48. Port City Lorelei (3)
48. Port City Lorelei (3)
"Karina!"
What in the world was going on?
A surprise attack? Just like that?
The moment I heard the news, I sprinted with Millia to the sickroom located inside the temple.
In front of Karina's room, Reni sat with her head deeply bowed.
"Reni. What the hell happened here?"
"Dammit... This happened during the brief moment I was away on business with the Archbishop... They completely blindsided us."
"What were the other Escort Knights doing? Wasn't there a perimeter of guards nearby?"
If I remembered correctly, a Saintess was normally surrounded by an almost excessive number of priests and Escort Knights. Someone had gotten through all of them and put an arrow in Karina's back? There should have been plenty of people willing to serve as human shields.
"...One of the Escort Knights was the assassin. They swallowed poison and killed themselves before we could find out who was behind it... Dammit. Several priests have disappeared too. They may have been spies."
Reni spat out curses with an expression that said she would tear the assassin apart if they were standing in front of her, then looked at me.
"No one is allowed to visit Karina right now. With the assassin coming from her own guard, there are only a handful of people we can trust. Every priest and Escort Knight is being investigated... Ha. At this rate, I can't even trust the investigators."
An inside spy, huh. I hadn't noticed anything suspicious.
"They've all been thrown in prison. They failed to protect the Saintess... They won't get off lightly."
To my question, Reni answered, grinding her teeth. Was that voice thick with suppressed fury directed at herself, or at the assassin? Either way, it was definitely not the time to get on her bad side.
I was completely bewildered by this unexpected situation too.
Had something like this happened in the original?
Karina was frequently targeted in the main story, and enemies sometimes attacked her as their top priority. But we hadn't even entered the academy yet. Was this already happening?
No, maybe she was targeted precisely because she hadn't entered the academy?
Whatever else could be said about it, it was the finest academy on the continent, and its security was strict. My memory was hazy, but I thought the original had mentioned increasing security after the Saintess enrolled.
"Her condition?"
"The arrow was removed, but... the arrowhead carried a curse."
"Cursed?!"
"Millia. Shh."
Drawing attention would be bad. I pressed a finger to my lips, and Millia covered her mouth with both hands.
Good. Keep it shut like that.
Making a racket would only attract unwanted eyes.
"A curse... huh."
If the game's setting was 100% the same here, only a few groups could use curses.
Dark Wizards, Necromancers, and cult priests.
Which one was it?
Dark Wizards were out, for starters. Their faction was already tiny; there was no way they had the nerve to touch the Saintess. Attacking her was no different from making enemies of everyone who believed in the Church of Kalon. If they had enough nerve to antagonize everyone from royalty to beggars in the street, they wouldn't have spent so long hiding.
Necromancers also had a pitifully small faction, so they were out for the same reason.
By process of elimination, did that leave a cult?
I looked up at the ceiling and tried to dredge up what I remembered about the cults. They were enemies who appeared around the middle of the game, using curses, suicide attacks, and bizarre magic. But had they been active this early...?
Why did it feel like the story I knew was going further and further off the rails?
If this was how it was going to be...
"...Yohan."
At the sound of Reni calling my name in a low voice, I turned my head to look at her. Naturally, my eyes met hers, and they were smoldering as if they might blaze at any moment. Reni glanced around, then quietly spoke up.
"...I need your help."
"...You want me to find out who's behind this?"
Reni gave a silent nod.
"I can't leave because I have to guard this room. I need someone I can trust to handle it for me... and you're the only one. Please. Get me information on the scum who attacked Karina. When you find them... tell me first."
"Got it."
I had no reason to refuse. Someone I knew had been attacked, and I had no intention of standing by. The whole incident felt wrong, too. An attack before we even reached the academy? If I didn't deal with it properly here, they'd probably attack again on the way there.
I'd tear them out by the roots if I could. If that wasn't possible, I at least needed to deal with the threat enough to get us safely to the academy.
No matter which ending unfolded, Karina had to stay alive. From my perspective, this was something I needed to do even without being asked.
"I'll help too!"
"...You stay put and rest."
Her desire to help was admirable, but she probably wouldn't be much use. It would be easier if she stayed behind.
"I can help!"
"How exactly can you help?"
"Uh... I mean... I can detach my head and..."
"If you get caught doing that, it'll give me an even bigger headache. Sit tight and wait at the temple."
If a fight broke out, having her there would only complicate things.
"Reni. If you have any intel on hand, could you share it? I don't have nearly enough to go on starting from scratch."
"Take this. I didn't have time to do a detailed investigation, but there's some rough information in there."
I took the small notebook Reni handed me. Inside, roughly three pages were covered in aggressive handwriting that barely stayed between the lines. I'd have to read it somewhere else. As she had said, standing around here would only make people remember my face for no good reason.
"Then keep a close watch on her. I'll find out who's behind this."
"...I trust your abilities, so I'm counting on you. Take this too."
I snatched the object Reni tossed over out of the air.
...What was this metal badge with a sun emblem?
"It's proof that you're a guest of the Church of Kalon. If any priests or guards look at you suspiciously, show them that. It should make them a little less wary."
That'd come in handy.
I shoved the token into my pocket.
"Then I'll be off. I need to prepare for the search anyway."
---------------------------
People often said criminals returned to the scene of the crime... but the guards had sealed the area completely, so I couldn't get in.
I wanted to examine the plaza where Karina had delivered the sermon, but as an outsider, I had no way past the priests who had sealed it tight. In the end, I had to investigate the surrounding area instead.
"Reni definitely said some people had vanished."
Where had they gone? Unless every one of them had swallowed poison and killed themselves, they had to have fled somewhere.
I'd heard that every exit from the city was sealed the moment the Saintess was attacked, so they couldn't have used an ordinary route. I hid in a shadowed alley and opened the notebook Reni had given me.
There was a diagram showing where the guards and priests had been stationed during Karina's sermon, the positions of those disguised as guards, and their likely escape routes. Reni had recorded a surprising amount in such a short time, which made the investigation much easier.
"Let's start with the escape routes."
I circled the plaza along the escape routes Reni had marked—and got stopped four times. Without her token, I might have ended up sitting beside the arrested priests, waiting for someone to release me.
Did I really look that suspicious?
"...Forget it. Let's finish checking the routes."
By the time I'd checked every route, the streets were turning reddish-orange in the setting sun.
I scratched my head in the middle of the street without a single lead to show for my efforts. Since I'd come all this way, I needed to find something, but there was nothing.
I couldn't even try questioning people.
If I went around asking questions with a delivery that would sound stilted to anybody, I'd clearly get labeled as a seriously suspicious person. I was already barely getting by playing the "guest of the Church of Kalon" card; if I got flagged again here... I might end up arrested even after showing the token.
...Ha.
If gathering information were that easy, then maybe they had used a secret passage or something... Hm?
At the sudden thought, I looked down at the ground.
...Could there really be a secret passage?
I quietly headed toward the river that cut through the middle of the city. The city definitely had a sewer system; I'd confirmed that through my frequent use of its toilets. I'd heard that the waste was collected and processed with magic. Then perhaps there was a secret passage somewhere in the sewer system.
Few people would deliberately enter the sewers. They were hidden underground, and, most importantly, there was nowhere else in the city that seemed likely to contain a secret passage.
...The problem was that I didn't know the city's layout. First, I had to find an entrance to the sewers.
After scouring the city until the moon rose, I at last discovered a ladder leading down into the sewers. It was hidden in a corner of a somewhat squalid district that looked to be the slums. There might be other ways down, but this was the only one I'd found. Judging by the foul stench wafting up from the path below, it was probably the right place.
I immediately climbed down the ladder.
Thankfully, my guess was right: the ladder led into the sewers. Yellow streams glistened in the light of torches mounted on the walls, stirring an instinctive revulsion. I looked away from the yellow river and took a torch from the wall. If I could see in the dark like a cat, I wouldn't have needed a light, but I was human.
I had no such talent, so I had no choice but to carry the torch.
"...I shouldn't think about eating for a while."
My nose felt like it was going to rot off.
I fished a piece of cloth from the bag I'd bought a few days earlier and covered my face up to the bridge of my nose, like a mask. There was no way a single scrap of cloth would actually stop the stench, which was enough to make me miss a gas mask, but it was still a hundred times better than nothing.
It was time to get moving.
I pulled the shortened shovel from my bag and extended it to about the length of a shortsword. The sewer passages were narrow, so that was about right.
I walked endlessly through the sewers.
The sewers were a bewildering maze. Forked paths were the least of it; I kept running into three-way splits and even four-way intersections with unsettling frequency. I hit dead end after dead end as I slowly mapped out the tunnels in my notebook.
Normally, calling for help would have been the right move, but there was no guarantee the people behind this would still be around tomorrow. My guess was that they'd try to flee before anyone picked up their trail. People with something to hide always ran like rats.
If I failed to find them now, the chances of losing them would only keep rising.
Which meant I had no time to take it easy.
After wandering through the unexpected maze for who knew how long, I spotted something unusual just as the torch began to gutter.
A priest's robe from the Church of Kalon had snagged on a protrusion instead of washing away.
Filth had soaked it so thoroughly that its color was hard to make out, but I'd spent a week seeing those robes everywhere. There was no way I could mistake one.
Only then was I sure my guess had been right.
"Found it faster than I thought."
Honestly, it had been such a rough, improvised deduction that I'd expected it to be wrong.
I started heading upstream against the flow of water.
If I followed it far enough, I'd find another trace.
If I was lucky, I might even run into them.
From that point on, it was time to melt into the darkness.
I threw the torch into the wastewater and extinguished it, then rose onto the balls of my feet.
I crept forward on tiptoe like a petty thief, gripping the shovel in both hands. I was ready to cave someone's skull in at the first sign of trouble.
Maybe ten minutes had passed like that when I reached a dead end.
"...Is there a secret passage here?"
I immediately started knocking on the wall with the back of my hand.
Regrettably, I couldn't find a single spot that rang hollow instead of giving a dull thud. Which meant the robe must've come out from an opening below. At this rate, I'd have to go back and find another path.
But I didn't need to do that.
Because, well,
I could...
"Dismantle."
The Skill let me force a path through the wall. I moved each block of stone aside as I dismantled it and kept digging. After making about ten blocks, I squeezed through a passage barely wide enough for one person and emerged on the other side.
I felt a current of air.
Was there an exit nearby?
I loosely blocked the passage I had made with the stone blocks, then followed the breeze. If I kept going, I would eventually find something. It was a flimsy guess, but sometimes flimsy guesses turned out to be right. I reached the end of the stone wall—and heard voices nearby.
"...does."
"...was. Still, since we cursed her, she won't be able to reach the academy..."
"Still... doing it..."
"...was. Next... prom..."
They were still too far away for me to hear clearly. Even so, the scraps I caught were enough to tell me they were the culprits.
Very slowly, I closed the distance inch by inch.
There were several enemies. I was alone.
On top of that, there was the added difficulty of capturing them alive instead of killing them.
What a pain in the ass.
Still, I had a job to do.
I couldn't let the bastards who did that to Karina get away.
With the darkness as my ally, I crept close enough to distinguish them.
Three enemies.
Their clothes looked ordinary, but judging by what they were saying, they had to be the people who attacked Karina.
I had to neutralize them as quickly as possible.
I quietly drove the shovel into the ground and activated my Skill.
"Craft."
"Aaaah!"
Three screams shook the dark forest.