The Thieves' Guild's True Face
The eyes of the Madam, still pinned in Simon's grip, slowly narrowed.
[Careful, damn it!]
Pier's voice, taut with alarm, rang through his skull.
Simon poured every ounce of his focus into the leg the Madam's dress had bared. A strap was bound around that thigh—and a dagger hung from it.
But her hand never went for the blade. Instead, the Madam squeezed her eyes shut and spoke.
"My apologies, but would you kindly release my arm?"
Only then did Simon realize he'd been clamping down on her wrist far harder than necessary.
The moment he let go, the Madam settled back into her seat and swept her tousled hair behind her.
"Very well."
She gave a small nod.
"If you're that determined to have the truth, I suppose I can't refuse. In exchange, you bear full responsibility for any risk that comes from sharing that information. Are we agreed?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then please wait here a moment."
The Madam rose from her seat and walked off into another room. The murderous tension drained away, and Simon let out a small breath.
Pier. It was only a probe, but there really is something going on here, isn't there. If luck holds, we might walk straight out with Erzsébet's location—
[Uhehehehehe!]
Beside him, Pier's shoulders shook with laughter.
[HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!]
Simon grimaced and clapped his hands over his ears. Not that it made the voice inside his skull any quieter.
Wh-what's gotten into you all of a sudden?
[I had my suspicions, but now it's certain. Steel yourself, boy!]
Behind the visor, Pier's eyes flashed.
[That woman IS Erzsébet!]
"…Whaaat?!"
The instant Simon let out a cry of pure shock, the thieves' guild began to change around them.
The patrons slumped in their seats over drinks and card games made a wet, creaking sound—and began to swell.
[KHAHAHAHAHA! You've got gall to spare, boy! Threatening an Ancient Undead to her face! If I hadn't been watching over you, your head would already be rolling across the floor!]
Skreek!
Skreeeeeel!
Human facial skin tore open, and from within burst spiders—each one bristling with dozens of eyes.
Simon recoiled backward with a strangled gasp.
-Kriiiiiriii!
-Kirik! Kiriririri!
Corpse Spiders. A species of undead. Erzsébet's minions. In the span of a breath, Simon and Pier found themselves surrounded on every side.
"That was quite the display, little Kizen pup."
The Madam who had vanished into the back room came clicking out on her heels. Then, in one sinuous motion, she stepped up onto the table and crossed her legs.
She pressed her fingertip to her forehead and pulled downward—and the flesh peeled away like a garment, revealing a pair of alien crimson eyes beneath.
[Kill them all.]
Her voice had gone dark and dank.
At that signal, Corpse Spiders came charging in from every direction.
[Boy!]
Pier roared. Simon snapped open the sub-space coiled around his finger and summoned Pier's greatsword.
Pier wrapped both hands around the massive weapon with effortless ease, stepped forward with his right foot, and swung in a thunderous horizontal arc.
FWAAAAAASH!
A colossal line split the air in a straight stroke, and every Corpse Spider caught in its path was bisected like a stalk of grain. Green blood burst into the air, soaking floor and ceiling alike.
[ERZSÉBET!]
BOOM! BOOM!
Pier's bellow shook the underground as though to bring it collapsing down.
[Oh my. So it was you, after all. Pier.]
Erzsébet switched which leg was crossed and smiled.
[What scheme are you cooking up in this backwater! The Legion has been revived! Stop this nonsense and return at once!]
She arched her eyes in a smile and extended her arm.
[I decline, most humbly.]
CRASH!
With an earsplitting roar the ceiling blew apart, and Corpse Spiders dangling from webs came swarming down upon them.
Simon ducked low with sharp instincts, and Pier swept his greatsword through them in one stroke. Chunks of gore and shredded viscera pattered down onto the floor.
[Pier, you fool. Richard used us however he pleased and tossed us aside like worn-out sandals. After enduring something so infuriating, do you still cling to the Legion?]
[You absolute idiot!]
Pier slammed his greatsword down through the torso of a lunging spider and bellowed.
[Have you spent so long among humans that your very soul has rotted?! The Legion IS 'power' and 'will'! Cast aside? Enraging? What manner of Legion Commander lets himself be swayed by such petty sentiments?!]
[How could I not be swayed, good sir?]
A monstrous hatred filled her crimson eyes.
[Richard, who doted on a mere woman and shoved comrades of decades—friends through hardship after hardship—into a pit of death. I hate him unto death itself.]
The undead spiders were flooding in without end. Truthfully, this underground was a paradise for Corpse Spiders.
[And as for you.]
Her gaze slid to Simon.
[You poor thing, Pier. A first-year boy from Kizen—the very age you were when you met Richard. Whispering to him in Richard's stead, seducing him with a sweet-talking little child—]
FWOOOOSH!
In that instant, a snow-white greatsword tore through the air and slammed to a halt inches from Erzsébet's face. She hastily caught the blade between both palms.
BOOOOOM!
The shockwave alone sent objects flying and shattered every glass around them.
[Listen to yourself. Your insolence is scraping the sky.]
Pier opened his hand.
The hilt of the greatsword rippled with jet-black, then rocketed back into his grip at terrifying speed.
Watching it, Simon's eyes lit up.
Skeleton's Pull!
Flowing straight into the next motion, Pier twisted his hips and swung. A tsunami of slashes poured out and crashed over Erzsébet once more.
KUUUUGUGUGUGU!
She grimaced and caught the slashes on both arms.
[Have you forgotten crawling like a dog at my feet?! How dare you bare your fangs at the Manager of the Legion!]
Then something like blood-red jet-black gathered at Erzsébet's nails. The slash that had been pressing her back to the wall split with a crack-crack sound, then shattered like glass into nothing.
[And you have grown very weak, Pier. The seal must not have come off long ago.]
She stepped over the wreckage and climbed up toward the surface.
[You're fleeing?!]
Pier leveled his greatsword and tried to give chase—but Corpse Spiders swarmed in to block his path. His expression twisted viciously.
[You vermin!]
[Until next time, Pier. And—]
Erzsébet, waving down from above, fixed her gaze on Simon.
[Boy of Kizen.]
With those parting words, she vanished along with the spiders waiting above.
…So that's how it was.
The only thieves' guild left in the fief had been Erzsébet and her crew all along.
Controlling and twisting the flow of information would have been child's play for them. No wonder the lord couldn't crack the case no matter how much time and money he poured in.
-Kriririririk!
That said, even after Erzsébet's departure, there were disgustingly many spiders left. Pier was fighting hard, but if this dragged on, they might lose her trail entirely.
"Ahh, what a shame."
"…!!"
A chill crawled up Simon's spine. An utterly unexpected third voice had sounded out of nowhere.
He whipped his head around—and someone was slowly rising to their feet directly behind him.
"I was waiting for the exact moment those two monsters tore each other apart."
It was the robed woman who had been drinking alone in the corner of the thieves' guild. The spiders spotted her and came skittering in.
"Ah well~ nothing to be done. Looks like I'll have to delete everyone here and go after her."
Flash!
A burst of pure white light erupted from the tip of the staff she raised overhead. Simon recognized that power instantly—and he couldn't help the horrified gasp that escaped him.
-Kiiiiiii!
-Kigik! Kigik!
The spiders writhed in agony, like vampires caught in the noon sun. The white light at the staff's tip grew brighter and brighter, swelling until it threatened to swallow the entire guild.
Pier! This is our chance—run!
[What?]
Now! Quickly!
She swept the raised staff downward.
"Farewell, everyone!"
FWAAAAAAAH!
A holy explosion detonated outward, reducing every undead spider within its range to powder. Pure white light wrapped around the entire thieves' guild.
"Hoo."
Having unleashed the holy magic, she rested her staff across her shoulders and glanced around.
"Looks like the big skeleton and the boy got away. Oh well."
She turned, then leapt up over the collapsed rubble in the direction Erzsébet had fled.
[Kukuku! A Priest crashing the party! What an absolute mess!]
Pier was running with Simon slung over his shoulder.
…A Priest.
Simon was deep in grave thought.
He had chosen a Blue Request and come to a country on the Dark Alliance's side of the border. Never in his wildest imaginings had he expected to run into a Priest here of all places.
"She looked skilled too, didn't she? Wiping out that many in a single strike."
[I saw white clothing beneath that woman's robe. Without a doubt, it's Efnel's uniform.]
"…Ah!"
Not just any Priest—a student of Efnel, Kizen's sworn opposite!
By Kizen's standards, she might as well have been carrying out a Black Request herself.
[If she's come all the way into the Dark Alliance, odds are she's a second-year. Stay sharp, boy! She's still far beyond what you can handle!]
"Yes, I'll be careful."
It seemed she, like Simon, was hunting Erzsébet.
Which meant the lord of Arnish had commissioned this job from both sides—Kizen and Efnel alike.
A double commission. I'll have to track her down later and raise hell about that. Anyway—
Things were spiraling far bigger than any Blue Request had a right to be.
An Ancient Undead hostile to the Legion, and now a student of Efnel on top of it.
What was the best way to unravel this tangled mess?
"Pier."
[What is it?]
"Tell me about Erzsébet. In detail."
[I told you everything on the way here.]
"No—not her abilities or her specs. Something more… personal."
Simon swallowed drily.
"What happened between my father and Erzsébet?"
Pier let out a hollow laugh.
[Kukukuku, what happened and so forth. Damn it all!]
"Yes?"
[…Fine. I'll tell you. Erzsébet loved Richard.]
Simon's mouth fell open.
[An undead, loving a human. And a member of the Legion harboring private feelings for her own Legion Commander, no less.]
Pier's expression as he said it was one of profound distaste.
[She was strange from the moment she joined the Legion. Emotional, in a way no undead should be—and hopelessly ruled by those emotions.]
Pier laid out the stories one after another.
Erzsébet's love. Her obsession with Richard. And, at the end of it, her jealousy of Anna.
Simon closed his eyes and turned it all over in his mind, slowly.
[We're here. Boy!]
Pier set him down somewhere in the woods near the Arnish Fief. Simon glanced around at the dense pine forest.
"But there's nothing here?"
[Stand back!]
Pier swept his greatsword through empty air. Space split apart like torn fabric, peeling open to either side—and from within emerged an old, ruined castle, wreathed entirely in spider webs.
[Kukuku! This is their stronghold.]
"Let's go in."
Simon and Pier pushed open the door and entered the Spider Lair Abandoned Castle.
Ah…!
And the moment they stepped inside, a shockingly intimate scene spread out before their eyes.