Point of Contact
Point of Contact
By the time we left the guild, evening was already well underway.
We left the guild after being told to return within a week once the exact compensation had been arranged and started back toward the estate. Dinner had passed more than an hour ago, but the chocolate I'd been snacking on had killed my appetite. At this age, with how active I was, you'd think I'd be hungry no matter how much I ate.
"We're pretty late tonight. Father might scold us."
Sheryl stretched as she walked along without the slightest hesitation or lingering regret.
Sheryl had turned down Engrim's request.
She hadn't told me why, so I didn't ask. Perhaps, since all the information was classified, she thought her own skills were still lacking.
"You're not asking why I turned it down."
Then Sheryl suddenly asked a question as though she'd read my mind. Her adventurer persona was already gone and Noble Sheryl was back; even her tone had regained that faintly imperious edge. I was so used to it by now that I didn't care.
It was the way she occasionally pried, as if reading my mind, that was harder to get used to.
"Did you expect me to refuse?"
"No, I figured you'd take the request."
She hadn't shown even a sliver of doubt when gauging the gravity of the matter. She'd been absolutely convinced I'd take it no matter what if it was serious. I only realized, after she turned it down, that she drew her own lines when working as an adventurer.
"And still, you don't feel curious?"
For some reason that answer immediately annoyed her again. Her blocky eyebrows drew tight as she glared at me. I couldn't make sense of the reaction, but I wasn't going to pretend I felt something I didn't, so I nodded.
"It's your call anyway. Why make a fuss now?"
This insolent brat was smarter than me. What had I been doing at fifteen? I think I was drowning in anime and comic books.
That was around when I practiced kendo with some enthusiasm, but I never stood out—just a little more earnest than my peers. If the me from back then had stood next to Sheryl now, I might've exploded from shame.
"Whatever your reasoning was, I respect it. No real reason to be curious."
"...Insolent."
"Why again?"
Without answering the part that actually invited curiosity, Sheryl walked on quietly. What an insolent little brat.
"But even if you don't take it, I might."
"Hm?"
"The thing the Guildmaster mentioned. I'm interested, so I'm going to take the request."
"...Then couldn't you have just said so back there?"
She looked at me as if wondering why I'd make two trips, but I had my reasons.
"Wouldn't it look more believable for adventurers if we talked it over, disagreed, and then I took the request on my own?"
Most adventurers and commoners rarely saw a noble's face closely enough to remember it. That was exactly why Sheryl and I could openly use our real faces and names while pretending to be ordinary adventurers.
It was a class society that fit the phrase "living in a different world" almost perfectly.
Because of that, in Engrim's eyes we were just remarkably skilled for our young age. And no pair of adventurers naturally splits up over a request.
If we were going to split up that casually, there'd be no reason to operate as a pair in the first place. Partners might disagree in private, but instantly breaking the pair with a simple 'I'm out.' 'Fine, I'll do it alone,' wasn't normal adventurer behavior.
If that made people suspicious enough to investigate who we really were, Sheryl's little hobby would've developed long-term complications. That much was obvious.
"I definitely didn't think of that."
Sheryl nodded, chin in hand, organizing her thoughts, but soon asked again with a face that still carried lingering doubts.
"But why? I don't think you'd fail to predict the risks that come with a job where no information can be disclosed beforehand."
"I need to take the head of the commander from the Demon King's Army. The more experience I get before then, the better."
"...Are you serious?"
"It's one of the things I'm most serious about in this life."
I deliberately say that I'm going to kill that commander over and over, because I'm afraid I might get comfortable with my current life. In my previous life I'd never been especially driven or passionate enough to burn everything for a goal. Repeating it is a ritual—a way to watch for the version of me whose resolve might quietly fade until all I want is an ordinary life.
Even so, no matter how much Ekaf hadn't passed on the specifics of our deal to the family, I hadn't expected even Sheryl to treat it as a joke. Even that kid Jin back in Ogwen had taken it seriously.
"Anyway, that's how it is. I don't know if they'll accept me alone, but I'll go back tomorrow."
"...Get all the information you can squeeze out first, then decide."
"I'm not a kid; you think I don't know that?"
Engrim was the Guildmaster, for fuck's sake. Surely he didn't share Pabaera's hobby of hiding critical information and sending people to their deaths.
◈
So the next day, around noon, I finally moved at my leisure and went to see Engrim.
Normally, he wasn't someone you could meet by just dropping in anytime, but thanks to yesterday's events, securing a private meeting was no trouble.
"In your view, Guildmaster, do you think I alone could help with that job?"
His response was perfectly sensible. He was glad I was interested, but his first concern was whether my partnership with Sheryl had broken down. My previously neutral opinion of Engrim tilted noticeably in his favor. I gave him a vague explanation and brought up the request again.
"There are others I've asked besides you two. The goal is to form a party."
The sort of people Engrim wanted was simple: adventurers who hadn't made a big name yet but who'd clearly outgrown their current rank, and who knew how to understand a request properly and see it through. Whenever someone like that appeared, he sounded them out.
"If every one of them says yes, aren't you going to end up moving an entire platoon?"
"I'm not approaching them that indiscriminately. That was just the phrasing. In the first place, how could such talents be overflowing?"
The world was wide and idiots were plentiful, but talents always seemed scarce. Anyway, there seemed to be no problem.
"I should warn you in advance: if you accept the request, you'll also have to agree to a light magical restriction for security."
"Fine, let's do it."
I'd come here intending to do it no matter what. A prohibition was just guarding against information leaks; it wasn't a curse where you'd die upon accepting or couldn't break free until completion.
"You accepted that remarkably easily."
"That's exactly why I came here today."
Engrim burst into a casual laugh, seemingly quite pleased with my response.
"That's a relief. Could you come back around dinner tonight? Another adventurer agreed to join early this morning. Now that you're here as well, we should be able to sign the contract today and discuss the request immediately afterward."
"You'll treat me to a meal, of course?"
"Naturally."
They were giving me a free meal, so I had no reason to refuse. I gladly accepted, shook hands with Engrim with a smile, and headed down to the first floor in good spirits.
"Huh? That bastard?"
And the moment I stepped off the last stair, my cheerfulness plummeted straight into the abyss.
"You bastard, didn't I tell you? I remember your face."
The figure who jabbed a finger at me, scowling with his pack as he charged forward aggressively. The child predator, Dantel.
That moment.
For the first time in a long while, Bad Eldmia and Worse Eldmia appeared.
And they shouted with frantic fervor.
-Galactica!
-Phantom!
"Didn't I tell you too? Remember it well, because the moment you forget, you die."
The endlessly plummeting feeling plunged past the abyss and started fucking itself, enough that the thought of seriously checking later if I had bipolar disorder barely grazed a corner of my mind.
"Did your shitty head fail to understand? Was it that hard to interpret my words—'if you forget my face and run into me, I'll kill you'? If you remembered my face, you should've bolted the second you saw me, like a dog who got its nose punched in."
I wanted to believe it was just my mood, but I kept getting tangled up with these idiots littering the streets. However, faith and action were separate, so I strode forward just the same. Those bastards were approaching confidently; there was no way I'd back off like I was intimidated.
"Huh?"
As I drew closer with even quicker steps, something seemed to flicker across their hostile faces—a premonition that something was wrong. But I couldn't let that happen. Those bastards had to get beaten half to death today.
If it were other bastards, there might've been some room for extenuating circumstances, but this Dantel—I couldn't forgive him.
Garun, who'd tried to work for justice by killing bastards worse than thieves, was dead. So why was this child predator keeping up a brazen attitude and staying alive? Even if he was alive, he ought to grovel guiltily with his head to the ground until it wore down, and yet he raised his voice?
From the moment Garun died, Dantel had become nothing but a factor that triggered selective anger management issues in me by his mere existence.
"I'll crawl all the way to Mandeli Port if I have to, but you're getting hit until you beg me to spare your life."
"Wh-what? How do you..."
"Shut your mouth and don't ask stale questions, or I'll cut your tongue out!"
-Bang!!
"Aagh!"
Only after I lunged without a thought for front or back and swung a real man's punch straight into Dantel's face did the vertically plummeting mood start to rise. Dantel crumpled in a single blow, scattering his front teeth, and the color drained from the faces of his group watching.
The moment I charged in without any intention of holding back, I heard adventurers shouting around me.
"Oh, Eldmia's gone crazy again!"
It wasn't me who was crazy, it was the world, fuck.