“Buhi, buhi.”
The piglet that Shaup-kun had been reborn into is energetically running around the floor of the room, which is currently also being occupied by a mound of gold coins and jewels that had come from my sling bag.
If Mora hadn’t tried so desperately to stop me, that mound might have turned into a mountain or a mountain range.
When I fumble around in my bag, it feels like the 3,000,000+ coins and jewels that even I don"t know the quant.i.ty of haven’t gone down at all. In spite of that, the pile of treasure now in front of the adventurers’ eyes is apparently worth more than 100,000 Sedian gold coins.
The amount that Irudo was supposed to have paid for Mora’s rescue was 3,000 gold coins. If that is the market price for hiring a party as good as Sedam’s one, then there should be change and then some even after hiring all 10 parties represented here.
“I trust this is enough? If so, then I would like everyone to immediately get started with the job.”
“I-, Indeed it is. Duly acknowledged.”
With that, all of the adventurers, Guildmaster included, do a 180 and jump right into having a serious meeting about the job.
But not before moving to a different room, of course. It was quite distracting having that much money scattered all over the floor.
♥♦♣♠
As expected of pros—once the objective is clarified, the discussion proceeded very quickly. The meeting was soon over, with the following decisions reached: the high level warrior’s and cleric’s parties would form the core of the escort group, and Sedam shall head the investigative group. In terms of number of parties, it is 4 towards escort, 6 towards investigation.
“I will first do some digging at the Thief Guild. I plan on bringing Shaup-kun along, so could I trouble you to return him back?”
“That spell"s duration is 6 hours. Just leave him alone and he’ll eventually turn back by himself.”
“Haha, that sounds good. I’ll show him off to the guys in the Thief Guild too then. If I say ‘If you refuse to cooperate, then you’ll also be turned into a pig,’ even their tongues should become a lot more loose.”
Sedam is as reliable as always. But with that flow of events, won’t it make me look a bit like a bad guy?
But then again, for someone who’s come to this city for a few days, trying to catch a.s.sa.s.sins or masterminds would be like trying to hold a cloud with bare hands. Allowing these professionals to employ the methods they think best would be the wise choice here.
“Which reminds me, is Claura not here?”
“Claura is a magician, after all. Magicians and clerics are handled in a slightly different way.”
It seems that because magicians and clerics possess highly specialized and effective abilities, they are allowed to hold dual membership in the Adventurer Guild and the other a.s.sociation related to their profession. In Claura’s case, she is active as a magician more often than as an adventurer, so her partic.i.p.ation in Sedam’s party is not always a given.
“Margils-sama, just leave everything to us!”
(Cultural Note: The actual line here is 大船に乗った気でいてください, which directly translates to ‘please consider yourself as having gotten onto a large boat.’ When you get on a boat with someone reliable steering it, you can just sit back and you’ll still get where you’re going. The boat being large means it’s stable, no tossing and rolling. Cool phrase, isn’t it?)
“Be it dark elves or Demonists, we’re gonna catch ‘em all!” (T/N: Soz, couldn’t resist.)
Both escort and investigative parties are shouting enthusiastically as they file out of the Guild.
The investigation team’s plans are to first gather information from the Thief Guild and information brokers in the slum areas, then to go through all the underground tunnels and places that look like viable hiding places with a fine-tooth comb.
The escort team’s plan is to divide themselves up among 3 shifts to provide non-stop guarding over the mansion and Irudo and his people.
After filling out an official contract, we leave the Adventurer Guild behind us.
Because the escorts have already begun their duties, we take the carriage prepared by the Guild instead of using the Astral plane.
♥♦♣♠
On the way back, we made a detour to the Council Hall so that I could check in on Council Chairman Zatou Braus.
He appeared to be in good health, but he continued to apologize profusely, so I told him to just focus on catching the criminals.
“Of course, of course. Even if we have to put Lelis’ prestige on the line, we will catch that criminal without fail.”
“The criminals are a given, but please also catch the mastermind. It would be one thing if it was just me, but now even my friends have been targeted. I wish to immediately nip any possible future regrets in the bud while I still can.”
“...... Does Margils-dono believe that the criminal who tried to poison us both is connected to the ones tried to kidnap Irudo’s daughter?”
“Council Chairman, the fact that I hold goodwill towards the citizens of this city remains unchanged. I fully understand that these incidents are the handiwork of a very small number of people. As such, I believe that we can dispense with the tatemae, don’t you agree?”
(T/N: Braus is trying to give shed doubt on the fact that the two incidents are connected so that he won’t have to handle the other one too. However, Gio-san is insinuating that this stance is mere tatemae, an official front that Braus is duty-bound to hold. By then saying that they are close enough to not need tatemae, he makes it so that Braus cannot hold onto his stance without ‘toning down’ (which effectively means breaking) their alliance.)
“...... Excuse me. Of course, you are correct.”
Normally speaking, the Chairman of a city’s ruling Council is not an opponent that someone like me can act so superior towards. But.
For the guest that he invited (and himself) to get poisoned at the meeting he called, and to even be treated by said guest—that is one colossal weak point.
Due to that, I could press him this forcefully. But, well, I need to be careful to not get c.o.c.ky and up the pressure too high.
Which is why I also handed him a little bit of treasure under the pretext of ‘encouragement for the soldiers.’
The city seems to have around 1,500 soldiers, but there should be enough for everyone to get a bonus.
When I looked out of the carriage on my way back to Irudo’s mansion, all the guards I saw were conducting questionings and inspections with full motivation.
♥♦♣♠
“Haahh…… Gio-san, don’t you think you just squandered a bit too much?”
“Ugu.”
So says Mora after we"ve returned to the mansion. As expected of a merchant’s daughter—she looks like she’s got a few things to say about the way I spend money.
To be honest, even I was thinking that it wasn’t such a cool thing to do, so her comment was extra effective.
“Mora, Margils-sama was doing that to protect us……”
“That’s, I know that. But then it makes it seem like we’re just being a burden for Gio-san……”
Mora pouts in response to Irudo’s rebuke, then sharply turns towards me and bows deeply.
“I’m so sorry, Gio-san, that I have caused you trouble yet again! Gio-san is a Great Wizard, but someone like me is getting in your way……”
“......”
Indeed, there’s no way that a serious girl like Mora wouldn’t fret at seeing me throw money around like water.
From my perspective, however, my wealth was merely another number written down in some corner of Gio’s character sheet, so I’ve unconsciously gotten indifferent to it.
“Mora, I’m sorry for having made you feel that way.”
I kneel in front of Mora to bring our eyes to the same height.
“You call yourself a burden, but that is not true. By calling me ‘Gio-san’ instead of ‘Great Wizard-sama’—by relating to me as a human—it saves me from losing my human heart. If you’re cheering and applauding after having seen what I did today—it gives me chills even thinking about it.”
“Gio-san……”
“Which is why I will never even hesitate to spend any amount of money if it’s for your or Irudo’s sake. I have arbitrarily begun to think of you two as ‘family’ after all.”
“Margils-sama……”
“Gio-saaan~”
When I was a salaryman in j.a.pan, there was absolutely no way that I could have uttered such embarra.s.sing lines, even if they were how I truly felt.
But this place is a world where people slightly simpler than those in modern j.a.pan live, and I am wearing the mask of a Great Wizard. I hope I can be forgiven for this much.
♥♦♣♠
I realized that I can’t really conduct my own investigations because firstly, I would be distracted with worry if I had to be outside the mansion for an extended period of time; secondly, I know nothing about the locality; and thirdly, I don’t have the personal connections to do this kind of thing.
Aside from the few times I accompanied Irudo outside on unavoidable business, I was basically holed up inside the mansion for the next 3 days.
In that time, various happenings like three a.s.saults on the mansion by bandits employed by the dark elves and the discovery of an unknown underground pa.s.sage took place. However, due to the adventurers enthusiastically taking care of everything, there was no screen time for me.
There was one more thing that happened that I did not know about.
The dark elves tried to abduct Claura. Now that I think about it, I guess she falls into the category of ‘people close to me.’
However, in my mind, she is ‘a reliable nakama’ and not ‘a protection target,’ so she’d completely slipped my mind.
The investigative group caught onto the dark elves’ movements at the last possible second and managed to protect her, so it did not turn into a big deal. When I heard about it all later, I shed almost enough cold sweat to drown in.
And of course, Claura gave me waaaay more than an earful.
I suggested a.s.signing one of the adventurer parties to be her escort, but she said “How can I let you do such an inefficient thing!” and so now she is also staying at Irudo’s mansion.
♥♦♣♠
And then, on the fourth day.
The adventurers’ and city guards’ great efforts finally bore fruit.
The exploration of the underground pa.s.sage turned up the dark elves’ hiding place, and 1 of the 4 dark elves was successfully captured.
“...... This is……”
Looking down on the dark elf that the adventurers had brought in, I inadvertently blurt out what I am thinking.
“Why is there so much skin exposure?”