Chapter 41: The Tin Knight and the Hanged Sinner (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 41: The Tin Knight and the Hanged Sinner (4)
The Empire.
Adventurers Guild, Schwartz Branch. Branch Manager’s Office.
“Branch Manager, an urgent report has come in from the Taros Labyrinth Management Department.”
“Urgent?”
The Branch Manager took the report with a puzzled expression.
As he scanned the words written on the page, his face grew redder and redder until finally, a furious roar erupted from his lips.
“So, you’re telling me an explorer from the Halder Company swept up every last relic inside the labyrinth? And in a single day? And those idiots on-site just stood there and watched? You sons of bitches! How the hell did you handle this?!”
“W-well, the terms of the contract with the company were written that way…”
“Then what kind of contract is written like that?! You should have put a limit on the amount they could take at once, or made it mandatory for them to be accompanied by our personnel!”
Deep in his gut, the subordinate felt the words, ‘You’re the one who approved the paperwork without even glancing at it, so why the hell are you yelling at me?’ bubble up, but they never escaped his lips.
Instead of provoking the Branch Manager’s anger with a pointless remark, the subordinate silently bent his waist into a ninety-degree bow.
“My apologies.”
“Tsk, a bunch of incompetents.”
The Branch Manager clicked his tongue in displeasure and tossed the document carelessly onto his desk.
“Recover them.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, recover them. The Halder Company or whatever. They’re just one of many mid-sized companies at best, aren’t they? Rattle their cage a bit and get everything back. Especially if they got anything from the final floor. Don’t miss a single thing, not even a scrap of cloth.”
The subordinate’s mouth fell open in shock.
He couldn’t comprehend what he had just heard. Or rather, he didn’t want to.
It was true that the Halder Company was a small power compared to the Adventurers Guild.
But they were by no means an entity that could be dismissed as some mid-sized nobody.
If you were to make a grand list of all the merchant companies on the continent, they might not be at the very top, but they would certainly rank in the tier just below it.
They never would have been granted exploration rights in the first place if they weren’t at that level.
Besides, if they forcibly took the treasures from the Halder Company, the other companies wouldn’t just sit by and watch.
It went beyond merchant solidarity; there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be the next target.
“P-please wait a moment, sir. If we do that, we risk a backlash from every company involved in this matter. Moreover, unilaterally breaking a contract we’ve already made will tarnish the reputation of the entire Guild! It would be better to simply purchase the items we need—”
“You’re so dense. You have no knack for this at all.”
The Branch Manager cut off his subordinate’s desperate, courage-fueled plea with an air of annoyance.
“Listen here. A mere company, blinded by greed, has harmed other adventurers and plundered treasure within a labyrinth managed by the Guild. Now, which do you think better protects the Guild’s honor: standing by and watching this wicked behavior, or punishing it decisively? Do I really have to explain something so simple?”
“What are you talking about…?”
The subordinate was genuinely bewildered.
He wondered if the Branch Manager had even bothered to properly read the report he’d submitted.
The very thing the manager was describing was the first suspicion they had on-site, which they had investigated thoroughly. The report clearly stated that no adventurer parties had been harmed.
Then, what on earth…
No, wait.
The subordinate’s face hardened.
“A sad affair. Truly, a sad affair. For the Guild’s precious adventurers to be so brutally murdered. If our Guild does not resolve their grievances, who will? We shall mete out severe punishment to the company, and we must bring the explorers who committed this act to justice. We’ll also need to recover any items they might have hidden away without handing them over to the company.”
With a somewhat exaggerated tone and gestures, like an actor on a stage, the Branch Manager stared at his subordinate.
“What are you doing? Get a move on.”
Faced with that snake-like gaze filled with greed, the subordinate trembled involuntarily.
“…Understood.”
The subordinate bowed his head.
There were no other options.
He didn’t want to end up like his seniors who had been demoted or had vanished without a trace after defying the Branch Manager.
*
At the same time, near the Taros Labyrinth.
“Are you planning to leave already?”
Lorentz Halder, the head of the Halder Company, reacted with dismay, but Dorothea was unfazed.
“I’ve decided on my next target, and I’ve gotten everything I came for. There’s no reason to stay here any longer.”
“But you haven’t even been properly paid for the items yet.”
“I got the down payment, and it’s going to take a while to sell all that stuff anyway, right? I’ll come back for the money later, so just hold onto it. You can deduct the storage fee from the sales profit. It’s not a bad deal for you, is it?”
“Well, I suppose you’re right.”
Far from being a bad deal, it was almost a boon.
If they had the freedom to trade without a fixed deadline, they could carefully select their buyers and extract the maximum profit.
However, from a networking perspective, it was a bit of a disappointment.
His plan to treat Dorothea’s party as honored guests while the items were being sold, thereby building a close relationship, had just gone up in smoke.
“Please, reconsider. If you would tell us your destination, we would be honored to escort you with the highest-class treatment. It pains me to see such valuable clients depart without having been properly hosted.”
“Forget it. Too much trouble.”
Dorothea waved a dismissive hand.
This was the girl who had ditched the royal escort provided by the kingdom, even though they hadn’t been anything but courteous.
She could tolerate a temporary traveling companion, but she had no desire to be swarmed by a crowd of people.
Besides, if they continued to travel together, she worried Sophia’s existence would be discovered.
Realizing Dorothea had no intention of changing her mind, Lorentz couldn’t hide his disappointment.
But to give up so easily would be to disqualify oneself as a merchant.
“In that case, please at least accept the carriage we’ve prepared for you. Not only is the ride exceptionally smooth and the storage capacity excellent, but the horses are also of the finest quality.”
“…Well, I suppose that would be fine.”
Dorothea agreed, though with a slightly reluctant look.
She believed that unearned favors were debts, but this case was different, so there was no need to refuse.
Above all, it was clear that a better carriage would make for a more comfortable journey.
Dorothea could endure the terrible ride of a cheap carriage and the discomfort of sleeping outdoors without much complaint, but having a high tolerance for something was different from enjoying it.
“Lady Adelaide, our company headquarters is in Perdia City in the southern part of the Empire. Please be sure to stop by!”
“Ah, yes. Thank you. I hope you stay healthy too, Mr. Micks.”
And so, after the final goodbyes, they set off on a new path.
As Adelaide began her now-familiar warm-up stretches before running, the Tin Knight asked a question.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ is curious what you think of the young boy’s goodwill!]
“Hey.”
“Oh my.”
Dorothea frowned at the question, which lacked even a shred of subtlety, while Sophia looked like she was about to see something fun.
Adelaide blinked her large, violet eyes a few times before answering with a bright smile.
“He seems like a nice person!”
…
An indescribable silence fell.
It was a compliment, yet it wasn’t. Not the kind one gives to a potential suitor, anyway.
The gazes of the Tin Knight, Dorothea, and Sophia met.
They reached a silent, mutual agreement to pretend the previous question had never been asked.
“Everyone! Farewell!!”
With the boy waving from a distance in the background, the carriage set off.
It was a truly peaceful scene.
*
As always, the Tin Knight pulled the carriage while Adelaide sprinted alongside it.
Inside the carriage’s cargo hold, which was now equipped with proper seats, Dorothea and Sophia sat facing each other.
With her arms crossed and legs elegantly coiled in an arrogant posture, Dorothea asked.
“So, what are you?”
Sophia, sitting formally with her hands placed neatly on her knees, replied with a smile.
“My name is Sophia Hubris. I am a scholar, a cleric, and a monster.”
“I’m not in the mood for wordplay.”
Even under Dorothea’s sharp glare, Sophia merely let out a soft chuckle.
Deciding that intimidation was useless, Dorothea clicked her tongue.
“Fine. I’ll rephrase the question. Where are you from?”
“The Doria City-State Alliance.”
“I think I’ve seen the name Doria in a book somewhere. A city-state alliance… does that mean you have multiple kings?”
“Each city is led by a popular assembly, so there are no kings.”
“…If there’s no king, isn’t it not a country?”
Dorothea looked puzzled, and Sophia nodded as if she understood. “Ah.”
“I was wondering why we were having so much trouble communicating after only a few hundred years, but it seems the censorship was quite severe. Then again, we were treated as oddities by the surrounding nations even back then. Well, don’t worry about it.”
Telling someone not to worry about something usually makes them worry more, but this time, Dorothea decided to take Sophia’s advice.
She had no interest in troublesome things like politics.
“Then, why were you sealed in that labyrinth?”
“The ones who sealed me didn’t explain it to me directly, but… perhaps it was because they had no way to kill me? They might have hoped I would slowly weaken and die, or maybe they were just passing a troublesome problem on to the next generation.”
“The stone tablet mentioned things like ‘taboo’ and ‘sinner.’ What exactly did you do?”
“Oh, that?”
Sophia answered as if it were nothing.
“I believed in God. I followed God’s laws. But as I did, I kept finding passages here and there that I just couldn’t accept. So, I raised questions.”
“Then people around me called me blasphemous. They said the act of doubting itself was a sin. They told me to just accept it as it is, not because of logic or theory, but because that’s just how it is.”
“I couldn’t understand. Isn’t it possible that God was mistaken? When I said that, they told me I was possessed by a demon (魔), that I had fallen.”
“Hearing that, it occurred to me. Ah, that’s how I can do it.”
Sophia raised her right hand.
It was a pale hand, lacking in blood.
An formless energy flickered upon it.
It was not the deep, blood-red mana that was Sophia’s own.
“‘The demon (魔) is a being that defies God’s providence by its very existence. Never go near it.’”
“And a vampire is an easy-to-understand synonym for a demon, isn’t it? So, if a vampire can perform God’s miracles, it refutes the passage above. Like this.”
What formed in Sophia’s hand was a cluster of pure white light.
A light so pristine that the word ‘holy’ was the only fitting description.
Fwaat!
The bright light spread out like a ripple, illuminating the cargo hold.
And Sophia’s hand, which had emitted the light, was burning away like kindling.
“So, because you, a vampire, can still use holy power, that in itself is proof that neither God nor his word is absolute? You wanted to deny God that badly?”
“No? Why is questioning God’s flaws a denial of God? Isn’t it far more blasphemous to ignore his mistakes and stubbornly insist He is an absolutely perfect being? I think this way is much cuter.”
“You’re casually saying things that would have the Kingdom of Heaven coming for you with hammers and nails.”
“Ah, are those people still on earth these days, lecturing everyone on what to do and what not to do?”
“I wouldn’t know. The higher-ups in each country might.”
In the first place, the information Dorothea had on the Kingdom of Heaven was extremely biased.
Her master had always ground her teeth, calling them arrogant bastards who acted all high and mighty just because they lived in the sky, despite having nothing to be proud of.
“Haaah.”
Dorothea clutched her forehead as if she had a headache.
A vampire who wields the miracles of God.
What could she even compare this to?
A fire-attribute flower? An electric-attribute fish?
No, it was worse than that.
According to Dorothea’s memory, there were flowers that would spontaneously combust without being touched and fish that could discharge electricity, but at least those existed on a species level. This vampire was a unique, singular entity.
No matter how she thought about it, this being’s very existence was a magnet for trouble.
The even bigger problem was that she couldn’t get rid of this trouble magnet and had to keep it with her.
All because of the kingdom’s sacred treasure residing in Sophia’s body.
“More importantly, why did you eat the Chalice of Tuberose? Was that also to deny some divine doctrine? And is that thing even something you can just eat because you feel like it?”
“Oh, that? I did that one just because I was curious. They said the Chalice of Tuberose grants the power of prophetic dreams. If just pouring wine into the chalice and drinking it can do that, I couldn’t help but wonder how amazing it would be to absorb the chalice itself. But it seems it was a magic tool that doesn’t work without following the proper procedure, because I’ve never had a single prophetic dream!”
“—You crazy bitch!!”
Dorothea finally exploded.
“Spit it out! Spit it out right now! Then leave the chalice and get lost!!”
“Ahaha, that’s impossible. It seems to have been completely absorbed while it was inside my body for hundreds of years. It doesn’t even have a physical form anymore!”
Even as she was grabbed by the collar and shaken back and forth, Sophia just laughed serenely.
Dorothea’s screams and Sophia’s laughter echoed across the plains.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ is pleased by the sight of the two getting along so well!]
“Huff, huff… do you… call that… getting… huff… along?”