How to Survive in a Good Small Guild — Episode 15
"Whew…. By the way, you said you learned the noble crest at a place that felt like a family company? What kind of work did you do there?"
"Uh, all kinds of work…."
"So what kind of company was it?"
The moment I asked, Cedric's pupils wavered. After a pause, he stammered out an answer.
"It was, um, something like a company that handled civil complaints."
"Ah, so it was like a call center?"
No wonder he'd suffered so much. With nightmare customers piled on top of nightmare coworkers, this information guild must have seemed like paradise to him.
"Anyway, Employee Cedric, let's solve this problem together now."
"Yes, ma'am. Where should I begin investigating? Naturally, by infiltrating the ducal house…."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Is that not correct?"
"All you have to do is follow my lead."
Apparently he had some rather grand illusions about information guilds.
"Employee Cedric, we work at the level appropriate for our information guild."
"You mean the level of doing someone's art homework for them?"
"Yes, exactly that level."
Under Cedric's bemused gaze, I began my explanation.
"The way I see it, an outside faction approached the Marchioness, and she's hiding it from the Duke so she won't be a burden to him. I'd bet my life on it."
"How can you be so sure?"
"You find out once you make it to assistant manager."
"I see…."
"What matters right now is which outside faction approached the Marchioness. That's what we're going to investigate."
Fortunately, the Duke had left us a bundle of papers. There might be a clue buried in there somewhere.
I started with the document on top. It was nothing more than a plan for how to landscape the ducal gardens.
"Could this perhaps be a cipher?"
"Employee Cedric. Let go of your illusions."
I began flipping through the pages one by one. Letters the Marchioness had exchanged with various people, her schedule recorded by the servants, even the contents of her bank safe deposit box….
"Good grief, the woman is wealthy. Nothing like our company's pitiful excuse for wages."
I murmured that while briefly distracted by her account records — then something odd caught my eye, and my hand stopped.
"This is…."
"Ten-peso deposits with suspicious depositor names…."
"Isn't that just the standard thing? Using the bank safe to verify someone's identity."
Ah, so they had that system here too. But….
"No, this isn't for identity verification."
"Why not?"
"For identity verification you obviously send one peso at a time! Who on earth would send a fortune like ten pesos?"
"A fortune…."
"This is a cipher, no question about it!"
"Yes, that does seem logical."
Anyone else would have looked at this and thought, like Cedric, that it was identity verification. But in truth, it was a code only the Marchioness could understand.
A two-character place name and a three-digit number.
"This one means 'meet me at the park at 8:08.' This one, 'meet me at the bank at 3:10.' That's the system."
"That sounds right."
At my deduction, Cedric's eyes began to sparkle too.
"Then who sent this cipher?"
"To find out, we'll have to go there ourselves."
We knew the date, the place, and even the time. There might just be a witness.
We arrived at the bookstore.
There was only one famous bookstore in the capital, so I assumed the one referenced in the records was that one.
"Why the bookstore, and not the park or the bank?"
"The park and bank have heavy foot traffic, so people are actually less likely to remember anything."
This bookstore, on the other hand, was famous for its beautiful exterior — but few people actually came inside.
"E-excuse me, may I ask you something?"
I grabbed hold of a bookstore employee.
"What is it?"
"Did you happen to see a woman who looked like a noble inside this bookstore, around 2 p.m. on April 21st?"
"Why would you want to know that…."
The employee eyed me with suspicion. A quick lie leapt out of my mouth.
"I'm searching for a missing person."
"Hmm, we don't exactly memorize every customer who comes through…."
"Any memorable customers, perhaps? Someone unusual?"
"Ugh, how would I even… oh."
Just then, the employee seemed to remember something and stopped mid-sentence.
"That's right, that day…."
"That day?"
"There was one absolutely infuriating customer."
"Infuriating, you say?"
"A young man, and he was such a hassle. He bought a book, got a handwritten receipt, and then demanded a refund on the whole purchase. Looked like he was planning to embezzle the money somehow. I can't tell you how exhausting it was."
That just sounds like an ordinary nightmare customer….
"But right after that, a beautiful woman came in and spoke with him. It seemed they had an appointment. I found it so strange that a customer like that knew such a lovely woman, so I watched for a moment."
At those words, I exchanged a look with Cedric. Given the context, there was a very good chance that woman was the Marchioness in disguise!
"Do you remember which book the infuriating customer bought?"
"Of course. It barely sells, so I remember it well."
With that, the employee disappeared into the back of the store and soon returned carrying a single volume.
"This is the book."
It was titled The Ashborn Family's Secret to Success: A Day That Begins at 5 A.M.
"A self-help book," Cedric said flatly.
"Could the man actually have ambitions of success?"
But I was focused on something else entirely.
"You said this book barely sells."
"That's right. It's by no means a famous one, even among self-help titles."
I was starting to get a feeling.
"Employee Cedric!"
After thanking the employee, I dragged Cedric quickly out of the bookstore.
"The person the Marchioness met bought an obscure book published by the Ashborn family. What do you think that means?"
"Uh, he wants to succeed, apparently. Given that he bought a book on the secrets of success…."
"No, you dolt!"
I stared at Cedric, eyes wide.
"If he wanted to succeed, why did he get a refund? That man had no interest in the book at all — he only needed a record of having bought it!"
"Why would he need…."
"Because his boss ordered him to buy the book!"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"That infuriating customer was an employee of the Ashborn family!"
I knew this all too well from my own experience at Company X in my past life.
Every one of our employees had been forced to buy five or more copies of Mr. Park Geo-seong's essay collection with their own money. Even remembering it now made my blood boil.
Just the same, that customer had almost certainly been an Ashborn employee.
And under pressure from Mr. Ashborn, the author himself, he'd been forced to buy the book! That's why he kept only the receipt and got his money back.
"So the party who approached the Marchioness was an employee of the Ashborn family?"
"Yes, exactly. I don't know why yet, but they must have gotten some kind of leverage over her."
"Forcing subordinates to buy books… the sheer audacity of it."
"This is what we call a positive mindset."
Cedric gave me an utterly dumbfounded look, but I paid it no mind.
"Employee Cedric, do you know anything about the Ashborn family?"
"I've heard the Count Ashborn family is more devoted to social activity than any house in the empire. They're a conservative, traditional noble family — they consider marrying their children into good houses their greatest virtue."
"Social activity, huh…."
I recalled the factions of this world from the original story.
The imperial family, the Temple, and Duke Caliard's house each possessed one divine authority, and people called them the Three Powers.
And once again — please don't ask how an ordinary noble family manages to stand shoulder to shoulder with the imperial family and the Temple. It's simply the law of childcare-fantasy novels that the heroine's family must be absurdly overpowered.
At any rate, there were four groups that maintained the balance among the Three Powers. They had no divine abilities, but each wielded influence in this empire in their own way.
The nobles' social circle, the Red Rose Salon.
The empire's largest trading syndicate, the Golden Scales Association.
The sanctuary of the empire's finest scholars, the Tower of the Stars.
The blades-for-hire bound by pure force, the Platinum Mercenary Corps.
"Employee Cedric, have you heard of the Four Groups?"
"Yes, I know of them."
"Then I assume you also know that the owners of the Red Rose Salon and the Platinum Mercenary Corps have never been made public?"
"Yes, that's correct."
That was why Marquis Heindel had been such an important supporting character in the original story.
Marquis Heindel was the owner of one of the Four Groups, and the original heroine won over his heart — and with it, his faction's favor.
"Perfect. I know exactly what we need to do."
A few days later, I stood before Marquis Heindel and said this:
"Marquis Heindel, this is an interim report on the investigation. It appears the Marchioness is being blackmailed by an employee of the Ashborn family."
"Then I shall dispatch men to seize them at once—!"
"No, we don't yet know which employee it is. We must assess the situation before acting. Which is why…."
I met Marquis Heindel's eyes and said:
"Please invite us to the Red Rose Salon."
He looked every inch a rofan male lead, so it would have been easy to mistake him for the owner of the Platinum Mercenary Corps — but astonishingly, his faction lay elsewhere.
Marquis Heindel was the master of the Red Rose Salon.