Limits of the Capital
Chapter 32. Several days had passed since the incense incident. Together with my sister, who had regained her usual condition, I visited the commission office for mercenary work. …Though in truth, I was only there under the pretext of observation. While I was technically capable of taking on mercenary jobs, until next year I was formally nothing more than a prospective mercenary who frequently dropped by the office.
“Hey, kid. Off to hunt boars again today?”
“Who knows. I’ll have to see.”
I answered while seated, one knee propped over the other, chin resting on my hand. A mercenary had approached out of idle curiosity. Even so, after showing my face around for two years, quite a few mercenaries had come to recognize me. The same question as always—whether I was heading out to hunt boars. In reality, these people were less interested in me personally than in the fact that I was the lackey being dragged around by Reina, an A-class mercenary.
A-class mercenary Reina. Famous for never speaking, and an enigmatic figure whose gender remained unknown even to those around her. Well, it was only natural to wonder what lay beneath that armor. That was why mercenaries fond of spreading rumors would occasionally try striking up a conversation with me as well.
‘Thinking I might spill everything easily?’
I snorted and gave a deliberately curt reply, then turned my head away to discourage further talk. Besides, my answer wasn’t wrong. While it was true that Reina was my guardian in the capital…
Given that she was an A-class mercenary, she couldn’t stay by my side all day. Lately, after accepting a job and leaving the city together, we would usually split up so I could move freely. I would hunt to my heart’s content, return to the city at an appropriate time… That had been our usual routine, but recently I had begun to feel the need for change.
‘It doesn’t feel like I’m growing at all.’
Exactly. Monsters near the capital were no longer enough for growth. The gently rising growth curve I had faintly sensed had finally come to a halt. The graph was now a perfectly straight, motionless line. It was time to change hunting grounds.
No matter how veteran a mercenary might be, staying only near the capital inevitably revealed its limits. It was time to move beyond being a ruthless destroyer of the ecosystem who only hunted pigs and snakes.
‘Even so, there’s no answer left near the capital.’
While thinking that, I still had no clear solution and simply let out a deep breath, chin still propped on my hand. Aside from Brenda, the field boss who had already died two years ago, there were no variables in the fauna near the capital. Young boars, tooth snakes, and at best, adult boars that appeared in the deeper forests near the capital—that was all. The time when these could provide vitality succession… leveling up, was long past.
Of course, if I hunted only adult boars for several weeks straight, I could probably raise my level by one, even if it wasn’t visible. But that was far too inefficient now. If this were a game, I wouldn’t have needed to think twice—I could have simply moved my base to another city…
‘Lodging fees, food expenses…’
Reality wasn’t so lenient. I stared at my fingers and counted them one by one while muttering inwardly. As a living person, one needed meals, water, a place to sleep—and all of it cost money. A kind of life maintenance fee. Moreover, since I wasn’t officially registered as a mercenary, I didn’t have an identification card in hand.
‘It’ll be inconvenient whenever I enter or leave a city…’
That card served as a form of identity verification, but until next year, it was impossible. Without anything to prove my identity, the procedures for entering and leaving cities became more complicated. In the capital, Reina’s presence was so overwhelming that they let me through without it, but in other cities, that wouldn’t work. Relying on Reina there would also feel wrong. I would need at least another guarantor or a mercenary acquaintance.
Even if I went to another city like this, it was obvious the environment wouldn’t be suitable for satisfying hunts.
“Haa.”
I turned the unspeakable worry into a sigh and let it slip out. I couldn’t see my current level with my own eyes, but if I was being generous, maybe around level 15? That this was the result of two actual years felt absurd.
Clank. The sound of metal plates meeting stopped right in front of me. I lifted my head slightly to see Reina standing silently before me. Only then did I spring up from my seat and follow behind her without a word.
Our footsteps as we left the mercenary commission office and walked through the capital’s streets. The clanking of metal boots overlapped with the sound of leather boot heels striking the stone road. The helmet, which had been staring straight ahead, softly scanned the surroundings before turning toward me, and a voice resonated from within.
“Why the sigh?”
“Ah.”
I reflexively let out a single syllable at the voice from inside the helmet, then glanced around. To hear Reina’s voice, we needed to be somewhat distant from others. Even outdoors, when it was just the two of us, she had started speaking quite a bit. After that short reply, I glanced around cautiously before answering.
“It’s nothing. What’s the job today?”
“Escort. You’re coming too.”
Today’s job Reina had taken was an escort mission. Unlike usual, when we would split up and act independently, this time it seemed I was included as part of the package. Normally, escort work meant accompanying merchants or wealthy clients. Since she was an A-class mercenary, the fee for escort duty must have been considerable… I set aside the question of how much it might have cost and quietly followed behind her.
Instead of heading toward the outskirts where carriages were, our steps led toward the center of the city.
‘Huh, this place…’
At the point where we entered an alley I had walked quite often, I felt a strange sense of familiarity. It was the same street I had frequently patrolled to check whether the protagonist had appeared or not. Normally, I would have stopped approaching around here, but…
As if the mansion’s entrance had been the destination from the start, Reina didn’t stop walking. Two guards, spears pointed skyward, tilted their spear tips toward us and performed their duty.
The protagonist’s mansion entrance, which I had always only looked at from afar, was now right before my eyes. Was the escort target someone coming out from here?
“Do not approach any further. What is your business?”
At the guard’s question, Reina jabbed her elbow into my side near my chest. It was a signal for me to explain in her place, since she didn’t speak in front of others. How had she handled this when she worked alone…? Another question passed through my mind after the matter of fees, but I set it aside as well and opened my mouth.
“We’re the mercenaries who took on the escort job. This is A-class mercenary…”
“Ah, we’ve been informed. Please present your registration card.”
I handed the mercenary registration card to the guard in Reina’s stead, since her armor made movement inconvenient. When we moved together, I ended up handling these small tasks. After all, she was providing me with food, clothing, and shelter, so this much was only natural.
“Yes, you may enter.”
The two guards checked the card between themselves for a moment, then nodded and pushed the iron-barred gate inward. With a grating metallic sound, the grand gate of the large mansion swung open. The guards seemed to have mistaken me for a servant and let me through without any further obstruction.
The first time setting foot inside the massive mansion. Unlike the convenience of moving with a few button presses, the distance to the entrance felt several times longer than an ordinary alley, and walking it didn’t feel real. The mansion’s appearance was exactly as I remembered, familiar, yet it also felt like something too distant, creating a sense of disconnect. As the protagonist, I had entered and exited countless times, yet the place felt endlessly unfamiliar. Aside from being a place for rest and conversation with certain characters, it had few functions. Even so, during my three years at the academy, it was a place I had no choice but to visit often, and I could still vividly picture in my mind which room was which.
The place we, as outsiders, were led to was the reception room on the second floor. It was a space for receiving guests and also where we would hear the details of the escort request. Seated on the luxurious sofa in the reception room, I glanced around the room.
‘So this is what it feels like in person.’
I was briefly impressed by the sight of the reception room I had only ever seen through a screen… Since we had come this far, I wondered if I might see the protagonist as well, and felt a slight tension. At the sight of Reina standing up as soon as someone entered, I clumsily imitated her and bowed my head slightly.
“Have a seat.”
At the grave and heavy voice, my body stiffened for no reason. Those three words made the phrase “a voice full of authority” immediately understandable. Though I was seeing him for the first time, his face was familiar—the protagonist’s father appeared before my eyes.