Chapter 97
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Friends Aren't Eternal. (9)
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“Welcome, Miss Lin. We extend our warmest regards to your visit to the Shasen branch of the Adventurer's Guild. I am Alec, the branch chief here at Shasen.”
Upon entering Shasen, Kane and his group met Alec, the branch chief of the Adventurer's Guild Shasen branch, who introduced himself.
After a brief, perfunctory exchange of greetings,
he promptly guided them to where the client was waiting.
“Right this way.”
They entered the room marked as Reception Room 3, where he led them.
A man who appeared to be the client, already waiting inside, gave a quick bow.
“Ah, hello. I'm 'Argon Tddu,' appointed as the council's proxy representative for this request.”
“Hello.”
He had a somewhat dopey expression and moved with an incredibly awkward demeanor.
But Kane's group paid it no mind.
After all, they had already set their goal: finish the request quickly, no matter what it was, and get out.
Whether the proxy was inept or not, they couldn't care less.
“F-First off, uh... oh, right! My apologies! Th-that crime organization, you see. They're connected to the local councilors, so if any of the central council's Seven Councilors got involved, it might cause backlash or something? That's why the council members couldn't come themselves... For now, I've been given proxy authority...”
His words dragged on.
“For starters, could we get the precise details on the crime organization?”
Lin, unable to stand it any longer, cut him off midway.
“Ah, yes. Well, first, about the scale of the crime organization...”
The bumbling man began trying to explain the organization's size from the top.
Lin let out a deep sigh of frustration.
“We've already been briefed on all that during the designated request assignment.”
The organization's scale, estimated armament status.
The associated risk level.
The need for an A-rank adventurer party or higher.
The caution required due to ties with local councilors.
All of that had already been explained before they accepted the request.
How could they judge and accept the difficulty without such information in the first place?
“We need the exact location, other points of caution, and info on the boss or executives who must be captured. That's what we're after.”
“Ah, uh...”
Under Lin's cold rebuke, the council proxy floundered, barely able to speak.
'Was she always this sharp-tongued?'
Kane was genuinely startled watching it.
She always showed only her gentle, sweet side around him.
'Well, she does feel a bit scary sometimes.'
Right now, with her nerves on edge from the ambush, and eager to wrap things up and head back, that must be it.
He decided to understand.
...Of course, Lin was generally cool toward anyone but Kane or Jenny—though not usually to this extent.
She just never acted that way in front of Kane, so he wouldn't know.
In any case, after some back-and-forth, they finally got the location of the crime organization's apparent base from the council proxy,
along with a few precautions.
The precautions were all predictable, so they glossed over them.
The key was the info on targets who absolutely had to be killed or captured.
“Uh... the crime organization 'Scar'—well, truth is, their leader is pretty much all of it.”
The crime organization 'Scar' had started operating about ten years ago and ballooned in size almost overnight by pulling in several local councilors.
They seized control of Shasen in a flash.
Under the local councilors' protection, they peddled illegal goods, kidnapped people to sell as slaves, and dipped into every kind of crime.
All while shouting about 'revolution.'
Claiming their illegal deeds were just fundraising for the cause.
And all of it—
the rapid rise, the crimes, the cries for revolution—
stemmed from their leader.
“The leader's name is... uh, 'Marco.'”
At that moment, Kane's body jolted.
A name he felt like he'd heard before.
But he shook his head.
'No way. Just a coincidence, same name.'
But his thought was immediately refuted.
“He's a man in his mid-twenties, with a big scar on his forehead from a sword wound as his distinguishing feature.”
“......”
A man in his mid-twenties named Marco, with a large scar on his forehead?
At this point, he had to accept it.
It was far more likely to be the 'Marco' from his distant childhood memories, the one he'd scrapped with in the back alleys,
than some random other guy like that existing by chance.
“This man must be killed, without fail.”
At that, the council proxy spoke with uncharacteristic sharpness and clarity.
Kill him.
“......”
A gaudy room that looked tacky amid the flashy lights and ostentatious sparkle.
Extremely luxurious.
A man lounged sprawled on a golden throne at the room's center.
Someone approached and spoke to him.
“Boss. They went to the Adventurer's Guild. Looks like they're after us after all.”
“Huh?”
At his words, the man sluggishly propped himself up.
A massive scar on his forehead, like from a sword slash, stood out prominently.
“Oh yeah? Heh heh heh. Can't be helped. Contact the old geezers. Time to bail.”
“What? No fight?”
His subordinate, surprised at the boss's talk of fleeing, asked in confusion.
The man dubbed boss shrugged as if it were obvious.
“Hey, you know those bastards aren't failing to catch us because they can't. It's the old geezers holding them back.”
The Mera Federation's central council already knew not just how many spoons the 'Scar' organization owned,
but even how many times they washed them a day.
Their numbers, forces, escape routes—everything.
Yet the reason they couldn't touch Scar was simple.
“They're worried about backlash from the local councilors. Public opinion among them's already sour over the hereditary seats. No point making enemies.”
Scar's leader, Marco, was a man who knew how to milk their position for all it was worth.
He lobbied the local councilors hard and kept crimes just shy of anything too flashy.
He had a keen grasp on how to survive slyly.
That cunning had made him the biggest underworld force in the city in just ten years.
'But somehow, it feels like there's more to it.'
However, Marco believed there were other reasons they'd thrived unscathed so far.
'Those guys act suspicious as hell. And the adventurer they brought to nab us this time? That mage Lin with the Hero's Quality.'
Having hung a banner of 'revolution,' Marco had long investigated the central council.
Thus, he vaguely suspected their ties to 'demons.'
Plus, missing people from across the continent occasionally turning up in Mera.
Heroes visiting now and then at Mera's request.
Councilors having unexplained empty slots in their schedules.
And more.
The deeper he dug, the more red flags piled up.
He wanted to rally people and expose it all.
Overthrow the pesky central council and spark the revolution he craved for an easier life.
That's what he thought.
But as a crime boss relying on underlings for intel, no one would take him seriously.
'Whatever. I'm plenty satisfied as is.'
He'd made more than enough money.
Lived extravagantly to his heart's content.
The revolution was just greed for even more cash.
To protect what he had, he needed to bolt now.
That mage Lin? Rumor had it she could freeze dozens of dragons at once. Insane.
As Marco hurried to pack,
another report came from his subordinate.
“Oh, and... that guy from the papers. Instructor Kane? Word is he's with them too.”
“...What?”
Kane.
A name he never imagined hearing right now.
Reached his ears.
“...I see.”
A faint smile crept across his lips.
Back in childhood, Marco had just one kid his age he could call a friend.
A boy named 'Kane.'
The two were different yet alike in ways.
Marco was hyperactive to a problematic degree, while Kane was reserved.
But both had figured out, young as they were, how to survive the back alleys through shrewd actions.
Hiding, stealing, begging, borrowing.
That's how they'd passed their early years.
They weren't especially close, but there was a certain camaraderie.
Same age, scraping by in the alleys together.
Of course, Marco saw Kane as beneath him.
He threw himself into action, hustling harder than anyone in those streets.
But Kane? Passive, doing just enough to get by.
Otherwise, quiet as the dead.
Marco disliked that, yet it gave him a sense of superiority.
That guy's lesser than me.
Never gonna make it big, just sit meekly his whole life.
That's what he'd thought.
...Until that day.
“Huh? Where'd he go?”
One day, Kane was just gone.
He figured the kid had wandered off somewhere.
No big deal.
They weren't that tight, after all.
A lame kid like that? Even if he'd croaked, no skin off his nose.
That's how he'd seen it.
Then.
“Heard Kane got scooped up by Marquis Harkur?”
“What? That hero Harkur?”
Absurd.
Ridiculous rumors started reaching Marco's ears.