Suspicious Movements 2
A spacious single room, old but meticulously maintained. The floorboards bore the faint wear of pacing footsteps over the years, yet not a single splinter jutted out and not a single plank creaked. The floor had been planed smooth, and the walls and ceiling were spotless — a thoroughly comfortable lodging.
"Come on, Grace! That three-person room is far enough away, it'll be fine. As long as you don't, you know, start moaning Roland's name at night, the other mercenaries will just figure you're one of them!"
"K-keep your voice down!"
"Please. Even if Roland is a superhuman, he won't hear us whispering this quietly. You really think he'd be reinforcing his body with mana while resting at an inn?"
If there was a problem, it was that the soundproofing fell hopelessly short of a superhuman's physique. Even without reinforcing my body with mana, simply lying comfortably in bed, I could hear Han Se-ah and Grace's voices with perfect clarity.
Apparently the single room's bed was on the right and the double room's beds were on the left, designed so that only a single wall separated us — and we were right up against it. Strip away that wall and their heads would be sitting right next to my pillow. Distance-wise… less than a meter, probably. No matter how much they lowered their voices, one wooden wall was nothing against my superhuman body. Every word came through crystal clear.
"Hey, Hanna."
"Yeah?"
Han Se-ah's voice was practically singing with that nasal lilt, clearly thrilled at the prospect of shoving Grace into my room and eavesdropping. Then Grace's question made that voice crumple in an instant.
"Don't you have any thoughts?"
"…Thoughts about what?"
"About doing it with Roland."
Having decided I wasn't listening, Grace fired the counterattack straight into Han Se-ah without hesitation. Even though she turned into a shy girl whenever she stood in front of me, I was suddenly reminded that her usual persona was the sly, teasing older-sister type. And that her bravado got especially thick when she was all talk and hadn't actually put anything into practice yet.
"Looking at how much more you like him than I do, it's a little suspicious, you know? If you're just getting off on living vicariously, want to come along too?"
"No! That's — what even —"
"Hey, no screaming. At that volume, Roland sleeping next door would wake up."
Girls' talk flowing from my bedside like a radio — honestly, it was pretty entertaining. The two of them had been bickering, and now they'd completely forgotten I was in the next room; their whispering voices rose to a normal volume.
Calling each other big sister and little sister, even trading relationship advice — they'd gotten quite close. As if she couldn't keep getting pushed around as the older one forever, Grace launched an attack laced with dirty talk, and Han Se-ah let out a squeal before diving into bed. The only problem was that the only dirty talk Grace knew how to use came from her experiences with me.
"Hmm? Hanna, you asleep? …Heh. Faking it."
More precisely, she'd hit save and logged out.
The night passed quietly without Grace visiting my room. Come morning, Han Se-ah logged in and we gathered on the inn's first floor, confirming that the lodging was fine but the cooking left something to be desired.
"Like we said yesterday, let's head to the Merchant Guild."
"Sounds good. I've taken a few jobs from them, so I know where it is."
We headed out into the streets with the party, our hunger roughly sated by a soup that felt somehow inadequate next to Irene's cooking. The food was mediocre, but there were magical tools for showering, so everyone was soft and fresh and in decent spirits. The quality of the meal may have been questionable, but the rest had done its job. The moment the party stepped out onto the street, a little ding announced that Han Se-ah's stream had gone live.
"Alright, hello! Today's stream starts with us heading to the Merchant Guild to get some info. If you have no idea what's going on, maybe Chatterbox in chat will fill you in on the chain quest? Or not."
"Why won't I show you? Because the good stuff is for my eyes only. Anyway, we're off to progress the chain quest."
Being a street of merchants and mercenaries, people were already diligently on the move from early morning. Carriages lined up and blocked the narrow roads, and the rough curses that spilled from mercenaries watching the jam made it feel like rush-hour subway hell.
To cut through that packed crowd, I took the lead in my armor while the rest of the party clustered close behind me. Pushing people aside with the sensation of a salmon swimming upstream, we pressed forward.
"Ah, shit!"
"Don't push, you bastard!"
"Who the fuck does that guy think he is?"
Shouldering people aside with Roland's large, broad-shouldered frame while fully armed — of course every kind of nasty reaction came flying out. Naturally, in a chaotic free-for-all flowing like a river of people, no actual fights broke out. Mercenaries shoved by a shoulder check just swung their fists at empty air and vanished into the distance. And not everyone was stupid enough to start cussing out someone clad head to toe in heavy armor, so nothing particularly eventful happened.
"Inventory magic, was it? Nice. Places like this, pickpockets are usually the problem."
"Pickpockets?"
"Yeah. Unless you store your stuff with magic like Hanna does, the little ones weave through the crowd and go for your pockets. …Like right now."
"E-eek!"
Lily snatched a pickpocket kid who looked under ten out of the crowd by the wrist and hoisted him up like she was pulling a carrot — but still. What kind of courage did it take to target a party that included a fully armored warrior, a woman with a long spear, and a woman in a nun's habit all clumped together? The kid's eye for people was clearly lacking, career still short. Lily yanked her pouch free from the pickpocket's hand and more or less tossed the brat back into the crowd.
"Catch them and hand them to the guards and you just get a rough time for no gain. Leave them alone and they clean out your pockets. Show pity and word gets around. Annoying little bastards."
"Oh my…"
Irene made a small sound, apparently feeling sympathy for the pickpocket tumbling across the dirt — then froze as the kid scrambled up, dodging people's feet, and on the way up stuck a hand into a passing merchant's pocket.
Street kids raised in conditions far harsher than the Adventurer's City. Their survival instinct was weed-level tenacious.
The pickpocket kid vanished into the crowd with a jingling coin pouch clutched in his hand, and a merchant's shout of "Thief!" rang out through the bustling throng. Only after the party wordlessly handed over their belt pouches, lanterns, and other belongings to Han Se-ah did we finally arrive at the Merchant Guild.
Having pushed through the packed streets, we emerged into a wide open plaza. Countless carriages were arranged in orderly rows, and people in uniforms mixed freely with people in silk clothes and shabby-looking peddlers.
"There — that big building at the far end of the plaza."
"The sign alone makes it obvious."
A tall, massive building of deep gray stone, and a broad sign framed in metal. The image of a pouch overflowing with gold coins engraved on it made it clear to anyone that this place had something to do with merchants.
Passing through the large main entrance where dozens of people hurried in and out, what met the eye was a lavishly decorated lobby that looked like a noble's mansion. Huge landscape paintings hung on the walls, magical tools glowed from within carefully cut crystal orbs of glass, and gleaming armor and ornate ceramics were displayed on the walls like a museum. Exactly as the Merchant Guild intended, the party instinctively shrank in on themselves.
"There are so many people — they must be incredibly busy, right?"
"Don't worry. These are merchants. Irene, can you stand at the very front? Next to me."
"Yes, of course."
Merchants were every bit as money-sensitive as mercenaries. Having too little was always a problem, but having too much pressed into their hands was often a help. Our clothes weren't shabby — surely they wouldn't get greedy and jump us over a few gold coins.
Besides, merchants who lived on trust weren't about to start something with a party that included a nun. Merchants were as sensitive to superstition as they were to money. As if confirming my thinking, a woman greeted us with perfect posture.
A beauty in a black outfit resembling a business suit, monocle perched on one eye, gave us a light bow. Glancing secretly at Han Se-ah's stream window, it seemed she was a starred gacha character.
"Welcome to the Erteta Merchant Association. May I ask what brings you here?"
"We need information on the traveling merchants who set out from the western port city."
"Information, you say?"
I closed Han Se-ah's stream window — which had erupted into chaos at the beautiful office lady's appearance — and looked into the eyes gleaming behind the monocle. Meeting her gaze so openly, she wouldn't be able to look away.
A merchant's eyes, fearlessly meeting mine while searching and calculating — I knew those well. In the ten years of earning and spending money because of magical tools, those were the eyes I'd encountered most often.
"Hmm. Information… Not a bad request."
But those eyes were a little strange. Not the eyes that weighed people and information on an internal scale and assigned a price — eyes that held enthusiasm pointed in an entirely different direction. Wondering what this was about, I fiddled with the gold coins in my pocket, debating whether to crush the situation with money or not, when Han Se-ah's voice came from behind me.
"Huh? Wait, what — there's a title like that? She's a straight-up that-kind-of-content NPC? But she's a merchant?"
At her absurd outburst, I couldn't help opening the stream window again. Curious or not, satisfying my curiosity came first.
And so I learned the identity of the NPC standing before me.
…No, what the fuck. I thought she was a merchant.