The Debt
About three days later.
We managed to make it back to Bolston around midday.
A Guild carriage had been left behind at the village where we'd originally filed the request, and any remaining seats were covered by a brand-new carriage the villagers built themselves from scratch — all thanks to the townsfolk, who were so grateful that we'd rescued the missing people that they bent over backward to help.
Just as Lovrick had done before, I led the disheveled hostages through the city gate and arrived at the Guild.
Amy, the receptionist, made a huge fuss over me the moment I walked in.
"You've been through so much! If only I hadn't recommended that request in the first place—"
"It's quite all right, Miss Amy. It worked out in the end, after all. Besides, one can hardly expect things to stay safe in this line of work, can one?"
The exhausted hostages were collected (retrieved? rescued?) by Guild staff.
Incidentally, Catherine, unlike Henry and the other hostages, headed straight for the inner castle. As a noble, she had no need to rely on the Guild's assistance. Just in case, I sent Lena and Noah along with her.
"Still, I never dreamed cultists would turn up. Oh, but Ha Jun, the request you just completed has headquarters in an absolute uproar."
"In a good way?"
"Of course! You identified the cause of the disappearances, executed an actual Bishop on top of that, rescued the hostages, and — above all — saving the Castellan's youngest daughter was the biggest deal of all."
Amy counted off our achievements on her fingers, one by one, as if she couldn't wait to spill it all.
Looking at it laid out like that, we really had worked ourselves to the bone.
It felt like we'd accomplished 120 percent — no, call it 150 percent — of the request's stated objectives.
"But how on earth did this happen? If it's the Castellan's family, they'd have been living in the inner castle, wouldn't they? How was she even abducted in the first place?"
"Ugh... you're telling me. I only just found out myself, but apparently headquarters had been handling the young lady's disappearance as a confidential matter all along. I never imagined it would connect like this."
"...There's an informant, isn't there?"
"Eight or nine times out of ten, yes. The Castellan will probably start investigating the other nobles now. Though even then, they're all nobles of the same standing — without hard evidence, punishment will be difficult..."
Amy rifled through her paperwork as she went on.
"In any case, that side of things isn't our jurisdiction, so let's set it aside and talk about your request. You did magnificently! The detailed results won't come out until an investigation team is dispatched to the location you reported and completes its work, but unless the Guild's collective eyes have gone completely crooked, your promotion is a sure thing. You might even jump straight to Rank 6 in one go?"
"Oh? Is that actually possible?"
"Skipping two ranks at once is an extremely rare case, but it's not without precedent. Considering the achievements you've racked up this time, it's entirely within reach."
"Now that is welcome news."
"And even at worst you'll make Rank 7, which means... um... well..."
"I'll be making Miss Amy my exclusive receptionist, so there's nothing to worry about. Though honestly, it feels like you're already halfway there."
"Oh my. Thank you! I'll work extra hard to bring you even better requests!"
At my declaration, Amy clenched her small fist and let her enthusiasm show in full.
I'd heard that once you reach Rank 7 or above, the Guild assigns you a capable dedicated receptionist — but I figured I'd rather keep a familiar face around.
I finished sorting through the odds and ends and left the Guild.
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On the way back to the inn, I deliberately took the long way around.
There was plenty I needed to think through.
Strange, how I keep running into cultists. Judging from the reactions of Lovrick and the others, these people are supposed to be absurdly rare — yet I've crossed paths with them twice already.
Call it coincidence all you like, but I'd already met twice the kinds of fanatics that Lovrick, with decades in the field, had barely seen a handful of times.
Once a Priest, and once a Bishop.
Had luck decided to latch onto me?
Or had these people simply started operating around Bolston?
It wouldn't have surprised me to run into them again at any moment.
"This time, luck was on our side and we managed to kill that Bishop. But there's no guarantee the same fortune will smile on us next time."
The only reason we'd beaten the Bishop at all was entirely because he'd wanted to take us alive. If he had fought us with genuine intent to kill, we wouldn't have lasted ten seconds.
I had to get stronger.
Come to think of it... the Bishop held up pretty well even against Lena's [Provocation]. If he hadn't already been reeling from [Sensory Impartation], he might not have wavered at all.
How on earth had he resisted a taunt like that?
It didn't seem likely that the God of Pain's Authorities included any defensive abilities. There had to be some method I didn't know about.
I fiddled with my black Guild card.
There's over 300 gold in here. Even if it takes every last coin, I need to spend this on training — or on an artifact.
That small chest we'd found in the Bishop's tent. I'd split some of the money among the hostages, framed as compensation for what they'd suffered and a reward for the help they'd given in capturing the Bishop at the end.
After forcibly pressing a share on Henry too — who had refused it to the very last — what remained came to 310 gold coins.
For now, I'd deposited the entire sum into my card. That was possible because the Guild functioned as a kind of bank for its registered members.
They said if the corpse we brought back is confirmed as the Bishop's, there's a bounty on top of that. Probably 100 gold, if I remember right?
Add that in, and the money coming in from this request alone — counting only what was already certain — totaled a whopping 400 gold.
...With that much, I might even be able to post a request for training under a high-ranked Guild member. Oh, right — Noah used some strange magic back there too. I should ask her about that.
Lost in one thought after another, I found myself at the inn before I knew it.
Going by the time, Noah and Lena should have been back already.
But unlike usual, the inn was oddly raucous today.
I opened the door and stepped into the dining hall on the first floor, and there—
"GET LOST—!"
—was Lena, roaring in a piercing shriek.
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"Ahem. Miss Lena. Let's calm down first, shall we?"
"You want me to pay a debt NOW? Like hell I will!"
"Good grief... what a truly difficult young lady."
Lena had Noah beside her, and facing the two of them stood a man dressed to the nines like a proper gentleman.
The man twisted his head this way and that in evident bewilderment until he spotted me, at which point his face lit up and he came straight over.
He offered a handshake.
Not a single callus to be found on his hand — clearly a man who had never earned his bread by the sword.
"Ah! You've finally arrived. A pleasure. I am Hans Müller, a Collector in the employ of the Chamber of Commerce."
"...I'm Ha Jun, Mr. Müller. Though I suspect you already knew that."
"Haha. Sharp as ever, I see. You're quite right."
It hadn't taken any great feat of deduction.
He'd been talking with my party members before turning to me — it was obvious he knew exactly who I was.
But a Collector?
Collecting what, exactly?
Hans produced a handkerchief and dabbed delicately at the sweat beading on his forehead before dropping his bombshell.
"You see... Miss Lena owes a debt. I've come on behalf of the creditors."
"...A debt?"
"Yes, yes... To be precise, it isn't Miss Lena's own debt. It's the debt left behind by her parents."
"There's no such thing!"
CRASH!
Lena's face had been flushed crimson since well before I arrived, and now she slammed her palm down on the table with a shout.
Small as she was, she was an Awakened — the blow carried enough force that the table splitting in half wouldn't have surprised anyone.
Stung by the intensity, Hans took an involuntary step back and grumbled.
"Ahem... Lord Ha Jun. You really must manage your party members. I've come to carry out a perfectly legitimate collection, you know. Guild member or no, harassing people like this simply won't do."
"My apologies. She's at that age... Lena, settle down."
"..."
"Phew. For an ordinary man like myself, even the sheer pressure of mana is hard to bear. This is exactly why I never wanted to get mixed up in Awakened affairs... Well, here are the documents. Please, have a look."
Hans kept wiping the waterfall of sweat pouring down his face as he gathered the papers from the table and handed them to me.
The stack wasn't all that thick.
Skimming through, I found a detailed breakdown of the debt Lena's parents had incurred, notarized documents attached, and so on.
And the final amount, written at the very bottom, was...
"...500? Five hundred gold coins?"
"That's due to the high-interest rate that's accrued. It appears they borrowed from a particularly predatory moneylender to pay for treatment by a high-tier healer. So much time has passed that the principal has multiplied dozens of times over. At the very least, there's nothing legally improper about it."
"Huh..."
"You'll need time to consider your options, of course. This copy is a duplicate, so I'll leave it with you. If you need to reach me, simply come to the Chamber of Commerce and ask for me. Well then, I'll be off."
Having said his piece, Hans swiftly gathered his things and made to leave. But just before slipping out of the inn, he poked his head back through the door-crack and added one last remark.
"Ah — the interest compounds daily, so the sooner you decide, the better."
"GET! LOST!!!"
THUNK!
Unable to hold her temper any longer, Lena hurled a spoon — and it buried itself in the wall mere inches from Hans's head.
She'd thrown it with such force that the spoon's tip kept trembling, a blur of afterimages hanging around it.
"Eeep—!"
With a strangled squeak, Hans vanished entirely from sight.
I didn't blame Lena one bit.
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Up in our room, we put our heads together.
Five hundred gold?
It was a laughable sum — more than everything we'd just earned, and then some. We couldn't possibly cover it even by pouring in every coin from this job.
Now that the enormity of it had finally sunk in, Lena sat hunched and deflated, a far cry from her earlier fury.
"I'm sorry... it's all because of me..."
"Nothing's been decided yet. Noah, what do you think?"
"...At the very least, the calculation itself contains no errors. The interest rate was high to begin with, and roughly eight years have passed. Documents issued by the Chamber of Commerce carry a certain official authority. That said, I haven't read this region's legal codes, so I can't say for certain."
"They're saying there's not even a law covering loan sharks here? Or debt inheritance waivers?"
"Hard to say. I suspect not, but even if such laws existed, I doubt they'd have been written in terms ordinary commoners could easily understand."
Damn it all.
Just like the ignorantly backward Middle Ages.
Then again, even in my old world, there'd been no shortage of countries where loan sharks ran wild. Expecting protection under the law in an era with barely a trace of human rights was asking a bit much.
Noah pored over the documents for a long while, then pointed at a line written in small print.
"There's a passage here that concerns me. Look."
"Let's see... "
'A debt may be discharged through the debtor's own direct labor. The place of labor shall be designated by the creditor, in which case any interest accruing thereafter shall be waived.'
"What in the world is this supposed to mean?"
I frowned at the strange clause in the document.
Work off the debt with labor?
The interest waiver was a nice touch, sure — but nowhere did it say where that labor was to take place.
As I sat clutching my head in frustration, Lena fidgeted nervously for a while before screwing her eyes shut and speaking up.
"Then I'll go out and—"
"No. You won't."
"But—!"
"This is obviously something someone is engineering on purpose. The debt is just a pretext."
I cut Lena off flatly.
Think about it rationally — did a debt like this make any sense at all?
Whatever the motive was, someone was clearly trying to pry Lena away from us.
And if a debt document like this had really existed all along, no one would have left orphaned Lena alone all these years.
Noah nodded in agreement.
"But we can't simply ignore their demands indefinitely. Whether this debt document is genuine or not, the legal standing is on their side. They may well resort to forced collection."
"Hmm... we could pay it off somehow, couldn't we? All the money coming in this time adds up to about 400, so if we scrape together the last 100 somehow..."
Knock knock.
Just as I was racking my brain for a way to settle the debt, someone rapped on the door.
It was nothing like the rough knuckles of the innkeeper I'd come to know — this was a knock positively dripping with refinement.
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"...Who is it?"
I braced myself, half expecting another Collector — but standing in the hallway was an elderly man who looked like he'd walked straight out of a period film.
The neatly groomed old gentleman offered me a courteous bow and began, slowly and with impeccable manners.
"Would I be correct in addressing you as Lord Ha Jun, a Rank 8 adventurer of the Guild?"
"That's me."
"My master, Lord Harrington Lawrence de Monieux, requests the pleasure of your company — you and your party — at his estate. If you have no pressing engagements, might I suggest you accept the invitation...?"
"Harrington! I mean — Lord Harrington, you say?"
It was a familiar name and surname.