Chapter 35: Truth and Discord
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 35: Truth and Discord
It had been three days since Airune and Alto left Dakuren in Arasen’s carriage.
An unexpected figure arrived in Lukart by carriage.
“Customer! We have arrived!”
“Ohohoho~! Thank you so much~!”
A middle-aged woman stepped out, wearing sunglasses and decked out in luxury brands from head to toe.
It was Nasian, the former intelligence officer and current Bank Manager of Dakuren.
She had come to Lukart for two reasons.
One was to find the illegitimate child—the only living bloodline—of Regeros, the Ranger of the Four Heroes. The other was to dig into what exactly had happened within Mirei’s party, the group Alto had once belonged to.
It was a strange turn of events.
Investigating the past of Mirei’s party was supposed to be Branch Manager Karen’s job.
Count Dakuus had assigned them different tasks, yet Nasian had arrived in Lukart having taken over both missions.
The reason was simple.
While tracking Regeros’s illegitimate child, she received information that the daughter was in Lukart.
As for Mirei’s party, they had agreed she might as well look into them since she was heading there anyway.
“That was supposed to be my job, Bank Manager.”
“Oh my, oh my~. I’d love to work together if possible, but don’t you have the monumental task of coordinating the romance between the Young Lady and Lord Alto, Branch Manager? And you have more plans for after Lady Airune’s turn, don’t you? Isn’t that heavy enough as it is~? I’m sure your head is spinning just trying to prepare quests that aren’t too easy, but won’t push the Young Lady’s party too hard.”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
Nasian had learned of Alto’s existence much more recently than Karen.
She had initially shared information with Count Dakuus simply to lure Alto in with savings accounts, but who would have thought she was a former intelligence officer?
Nasian, whom Karen had assumed was just a money-grubbing middle-aged woman, was gathering information and processing tasks several times faster than herself.
“Besides, while I have the instructions the Count gave me, I have a separate ultimate goal for this mission.”
“An ultimate goal?”
At Karen’s question, Nasian lifted her wrinkled upper lip into a devious smirk.
“I’ll tell you once I get back~. It’s going to be very entertaining! Pure, unadulterated fun~.”
With that, Nasian had gone to the carriage station, taken a carriage enchanted with top-tier speed buffs, and rushed to Lukart in one go.
As the flashy woman, draped in luxury goods, stepped off the carriage and strutted through the streets of Lukart, all eyes were on her.
The women envied Nasian’s luxury items, and while the men showed brief interest, they quickly ignored her upon noticing her wrinkled hands and realizing she was middle-aged.
Click, clack.
Her Masquerada heels—the pinnacle of luxury—produced a sound of distinct elegance.
Those footsteps were headed toward none other than the Lukart Bank.
“Stop! This is the Lukart Branch Bank. Please line up and enter in order.”
“You insolent little bitch.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you have any idea who I am?!”
The bank guard, who had stopped Nasian according to the rules, was flustered by her brazen attitude.
Noticing the long line of people waiting, the guard intentionally raised her voice.
“No matter who you are, if you aren’t a man, you must wait your turn!”
“Hey! Don’t you know me? Is this how the Lukart Bank Manager trains her staff? Get the Bank Manager out here right now!”
The crowd began to murmur.
Nasian, intentionally causing a scene, stood her ground and screamed until a bank clerk finally emerged.
“Who are you to be doing this…”
“Oh, look at this one! What do I look like to you? Do I really have to say it with my own mouth? Hah, my pride is truly wounded!”
When her shrill voice, a mix of typical middle-aged fuss and bluster, reached the interior of the bank, a clerk peeked out to see what was happening. Her eyes widened in shock, and she scrambled back inside.
A short while later, a woman in a suit who looked younger than Nasian but still had the air of a fresh housewife came running out.
“Sister! Oh my goodness, what’s going on? What brings you all the way to Lukart!”
“You brat! What took you so long? Do you see this? I just suffered every possible humiliation from your guard, telling me I couldn’t enter! Is she looking down on me because I’m old? Did you tell her to do this?”
Blades were exchanged beneath their overly affected, fake conversation.
However, Nasian held the justification and the power.
The Lukart Bank Manager glared at the guard.
“Hey! Do you know who this sister is?! She’s the Bank Manager of Dakuren in Hus!”
The guard’s mouth hung open, unable to say a word.
As the guard broke into a cold sweat and fidgeted with her fingers, the Bank Manager barked at her.
“Couldn’t you tell something was different just by looking at what she’s wearing?! Are you showing off the fact that you’re just a lowly guard who’s never met anyone important? What does this make me look like! What a disgrace to show my sister!”
Finally, the Bank Manager shoved the guard’s shoulder.
“I can’t take this. Go home right now. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”
“B-Bank Manager…!”
“Go! I said go! Do you want me to keep using harsh words?”
“Please, forgive me just this once! I’ve committed a mortal sin. I have nowhere else to work if not here!”
Even in front of the crowd, the guard knelt and pleaded.
Only after seeing that sight did Nasian step in with a smirk.
“Sister, why are you like this~? It’s such a nice day, why get angry? Are you going to keep me out here in the sun because of her? You know sunlight is the enemy of skin, right? Let’s leave her and go inside. I want something cold to drink.”
“Phew, you’d better know you’re only alive because of my sister. Got it?”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“Tsk!”
The guard stood up and wiped her tears.
Nasian watched the scene quietly.
Then, as the Lukart Bank Manager turned around with a click of her tongue, Nasian spoke to her back.
“Look at that bitch, not even apologizing to me until the very end. Just fire her! I was going to let it slide, but this is just absurd.”
“You’re right. Ha! Hey! You lot, get her out of here. Or you’re all fired too!”
At the Bank Manager’s order, other senior staff grabbed the sobbing guard by her armpits and hoisted her up.
“Huh? Wait, what?”
The stunned guard belatedly cried out that she was sorry, but she was dragged away and tossed onto the street.
There was no need to feel pity.
This guard was also one of the women who had pointed fingers at Alto, calling him a “sucker” whenever he entered the bank.
* * *
“Sister, how could you come without even calling?”
“Why? Do you hate that I came unannounced?”
When Nasian asked sharply, the Lukart Bank Manager gritted her teeth for a brief moment.
“It’s not that, I’m just upset that I couldn’t prepare a proper welcome for you~.”
Look at her acting all fake just because she’s a bank clerk.
In Nasian’s eyes, she was nothing but a novice.
“What welcome~? I should be the one treating you. Who do you think I have to thank for this?”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, look at you playing dumb. Too much modesty is poison, you know~.”
The corner of the Bank Manager’s mouth twitched.
It was always like this.
She only saw her a few times a year, but whenever she appeared, she brought a storm with her.
Armed with massive amounts of information that she herself didn’t know.
The Lukart Bank Manager bit the bait that piqued her curiosity once again.
“Are you really going to be like this?”
“Sister, I really don’t know.”
Finally, the Bank Manager waved the white flag.
Only after receiving the declaration of surrender did Nasian slowly open her mouth.
“I’m talking about Lord Alto, Lord Alto!”
“Alto? The Alto who left Mirei’s party?”
“Yes! You have no idea how great it is to have a man in Hus, getting his deposits and all~. Ohohohoho!”
Just for that?
The fact that a man had moved wasn’t insignificant, but it wasn’t enough to warrant a personal visit from the Bank Manager of a city like Dakuren.
Dakuren was larger than Lukart and the heart of Hus; its performance was staggering.
“He’s a sucker, so he gives away this and that, but in the end, isn’t he just one ugly loser?”
Twitch.
This time, it was Nasian’s expression that stiffened.
She had found the thread.
The revealed truth was unpleasant from its very first fragment.
“A sucker? Lord Alto?”
“Yeah. He poured all his national subsidies into Mirei’s party as operating funds and was totally devoted. But then two of them hooked up with Claude here, and the other two with Gerend, so he ran away. Though, I wonder if he even knew they were cheating when he left.”
“Claude and Gerend?”
“The two most handsome men in our city. Anyway, that’s why he went to Hus~. My, Hus must be really desperate for men~. Ho. Ho. Ho!”
She won.
Convinced she had won for the first time, the Lukart Bank Manager laughed with her nose in the air.
“So he was a sucker?”
“Oh, don’t even get me started. All of Lukart knew! What’s the point of giving everything away all the time? His face was so bad that his party members all played around with other men. Still, we had a conscience, so we didn’t say anything to his face or tell him they were cheating. It is a bit pitiful. So, what’s he doing in Hus? Is he doing well? I hope he is~. Hohohoho!”
“Does everyone know that ‘sucker’ left Lukart?”
Intoxicated by her sense of victory, the Bank Manager didn’t notice the change in Nasian’s tone.
“At first, only that one-eyed bitch of a Guild Branch Manager and the Carriage Station Manager knew, but the Branch Manager came to me immediately to tell me. She told me to stop the automatic transfers of his national subsidies. But not long after, that Ranger bitch from his party panicked at the Guild because that sucker Alto had run away, and she screamed it for everyone to hear, so now everyone knows~.”
The pieces were starting to fit together.
The Lukart Guild Branch Manager and the Carriage Station Manager had controlled the information.
There was likely a capable woman under one of them.
And there were no capable women under Branch Manager Karen.
The fact that she hadn’t been able to obtain information that came out with just a little digging was proof of that.
The retired officer, who had fought wars in the murky realm of intelligence, wanted to twist the faces of those who mocked the son-in-law of Hus and the hope of humanity.
It was fine.
The agreement with Count Dakuus was already finalized.
From this moment, she would begin her actions for the ultimate goal.
“I see~. So Lord Alto was known as a sucker in Lukart?”
“I’m telling you~ Hohohoho!”
“I see~. So the No. 1 National Merit Recipient, Lord Alto Bertrand, was known as a sucker in Lukart?”
“I’m telling you… wait, what?”
No. 1 National Merit Recipient Alto Bertrand?
As the Lukart Bank Manager looked on in confusion, Nasian spoke with a dead serious expression.
“Listen carefully, you bitch. Right now, the Adventurer Guild and the Carriage Station are stabbing us Bank Managers in the back.”
Slowly, the Lukart Bank Manager’s expression began to contort.
* * *
“What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
In the Adventurer Guild Branch Manager’s office.
When the Carriage Station Manager, who had visited after a long time, asked point-blank, the Branch Manager answered indifferently.
“Hey! You said you were going to squeeze Mirei’s party! Is just not giving them quests the end of it?”
“If I just smack them down now, what will the other adventurers think?”
“You said you didn’t have time! You said an audit might come from the guild headquarters!”
“Sigh~ you’re so dense.”
Surprisingly, the dark circles under the Branch Manager’s eyes had faded considerably.
The amount of stress she was under had also decreased.
Of course, there was a reason for this.
“It’s been over two weeks now, hasn’t it?”
“You said you’d squeeze them within two weeks and offer them up to Lord Alto.”
“The fact that an audit hasn’t come from Headquarters within two weeks means they’re giving us more of a grace period. Those quick-witted bastards wouldn’t just leave it alone otherwise.”
“You think Headquarters would just sit back and watch?”
“It means they want us to put in the effort but not to fail.”
“Are you sure?”
Flick.
The Branch Manager lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke.
“Do you think I’ve only licked their asses once or twice? I know exactly where to lick the moment my tongue touches them.”
“Even your metaphors are… Lately, that Ranger bitch has been taking every quest, even cleaning our stables, and coming by every day. It looks like they’ve come up with some kind of plan. Wouldn’t it be better to strike them hard while they’re distracted?”
“And if they catch on and scatter? When you cook a frog, you have to slowly turn up the heat on the pot to kill it without it noticing.”
Or you could just kill it and throw it in the pot from the start.
The Station Manager barely swallowed the words rising to her throat.
She held onto a sliver of faith that the Branch Manager, who had offered bribes more than once or twice, would be reliable in this regard.
However, that faith was shattered instantly.
“Where is the Branch Manager! That one-eyed bitch!”
“Bank Manager, this is the Adventurer Guild. Doing this at someone else’s place of business is…!”
“Do I look like I’m in a state to stay calm right now?!”
Slam!
A shrill voice pierced through the soundproofed walls of the Branch Manager’s office.
Immediately after, the door was thrown open.
There stood the Lukart Bank Manager, her hair a mess from sweat.
“You, close the door.”
At the Bank Manager’s chilling command, the receptionist quickly closed the door and left.
Once she confirmed the door was shut properly, the Bank Manager barked at the Branch Manager, who was standing up with a scowl.
“You fucking bitch!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Has this woman gone mad?!”
“You fucker, you said Alto wasn’t the sucker we thought he was? Huh? You said he’s a National Merit Recipient, Alto Bertrand!”
The Branch Manager, who had been cracking her neck as if ready for a fight, turned pale at the Bank Manager’s roar.
“H-How did you…?”
At the reaction that was as good as a confession, a vein throbbed in the Lukart Bank Manager’s temple.
“You goddamn bitches!!!!!!!”
The ultimate goal Nasian had discussed with Count Dakuus before coming to Lukart.
It was the internal collapse of Lukart through discord.