The Merchant's Nation (5): A Brother's Reckoning
The search capabilities of a living drone were always magnificent. By scattering food for the stray cats and street dogs roaming through the festival chaos, we pinpointed Zoid Twostas's location in under an hour. Focusing our search on taverns helped, but there was another unexpected reason for our swift success.
“Woof woof woof! (I know that guy!)”
The stray dogs and cats all recognized the face of that blonde, tanned rascal. Apparently he shared meals with them from time to time—though only with the dogs, never the cats.
“Meeeeeow!”
The cats, furious at the discrimination, sold him out in seconds while the dogs slunk around watching my mood. The dogs who had eaten my food and stayed loyal to Zoid versus the cats who betrayed him simply because he hadn't fed them. Which side was more beastly was debatable, but I caught up to Zoid walking down the alley before I could decide.
Ehehe~. This is nice~.
Zoid staggered along the street by himself. Our party watched him from the rooftop of one of the buildings lining the alley, then dropped down to block his path front and back.
—Thud.
Even Ringling No. 3.5, despite its considerable weight, produced no louder sound than that upon landing. We were all mana users, after all. The marionette doll Veronica had covered in rune-engraved cloth from Hela looked like a hulking human, and its intimidating presence was impressive enough that Zoid, who had been stumbling around like a drunk, immediately sobered. His face hardened and his hand went to his waist.
“Since when did the drunkards’ festival turn into such a refined masquerade party?”
Zoid muttered as he stared at us in our masks and robes. His hand rested on the sword at his hip, but he didn’t draw it. Just as I expected from someone with real skill—he had already sensed our strength.
Five against one in this narrow alley, including a mage. Or six against one if you counted the marionette. A fight would mean death. That seemed to be exactly what he was thinking.
“First, I apologize for approaching you in this manner in the middle of the night, Mr. Zoid Twostas.”
I spoke first, wearing the Arthur Wayne costume I hadn’t put on since visiting the Mages’ Guild. It was a good thing I’d brought it. Combined with the impression-altering mask, he shouldn’t be able to recognize me. I had left my spear behind, of course—its general silhouette could still give me away, and a spear was a rare sight in a nation of short dwarves. Carrying one would make backtracking far too easy.
Still, it wasn’t a problem. The claws granted by Beast Regression were sharper than most swords.
“I hope you’ll understand why I’ve hidden my face. I have no intention of intimidating you.”
“…Yeah, sure. What the hell do you want?”
“There is something important I need to ask you tonight. That’s why I’ve come.”
As I spoke, I poured every ounce of my focus into my gaze. I needed to watch Zoid’s reaction to the question I was about to ask.
“Did you know that your older brother, Jade Trustas, has been distributing toxic substances throughout Hremar and Nidavellir via his merchant group?”
If his face hardened or he tried to bolt, I would treat him as a suspect. If he asked back in confusion, I would gauge whether that reaction was genuine.
Zoid’s response was neither. He narrowed his eyes and glared at me.
“That’s one hell of an unfunny joke. You’re saying my brother was selling drugs?”
“Depending on how you look at it, it’s actually worse than that. At least, that’s how it looks to me.”
“Cut the bullshit. Our attitudes toward money might differ, but my brother isn’t the kind of man who would sell his conscience for a few gold coins. I’ve watched him for years.”
Zoid spat on the alley ground as if truly angry. To my eyes, it looked genuine. At the very least, it didn’t resemble the reaction of someone whose organization’s dirty secret had just been exposed when they had no mental leeway. He was far too calm for someone who had been expecting this confrontation.
More importantly, he isn’t looking for an escape route.
If he had something to hide, he would have been searching for a way out so he could warn his criminal associates. Instead, Zoid stood with his legs planted apart, glaring at me. His eyes seemed to say, Keep spouting that bullshit. I’m listening.
…I messed up the approach.
I should have suggested moving to a different location before dropping the main topic. This standoff was dangerous. It might be a back alley, but pedestrians still passed through. After all, Zoid himself had been walking here. If someone spotted us, things would get messy fast.
I had to admit my mistake. It seemed I had been unconsciously furious as well. My mind had been so fixated on ways to destroy the merchant group that I couldn’t focus on what was right in front of me. A blunder. Button the first button wrong, and nothing afterward goes smoothly.
And as I had said many times before, persuading an angry person is incredibly difficult.
“Why aren’t you saying anything? You treat another man’s family like a son of a bitch without any solid evidence? My brother isn’t that kind of person. He doesn’t do business with people’s lives.”
The enraged Zoid growled. My party members stayed silent, having left the negotiation to me, but someone interrupted the tense atmosphere.
“Do you truly believe that?”
It was a voice heavy with restrained emotion. Even though the impression-altering mask had little effect on me since I already knew everyone’s identity, it took me a full second to realize who had spoken.
Zoid turned to look at Franc.
“…What did you just say?”
“I asked whether you truly believe that.”
Franc asked without hesitation, as if she were genuinely curious.
“I heard you lived apart from your older brother for more than ten years. Of course, after returning to Hremar you must have exchanged greetings.”
“That’s right. After wandering outside my hometown for ten years, I felt the desire to reconcile.”
“Then why, Mr. Zoid, are you working as a security guard for the Blacksmiths Guild instead of your brother’s merchant group?”
Zoid’s pupils trembled. It was such a tiny flicker of agitation that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching carefully.
“…Our views didn’t align, that’s all. There’s no law saying family has to live together, is there? We’re both getting older, and a man should be able to take care of himself.”
It was a logical argument, yet it somehow sounded like an excuse. Franc didn’t press the point. What she wanted to ask was something else.
“Travelers wish for their hometown to remain unchanged. If you have to change your mindset every time your residence changes, you’ll exhaust yourself too quickly. That’s why we come to hope that at least our hometown will stay as we remember it.”
Having lived as a traveler for ten years, Franc’s words carried real weight. Perhaps it was because every member of our party—whether by choice or by force—had left their hometown and wandered.
“But those who are left behind change. Ten years is more than enough time for a person to become someone else. That’s why I’m asking.”
Franc continued in the same gentle tone she had used back when she was still a timid Iron Class adventurer.
“Do you truly believe that person is still the brother you remember?”
Zoid’s lips moved silently. I knew I was repeating myself, but persuading an angry man is hard. In that sense, Franc had accomplished something remarkable—Zoid’s previously fierce glare had dropped to the ground.
“…Damn it. No wonder the alcohol wasn’t hitting right today.”
Zoid looked up at the sliver of night sky visible between the alley roofs and spoke.
“Follow me. Let’s hear what this is all about.”
“Is there a suitable place?”
“Go straight down this path, take the first left, then the first right. There’s an inn there. The old man who runs it lost his wife and keeps the place open because he’s lonely. We’ll talk there.”
Zoid answered while suppressing his anger. I signaled the others. Franc and Larilura took the lead toward the inn.
“Since we forced our trust upon you, we’ll yield the choice of location. But you won’t mind if the party we sent ahead checks whether it’s a trap, right?”
“Do whatever you want. From the look of you, I doubt you’re the type to take a lonely old man hostage.”
“Thank you for your broad-minded understanding.”
“Broad-minded my ass.”
Zoid spat on the alley floor again. Then, staring at the alley Franc had disappeared into, he mumbled.
“…Mister. Can I ask you something?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“Are you asking about my brother because you hold a grudge?”
“I hope we won’t have to hold your brother accountable for past sins.”
I glanced back at Zoid.
“If there is a mastermind behind this and Jade Trustas is truly innocent, then that will be the case.”
Zoid no longer raised his voice.
We secured a private room at the inn and listened to Zoid’s story. Veronica had used rune stones to block all sound, so there was no need to worry about being overheard. Zoid spoke calmly, as if recounting someone else’s past.
The previous merchant leader had been a half-dwarf with two sons. Jade was born to a dwarf mother, while Zoid was born to a human mother.
“I never cared about becoming the merchant leader. When I was young I just lived like a bum.”
Though they had different mothers, the brothers had been close. The current leader of the Twostas Merchant Group, Jade, had dreamed of becoming a merchant. In the small nation of Nidavellir, supply outstripped demand for both weapons and clothing. No matter how exceptional the goods produced by dwarf artisans, without proper distribution they simply circulated within the domestic market before ending up in warehouses. That was the background behind why the nation of dwarf artisans had become an export powerhouse. Nidavellir was a merchant nation as well.
“The older brother who wanted to show the world the finest works of the artisans, and the younger brother who wanted to help him. That’s what our father believed until the day he died.”
Zoid recalled that it had truly been that way until they grew older and began to fight.
“We had a massive argument over the merchant group’s management policy. No merchant was willing to follow the wishes of someone who lived like a loafer. So I left my hometown and wandered for ten years. Eventually I realized I shared some of the blame, and I came back.”
He had sought out his brother with the intention of apologizing. Even if things couldn’t return to how they once were, they were still family reuniting after a decade.
“He told me to get lost. Said he didn’t need my help.”
His older brother looked almost unchanged from ten years ago, but the look in his eyes was not that of an older brother regarding his younger sibling. So Zoid had simply set down the expensive liquor he had bought for them to share and left.
“I needed to eat, so I joined the Blacksmiths Guild. But just like the young lady said, my hometown had changed a great deal while I was gone.”
After settling back in his hometown, he asked his new colleagues and drinking buddies what had happened during his absence. Yet all he heard about his father’s—no, his brother’s—merchant group were ugly rumors.
“Still, I believed in him. I thought the complaints were just growing pains while he expanded the company our father left him, and that once he overcame those sudden storms he would return to being the brother I remembered.”
There was no need to ask why he had believed that. Because they were family.
If my own family treated me coldly after I returned to Earth, I probably wouldn’t have let go of the faint hope that we could one day return to our old relationship. Zoid must have felt the same.
“But… he’s been selling something like this since twenty years ago?”
Zoid covered his face with both hands. On the table in front of him was the field mouse that had eaten the charcoal powder I gave it and promptly gone berserk.
“Squeak! Squeak squeak!”
The mouse thrashed in my grip. Rodents have fast heartbeats, so it had received the full effect of the charcoal powder mixed into the cheese. To convince Zoid, I had treated the creature I had drugged and placed it on the table.
—Scamper!
The mouse, its mind blank from its characteristic stupidity, darted straight into a mouse hole. There was no trace left of the bold little creature that had charged at Zoid to beg for cheese.
“Twenty years ago… that would be right after he inherited the merchant group from our father.”
Zoid set down the cheese kneaded with charcoal powder and let out a long sigh.
After several experiments, he had come to believe in the powder’s side effects. It also helped that many of the impatient people he frequently encountered while working in Nidavellir were connected to this very dye. Yesterday he had nearly been struck by an axe from a dwarf artisan protesting the price of the dye.
“So what does this mean? My brother became the world’s biggest bastard from the very beginning? And I was just wandering around comfortably, oblivious to my own blood relative’s atrocities?”
“We can’t say for certain that he knew twenty years ago.”
He might not have known at first and only noticed the side effects later. If there truly was a hidden backer trying to spread Furnace Oak Soot throughout Nidavellir, they might have been the ones who told him.
“But at the very least, he knows about the side effects now. And he continues to sell it regardless. He may also be connected to the recent fire at the Worr Grass cultivation site.”
“Fuck… I was the idiot for thinking he’d still be sane after seeing those eyes.”
Zoid slammed the cheese onto the table and exhaled heavily.
“So, mister. Why did you tell me all this?”