Movement at the Guild
Several minutes later.
Just as I returned to the inn…I was contacted by a slime.
‘Yuji!’
‘What is it?’
‘The people at the guild are talking about something strange!’
…Talking about something strange?
As nothing suspicious had happened, no matter how long we waited, I had been ready to write them off as innocent… So, what could it be now?
I wondered this as I used Shared Senses to borrow the senses of the slimes.
And then…I was able to listen to the conversations in the guild.
…As the slimes were hidden under the floor, I couldn’t see who it was, but it was the manager’s voice.
When I listened carefully…I could make out another voice as well.
“The plan is moving along quickly. Currently, nothing unexpected or irregular has happened.”
It was just as I had suspected.
So the guild was responsible for making it rain and angering the Fire Dragon.
“How many candidates have you narrowed it down to?”
“Realistically, given the distance to the town…there is only one.”
Candidate?
What were they talking about?
Was it the reason that the Fire Dragon vanished?
Did they know that it was me who killed the Fire Dragon?
“Only one… Do you mean the Ordarion branch?”
“Yes. They refused to submit their Rainmaking Device. The other branches were clean. Ordarion is the only candidate. …It is not terribly surprising.”
“…Aye. I knew that they would not cooperate.”
…It didn’t seem like they were searching for the reason for the Fire Dragon’s disappearance.
From what I could tell…they were looking for a culprit.
Submitting the Rainmaking Device.
That probably meant they wanted to know if everyone still had theirs, or if there were traces of them having been used…
And all of the neighboring branches with the exception of Ordarion had come out clean.
In any case, it seemed that it was safe to say that the rain had not been the will of ‘Guild Headquarters.’
They wouldn’t be looking for a culprit if they were the ones who had done it.
I was a little relieved to find out that the guild wasn’t my enemy.
“So, you believe that the Ordarion branch are responsible?”
“To be honest, I have no idea. They told me that ‘they have no obligation to cooperate’ and that headquarters must send out an official order if we want to see their Rainmaking Device.”
“…Well, they are always like that. As for having headquarters make the order…that would be difficult.”
Apparently, it was quite common for the Ordarion branch to be uncooperative.
This was getting pretty complicated…
“It will be difficult to have them send out an order without a good reason to doubt the Ordarion branch. Things are already very complicated politically when it comes to them.”
“If I go to headquarters directly and take the time to slowly persuade them… They might be convinced to send the order. However, I don’t know if there is enough time.”
“Yes. Even if it was them that used the Rainmaking Device, they would cover up the evidence with enough time.”
So they had a time limit to gather evidence.
This was a difficult problem.
“We’ll have to give up then. This isn’t the first time the Ordarion branch hid information from us. So we can’t be too suspicious that they did it this time.”
“…There have been incidents in the past where the devices were taken out of the guild. Is it possible that one of those devices was used?”
“To be honest, that seems like the most likely. But…there is no way to find information about devices that have gone missing. We should just end the investigation here.”
“…That’s unfortunate.”
Apparently, the investigation was to end without ever being resolved.
In any case, it was worth sending the slimes here. Even if all I had learned was that the guild wasn’t my enemy.
I could continue to accept quests here.
But…this Ordarion branch…bothered me.
It seemed like a very special place, so refusing to give information did not mean they were the culprits… But it still seemed quite possible that they were the cause of the Fire Dragon attack.
If there was something suspicious about the place, I should probably go look. That way, I could be an Adventurer without worrying.
It would be a lot better to have information beforehand…compared to suddenly being attacked by a Fire Dragon, as I had been.
If it turned out that there was no problems with Ordarion, my life as an Adventurer would feel much safer.