Fortress Polwin (4)
"It's just... there is a blood mage in that brothel."
"Y-you should have told me that beforehand...!"
"You asked where we were going, Lady Kaen... My apologies."
Of all places, it had to be there... Because I was so conscious of it, the words had slipped out before I could stop them.
Only then did Kaen lower her guard and slowly step closer to me. I waited for her to approach before speaking.
"Regardless, our destination remains the same. The target we must eliminate this time refuses to step foot outside of that place."
"He won't leave the brothel? Just how much stamina does that guy have...?!"
"...It is not like that. I received information that his hideout is located inside the brothel."
My reply came after a brief pause. Sometimes, it took me a moment to fully grasp the underlying meaning of Kaen's words.
Hearing this, Kaen let out a soft, "Ah..." I continued to relay the information.
"The opponent is a single blood mage. He has a hideout inside, and entering it requires the blood of a virgin."
Ever since Kaen asked if I had any information, I had been racking my brain, trying to recall if there were any quests in Polwin that could only be cleared by a 'female character.'
Unfortunately, the options were limited. This was the only task that fit the 'concept' Kaen so firmly believed in.
While the rewards weren't spectacular, it was incredibly straightforward. If this solidified Kaen's belief in her role, then that was a win in itself.
"A... virgin, again? What about the information on the brothel we are going to?"
Kaen asked in a slightly bashful voice, mulling over my explanation.
"I heard the establishment is called... 'The Lewd Adventurers.'"
"The name is..."
"...Well, it is a brothel, after all."
After wrapping up our awkward conversation, I handed her a robe I had prepared and got ready to set off.
Sierra merely muttered to herself, offering no further commentary.
Naturally, I knew the location of the brothel, but since I had never visited it as Zeto...
...I would probably have to wander the red-light district with Kaen for a bit.
"'The Angels' Thrill'... No, not here... 'Sensual Fur'... Not here either... Ugh..."
My face flushed redder with every signpost I read.
Traveling across the continent with Grandfather, I had occasionally seen courtesans soliciting customers outside brothels.
But perhaps because this was the bitterly cold North, most of the establishments here kept their doors tightly shut.
Opening any of those doors would surely reveal an entirely unknown world.
The blood of a virgin...
I liked the idea of hiding in the shadows and secretly hunting down villains, but why did I keep getting dragged into these kinds of situations?
The words of the horned unicorn chimera from when we wiped out that chimera-infested syndicate suddenly flashed through my mind.
'This bitch is a perfect virgin!'
I didn't exactly know what a 'perfect virgin' entailed... but at least it meant we wouldn't have any trouble opening the door this time.
Turning my head, I saw Zeto quietly following behind me.
"..."
When he slightly raised his head from its downward tilt, I hurriedly looked back forward.
Honestly, looking him in the eye had been difficult lately.
It was all because of the sauna.
His body, which I had glimpsed in the sauna...
"...Lady Kaen."
"H-Huu... Y-Yes?!"
Zeto had suddenly grabbed my shoulder from behind, causing a strange squeak to escape my lips.
Quickly composing myself, I answered him once more.
"...Is something the matter?"
"Have we not found it yet?"
"Ah, as for that..."
My voice trailed off as I scanned our surroundings.
"...I found it. 'The L-Lewd Adventurers'..."
I stood before the establishment with him.
Even though the door was firmly shut, as we drew closer, the sound of women's laughter and... occasional moans leaked through.
"Let us not be too tense. We are entering strictly as 'customers,' after all."
"C-Customers... Right...!"
Hearing the word 'customer' in the context of a brothel sounded incredibly bizarre, but I could at least grasp his meaning.
In the first place, I had never stepped foot inside a brothel, whether as a customer or an assassin.
But if it was acting, I had plenty of confidence.
I immediately linked my arm with Zeto's and pushed open the door.
Zeto tilted his head slightly when I grabbed his arm, but the door was already open.
And so, I was introduced to an entirely unknown world.
The first thing I felt was warmth.
The sticky heat of the brothel washed over my freezing nose.
Then, the sight of the courtesans and their patrons came into view.
The courtesans, in particular, wore incredibly revealing clothes.
"Oh..."
"Focus."
As I stood there with my mouth agape, utterly dazed, Zeto whispered beside me.
...But I couldn't help my eyes from wandering.
With such lewd and decadent scenes unfolding before me, my face burned so hot that concentrating was nearly impossible.
Especially the sensation of Zeto's breath against my ear, which brought back vivid memories of that wicked dream I had in the inn.
I was dying of embarrassment, yet Zeto remained perfectly composed, as if this were nothing out of the ordinary.
How did this place feel to him?
Was he highly sensitive to the sounds?
As a soft moan echoed through the air, Zeto's face flushed ever so slightly.
Get a grip, Kaen...
None of that mattered right now. We were here to kill a blood mage.
Shaking off my stray thoughts, I walked deeper into the brothel with Zeto.
Just then, a woman wearing barely enough fabric to cover her private parts slinked over to us.
"Oh? I've never seen a customer wearing a blindfold before."
She sidled up to Zeto, circling around him.
"It's a shame you can't see my body, but that's fine—I can just blindfold myself too. Going at it like beasts in the dark with both of us blindfolded doesn't sound half bad, does it? But who's this next to you? Your lover? Then... are the three of us doing this together?"
The woman was incredibly talkative. Or rather, she was just faithfully fulfilling her designated role.
Zeto's lips didn't even twitch, and he remained completely silent.
I decided to act exactly as Zeto had instructed me beforehand.
I pulled a coin from my pocket, handed it to her, and spoke.
"We'd like to look around the rooms without any interruptions... Just let us look around for a bit."
I offered her a polite smile. Taking the coin, she leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"...Fufu. You must really like your boyfriend. I can satisfy both of you, so you should come find me after you've looked around. Opportunities like this don't come often, you know? Hehe."
With a soft giggle, the woman finally sauntered away.
Satisfy both of us... How on earth would that even work...?
My face felt like it was about to explode from the vivid imagery that involuntarily flashed through my mind.
Just then, Zeto, whose arm was still linked with mine, whispered in my ear.
"I am actually a bit curious about that."
"H-Huu... Don't whisper so suddenly...! Y-You heard all of that, didn't you?"
The ticklish sensation of his breath made my body instinctively shrink back.
Normally, a whisper like this wouldn't have affected me at all, but the heavy, sensual atmosphere of the brothel seemed to be doing strange things to my body.
"My hearing is quite sharp, so I couldn't help it... I was only joking. Let us move quickly."
Zeto tapped his ear and said.
Seriously...
For some reason, it was becoming harder and harder to resist Zeto.
My body was reacting entirely on its own.
Turning my head away from him, the revealing outfits of the courtesans caught my eye once more.
Come to think of it, didn't I wear something just as revealing in front of him, using his blindness as an excuse?
And then there were the moans echoing through the halls.
I needed to finish this job and get out of here before my mind completely melted.
With that resolve, Zeto and I made our way deeper into the establishment.
Since the patrons and courtesans were all utterly engrossed in their own affairs, slipping past their gazes was incredibly easy.
"It looks like a storage room. I don't see any other doors."
"Hmm..."
At my words, Zeto hummed thoughtfully. Unlinking his arm from mine, he began to move around the room, tapping on the walls and stomping on the floor.
After a moment, Zeto stopped in front of a particular wall and called out to me.
"I believe it is here."
The wall he was touching was completely bare. It looked like an ordinary wall.
Then, Zeto sniffed the air near the wall and muttered, "The scent of blood."
"Lady Kaen, could you smear some of your blood around this area?"
Stepping back from the wall, Zeto pointed to a spot and asked.
I had absolute trust in Zeto's senses.
Without hesitation, I bit down hard on my thumb to draw blood.
I pressed my bleeding thumb against the spot Zeto had indicated.
Rumble...
The seemingly ordinary wall vibrated and slid open, revealing a dark, gloomy passage.
"It really was here..."
"Of course."
The passage was pitch-black, forcing me to hold onto Zeto's arm as we walked.
Yet, he navigated the absolute darkness without a single stumble.
To Zeto, visual information was completely useless anyway.
While it was fascinating, it also made my chest tighten slightly with a bittersweet ache.
How many times must he have tripped and fallen to learn how to walk through the darkness of this world on his own?
Wearing a bitter smile, I quietly followed behind him.
His back, faintly visible in the gloom, felt incredibly reassuring.
"An entrance inside a brothel that requires the blood of a virgin to open... It is quite a clever design."
Zeto spoke as he led the way.
It was indeed a clever hideout, just as he said.
Not just any woman's blood, but specifically a virgin's.
Yet, the hideout was located inside a brothel.
A place where finding a pure virgin would be next to impossible.
On top of that, the entrance itself was hidden so thoroughly...
"...Just what kind of person is he to go to such lengths to hide himself?"
Mulling over the hideout, the question naturally arose, and I asked Zeto.
"The answer is simple if you consider what kind of people blood mages are."
"A blood mage..."
"Bloodstones. They are obsessed with bloodstones."
Cutting me off, Zeto delivered a concise reply.
"Then, hiding in this brothel is also... to create bloodstones...?"
"I heard that the courtesans of this brothel have been quietly disappearing. It is not uncommon for a courtesan to run away to erase her past and start a new life... so very few people paid any mind to their disappearances."
"So it was the perfect place to manufacture bloodstones?"
Zeto nodded at my follow-up.
"You mentioned this is your first time facing a blood mage, correct?"
"Yes. Other mages are one thing, but... blood mages aren't exactly common."
"When fighting a blood mage, there is one crucial detail you must never overlook."
His words jogged a memory of Grandfather telling me about blood mages.
Drawing upon that memory, I answered him.
"...Whether the blood mage has consumed a bloodstone or not?"
"You are well-informed. Fortunately, I believe the target we are facing has not managed to create a bloodstone yet. This is merely a deduction based on rumors gathered by my informant... but they said the number of victims seemed insufficient."
Hearing Zeto's praise made me feel inexplicably giddy.
Zeto knew far more about the world than I did.
From what he had told me, it seemed he had traveled the world with his master, much like I had with Grandfather.
Could we have crossed paths when we were younger...?
Perhaps we had met without even realizing it.
But searching my memories, I couldn't recall ever seeing a young boy with his eyes wrapped in bandages.
As we conversed and made our way down the stairs, a faint light began to appear.
"It looks like we've arrived. To think they built something like this beneath a brothel..."
Just as I said those words and pushed open the door in front of us—
The moment the door swung open, a sharp, crimson projectile flew straight at me. It was easy enough to react to, so I lightly dodged it.
Crash!
The crimson spear slammed into the wall behind us before melting back into a liquid state.
"What kind of rats just crawled in...? How on earth did you get in here..."
A woman draped in a dark robe inside the room spoke.
"Are you from the Holy Order? Or perhaps dispatched by the Empire? You must be a virgin... and that blind man next to you... Ha, what a bizarre combination."
The blood mage, visibly irritated, began to ramble on.
Soon, Zeto gently placed a hand on my shoulder and spoke in a low voice.
"It seems Lady Kaen is more than capable of handling this alone. May I leave it to you?"
"Of course."
I replied, pulling tight the 'gloves' Zeto had given me.
Overhearing our conversation, the blood mage sneered.
"I already have a headache from those crazy bitches moaning upstairs, and now you pests are going to act up too?"
"...How about we shut that mouth of yours before we start fighting?"
At my sharp retort, blood began to pool in the blood mage's hands.
"Hmph, feisty little bitch... I'll make sure to turn you into a whore before grinding you down into a bloodstone."
I instantly gauged her level.
It looked like I wouldn't need to draw upon Grandfather's swordsmanship today either.