Chapter 421
Chapter 421
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Hide-and-Seek (2)
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The great city of Wigen.
Exactly one day earlier, in that alley where a wandering knight and a newsboy had met.
“N-No way! This is a scam, a total scam!”
“Hmm? Well, I don’t recall ever deceiving you.”
*Slurp slurp.*
*Clink clink.*
Hyde, slurping down the same cheap mushroom soup from the same crate as before, desperately fought back laughter as he eyed the boy who had appeared in a completely transformed state.
Of course, his cheeks twitching, one eye half-closed, and the corner of his mouth jerking—that face alone was the main culprit scraping away at the newsboy Pablo’s nerves.
‘I’ve been waiting for this day, this very moment!’
Pablo recalled the Hyde he had met here yesterday.
A guest who could afford a room at the station.
Generous spending that belied his shabby attire.
That subtly enlightened, laid-back demeanor!
Bigmouth newsboy Pablo had a gut feeling. This guy was definitely a big shot in disguise!
So that morning, he’d ditched his early paper route and rushed back to the newspaper office to find the boss.
“B-Boss, huff, huff, b-b-boss!”
“If you’ve caused another mess and run here to hide, I’ll kill you myself.”
“N-No, huff! It’s not that, I hit the jackpot! Jackpot!”
“...Jackpot?”
The boss had a nasty temper and loved money more than his life, but he’d taken in orphans like Pablo with nowhere to go and given them jobs and income. Grateful to him, always in his debt, Pablo told him about the “Mr. Hyde” he’d met that morning, the regular subscription deal, and the station access pass he’d been given.
“...Pathfinder?”
The boss, who’d been listening indifferently, suddenly sat up straight and said,
“Pablo.”
“Yes, bonus!”
“...You’re fired from the morning newsboy route as of today.”
“Eek! Why?!”
Instead of a reward, dismissal like a bolt from the blue, and the boss facing him with a serious look and a heavy coin pouch.
“I’m pulling you from all other duties so you can focus on that. Here’s your expense money.”
“T-This much?”
“The other reporters get about the same. Where do you think they get all that padding from station staff and guards? It’s an investment from the paper. Do this job right, and I’ll promote you to reporter.”
“R-Reporter...? Me, a reporter?!”
“Yeah. It’s that important. I already thought something was fishy about that place, and now station access with all that info on outside activity right when things are heating up. And that... uh. Never mind.”
.
.
.
.
Ugh... he said a lot more, come to think of it.
Anyway, Pablo, who for the first time in his life had someone’s expectations placed on him, clutched the heavy coin pouch and pondered.
‘How can I impress Mr. Hyde?’
Inside were not slim silver pieces, but old sealing coins—ten times the value of the same weight in city silver. Shiny coins stamped with the faces of past kings and emperors, twenty of them. With this, he could gorge on not just lard but actual pork, buy heaps of mana stone powder for heating in the newsboy dorms, donate to the temple of the priest who’d named him Pablo, and still have plenty left.
But Pablo was mature beyond his years.
‘An investment. The boss said it’s an investment.’
Where to invest? All he knew about Mr. Hyde was that he was an important guy who enjoyed cheap food. What could he do with that?
Then the boy caught sight of his reflection in a rainwater gutter.
A filthy face he couldn’t remember last washing.
Clothes caked in sweat and dust from dashing through the complex city every morning.
Mr. Hyde was obviously someone refined. No, Lord Hyde.
“...Alright!”
Resolved, the boy dashed off jingling his silver coins.
To a salon on the outskirts of the central district, a place a lowborn like Pablo would never visit.
****
“Ahh, so that’s why... Pfft!”
“D-Don’t laugh! I did my best, in my own way!”
“Ahem, uh, hmm! Yes. Your effort is truly... app... pfft!”
“Eeeeek!!”
Hyde tried to hold it in, but every time, the contrast between the back-alley scenery and the boy’s polished look tickled him beyond endurance.
‘How am I supposed to hold this in?’
His grimy, shaggy hair was slicked back with thick oil into a severe ponytail.
His trash-like rags replaced by a finely woven shirt and pants.
Topped with a cheap but glossy leather vest like those worn by noble house servants, and small leather shoes that clicked distinctly with every step.
The back-alley newsboy waddling around in a miniature butler outfit overnight. If this didn’t make you laugh, you should visit a temple instead.
“I thought you were clearly a great man, so to serve at your side, I had to match your level—that’s why I invested that big money! So why are we back here eating that soup?!”
“I’m not that great.”
“Then what are you?!”
“A guy suffering from some intense mental defect, poor enough that the clothes you’re wearing cost several times what’s in my pocket, and right now, someone asking for your somewhat proactive cooperation.”
“Eek, uwaaaah! No way! You’re not some knight order member in disguise?! Just an empty tin can?!!!”
“Yesterday you learned about investment, and today about the risks that come with it, Pablo. Remember, the responsibility of investment always lies with you.”
*Slurrrp—*
*Clink!*
Hyde laughed until he was breathless at the boy clutching his hair, then tossing his clothes aside only to flinch again, as he scraped the last of the soup from his bowl.
“Now then, diligent, quick on the uptake, and now even flaunt-Ing-ly refined newsboy friend? Breakfast ends here—let’s get back to our business.”
“Whewww... Yes. What do you want to know? Fragment prices? Latest news? Noble gossip? Anything, just say it. Yesterday I went back to the paper like this and memorized every last bit amid all the harsh mockery.”
Hyde eyed Pablo muttering things like ‘connected to some huge shot... gonna flatten his nose...’ and said,
“Guide me around the city.”
“Yes—city guide...? Yes?”
“Here, the great city. I’ve only been in Wigen four days. Don’t you get the sense I have no clue what to do?”
“Uh... so not verbal info or mapped city layouts... but actual guiding? Me, personally?”
“That’s right.”
“So dragging me from the main gate to this out-of-the-way spot wasn’t because you had unavoidable business in the station and needed a quiet place away from reporters or snoopers, but because you actually wanted to tour together?”
“That’s right, that’s right! Classy Pablo is smarter than yesterday’s plain Pablo!”
“W-Wait. Where to, exactly...?”
“Hmm... everywhere, for starters? I want to familiarize myself with all the important spots.”
“Huh.”
.
.
.
.
.
“...Uwaaaaaah! For real! Why’d I have to get stuck with a guy like this?!”
Pablo alternately stroked his shiny leather clothes and neat hair, stomping his feet.
A city tour, of all things!
Some might ask what’s so bad about walking alongside and pointing things out, but any Wigen local would slap the requester first.
Because this was Wigen. Thanks to its fertile lands in the old Teldrat Empire territory, it was the great city with the most earth mages in residence—the great city where those earth mages had rolled up their sleeves to fix the cramped bedrock flaws! The result: towering stone buildings tangled in the mages’ bizarre aesthetic tastes, like an ant mound stacked upward.
In Wigen, you didn’t ask for directions. Locals stuck to “proven” routes taught hand-in-hand by parents or guardians from childhood, while outsiders like Mr. Hyde used the city-painted “yellow paths.”
Everything else? A total labyrinth. The mostly dwarf earth mages had twisted Wigen into a horrific upward ant nest, as if proclaiming their roots.
Thus, Wigen’s resident population hovered around 35,000. The undisputed most populous city in old Teldrat lands—and that excluded who-knew-how-many hidden in the maze-like streets.
Ask a clueless person “How do I get to so-and-so’s place?” and the “Go straight, third alley...” directions could fill thirty wooden slates.
Asking for a guide in such a city meant becoming a permanent lead-ahead escort wherever he went. No point memorizing anyway—you’d get lost in the middle without full guidance.
‘I got tricked. He didn’t need a newsboy from the start—he needed a guide, and he hooked me good!’
Truth was, no one suited the city guide role better than a newsboy, dashing everywhere daily to deliver news. Hyde had probably schemed to snag one with that sweet bait.
The [Station Access Pass].
“...Mr. Hyde? If I refuse to guide...”
“Sadly, the bond between ‘classy boy Pablo’ and ‘nothing-special Hyde’ ends here? Ahh, what a shame. On my way out today, I ran into the crew of the magic train ‘Dynamite Lady’—”
“Uwaaa#*(@#&*$^&*@!!!!”
He couldn’t refuse. He’d already bragged to the paper about snagging the pass and taken the expense money.
A newsboy with nine lives getting the boss’s full expectations, only to get booted on day one without even stepping foot in the station?
He’d be beaten black and blue for a month, no doubt. For blowing a golden opportunity. The other newsboys would mock him too—say he’d puffed up a nothing to impress the boss. He was used to beatings, but being called a fool by the others? He’d die first.
“Ugh... ughhh! Fine! Let’s do it!”
What choice did he have? To avoid slinking back empty-handed, he had to cooperate with Mr. Hyde and extract station intel.
Pablo had no recourse but to grab the still-laughing Hyde’s hand. Blame himself for falling for that cheerful hidden vibe.
*Scratch scratch*
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Mr. Hyde.
- Uses a sword. Also wields a well-worn arcane shooter.
- Enjoys cheap food.
- Aurorite? Knight devotee?
- ☆Station guest!
- Bastard
- Scary smart.
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“What’re you doing?”
“Oh, nothing!”
Pablo’s only revenge was meticulously recording and later selling his personal info.
“So, where to? Fair warning, like you said—if it’s just the ‘surface-level major facilities,’ five days following the yellow paths is plenty. Otherwise... two months won’t cut it. To know every nook and cranny for real, brace for two years hunkered down here. If you’re looking for something specific, say so. I’ll guide you to related spots.”
...Hyde thought pulling in a newsboy was indeed the right call.
*Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.*
He recalled the sensation that had urgently drawn him to this city. His heart still beat a tad faster than usual. Faint, but proof he was closing in on what he sought.
And,
“Warlord.”
“...That rumored thing?”
“Yeah. The crazy bastard you mentioned yesterday—that’s what I’m after. Any leads?”
『-Thud』
A heavy thud like his chest dropping, a sensation he’d never felt before.
“First, meet someone who came from old Lordric territory about a year or two ago.”
“But the Warlord rumors are recent, right?”
“‘Discovered’ and ‘controversial’ recently. A guy treated like urban legend bubbling up means he caused some incident. To ripple all the way to Wigen’s fragment market from distant old Lordric? Not just ‘heard he got off a ship.’ He did something big. Depending on the incident, Lordric nobles might’ve sealed the city’s lips. Easy enough for them.”
Fragment markets don’t quake on ghost stories. This level of freeze meant quantifiable change.
“Oh! Yeah, it was weird the market flipped on mere rumors.”
“Guess: hit a noble scandal or something bigger, so they cut inter-city info flow—not uncommon. But rumors still leak through.”
“That’s the ‘Warlord’?”
“Yep. If he sparked it, someone from Lordric in the last few years knows what went down. Starting there.”
“Wow...”
*Scratch scratch—*
The boy scribbled on a small wooden slate in his palm and stood.
“Places likely to have Lordric folk from the last two years. If seeking incident witnesses... yeah, there’s a spot.”
“Where?”
“Rail Village. Where else for newcomers? Follow me.”
Pablo rose with a face screaming he dreaded it, then suddenly turned to Hyde.
“...I’ll do it, but you better pay up proper! Definitely! Absolutely!”
“Drinking with the ‘Dynamite Lady’ engineers tonight... Pablo, you drink?”
“I’ll serve you with all my heart, Lord Hyde!”
Engineers from the ‘Dynamite Lady,’ in town just two weeks!
Sleazy maybe, but he seemed to pay well. Pablo agreed to guide without complaint.
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.
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- Brain: scary, scary good.
======
Pablo’s hidden palm slate now held added awe and a touch of respect for Hyde, who’d read the times from prices, rumors, and vibes alone.
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