in this country—”
“—turned out to be the best?”
The members of the Crimson Vow sat around their dinners at their campsite one evening, looking weary and crestfallen. Indeed, they had spent the past four days speaking to every single traveler they encountered at the open-air campsites along the highway, every owner and patron of various eateries in the towns where they stopped, every clerk and fellow guest at the inns, all of the guild employees and other hunters, and so on and so forth, trying to learn everything they could. They didn’t have any trouble getting people to talk to them. There were few who would not enjoy a conversation with a group of such lovely young ladies. Plus, though they were thorough in their investigations, they were traveling around enough to avoid raising suspicions in any particular place. The actual work of the investigation was progressing smoothly. It was very obvious that this—their ability to get people to talk freely and without reservations—was one of the reasons that the Crimson Vow had been asked to do this job.
The problem, of course, was that there was not a single useful piece of information among everything they had gathered.
“It’s only because we’re the sort of people you can tell anything to that we even got this much…”
“Normal spies—grown men—would never be able to get useful intel this easily…” said Mavis.
“Well, I mean,” Pauline replied, “if a handsome male spy were to try getting information from ladies…”
“Pauline, what are you looking at me for?!”
Even the mild-mannered Mavis was capable of showing a scowl now and then—a fact of which Mile and Reina were now more thoroughly aware.
“At least it seems like the first thing we learned seems to have been generally corroborated—quite a few people we’ve talked to have mentioned that more hunters than usual have been dying on the job.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure the guild staff don’t want rumors to get out, but the local hunters we treated to drinks at the pubs—you know, as ‘part of the investigation’—seemed to be pretty convinced that something wasn’t right there. And that’s meaningful, even if we can’t assume the actual numbers they gave us are correct.”
“But even after we got them drunk and dragged that out of them, no one had anything to say about stronger than usual ogres or something like that.”
It was possible that hunters’ pride was causing issues here—no one would want to admit to being nearly overpowered by a monster they should have been able to defeat.
At this point, Mavis was starting to feel a bit guilty about eating free food on their employer’s dime, going out of her way to emphasize that they had only gone to the pubs “for work’s sake.” On the other hand, Reina and Mile were plenty happy to gorge themselves specifically because the bill wasn’t coming out of their own pockets…
“Oh, I’ve got it! Next town we’re in, we should ask around at the processing shed at the guildhall. No matter how strong these monsters are, there’s no way that people haven’t managed to kill any of them, right? So, if we ask about the felled monsters that have been brought in to sell for parts…”
“Good idea! If there have been any unusual specimens, those guys would know right away. The old guy who processed the monsters we killed at the dwarven village could tell from one look that they were special, based on their size and the texture of the muscles and the toughness of the skin. He was super worked up about it. Remember, he kept saying, ‘This isn’t fat! Their muscles are practically bulging out of their skin!’ Though I guess you would have to touch their skin to know for sure how tough it was… Anyway, I think that’s a good plan!”
The other members of the party readily agreed. “Let’s do it!”
***
“Normal orcs.”
“Normal orcs, normal kobolds, normal jackalopes…”
Indeed, as Reina and Pauline said, all of the monsters they had seen were completely normal specimens, without a single aberration.
“So, whaddya think? Learn anythin’ about whatever you were curious about?” asked a young guild employee, who had been happy to accept the girls’ request to come and check out the processing shed.
“Ah, yes. We didn’t see any evidence of the thing that we were worried about, but at least being able to confirm that there were no cases is a big help. Thank you!” Mile said.
The others bowed their heads and thanked the man as well. It was only polite, given that he had taken time out of his busy schedule to help these outsiders with their seemingly nonsensical request. They wanted to assure him that this favor had not been performed in vain…even if they could not tell him exactly what it was that they were after.
In truth, this young male guild employee hadn’t exactly been acting only out of the goodness of his heart. In fact, it was unlikely he would have taken the time out of his day to show a group to the storehouse and magically controlled cold room, if they had not been cute girls…
***
“So there weren’t any abnormal ones…”
“I guess we miscalculated, huh?”
“Hmm…”
Everyone thought long and hard, but at this point, they could think all day and come up with nothing. They still had far too little information to come to any solid conclusions.
“Well, I mean, we never assumed this would be a job that would be finished easily. There’s no set deadline, so let’s just bide our time,” said Mile. “For now, we take other jobs, which will get us money and contribution points so that we’ll be able to take out promotion exams as soon as the minimum time has passed…”
“Mile,” Pauline interrupted, “I definitely agree with you on the money front, but we already have more than enough contribution points for promotion.”
“Wha…?”
“Well, obviously. Between catching the wyvern, rescuing the investigation team, driving out bandits, keeping the peace with the beastfolk and elder dragons, and everything else…how much more than that do you think a normal C-rank hunter would have to do just to rise to a B-rank? If all that we’ve already done wouldn’t be enough to qualify us for the B-rank exams then no one would ever get to be a B-rank!” Reina shouted.
“Th-that’s true…” Mile couldn’t help but agree.
To be clear, it wasn’t a matter of being immediately promoted to B-rank, but rather, of qualifying for the promotion exam, which they would need to pass in order to move up. Still, there was simply no way that the Crimson Vow, after completing so many jobs with high degrees of difficulty—and thus, high numbers of achievement points—would not have had the requisite amount of points.
“By that token,” Pauline pointed out, “for as much as Reina and Mavis keep insisting that we take jobs that will get us more points so that we can rise to A-rank faster, the only thing holding us back is actually just waiting out our minimum required time as C-ranks. So, from here on out, the only thing we need to focus on are the jobs that’ll make us the most money!”
“Of course that would be your spin on this!” Reina interjected. However, it was true that there was little point in them racking up more points at this juncture. In order for them to graduate from B-ranks to A-ranks, they would need experience as B-rank hunters, meaning that racking up any excess of points right now would be futile.
It was true that the number of points they had acquired would be taken into account at the time of their promotion exams, but Reina and Mavis, at least, were not interested in relying on promotion via such cheap tricks. They wished to prove themselves at the exam, based on their abilities alone. Pauline, however, did not share this hesitation, and Mile had no opinions on the matter—or rather, Mile had never set out with the intention of being promoted in the first place. As long as she could live as a normal, C-rank hunter, not standing out, earning just enough money to one day settle down with someone, she would be more than happy.
“I mean, I’m pretty much fine with Pauline’s plan,” said Reina.
“But I want to get stronger! If I can’t get strong enough to be an A-rank swordswoman, and one day become a knight, then what’s the point?!” Mavis frantically cut in.
Just because a job was lucrative did not necessarily mean that it would involve fighting strong monsters or enemies. Therefore, while taking only jobs that would pay well but offer little combat experience—such as gathering rare items or serving as part of a ceremonial guard that would probably see no actual combat—would be perfectly fine with Pauline (who just wanted to earn money), Reina (who would be happy with an A-rank as long as she proved herself at the exams), and Mile (who, in contrast with everyone else, would rather remain as a C-rank), Mavis was bound not to be quite so pleased with this.
“Well, we can just play it by ear… And anyway, we never actually pick jobs based on how many points we’ll get or how much money we’ll make. What’s most important is…” started Mile, pausing to allow the others to reply in unison:
“Whether or not it’s fun!!!”
“Ah…”
“What’s up?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” Mile muttered, trying to throw Reina off her scent. It was just that she had been thinking…
The nanos did say they would tell me if another dimensional rift had opened. They can’t do anything outside of their operating instructions without commands, so they require a request from me to go ahead with any repairs… They did say that I could just issue a standing order so that they could do repairs without having to get direct orders from me each and every time, but I had to refuse. Instead, I told them to make sure they reported any occurrences of a rift to me—I felt like they would try and hide things from me if I didn’t. However, given that I haven’t gotten any such reports… Hmmm…
Mile briefly considered checking in with the nanomachines themselves, but she was loath to rely too much on them. It would be another matter if her own life or that of the people around her depended on their involvement, but this was not the case here. Plus, it was not as though the nanomachines would ever lie to or betray her… Though they could always give her incomplete information, or none at all…
Still, it was unlikely that they would neglect to tell her that a dimensional rift was opening—especially when they had been so frantic about it before. And it seemed equally unlikely that they could have repaired one without her knowledge.
I guess I just miscalculated, Mile finally concluded, her shoulders slumping in disappointment.
***
“So, we’re already about halfway to the capital, but…”
“There hasn’t been anything!”
“Nothing at all…”
It was true. Just as Reina and Pauline said, they had found nothing.
The party had taken on a number of jobs at the guild branches they passed by, but they had all been completely routine. Presently, the members of the Crimson Vow were marching through the forest, in the midst of some unspecified dailies they had taken because they would allow them a fair bit of freedom for their investigation.
In terms of monsters, they were primarily after orcs. The actual extermination fee for orcs was always the same, but the Crimson Vow could sell the meat for a decent price… Obviously, draconic monsters or other rare creatures would be much more profitable, but there was no way that such beings would be traipsing about in the vicinity of a town like this.
Most normal parties had the skill to take down an orc like it was nothing, but there was a limit to what they could carry back to town with them. Trying to lug several two- to three-hundred-kilogram orcs on their back would make the weight of the weapons, armor, rations, camping gear, and other equipment all the more evident. Thus, hunting orcs down for dailies and to sell as parts was a far more appealing task for the Crimson Vow than it would be for others. Indeed, orcs were the most profitable prey for the Crimson Vow, who could carry a practically infinite number home with them thanks to Mile’s “storage.”
Then, there was the fact that hunting orcs gave them more flexibility than taking on a standard job—a specific request made by an individual and advertised through the guild. Doing a standard job, which had a time limit or a minimum requisite, was a bit of a burden when they had other goals in mind also. Even if it was a job that should have been easy for the Crimson Vow, there was nothing they could do if they did not encounter their quarry or meet their target. Even with Mile’s search magic it was impossible to find something that was not there to begin with…
Five goblins, huh?
Mile’s search magic picked up on a group of goblins straight ahead of them, but she said nothing. It would be bad for the others if she warned them about every little thing ahead of time. None of the other members of the party would disagree with her; indeed, they all understood Mile’s way of thinking. They realized the dangers of relying too much on their friend, and so they accepted that she would not relay her search results to them except when strictly necessary due to the nature of a job or an instance of real danger. Thus, it was instead Mavis, who was typically the first to spot things, who cried, “Goblins! Four of them, no, five? Huh? On your guards!”
There was no need for the Crimson Vow—of all parties—to be particularly worked up about the likes of goblins. So then, what could explain Mavis’s tone?
“Target: Five goblins at 1 o’clock, thirty meters ahead. Looks like we might have some abnormals!”
Now this was an unexpected development. The hunters exchanged looks of shock. That said, even an aberrant goblin was nothing to worry about. A worthy opponent, like an ogre, at double the usual strength might have been impressive, but a small fry pumped up two-fold was still a small fry. So, they approached the goblins more or less as normal, and the moment the monsters noticed them, they were almost instantly wiped out.
“Hmm…”
Upon investigating the felled goblins, they found one abnormal specimen and four standard ones.
“Mavis, that was amazing! There was only one aberrant goblin in there, but you picked up on it right away!” Mile praised.
“Ah ha ha, well, I mean, I guess my eyes are pretty good…” Mavis said bashfully.
It also helped that Mavis was the tallest member of the Crimson Vow and, as a result, had the longest line of sight. Plus, she was usually at the head of the line as the vanguard. For all these reasons, she was, besides Mile, always the first to spot incoming enemies.
“So, the issue here is…” Reina started.
“Yep, the way they were moving. They were clearly moving in a pattern with the abnormal one as their leader.”
As Pauline observed, the goblins had been fairly methodical in their movements, which in itself was not remarkable. Even wolves and wild dogs moved in packs at their leaders’ commands. There was nothing at all strange about goblins, which were closer in nature to humans than dogs, to be operating in this manner. At first glance, this group’s movements had been completely ordinary. So then, why was the Crimson Vow so suspicious?
“Why would a weird goblin that probably came wandering into this world through a rift be commanding a group of normal goblins born here?” Mile wondered. It was a mysterious question indeed.
Lombrosoooo… she muttered internally, heart heavy with the knowledge that, as usual, there was not a single person around who would get her joke.
***
Was it possible the nanomachines had failed to follow Mile’s instructions? Though she didn’t want to rely on them for every little thing, she also didn’t want them to betray her.
Once everyone had retired for the night, Mile set about on a silent inquiry.
Seriously, though, what’s this all about?! she asked the nanomachines.
THERE’S BEEN A MISUNDERSTANDING! WE WOULD NEVER LIE TO ANY OF OUR USERS! WE WOULD NEVER HAVE ANY REASON TO DO SO IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Hmm…
When she thought about it, this only made sense. In essence, the nanomachines were hardly more than slightly advanced tools, operating by the command of their creators, the so-called Gods. They had no ambitions nor any desire for money or other rewards. They had no reason to go out of their way to deceive or betray Mile, who had the highest authorization level on this planet at present.
I’m sure they thought the same about Skynet and HAL 9000. And the Brain. Gaizok. Kyron-5. The Cylons. Braiking Boss… No. Wait wait wait waitwaitwait! Mile shook her head as a number of ominous names began to drift through her mind.
State the nature of the emergency.
As there was nothing medical about this emergency, she had left that particular word out. However, the nanomachines, unaware that she was making a reference, interpreted this command as one of legitimate concern and frantically launched into an explanation.
WE ARE FOLLOWING YOUR ORDERS TO THE LETTER, LADY MILE! THE DIMENSIONAL RIFTS HAVE BEEN COLLAPSING SHORTLY AFTER THEY APPEAR, SO THERE HAS BEEN NO NEED FOR US TO REPAIR THEM NOR EVEN TIME FOR US TO DO SO. THUS, THERE HAS BEEN NO NEED TO SEEK YOUR PERMISSION.
Ah…
Mile now recalled her exact instructions, which had been for the nanos to report any rifts to her as they found them, at which point, she could give them the command to make repairs. So then, if the rift should vanish before they could even report it—or if the rift was already closed when they went to make their report…
That did not meet the initial condition of there being a rift that required reporting. At that point, there was no rift anymore. She had also told them, “I doubt they will, but if any more rifts open up around here, let me know right away,” and in that case, “around here” had referred to the area outside of the dwarven village. Rifts appearing in other areas were outside of that particular scope.
Damn it! I should have been more specific! Mile screamed internally, but there was really nothing to be done for it. Humans cannot possibly predict every single outcome of their words.
***
“So, we’ve confirmed that there are abnormal specimens, which intermingle with pre-existing individuals and are given a high rank among them,” said Mile.
“Right,” Mavis replied. “So we think these outsiders are taken in as one of the group and appointed leader of a small unit because of their strength?”
“Even if they’re strong, would they really be accepted that easily into the group? Given a high rank even when they’re complete outsiders? It’d be one thing if they were so strong they knocked out the previous boss and made the others their subordinates, but being the leader of a small team is kind of a half-assed position…”
“Yeah, it doesn’t add up. It’s suspicious enough that they wouldn’t just be shunned on sight…”
Pauline and Reina couldn’t seem to get on board with Mavis’s assumption.
“If it is true that these individuals have come from some faraway place through a rift in the sky, like Mavis says, would they even be able to communicate with the local monsters? It’s one thing with a human who’s come from a neighboring land or even somewhere on the same continent, but there’s no telling if we’d be able to speak with people who came from those other continents that are supposed to be way off beyond the sea. Even if you tried communicating with gestures, a motion that could mean, ‘Come this way!’ to some folks here might mean, ‘I’m gonna murder you, ya bastard!’ to someone else…”
“Hmm…”
The members of the Crimson Vow thought long and hard, but they did not have enough information to come to any conclusions.
“We do have that one abnormal creature in Mile’s storage, but that’s not enough to present as evidence.”
“Yep. It’s just a goblin, after all, and it’s only one. Plus, we’re foreign hunters, who’ve only recently entered the country…”
“And no one sees us yet as anything other than a bunch of newbie hunters. A country like this, that doesn’t have anything like the Prep School, is going to be even more skeptical. Hunters here just see our school as some kind of rookie factor, some kind of death god academy that just spits out new hunters and sends them off to die the minute they graduate. Of course, it’s not like that’s true, but I’m sure they don’t like the idea of there being a system in place that lets rookies immediately jump to a D- or even C-rank. At any rate, folks here are just gonna treat anyone who graduated from our school like amateurs, C-ranks or not. Normally, hunters’ reports should be accepted regardless of their background or origins, but when you bring a problem like this to the table, you have to have some kind of credibility to back it up…especially if you want people to believe something as absurd as what we’re saying,” Mavis explained.
Reina nodded. “Particularly when it’s coming from a party like us, who just look like a bunch of snot-faced newbies. Never mind that we’re outsiders. So…”
“So?” asked Mile.
Reina puffed out her chest and said, “We’ve just gotta get more samples. Including orcs and ogres, stuff that normal hunters could never handle.”
***
“All right! It looks like there’s an abnormal kobold in charge!”
After encountering many groups of monsters, the Crimson Vow finally came upon a unit of fifteen kobolds. As usual, Mavis was the first to spot them. As with the goblins, kobolds weren’t particular dangerous. Even if this group were to include some aberrant specimens, only one or two of them would not be too much of a threat. Still, they were useful to the girls as samples.
“Make sure we take down the abnormal one. Doesn’t matter if the rest of them run away!”
“All right!!!”
With an exuberant battle cry, the Crimson Vow launched into the fray.
The first step was to scatter the small fry and hunt down the abnormal. It would be a pain to have it run off on them as they picked off its fellows, so it was best to take down the one that seemed like the leader first. They could deal with the rest later.
Kobolds didn’t earn much of a reward as a daily extermination target anyway, and the only part of them worth selling was their pelts. Because of their cute and fluffy appearance, the practice of actually skinning was rather unpopular, even with hunters working for the guild. The cheap wages they earned were not worth the guilt and emotional anguish… Though, of course, cute or not, kobold swarms could still be a threat to villagers, so they did have to be hunted.
“Wait, where’d the leader’s corpse go?” asked Reina, sounding surprised. The other kobolds had been beaten back, but now the area where the abnormal specimen’s body should have been was empty.
“It’s right…there?”
“Huh?”
“It’s…gone…”
It had vanished. The body of the first monster they had felled was nowhere to be found.
The four of them searched.
“Oh! It looks like something was dragged away here!”
There was a long line on the ground trailing away from the site, as though something—likely the corpse of the aberrant monster—had been dragged away from the spot where it should have lain.
“I’m pretty sure monsters don’t usually go around carrying the corpses of their fallen brethren back home, except maybe species that are cannibalistic… Plus, they left all the other bodies where they were. Why just the abnormal one?”
“Maybe they believe that if they eat the flesh of a stronger individual they’ll absorb its strength? I think that practice, or tendency, rather, sometimes happens in species that value strength above all else, right?”
“Oh! Then maybe that’s why there weren’t any abnormals in the monsters that got sold to the guild…”
“Because not only are there not many to begin with, but also the other monsters are dragging them away… That might be right. That definitely could have happened if other hunters didn’t manage to wipe out the entire groups.”
The four seemed to be more or less in agreement about this. Still, something did not sit right with Mile.
“But doesn’t that only apply to what’s going on around here? If the same thing were happening anywhere else, we wouldn’t be hearing about ‘something weird going on in Aubram’ so much as ‘something weird going on in some fief or another.’ Doesn’t that mean the same thing must be happening in other parts of the country, too?” Mile asked. Of course, she was cheating a little, having based her deductions off of what she had learned from the nanomachines. Still, even knowing what she did would not explain the monsters’ actions, nor the source of this ongoing phenomenon. At least they could now surmise part of the reason that things seemed to be so odd in this country at present.
Yet the root cause of all this strangeness was still unclear.
At minimum, they could say that they had gotten their hands on some of the information their employers had hoped for. However, the Crimson Vow were not the sort of party who could call that alone a job well done.
“This still leaves way too many possibilities, and just checking out a few abnormal creatures is pretty weak sleuthing.”
“We haven’t even gotten to the capital yet. A half-assed report like that wouldn’t really count as a job completed…”
“This job is way too juicy to not drag out as long as we can!”
“Ah ha ha, exactly!”
And so, the Crimson Vow continued toward the capital.
***
LADY MILE, A RIFT HAS OPENED NEARBY!
“Everyone, this way!”
“Coming!!!”
Reina and the others dutifully complied with Mile’s command, assuming she had picked up something with her search magic. This happened often enough. However, what the four saw as they pelted off of the main road into the forest was…
“Huh?”
A rift in space-time, just like they had witnessed before.
“That’s…”
Monsters were flooding out of it—all aberrations. This much they had expected. Yet…
“What is that?”
Standing beside the rift, as though commanding the monsters, was a fantastical, unfamiliar creature.
“It’s tiny, but…is that an iron golem?” asked Reina. However, to Mile’s eyes, it was…
A robot?
Surely enough, the Scavengers and golems and even the nanomachines were all types of robots. The so-called gods of prehistorical civilization, it seemed, were more than capable of churning out robot creations. Yet this one was different.
This robot was not humanoid in form, nor was it animalistic, nor even insectoid. It was stranger looking even than the Scavengers, with their six legs and four arms. However, there was something comprehensible to its build, which was obviously designed for stability and operating efficiency.
It was bizarre.
It was so beyond human reckoning that there was no other word to describe its appearance.
Nanos?
THAT’S THE ENEMY.
Yeah, I figured.
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