Chapter 26
Chapter 26
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Rookie Adventurer Bern (23) - Prelude to the Subjugation
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"The new adventurers found the culprit and rescued the victims?"
The next day.
The lord's reaction to Bern's report was one of utter disbelief.
It was only natural, considering that his previous subordinates had failed to solve the issue despite holding out for over a month, yet these newcomers declared it done in just three days.
"To be precise, they rescued about ten people who had been held captive at a temporary hideout among those who went missing. As for the rest of the victims, it seems difficult to retrieve them immediately since they were taken away by the organization the culprit belongs to."
The lord's expression grew even more bizarre at the treasurer's words.
"An organization? Does that mean some slave trader was behind this incident? Have you ever seen such damned scum!"
"Th-that's..."
"Why are you hemming and hawing? Speak up!"
Under the lord's urging, the treasurer reluctantly opened his mouth.
"A lich, they say."
"What?"
"In other words, the culprit was a disciple of the lich, who kidnapped people to offer them as sacrifices demanded by his master. The other subjects we couldn't rescue are currently held in the lich's dungeon, location unknown."
"......"
A long, exceedingly long silence followed.
The lord rubbed his dry face for a moment before scanning the faces of his retainers.
The retainers, who would normally scoff or shout that it was an outrageous joke, merely blinked in stunned silence, unable to utter a word.
Gudrun, who would typically be the first to raise his voice in such a situation, was quietly gauging the mood, behaving with unusual restraint.
If this were a belated realization of his own past recklessness, leading him to await his lord's judgment, one might praise his growth as a knight. But that wasn't the case.
'He's reading the room.'
The treasurer's mood? Hardly. Gudrun, who had repeatedly ignored him due to his commoner origins, wouldn't suddenly start minding the treasurer now.
Nor was he gauging the lord's mood.
'Bern, was it?'
That red-haired adventurer.
He was too wary of the adventurer who had toyed with Gudrun and utterly crushed him to step forward.
Even if the treasurer had delivered the report, it was Bern and his party who had actually submitted it.
Lowering his inner evaluation of his guard knight, the lord asked the treasurer,
"So, what next?"
"The subjects have returned to their families, and the adventurers have made a request to you, my lord. They're currently awaiting your response."
"To me? What do they want?"
"The culprit—in other words, the lich's disciple. They want to take him with them. They said having a witness would make it more convincing when reporting the incident to the guild. However, if you wish to execute the culprit yourself, they will hand him over."
"Hm..."
The lord pondered for a moment.
If Bern's group had declared they would take the culprit without his permission, he would have raged and ordered them seized on the spot. But now that the choice was his, he found himself overthinking it.
Purely emotionally, he wanted to thoroughly torture those culprits and feed their corpses to the crows.
But if a lich was truly behind them?
Who could say an enraged lich wouldn't seek revenge for its disciple's death?
"So, there's no risk of further damage on our side for now?"
"If the culprit's confession is true, yes."
"I see."
The lord felt the scales in his mind tipping to one side.
The loss of dozens of young women was certainly painful, but for all of Frensia, it wasn't irreparable.
In the first place, the lord had sought to resolve the incident not so much for the civilian casualties themselves, but because the terrified subjects had fallen into listlessness.
With the culprits who had been wreaking havoc here captured, the subjects would gradually regain their peace as long as no new victims emerged.
The lord spoke.
"Propose this to them: If they accept these terms, we'll hand over the culprit."
Hearing the lord's proposal via the treasurer, Renya blinked in confusion.
"What does this mean? They're saying they'll execute the culprit themselves after all?"
Bern shook his head.
"No, they'll hand the actual culprit over to us. Instead, they'll designate some suitable criminal on their side and execute him as the 'culprit.'"
"What's the point of that?"
"It means as long as they can announce to the subjects that 'Frensia's lord has slain the villain who terrorized Frensia,' whether the real culprit dies or not is irrelevant. Plus, by securing a 'culprit' on their end, they avoid direct conflict with the lich."
It was a petty scheme, but Bern didn't mind.
If the lord stubbornly insisted on finishing the culprit with his own hands out of some inferiority complex, that would have been far more troublesome.
Having reached an agreement behind the scenes, the group loaded the culprit—disguised as luggage (though it was less disguise and more literally stuffed into a large sack like actual baggage)—into the cart's cargo hold and shipped him straight to the guild.
Soon enough, as expected, the guild erupted in chaos.
"A lich behind it? Preparing a mass sacrifice ritual on the scale of thousands? Disciples scattered across regions, operating in secret?"
The guild wasn't an organization that proclaimed justice or protection of the weak.
Thus, without a commission, it wouldn't stick its neck into dangerous matters. That would be unpaid charity.
But the information Bern had brought changed everything.
The extermination faction, insisting the guild must step up and slay the lich right away.
The opposition, negative about the guild getting involved.
And even the cautious faction, advocating to observe the situation first.
The conflict within the eastern branch escalated through branch chief meetings into a guild-wide schism, and soon, the following commission notice was posted in branches everywhere.
Lich Subjugation
Client: Adventurer's Guild
Participation Restriction: Rank 3 Adventurers and Above
Intelligence has arrived that the lich Mortius Balmore, sighted multiple times in the past, is preparing a massive human sacrifice ritual to obtain immense power. Rescue the mountain sacrifices, thwart the ritual, and subjugate the wicked lich.
"A lich? How do we even catch that?"
"The guild issuing a direct commission? That's rare."
"Whoa, the rewards are insane. I could live large for years on this."
"Pass. No amount of money matters if you're dead."
Hearing the adventurers' murmurs, Bern turned his gaze aside.
There stood Blanca, staring at the commission notice with a deeply conflicted expression.
"You look lost in thought."
"...Honestly, yeah. It's all happening so suddenly; it doesn't feel real."
If things had gone according to Blanca's original plan, even after reaching Rank 4, subjugating the lich would have involved many more steps.
Even if the guild had some intel on the lich, pinpointing its exact location and assembling the necessary forces wouldn't have been easy.
But with the guild going all-in, informants across regions rapidly conducted follow-ups, pinpointing the dungeon's location. The lich's disciples, operating covertly in various areas, were either subjugated by high-rank adventurers from other branches or forced to flee, halting their sacrifice procurement.
In a sense, it was inevitable.
A Rank 5 mage rivaled a domain's full might alone, but the Adventurer's Guild's total power could overwhelm a single domain with ease.
"They say the Guild Master is participating personally this time, so no matter how strong it is, it won't survive. It's finally time for that thing to pay for its accumulated sins."
It was joyful news.
To definitively kill her nemesis, to free her mother sooner—how could it not be good?
Yet Blanca couldn't suppress her uneasy feelings.
If this was truly the end, if it could be resolved so simply...
What meaning had all her efforts held until now?
She couldn't help but despise herself intensely for being unable to rejoice unconditionally, even when she could help her mother.
How ungrateful, how heartless were these emotions?
"Are you okay with this, Bern? It seems quite different from the adventures you envisioned."
Blanca was stunned by her own inadvertent question.
Didn't this make it seem like she was hoping Bern shared her dissatisfaction?
This red-haired adventurer, who embodied perfection itself, wouldn't share such ugly feelings with her.
"Well, it's a bit disappointing."
But Bern said it nonchalantly.
Utterly nonchalantly, affirming her ugliness.
"Plowing through a dungeon with a small band of comrades is different from a massive group hunt. Honestly, I was looking forward to the former, so yes, it's disappointing."
"That's irresponsible. More victims could appear in the meantime."
What response was she even expecting from him?
All this would do was hurt Bern's feelings, yet Blanca couldn't stop talking.
But instead of taking offense, Bern smiled wryly and agreed honestly.
"Yes, irresponsible. Still, can't I have my sentiments freely?"
"Even if it's not good by the world's standards?"
"Adventuring isn't a job where you weigh good and evil."
"You're different. You rush in even when there's no personal gain."
"No, I do it because it's 'cool.' Utterly superficial."
Bern smiled as he said it.
"And besides, this all happened thanks to us, so I figure I'm entitled to my sentiments. If we hadn't caught the culprit and handed him to the guild, the lich and its disciples would still be rampaging. We're the ones who stopped them, right?"
—So your efforts weren't meaningless.
Was that unspoken message just her imagination?
Blanca gazed steadily at Bern's face.
He seemed to see right through others' hearts, yet revealed none of his own—a truly unfair man.
But it was also true that just talking with him lifted her mood somehow.
"Well, yeah. As meritorious contributors, we can afford some sentiments. Still, no complacency. In this line of work, disasters strike precisely when everything seems to be going smoothly."
"Advice from a senior adventurer? I'll take it to heart. Bracing for something to go wrong."
They tossed the conversation back and forth like a ball, then chuckled together.
"Bro! Sis! Consumables restocked and camping gear checked!"
The two walked toward Renya, who was running up from afar.
The lich subjugation was now right before them.