Skeleton Knight, in Another World (LN) - Volume 10 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

A Professional Mercenary…Take Two

THE FOREST WAS FILLED with trees that shot straight up into the sky. So massive were their trunks that it would take at least a dozen people holding hands to encircle them entirely, and you’d have to crane your neck painfully just to see their tops. Each of these massive towers was topped with large branches and leaves that almost entirely blotted out the sky. Monsters roamed free in the silent underbrush of the forest, making for an environment wholly uninviting to intruders.

This forest, located in the southeast of the northern continent, was known as the Great Canada Forest. While it kept most people out, further in its depths existed numerous villages created by the elves, a race driven into the forests by human persecution. This was now what the majority of elves located on the northern continent called home.

Lalatoya was one such village located within the Great Canada Forest. The elves there lived in a collection of dwellings located behind a massive, undulating wall of wooden pillars, placed there to keep away the dangerous monsters inhabiting the forest. Lalatoya’s village elder lived in a mysterious dwelling—a tree that was massive in its own right, though not quite as large as the giants that stood tall in the forest. The house, which was a fusion of nature and artifice, consisting of a mixture of real trees and elf-made structures, would have looked nothing short of bizarre to any human. But under the flitters of light that made their way through the expansive leaf cover, it was like something straight out of a fairytale.

Despite the early hour and the mists still hanging low on the forest floor, a figure that stood over two meters in height was bustling away in one of the rooms inside.

This immense figure was outfitted from head to toe in full plate armor with white and blue etchings. His fluttering cloak was so dark it looked like it had been ripped straight out of the night sky. On his back was a round shield carved with intricate runes, and a massive, glowing blade nearly as tall as him was strapped to his back.

Resting atop the knight’s armor was no human head, however, but a porcelain white skull. Deep in the inky blackness of his eye cavities was a flittering blue flame that hinted at a soul.

Though it had been a while since I came to this world, and I felt I’d mostly gotten used to my appearance, I still sometimes suffered quite a shock when catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Figuring I could give someone quite a fright if they unwittingly entered the room and spied me, I took my extravagant helmet—made of glimmering silver—from the desk in both hands and placed it atop my head, making slight adjustments as I went. This should cover me up. 

After checking the fit, I mumbled absently to myself, “That should take care of that.”

Almost as if summoned by my words, I saw a fuzzy shape moving out of my peripheral vision.

“Kyii!”

A small, green-furred animal let out an adorable cry that echoed throughout the room. Standing at about 60 centimeters—half of which was its long, cotton-like tail—it looked like a cross between a Japanese flying squirrel and a fox, but had a thin membrane that ran between its front and hind legs. It tilted its head up and I focused my gaze right on its large, round eyes.

“I see you’re awake, Ponta?”

“Kyii!”

Ponta, as I’d named it, was an incredibly rare breed known in this world as a spirit animal, able to utilize the magical powers of the spirit residing within it. I saved Ponta from some bandits who had injured and captured it in the hopes of selling it, and we’d been together ever since, like traveling companions on a great journey together.

Ponta smiled and rubbed its head back against my palm as I gently stroked the soft, green fur atop its head. We were headed somewhere incredibly dangerous today, but it was clear from the way Ponta was acting that it fully intended to come along.

“I guess you want to join me, huh?”

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

Of course, it would be much safer to stay here in the elven village. But before I could even get the words out, Ponta let out a loud mew and summoned up a magical breeze around itself, as if to shoot my suggestion down. The thin curtains at the window fluttered in the wind created by Ponta’s magic as the fox caught the gust against the membrane between its limbs and deftly rose into the air. Ponta glided easily around the small room before landing atop my helmet and grabbing on tight to secure its position.

“Kyii!”

It didn’t seem like it was willing to give in. I reached back and stroked the long tail running down the back of my head with a finger, letting out a sigh, before turning my attention to an item laying haphazardly atop the desk at the periphery of my vision.

It was a crystal-like jewel about the size of a baby’s fist, marked by several intricate magical runes etched deep within it that each emitted a faint light. This item, once believed to have been in the possession of the leader of the Hilk religion, Pontiff Thanatos, and the bizarre monsters working under him—his cardinals—was known as a transportation stone, a magical implement possessing the power of teleportation magic.

However, this teleportation magic could only be used once. While I’d had an elf who specialized in magical artifacts inspect the item for me, they were unable to determine where it would teleport its user, and I hadn’t risked using it yet. However, considering that I could use teleportation magic on my own without needing to rely on any magical items, I’d been asked to see where the teleportation stone would take me, since I could easily return regardless of where I ended up.

In total, there were seven Cardinals serving under Pontiff Thanatos. As far as I could tell, I had only taken out five. The other two had managed to elude us since the assault on the Hilk Kingdom, and this teleportation stone was likely the only clue we had to their whereabouts. Though they usually maintained their human forms when in the cities, it was troubling to know that these creatures—which could transform into monsters that could wipe out entire armies on a whim—were lurking somewhere out there. Normal humans would stand no chance against them.

That was why I was going to use this transportation stone to try to follow the cardinals’ trail. If I was successful, and had a chance to wipe them out, I would destroy the cardinals before they could come back for us.

Of course, the world was a vast, vast place and the odds of everything going as planned were low.

I slid the transportation stone into the item pouch hanging from my waist. With my preparations complete, I took one last look around the room to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything before sliding silently out the door and into the hallway. I walked slowly and steadily, trying to avoid making a sound, but suddenly heard a voice call out to me from behind.

“And where do you think you’re going this early in the morning, Arc?”

Unconsciously perking up at the sound of my name, I quickly turned to see two people standing there behind me.

One of the figures was that of a female dark elf, daughter to Lalatoya’s village elder. She wore her long, snow-white hair—a mark of the dark elves—in a ponytail from under which her pointed ears peeked, and her skin had a nearly translucent amethyst hue to it, though much of her supple limbs were covered by a robe marked by an elven crest. She fixed me with an unimpressed golden gaze. 

I looked her up and down as I spoke. “Oh, uh, Ariane. Wh-why are you all dressed up like that?”

The dark elven warrior’s gaze hardened slightly in response to my reaction, almost as if she could sense my surprised expression through my helmet. She usually wore the light traditional elven garments when out and about in the village, but today, there was a charcoal-gray cloak draped over her shoulders and a longsword engraved with lions at her waist. It was clear that she, like myself, was dressed for going on a journey.

A teasing smile rolled across her lips as she picked up on what I was thinking.

“You were thinking you’d just go investigate the transportation stone on your own, weren’t you?”

My voice rose slightly in surprise at that. “You saw right through me?”

She was right. Since I only intended to see where the transportation stone took me and gather some information, I’d figured I could do it alone, planning to slip out on my own first thing in the morning. Dillan, the village elder, had come directly to me with this task. I saw no reason to go out of my way to recruit people to accompany me.

Next to speak was the petite young girl standing at Ariane’s side. “Do you know how to use the transportation stone, Arc?”

The young girl was dressed in all-black ninja attire with gauntlets on her arms, a dagger at her waist, and a dull gray metal band around her forehead. Two black, furry cat ears sat atop her head and a long tail wagged back and forth from her waist. She was one of the cat people who lived in the mountains. More specifically, she was a member of the ninja group known as the Jinshin clan, comprising six of the most elite warriors and renowned for their skills.

I shot a glance toward the item pouch dangling from my waist, where the transportation stone resided and suddenly realized that no one had taught me how to use it.

“Now that you mention it, Chiyome, I hadn’t actually asked.”

I absentmindedly scratched my head and chuckled slightly. Chiyome looked over at me and her usually stoic face softened slightly.

The stone looked like little more than a decorative jewel, after all, and I couldn’t find anything on it that looked like a switch. The magical items used in this world, imbued with inexplicable power, were completely unlike anything from the science-based society I had lived in until recently. When playing a game, I would just select an item and execute the Use command. Unfortunately, the real world provided thousands upon thousands of different ways to actually utilize any given item or object.

I let out a sigh and looked at the two figures joining me in the hallway. “I have no idea where this will take me, so I thought that I would scout ahead on my own.”

Ponta propped itself up atop my head as I shrugged my shoulders. “Kyii!”

It was like it was trying to insist that I wasn’t alone. While I reached up to stroke Ponta’s tail, Ariane and Chiyome shot me exasperated glances. Ariane leaned in closer as she began to press her point.

“Listen, Arc, you’re already a member of this village. So stop acting so aloof. Finding the Cardinals isn’t just important for all of Canada’s sake, but also for the mountain people and even some of the human kingdoms. Of course we’re going with you.”

Chiyome nodded emphatically at Ariane’s statement. Her blue eyes narrowed slightly.

“Besides, if we’re going to investigate the place it takes us to, I’ll be a great help. You’ve done a lot for my people, Arc. Hanzo would almost certainly not want me to stand by if I could be of some use.”

My chances of making a quiet exit were looking low. Under normal circumstances, it would have been best to leave these two behind in light of the dangers of teleporting to an unknown place, but these women were quite powerful… Far more than me, even. While I relied on status buffs to attack with raw power, these two were something else entirely in terms of their immense skill sets. So much so, in fact, that it was absurd for me to worry about them. What was more, considering all the adventures the three of us (and our spirit animal companion) had been on, it was clear we’d be a lot stronger together than if I traveled alone.

Ariane backed up what Chiyome had said. “Besides, I’d be overwhelmed with worry if we sent you and Ponta off to conduct this investigation alone.”

With a sigh, she narrowed her golden eyes and fixed them on me. Judging by the way she was looking at me, I had a hard time believing she was worried for my well being.

Ah well. Given all the trouble I’d managed to get myself into since coming to this world, she probably had misgivings about all the trouble I might go on to cause. Of course, I’d already accepted that that was probably unavoidable, considering the unique nature of the task at hand.

“Well, personally, I’d find it reassuring to have you two along. Perhaps we should speak with Dillan to get his permission.”

Once I finished speaking, Ariane quickly averted her gaze to look over my shoulder at something behind me. Following her gaze, I found a dark elf woman standing behind me with her arms crossed.

“So it’s decided? In that case, you best eat a hearty breakfast and then get on your way.”

The gently smiling woman dressed in traditional elven attire looked barely older than Ariane, though this was due to the fact that elves aged very slowly. Her name was Glenys: wife to elder Dillan and Ariane’s mother. Under that warm, inviting exterior was a master swordsman and Ariane’s teacher. She was so skilled that neither Ariane nor Chiyome stood a chance against her, and truth be told, neither did I.

Glenys shot a cheerful glance in my direction, almost as if she had picked up on what I was thinking. I immediately tensed up under her gaze. She had been helping me practice swordplay whenever we had a free moment, but a side effect of constantly being on the receiving end of her fierce assaults was that my body reflexively grew tense when she was around. 

According to Ariane, this conditioned reflex, built up through battle, was a good indication that the training was working. If that were true, it meant all the intense, muddy training sessions we’d gone through were paying off.

I turned to Glenys and bowed my head slightly.

“Good morning, Glenys. I think I would like to take you up on your kind offer and have some breakfast before heading out. I take it you’ve already eaten, Ariane?”

“Kyii!”

Ponta’s tail wagged excitedly from its perch atop my helmet, seeming set off by the mention of breakfast, as I glanced at Ariane and Chiyome.

“Not yet. We were busy getting our things ready.”

Ariane clenched her jaw to fight a yawn and stretched her limbs as she made her way toward the dining room downstairs. Chiyome followed immediately behind her.

I’d initially planned to skip breakfast so I could slip out unnoticed, but I had to concede that Glenys was right and that it would be better to start the journey on a full stomach and in good health. As I made my way downstairs, the delicious scent of bread grew ever stronger, making me forget for a moment that the skeletal body beneath my armor lacked a stomach. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation.

First things first—let’s eat up.

***

After eating and making our way out of the house, we found that the early morning mist had burned away and the village was brilliantly illuminated by the slivers of light that made their way through the foliage. I glanced up at the white clouds being carried by the gentle breeze across the sky.

“I guess we took a bit too long to eat, huh.”

Ariane, her charcoal-gray hood pulled down over her head to conceal her elven ears and amethyst skin, narrowed her eyebrows. “What does it matter? Our investigation is just starting. We need to use that transportation stone and see where it leads us if we want to chase down the Cardinal. Until we do that, we can’t even start planning.”

Chiyome, a hat pulled down low to cover her cat ears and her tail well hidden, nodded in agreement. “She’s right. We need to find out where it takes us, and then find a distinct location so you can use your teleportation magic to teleport us back there any time.”

“I guess so.”

I nodded slowly as the conversation we’d had over breakfast suddenly came back to my mind. It was just a theory, but if we assumed these transportation stones were meant to be used by the Cardinals to make a sudden escape, they likely led to a human settlement. Though they were in fact disturbing creatures, the Cardinals could assume the form of humans. A human city would provide the best opportunity for them to use this ability to hide themselves.

After all, there was no place better than a forest to hide a tree.

However, though they could change their appearance, they could only fool the human eye. The Cardinals were all undead created at the will of Pontiff Thanatos, the ruler of the Holy Hilk Kingdom. Though they might look like normal humans, the elves could still see the contamination of death upon them, while the mountain people, using their acute olfactory senses, could smell the scent of death emanating from them.

All of this meant that the Cardinals would probably limit their escape routes to towns that were populated by humans and didn’t see much traffic from other species like Ariane and Chiyome. In fact, perhaps to conceal the true identities of the Cardinals, Pontiff Thanatos proselytized all of the kingdoms surrounding the Holy Hilk Kingdom, making it law and doctrine to expel all the elves and mountain people from their territories. Anyone who could see through the Pontiff’s undead charges’ disguise was a nuisance.

However, this meant there was a definite risk of the dark elf Ariane and the cat girl Chiyome sticking out or even being put on the slave auction block if we did end up traveling to such human settlements. Prey could easily escape its hunters if those hunters stood out like a sore thumb themselves, which was why my comrades were dressed as they were.

Another entirely different possibility was that we would be teleported to a safe house far from any other settlements—a natural construction somewhere deep in a forest or cave, or maybe a hut built far from prying eyes in the mountains. If we were lucky, we might just run into the Cardinal who’d teleported there. If we weren’t, however, it would be difficult to find a unique landmark to use as our starting point. 

Out here in this vast world with neither GPS nor a proper map, we had no way of knowing where we were without a landmark. I needed a point of reference to use my teleportation magic to get to a place, and in areas where everything looked the same—like forests or caves—it was hard to maintain a distinct and usable image for my magic to focus on. If that happened, Ariane and Chiyome would prove invaluable partners not just for their fighting prowess, but because they’d spent their lives living in forests and mountains.

I’d only really thought about this task on a surface level. It wasn’t until we started talking about our plan over breakfast that I truly realized just how difficult it would have been to complete on my own.

If I did ultimately end up in a place like the latter option, it would be pretty tough for a person with a poor sense of direction, such as myself, to find my way back there a second time after using my teleportation magic to return to the village. Considering that Ariane and Chiyome weren’t just better fighters than me but also far more gifted at conducting searches, I was pretty much relegated to the role of casting somewhat useful magic spells. It was a little depressing, really.

Sensing the dejected slump in my shoulders, Ponta craned down from its perch atop my helmet to peer at me through the gap, its head cocked curiously to the side.

“Kyii?”

“Nah, it’s nothing.”

With a shake of my head, I straightened up and looked around at my surroundings.

We were in the garden behind the house, where I usually trained with Glenys. We’d decided to use the transportation stone here in the hopes that no one else would get pulled in along with us. A man and a woman—Glenys and her husband and village elder, Dillan—stood off in a corner of the garden, watching over us. Unlike his dark elf wife, Dillan was a normal elf. He had nearly translucent white skin, green-streaked golden hair, and long pointed ears.

I bowed slightly toward the two, who had come to see us off, before pulling the transportation stone out of my pouch and rolling it around in the palm of my hand. The runes etched deep in its core reflected the rays of light cascading through the trees above.

“I guess it’s time we get going.”

I glanced to my sides where Ariane and Chiyome were waiting, packed and ready to go. They simply nodded in silent agreement.

Dillan had previously taught me how to use this magical item. I slowly let out my breath, squeezed the stone in my hand, and slammed it into the ground. A loud, crisp crack resounded from the transportation stone before it shattered, its shards spreading out over the ground.

It was a pretty violent way to do things, but the moment it hit the ground, the magical runes etched within the stone began to glow. The light spread to the ground below, then extended in rays toward the sky.

“Wow…”

“Looks like it worked.”

“The area of effect isn’t as large as I thought it’d be.”

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

I was at a loss for words as I gazed at the effect, which differed slightly from my own teleportation magic. Ariane and Chiyome’s eyes were wide, and Ponta excitedly leaned forward from atop my helmet.

Everything around us went black. The next instant, we were suddenly overtaken by the dizzying feeling of flowing through thin air as the world around us changed.

***

“Where are…?”

I brought a hand to my head to steady myself as I glanced around, trying to get a sense of our surroundings. We were in some kind of old, rundown estate…or at least, that was the best way I could describe it. 

But that wasn’t quite right. This was hardly the massive, well-furnished mansion of nobility. Judging by size alone, it looked like it belonged to a well-to-do merchant, even though the building hadn’t been used for quite some time. There was little in the way of furniture, and the floor was covered in a thin layer of white dust. It wasn’t in enough disrepair to look abandoned, but it did look like it’d been untouched for a year, maybe two.

I was just glad we hadn’t ended up in a den of undead, all under the control of the Cardinal.

“It looks like some kind of mansion.” Ariane glanced around at our surroundings and put to words what I had been thinking.

“Kyii.”

Ponta dove off from my helmet and easily glided over to a nearby table where it walked around in circles, leaving clear pawprints in its wake. It cocked its head to the side in wonder.

“Judging by the state of neglect, this probably isn’t where they escaped to. There may be several transportation stones which teleport you to one of any number of hideouts that the Cardinals may have gone to.”

Ariane nodded in agreement to my assessment and furrowed her brow. “That definitely seems possible. In that case, we’re back at square one in our hunt for the Cardinals.”

As she spoke, she shot a glance over toward Chiyome, who was known for her ability to gather information. The young cat girl was already leaning down toward the ground, seemingly about to lick the floor.

“Did you find something?”

Chiyome did not reply to my question, only throwing her hand up to keep me from interrupting her before she looked up and cast her attentive gaze back and forth. I smiled slightly in spite of myself as I saw the top of her hat, pulled down low over her head, twitch and undulate as her ears moved about frantically beneath it.

In stark contrast to my rather casual demeanor, Chiyome finally stood up after a few months and fixed me with her azure gaze.

“You were right, Arc. This place hasn’t been used for some time… but that doesn’t mean no one’s been here.”

She pointed toward the center of the room. Specifically, at a footprint.

“It looks like they were treading lightly, but you can still make out the footprint. Judging by the print, it looks like the person is lightweight and was either walking on the tips of their toes or wearing high heels.”

She raised her finger as she spoke, tracing a line in the air from the footprint toward the nearby window.

“This person made their way from here to the window, and from there, to the door on the opposite side of the room.”

I opened my eyes wide and gazed at the floor, but I still couldn’t make out anything. The dust at the center of the room was much thinner than toward the edges, making it nearly impossible for a novice like myself to make out any footprints.

Ariane also knelt down and gazed at the route pointed out by Chiyome before, a moment later, gasping in surprise. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

“Good job, Chiyome. You’re right. I can see it now that I looked closely. It’s like following monster tracks in the forest.”

As a warrior, Ariane was charged with hunting monsters in the great forest—a task which made her quite good at tracking both monsters and animals. However, following human footprints on hard stone and wooden flooring was apparently much harder than it appeared.

“Unfortunately, I have no idea what we’re looking at.”

I slumped my shoulders and looked up at the ceiling in a sign of surrender.

I could only just make out the faintest hint of what could be footprints at the edge of the room near the window, and that was if someone pointed it out. As only the tip of the foot left any impression in the dust, we were likely looking at the footprints of a woman wearing heels. I had to admire Chiyome’s investigative and reasoning abilities. As far as I was concerned, her skills were nothing short of magic. If she ever wanted to give up on being a ninja, she could definitely make a living as a private investigator.

“…So it looks like this building is in a human settlement of some sort.”

Ariane leaned in toward the window and glanced outside, pulling the hood of her charcoal-colored cloak even lower over her head to hide her elven features. I followed suit and made my way over to the window for a peek outside.

On the other side of the glass, fixed in place within a beautiful frame, was an unkempt garden, and beyond that, a large brick wall that stood about as tall as the building itself, with a neighboring mansion visible just beyond the wall. Judging by the height of the wall, the other mansion must be around two stories, with an attic built into the roof. The pillars and windows were all intricately decorated.

I could see other, similar mansions further in the distance, suggesting that we were in a relatively well-to-do region and thus were in a rather large city.

“I don’t know what country we’re in, but we’re definitely in a relatively large city.”

I turned back toward the room just in time to see Chiyome open the door and peer out into the hallway.

“Well, it looks like they made their way straight toward the front door.”

With that, she stepped out of the room and disappeared into the hallway, following the footprints. After watching her leave, I started walking around the room, placing my feet carefully as I looked around. I peered into the cabinets on the walls, which appeared to be empty.

“Kyii!”

Ponta glided into the empty cabinet and began sniffing around. I shut the door on my furry companion, eliciting a series of angry mews in response.

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

Chuckling to myself, I opened and closed the door several more times before I felt someone gently smack the back of my head.

“Cut it out, Arc. Why are you playing with Ponta?”

“Kyiiii!”

Glancing back, I noticed Ariane had her brow furrowed and a rather annoyed look on her face.

“Ah, uh, no… it’s just that there’s nothing for me to do.”

Her golden eyes narrowed at my response. “Chiyome’s finding out where the footprints lead, so you and I should see if we can find any leads in some of the other rooms. And Ponta too, of course.”

“Kyii!”

Ariane reached into the cabinet and pulled Ponta close to her chest before heading out the door Chiyome had left through only moments ago. I followed quickly behind.

“Let’s start with the room next door.”

Her expression suddenly went calm and unreadable as she clasped the door handle, probably trying to get a sense for the room beyond. Sometimes she would look like that when we were training together—an expression I’d learned meant that she was focusing on her senses.

She finally pushed the door open and looked inside.

“An…open hall?”

“Kyii.”

Having apparently judged there to be no danger, she carried Ponta with her into the room, though there was something perplexing about her voice. Stepping into the room after her, I also witnessed the bizarre sight ahead.

The room was vast, at least twice the size of the one we’d just left, with open walkways on the second floor running along either side of the room overlooking the first, giving a full view of everything down below. The pillars on the first floor that supported the hallway were all etched with intricate markings.

Unlike the wooden floors in the room we’d left behind, the flooring here was a beautiful tiled mosaic, giving the impression of a large dance hall. That alone was enough to make the room feel luxurious, but there were several things that caught my eye and ruined the image of a beautiful dance hall.

“Cages…or, rather, prison cells?”

Ariane furrowed her brow and cocked her head to the side.

“Hmm, hard to say.”

The room was filled with wooden cages, approximately two-meter cubes that, in spite of their wooden construction, were made of reinforced, interlocking beams and outfitted with metal locks. There looked to be about six in total, the sheer size of them making the vast room feel a lot smaller than it was.

I wondered if the owner of the mansion kept pets as I knocked lightly on the cages. They seemed well built and still new.

“The way this place has been neglected doesn’t line up with the age of these cages. It seems like they’re a recent addition.”

Ariane inspected the cages closely. She seemed to be of the same mind.

“You’re right, it sure looks that way.”

I nodded along in agreement as I reached down to touch the cage’s lock. It wouldn’t open, apparently already in the locked position. There didn’t appear to be any keys nearby.

Suddenly, something at the edge of my vision caught my attention. I turned to get a better look.

One of the wooden bars fitted into the cage had a peculiar mark burnt into it. The mark itself was a fairly simple geometrical pattern and didn’t look like a family crest or something which would be used to mark the owner’s property. It was no design I’d ever seen before, so perhaps it was the mark of the craftsman who made it?

I decided to ask Ariane about it, though she merely shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve never seen it before, either.”

That was about all the information we had, then.

“Hmm, assuming this was one of the Cardinals’ hideouts, I can’t imagine these were used for anything good. What should we do? Break them?”

Ariane pursed her lips for a moment before finally shaking her head.

“It’s best we try not to alert anyone to our presence. It doesn’t look like there’s anything else in here, so let’s check elsewhere.”

I nodded in agreement, and we made our way in the opposite direction from where Chiyome had gone down the hallway, toward the kitchen. However, this room was, much like the first one we appeared in, completely empty, with the exception of some stocked food and some firewood left in the pantry. Nothing stood out as particularly suspicious.

Absent anything of interest, we left the kitchen behind and returned to the entrance where Chiyome was still looking around.

“The person whose steps I’ve been following made their way straight to the entrance. I can’t follow their trail any further than that, since many people were coming in and out of the room, but I’m pretty sure they went outside.”

After Chiyome’s report, Ariane told her about the wooden cages we found. Chiyome furrowed her brow at that, said she was going to take a look herself, and hurried off to the hall.

I watched her back for a moment before turning my gaze up to the ceiling.

“I guess we can leave that to Chiyome while we check out the second floor.”

“You’re right.”

We made our way up to the second floor together, only to find it even more empty than the first, with only a few vacant rooms. Empty-handed, we made our way downstairs and found Chiyome, a look of consternation on her face after having left the cells behind.

“Ariane and I checked out the second floor, but there was nothing of note there. Did you pick up anything new from the hall?”

Chiyome shook her head and frowned.

“No, not really. Some people brought the materials for those cages in and assembled them onsite, but that’s about it. I figure all the people coming in and out were probably related to that.”

That made sense. The cages were two-meter cubes; there was no way they could have gotten them in as they were. The doorway may have been tall enough, but it definitely wasn’t wide enough.

Ariane agreed with Chiyome’s assessment and supplemented it with her own impressions. “It also seems like the cages haven’t been used yet but are meant for something in the future.”

“Hmm, so if we assume this is the Cardinals’ hideout and that they recently brought some things here, it should mean they may show up again?”

Judging by what they were saying, and the state of the building, I figured the odds of this were high, but neither Ariane nor Chiyome seemed convinced.

Chiyome was the first to express her doubts. “Hmm, I wonder. If that transportation stone was a sort of magical emergency escape tool, would you really use this place as your hideout?”

Ariane crossed her arms and agreed with Chiyome. “Right. If we assume this was meant to help them escape, then it might be best to think of this building as an exit point. In that case, I doubt someone on the run would stay here forever.”

I tilted my head to the side at this. What they were saying made sense—it was pretty common for important figures to flee their protective castles as they fell to an assault, using preprepared escape routes to make it to safety. In fact, I’d seen such an escape route myself since coming here. So if we considered the transportation stone the entrance to such an escape route, hidden by the church, then this building would be the exit. Lingering here after teleporting away would do them little good. It seemed plausible that the real hideout was somewhere else.

But this was all nothing more than guesswork.

“I’m curious about all the people coming and going from here, but I doubt speculating will get us anywhere. I guess we should go check out the town?”

I looked at Ariane and Chiyome in turn. They both appeared to be in agreement.

Chiyome clarified our first objective. “First, we need to figure out where we are.”

“Considering what I could see from the second-floor window, the city is pretty big. There’s no way we’ll be done searching in a day or two. That means we’ll be using this building as our base of operations, so we need to find some kind of marker inside to teleport back to.”

I pulled my sketchbook of transportation points out of my bag as I spoke. I used it to sketch images of the points necessary for my long-distance teleportation magic, to help me clearly visualize them in my mind. In a world like this, without the convenience of photography, it was easy for my memories of specific locations to get hazy if I didn’t commit them to paper. This would be no problem if I had a great memory, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

I was looking around for a unique room or something else to sketch when Chiyome suddenly raised her hand.

“If we’re going to use this mansion as our teleportation point, we should probably choose a room on the second floor and avoid the first, since there are so many people coming through. There’s a chance we could accidentally run into someone when we teleport here.”

She was right. Ariane nodded in agreement with Chiyome’s assessment.

“It’s likely anyone using this place would avoid coming here in the daytime, but just in case. We can’t overlook the fact that it might be the owner who’s been visiting.”

In that case, I’d want to find a place in one of the rooms on the second floor to teleport to. But as we’d already seen, there was nothing particularly memorable up there, so it would probably be best to draw the scene from one of the windows up on the second floor.

“You’re right. All right, I’ll get to work up on the second floor. I should be done in about an hour.”

Ariane nodded in agreement and cast a gaze toward Chiyome.

“Chiyome and I will take another look around the mansion. Ponta can come too.”

“Kyii!”

With our respective tasks chosen, I made my way to the second floor while Ariane and the others made their rounds downstairs.

All right, time to practice my art.

***

“We’re about ready to go, Arc. How’s it going with you?”

“Kyii!”

Ariane and Ponta popped into the corner room on the second floor where I was busily sketching away. Raising my eyes from the sketchbook, I looked around the room and compared it to what I had on paper. Figuring it was enough to help refresh my memory, I closed the sketchbook, slid it into my bag, and turned my attention to Ariane, asking how their search had gone.

“Just finished. Did you find anything new?”

Ariane shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Chiyome found an attic, but nothing really noteworthy.”

Nothing, huh? I felt a small wave of regret wash over me as I considered how the attic would probably have made a better teleportation point. Alas, I wasn’t about to make them wait another hour.

“Shall we get going, then?”

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I took a few steps before Ponta dashed away from Ariane and deftly climbed my body to its rightful perch atop my head.

Chiyome was already at the entrance waiting for us when Ariane and I arrived. With her hat pulled down low over her head and ninja attire hidden underneath her cloak, she looked like a normal little girl off on a trip. After acknowledging our presence, she deftly opened the door with one hand.

“Judging by the mansion and surrounding area, a lot of rich people live here. Unfortunately, the two of you look distinctly like mercenaries and stick out like sore thumbs, so we should head downtown to start.”

I nodded in agreement, though I was left with one niggling question. “Do you know the layout of this city, Chiyome?”

I’d gotten a sense of the area thanks to the view from the second-floor window, but since all the surrounding buildings were around the same height, it was impossible to get a good look at where downtown might even be. Perhaps she’d realized while looking around that she’d been here before?

“No, I slipped out a window in the attic and onto the roof, and climbed one of the spires to get a better look at our surroundings. As far as I can recall, I’ve never been here before.”

Well, that was certainly a ninja-like solution. I was impressed by her ability to get the lay of the land. It brought to mind a foreign game I’d played in the past that used a similar method for filling out your map. Of course, if I—a man outfitted in hulking armor—were to try the same and climb a building’s spire, I’d undoubtedly draw a lot of attention. No, sneaking around without being detected was Chiyome’s domain.

“This way.”

Chiyome led the way, sneaking out the front door and into the unkempt yard. Considering the size of the mansion, the yard itself was rather small, marked mainly by a waist-high brick flowerbed running along the wall surrounding the estate, though it was now filled with nothing but wild weeds.

There were two massive wooden doors marking the front entrance to the estate, though Chiyome steered clear of them and headed instead toward what looked like a staff entrance. Unlike the main entrance, the staff entrance was only about as high as Chiyome was tall—meaning Ariane and I would need to crouch down if we ever hoped to get through.

“We can’t go through there?”

I gestured toward the large doors of the main entrance, but Chiyome merely shook her head.

“Those are held closed with a locked chain wrapped around the handles from the outside. This staff entrance has only a simple lock installed on the outside. Easy to open from this end.”

Apparently, she’d also scouted out the yard while I was upstairs sketching. Since the estate was surrounded by tall, thick walls, Chiyome and Ariane needn’t worry about being seen by passersby while taking a look around the yard. However, I wondered if she’d accounted for the fact that someone on the upper floors of a neighboring building could have looked out and seen them.

Chiyome slid the door open as she spoke.

“We’re lucky that these residences don’t belong to nobility, since they often have guards stationed at the entrances. That’d make moving around during the daytime much more difficult.”

She then deftly slipped outside through the entrance. Ariane followed after her and I dropped down to my hands and knees to crawl through. I had to do a bit of wriggling back and forth just to get my broad, armored shoulders through.

Brushing the dirt off of my cloak, I looked around at the city before us.

“Putting aside how small the entrance is, this will definitely be more convenient for coming and going in and out of the property.”

We emerged onto a wide, semi-busy residential street with large, elegant houses flanking us on both sides. Just as Chiyome had said, I got some glances from the well-dressed carriage drivers riding their finely groomed horses through the streets. They didn’t seem terribly interested in our presence, but considering where we were, it was undeniable that a band of mercenaries and travelers would stand out amidst the servants making their rounds across various estates and the upper crust being carted around in horse-drawn carriages. 

Until we were able to find a new place to teleport into, this mansion would have to serve as our entrance point to the city. Just to be on the safe side, though, it couldn’t hurt to look for another teleportation point while we checked out the city and tried to figure out where we were.

While I was busy pondering these details, Chiyome gently slid a long, thin lock pick into the door’s keyhole and locked it again. She sure was good at what she did. She must be re-locking the door to avoid raising the suspicions of anyone who came in after us. If I’d come out here alone, I would have undoubtedly left the lock wide open.

“Where do we go next?”

Ariane rose from a crouch and stretched to her full height, looking up and down the road before glancing back down at Chiyome. The younger girl responded with a nod.

“We’ll go west from here. Follow me.”

With that, she took the lead.

***

Strange as it might seem for mercenaries to be in such a wealthy part of town, I spotted other mercenary-looking types going in and out of mansions. Perhaps we didn’t stick out quite as much as I’d thought. Mercenaries worked for money, after all. It was inevitably the rich who hired them for their services, meaning there might actually be quite a few mercenaries coming to visit this part of town.

We walked through this unknown city for some time before our surroundings began to change. The number of pedestrians increased and, with them, so did the bustle around us. What was once mostly large, stone houses with wide gardens gave way to cramped houses practically built one on top of another. The building material of choice for first floors was stone while second floors were mostly made of wood, giving a very ‘commoner’ feel to this part of the city.

The types of people we encountered also changed, now including local residents, merchants leading horse-drawn carts, and even groups of mercenaries talking among themselves off in the corner. City guards fixed the mercenaries with angry glares, while street performers dressed in vibrant costumes performed their feats.

The sheer variety of people here was quite different from what you’d see in the elven villages. While I liked the clean and peaceful life the elves lived, there was also something nostalgic about this kind of city life, considering I’d grown up in a bustling city in modern society. 

That said, this was a human city, which meant Ariane had to be careful to keep her cloak pulled tight to conceal her identity. What was more, she was quite a beauty in her own right, so just one look at her face could turn any of the uncouth men around us into the big bad wolf on the hunt. But even without getting a look at her face, the gentle undulations of her chest protruding through the cloak were enough to incite lewd looks and catcalls from the men. Just walking through the crowd and fixing them all with a steely glare was growing tiring.

Alas, we had other tasks to attend to.

I stopped and rolled my shoulders back and forth to loosen them up.

“This is a good time to start our investigation, now that we’re in a different part of town.”

Chiyome stopped, glanced around, and nodded.

“You’re probably right. I noticed a lot of signs of the empire while we were walking, though I can’t say if this city belongs to the eastern or western empire.”

She glanced at a nearby building and looked it over before nodding in confirmation. Ariane’s eyes went wide under her cloak, clearly surprised at Chiyome’s assertion.

“Wait, you can tell what country we’re in just by how the buildings look??”

The cause of her surprise was twofold. First was the fact that the elves inhabiting the Great Canada Forest mostly lived in buildings constructed with magic, consisting of an amalgamation of both artificial construction and nature. In that sense, all buildings differed in completely natural ways. However, their basic shapes were nearly identical and uniform from village to village, making it a refreshingly eye-opening experience to her that each country would have its own construction methods and building designs.

I doubted this knowledge gap caused the elves much issue. Though they may have once lived all across the continent, they’d ultimately congregated in the Great Canada Forest after years of persecution at human hands, causing their diverse cultures to merge into one unified elven culture.

The second reason for Ariane’s surprise was that all these human cities looked nearly identical to her, leading her to overlook the small design differences. The fact that Chiyome could put together a theory based on those differences alone was a testament to the impressive breadth of her knowledge—something that even most humans probably didn’t know. 

I could distinguish stone from wood, but the methods used in their construction and the nature of the designs were far beyond my expertise. Architectural styles varied with geography, cultural customs, and even the building’s history. It wasn’t just the type of stone that differed, but also how they were shaped and stacked.

In a sense, you could get a glimpse of the city’s history by looking at how its architecture transitioned from one end to the other. Its rise and fall from rags to riches were mapped on the changes within it.

Chiyome looked a bit perplexed at Ariane’s surprise. She absentmindedly scratched her head. “Well, I don’t really know all the cities throughout the dual empires, so this is just an educated guess. I’m seeing a lot of designs I’ve never come across before.”

She pointed out some buildings as she spoke. Even so, to people as unobservant as Ariane and I, the information her knowledge and keen eye provided us was invaluable.

“No need to be so humble, Chiyome. Ariane and I don’t know much about this kind of stuff, so anything you can tell us is immensely helpful.”

I cast a glance toward Ariane, who raised an eyebrow in response.

“Hey, don’t put us in the same category. I just don’t know a lot about humans, okay? You don’t know much about the world in general. Though I do agree that Chiyome’s a great help.”

That was harsh, but I couldn’t really disagree, since I wasn’t actually from this world and hadn’t even been here all that long. If anything, it was entirely understandable that I didn’t know much about the world.

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

Apparently, Ponta wanted to join in the conversation as well. I reached up to stroke its tail before trying to return to the topic at hand.

“First off, I guess we need the city’s name. Maybe a sign or something like that?” I glanced around, talking mostly to myself.

In a video game, there’d usually be a person standing around at the entrance to the town who’d welcome you and tell you where you were. But the real world wasn’t that convenient. We could just stop someone and ask where we were, but that kind of behavior would easily raise suspicion, not unlike a time traveler demanding to know the date from a passerby in a sci-fi flick.

Other than that, I supposed we could pretend we’d suddenly been struck by amnesia or had a really bad memory. But since we were here trying to hunt down the Cardinals, it would do us no good to draw attention to ourselves.

I puzzled over the problem for a moment, then suddenly felt Ponta move and turned to look in the direction it was pointing in.

“Kyii.”

It was pointing toward a stall parked in the middle of a large clearing. It might have been a food stall—I caught a whiff of a delicious scent—but there was something about Ponta’s response that didn’t seem like it was interested in the food they were selling.

The stall owner was selling skewers of grilled meat, but what drew my eye was the group of kids dressed in filthy rags standing around nearby. The owner was yelling at the kids, trying to shoo them off.

“I don’t need dirty little mooches like you standing around outside my stall! You’re going to drive away the customers. Get outta here!”

However, the kids didn’t move, which only managed to rile the owner up even more. Looking at the expression on his face and the way he crossed his arms, I stepped right into the middle of the encounter.

“You just can’t keep yourself out of trouble, can you Arc?”

I ignored Ariane’s complaint and tried to keep my voice as cheerful as possible as I stepped in between the parties.

“Hey, hey, no need to get so worked up, sir.”

“Huh, wha?!”

The owner was about to turn his anger on me before he got a good look at who he was talking to. A look of shock overtook his face and he tensed up immediately.

“H-hello there, fine sir. I, uh, I just figured that they would be a bother to my other customers.”

He was instantly far more polite. Perhaps my gleaming armor gave him the impression that I was some kind of well-to-do knight? However, he kept glancing between me and Ponta, sitting atop my head. The confused look on his face conveyed his doubt that a knight would walk around with a little critter riding on him.

I ignored his reaction and continued, “I don’t think they’re such a bother. After all, your goods are so enticing that the kids are drawn in. I only came here because I was intrigued to see what would bring all these children here. I wouldn’t dare get rid of the kids. If anything, they’re an advertisement.”

The owner glared at this before quickly hiding his expression. I pulled out a silver coin and flipped it around between my fingers.

“What can I buy with this?”

He squinted at the silver coin I placed in his hand before a massive smile broke out on his face. With a bow of his head, he made his way back to the roasting meat. The children, as well as other passersby making their way through the clearing, watched him with great interest.

The owner might be rude and ill-tempered, but he did seem to be a good cook. He turned the skewers in turn to keep them from burning. Each time a droplet of sauce-drenched fat fell to the fire, a delicious scent exploded into the air.

The owner picked five skewers of meat and handed them over.

“Here you are, my famous grilled boar with sauce.”

I nodded as I accepted them, feeling the children’s eyes following the meat the whole time. I cleared my throat to try to make myself sound as chipper as possible before immediately turning around and raising the sticks of boar meat high up into the air.

“You know, I find myself here in the middle of a great journey, and yet I just so happened to have completely forgotten the name of this city in which I find myself. If only there were someone so kind as to tell me the name of this city…I would gladly reward them.”

I gestured exaggeratedly as I slowly wagged the skewers in my hand back and forth. One child’s hand quickly shot up into the air, and he yelled out.

“Rontestatt, you’re in Rontestatt!”

Realizing what I was getting at, the other children quickly chimed in as well, throwing up their hands and yelling out the same name. It seemed pretty certain that we were in the city of Rontestatt, at least.

“Oh, is that so! My memory’s coming back to me, that’s right…Rontestatt! Thanks, kids. It’s not much, but here’s your reward.”

I brought my hands together in front of my face in a sign of appreciation before exaggeratedly pretending to remember and handing over a skewer to the child who first responded. His eyes went wide at the sight. He gingerly took the skewer from my hand as all the other children shot jealous looks in his direction.

“Ya know, I traveled all the way here… and yet I seem to have forgotten the name of the country I’m in. That’s rough. Just where is this place, anyway?”

The children immediately broke their gaze away from the meat and turned back toward me, hands launching into the air.

“Revlon! You’re in the Revlon Empire!”

“No, stupid, that’s the old name! This is the Great Revlon Empire!”

One after another, the children also gave the same response, making it all but certain this was the Great Revlon Empire. I’d traveled to the eastern empire—the Holy Revlon Empire—in the past, so that would mean that this city resided in their imperial neighbor to the west.

“Huh, it looks like I got my memory back. Here’s a token of my appreciation.”

Just as I had with the first child, I handed each of the children a skewer, which they immediately began to gobble up. There were now two children left and two skewers in my hand. The children looked at me expectantly, awaiting a question. However, no question came to mind. Met with silence, their faces grew sad.

Just then, Ariane offered me a lifeline.

“Hmm, now, could anyone tell me just how far we are from the imperial capital?”

The children initially looked confused at the sudden appearance of the tall woman dressed in a charcoal-gray cloak. They glanced up at her before turning their gaze back to me. I gave a nod, indicating that the question was acceptable to me, though I feared that might be too difficult for them. Based on their attire, it was hard to believe these children went to school or received any form of education. It seemed improbable that they knew much about the world outside the city limits, or even left the city at all.

As expected, the children briefly talked amongst themselves before welling up in tears of frustration at not knowing the answer. Ariane glanced nervously at me, seeking a way out.

Much to my surprise, it was actually the stall owner who came to save the day.

“It’s a four-day journey by carriage off to the east to get to the capital from here. Do you have business in the capital, fine sir?”

The stone-faced stall owner didn’t even look in my direction as he spoke, his attention focused on turning the meat. I had to overcome my desire to laugh at the sight before holding out the remaining two skewers in his direction.

“Ah, thank you, sir. I don’t suppose you’ll take this token of my appreciation?”

He narrowed his brow and offered up a wry smile. “You must be kidding. You can give it to those little runts over there.”

I chuckled at the expected response and handed the skewers to the children. “It looks like the nice stall owner is going to let you have these. Be sure to thank him.”

The children immediately turned toward the man, bowed their heads low, and thanked him. Rather than responding, he merely waved them off, much as he had done earlier before turning to look off into the distance.

“You’re a strange one. Some kind of traveling mercenary, I guess? With fancy armor like that, I’d figure you to be a knight from some noble family or something.”

He fixed his gaze on me.

I chuckled slightly before prompting him to continue. “And what makes you think I’m a traveling mercenary?”

“Well, I mean, you paid me in Rhoden coinage. I was born in a town pretty close to the Rhoden Kingdom, so I’ve seen their coins from time to time, but it’s been quite a while since I saw any so close to the Aspania border. You from Rhoden?”

He spoke in a monotone drawl, seemingly not particularly interested. Judging by how he spoke, Rontestatt must be a fair distance from the Rhoden Kingdom. Since I didn’t detect any suspicion in his tone, I figured there was no need to keep that fact a secret. After glancing at Ariane and Chiyome, and getting affirmative nods from both, I chuckled and continued on.

“Actually, we came here on a job.”

Chiyome spoke up next, fixing the owner with a harsh glare. “Don’t you think you’re overcharging a bit for that meat?”

The man recoiled slightly before shaking his head.

“No, no… I mean, you know how it is?! With all the trouble on the Aspania border, the restrictions on travel have gotten pretty harsh. Everything in the city’s getting more expensive.”

He groaned in annoyance, as if to underscore that it wasn’t his fault. It seemed evident that the city of Rontestatt was in a pretty dire situation with the neighboring country of Aspania. Judging by all the other armored mercenaries dressed similarly to us, he probably assumed we were in the same boat as the others who’d come here seeking work related to the border issues. Fighters for hire suddenly became invaluable the moment trouble broke out. Personally speaking, though, I had no interest in getting involved in petty quibbles between kingdoms.

The stall owner let out a heavy sigh and slumped his shoulders. “Only certain merchants and mercenaries are currently allowed to freely leave the city. I really hope this whole conflict with Aspania blows over soon.”

After parting ways with the man, Ariane, Chiyome, and I stopped to chat at a corner of the clearing.

“It sounds like this city of Rontestatt is near the border of the western empire. Have you ever heard of the name before, Chiyome?”

She shook her head apologetically.

“No, unfortunately not. Our ancestors were driven out of here a long time ago. What’s more, if we’re about four days away by horse from the central region, then we must be far deeper than any member of the Jinshin clan has come before.”

Apparently the Jinshin clan’s information network was focused mostly around the central region of the empire.

“However, I recall that Aspania, the neighboring country that the stall owner mentioned earlier, is on the western edge of the northern continent. That must mean that Rontestatt is near that border.”

As she spoke, I called to mind an image of a map of the northern continent, though the details were hazy. I could remember the basic shapes, but the details were beyond me.

Realizing I was at a loss, Chiyome crouched down and sketched a rough map into the dirt with her finger and then circled a region.

“Aspania is around here or so.”

She was pointing at a narrow stretch of land in the northwest sandwiched between the Holy Hilk Kingdom and the Great Revlon Empire.

“Huh, so that means that we must be located somewhere along that border. In that case, we must’ve traveled quite a ways away from the Rhoden Kingdom and Great Canada Forest.”

“Kyii.”

I placed my finger on the Rhoden Kingdom, in the south east of Chiyome’s map, and stretched out my hand toward Aspania Kingdom to gauge the distance.

Ponta followed the movement of my finger for a moment before jumping down to the ground.

Ariane let out a sigh as she looked over the map.

“Well, we know where we are. But the more important thing is whether or not the cardinals are here.”

“I could walk all over the city trying to find if there are any undead here, but that’d take a while.”

Chiyome was right. It was clear from how far we’d walked thus far that the city was immense. She was certainly more than capable enough of using her keen sense of smell to uncover any hiding undead cardinals, but that’d mean that we would be stuck here in the city for some time. If the cardinals had already left the city, then their trail could go cold in the meantime.

But that also didn’t mean that we could just leave the city without performing an investigation.

I glanced at Ponta, who was sniffing around at the map sketched into the dirt.

“Hey, Ponta…you’re even better at smelling out the undead than Chiyome, right? Did you smell any undead here so far?”

Ponta cocked its head to the side at this and raised its nose up into the air to sniff around, turning in a slow circle while Ariane and Chiyome watched on with anticipation.

After it finished sniffing, however, Ponta’s large, fluffy tail slumped to the ground and it tilted its head to the side again, giving a weak mew.

“Kyiiiin.”

Seemed like there were no undead nearby, at least. Not like I expected to find them that easily.

Ariane slumped her shoulders, looking slightly dejected.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be that easy. We should probably start with any churches in the city then.”

I tilted my head to the side and expressed my doubts.

“I’m not so sure. After we’d killed the Pontiff, the leader of the church, doesn’t it seem rather short-sighted to once again try to conceal yourself at the church while on the run?”

With that said, though, it didn’t necessarily mean that we could exclude the churches from our search outright.

Chiyome seemed to have read my mind.

“Even if unlikely, we still need to search. So why don’t we ask how many churches there are in the city and pay them a visit?”

Ariane and I both agreed with Chiyome’s plan.

“Agreed.”

“That sounds like a fair plan.”

I picked Ponta up and made my way toward the nearest person to ask about any nearby churches.

***

Ultimately, all of the Hilk churches in the city were a bust.

We started at the biggest of the five churches in town first, but it was a rather simple affair compared to all the highly decorated ones we’d encountered in the past. Perhaps the lack of decorative elements were due to the simple construction.

Put simply, none of the churches in the city were big or impressive enough to be sights worth visiting, and all seemed to be meant for day-to-day affairs of the people living here. Some of them even looked like large sheds that had been repurposed into a church.

According to the locals we spoke to, money was spent more on improving on and expanding city defenses and other works rather than beautifying the churches as the city was located along a national border. Here, too, was the look and history of the city affected by its geography.

Considering this, it seemed unlikely that the cardinals would be hiding out in any of these churches, but we still had Chiyome and Ponta take a look around all the same. This bore no results either and the day was coming to a close as the sun began to set.

I mumbled to myself, speaking to no one in particular.

“I expected the kinds of churches we’d seen back in the eastern empire, but all the ones here were pretty plain. Ponta or Chiyome would’ve definitely smelled the cardinals if they were hiding out in any of these small locations, but we’ve got nothing.”

Ariane stretched her arms out high above her head.

“This is awful. That means that the cardinals could have headed off to a completely different city, then, maybe even the capital. Considering it’s the center of the empire, there must be even more humans living there.”

I had figured the same. It was certainly probable. After all, a larger city with an even larger population would make it all the easier to remain hidden. Conversely, there were also benefits to hiding out in a politically unstable city such as this one. Both options were equally possible.

Finally, it was Chiyome who brought our present issue to the table.

“If I recall correctly, Vittelvarlay is the capital of the Great Revlon Empire. Assuming the cardinals skipped town, then I think that’s the most likely place for them to go. However, according to the stall owner we spoke to, you would need to prove that you’re either a merchant or mercenary in order to leave town.”

I recalled what the stall owner had mentioned earlier.

I still had the mercenary license I got back in the Rhoden Kingdom, but it seemed incredibly unlikely that a mercenary license issued in another country could also be used here. What’s more, neither Ariane nor Chiyome had one. That meant that we would need to once again apply to be mercenaries here in the empire if we planned on leaving the city limits.

…or maybe not. There was a faster way.

“I could just use my teleportation magic to take us out of town in an instant.”

I’d used this technique to both leave and sneak into cities in the past.

Chiyome shook her head and pointed out the problem with that.

“If they’re preparing to deal with a threat from a neighboring country, then there are almost certainly a number of guards patrolling the outer limits and roads into and out of town. It would also make sense for there to be checkpoints along the road to the capital to check for any issues. If anyone were to realize that you were traveling using teleportation magic, that would make it all the more difficult for us to operate out here.”

She was right. We needed to operate stealthily if we wanted to ensure that the cardinals didn’t pick up on our activities.

Ariane also nodded, seemingly in agreement.

I took a look at the two talented fighters in front of me.

“In that case, it would probably be best for us to acquire any identification we need to travel throughout the empire in the future here in this city. If it’s a choice between us being merchants or mercenaries, then I think it would probably be a lot easier for us to get a mercenary license.”

Ariane and Chiyome were definitely more than skilled enough to earn the title of mercenary, so not only could we look the part, but we could also take on any jobs that came along.

Considering the difficulty involved in hunting down the cardinals, it would probably be fair to assume that we would be operating out here in the empire for a while yet. In that case, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for all of us to have a mercenary license to help along our search.

Ariane gazed out from beneath her hood, a worried expression on her face.

“I don’t see any problem with getting a mercenary license if that’s what we need to become mercenaries to legally leave the city, but will Chiyome and I be able to get one as non-humans?”

She was right to be worried. If they had any kind of background check when registering as a mercenary, then their true identities would come out. Then again, the skeleton lurking within my armor was not much different.

“Since we currently don’t have any other leads on the cardinals, it certainly can’t hurt to expand our search. We’d best ask about any concerns we have regarding mercenary registration once we’re there.”

“You’re right. Well, then, let’s figure out where one signs up.”

Chiyome stood up and started to look around. She spotted a group of people who looked to me like mercenaries, standing around off in a corner of the town square, and made her way over to them to chat. After exchanging a few words, the mercenaries turned their gaze toward me. Seemingly convinced by what they saw, they nodded and talked to Chiyome some more before gesturing toward a nearby road. It looked like she’d managed to find out where we needed to go.

Perhaps they were a little suspicious of the young girl asking how to register to be a mercenary, but upon seeing me, fully clad in armor, they figured out what she was asking. She truly was brilliant.

A short time later Chiyome returned and reported back that she’d found out the location of the mercenary guild.

“So apparently you need to first register with a place called the mercenary guild and get a guild license if you plan on operating as a mercenary here in the empire. Fortunately for us, the guild office is nearby. What do you want to do?”

I glanced up at the darkening sky. We had just about enough time to register with the mercenary guild, or to at least get an explanation from them. However, most businesses tended to close early here, so it’d probably be best to get a move on.

“Your quick thinking saved us once again, so I think it wouldn’t hurt to at least make our way to the mercenary guild and see if we can register. But we should hurry.”

Ponta wagged its tail back and forth and mewed in agreement.

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

The mercenary guild was located a short distance away, where one of the streets running toward the town square branched off. It consisted of three floors, the first made of stone and second and third from wood, and sported a large, unadorned entrance.

A man, ostensibly an employee of the guild, wielding a large hammer stood next to the entrance, fixing anyone who walked past with a steely glare. I could feel his gaze fall upon us as Ponta and I, followed by Ariane and Chiyome, entered the building.

The interior of the building was just as simple and unadorned as the exterior, giving the building a rough-around-the-edges feel. Several men were talking boisterously inside when we first walked in, but their gaze fell upon us the moment my two female companions came into view. I took a look around the room, ignoring the gawking men.

Next to the entrance was a bulletin board, on which jobs issued with the guild were pinned. Some of the requests were written up on only what could charitably be called paper. Looked like they had quite a bit of work to go around. Across from the entrance was a counter surrounded by iron bars, not unlike the one I’d seen back in the mercenary guild in the Rhoden Kingdom. Inside the cage, I spied several staff members—all of them male—bustling about as they performed their work. 

The whole guild had the same filthy, sordid feeling as the one back in Rhoden. To be fair, it made sense to avoid the kind of trouble one could invite by putting female staff behind the counter, considering the rough-and-tumble sorts who went into the mercenary trade.

I stepped up to the counter and spoke to the nearest staff member. “Excuse me, I’d like to register as a mercenary. Could you tell me what I need for registration?”

The man, an older fellow with salt-and-pepper hair, looked up at me and bellowed out in laughter.

“You say you want to be a mercenary, sir knight?”

The words seemed oddly familiar.

I hunched down slightly and laughed myself.

“I’m no one important, and certainly not a knight. We are wandering mercenaries, relying on nothing but our own abilities as we move about freely wherever our mood takes us. I heard from someone in town that we can’t leave without a mercenary license.”

A look of suspicion washed across the man’s face.

“Sure, that’s true. You can’t enter or leave the city due to concerns about the neighboring kingdom unless you’re a merchant or a licensed mercenary. But how did you get into the city in the first place?”

The question was obvious.

With the town on lockdown, there wouldn’t be too many locals wanting to become mercenaries in order to leave the city. While the city of Rontestatt might be quite large, that was only by this world’s standards. I had yet to see a city here with a population even nearing a million, as was common in the modern world I’d come from. Back in my world, a city this size would be the equivalent of a rural settlement in the countryside.

With such a small population, it would be too risky for us to pretend we were locals, especially given how we stood out. Thus, our only option was to state that we came here from elsewhere, though this in turn begged the question of how we got here despite the current lockdown.

The most important thing was to avoid any implication that we’d snuck in and had some sort of connection with the neighboring kingdom.

Fortunately, I’d anticipated this question and already had an answer ready.

“We came here as the bodyguards of a traveling Rhoden merchant who plans to stay in town for a while. We figured we’d move on ahead to the next stop but were told that it would be impossible without a guild license.”

I pulled the guild license I acquired back in the Rhoden Kingdom out of my pocket as I spoke. The man took it into his hand and gazed down at it with great interest.

“Hmm, is that so? Well, then, allow me to explain the registration procedures. Each registrant will need to pay one gold coin, at which point we will issue you a Third Rank Bronze guild license.”

To supplement his explanation, he pulled three small, square bronze plates from a drawer and placed them on the counter. Each of the plates had different markings etched into them: one with three spears, another with two crossed axes, and a third with a single sword.

Ariane peered down at the items. “What does Third Rank Bronze mean?”

“Imperial guild licenses are assigned different levels. From lowest to highest, there are bronze, silver, and gold. Each of the levels has three ranks, with third being the lowest. These are decided based on the successes and contributions of each individual and group.”

Apparently, the system was slightly different from the one used in the Rhoden Kingdom. The designs on each of the metal plates indicated ranks one through three.

“However, there’s one thing I need you to keep in mind. Just because you’ve registered with the mercenary guild doesn’t mean you instantly have permission to come and go from the city as you please.”

This took Chiyome by surprise. “Are there some other restrictions on that as well?”

The man shot Chiyome—a small girl who looked completely out of place here—a suspicious glance before nodding and answering her question.

“Only those of Third Rank Silver and above are granted the right to come and go as they please. Permission to leave isn’t normally granted, except in special cases such as when you’ve taken a job, so you’ll need to contribute to the guild first. However, it’s usually faster to join a member of a larger mercenary group if you want to get yourself up to Silver.”

Ariane, Chiyome, and I all exchanged glances. It didn’t look like we’d be able to come and go as we pleased for quite some time, even if we registered. Now that I thought about it, though, if simply registering gave you the ability to come and go as you pleased, anyone with the funds could do it, which would defeat the whole purpose of locking down the town.

“So we’ll need to do jobs in town for a while after registering in order to increase our rank?”

“That’s correct. However, as I mentioned earlier, you’ll need to achieve decent results in order to increase your level, which is no easy task unless you join a larger mercenary group. For example, there are no Gold-level mercenary groups with fewer than thirty members. In that sense, the number of members is quite important.”

I tried to organize my thoughts while we listened to the man speak.

According to him, we needed to rack up some noteworthy achievements to reach Silver Rank. But to do that, we’d need to take on some fairly significant tasks, such as protecting a VIP or slaying beasts—jobs which were usually only entrusted to mercenary groups with a fairly large number of members. Small groups and individuals were generally only given menial tasks.

Since mercenaries were essentially fighters hired to supplement military forces in the event of war, it was only reasonable that you would need a certain number of people in order to achieve military-grade results. If you pitted a group of ten talented warriors against a hundred semi-decent mercenaries, the latter group would likely come out on top more often than not.

In this sense, the guild was markedly similar to the one in Rhoden Kingdom. It made sense that clients preferred to give protection or monster-culling jobs to larger groups than smaller ones, in the interests of ensuring success.

Our unique circumstances left us unable to join any larger groups. But if our small mercenary party failed to land any major jobs, leaving us unable to increase our guild rank, we’d be stuck in this town forever. Or worse yet, we and the other Bronze-Rank mercenaries would be called upon as an emergency measure to protect the town in the event that hostilities broke out with the neighboring kingdom. Though if that happened, we could at least take advantage of the chaos to escape the city using my teleportation magic.

There was no need for us to attain the highest level, Gold, when Third Rank Silver was the minimum needed to get us permission to leave the city.

I turned toward my two compatriots. Ariane seemed content to go with my plan, while Chiyome leaned in close to whisper something to me.

“I think we should take some menial tasks in the beginning to help us get a sense of the town. It might help us in our search later. It depends on the terms when we sign up, of course, but it couldn’t hurt.”

It was a good plan. I turned back to the man to give our decision.

“Well, then, I’d like to register the three of us with the guild. Can you please let me know if there are any other ancillary terms?”

His eyes went wide in surprise at this. His gaze fell on Chiyome as he spoke.

“The…three of you?”

I knew what was going through his mind, as well as those of the other mercenaries chuckling nearby, but I ignored it.

“She may look small, but she’s quite gifted. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“So, um, will you three be registering separately? Or as a group?”

I tilted my head to the side as I thought his question over. We had no plans to join any other groups, so it might prove beneficial to create our own, even if we only had a few members.

“Hmm, I think we’ll create a three-member group, then. Are there any conditions for creating a mercenary group?”

“Not particularly. You can always add more members later, anyway. However, you’ll probably want at least ten people if you want to get some decent jobs.”

I glanced at the other mercenaries in the guild.

The majority of them were giving us amused looks, as if we were some kind of spectacle, though I knew the two women standing at my side could take them all on with room to spare. They were quite literally one-woman armies in their own right, and we’d pass with flying colors if we were allowed to show that. 

But we probably didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves. It probably wouldn’t hurt if people saw us as amateurs, anyway.

“That’s fine. Please continue with the registration.”

The man confirmed my request, pulled three guild license registration papers out from the drawer in front of him, and began to fill them out.

“We’ll also need two gold coins as an administrative fee to register your newly created group. Oh, and please decide on your group’s name.”

Pulling the coins from my bag, I let out a brief sigh when I heard him mention the name. Apparently, the name of our group would be etched into a plaque that, when submitted with our guild licenses, would serve both as proof of identity and a travel pass.

“Hm, our name. I hadn’t actually thought about that.”

I crossed my arms and groaned under my breath. Fortunately, the man behind the counter offered me a lifeline.

“Mercenary group names are important for advertising yourselves, both to your members and to others. Names that are memorable, sound powerful, and really get your blood pumping are most common. If you really aren’t sure right now, you could always register it at a later date.”

Since this was just a temporary job, I wasn’t keen on giving ourselves a really flashy name that would stand out, like he suggested. On the other hand, it would be boring—and maybe even male it hard to get work—if we went with something run-of-the-mill. I glanced over at Ariane and Chiyome, but they only furrowed their brows, lips pursed in thought.

It was then that Ponta decided to break its long silence and jump in.

“Kyii! Kyiii!!”

A series of chuckles rose from the mercenaries watching us. Ignoring their jeers, I looked up at Ponta.

“All right then, how about Ponta Patrol?”

Ariane and Chiyome exchanged glances for a moment before turning back to me and nodding. Apparently, they were okay with the name.

“I’m fine with it. No need to worry about what we call ourselves.”

“It’s easy to remember, too.”

“Kyiiii!”

The only one among us who had a problem with the name was the man behind the counter.

“You can’t be serious! The name of your mercenary group is your reputation! All the other groups are named things like the ‘Silver Lions,’ or the ‘Thunder Hammers.’”

His expression seemed to urge us to reconsider. The names he mentioned were different from our suggestion and might even stand out a bit because of it. I took another look at Ponta to double-check.

“Kyiiii?”

Ponta merely cocked its head to the side and wagged its tail, seemingly disinterested. While I might not be able to register Ponta as a mercenary too, it was definitely one of us, and there was no way I could discard its name. Which could only mean one thing.

“All right then. How about the ‘Turbulent Ponta Patrol’?”

I was pretty chuffed with that name. Not only was it good, but we could also get this done and head home right on time. However, Ariane seemed to have her doubts.

“I don’t think it sounds quite right. What about ‘Verdant Meadow Ponta Patrol’?”

It sounded a bit serene to me—not quite suited to the kind of work mercenaries did. Chiyome turned back from the window with her own recommendation.

“What about the ‘Twilight Cottontail Foxes’?”

That just sounded like the name of an assassin group to me.

After a short debate on what would be the most appropriate name, we decided it would only be fair to let Ponta decide.

“All right, then. From now on, we will be known as the Turbulent Ponta Patrol. Any objections?”

I looked at my compatriots. Ariane merely shrugged her shoulders and Chiyome nodded her assent.

And with that, our first day of the investigation came to a close.