80. Information Guild
80. Information Guild
In the coldly subdued atmosphere, Ophelia swallowed dryly.
"...No matter that you're from Eustetia's main line... the Cartel is—"
"Hey, fuck. Shut your damn mouth and answer what I ask. What's it gonna be. You gonna give me the info or not."
I'd naturally already gathered intel on the Cartel too.
If those bastards tried to fuck with me, I'd already thought of ways to fuck with them right back.
It'd be a bit of a pain, but I don't care.
I don't want to hand over what Arisa left for me... no, just... what Arisa left behind to someone else.
Even if that someone is Eustetia.
That's mine.
"I'm counting to three. If you don't answer by then, I don't know what I'll do myself."
I raised three fingers.
"One."
Ophelia chewed her lips.
"Two."
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and answered.
"...First, let's go somewhere quiet."
"Good."
I folded down the last remaining finger and pulled my hood back on. Then I looked at the thug bastards lined up behind me, who had already straightened their postures.
"Did I say you could stand up?"
"H-hurk!"
They all slammed their heads to the ground in unison.
"Nothing happened today. Got it?"
""Y-yes, understood!!""
"If, by any chance, one in a million. If word that I came here spreads around, if I hear that rumor, even gentle me might get angry."
""We'll keep it in mind!""
I nodded in satisfaction.
But my words didn't stop.
"And you little shits. You wanna run your mouths like that to kids like me too? Huh?"
""S-sorry!!!""
"Sorry fixes everything? Huh? If saying sorry, if apologizing ended it all, why would the world have guards and laws? Fuck, now that I think about it again I'm pissed. Hey, you, come here."
Hesitantly, the thug bastards all shut their mouths. Doesn't matter. There's exactly one I've been watching.
"Look at that bastard clamming up and pretending not to notice again."
Leaving Ophelia, who wore an expression of disbelief, behind me, I walked toward him.
"I said I don't like saying things twice."
At that, Rosli, who had been flopping and squirming on the ground, shot upright.
"Y-yes!"
"Don't you manage your subordinates properly?"
"S-sorry!"
Seeing him speak properly, the Potion's effects must have been excellent.
Of course, all his teeth had been yanked out so his lips curled inward, but his pronunciation was perfectly clear.
"And you, you little shit. When I told you to bring your master, why'd you bring a body double?"
"Th-that... I-I didn't know either."
"Not knowing fixes everything?"
"...S-sorry."
"Live right. Right. Huh?"
"I'll carve it into my bones...!"
"Yeah. You little shit, brush your damn mouth better. You've got money to guzzle booze but no money for toothpaste, you fuck?"
"I'm sorryyy!"
As Rosli shouted his answer at the top of his lungs, another foul stench wafted from his mouth.
"Ugh, fuck."
I immediately punched his jaw.
With a crunch, Rosli's pupils unfocused and he collapsed to the floor with a thud.
I shook the blood off my hand onto the floor again and turned my head.
I could see Ophelia muttering curses too quiet to hear.
I grinned at her and said,
"I gave them a little education on your behalf. Grateful?"
"...Immensely. Thank you."
"Right. So, I should receive some compensation."
"...Excuse me?"
"What's with 'excuse me.' I took the initiative and helped these thug bastards turn over a new leaf. So I'm gonna take some compensation."
Ophelia's face crumpled like newspaper.
"Don't want to? Wanna be difficult?"
I placed my foot on Rosli's head.
Crunch, crunch—a sound like cracks forming in a watermelon echoed through the bar.
Hearing that sound, Ophelia ground her teeth.
"...What do you want?"
"That's for you to decide."
"First... first, let's go somewhere quiet."
"Good."
Thwack! I kicked the already-unconscious Rosli's head and beamed.
That's enough seizing the initiative.
*****
Ophelia's personal office, not the thug bastards' base, was quite fancy.
For something calling itself an office, it had a huge bookshelf, stacks of documents piled everywhere, and most of all, dozens of communication crystals lined up for sending and receiving messages all over the place.
"Pretty legit, huh?"
At my casually tossed-out remark, Ophelia's face crumpled.
I spoke directly to that face.
"Looking at your subordinates, shouldn't I obviously be surprised?"
"...It's an act."
"Until I beat the shit out of them, their eyes were full of lust."
"If it displeases you... I'll cut them off."
"No need for that. I'm just saying let's keep basic human decency. Let's just live like humans. Yeah?"
I said it lightly, but the meaning was heavy.
Ophelia seemed to understand the hidden meaning too, and nodded seriously.
"...We haven't joined hands with Demons."
Seems that answer came out immediately because I'm a Eustetia. Not a bad answer.
But.
"How am I supposed to believe that."
I can't believe it.
Even though I can't believe it, the reason I came here is simple. I came to cross-check the information I know against the information these people have.
There's something beneath the Imperial Capital.
The existence Pina mentioned, probably a Demon.
A Demon is beneath the Imperial Capital.
And the things Arisa prepared are also underground.
I could know about the Demon's existence because I'm a spirit.
I could know about my grave because I'm me.
Because I'm Ronan from my Past Life. Because that me entered the Forbidden Archive, learned information someone left behind, saw an illusion, and could know.
Did the Demon know that information in advance?
If so, where did it learn it?
It could be coincidence.
But it might not be coincidence.
At the same time, the information guild also seems to know that there's something beneath the Imperial Capital.
I need to know where that information originated.
So, first, I'm going to cross-check.
If there's anything strange.
If there's any sign they've joined hands with Demons.
I'll kill the woman in front of me without a moment's hesitation.
"Our guild, Uranos, exists on the foundation of trust. If you... cannot trust us... then even if I provide information, it would be meaningless."
"That's for me to judge, not you."
I leaned back into the plush sofa and crossed my legs.
"Talk. What's beneath the Imperial Capital."
Ophelia, who had been glaring at me, let out a small sigh and brought over some documents from the back.
"Uranos—no, I. Seven years ago, I discovered an unknown path underground."
I took the documents and listened to Ophelia's words.
"As written in the notes, the circumstances of discovering the path were that we received a request from someone of unknown identity and were surveying the Mirinae of the Imperial Capital when we found it."
Mirinae was the word for the Imperial Capital’s waterways.
I flipped through the documents and took in the sight of the Mirinae.
...It's the scenery of that street Arisa used to walk.
"However, we could not learn the client's information. We could tell by guesswork that they were a Wizard... but beyond that, we could learn nothing."
"This information guild digs into clients' personal details as a matter of routine, I see?"
"...Normally, that wouldn't happen. As long as we receive payment—no... as long as we receive payment from beings other than Demons, we do anything... that's the kind of guild we are."
I narrowed my eyes and stared at Ophelia.
"Have you ever taken requests from Black Wizards or Demonized Humans?"
"Not Demonized Humans, but Black Wizards... yes."
In the past, that statement would've made me blow her head off on the spot, but times have changed.
Even if not Demonized Humans, Black Wizards blend into society well enough... so even if it's shitty, it's not a strange culture nowadays.
"You answer pretty honestly, huh?"
"It's a profession that earns its bread through honesty."
"So that's why you sent a body double to me?"
"...That is—"
"Forget it. Continue what you were saying."
I cut Ophelia off and turned my gaze to the documents in my hand. I'm getting tired. I want to finish this quickly and bury myself in bed.
"The client's condition was exactly one. Find a cavern somewhere beneath the Imperial Capital. In return, the compensation was enormous. So we couldn't help but be suspicious... and we dug into their identity."
"What'd you find?"
"Nothing came up."
As if.
"As if someone deliberately erased it..."
Just as Ophelia said, the client's information was completely empty, as if someone had intentionally deleted it.
They'd drawn up a composite sketch, but even that sketch was blurry.
An abnormally obscured appearance.
Intentionally deleted information.
From those two things, one person came to mind.
Kaloso Verheigen.
Grind. My teeth ground together. My body heated up, and an irresolvable rage surged up.
"...I don't need anything about the client. Just tell me about the request."
"Yes. Following the contents of that request, we found an entrance leading into the sewers in a corner of the Imperial Capital's waterway, the Mirinae. And at the end of those sewers, we found a hidden path not marked on the Empire's maps."
I looked at photos of the hidden path, spanning more than five pages.
It was exactly the same as the path Arisa had walked in the illusion.
"And at the end of that path, we came face to face with a massive door."
"A door?"
There had been no door in the illusion.
Arisa had simply kept walking and stopped at the massive cavern.
So, did Arisa erect that door?
I flipped the page.
On the next page, just as Ophelia said, there was a photo of a massive door.
A door with cherry blossoms drawn on it.
It was so enormous you could call it a wall.
"That door... we could not open it no matter what. Likewise, the client who commissioned us also could not open the door."
The documents ended with the photo of that door, with nothing after.
So I tossed the documents carelessly onto the table and looked at Ophelia.
"So, what next?"
"We received a new request from the client."
Ophelia handed over new documents.
"It was a request to defend that door no matter what. The term was a minimum of ten years... but we failed."
I took the documents and skimmed them roughly.
At the same time, my eyes went wide.
"An unidentified Black Wizard... a Black Wizard who handles snakes. Our guild's combatants were annihilated."
"Ha..."
On the first page of the documents, there was a drawing of a snake eating its own tail.
No, this isn't a snake.
It's a dragon.
A tail-eating dragon, Ouroboros.
"...Labyrinth."
Beneath the Imperial Capital, there's a subordinate of Labyrinth.
*****
"Nameless has moved."
Beneath the Imperial Capital.
A man bowing his head at the feet of a woman seated atop a mound made of corpses.
Robert's heavy voice echoed heavily.
"They're showing movements as if trying to pinpoint this location."
"They won't find it anyway. Next?"
"We've detected the presence of a spirit."
"A spirit."
"Along with that, it spends most of its time with the secondary target, the 'Star.'"
"Oh my."
The woman let out an alluring laugh and licked the blood thickly coating her fingers.
"Can you secure it?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Give me five days."
Heh heh. The woman who had been licking up blood laughed softly.
Then tap, tap—she knocked on the armor of the corpse she was sitting on.
"Five days. That's suitable."
On that armor was drawn a shield symbolizing the Imperial Knight Order.
"The crow... I'll draw Adelia Baros's attention, so Robert, focus solely on securing the spirit."
"I shall obey."
The woman's eyes turned toward the massive door standing behind Robert.
The woman had received orders from her master, Labyrinth.
The content: open that door with the cherry blossom pattern drawn on it.
But no matter what they tried, they could not open that door. A year had passed like that.
And then they found out.
That door is sealed with spirit magic. Therefore, if they had a spirit's power, they could open it.
Now that they knew the method, they just had to follow it.
They must secure the spirit.
"Indeed, what could be behind there."
Five days. In five days, that detestable door will open.