Cambria, City of Opportunity (2)
“I’ll treat you to a meal.”
Najin looked at the girl who had extended her hand toward him.
She seemed about his age. Her light brown hair was ordinary enough not to draw the eye, but the hunger gleaming in her gaze was more than enough to hold it. Those bright golden pupils were a rare sight. Some would have seen the glitter of coin in them; others, the eyes of a snake. She made no effort to hide her desire—those eyes laid her intent bare. The emotion swimming in them was interest. Meeting her stare for a moment, Najin dropped his gaze to the hand she held out.
A hand sheathed in pure white gloves.
He took it and rose, then followed as she set off ahead of him. One hand stayed resting on the hilt of the sword at his hip.
Something feels off. You sure about following her?
She said she’s buying dinner.
He muttered it inwardly, yet never let his guard drop. For all that caution, the girl led him—quite unceremoniously—to an ordinary restaurant.
It stood on Cambria’s central plaza. The place looked refined at a glance, and what greeted Najin as he stepped inside was not a flash of steel or any other threat, but the fragrant aroma of food that set his empty stomach howling.
“Sit there.”
He kept his vigilance even as he settled into the chair, but once the plates began arriving one after another, even that proved impossible.
…Gulp.
Dishes he had never seen in the underground city. Warm, fragrant food. Najin swallowed dryly for no reason. The hand that had rested on his sword hilt was already drifting toward the fork on the table.
“You must be starving.”
The girl watching him smiled.
“Why don’t we eat first, then talk?”
Moments ago that smile had looked sly and full of ulterior motives. Now it seemed almost saintly. Najin took his hand from the hilt and closed his fingers around the fork.
It was delicious. Truly.
Even allowing for the fact that it was his first proper meal in days, the food was moving. When he bit into a perfectly seared piece of meat, Najin nearly shed a tear.
So this is what the people up top eat every day?
Down below, a feast meant nothing more than dried, aged meat of uncertain vintage, or a stir-fry of the scraps left after surface slaughterhouses finished with their livestock. Even that had been a rare treat, reserved for the days Ivan decided to throw a city celebration…
A whole different league.
The surface food was tender rather than dry, rich and satisfying. Najin felt genuine awe. A similar emotion had washed over him as a child, when he had scavenged through garbage until Ivan took notice of him and he tasted a real meal for the first time.
He was rinsing his mouth with water after finishing when the girl across from him finally spoke.
“Not bad, right? This is one of my favorite places.”
Najin nodded vigorously. His wariness had long since melted away. Whatever her reasons for treating him to a meal like this, he was ready to consider them very positively.
He straightened in his seat. Seeing that he was prepared to listen, the girl continued.
“First, allow me to introduce myself.”
She drew a nameplate from her coat and held it out. Having learned the Empire’s standard script from Ivan, Najin had little trouble reading the characters etched upon it.
Merchant Lord of Dieta’s Merchant Company
Authorized by the undersigned high officials
Dieta ■■■■■
The plate was crowded with the company seal and the names of ranking figures who recognized its legitimate authority. At the very top was what appeared to be the girl’s name.
Dieta ■■■■■.
He could not make out the letters that followed. They did not look worn away by age; rather, someone had deliberately scored them out with a blade. Najin tilted his head and returned the plate.
“My name is Dieta.”
Taking the nameplate back, she went on.
“As the plate says, I run Dieta’s Merchant Company here in Cambria. I’m fairly well known in this city, though…”
She gave him a sidelong glance.
“You look like you’ve only just arrived?”
“I got here today.”
“And you haven’t even gotten a nameplate issued yet?”
“They say it costs money. I don’t have any.”
A nameplate was required to take commissions and operate properly in the city—but obtaining one also required coin.
And Najin had none. The travel funds Oppen had pressed on him when he left the underground had all gone toward reaching this place.
“So you really came here with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
“I’ve got a bit of a complicated story.”
“In this city, people without a story are the rare ones.”
Dieta tilted her teacup, wet her throat, and spoke again—as if the real matter were only now beginning.
“You seem to be in a tight spot… Would you be interested in making a deal with me?”
“A deal?”
“Yes, a deal. I’ve been dealing with a headache of my own lately.”
Najin understood at once. So this is the real pitch.
Not pure goodwill, but a meal served with a purpose—something she wanted. From his perspective, that was actually more comfortable. Pure kindness was hard to grasp; the latter was straightforward and easy to understand.
Still, something nagged at him. Why would a merchant lord bother with someone like him? The longer he listened, the narrower his eyes became.
“So,” he said after hearing her out, “you want me to catch the ones who cooked your ledgers and make them talk. Is that it?”
“Exactly. They cooked the books and then vanished into the alleys. I’ve filed a report, but this city’s guards aren’t exactly reliable.”
“And why me?”
It was a fair question. If her company was that large, she would have private soldiers—or she could simply hire other mercenaries rather than entrust the job to someone of unproven skill.
“Does the reason matter that much?”
Dieta’s answer was brief.
“What matters is that I’m offering you a good opportunity… and that accepting this commission won’t leave you any worse off. Right?”
Does the intent really matter that much?
“If you refuse, that’s fine too. I have no intention of doing anything petty like demanding you pay for the meal just because you turned me down, so rest easy.”
She was smiling the same way she had at the start. The smile was deeply suspect, but Najin decided not to dig. As she said, there was nothing for him to lose.
It was certainly an attractive offer. The sum she promised for bringing them in looked substantial even to someone whose sense of money was still rough.
Definitely not a losing deal. There’s only one thing you need to check, isn’t there?
Merlin’s voice brushed his ear. Najin answered inwardly; he suspected she was thinking the same thing.
Whether the people she wants me to catch are actual criminals. That’s all I need to confirm.
If they weren’t, this would be a trap. Down in the underground, where Ivan’s word had been law, he could have beaten people half to death without looking twice. Up here, that would make him a criminal in an instant. Najin knew that much.
Not completely dense, then.
Leaving Merlin’s satisfied murmur behind, Najin nodded.
“Do you have descriptions?”
“You can pick from these. No need to take them all—choose as many as you like.”
Dieta spread wanted posters across the table in front of him. There were roughly six. As Najin scanned them, a smile tugged at his mouth.
Three of the six.
They listed people who had gone to ground in a stage he knew all too well. He pointed to those three sheets.
“These.”
“…All three?”
Leaving a faintly startled Dieta behind, Najin took the posters detailing the commission and their descriptions and rose from his seat.
“One last thing.”
Before he left, he asked her,
“How strong are the targets? Can they handle mana… draw aura, for instance?”
“…What?”
For the first time, the perpetually mild expression on Dieta’s face shifted into something meaningful. She looked at him with a peculiar expression—the look of someone wondering whether she really needed to explain this.
Then she composed herself and answered.
“If they could draw aura, they’d be Sword Experts… and I’d be hiring knights or a professional mercenary company. The fee would also be a couple of zeros heavier.”
She explained carefully.
“I hear they’ve hired a few bodyguards, but they’ll be at the level of people who can swing sharp metal. Anyone who can draw aura doesn’t come cheap.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Did you just come down from some deep mountain training? This is pretty close to common knowledge.”
Deep in the mountains, huh.
Najin gave a short laugh and nodded.
“Something like that.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’ll be back soon. And thank you for the meal. My stomach feels a lot better.”
As he turned to leave the restaurant, his gaze drifted. It landed on a man seated in a corner—someone who had been watching him and Dieta ever since they walked in.
Their eyes met.
The man’s stare felt as if it were boring straight through him, but Najin did not look away. He met it head-on, as if to ask what the man was staring at. After a brief clash of gazes in empty air, the man gave a dry chuckle and turned his head first.
Leaving him behind, Najin stepped out of the shop. Before he did, he made sure to note the sign and the location. Once I’ve made some money, I should come back, he thought, and set off.
Not long after Najin left, a man approached Dieta as she sat alone, sipping her tea. It was the knight who had been hovering nearby to protect her—Pasion.
The only knight who had followed her when she all but fled the Arvenia household. A man who owed a debt of gratitude to her late mother, now cold in her grave. Dieta glanced at him and spoke.
“What did you think, Sir Pasion?”
“Not bad. He noticed me.”
“…He noticed you?”
“Yes. I was concealing my presence, but he must have sensed it. He stared for quite a while before leaving.”
Pasion laughed as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Bold little brat.”
“Anything else stand out?”
“His eyes are sharp, but beyond that, nothing particular. That said…”
He let out a sigh.
“As I always say, please refrain from dealing with the sort of people who hole up in back alleys. You never know which way they’ll jump.”
“That’s exactly what makes it fun. You don’t understand, Sir Pasion.”
Dieta chuckled under her breath.
“Once you try the thrill of finding things that shine in places without light, you’ll get it. Every so often something bright pops out of those alleys. Being able to leave a good impression on talent for the price of a single meal? That’s pure profit.”
“Considering you’ve bought meals for nearly forty people and only two of them ever paid you back, it certainly sounds like a worthwhile investment.”
“It’s three now.”
“…What?”
“Including the boy who just left. Three out of forty isn’t bad, is it?”
Her tone was utterly certain.
“….”
Pasion regarded his master in silence.
She belonged to the Arvenia family, yet she lacked the radiant golden hair of the rest of the house—she had inherited far more strongly from her mother than her father. But those eyes…
Those bright yellow eyes that measured a person’s worth and saw straight through them, eyes like a snake’s—those, at least, she had inherited from the head of Arvenia. Sometimes they were enough to raise goosebumps. Pasion sighed inwardly as he looked at them.
Whenever his master was this certain, the other party usually had something.
“You seem to have taken quite a liking to that boy.”
“Well, for starters, he’s handsome.”
“…That was the reason?”
“There are other reasons, too.”
Dieta let the sentence trail off.
“It wouldn’t make sense even if I explained it. It’s just… a feeling.”
Recalling the boy’s face, she propped her chin on her hand.
A sharply honed presence. He carried the particular air of someone who had crawled up from the bottom. But his eyes were different—clear light that had not yet been stained by anything. Eyes that clashed with the atmosphere around him. Those eyes had sparked her interest. For now he was still dirty, travel-worn, a greenhorn with a complicated story who had only just set foot in the city…
“There’s something there. I don’t know what, but there is.”
“A hunch?”
“Something like that.”
Still resting her chin, Dieta laughed softly.
“Sir Pasion, want to make a bet?”
“On what?”
“How many days until that boy finishes the job and comes back. What’s your wager?”
After a moment’s thought, Pasion answered. He put his money on a week; Dieta put hers on four days. Both estimates reflected a positive view of the boy. Even Pasion’s week would have been tight by the standards of an ordinary bounty hunter.
Dieta had not lied to the boy.
In truth, the combat ability of the targets he had chosen was nothing special. The problem was their skill at running. Men of the back alleys, they moved through the city’s labyrinthine streets as if they were their own living rooms.
Finding them would not be hard…
Catching them was another matter entirely.
Not a trap, then.
“Looks that way. Still feels a little fishy, though…”
Having confirmed that the targets of Dieta’s commission were wanted criminals, Najin headed straight for the alleys. She had marked out a particular stretch of street where they were known to appear.
As he set foot there, he drew a long breath. The thick air of the back streets was familiar to him. Sunlight never reached these places, leaving them dark—but that was no problem either. For someone who had lived where light never came, seeing in the dark was second nature.
“I can’t deny it’s a good opportunity.”
It was. To live in this city, to put down roots and begin growing in earnest, what he needed first was seed money.
Money to secure a place to sleep. Money so he would not go hungry. He did not need a fortune—just enough that he would not be scraping by.
“Let’s earn hard and start from there.”
Right. At the very least a person shouldn’t have to dig through garbage to live.
“I told you that was a joke.”
Leaving Merlin’s grumbling behind, Najin slowly steadied his breathing. As he loosened up, her whisper brushed his ear again.
Do you have a plan? Finding anyone in a place this dark seems rough. Why those three posters in particular?
At that, Najin only smiled.
The three wanted posters he had chosen.
The places where those three fugitives had last been sighted were none other than the city’s shadowed alleys—in other words, an environment very much like the underground city.
“Because,” he said,
a familiar stage,
and familiar work.
“this is my specialty.”
The executioner who had spent long years as Ivan’s hunting dog smiled. Hunting down men who skipped out on their debts and then making them talk had always been Najin’s field of expertise.