Chapter 101
Chapter 101
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: The Information Guild and the Hatching Dragon
-----------------------------------------------------------------
101
1
“Sigh….”
The sigh I let out scattered into the back alley of the shopping district.
I had handed Crovanni over to the local guard station.
I deliberately waited and even heard out Crovanni’s statement.
The reason Crovanni had come all the way to Popuri Forest was to store drugs.
With multiple hideouts destroyed, they had nowhere to keep the drugs, so they hid them in the sparsely populated Popuri Forest and used illusion magic to keep them concealed.
Apparently, a large stash of drugs was hidden under the rock where Crovanni had been lying.
That was that.
But tracing back why Wifera’s hideout was destroyed… it led to Leon.
No, more precisely, it connected back to me.
“Did I reveal too much?”
Whenever the chance arose, I had leaked information about Wifera’s hideouts to Leon in various ways.
I wanted to leave the sub-quest of the main story to unfold as it would, but since things had already gone off the rails, there was no guarantee everything would proceed smoothly as in the original story.
On top of that, the early adopters were moving faster than the original, so I had deliberately adjusted the pace.
As a result, Wifera, having lost most of their hideouts, targeted Popuri Forest.
I hadn’t expected this to happen….
“That damn variable.”
If I didn’t predict and act on every single one, it would inevitably trip me up from somewhere.
But it was impossible to consider every impact my actions would have on the future.
Unless my brain was a supercomputer.
In the end, what I needed was information.
If I didn’t bridge the gap between the information I knew and the current situation, I’d keep getting tripped up.
By now, a stench began to waft through the back alley of the shopping district.
The foul smell rising from garbage and filth rolling along the roadside, swarming insects and packs of sewer rats—I pulled my hood down tighter over the dark underbelly of the capital.
I walked like that for a while.
Just as my nose grew accustomed to the stench, I arrived in front of a tavern with half its sign flickering.
“It’s been a while since I visited the Information Guild….”
It was a guild that handled matters related to information, literally.
Due to its nature, it had roots in the underworld, but… it was a highly useful place depending on how you used it.
Not only could you obtain information, but you could also verify its authenticity.
Of course, the price was steep.
Hiring a skilled informant required not just a commission fee but also trust.
If you didn’t know the ways of the underworld, it was easy to get backstabbed, and it wouldn’t be surprising if your own information ended up sold while you were trying to buy theirs.
After finishing the main story and leisurely sightseeing for a while, I hadn’t visited in ages….
Still, I had once dug in like mad to get info on Easter eggs and hidden ruins.
As expected of a trash game, Broken World faithfully implemented such unnecessarily detailed elements.
Thanks to that, I had been tempered through dozens of backstabbings.
Ding….
I opened the door, which rang with a broken bell, and entered the tavern.
At once, silence fell over the place as rough-looking patrons glared at me.
But it was only for a moment before they resumed their noisy chatter and swigging drinks.
Of course, their eyes remained fixed on me.
They were probably thinking of picking my pockets if I looked the least bit careless.
Ignoring them all, I sat at the bar counter.
A burly man with a shiny copper-toned bald head, wiping an empty glass, asked,
“What’ll it be?”
“…….”
Seeing his face, pretending to be impassive so calmly, made my blood boil for a moment.
This man wasn’t the bartender—he was the tavern owner, Gaitan.
Back in the game days, he had gouged me on commissions plenty of times.
I was still pissed about it, but it was in the past.
With a deep breath, I let it go and lowered my voice.
“Information.”
“Information? What’s that supposed to mean? This is a tavern, a tavern. If you’re not ordering drinks, get out.”
Gaitan waved his hand dismissively with an incredulous look.
It was impressively shameless acting.
I tossed a coin engraved with a unique pattern toward him.
Confirming the Capricorn-like emblem on the coin, Gaitan immediately dropped the expression.
“If you had the token, you should’ve shown it right away. No need for the theatrics.”
I just shrugged without responding.
Gaitan came out from behind the bar and led me to the back of the shop.
“You look too refined to fit in a back alley like this—who sent you?”
The Information Guild wasn’t easy to enter due to its unique nature.
Even vast sums of money didn’t easily buy credit, so most people were introduced by someone who had already earned trust.
The token I threw to Gaitan was a kind of letter of introduction.
And among those around me likely to have such a thing, there were at most two.
“Suir.”
Suir—reversed, Louis.
Louis’s half-assed alias, like Bake Bread or Bread Bake.
“No wonder. So you’re one of the Federation’s lackeys?”
Gaitan stroked his chin, probing lightly.
Louis wouldn’t have said it directly… so I must’ve just been found out.
That was the scary part of the Information Guild.
They collected information on customers without fail.
Still, it was fortunate it was the Information Guild that caught me.
They dealt in credit in the underworld, so they didn’t carelessly sell out customers.
Of course, if you offered the right price, they’d sell true to form, but info on a Federation spy was pricey, so not just anyone could afford it.
From my position, it was better if they misunderstood, so I didn’t correct him.
“That door there.”
Gaitan pointed to an ordinary-looking door.
I opened it confidently and went inside, where a middle-aged man with an eyepatch over his left eye was waiting for me.
“Well now, what brings the Agrit Family Eldest Son all the way here?”
The man eyed me with his one good eye and asked in mock surprise.
Of course, that reaction was pure acting.
I examined the man carefully.
His black hair was cropped short like a soldier’s, and his black beard was neatly trimmed.
With the eyepatch added, he looked as rough as a veteran mercenary.
His shirt, unusually clean for the back alleys, was rolled up halfway, revealing solidly muscled arms that made his impression even fiercer.
This man was the owner of the Information Guild and the person I had come to meet—Pierce.
The fact that he’d identified me despite the hood proved his skill.
“You knew?”
“I’m an information broker, after all.”
Pierce shrugged shamelessly.
Since I was already made, I took off the hood.
“Anyway, we both hate beating around the bush, so let’s get to the point.”
“Oh? So the young master knows even lowly me who lives in these back alleys well?”
This time, I shrugged.
No need to play along with the probing.
“I need information on Wifera.”
“Wifera, Wifera. Quite the vague request.”
Pierce looked troubled.
Naturally, that was just more acting.
“I’ll pay generously, so bring everything down to the smallest detail.”
“Alright, it’s been a while since I had a straightforward customer.”
Only then did Pierce grin.
That satisfied smile was probably genuine.
In a way, he was the most honest person in this tavern.
The county already had overflowing coffers thanks to trade with the small kingdom of Balamut.
No need to skimp, so I’d spend freely.
I smiled brightly back at Pierce.
This first meeting with the guildmaster of the Information Guild Moonless Night, Pierce, was sufficient for now.
He was the second man I needed to recruit to my side eventually, but I’d withdraw here for today.
2
Pierce saw me off, saying it would take three days to a week.
I couldn’t just loiter blankly in the back alleys waiting, so today I was heading to school for the first time in a while.
“Yawn….”
Morning lectures were still sleepy.
Still, being able to think like this was proof of peace.
Ah, sweet peace.
I want to live like this forever….
As I trudged along, I spotted a wide-brimmed hat up ahead.
As far as I knew, only one person at Esterro Academy wore such a hat.
“Good morning, Merrill.”
I greeted her lightly, and Merrill turned to look at me.
Her light brown hair cascading from under the hat gleamed, making her look surprisingly energetic even in the morning.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah, I think so. I heard from Cain senior that you helped—thanks. …I feel bad for troubling you with my selfish request.”
“Trouble? Friends look out for each other. It wasn’t your fault.”
Of course, of course.
The bad ones were Wifera and Crovanni, not us.
“More than that, you heard from Cain senior? Were you together all weekend?”
“Yeah, senior took care of me the whole weekend.”
“…He can actually do nursing?”
It was hard to imagine, considering how he trashed the clubroom….
“Senior steps up when he needs to. Probably.”
Merrill closed her eyes thoughtfully as she spoke.
Having known each other for at least ten years, they each knew sides of each other I didn’t.
Looking closely, Merrill seemed to rely on Cain quite a bit too.
“But not room cleaning, huh.”
“That’s… yeah, true.”
That much was true.
I nodded along with Merrill, who nodded solemnly.
I wonder if the tea club room will ever stay clean….
3
“Ugh… Mondays suck…….”
As soon as lectures ended, I returned to the dorm and dove into bed.
I had to change out of my uniform, wash up, eat dinner—but everything was a hassle.
Lectures were a hassle in their own way… but everything else had become the biggest hassle.
“I should’ve just ignored Wifera or whatever….”
The hallucinations had soured my mood enough that I planned to pay them back, but once I started, it began feeling bothersome.
Of course, I couldn’t just leave it alone.
There was the promise with Kyriakos, and Wifera had to be eliminated one way or another.
-Why are you muttering to yourself so noisily?
“Explaining’s a hassle too. Can’t you just read my mind?”
-You brat… if everything’s such a hassle, how do you even breathe……?
“Breathing’s less hassle than holding it in….”
-Terminal case….
If the demon sword had a head, it’d be shaking it right now.
Somehow, I couldn’t picture it well.
-What insolent imagination is this! Do you know who I am…!
“I know. I know full well.”
The great demon sword, Deathwise.
Strictly speaking, it was thanks to you that I ended up enemies with the most bothersome demon.
Ah, thinking that far made it even more bothersome.
-Instead of whining, train! Train! Get up!
Wasn’t it too much to demand training from someone steeped in bother right now?
As I waved my hand dismissively from the hassle, a sharp cracking sound came from somewhere.
“What was that…?”
I just lifted my head to look around the room.
There were no signs of anything broken.
Instead, Choco was plastered to the incubator.
“Choco, what’re you doing?”
No response even when I called.
Choco was just stuck to the incubator, staring at the egg inside.
Crack!
Another breaking sound rang out.
It came from inside the incubator that Choco was watching.
-Ho, looks like it’s hatching?
“I know that much.”
A strong crack ran across the surface of the egg inside the transparent incubator.
I shook off the hassle, got up, and sat in front of the incubator.
What on earth would come out of this.
My chest thumped with strange anticipation… but at the same time, a bizarre unease that something bothersome was about to happen coexisted.
Crack, craaack—the sounds grew fiercer, and the cracks spread.
The moment I swallowed dryly with Choco, the top of the egg bulged upward, and the creature inside poked its head out into the world for the first time.
-Kyuuu!
Roaring with a cutely toy-like sound, it stared at me with large, transparent eyes the same glossy black as its scales.
Eye contact didn’t last long.
Just three seconds, but it was enough to identify what this freshly hatched creature was.
“It’s a dragon…!”
As if knowing I was calling it, the dragon in the incubator spread a pair of short wings wide.
And with that, a massive premonition of incoming hassle flooded over me.