I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated (LN) - Volume 5 - Chapter 3.5

Aside

“TH-THIS IS BAD!”

“What’s gotten you so upset, dear?”

“Elza!”

Watson, one of the town guards, barreled into our guildhall looking distressed. City guards and adventurers never quite got along, but here in Ulmutt we cooperated. With the number of adventurers in the city, both adventurer and guard had to work to keep the peace. The Guildmaster did a great job of keeping us all together. If he took his post a little more seriously, he would even earn my respect.

Dias wasn’t in today. He’d probably gone out for a walk about the town. I would have to listen to what was bothering this poor guard.

“What happened?”

“Th-the prisoner has escaped!”

“Prisoner? Do you mean Solus?”

“Yes!”

Solus. The traitorous adventurer. After the Guildmaster was through with him, he gave us a lot of information. Solus didn’t act alone—he was taking orders from someone else. He hadn’t mentioned names yet, but we knew what this mastermind wanted.

Money was not their endgame. Instead, they were targeting parties in possession of powerful magic swords. Solus didn’t know what his boss wanted to do with them, but those were his orders.

He was also instructed to collect the venom sacs of the Mimic Venomcrawler and Pandemic Leech. The materials were fragile and difficult to acquire—harvesting them incorrectly would ruin them. Moreover, the Pandemic Leech was an elusive creature only spotted a few times over the course of an entire year. It wasn’t something you hunted on a casual trip to the dungeon, and adventurers would gather up every bit of information they could about the leech before seeking it.

The rare materials it yielded could easily net over two million Gold. The creature was a D-Threat, however, and its deadly venom and special abilities were too dangerous to risk getting hit. Even if you spotted the thing, most adventurers would rather sell this information than go after it. Even I would need to be fully prepared.

Solus was tasked with gathering as much information as he could. In the event his party took down a Pandemic Leech, he would kill the other members and steal the creature’s materials for his own ends. He also targeted parties that had the special potions you needed to hunt them, and stole the potions instead. Sometimes, he would get his lackeys to do the dirty work for him.

Every part of the Pandemic Leech could be used to make illegal drugs. Trade of the materials was highly regulated by the Adventurer’s Guild. The guild cards registered at the dungeon entrance logged everything a party killed—a Pandemic Leech would stick out like a sore thumb. You had to hand over your materials to the guard post at the entrance too. While there was always the possibility of not getting anything from a leech, saying so would put you under close scrutiny. Solus and his crew wouldn’t want to pay that price.

So Solus killed the party he was infiltrating, took the venom sac, then passed it off to his cronies in the dungeon to smuggle out. As the sole survivor, Solus would then give up the remaining leech parts to the guard post. The venom sac was the only thing his crew needed.

While most people would suspect foul play, Solus’s Coercive Influence made sure it never happened. He got friendly with the guards, and they never asked him twice about his fallen comrades. The guards had their own schedules, too, so he never ran into the same guard twice. Knowing Solus, he probably took their schedule into account when going on his raids.

Good thing Fran had taken him off the streets. But now…

“How exactly did Solus escape? He’s missing an arm and a leg. Literally. Did he have help?”

“We don’t know how he did it, ma’am! The only thing for sure is that someone broke into the eastern prison and massacred everyone…!”

“Damn it! Any leads?”

“The entire guard is looking for the suspect as we speak!”

“All right! I’ll ask the adventurers for help.”

We’d have to put a delicious bounty on Solus to get everyone nice and motivated. Anyone who complained would get a spanking.

“Thank you, ma’am!”

“Have you sealed off the gates?”

“We’ve placed blockades on all of them!”

“Then I’ll tell our adventurers to look in the city!”

“One more thing, sir. Do you know of a girl called Fran?”

“Frannie? What happened to her?”

“We were helping some dying adventurers in town and they said the one who attacked them was looking for an adventurer named Fran.”

“Did Solus attack them?”

“We can’t be sure… The victims didn’t know who it was. All we know is that whoever did it wasn’t missing any limbs.”

“Ugh! What is going on in this city!”

And where had the Guildmaster gone?!

I should check out the prison cells. I might find a clue there!