A Schoolgirl's Request (1)
Having heard what I wanted, Alsaetin fell silent for a moment, thinking it over before he finally spoke.
"Are you certain you can actually get him?"
I am.
"An information broker's got to be at least this good, don't you think?"
You were the one who fetched that item for me back when Soul Academy was just a game, after all.
I had no idea how long it might take, but I was certain he'd be able to find it eventually.
Alsaetin shrugged at my answer, then clasped his hands together and rested his chin on them.
"And if I do manage to track this thing down, how exactly do you intend to pay me? It's an item connected to the Burrow Duchy, and there isn't so much as a single lead to go on — it'll cost you dearly."
I'll pay with information.
"I'll give you whatever information you want."
"Information? For me? This information broker doesn't budge for just any old tidbit, you know."
About your...
"Your teacher, info broker. You don't need that?"
The moment the word teacher left my mouth, a crack split across Alsaetin's carefully composed expression.
His teacher was the single pillar holding up the largest storyline connected to Alsaetin.
After all, this man's one and only weakness — the man who wouldn't so much as blink if his own lover died before his eyes — was that teacher.
"I'm afraid I don't follow. What do you mean, teacher?"
Right. You're a merchant, so of course you don't want your weak spot exposed. Naturally you'll deny it.
But hey, think about it.
I watched with my own two eyes while you kicked up a crying, screaming fuss — what difference does it make to insist otherwise now?
Karia...
"Karia. The one who took you in when you were an orphan. Ringing any bells?"
As soon as I spoke his teacher's name, Alsaetin rose from his seat and stood across from me.
The glare he leveled at me was plenty vicious, sure.
But I'd been living alongside terrifying monsters like Forsell and Benedict for so long that it didn't scare me one bit.
"How does the young lady come to know that name?"
Is that really what matters here?...
"Info broker. Does it matter? I know the information you want, and you can get the item I want. Isn't that enough?"
You must be wondering how someone like me — locked away in the estate, never once set foot outside — managed to get my hands on information at all.
But why on earth would I owe you an answer to that?
If it bothers you that much, isn't it your job to go find out?
Of course, no matter how hard you dig, you won't find so much as a lead — you won't even catch the scent of one — but that's not my problem now, is it?
"Lady Aln, I apologize, but that alone doesn't confirm you actually possess information about my teacher."
Fair point, honestly.
He's a suspicious man by nature, so there was no way a few careful words would be enough to make him move.
How much should I tell him, then, before it's too much?
In the Magic Empire...
"Look into the Norta territory over in the Magic Empire. That's where you'll find it."
Dig around that area and you should be able to turn up information on your teacher, shouldn't you?
You won't be able to get close to the man himself, of course, but at the very least you'll be able to verify whether what I'm saying holds water.
Alsaetin stared in silence at my eyes, which met his without a flicker of hesitation, then took a half step back before pulling the mask of a smile back over his face.
"Very well. I'll look into it."
About the item...
"Info broker. How long do you think it'll take to get what I told you about?"
"I can't give you a firm answer when I haven't even located the item yet, but I'll find it as quickly as I can."
With his teacher's whereabouts hanging in the balance, Alsaetin would surely throw his full weight into retrieving it.
A month at the very outside, I'd guess.
If I had the item in hand within that window, I could raise the scrub's favorability sky-high with no trouble at all.
Satisfied with his answer, I gave a nod and rose from my seat.
I'll be expecting good news.
"Next time we meet, I'd better hear a good answer. Info broker."
Left alone in the room, Alsaetin pulled a cigarette from a drawer and clamped it between his lips.
Trailing smoke toward the ceiling, he watched through the window as Lucy Aln disappeared beyond the shop's front door, then muttered to himself in a voice that sounded ready to devour someone whole.
"Lucy Aln, is it."
Alsaetin knew the young lady called Lucy Aln very well indeed.
Impossible not to — she was infamous in high society circles, and for all the wrong reasons.
Lately, though, whispers had begun threading through that notoriety, murmurs that she'd somehow become a different person.
Recalling the look she'd given him as she called him info broker — that contemptuous, looking-down-her-nose stare — Alsaetin was certain her personality hadn't changed one bit.
And yet she wasn't the hopeless lost cause the rumors made her out to be, either.
Lucy Aln had a rotten personality, yes, but she carried the same iron backbone that ran in the Aln bloodline.
The way she'd strode forward without a flinch in front of the men who'd been dominating the tavern's atmosphere below.
The way she'd sat across from him and spoken her piece, unhurried, entirely at her ease.
And above all — the way her eyes had watched his face, probing, testing the waters as she brought up his teacher. That alone was proof positive that she was no fool.
Society's people really are blind, aren't they.
So dazzled by her depraved antics that they never once noticed what lay buried beneath them.
"Alsaetin, sir."
"Come in."
The man who entered upon Alsaetin's invitation was the very one who'd taken a fist to the stomach from him earlier and dropped to his knees.
"You holding up?"
"That was acting, sir, but kindly pull your punches a little anyway. I think I'm actually bruising."
"Oh, come off it. Some ointment will fix that right up."
Both the blood-chilling atmosphere when Lucy had first walked into the tavern, and the way Alsaetin's entrance had crushed that atmosphere underfoot — every bit of it had been perfectly staged.
It was theater, designed to cow the nobles visiting this place for the first time so that business could be conducted smoothly afterward.
Though on Lucy Aln, it seemed to have had absolutely no effect whatsoever.
"So. How did things go?"
"The job, huh."
Alsaetin's mind was a tangled mess.
The largest knot by far concerned what Lucy Aln had said — about his teacher.
The Lucy Aln he knew was a girl who never once left her family's estate.
She spent her days playing the degenerate in high society; there was no way someone like that had connections to speak of, and therefore no way she could be sitting on information like that.
And yet she'd known.
That he was searching for his teacher — and things about his teacher besides.
How on earth had she gotten her hands on that information?
Did House Aln have some route nobody else knew about?
But that family was nothing more than a textbook martial house.
There was no way their information network outclassed his.
Churning silently through the endless spiral of questions, Alsaetin watched the ash crumble from the tip of his cigarette and forced his thoughts into order.
No matter how deeply I puzzle over it, reality won't change one bit.
This kind of brooding can wait.
Right now, there's work to be done.
"First, I need to find an item connected to the Burrow Duchy."
If the young lady of House Aln had come all the way to the back alleys hunting for it, it was surely something precious.
Even if the deal with Lucy Aln fell through, there'd be no harm in holding such a thing in hand.
So finding it came first.
"And I'll be sending a few people to the Norta territory."
He needed to verify whether what Lucy Aln had said with such confidence was actually true.
Send agents there and dig up information about his teacher — that was the plan.
As thoughts of his teacher resurfaced, Alsaetin set the cigarette between his lips and furrowed his brow.
The truth was, the simplest way to confirm all of this would have been to abduct Lucy Aln and squeeze the information out of her directly.
People who wore that kind of high-handed attitude always folded easily beneath pain that sank into the skin.
But her station made that option a non-starter.
House Aln.
The martial family that contended for the title of the kingdom's very first, with the Iron-Blooded Count Benedict Aln at its head.
What if he laid a hand on Benedict's daughter and earned the man's undying grudge?
At that point, he'd honestly be better off falling on his own sword.
Put another way, if he had no need to consider the aftermath, Lucy Aln would be fair game... but not now. Not yet.
"For the moment, those two things are the whole of it. Let's get to work."
For one week after the Soul Academy entrance ceremony, a trial period of sorts ran its course.
Students sat in on whatever classes caught their fancy, and only then decided what they would actually study.
Ordinarily this was the time to mingle with kindred spirits and forge bonds for the years ahead — but alas, that particular wisdom did not apply to me.
What are you brooding about, child?
Nothing at all.
Then why are you gazing out the window with such melancholy eyes, hmm?
Because brooding loner by the window is the classic trope. Duh.
What in the world is that supposed to mean?
You wouldn't get it even if I explained, Grandpa.
It's from the place I used to live. Trust me.
From the moment the day began, I had been almost entirely alone.
People recoiled in open horror the instant they spotted me and scrambled to put distance between us, so being alone wasn't exactly a choice.
Joy furrowed her brow whenever she saw me — presumably thanks to last night's incident.
Phoebe offered a greeting in passing, but nothing beyond that.
Frey? She was such a loose cannon on her own schedule that friend or no friend, she drifted off wherever she pleased, busy with her own mysterious errands.
And so, naturally, I'd been living as a loner from day one.
The part that grated on me most was lunchtime.
I'd eaten alone plenty of times before, but eating solo out in the world and eating solo at school were two completely different animals.
Eat by yourself at a restaurant outside and nobody so much as glances your way.
Unless you're the one making it awkward, nobody cares.
But at school? Whole different story.
Sit alone with your food and the stares come flying in — why's she eating by herself? Is she a social pariah?
Admittedly, my infamy being what it was, no one dared stare openly or whisper within my sight — but I had a sinking premonition that it was only a matter of time.
In a place like a school, ugly gossip spreads at the speed of light.
Lucy, already saddled with a terrible reputation, now living the loner life at the academy?
Wasn't that practically a gift-wrapped invitation to become everyone's entertainment?
Ugh. I'd seen this coming, I'd planned for it — but knowing it was coming and living it were different things entirely.
I had years of this ahead of me, and already the road forward felt impossibly long.
"And that concludes today's class introductions. In our next session..."
As soon as class ended, I slipped straight out of the lecture hall and headed for my next destination.
Normally a student would wander the halls lost, or agonize over which classes to pick — but I had no need for any of that.
I'd done all of that already, back when I first started playing Soul Academy.
A hardened veteran like me, getting lost in a place like this? Not in this lifetime!
The next class I'd chosen was Combat Studies.
For someone holding the front line, it was an absolutely mandatory subject — if only to build up close-quarters combat proficiency.
When I arrived at the classroom, I found Carl — stalker by the official title of escort knight — already there, preparing for the lesson.
"My lady."
Carl...
"Hey, scrub. What are you doing here?"
Wasn't this class supposed to be taught by someone else entirely?
"I've been assigned to serve as Professor Anton's assistant."
Ah. So that's how it works?
They couldn't exactly dump a full course on a brand-new professor's desk, so this was the compromise. Makes sense.
"As it happens, this works out nicely. There's something I've been meaning to report to you, my lady."
What is it?
"What is it, huh."
"My lady. Did you not, some time ago, ask whether a certain female student needed any assistance?"
Yeah, I did say that.
There was a quest I had to accept, after all.
But how on earth do you know about that?
"I've brought that student's request."
...What? No. Hold on just a second.
WHAT?!