Leave a comment

I headed to the Adventurer’s Guild with Cortina and Mark’s group.

She apparently wanted me to rest on the bed initially, but after weighing the options of me staying at the inn with Lyell, Maria, and Michelle gone and accompanying her, she judged the latter to be safer and let me do it.

And above all, she wasn’t suited to working inside the cities. Her field of activity was mainly the battlefields or fights in the wild. She wasn’t very experienced in uncovering the enemies, cornering them, and taking down enemies within the cities. I would worry if she acted without any support.

But I had Finia stay at the inn as a cornerstone of communication. Her versatile use of magic was useful for this situation… or so was my excuse, but honestly, I was just gaining my time. I was feeling a little awkward now.

Like this, Mark’s group and I followed Cortina to the Guild to gather information. On the way, I discovered bronze statues of Six Heroes.

This city Berith was located at the foot of the World Tree. Because of that, it was donut-shaped, and on top of that, the World Tree roots spreading in four directions divided the city into parts. Of course, you could still get to any place by going over or under the roots, but it was still more complex than normal.

For that reason, there were squares set up in all kinds of places, making it easier for carriages to turn. Leaving it at that felt a little wasteful so each square often had things like fountains and bronze statues in the middle.

The square we were at was also one of such places.

“Ohh, so these are the famed Six Heroes. There’s Lady Cortina and Maria too!”
“Of course, they are Six Heroes statues, after all.”
“But their poses are different compared to the ones in Stollar, huh?”

They were heroes who saved the world, so their statues were built all over the world even without their knowledge. Stollar also had such statues, with Lyell and Cortina standing at the center.

But here, it was Maria and Lyell at the center. This wall because Stollar was saved by Cortina, so Donovan simply designed it with her as the focus. Similarly, Maria was from Berith, so she was made to stand in the center here.

As for Lyell he was generally always positioned near the center. It was rather annoying.

“But one of their faces looks pretty vague, doesn’t it?”

Among the gallant figures of the Six Heroes, only one of them was kneeling and hiding his face with a hood and scarf. Needless to say… It was the past me.

“That’s Reid. He was an assassin so they can’t show his face.”
“Ah, is that so? Sounds like someone who’d be earning grudges everywhere.”
“It’s even worse than that. That guy was merciless towards the ones he judged to be evil, so he kept picking fights with nobles and influential people.”
“Uwah, I’d have died instantly.”
“The fact that he managed to survive is proof of his skill.”
“He was an amazing person, huh.”
“That he was. Even Lyell couldn’t match up to him.”

Mark and Cortina stared at my statue in admiration. Cortina’s cheeks in particular seemed slightly flushed.

Still… Still. Cortina, could you stop over-evaluating me so much. Even I can’t do anything against that muscle-brain. The only time I could win against him would be in a very limited situation with half of his power gone.

But I couldn’t tell her that while she was puffing out her chest. In the first place, what would my claim be based on? Finia got to know my secret but Cortina still hadn’t.

Mark’s group took Cortina’s words straight on and was convinced in Reid being the strongest. I honestly wanted to crawl into a hole and hide, but it was difficult to run off on my own now. Even if I tried to, I’d probably just get dragged back by the nape of the neck.

Thus, I arrived at the Guild while constantly feeling like I was sitting on a bed of nails. What kind of shame play was this supposed to be. However, my discontent was blown away the moment we opened the doors of the Guild.

The situation inside was beyond turmoil and nearing the level of havoc.

“Things are looking turbulent.”

Normally a staff member would’ve greeted us by now, but not even that happened. They were hectically running around sticking posters on the commission board, as well as approving the Adventurers who took them. It felt like a battlefield.

Cortina caught one of the staff running nearby to ask what was going on. The staff member frowned in trouble for a moment, but seeing Cortina’s adventurer’s ID, she instantly stood at attention.

“L-Lady Cortina?! What brings you here…”
“Just stop with those set phrases. Can you tell us what’s going on?”
“O-Of course. There’s a riot in the seventh district slums. Some of the citizens have been harmed already, so we are gathering people to suppress them.”
“Seventh… isn’t that in the south-southwest section of the city? Two districts away from here.”
“Yes. Victims are all flowing towards here and that makes it hard to dispatch the army, so we are having big trouble.”

Because the city was divided by the World Tree’s roots, dispatching a large-scale army needed taking a specific route. But that very route was the same one victims were using to rush here. The flowing citizens and the sent army would naturally run into each other and be in a stalemate.

“For that reason, the central government has ordered us to gather speedy Adventurers and solve the situation as fast as possible.”
“And that led to this situation, huh. But what about the Pope?”

The Pope, being the most influential person around, should have been able to restrain the people and move the army to the riot area. However, the staff powerlessly shook her head in negation to Cortina’s question.

“It appears that high eminence is unable to be found…”
“Say what?! Isn’t that really bad?”
“It is. It seems that they were traveling incognito in the city, but disappeared during this trouble.”
“What about the search?”
“We are gathering Adventurers for that right now.”
“Too slow! What are the temple knights doing!”
“The knights have been rounded up to suppress the riot… had the information reached them faster, they would have started the search instead.”

Hearing the staff’s words, Cortina made a pondering gesture. And then asked the staff once again.

“What about the Guild’s contact network? Is there any place you can’t reach?”
“I’m not sure, given this trouble. I will go and check.”
“Hurry. It might be that some mastermind had anticipated everything including the movements of the chivalry and the Pope.”
“No way!”
“Yes way. Don’t you think this situation is too bad? The countermeasures are delayed with the worst timing. I feel some intent behind all this.”

Hearing Cortina’s mutter, Kufar’s face surfaced in my mind. Kufar meddled with us yesterday, but maybe this was his doing too. In the first place, laying his hand on me guaranteed that Lyell and others would come running. In that case, he could have decided to hasten putting his schemes to action.

“Looks like we have sniffed him out.”

During all this, only Cortina had a big grin on her face.