The Thief's Guild and the Truth Beneath
Simon and Pier arrived at Arnisch.
It was a city where a winding residential district spiraled out like a spiderweb around the towering lord's castle at its heart. The territory sat close to the Holy Federation's border, and the terrain was so treacherous that the city itself was small and its houses old and weathered. Even so, Simon felt a strange, quiet fondness for the place.
'I knew it. I like these small towns better than the big cities.'
Of all the cities he'd seen so far, this one felt the closest to Leshill.
[You! Are! Crushing me! To death!]
At that moment, Pier — stuffed inside Simon's armor — let out a groan of complaint. With every movement the skeleton made, metal clanked and rattled against metal.
"Just bear with it a little longer, Pier."
[Next time, buy a bigger one! I told you, this size simply won't do!]
"Yes, yes, I will."
For someone with no flesh at all to complain the armor was too tight — the dramatics were outrageous, but Simon just laughed it off.
The two of them wandered the streets, chatting about this and that.
Thanks to the unsettling events of late, the streets had lost all their liveliness. Every house had its door shut fast, and curtains hung drawn over the windows. Everyone seemed to be hunkered down, curled in on themselves.
"Hmm. This is tricky. How do we even find the undead around here?"
[Kheheheh! I've run missions like this plenty of times, back when I was traveling with Richard. There are three main approaches.]
Pier counted off on his fingers — the gauntlet's joints had gone badly out of alignment, and they creaked with an old, rusty groan.
[First: meet the client yourself. The client is the lord, so declare that you're from Kizen and demand every scrap of information gathered so far! You'll likely get funding and manpower support as well.]
"Oh, that's a good option."
[But if the client hasn't solved this on their own until now, there's always a reason for it!]
Simon understood what lay beneath Pier's words. Going through the client meant inviting variables into the picture.
[Second: canvassing the streets. In Richard's words — a fool charging headfirst into a brick wall!]
"Mmm, that one's a bit much, honestly."
[But in my experience, that method is sometimes the fastest shortcut straight to the truth. And lastly —]
Pier raised his third finger.
[Buying information from the Thieves' Guild.]
"The Thieves' Guild?"
[Do they call it something else these days? Think of it as an information guild. Any city of decent size has brokers who buy and sell information. No one is more sensitive to the currents of an incident than those scoundrels!]
"Hmm."
Having taken in Pier's advice, Simon closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
"All right. Let's find a place to sleep first, then track down the Thieves' Guild."
[Music to my ears! I can't wait to get out of this shit-armor!]
Simon and Pier roamed the busy district around the central square. The land was so hostile that the number of inns was small for a city of this size.
Still, by asking around, they managed to locate one.
"Welcome!"
As they pushed open the door, the innkeeper greeted them — a local man through and through, mid-forties, with the thick skin of someone who'd weathered plenty of rough years.
"One large, clean room, please."
"Right away, sir! That'll be 300 silver a night. Will you be needing meals as well? Bread and soup add 50 silver; a meat dish adds 150."
'Not many inns around, so the prices are steep, huh.'
Simon fished around in his pouch, pulled out a single gold coin, and flicked it over with his finger.
"Breakfast tomorrow morning. Bread will do."
The innkeeper caught the coin, his eyes going round. One gold coin was worth 1,000 silver.
"Shall I get you your change?"
"No need. Instead, I'd like to know the location of the Thieves' Guild."
The innkeeper's expression shifted in a peculiar way.
"Ah, aha! Looking to buy information, are we? You seem to be from out of town — if I might ask, what brings you here exactly—"
Simon slowly extended his open palm.
"......?"
"You're asking a customer rather a lot about his identity. That information will cost you one gold, I'd say."
Kikikikik!
Beside him, Pier twisted his torso with a fit of cackling laughter.
[What a green little whelp, toying with grown men like this!]
The innkeeper's face froze solid.
Simon could read the situation perfectly. It wasn't about the gold — it was that gut-deep, creeping dread that the moment he returned the coin and asked any question about identity, his neck might part from his shoulders.
Just who were these outsiders?
Thinking this, the innkeeper quietly slipped the coin into his breast.
"S-so, you want to know where the Thieves' Guild is?"
Ting!
Simon flicked his finger again. A second golden coin sailed through the air and landed in the innkeeper's hand.
"And everything you know about the 'disappearances.'"
Simon's eyes gleamed sharply.
"You clearly know something. Don't you?"
"......"
The innkeeper swallowed hard, his face taut with tension. Simon could practically hear the gears grinding frantically inside the man's skull.
"......I'll, I'll return this gold to you, sir."
The instant the innkeeper moved to approach Simon —
Shrring!
A pure-white greatsword was already leveled at his throat.
The color drained from the innkeeper's face, and from the visor of the armored man holding the blade, a dark, sinister cackle came trickling out. Kikikikik!
The kind of hideous laughter that belonged only in nightmares.
"What's the matter?"
Simon still held out his palm, wearing a warm, friendly smile.
"Weren't you coming over here to give me my change?"
'—Ghhk!'
The innkeeper shuddered from head to toe, then dropped flat against the floor.
"I don't know who you are, but I'll do as you say. Only... the fact that I'm the one who told you — please, please keep that secret."
Simon nodded toward Pier. Pier withdrew the greatsword and slung it over his shoulder.
"Get up. Your secret is safe."
He had only five days to solve the case — hardly enough time to waste second-guessing every lead.
For this mission alone, Simon and Pier had decided to play it rough.
Simon got the whole story out of the innkeeper. He confirmed every detail of the disappearances that had plagued the territory so far.
"Whenever someone from the territory vanishes, a few months later they turn up as a shriveled mummy."
"......Yes."
"The victims are mostly young men, but the bodies found as mummified corpses are mostly women."
"Th-that's correct."
Simon's brow furrowed. There was nothing conclusive — nothing he could point to and say, that's it.
"Did the female victims show any, er... signs of having been subjected to some vile act?"
"The lord suspected the gangs in the territory of those crimes, but he said there was no trace of anything like that."
Simon's head was aching more and more — but Pier, arms crossed as he listened beside him, kept cackling away like something about it was hilarious.
'......Pier?'
[Heheheheh! I'm certain! It's certain!]
Pier's mouth-corners curled upward.
[Erzsébet. That wretch is hiding somewhere in this city, without a doubt! One hundred percent. To think we'd sniff her out this easily! KHAHAHAHA!]
Pier clearly had a solid hunch. In that case, there was no reason to linger here. Simon rose from his seat.
"I'll come back in the evening."
"Ah, yes sir! Things have been rough in the territory lately, so do be careful out there."
Simon and Pier stepped outside. Their next destination was the Thieves' Guild, whose location the innkeeper had given up.
"Pier. What made you so certain this is that Ancient Undead's doing?"
[Isn't it obvious?!]
Pier grinned.
[Young men are toys to be played with and discarded! And women she has no real interest in, so she just drains them dry and leaves them dead! It's precisely the kind of mischief that old witch would cook up!]
"......Undead really do that? Aren't they supposed to be human, once?"
[Did I not tell you?! Undead are beings that defy human common sense! And the Ancient Undead who've lived through the ages are eccentric to an even greater degree!]
"Hmm."
Simon rested his chin on his hand, lost in thought.
[What are you brooding over so hard?]
"Well, I'm a young man too, technically. How about I use myself as bait and lure that old witch out?"
Beyond the visor, Pier burst out with a Pfft-hah!
[Listen to what the green little whelp is saying! Hahahahaha!]
Pier ruffled Simon's hair wildly with his palm. Simon's lips pushed out into a pout.
"......What's wrong with me, exactly?"
[I mean you are, overwhelmingly and catastrophically, not to that creature's taste! Even with a beard glued on, it'd be a stretch.]
"Hmph."
The two of them traded banter back and forth until, at last, they stood before the Thieves' Guild. On the surface, it looked like an ordinary tavern.
The two of them pushed open the door and stepped inside.
A bar-style pub. A handsome middle-aged bartender polished glasses, and a crowd of bearded uncles who'd claimed the tables were knocking back hearty drinks. Unlike the dead-empty streets outside, this place was buzzing.
'Still, nothing about the atmosphere says "we sell information." It just looks like a neighborhood bar.'
Simon and Pier took seats at the counter.
"What'll it be?"
In answer to the bartender's question, Simon stretched out his fingers and drew a T-shape in the air, then smoothly slid a single silver coin across the counter.
"Right this way, sir."
'Oh wow. It actually works!'
Easy enough, since it was exactly what the innkeeper had described.
Simon and Pier followed the bartender's lead. Through the back door of the establishment, a staircase and a door leading down into a basement came into view. The bartender bowed politely and returned to the bar.
"Phew."
Simon took a light, steadying breath and descended the stairs. Each step rang off the stone floor with unusual loudness, and the musty, stagnant smell unique to underground spaces stung his nose.
At the bottom of the stairs, two masked men armed with crossbows stood guard before the door. They stepped aside without a word and opened it for them.
Creeeak.
The door swung open on old, complaining hinges.
The atmosphere down here was a far cry from upstairs. Figures with robes pulled low over their heads or masks covering their faces sat quietly at tables.
Three middle-aged men facing each other over a game of poker, two young men deep in animated conversation, one elderly man of considerable years — and one young woman, sitting alone, sipping at a beer.
Several doors were visible at the back of the room, and that was presumably where information could be purchased. For now, Simon and Pier sat down at a quiet corner table against the wall.
"Welcome."
A young madam approached the two of them.
She wore a wine-colored dress that clung to every curve of her body, and her abundant golden hair curled and billowed like sea foam.
Tap. Tap.
On the pale legs glimpsed between the slits of her dress, black bands were strapped — and beside one of them, the stealthy gleam of a blade caught the light.
Simon swallowed drily.
"Now then."
Sitting down in the chair across from them, she flashed a professional smile.
"What business brings you to our guild, honored out-of-towners?"
"......Why anyone comes here, surely."
Simon said. Getting swept up in the mood would get him nowhere.
"We've come to purchase information."
"And what information would you like?"
"The people vanishing from this territory, and the corpses found shriveled like mummies. Everything your guild knows about these incidents."
The madam smiled.
"Everything? That won't come cheap. Could a first-year student of Kizen really afford all of that?"
'......!!'
Simon's heart lurched violently inside his chest, but he gave no outward sign and simply asked,
"Whatever do you mean by that?"
"A simple deduction."
She continued in an easy, unhurried voice.
"Everyone knows the lord has been desperate to crack this case. He's hired plenty of people already, and there's no way Kizen wasn't among them. Even so, a territory this small couldn't possibly afford to summon a necromancer from Kizen headquarters — so he must have placed the request with the students instead."
Her body tipped toward Simon. One knee rose onto the chair, and a heavy scent of deep roses washed over him. Behind her smiling face, the curve of her waist dipped into view.
"And at this point in the year, Kizen has nothing but first-year freshmen. Which means the students who took the job are first-years whose student protection period has ended. And who should appear in our territory at precisely the right moment but..."
With a deft, secretive touch, she peeled back Simon's hood.
"...an outsider with a very young face."
"......"
Lifting his chin with the tip of her finger, she grinned.
"Was I wrong?"
......How rude.
But he couldn't let it show. Protesting would be nothing more than handing his Kizen identity to an information guild on a silver platter.
"Of course, if the money's beyond you, there is another way to settle this — reveal yourself. Bow us to our knees right here and take the information by force. The name of Kizen carries that much weight, doesn't it?"
"......"
Simon didn't waver.
Instead, he reached out and caught hold of her slender hand — the one gripping his chin — in return.
"An amusing deduction. Now, shall I try one of my own?"
"......Pardon?"
Simon drew her hand slowly toward him, leaning in.
"A catastrophic incident is shaking this entire territory. The lord has been driven into a corner, and — as you said — he's begged aid from countless organizations."
The grip on her hand tightened, little by little. Her smiling expression stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"And this territory has exactly one information guild. The lord's side, the hired hands — everyone would have passed through this place hunting for answers. The conclusion: no one has solved anything."
Simon drew closer, inch by inch, and this time it was she who subtly leaned her head away.
"The same incidents have repeated for years running, and not only is there no solution — no one even knows who the culprit is. Doesn't it strike you as strangely, abnormally thin? At this point, it's not that information is being controlled. It's that everyone has been stumbling through the truth they were given, tripped up by the clever little lies stitched into it here and there."
He had no idea what standing or influence this Thieves' Guild held within the territory — but to an outsider like Simon, none of it passed the smell test.
Gazing at her face, frozen rigid as stone, Simon spoke coldly.
"Am I wrong? A Thieves' Guild planted in the very heart of the incident's ground zero — there's no way it's been blind to the critical details all this time. Incompetence? No. Looking at you, I'd say incompetence isn't your problem."
Simon's true nature surfaced as his palm came to rest against the back of her head.
Then, slowly drawing her face toward his own, he murmured — barely above a whisper —
"Before I turn this whole place inside out... give me the truth."