Legend of the Southern
Legend of the Southern
With Seneran's forceful insistence, Yekaterina and Rellie ended up half-forced into accepting her help, and with that, the boisterous dinner finally came to an end.
Later, there was a small incident where Yekaterina and Asilie got completely wasted in a drinking match, but even that was part of the enjoyable meal, so everyone could laugh. Though Asilie wouldn't be laughing the next day, of course.
Fortunately, in the meantime, we managed to ask for the others' understanding and agreed to rest thoroughly this week before talking things over at a leisurely pace. Even better, my teacher said she would personally convey the message to the royal palace, so there was no need for me to go out of my way.
In the end, after all that struggling to find a winter vacation, I wound up resting at home—an ironic situation that made me chuckle bitterly, but I decided to be grateful for the rest I'd been given.
Of course, that didn't mean I could just hole up at home and do nothing. I still had to offload the exchange jewels I'd earned in the west, and I wouldn't feel at ease until I restocked necessary supplies and finished my inspections in case of emergencies. So as soon as the next morning dawned, despite suffering from lack of sleep and a hangover, I stepped out into the street after swearing to the deeply distrustful Asilie—who was glaring at me with eyes full of doubt—that I would definitely return before evening.
[A walk! So exciting!]
With Laika, who had done nothing but sleep at home for nearly a month because I wasn't there. Seeing the little thing wag its butt so hard it looked like it might fall off made me laugh all over again.
Despite everything that had happened, the capital didn't seem to have changed much. Well, if it had stayed perfectly fine through years of war, it would've been stranger if a bunch of orcs suddenly caused a change.
Still, if I had to pick out what had changed, the weather had grown colder and the number of people who flinched violently at the sight of me had increased. The ones who reacted as if they were seeing a dead man walking would hastily avert their steps or duck into alleyways.
Maybe yet another damn impersonator was out there somewhere, using my name to build a foul reputation. If I'd been completely unaware, I would've dismissed such a worry as excessive self-consciousness and not even thought it. But after going through it twice, it felt like a perfectly rational suspicion.
Other than that, it was an utterly ordinary day in the capital. From the crowded streets in the morning to the busy people bustling about... everything was ordinary...
"Is that really him...?"
"Must be fake. There's more than one of those guys around lately, isn't there? Let's just not cross paths and hurry past."
...Everything, ordinary. That's what I was about to say, but...
The short exchange from those two, who reacted far from ordinarily upon seeing me and Laika, reached my ears. When I turned my head, two young guys met my eyes and then hurriedly dropped their gazes and quickly disappeared into some alley.
I didn't bother chasing after them to grab them and ask for details or puzzle over what they meant.
Because even without that kind of troublesome crap, the situation was painfully obvious, fuck.
"Those goddamn impersonator bastards, seriously."
Thanks to that, the first place I needed to stop by had been decided.
◈
The adventurer's guild, facing a sudden winter boom due to the orcs, was crowded from the morning.
At other times, you would only have seen adventurers who'd been drowning in booze until dawn staggering belatedly back to their lodgings, or newbies glancing over the request board for side income to get through the winter safely. But the lucrative profits from emergency requests and the orc influx had the power to forcibly make people diligent.
But that didn't make their hearts any kinder or more altruistic.
"Ah, fuck, move! It takes forever just to grab one request!"
"If you've got no skills, fuck off!"
"You bastard, that's the request I grabbed first!"
"The bastard who was too slow to tear it off is the problem, what kind of bullshit are you spouting?"
The area in front of the board was a rare scene of intense scuffles and cursing. The heat was so excessive that timid rookie adventurers had to give up entirely, sit down, and wait for the rough atmosphere to settle.
This atmosphere had been spreading through the guild for three weeks now. Most of those fiercely fighting were new faces I'd never seen before in the capital, but that didn't mean they were rookies. On the contrary, most of them were veteran adventurers who'd been through hell and back in other places.
"You shameless bastard, come at me!"
"Yeah, I was already thinking there were too many vermin around. Bring it!"
They were men who, as soon as they heard the rumors of the great orc army, had sniffed out money based on their long adventuring experience, left the cities they'd been in, and even paid expensive gate fees to rush to the capital.
Requests, no matter how much the guild mediated, inevitably varied in reward from city to city. Since money didn't just spring from the ground, that was perfectly natural. Normally, they tried to maintain balance as much as possible to prevent adventurers from chasing money and concentrating in specific regions. But emergency-grade requests had an extremely strong tendency to throw open whatever they had to solve the problem at hand, so it was bound to be different from usual.
In other words, it meant they stopped caring about balance and were throwing out as much money as possible.
Naturally, emergency-grade requests in major cities were more profitable than in ordinary ones, and the seasoned adventurers who knew this carefully weighed their own skills against the gate fees. As soon as they were confident they could make a killing, they flew straight to the capital. It was the rational choice: the city closest to the incident and the one with the most money.
In fact, their predictions hit the mark exactly, with orc subjugation requests posted on the board at two to two and a half times the usual price—for the skilled, there was no better boon.
But the problem was that this was hardly some trade secret known only to a select few.
Normally, even if rumors spread, they would have spread late and few would have moved on them. But since this incident was an unprecedented emergency that had occurred near the capital, it was already common knowledge among anyone who mattered that the royal family had even mobilized wyvern knights to spread the information to surrounding cities.
Some, upon hearing that news, joined the orc subjugation force, while others moved with the mindset of just skimming money in an easier, safer form. Like those bickering in front of the board right now.
In the heads of those who had come to the capital spending their own money for a big score, the only thought was to expand and protect their own rice bowls. They threw their full experience into a fierce battle for their piece of the pie, dancing just shy of drawing guild sanctions. Cursing and fisticuffs were the basics, and in severe cases, stabbing a competitor in the back later was all too common. Sometimes they'd get robbed in return, but most of them picked on those weaker than themselves and profited.
Because of all this, Engrim—the capital's adventurer guild master, whose hair had thinned markedly over the past month from mounting worries—was forced to heave a deep sigh yet again today as he watched the dogfight in front of the board from his office.
"There really is no shortage of genuine sons of bitches."
Sure, the fact that more and more people were carrying or leading dogs around played a part, but more than anything, the problem was that humans who naturally evoked the phrase 'ill-bred bastards' had multiplied too suddenly and too many.
The blockade order prohibiting adventurer movement was useless in front of the gate.
Since its purpose was to keep idiots from trudging forward on foot and dying on the road, it was only natural that it couldn't stop movement through a safe gate. Under normal circumstances, more capable individuals would have stepped forward to warn the main culprits of that chaos or to use their territorial advantage to make them think twice. But this time, they couldn't even do that.
The reasons were truly varied. Most of the adventurers who had taken part in the orc subjugation force had been squeezed to the marrow—no matter how fair the pay offered—and had entered a rest period. The capital, by its very nature, had fewer adventurers of overwhelmingly superior skill compared to other danger zones. And right before the orc gate incident erupted, quite a few adventurers who could be called mid-tier had died en masse at Eldmia's hands.
Things could get so tangled that he wanted to grab anyone and ask how it could possibly get this bad, but because he was the guild master, he couldn't. Engrim ultimately spoke to his visitor with a gloomy face.
"Garun. Can't something be done about this?"
"Ah, you're asking something that obvious? That's beyond my ability."
Casually helping himself to Engrim's precious chocolate, Garun shrugged. He'd been famous as a scout, and even that was only recognized by those in the know, so he was well aware that he had no intimidating presence whatsoever.
If he went down there right now, the number of people who recognized his face could be counted on one hand. He'd be lucky not to get laughed at.
"I'd rather hope Eldmia kicks the guild door open and walks in right this instant. Even to my eyes, I can see those insignificant little shits imitating the guy, so he'd probably start by beating the crap out of half of them as soon as he entered. Do those fools even realize they're shortening their own lives doing that?"
Garun chuckled as he spoke, but he wasn't entirely at ease inside either.
They had just come here through underhanded means and were acting like that, but most of them were people who shouldn't even be here. Blinded by greed to make a little more money, they'd abandoned their own cities and come over, even harassing the rookies who were already here—there was no way that looked good.
Even worse, the scammers who were imitating Eldmia were dragging around disobedient mutts and causing all sorts of chaos. Right now, in front of the board, there were more than a few of those con artists warily eyeing each other.
"Whoa, looks like that friend is seriously pissed again today."
And then, a young man caught Garun and Engrim's eyes. Among those who had originally been active in the capital, there was no one who didn't know who he was; he'd just entered the guild.
"You cocksucking bastards! Get the hell out with that shitty mutt! Who the fuck do you dare imitate?!"
The most fervent Eldmia worshipper, Balrus.
In just one short month, he'd worked requests relentlessly, saved up money, and frugally put together his equipment. One of the rookie adventurers recognized by the guild for his diligence appeared in the guild hall, absolutely fuming.