The City of Opportunity, Cambria (4)
Dieta still had no idea what she was looking at when Pasion leaned in and whispered beside her ear. The knight had seen what there was to see.
"Those three have broken fingers. Knees and ankles too. He shattered them just precisely enough that they can still limp on one leg."
Pasion muttered, a note of genuine surprise in his voice.
"That's not the work of someone who's only done this once or twice."
Dieta swallowed dryly.
In her wager with Pasion she had given the boy four days, and even that had been an optimistic estimate. The three wanted men were alley-bred types who routinely made bounty hunters sweat. And yet he had done it in a single night.
The result was hard to believe. She knew she had to acknowledge the successful completion of the commission and pay the fee, but for a long moment she could not find her voice.
"Ah, and also—"
While she was still reeling from the shock, Najin set a leather pouch on the desk in the office. Pasion, standing at Dieta's side, checked that nothing dangerous was inside, then upended the contents onto the desk.
Gold coins and forged ledgers spilled out, along with expensive jewelry and gold bars.
Everything the three wanted men had gained by meddling with the Dieta Trading Company—and everything they had converted into hard assets—Najin had tracked down and brought back in full. The moment that fact sank in, Dieta let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
"How did you find all of this?"
Najin almost answered that he was rather experienced in that particular field, then closed his mouth. There was no need to explain what he used to do for a living.
"There's a way of making people talk."
Break a few fingers and they usually start singing, he added silently to himself.
I'd like to ask that myself. Really.
Merlin's incredulous voice echoed beside Najin's ear. Even after watching him work at close range, she still could not accept the entire sequence of events.
Fragments of information extracted under the torture of broken fingers. Najin had turned those scraps over in his mind for only a moment before walking straight to the hidden vault. How anyone could leap from those fragments to that conclusion was beyond Merlin's comprehension. Watching from the side had felt like watching him perform magic.
Faced with Merlin's voice and Dieta's stunned stare, Najin simply smiled. Those two might not know it, but he had once been both an executioner and a collector for an organization.
Hiding places like that are always the same.
Men of that sort always hid money the same way. With even a scrap of information, finding the vault had never been difficult.
"Aha..."
A smile finally curved Dieta's lips after the long silence. The corners of her mouth lifted; her narrowed eyes sparkled. The deep yellow of her irises looked even richer than the day before, and Najin gave a small, involuntary twitch of the shoulder.
"You've exceeded every expectation."
Dieta smiled radiantly. She took a sheet of paper from the stack in the corner of the office, scribbled swiftly with a quill, stamped it with the company seal, and handed it to Najin.
"Your commission fee. Show this at the exchange window on the first floor and they'll convert it immediately. We double as a bank, so you can leave it with the vault keepers for safekeeping if you like."
"...There's one more zero than the amount you mentioned yesterday."
"The work was that satisfying."
And then—
Dieta rose from her seat. She peeled off the pure white gloves she had been wearing and held out her bare hand to Najin.
"I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on, so shall we properly introduce ourselves? I never asked your name yesterday."
As I told you yesterday, my name is Dieta. What is yours?
The girl asked with a charming smile.
And Najin...
3.
A short while after the boy left the office, Dieta stared blankly at the hand she still held out into empty air. The slender white fingers revealed once the glove was removed. Taking off her glove and offering her bare hand had been her own private signal.
I like you. Let's see each other often from now on... something of that flavor.
Dieta was reasonably confident in her looks. Before she ran away from her family, marriage proposals had come and gone until she nearly been sold off as a seasonal bargain. Among the daughters of House Arvenia, her beauty had been the most striking.
And that same girl had smiled her prettiest smile, removed her glove, and offered a handshake. Any man ought to have felt at least a flicker of goodwill at the sight, shouldn't he?
It should have worked...
The boy had not taken the hand she extended. Leaving only the words that he did not yet have a name worth giving, he had simply strolled out of the office.
The feeling of being rejected without even having confessed. Dieta clenched her empty hand a few times, tasting a decidedly odd sensation. She ought to have been offended, yet instead she smiled. Well—if he were that easy to catch, it wouldn't be any fun.
"He was impressive, wasn't he? That boy just now."
Dieta sat back down and pulled her gloves on again as she spoke. Pasion, still standing at her side, nodded.
"Certainly beyond anything I imagined."
"I think so too. What on earth is he?"
Dieta had seen more adventurers and mercenaries in this city than she could count. That was precisely why she knew: even professional bounty hunters rarely handled a job this cleanly or this quickly.
Just what was that boy's true identity?
She rested her chin on her hand and turned the conversation over in her mind. The skill he had displayed was far too polished for someone with no background at all.
Cleaner work than a professional bounty hunter.
Had he done this sort of thing before?
As far as she knew, the only people who showed this level of excellence in the field were Rangers—specialists optimized for infiltration, ambush, and pursuit.
...Could he actually be a former Ranger?
Of course, he looked too young for that. If he had been a Ranger, he would have been the youngest on record, and she had never heard any such rumor.
Then perhaps a Ranger trainee?
Ordinary trainees were never this good.
"Ah."
In that instant a scrap of information flashed through Dieta's mind. Among Rangers, the absolute elite were those of the Techel Mountains. Only the cream of the crop gathered there, and even the candidates were said to be on another level entirely.
From early childhood they learned how to kill, how to dig traps, how to ambush, pursue, and torture. Once forged, those candidates spent their entire lives intercepting enemies along the border in the Techel Mountains, knowing nothing of the wider world. Only a tiny handful ever graduated from that hell and earned the right to be called Techel Mountain Rangers—Dieta knew that much.
How could she not? One of the most famous mercenaries in this city was himself a Techel Mountain Ranger.
Could that boy be one of them too?
It might be pure conjecture. Yet what rose unbidden in her mind was the conversation she had shared with him.
"Have you by any chance been training deep in some mountain? This is common knowledge, you know."
A question she had tossed out casually at a boy who seemed to lack every scrap of common sense. He had answered, "Something like that."
"Hah!"
Dieta sucked in a sharp breath. She slapped the table with her palm and whipped her head around, staring at Pasion with theatrical excitement.
"I told you this was a profitable deal!"
For the price of a single meal she had forged a connection with a Techel Mountain Ranger candidate—allegedly. A situation worthy of being called a genius investment. Even Pasion could not deny it this time. To the eyes of a high-level knight, the boy had been extraordinary.
Dieta beamed and began clicking the abacus in her head.
Ahh, she could smell it.
The scent of gold.
The serpent that swallowed gold coins had caught the fragrance of gold.
She had left a decent impression on the boy and opened a relationship. Now all that remained was to draw him gradually toward her side.
Dieta knew there was no more efficient business than investing in talent destined for greatness. A connection to an outstanding individual was enough, by itself, to elevate a trading company's standing.
"Excellent. Absolutely excellent."
A boy who would settle in this city. How many gold coins his value currently amounted to, and how much higher that value would climb, she could not yet know. Since she could not know, she would simply have to find out over time.
As she pondered what offers to make and which commissions to hand him in order to win his favor, Dieta's eyes glowed a deeper yellow than usual.
A short cough broke her concentration. Dieta lowered her gaze to the three wanted men bound before her. The moment she looked at them, the warmth vanished from her eyes.
They were worthless. Squeeze them as hard as she liked and they would spit out a single gold coin at best—useless trash. Dieta had no interest in trash of that sort. In a cold voice she ordered her secretary:
"Drag them out and dispose of them. Sell off anything that can make money."
4.
His wallet had grown fat in an instant.
Najin secured an inn for the time being and paid the monthly rent in a lump sum. He had earned more than expected, so even after covering rent and food in one go a comfortable sum remained.
This is where I'll be staying for a while.
A window that let in sunlight, a soft bed. Meals available downstairs—conditions could hardly be better. The inn might be ordinary by this city's standards, but for Najin it was anything but.
"At least I won't be going hungry or sleeping on the floor for a while."
Good. Does this mean the basics are covered?
Najin nodded.
He had successfully raised starting capital. He had secured lodging, solved the meal problem, and obtained a nameplate. He drew the plate from inside his coat.
For now it was nothing more than a scrap of metal. The clerk who issued it had explained that only after completing several commissions and having his reliability verified by the guild would the plate gain the force of an identity document. It merely proved he had become a member of the city; it did not yet prove who he was.
From this point on, he would have to prove it himself.
"This really does seem like the ideal stage for me."
Najin smiled.
"I can start from the beginning, and it's a city well suited to honing my skills. As long as I have results, I can create as many means as I need to prove myself."
He rolled the nameplate in his palm. For now it was only a piece of metal, but once he accumulated achievements and strength it would become the identity document that certified his existence.
About that.
Merlin grinned.
You heard the rank explanation earlier, right?
Starting from black and rising all the way to white. The brighter the color, the higher the rank, granting access to higher-tier commissions and facilities. A simple, transparent rule: anyone with the skill could climb.
The path you walk is the royal road.
Merlin said.
Wherever you walk, you must leave records, and you must stand at the highest point of every place you set foot. That is the path of a king, and the path of a hero.
Just as Arthur had done, so too must he.
Climb while setting records no one else can approach. That was what Merlin was telling him.
I don't need to tell you what the goal is, do I?
Najin nodded.
"White rank, of course."
White rank. White Horn.
The highest grade, the summit of this city. At present only five people in the entire city held white rank. Two of them were swordsmen, and Najin had seen their realms listed on the guild board.
Sword Seeker.
The first place he needed to aim for.
Shall we set a short goal of two years for now?
Two years. Najin knew exactly what that meant. It was the time Arthur had taken to rise from Expert to Seeker. Only after arriving in this city had he learned just how absurd that span truly was.
From Expert to Seeker.
A talented Expert with proper support typically needed about fifteen years. Those called geniuses still required ten years of support. Even the unprecedented genius who now led the Sword Church—Sword Saint Caron—had taken seven years to climb from Expert to Sword Seeker.
Knowing that information, Najin understood precisely how unreasonable Merlin's two-year demand was. And yet he smiled instead. With that smile he opened his mouth and declared his ambition.
"Two years? Forget that."
Najin curled the corner of his mouth upward.
"One year is enough."
He would shatter every record, renew every youngest-ever mark, and aim for the highest place. And of course the records he intended to break included Arthur's as well.
He would not chase. He would overtake.
No matter what anyone said, the boy's goal was to climb higher than King Arthur herself.