Cooperation
Cooperation
When he received the abrupt report, Geuronzel had doubted his ears.
But once he confirmed the employee whose face had swollen to twice its size on one side in the stable Kunz had led him down to, and confirmed the utterly cold gaze of the adventurer, he felt a creeping unease that what he ought to doubt was not his ears but the other party's common sense.
"Wh-what is the meaning of all this?"
He had to pull himself together. Geuronzel put on the mask of the kindly guild master and approached the weeping receptionist.
Inside his rapidly spinning head, all manner of conjectures began to run rampant. Had he been found out? Impossible. Was this someone throwing their weight around because they knew the laws and rules well? Even if that were the case, it was hard to believe they'd resort to violence like this.
This was not some village market but a city's Adventurer's Guild. An Adventurer's Guild where those without backing feared the consequences, and those with backing were mindful of interests and tended to be cautious. Unless someone was insane, there was no way they'd think unilateral violence was acceptable no matter how justified they believed themselves to be.
At least, that was what he had thought. And because he had thought that, Geuronzel found himself toppling to the floor, unable to comprehend the dull pain that suddenly flared in his side.
And by the time he belatedly realized what the surging agony meant, the foot that had kicked his side was flying at him once more.
"Ghk!"
He may have once been an adventurer, but that was a profoundly distant past. A body that had lived a life far removed from combat couldn't even manage a proper defense. Blinded by pain, curling his body into a ball while protecting his head and neck with both hands was the best defense he could muster.
He had resolved to pull himself together, but that had only referred to dialogue-based negotiation; the violence that crashed over him so suddenly stirred up a terror he'd had no occasion to feel in recent times.
"...?"
But the attack did not continue. As he groaned and lifted his head in puzzlement, a young man who was unmistakably a warrior entered his vision.
"One hit for trying to cheat me before negotiation, and another for making me waste my time because of it. Get up."
It was an attitude so insolent it nearly made his vision go red, but the alarm bells ringing danger inside his skull rang once more, and Geuronzel had no choice but to rise with a groan.
Several receptionists approached to support him, and suppressing the urge to shake them off with immense effort, he even forced a word of thanks from his lips as he stared at the young man who had committed violence against him. Then he opened his mouth to refute the young man's first words.
"I am Guild Master Geuronzel. I apologize for failing to attend to you with proper procedure. However..."
"There is no 'however.' The cost of that is something you have to bear, not an issue I need to show consideration for. You've already crossed the line, so don't waste my time with tedious word games."
Unless you want to die right here. As if to underscore the point, the young man drew the sword at his waist and drove it into the floor, making his intentions crystal clear.
"An adventurer comes in from outside after pulling off a major job, refuses the guild's secret request, and immediately his belongings vanish and his horses are killed. Even though they were formally entrusted to the guild's stable, the only signs of struggle were what resulted from the horses themselves resisting. How conveniently the guild calls that the misconduct of the adventurers they hired, yet you're absolutely certain it was the work of the very thieves who have been causing trouble in the city, the target of that secret request. Thieves who barged in as they pleased and are now isolated simply because they can't flee back the same way they came."
Geuronzel screamed internally. The young man's suspicion was reasonable, but he wanted to argue—was it really sane to act like this over nothing but that level of suspicion?
His state of mind was far from a sense of injustice. It was closer to rage directed at a madman who was utterly wrecking the board he had so carefully arranged over reasons that were, at best, a rough suspicion.
"A coincidence..."
"If you were going to fake a coincidence, you should've done it properly. Still, there's an order to things, so I'll settle that later. How are you going to compensate for that?"
Barely reining in the emotions that had nearly swept him away with reason, Geuronzel tried to grasp the situation.
Despite still being with nearly ten adventurers, the young man had used the expression 'an adventurer,' not 'adventurers' who had come from outside. Moreover, regarding the spoils, he had outright specified they were his property. Yet the fact that those behind him hadn't spoken a single word meant there was a possibility they were not comrades but an employer-employee relationship.
A person with the financial power to hire over ten red-rank adventurers and form a party, who also had a favorable reputation with the Capital Adventurer's Guild Master? That kind of person was a known quantity.
'Damn it, is he a noble?'
He had heard stories of knightly houses or immature noble scions dreaming of knighthood who had the bizarre hobby of doing adventurer work backed by their family's wealth, but he never imagined he'd actually encounter one. Of course, there was a chance that wasn't the case, but anything else was a situation he found hard to accept and impossible to understand.
That was why Geuronzel completely revised his original plan and slowly opened his mouth.
"...Setting aside your rudeness, we will of course provide sufficient monetary compensation for the dead horses."
Without a trace of servility. As if merely doing what needed to be done. He feigned the act of forcibly suppressing his anger.
Originally, his plan had been to deal with the thieves who raided the city, then buy time under the pretext of assessing and returning the citizens' assets the thieves had seized, while discreetly skimming a portion of the spoils to extract secondary profit. After all, the spoils of an adventurer that hadn't even been properly appraised were effectively unprovable once they passed into the hands of thieves.
He had even made plans to smooth things over by paying the request reward if the adventurer went berserk and dealt with the thieves without ever formally accepting the request.
If he died? Then the spoils in the hiding place, not the thieves' den, would have become his property entirely. The horses dying in the process had been unexpected, but...
"Are you answering after properly seeing what that means?"
"...What are you talking about?"
When the young man cut off his thoughts with a tossed question, Geuronzel answered with a question. But as if telling him to go see for himself, the young man pointed at the horse's rump and turned his body to make way. The polite gesture, so different from moments before, was deeply suspicious, but it wasn't something he could refuse to look at. As he hesitantly approached the dead horse and checked the brand stamped on its rump, Geuronzel cried out involuntarily.
"Oh, Ogatorf?!"
A crest centered around a shield and sword. A house symbol known to more people in Itisel than those who didn't know it.
The instant he realized the true identity of what he had dismissed as nothing more than a slightly large horse, cold sweat began running down his back. As if he had anticipated exactly that reaction, the young man behind him spoke nonchalantly.
"Each one is a House warhorse worth over thirty Itisel gold coins. That's just the base value of the horse itself; I wouldn't know the damages for training and upkeep."
"H-how, how is this..."
"How is a verified adventurer whose identity has been confirmed riding an Ogatorf military horse around in perfect condition? I didn't steal it. Is there any obligation to explain further?"
Naturally, there was no such obligation. Fire began to blaze inside the head of Geuronzel, who had never even imagined an adventurer would be leading around such an absurdly expensive steed. This was beyond a case of the tail wagging the dog. As the young man had said, thirty gold coins was nothing but the 'purchase price.'
A military horse was like a knight. It didn't simply age with the years—it received professional training. There was a reason it was controlled and managed 'for military use,' and it was expensive accordingly. If that horse had completed all mandatory training and was at an age considered its prime, he would have to cough up nearly double that amount.
Even if drawn from the guild's finances, it was a fatal sum. But the bigger problem was that this had been a plan, not an accident. And the one who had proposed that plan and put it into motion was none other than Geuronzel.
If he had handled things perfectly enough to leave no trail, that would be one thing, but Geuronzel was the type to cover greater crimes with lesser incidents that dealt non-critical damage when he couldn't perfectly conceal them.
His plan had been an appropriate mix of corruption and overreach that would be smoothly overlooked once the thief problem was resolved. Minor offenses of a scale that couldn't be hidden, but didn't need to be hidden. Deviations that could be wrapped in the packaging of having been unavoidable for the greater good.
Naturally, that plan had not included a 120-gold-coin debt. If things went on like this, even if everything ended amicably, he would be forced to shoulder the majority of the debt and it would carve out a massive chunk of the cash he held.
It couldn't compare to the assets he had siphoned off over the years, but illicit profits always required money laundering, and the cash he held right now wasn't that substantial. Even that was all money he held in consideration of investments and bribes, so if it went on like this, a 'loss' would occur where he'd have to sell off items undergoing laundering at throwaway prices.
He couldn't let that happen over just two horses. Once again, Geuronzel's mind began to spin.
"...Worry not. For my honor and the honor of the Englem Adventurer's Guild, I will certainly repay it. Even if I have to use my own money."
He straightened his body with dignity, speaking with a powerful tone as if orating to reclaim his authority.
"However, no matter how unjust a coincidence may have occurred, this plundering is a matter unrelated to us. Though we cannot grasp the true intentions of the thieves who stole the adventurer's spoils, that is the undeniable fact."
"So?"
"Please, I would ask you to reconsider your decision regarding the request you refused yesterday. For the sake of us all."
First, the thieves had to be dealt with.
He didn't care whether this bastard could actually defeat the Demon Sword's owner or not. If he went and got himself killed, that would create a way to somehow deal with these damned military horses, so that wasn't bad either. Even if he won, a bunch of blue- or red-rank adventurers would be hard-pressed to stop a Demon Sword that posed a threat even to the city guard in perfect condition.
At the very least, they'd take heavy damage. If he timed that moment well... an opening for a long-range ambush would appear.
It was a rule that to cover up lies and sins, you had to commit bigger lies and sins. Even if the other party was a noble, responsibility for death during a quest was an issue the adventurer alone had to bear, so there was no way it would blow back on him.
"I was already planning to. Though it won't end the way you're hoping."
As Geuronzel watched the young man spout incomprehensible words and pull the sword he had planted in the floor to sheathe it, he quietly burned with rage.
It was rage directed at the one who had put a crack in his perfect plan.
After that, even the sight of him giving various orders to his party was watched with clenched teeth, and as Geuronzel, not knowing what to do with himself as rage coiled around his entire body, belatedly realized that this insolent young man had stood before him, the Adventurer's Guild Master, without even introducing himself, he burned with fury once more.
Had he known what that meant, a different emotion would have replaced the rage.
Naturally, Geuronzel did not know.