Suspicious Movements 1
A three-person mercenary band sat around a worn table — a woman with short red hair, a bald man with a thick beard, and a young fellow with messy brown hair. The moment I casually dropped into a seat at their table and saw their hands drift toward the weapons at their hips, I slapped a palm down on the wood with a sharp thwack.
Naturally, what rested in my grip was a single gold coin.
"Whoa now, we've got a distinguished guest."
"What, you got something you wanna hear?"
At the sight of that gleaming gold coin sitting smack in the middle of the table, the bald man and the young one both grinned and turned toward me. Their hands drifted just as naturally from their weapons to their tankards.
Knight orders ranked by swordsmanship and mana mastery. Mages ranked by mana control plus magical research. Adventurers ranked by the monsters they could handle. But a mercenary's standard was simple and crystal clear: money.
Whether by personal skill or by growing their numbers, a mercenary climbed ranks by completing jobs, building trust, and raking in serious coin. Put another way — flash a gold piece first, and they were the easiest people in the world to bring around.
Even if a total stranger sat down at their table, even if some shady character struck up a conversation, a mercenary would gladly tip their head if it meant pocketing gold without lifting a finger.
"I've got a few questions."
"Wow, a rich big brother like you coming to Intermediate-grade mercs like us?"
"That story you were telling earlier — about the client who vanished. I want to know where they were coming from, and whether something happened to them along the way."
A mercenary who hadn't built enough trust bolting with the money was a common enough tale. Since ranks were bought with coin and reputation, cheap mercs below copper plate would take the job fee, figure they'd earned their drinking money, and skip town — same way a greenhorn adventurer got careless and died to goblins.
But a client disappearing mid-hire? That almost never happened. Anyone wealthy enough to hire mercenaries was either a solid merchant caravan or a rich individual, and people like that would rather pay a cancellation fee — pocket change — to keep their reputation intact than stiff the Mercenary Guild.
"Ah, that? Yeah, it was a pretty weird one."
It was basically just gossiping about someone else, and every word they spoke rolled a gold coin their way worth more than the original job fee. No reason to lie to a mysterious stranger who kept flashing gold — because lying wouldn't make them any richer.
So the three of them spilled everything that had happened to them, right there in front of the coin.
"Originally the three of us were gonna join a caravan heading west. We wanted to pick up some pocket change on the western road, so instead of a big trading company we took a job from a peddler group whose schedule lined up."
"A peddler group?"
"Yeah. Not a proper company — just individuals who banded together into a guild. Small-volume stuff like Mana Stones, gems, jewelry for nobles and rich commoners — no need for wagons. They just strap on a pack and travel as a pack themselves."
Walking around with no horses and no wagons? Lunatics.
While the drunk young man snickered and tossed that out, my eyes met Lily's in midair. So in the end, merchants who'd been hauling Mana Stones had vanished for no reason?
Just like Lily's companions.
"Where were these merchants coming from?"
"The west — from the port city, through Maurice County, heading into Erteta. The job we took was escort duty from Erteta to the kingdom's capital."
Peddlers carrying Mana Stones who went missing. The western port city and Maurice County. At this point it was hard to call it coincidence. I'd only come to this tavern because it seemed like a regular hangout for Lily's party, and somehow we'd scored a direct hit.
My expression hardened; Lily's brow furrowed at once. Seeing that, the mercenaries hastily scooped the gold coin off the table and stuffed it into a pocket.
"Heh heh, uh — if someone you know was one of those merchants, we're sorry. Ahem, we didn't mean it to come out that way."
Apparently our serious faces made them think a relative of ours had gone missing, and they shrank on the spot. Drunk or not, they seemed to believe they'd just badmouthed a vanished family member in front of a big spender flashing gold.
They looked more decent than expected. I waved it off with a rough "it's fine" and headed back to our table. The little kid who'd been fidgeting stamped her feet with delight and came dashing over with a bowl of sizzling sausages — she must have thought we'd downed our ale and bailed.
"Roland, what do you think?"
"Looks related no matter how you slice it. Those orcs must have set up shop out that way after all."
"Then it wouldn't hurt to visit the Merchant Union tomorrow. Let's find out if any guild members suddenly went dark."
She gripped her fork reverse-dagger style, stabbed a hot sausage still bubbling with oil, and crunched into it with gusto. Even in a shabby dive like this, there was a reason the place stayed packed — the rich smell of good meat rolled over us in a pleasant wave.
Call it a game-style patch if you want, but even the cheap sausages at a dump like this had a pinch of spice to kill the gamey smell. How grateful should a man be for that?
If this had been the lukewarm piss-beer and rubber-scrap meat of every other fantasy novel, I probably would have flipped the whole world upside down looking for a way home, magic tools be damned. Thinking that, I washed the grease from my mouth with a cold ale — and Han Se-ah shoved her quest window into the stream.
Listening to a drunken mercenary's complaints, it seems a band of peddlers has gone missing.
Merchants who dealt in precious metals, accessories, and Mana Stones — and who had even posted an escort job.
Her companions, who had been transporting Mana Stones, vanished from the same region…?
"Huh? The quest window just updated! Is it from Roland's side, or Irene unnie's?"
In one corner of my vision, Han Se-ah's stream erupted into chaos. We'd only split up less than an hour ago, so the racket was even louder than usual. With the quest window clearly updated, we could finish eating and head back anytime.
I flicked my eyes that way — and Lily, who'd been watching my face from across the table, tossed me a question.
"What is it, Roland? Want to listen in on those mercs at the other table too?"
"Hmm? Nah. I eavesdropped out of curiosity, but it doesn't seem related."
Being an Upper-grade adventurer must have something to do with it — sitting right across from me, she caught every roll of my pupils and every shift in my focus. Still, she couldn't know about the hologram system windows or the stream, so once we killed the broadcast and headed back to the inn, we'd be fine.
You were listening to that?
"You little shit, you really are… Roland, welcome back! Hear anything useful?"
After polishing off the sausages, Lily and I returned to the inn to find the rest of the party already gathered. Han Se-ah and Grace had gone to the street stalls to question merchants; Irene and Katie had headed to the Temple to ask the priests and the faithful.
Of those three options, the correct answer had been the mercenaries drinking at the inn — and the others looked like they hadn't turned up much of anything. I relayed what we'd heard.
"Peddlers coming from the west carrying Mana Stones and the like posted an escort job, then went dark. Looks like the orcs are ignoring the big caravans and targeting small peddler groups and travelers instead."
No matter how mindlessly orcs charged, they had enough brains to count heads. They might rush anything with numbers without weighing strength, but they could still tell a massive trading company from a handful of peddlers.
And if one of the ones that escaped Avergne Forest was serving as a strategist, they might well be stockpiling Mana Stones. What orcs wanted with Mana Stones was anyone's guess, but still.
At the story of mercenaries left high and dry by a vanished client, and at the suggestion we head to the Merchant Guild tomorrow for news of the peddlers, the party nodded along. None of the four had heard anything related, so there were no objections.
"Then tomorrow morning, we head for the Merchant Guild."
The keyword that had updated Han Se-ah's quest window was "mercenary" in the first place, so both she and I already knew we had the right answer. Everyone nodded without complaint and naturally headed upstairs toward the bedrooms.
I was the only man, so I got a private room. Grace and Han Se-ah had some scheme cooking and took a double. Kindhearted Irene took the triple with the little jammin and Lily, the outsider to the party.
"Nope, absolutely not showing that. Ending the stream — we'll start again tomorrow when we pick up the quest~"
"Eek, confession attack! Domhwangcha—!"
With a theatrical cry and a flourish of her hand, Han Se-ah blacked out the stream. Viewers who couldn't accept the situation flooded the chat with outrage — but the person who was supposed to hear their grievances had already cut the feed, so the chat's firepower fizzled almost at once.
"…Unnie, so today…"
"Yeah, Roland… next door…"
Whether the viewers raged into empty air or not, the moment Han Se-ah ended the stream she seemed ready to bare her damp little desires.
…The cleaning magic tools were installed, sure. But the soundproofing was terrible.
