The Duel with Arthur (3)
Unlike some people, Vishy actually had friends, which meant she understood exactly where this situation was headed. So when Lucy brought up the fact that she needed people, Vishy knew right away what she was getting at.
This girl is trying to drag me into the duel.
Every fiber of her being wanted to shove back her chair and storm out of the room. Because there hadn't been a single good thing about becoming part of Lucy Aln's party. Having to enter a dungeon alongside this delinquent noble girl who seemed incapable of speaking any language besides insults, for one. Having to step into a fight she couldn't possibly win, for another.
But above all, the biggest problem was that she would have to stand on the opposite side of the Third Prince, who had claimed both the moral high ground and the practical advantage in one clean stroke. In less than a single day, the opinion of the entire Soul Academy had tilted decisively toward one side.
The Third Prince, who had offered a legitimate duel to the person who insulted him — and the delinquent noble girl who had accepted it as if she were doing him a favor. Which of the two deserved the students' sympathy was painfully obvious. Standing against the Third Prince in this climate? That was the same as asking every student in the Academy to throw rocks at her.
And it wouldn't end with her reputation inside the Academy, either. The rumor would spread through high society as a whole. That's the girl who antagonized the Third Prince and took the delinquent's side. Since it was the Third Prince — distant from the line of succession — that she'd offended, it wouldn't quite rank as political suicide, but it was still utter madness all the same.
And yet Vishy couldn't leave, because Lucy Aln was holding her weakness in the palm of her hand.
"If the chaperone heiress doesn't help me, my mouth might just get very, very loose."
A necromancer. The taboo Vishy could never, ever let be exposed.
"Who knows? Maybe I'll wander into that dusty old church and confess everything to the loser Chief God."
Lucy drawled the words out with theatrical laziness, toying with the cross-shaped necklace hanging at her throat. A necklace of the Church of the Main God — an item granted only to those who had rendered great service to the Church. Vishy had no idea how someone who shamelessly called Lady Armadi the loser Chief God had ever received such a thing, but one fact was undeniable: Lucy Aln had ties to the Church. She could use divine magic, after all.
And if a woman like that reported Vishy to the Church as a necromancer? Vishy had heard from her master what became of necromancers whose identities the Church discovered. She had heard about the horrifying sights that would make a person beg for death instead. That much, she had to avoid at all costs — even if it cost her everything else. Choosing a road of suffering was still preferable to being dragged off by the Church, tortured, and put to death.
"...I'll join your party, then."
"Pretty sharp for a loser, aren't you, chaperone heiress? That's right."
As Lucy Aln giggled behind her hand, Vishy clenched the fist she'd hidden beneath the table. If I had power. If I had authority. I could have rapped that delinquent heiress right on the head. I could have made her cry and screamed 'YOU'RE the loser' right in her face!
Just as Vishy was venting her silent fury, Lucy Aln drew a single orb from inside her coat. To the naked eye it looked like nothing more than a plain glass bead, but Vishy recognized it instantly.
"The reward from beating that necromancer a while back. I figured you'd know what it is."
Even if her skill was modest, a necromancer was still a necromancer. There was no way Vishy could miss the serene spirit-energy sealed inside the orb. Her eyes locked onto it and refused to let go. If she could take a spirit of that caliber into her body, she would without a doubt reach a higher plane. She would be able to walk one step closer to the realm she longed for.
"It's a rare item, you know. Even in the underworld, you'd have to pay a fortune to get your hands on one."
Lucy was right. Necromancy was a school of magic condemned as taboo by the Church, and naturally, anything related to it never circulated in the open market — and even the underworld's shadows offered it only sparingly. For a noble scion of a minor house like Vishy, it was something she wouldn't have dared dream of.
"I'm not the kind of cheap person who makes people work for free, chaperone heiress. Help me beat the Pitiful Prince, and this is yours. Deal?"
Vishy rose from her chair, stepped forward, and bowed her head deeply and politely before Lucy.
"I will give it my very best!"
"Don't bother, chaperone heiress. I don't expect anything from a loser like you anyway. Just stay in the back and keep breathing."
"Tell me, child. Can that necromancer truly be trusted?"
Once she'd sent the chaperone heiress off — the girl practically ready to lick her boots if only Lucy ordered it — Grandpa asked in a low voice. There was an unusual note of suspicion threaded through his tone. It couldn't be helped. Necromancers, as a rule, so often served under the Evil Gods. How could a man who had spent his entire life waging war against them ever look upon a necromancer with warmth?
"It's fine."
There was a vast gulf between the necromancers Grandpa imagined and the chaperone heiress. A zealot who genuinely worshipped the Evil Gods, versus a girl who had stepped onto that forbidden path out of nothing more than the wish to see her little brother one more time — how could the two possibly be the same?
"I won't press the matter further, since I understand the circumstances leave you little choice. But remain vigilant. Always."
"Yes. I understand."
It struck her as excessive worrying, but she nodded along anyway. Reassuring him like this was better than provoking an argument over nothing.
"And so — what will you do now?"
"Prepare."
"Without the faintest idea of how the dungeon is even laid out?"
"I know exactly how it's laid out."
How the dungeon that Soul Academy's first semester produced was structured — of course she had it memorized. Which monsters spawned on each floor. What boss appeared every ten floors. What it took to bring each one down. How every field was arranged. Even the items the professors had hidden while building the dungeon, and the hidden routes besides. All of it. Every last detail.
She was a player who didn't know a single dungeon she hadn't cleared inside the game called Soul Academy. There couldn't possibly be information about the Academy Dungeon — the game's central stage — that she lacked.
When she answered that she knew, Grandpa asked nothing more. She was, after all, the same girl who had pulled off one outlandish stunt after another under the excuse of serving the loser Chief God. From the moment she started committing her outrageous acts, he must have assumed the pervert god's influence was behind them all.
Having returned to her dormitory because there were things she needed to gather, Lucy pulled a pouch out from inside her room. The gold-coin pouch Benedict had packed for her when she left for the Academy! Inside sat a full twenty gold — enough money for an ordinary noble student to live on for an entire year, and Benedict had handed it over as her "personal allowance," separate from her living expenses.
"More money is always better than less," he'd said.
Granted, more money is generally better. But is it really okay to hand a student this kind of sum? No wonder Lucy grew up with a spending problem. Benedict, you absolute fool. You're so brilliant at fighting and at work — why are you so catastrophically hopeless at parenting?
She fished two gold coins out of the pouch and headed back outside. In an ordinary city, the evening hours were when the streets prepared for sleep. In a world without streetlamps or electric light, night was, above all else, a time of rest.
But the streets of Soul Academy were different. For the city that had flourished around the Academy, evening was inevitably its liveliest hour — the time when the Academy students, the biggest spenders in town, roamed freely with coin to burn.
The evening streets of Soul Academy were as bustling as ever today, but Lucy passed straight through them and headed for the back alleys instead. It wasn't that the goods she wanted couldn't be found out there — it was that the quality would be far too poor. There was no way the shops accessible in a game's early game carried anything worthwhile. A few conditions would unlock decent merchandise later, but that time hadn't come yet.
And so the place she had chosen lay elsewhere.
The moment she pushed open the door of the back-alley tavern, gazes poured over her just as before. But the nature of those stares had changed. There was no hostility in them now, no wariness. Nothing but a kind of careful deference. Because I'm a customer now, right?
"Lady Aln. What business brings you here today?"
The man who had picked a fight with her last time and been floored by Alsaetin asked with careful politeness.
'Hello...'
"Hey there, old-timer. I'm here to see the info-peddler."
At the word that insulted both him and his employer, the man's eyebrow twitched. But he didn't lose his temper like before. He'd seemed like a raging hothead the first time they'd met — had that simply been because she was an outsider then?
"He's upstairs. I'll go fetch—"
'No, really...'
"No need. Why should I wait around for a lazy info-peddler who never comes down when he's called?"
She knew which room Alsaetin was in; she'd visited it once before. Brushing past the man who stepped aside to let her through, she knocked once on Alsaetin's door and opened it.
"Who in the—"
Alsaetin looked up with a scowl — and the instant he saw her face, his expression scrambled into something desperate and pleasant.
'It's Lucy Aln.'
"It's me. Got a problem with that, info-peddler?"
"N-no. Not at all. To what do I owe the honor?"
'I'm here to buy things.'
"There's only one reason a person like me would set foot in this shabby, filthy dump, isn't there? I'm here to shop."
"I see. Please, have a seat."
Following Alsaetin's gesture, she closed the door and took a seat. As she moved, he slid a portion of the papers spread before him out of sight. Something important in there, was there? Not that he needed to hide it from her. Whatever was written on those pages couldn't hold a candle to what was stored in her head.
'That thing from before...'
"Did you look into what I told you?"
"The Burrow family's necklace, you mean? Yes. I've confirmed its current location, and we expect to secure it within two days."
Already? That's fast. I figured it would take at least a month.
It was welcome news, but it wasn't what she'd asked about.
'Not that.'
"Not that."
About your master.
You did look into it, didn't you? With an information network like yours, surely you'd turned up at least some small clue by now?
"Yes. Of course I investigated. Upon review, I judged that your words, my lady, carried more than sufficient grounds. My master's whereabouts were, in fact, traced to that very place."
Good. Now Alsaetin will never dream of crossing me unless I keep feeding him information about his master. If I ask him for anything, he'll move heaven and earth to provide it.
"I confess I'm curious how you obtained such intelligence... though I suppose you won't be answering."
'Obviously not.'
"Obviously not. Why ask a question you already know the answer to, info-peddler? Trying to make my mouth hurt for fun?"
"Haha. That was not my intention at all. Now then — back to business. What is it you've come to purchase?"
Lucy handed Alsaetin the list of items she'd written up in advance. He scanned it, and one eyebrow rose slightly.
"You're going to clear the dungeon, then?"
'That's right...'
"That's right, info-peddler. You can get all of this — top quality, within a week. Right?"
"Certainly, that is possible. However—"
Before Alsaetin could finish, she pulled out two gold coins and set them down beside the paper, and Alsaetin's face split into the brightest smile she'd seen yet.
"Come back in three days. Everything will be ready and waiting."