Boss: The Informant #1
020 – Boss: The Informant #1
020 – Boss: The Informant #1
The evening Nike and Victorica decided to sleep together. I sat quietly by the campfire, listening. Murmur, murmur.
“……”
I could tell the two women were talking about something, but I couldn’t make out a single word. Nike’s shack—no, her cabin. For something cobbled together from grass and branches, the soundproofing was surprisingly effective.
That said, I had no intention of pressing my ear to the wall like some uncouth eavesdropper. Even without listening, I could roughly imagine what they were discussing inside.
When did you start dating Victor? The Arclight family might come after you—can you handle that?
I recalled Victorica’s personality as described in D&A.
“She’ll try to persuade her.”
Victorica, the one who had captured the Act 1 boss, “Enrique the Informant.” She had tried to win over Enrique, who had caused localized terrorism in Ludens.
—If you tell the truth even now, I can still show leniency. Attacking students by breaking through the protective barrier… I don’t believe a group of mere dropouts could pull off something like this.
That was Victorica’s nature. Merciful even toward enemies. At the same time, she possessed a ruthless coldness.
—There are others involved besides you, aren’t there? If you won’t speak, I’ll simply judge you according to student council law.
Given her personality, she was probably grilling Nike from every angle right now.
“……”
Tonight might be the night we get found out. Nike was clearly not someone skilled at lying.
Still, I had already accounted for the possibility that Nike’s lies would be exposed to Victorica. If it came to that, I would have no choice but to use that method.
But was it really all right? I asked myself.
“The answer isn’t difficult.”
Time was money. Naturally, my deliberation was brief.
“As long as I can distance myself from the Arclight family, any method is acceptable.”
Repaying the debt. And doing the healing I couldn’t do before. Those were my two greatest goals. If I could achieve just those two things, the method didn’t matter.
Clink.
To organize my thoughts, I checked the pouch filled with Rene. Five million Rene from the Tier 1 hunting request reward, plus 2.5 million Rene from yesterday and today’s sales. After deducting various expenses, I had earned roughly six million Rene in the past week. Even after splitting half with Nike, that was three million Rene earned in a single week. At four weeks a month, that came to twelve million. Twelve million a month. Roughly 130 million Rene a year. Even excluding interest, that number fell slightly short of my goal to repay 200 million Rene within a year.
Even so, it was a respectable achievement for someone who had started with nothing. If things continued like this, it would be enough—as long as no variables arose.
“Variables must always be considered.”
I decided to organize my future plans and check for anything that could become a variable.
First, had the opening ceremony of Act 1 gone smoothly? Starting from the second week after the semester began, the organization “Fimblevert” would start moving. The plot of Act 1 involved the protagonist Luke resolving the incidents they caused and building his reputation. Was there anything in that story I needed to worry about?
Probably not. The enemies that would appear sequentially from now on were all opponents Luke could handle. Only at the very end would the executive Enrique appear with the feeling of “I suppose I must step in myself!”
Enrique was quite a difficult opponent for an early boss, but he was no match for Luke, who had grown steadily. After all, he was the protagonist.
“They’ll handle that side just fine.”
My own problems were enough to deal with.
* * *
Crackle.
The sound of something stepping on dry branches rang out. Awakened from sleep by the flickering campfire, I looked around. A rabbit? No, whatever it was had considerable weight. In this forest, the only creatures larger than rabbits were students searching for “spice grass.” But past midnight, most would be asleep. More than anything, the number of footsteps was strange.
What’s going on?
“Who are you people?”
Thanks to Victor’s indifference, I could ask the question into the pitch-black night air. Then, several dark figures emerged from the shadowy bushes. They wore black masks. A mixed group of men and women.
A nighttime ambush event? I had thought it was about time for one to occur. If your reputation was in the negatives, you were bound to experience something like this at least once.
“What do you want?”
“We are winter.”
“We are exposure!”
It was a familiar line I had heard somewhere before. This was a little different from an ambush event.
But before I could finish thinking, something burst out from the cabin.
“Victor! We must respond to the ambush!”
It was Victorica, holding a shining ivory staff. When she struck the ground with her staff—bang—a blinding light erupted.
“Blaze forth! Flower of Flash!”
It was Victorica’s basic skill, Flash. A simple yet powerful skill that stunned and blinded the target for about two turns.
“Ugh, my eyes!”
“Eek!”
“Graaah!”
Wasn’t the effect a bit too strong? It was more like a flashbang than a flare.
“…This. The power of my Flash?”
Victorica herself seemed surprised. She alternated her gaze between the black-masked figures rolling on the ground and the “Arclight Staff” in her hand, then asked me,
“Victor, an ambush! What on earth is going on?”
“I do not know.”
Urgh. My stomach hurt. Because I had just lied. No, strictly speaking, “I do not know” wasn’t exactly a lie. I did know. It was just… ambiguous.
“Ugh, it suddenly got so noisy. What’s going on…?”
Awakened by the commotion, Nike soon rubbed her eyes and got up. Then, seeing the black figures collapsed on the ground, she shouted,
“They must be debt collectors! They found out I made money recently and came to collect!”
No, I didn’t know for sure, but that didn’t seem right.
“Gah, run!”
“They’re stronger than we heard!”
“We didn’t hear they were this strong!”
The black-masked figures, having recovered from Flash, began supporting their comrades and fleeing.
“Stop right there!”
Victorica chased after them.
“Victor, let’s go! Those guys clearly came targeting my opening! This is a challenge to the student council!”
She spoke so naturally, but I had something I needed to say.
“Victorica, I am no longer an executor.”
“That…”
At my reminder, Victorica seemed to grasp the situation. Victor, who was not an executor, had no obligation to chase those intruders. Unless they were stealing my belongings. Realizing this, Victorica snapped,
“Then just sit here twiddling your thumbs!”
With that, she disappeared after them.
* * *
The next morning.
“……”
“……”
Nike and I were brushing our teeth and washing our faces at the park faucet near the forest. Normally, no conversation would have been needed during this process. That might have been true for the past few days. But today’s Nike was a little different.
“What was that last night? I thought they were debt collectors, but I guess not.”
“Nike, from what I saw, they definitely weren’t debt collectors.”
“Is that so…?”
“More importantly, about last night.”
I wanted to ask Nike what she had talked about with Victorica. Since Victor had no refined way of speaking, I asked directly.
“You weren’t caught lying to Victorica, were you?”
“Th-that…”
“You were caught.”
“Ugh, but she said I had to take responsibility! Victor, I’m sorry! I tried to hide it somehow!”
It was exactly the story I had expected, which was almost surprising. I… had apparently become a far more seasoned veteran than I had thought.
However, the current Victorica probably didn’t have the luxury to worry about her broken engagement with me.
“Things are taking a strange turn.”
“It’s my fault! I promised! I’m an idiot!”
Nike prostrated herself before me, desperately apologizing. She must have thought everything had gone wrong because of her. Rather than explaining with words, I thought it would be faster to show her. Fortunately or unfortunately, the incident wasn’t far off.
At eight in the morning, before first period began, a bizarre incident stirred up all the students of Ludens. It was a kind of performance art.
“Who would do something so horrible…!”
“That guy… he’s dead…!?”
“Ugh… I’m not dead… Please get me down…”
A student bound and hanging from a cross-shaped frame. His appearance looked as though he had rolled down a cliff.
“How awful…!”
“Who would do something like this…!”
“No… instead of just watching, please get me down…”
However, what drew people’s attention wasn’t the suffering student or the strange cross frame, but the sign hanging above it.
“The crown is a lie.”
“The crown is a lie? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. More importantly, someone get that guy down!”
“You bastards… You’re the worse ones…”
Everyone was confused and bewildered. I was no exception. An installation and sign meant to draw everyone’s eyes. This was the work of Enrique the Informant, wasn’t it?
The event where Enrique personally stepped forward should have happened several weeks later. Why was the boss event appearing already, when the villain executive only appeared after the underlings kept failing with lines like “Useless fools, I suppose I must step in myself!”?
What was this? A bug?
But on the other hand, it might be a good opportunity. If Luke defeated Enrique, Act 1 would end and Act 2, the real story, would begin. Act 2 was the episode where the “Underground Market” was first activated. The Underground Market. Just the name smelled of money, didn’t it? There were plenty of materials that could only be obtained there.
While I was organizing my thoughts with that feeling, someone called out to me.
“E-excuse me, are you Senior Victor?”
“The student council said they were looking for you.”
“First period is about to start, though? I don’t have time.”
“They said they knew you’d say that and prepared an excused absence form. They’re also providing lunch as a boxed meal.”
“On second thought, I have some time.”
It wasn’t particularly about saving on lunch money.
“Nike, I’m going, so handle lunch on your own today.”
“…Huh? Okay! Then I’ll prepare the ingredients!”
It seemed worth hearing what the student council wanted to talk about. An excused absence form that legally allowed me to skip class, plus lunch. At the very least, it wasn’t a losing deal.
That was how I arrived at the student council president’s office. Several students with serious expressions were seated there. It was odd to see teenagers who were barely in their mid-to-late teens wearing faces burdened with all sorts of worries. Still, most of them were familiar faces. The protagonist, the “special transfer student” Luke, the “vice president” Victorica, the “rising star” Diarmuid. And the short-haired tanned guy over there…
“I am Gawain, the third-year Sword Club president. You’re Victor, right?”
So it was “Golden Sun” Gawain. With his Golden Sun skill that strengthened him during daylight hours, he was an attacker used in rather peculiar parties. It was a decent member lineup. We could probably enter a dungeon like this.
So why had these distinguished individuals summoned me?
At that moment, the tanned blond Gawain asked me a question.
“Victor, do you know anything about the group called ‘Fimblevert’?”