Poxxon (2)
If poison had actually been detected in the potion, it would almost have come as a relief. All they would have had to do was trace it backward from there.
But the problem is that nothing showed up at all.
Which meant the culprits behind this incident were far more thorough than anyone had anticipated. At the very least, they hadn't left behind a single thread worth pulling.
Contrary to his first assumption, they might even be old hands at this sort of thing.
"No poison detected… that's not a good sign."
"It isn't. It means we can no longer claim it isn't our fault."
We ran the tests, and no toxic compounds were found in our potion.
People had already died—no one was going to believe that line now. Even if they leaked the ingredient records from this facility to the press, everyone would call it a staged performance.
"Then what do we do?"
"What do we do? We pound the pavement, that's what."
Oscar turned to Paul Wagner and asked, "Would it be possible to find out where the mercenaries who died after drinking our potion were working, and what commissions they were carrying out?"
"We attempted to inquire about that ourselves, but… we were turned away. Everyone is far too on edge."
That was only to be expected. Who wouldn't be furious after losing a comrade?
"Then we'll simply have to go and see them in person."
"Th-that's far too dangerous!"
A startled Paul Wagner hurriedly tried to dissuade him. Walking in on mercenaries seething over a dead friend meant walking into a tiger's den.
"It'll be all right. We're only going to talk, for now."
Oscar gave the shoulder of Franc, who was scowling beside him, a light pat. "And whatever happens, we've got this guy with us."
"…Who did you say you were?"
Tendons stood out across Yan's face where he sat on the sofa in the mercenary office. Franc swallowed hard and stammered a reply.
"H-hello. I'm Franc Sirius, a Level 4 mage of the White Tower—"
"Get the hell out!"
BOOM!
Yan slammed a massive shield—large enough to hide his entire frame—into the floor. The whole office seemed to shake from the impact.
"Or the next thing I throw will be a fist."
The leader of the mercenaries, who had been listening to his growling, spoke coldly. "He put it a bit rough, but we share his opinion."
The five mercenaries were scattered about the small office—some seated, some standing. To a casual glance they might have looked haphazardly arranged, but to Oscar, it was plain.
These were men who had spent years moving as one.
If they weren't, there'd be no way they'd each naturally positioned themselves where they could cover one another.
He shifted, slipping into the single gap in their formation—the one spot where their defense felt thinnest.
"This spot, then. The place where the late Mr. Dawson used to stand."
The instant the words left his mouth, every mercenary in the room had a weapon drawn and leveled at him.
The air cinched tight enough to choke on, and yet Oscar spoke with perfect calm.
"I need your help."
"Ha. Help?"
The mercenary leader bared a crooked grin, and the killing intent that surged off him pressed down like a weight. "So your business is in trouble, and you want us to give false testimony on your behalf, is that it?"
"…"
He felt it—the certainty that if his answer grated on them even slightly, what came flying next wouldn't be words, but steel.
"Someone tampered with our product. To sabotage our business, exactly as you said."
"…"
Neither words nor blades came flying. Taking that as permission to continue, Oscar pressed on.
"And in the process, six innocent people lost their lives. To speak plainly, our goal is to prove that there is nothing wrong with the White Tower's potions. At the same time, it would allow those who died unjustly to finally rest in peace."
"…"
The mercenary leader stared him down with glacial eyes for a long moment.
"Can you back up those words?"
"I swear it."
The man studied that unflinching face, then clicked his tongue softly.
"…Put the weapons away."
"Damn it all!"
CRASH!
Yan drove his fist into the bare wall. "So that's it, huh? Dawson just died like a dog for nothing?"
Individuals getting caught up in factional struggles and dying for it—by now, that was an all too common story. But no one could call the grief felt by those left behind common, not even by a long stretch.
Oscar clenched his fist. People who treat human lives as pennies to spend on their goals…
Had they stayed out of his sight, he might never have known. But now that they had crossed his path, he had no intention of letting it slide. Erasing them root, branch, and all—that was what a healthy society demanded.
"So. What was the actual reason you came looking for us?"
"We've recovered and examined every potion the White Tower has been selling in Moske. No toxic compound whatsoever was detected in any of them."
"…What?"
"That's a load of crap! So the mercenaries, Dawson included, dropping dead after drinking your potions was some miraculous coincidence, is that what you're saying?!"
Oscar shook his head at Yan's roar. "No. They all shared one thing in common—each of them drank our potion shortly before dying. But with no poison found, I need to learn more about the circumstances at the time."
"The circumstances… We were working a commission to cull monster rats."
"Where was it?"
"The sewers. Filthy place—the stench was enough to gag a corpse."
The stench.
The word lodged itself in Oscar's mind. He asked a few more questions, then rose from his seat.
"We will capture the killer beast ourselves. On that, you have my word."
"…"
The leader gave a silent nod, while Yan and the others didn't so much as answer. Even if the beast were caught now, their comrade wasn't coming back.
"Whew. That just drains the life right out of you."
After leaving the first office, he and Franc visited five more mercenary companies. An argument had nearly broken out at every single one, and true to the kid's word, Franc was utterly spent.
"Well, at least we resolved everything through talk. That's a win."
"You're a smooth talker, huh? If it'd been me, I'd have hemmed and hawed, taken a few hits, and gotten thrown out on my ear."
"…"
Franc's praise didn't bring Oscar any real joy; he only offered a faint, bittersweet smile. Facing the families of the fallen was old territory for him.
"Still, we did learn something from all the running around today."
"Ah—I think I've got it too."
Franc, who had been at his side all day, spoke up. "Olfactory paralysis. That's it, right?"
"That's it."
The six mercenary offices had been running wildly different commissions, but the jobs shared two things in common. First, the site reeked of overpowering stench. And second, it was dark.
Sewers, waste treatment plants, food-scraps dumps, forests thick with monster droppings…
Every one of them was a place where your face would scrunch up the moment you drew near, and within minutes your sense of smell simply shut down. In surroundings like those, quietly poisoning a single man would hardly qualify as work at all.
They might be using a powder that turns lethal when it binds with our potion, for one. The methods are endless.
The moment the two of them pieced it together, they asked every mercenary they'd met that day for a favor: to let them know of any commissions involving foul-smelling locations.
Because if any other mercenary company was out working such a site right now, it meant more of them could die.
"Ah—here's one. The sewers again."
"What's the location?"
"…The western sewers. That stretch is riddled with dead ends—absolutely miserable place to work."
It would be fine, so long as no one had taken the commission yet. That thought had barely formed when the mercenary leader's brow furrowed.
"Ah, hell. Looks like we're a step late. Another office snatched this one up an hour ago."
"Please, guide us there."
He couldn't allow even one more senseless casualty. Reading the clear, steady light in Oscar's eyes, the leader heaved a deep sigh.
"The damn sewers twice in a row… All right, boys! Grab your gear!"
"First time on a job like this, isn't it?"
Splash, splash.
The youngest member of the Mackin mercenary company asked the question with wide-eyed innocence as they waded through the sewer. Fair enough—in his few months as a mercenary, he'd never once taken a commission like this.
"An ecological survey of the sewers. Why would anyone want to study a place like this?"
"Beats me. Pay's good, though, so maybe some crackpot alchemist or mage is writing a paper on it."
"We don't need to know the why. Do the work, take the coin. Simple."
"Honestly, I'd welcome more jobs like this. One lap around the site and we're done."
"Still…"
Splash, splash.
The youngest made a face close to tears as he stared at the foul water rising to his thighs. "My stomach's weak. I really didn't want a job like this."
"Tsk. Kids these days—can't do this, can't do that. What can you do? Back when I was fighting the demonkin, I'd hold my breath in piles of corpses for three days at a stretch just to stay alive."
The mood was far too peaceful for a commission. And no wonder—aside from the occasional monster rat, the sewers held nothing that could threaten them.
"Aagh!"
Then, all at once, the youngest mercenary screamed and pitched forward. The others snickered at the sight.
"What, you can't even walk straight now?"
"You really took the whole sewer for a bath, huh. Don't come near me till you've showered."
"N-no, that's not it… something pierced me, I think…"
Grimacing, the youngest lifted one leg and hooked it over his opposite knee. In that instant, the color drained from every other mercenary's face.
A massive spike was embedded clean through the kid's boot.
"Damn it all! This is why I tell you to keep your head on! Move aside!"
The leader shoved upstream through the current, wrenched the spike free, and yanked it out. "AAAGH!"
"Stop your whining. A bit of potion and a bandage and it'll heal right up, boy."
Chuckling, the leader reached into his coat and drew out a potion vial, raising it toward the wound—
and the youngest lunged to stop him. "W-wait! That's not a White Tower potion, is it?"
"You're the biggest coward I've ever had under me, kid, and that's saying something. Relax—we recalled every last one of those."
With a thin laugh, the leader gave the vial a light shake to show the Blue Tower crest etched into the glass. Then, just as he moved to splash the potion onto the boy's sole—
Snap!
A hand closed around his wrist out of nowhere.
"You shouldn't use that potion right now."
"…Who the hell—?"
"When did this guy even—?"
The shaken mercenaries fumbled their weapons out far too late. Someone skilled enough to slip past their senses entirely.
He snatched the potion vial from the leader's hand and hurled it against the bare wall.
SSSSS!
The concrete began to melt and run, as if someone had poured molten lava over it.
"Wh-what the hell?"
"Right now, the sewers are saturated with a lethal toxic mist that reacts with potion compounds. Treat your wounds on the surface."
"…We owe you one. We nearly lost the kid back there. We'll thank you properly another time."
The grateful mercenaries hoisted the youngest onto their backs and sprinted for the exit. Oscar, who had been standing there until the last of them vanished, slowly turned around.
The toxic mist lasts barely three minutes.
Then how had they timed every release so precisely, to the exact moment the mercenaries reached for their potions?
The answer was simple.
They'd been tailing the mercenaries the whole time.
Only one possibility explained it.
BOOOM!
Oscar batted aside a jet of filthy water that came streaking at him like a spear, deflecting it with the back of his hand.
"Kh—your reaction speed is better than I expected, boy."
Then a veil of invisibility peeled away, and the mage who had been shadowing the mercenaries revealed himself.
It wasn't the invisibility magic of the Violet Tower's phantasm school.
…The Blue Tower.
A technique that bent light around water to sustain a transparent state. That was why it couldn't be used anywhere too bright.
Which would explain why every mercenary who had died so far had been struck only in filthy, dark places.
"Sharp deduction, and sharp tracking. Well done, whelp."
The mage who stepped out of the haze was someone a blurred shadow of whom still lingered in Oscar's memory.
"Right down to the place that will be your grave."
Moira Maine—a Level 5 mage of the Blue Tower.
One corner of his mouth curled into a crooked sneer as a thick, unhurried killing intent rolled off him.