Chapter 54
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: A Leisurely Day
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Labyrinth City's festival, which had dragged on for several days, had finally come to an end.
The blazing heat of the festival, like fireworks, was gradually dying down, and the city was tidying up the remnants to return to its daily routine.
"Captain. Have some tea."
"Yeah. Thanks, Tanya."
Tanya brought tea to Ian, who was reading the newspaper at a table on the first floor.
Ian set the newspaper down and picked up the teacup, glancing briefly out the window.
The festival events had started early in the morning these past few days, making things irritatingly noisy.
It had been quite a while since he'd experienced such a quiet morning.
"It's pretty leisurely today..."
The thought slipped out of Ian absentmindedly.
...Wasn't it always the case that something busy cropped up the moment you said something like that?
Just as the idea crossed his mind, the outside suddenly grew noisy.
-Thud thud thud!
As if waiting for Ian to think exactly that, someone pounded urgently on the door and shouted.
"Is anyone there? It's the Mercenary Guild!"
"......"
Ian let out a small sigh.
Tanya went to open the door, revealing a young guild errand boy panting as if he'd run all the way here.
The boy spotted Ian coming out right behind her and immediately delivered his message.
"It's an emergency request! Could you come to the guild right away?"
"A summons?"
"No. A visit request."
"Got it. Tell them I'll head over immediately."
Ian gave the kid a slightly larger tip than usual.
In an era where news traveled by foot, people you tipped well were more likely to deliver good news accurately and with priority.
The boy beamed, bowed his head in thanks, and handed over the letter he'd brought.
Ian took the envelope with its red border and headed back inside.
Tanya, tense from the mention of an emergency request, asked Ian.
"What could the guild want all of a sudden?"
Ian opened the letter he'd just received, but aside from a request for him to visit today, there were no other details.
"Doesn't seem like a big deal."
The errand boy had seemed unusually urgent, and the word "emergency" carried its own tension.
But seeing Ian's calm reaction puzzled Tanya, and she asked.
"Isn't 'emergency' supposed to mean something major?"
"It's not a summons."
"There's a difference between types of emergency requests...?"
"A summons is when they force you. It's shoving unwanted jobs on you."
Ian briefly showed Tanya the contents of the letter he'd received.
It was an emergency visit request, not an emergency summons.
Requests like this could be turned down depending on circumstances.
"A request means you can say no if you don't want it. Plenty of others to take it."
Emergencies popped up all the time, but they didn't always mean bad news.
Sometimes, urgent matters came with good profits.
"I'll head to the guild."
"Ah, I'll come with you!"
As Ian organized his papers and stood, Tanya hurriedly followed behind him.
"You're here."
Camilla spotted Ian and looked up from her desk.
Ian and Tanya gave slight bows in greeting to Camilla.
"I heard you took on a troublemaker. Tamed her yet?"
"She's adjusting, more or less."
It was about Lia.
Word that Rebecca had found a place for her C-rank problem child had already spread through the guild.
Camilla seemed quite satisfied with the answer.
A capable C-rank mercenary stuck on short-term jobs where she couldn't shine was a big loss for the guild too.
Especially now that joining Ian's mercenary corps had opened up more types of work she could handle.
Camilla tapped a finger on a document folder she'd placed on the desk in advance.
"Something urgent came up."
"Monsters nearby?"
"An urgent commission popped up."
From the folder, Camilla pulled out a document with basic info on the client.
Client: Louise. Occupation: Alchemist.
The request: Escort.
Camilla pointed to a spot on the map spread out on her desk.
It was a small city a bit away from Labyrinth City.
"The client's coming from Orsia to Labyrinth City."
"Escort commission?"
"Not quite. They already hired an escort unit there and set off."
Camilla traced the highway connecting Orsia to Labyrinth City.
"It's about a week's distance from there to here, and the road's well-maintained, so bandits or monsters almost never show up."
No dangerous areas in between—just a straight shot by carriage should get you there safely.
Assuming no incidents along the way.
"They left ten days ago and still haven't arrived."
"Must've had an accident midway."
Camilla nodded.
Delays or disappearances during travel were commonplace.
If someone who said they'd come didn't show, people usually assumed bandits or monsters got them.
But this case couldn't just be brushed off like that.
"They're way overdue, so we need to send out a search."
"Someone important?"
"Nah. This client took out insurance."
The simple way to ensure safe travels: hire an expensive mercenary unit and arrive without issue.
The problem... was the expense.
"Hiring a top-tier unit for long-term escort costs a fortune. That's why this insurance sells pretty well."
Limited to journeys ending in Labyrinth City.
If the client didn't arrive by the agreed date, the Mercenary Guild would send a search party along a pre-designated route.
Of course, you'd have to endure the time it took for the search team to arrive, but it was far cheaper than keeping a skilled unit with you the whole way.
For the unlucky ones, at least the luckier among them might survive.
"There's a deposit paid upfront, so even if we fail, we get this much. If we rescue and bring them back, we can bill expedition costs separately. Sound good?"
Camilla explained it was a popular request, offering solid pay for the effort and time.
"Interested? Want to take it?"
"Not a bad deal."
Camilla pointed to a section on the map.
"The branch office confirmed the client left from the neighboring city. So we just need to search this stretch."
Looking at the terrain, it was just a straight highway.
Only one spot along the route prone to trouble: midway, a forest bordering the road.
Search there for the three-day contract period, and the job was done.
"Um, excuse me..."
Tanya, who'd been listening quietly, suddenly spoke up.
It wasn't the right moment for her to interrupt the commission talk, but she'd glimpsed something on the desk documents that caught her eye.
"Is this name here... real?"
"Where?"
Camilla looked where Tanya pointed.
"That's the escort unit the client hired."
"Could I learn more about this unit?!"
"Afraid not."
Camilla firmly shook her head at Tanya's request.
"Can't just hand out another unit's info without reason."
"But... isn't there any way? If it's money, I'll pay..."
"Not a money issue."
Ian checked the spot Tanya had indicated.
Just the name of the client's hired escort unit and its leader. Nothing more.
Her reaction suggested she knew them.
"Camilla. We'll take this commission."
Ian, who'd been watching, spoke to Camilla.
"Then you can show us the roster, right? We need to know who we're rescuing."
"...Fair enough."
Camilla nodded and pulled out a roster from the bottom of the folder listing the unit's members.
Three E-rank mercenaries hired for escort.
Ian showed the list to Tanya and asked.
"Anybody you know?"
Tanya took it with trembling hands, read the names, and answered in a quivering voice.
"My... friends..."
Ian vaguely recalled Tanya mentioning her friends once before.
It wasn't a pleasant story worth prying into, so he hadn't asked for details.
Names like this weren't the kind to pop up out of nowhere.
Tanya seemed just as thrown off by the sudden appearance of her friends' names.
"The friends you lost contact with while mercenary work? Weren't they in Labyrinth City and you couldn't find them?"
"Yes. No matter how much I searched..."
Camilla, listening in, interjected with a puzzled tone.
"You must have bad info. That unit's registered in Orsia."
"What? But my friends definitely said they were working in Labyrinth City..."
Tanya floundered, unsure how to react to the unexpected info.
The names on the paper alone offered no more clues about what had happened.
"Sounds like there's a story here. We'll know once we meet them."
Could be coincidence, aliases, impersonation.
Or some misunderstanding or circumstance Tanya didn't know about.
To resolve the root question, they needed to meet the people on this list.
"Still. If they're people you know, better hurry. They're already days past the expected arrival."
Tanya startled and looked down at the map marking the presumed disappearance area.
The forest was shaded in a broad red grid pattern.
The Fool's Domain.