Level up with swords (64)
“huh?”
Karen, who was wandering the streets at night, suddenly turned around. It was because I felt someone’s gaze on me for some reason.
Both eyes contract briefly and then expand several times.
The method of manipulating the pupils is a basic skill for a top-notch assassin. Karen’s eyesight was already ten times better than that of an average person, and with the aura concentrated in her eyes, she was able to distinguish the facial expressions of people from several kilometers away.
Still, I couldn’t find Leon, who was on the fifth floor of the tavern, so I thought it was just my mood and closed my eyes.
“Ugh, ugh.”
A sound of heavily suppressed breathing came out from beneath his feet.
It was a sound made by a man with a grim face whose neck was stepped on by Karen’s boot. He had successfully robbed 30 times so far, but today was a completely bad match for him.
The chill running down my spine was telling.
‘Lord, I’m dying… .’
It was a mistake to attack her just because of her pretty appearance. Those who came with him had already been exterminated a long time ago.
A guy whose head turned several times, a guy whose dagger was swung into his heart, and a guy who suffocated to death because his airway was crushed by a single hand strike. The sight of several corpses lying around like trash made his fear even more vivid.
When the fear raises your heart rate to its limit,
“hey.”
Karen’s dry voice pierced my ears.
“Eh, yeah? Oh, no, just say anything!”
Not knowing that his feet had already been removed, the robber put his face down on the ground and begged for mercy.
I had the confidence to tell him to gouge out one of his eyes. The reason she didn’t break his neck just now was because it was just a whim of hers. If she had answered just one beat late, she would have been dead.
“Where is the biggest organization in this city? “Not a petty thief like you, but someone who manages things like smuggling and black markets.”
“that… !”
If you speak, you will die.
If you don’t speak, you die.
His response was a little delayed as the two fears became intertwined. Karen moved before he realized his mistake. A dagger fired without a sound pierced the back of the man’s hand.
“Keuuuuuuu!?”
I desperately suppress my screams.
I didn’t endure it because I wanted to. Before he could scream, Karen’s foot stepped on the back of his head. Only after the guy quieted down did the boots fall again.
The robber’s mouth did not hesitate twice.
With his face covered in blood and tears, he lowered his face and spoke openly about what Karen asked.
“I see, this area is under the jurisdiction of ‘owls’.”
Before being an A-rank adventurer, Karen was a special assassin and a “guardian” and knew the circumstances of the back world well.
The name is ‘Golden Owl’.
It is an organization of merchants whose main purpose is smuggling and black trading, and is mainly distributed along the border areas of each country. Because they moved a huge amount of money, their status and status were quite high, and there were many cases where their safety was guaranteed by parasitizing those in power.
“It would be a bit troublesome if Margrave Balkas was watching over me personally.”
Although nobles rule like kings over their domains, the Margrave holds a special position among them.
A nobleman who reigns in the region furthest from the royal power.
Because they possess military and judicial power, they cannot be punished for crimes other than treason. Moreover, the creation of slush funds through smuggling and black marketing has been a practice that has continued since ancient times.
If so, you should not apply force.
Karen decided how to respond and looked down at the robber lying at her feet.
‘… Should I kill him?’
If it were like before, I wouldn’t have even worried about it.
Killing and killing people. As an assassin, the rule was not to spare anyone who saw him. Because there was no way to silence a person more conveniently or more surely than death.
But Karen couldn’t swing that hand.
Although he thought his actions were hypocritical, he did not want to behave the same way as before, even now that he had become a companion of the hero.
“Wha?!”
She retrieved her dagger and kicked him.
“Leave this territory. “If you show your face to me again, I will kill you no matter what happens.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
“go away.”
Blood poured out from the punctured back of his hand, but the guy didn’t even feel the pain and turned his back and ran away.
Karen looked at the guy’s back for a moment, then moved in the direction indicated by the ‘owl’ sign.
‘I think I saw it more than 10 years ago, but I still haven’t forgotten it.’
Shady organizations had their own methods of contact.
In the case of 〈Dusk〉, which she was a part of, an undertaker had to be brought to the area, and a request fee and items related to the target’s identity had to be placed in the coffin.
The tangential method in 〈Golden Owl〉 was simpler.
Lights that create an optical illusion are hung to confuse the entrance and the road. So, just move in the opposite direction of the crooked light.
But Karen didn’t have to do it that way.
“Ah, it’s here.”
As I took a step into the darkness that was as solid as a wall, the path that had been blocked a moment ago was cleared up. There was no way she, who controlled the auror of ‘Shadow’, would be fooled by her optical illusions.
Unlike the shabby building, I walk down the well-maintained stairs.
Every time I took a step, I moved forward without showing any signs, finding hidden traps and paths through the vibrations.
and.
“welcome.”
An old man dressed neatly immediately greeted her.
Karen, who felt something strange about that upright posture, opened her eyes round. This is not the type of person you would find in a back alley. She was a person who could be the head of a house from a famous family.
There was something that seemed to indicate his identity.
The old man also seemed to have noticed her suspicions, and pointed to the chair across from her with an inexplicable smile.
“Please sit down.”
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“Is that so?”
Karen did not reject the offer.
Sitting across from each other at a table, the two exchanged glances in silence for a moment. When she glared at him with murder in her eyes, aiming to subdue her, the old man did not look away from her, even though he broke into a cold sweat.
It is an unusual mental strength.
Karen, who blinked once and lost her life, said.
“I want to buy information.”
At those words, the old man with a poker face asked back.
“What information are you talking about?”
“Rubena Estate.”
Karen spoke briefly and looked at the other person’s reaction. The value of information varies depending on how you react to what I say.
There wasn’t a single gap in the old man’s face, but even the changes in his pulse and pupils couldn’t be hidden. Karen, who read the change with the sense of a top assassin, smiled.
“I already know everything, so please don’t think about hiding it. “I’ve already been attacked once.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard of an attack.”
“You have to pay the right price for things. Each other.”
The eyes of the two people collided at the meaningful words.
The first principle of The Golden Owl is money. Get and sell anything if you can pay the right price. Information is no exception, and in any case there was no option to ‘not sell’.
The old man let out a long sigh and threw it at Karen first.
“800 gold.”
“What if I deduct the value for my information?”
“I’ll give you a discount of up to 700 gold.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Karen waved her hand and scoffed at the suggestion.
“Shall we cut it a little more? “Deacon?”
“what.”
“Your disguise skills are pretty good, but there are traces around your ears. And the movement of my left shoulder is also unstable. I guess the implants were put in for the purpose of camouflaging the body shape? “You can find more if you look for it, so what should I do?”
The old man’s eyes glowed coldly.
It was indeed as he said.
He was one of the most trusted vassals of Margrave Balkas, the chief butler. An executive-level member of <Golden Owl>, he is in charge of smuggling and black trading in the Balkas Territory.
He lowered his voice when his identity was suddenly revealed.
“… “You are very bold.”
Karen responded in a completely unintimidated manner.
“So are you going to sell it or not? “They seem quite interested in the information I brought, so don’t hit them like you did before.”
“Grunt.”
When there was no response to the outright threat, the old man was unable to press further and had to retreat. As she said, there was a need to purchase that information.
Not only has his identity been revealed unintentionally, but he is so skilled that it is difficult to silence him. If he is an A-rank adventurer, he cannot be sure even if he mobilizes a knight leader, and even if he succeeds, it is obvious that an investigation team will be dispatched from the guild, so it is difficult to touch him.
The old man, Glenn, the head deacon, ultimately chose to break even.
“260 gold. “You can’t go below that.”
“great.”
Karen snapped her fingers as if she had been waiting for that, and placed several jewels taken out of <Mole>’s clothes.
The head deacon quickly calculated the appraised value using an estimate.
“It would be appropriate.”
Fearing that he would ask me to give him some change, he quickly collected the jewels and shoved them into his arms.
Fortunately, Karen didn’t have the heart to go that far either.
Only then were the two able to get to the point.
“Rubena territory is now in a state no different from a hole in the water.”
“Suchat hole?”
“Yes, it means whatever goes in can’t come out again. It just keeps sucking in and not letting anything out. It is possible to go in and out lightly… .”
The head butler tapped the table with the tip of his index finger.
“We also sent in nearly 20 people, but except for those who came to the outskirts or toured the area a few times, all of them went missing. “There were three or four B-rank people involved.”
“There is a secret that cannot be revealed to the outside world… “I guess so.”
“I have selected some information that could be a clue. “I’ll show you one by one in chronological order.”
The head butler took out several sheets of parchment from a drawer, shuffled them around, and held them out toward Karen.
She fixed her gaze to read from the first page.
One sheet, two sheets, three sheets.
As the pages turn, the face becomes more and more rigid, the fingers become stronger, and the fluttering sound becomes louder. When Karen had read about half of the book, she couldn’t stand it any longer and asked the owner a question.
“Wait a minute, the ‘necklace’ moved?”
“yes.”
〈Black-Choker〉.
It is a metaphor for the restraints attached to the necks of slaves, and was the name of the organization that led the slave trade on the largest scale on the continent.
Crows roaming the border between legal and illegal.
They bought prisoners of war and used them as mine laborers, or they stole women kidnapped by bandits and sold them as prostitutes. Despite its vicious behavior, it was an organization that was not subjugated due to its demand and size, and was only cautious of the Holy Church.
They are so large that it is easy to detect their movements, so it is rare for things to be done as secretly as they are now.
“As if large-scale slave trading was not enough, there was even hoarding of certain minerals… . “It looks suspicious, but it’s hard to know its purpose.”
“No, if you find the intersection, one keyword appears.”
When she complained after looking at all the documents, the head deacon shook his head.
〈Golden Owl〉 also talked a lot about Rubena’s strange situation, and among them, the most influential hypothesis was extracted.
This deal was also an opportunity to prove that hypothesis.
Glenn, the Margrave’s chief butler, spoke.
“The keyword is… .”
* * *
I don’t know if it was coincidence or necessity, but when Karen and the head deacon were making a secret deal, Leon was also talking about it.
Rubena Estate.
Merchants were not the only ones particularly sensitive to rumors. Mercenaries who had to risk their lives for their work also had their ears perked up. Leon, whose mind had become agitated after emptying several bottles, also became slightly clearer when the story of his next destination came up.
“yes?”
But the story was so absurd.
“Vampire?”
“Yes, blood-sucking monsters! There are widespread rumors that they are hiding in Rubena territory and ruling the night. That’s why there are only a few people walking around the streets at night, and even mercenaries avoid that area.”
“Leonic! Stop saying nonsense! “The vampire isn’t even someone’s asshole!”
Hansen, who scolded Leonik for his words, drank a glass of beer in one go. That accusation wasn’t completely wrong.
Equipped with intellect no different from that of a human, excellent magical abilities, and even immortality, each vampire is comparable to a mid- to upper-level monster. It was a species in a truly ambiguous position, with the possibility of coexistence with humanity, but avoided because the risk was too high.
Although the cult has not designated them as extinct, their existence is not recognized in any territory.
‘A vampire.’
Turning his back on the two people’s rough argument, Leon thought about the vampire he had not yet met.
An ecology of immortality with an appearance that is not much different from that of a human.
The habit of drinking the blood of intelligent beings and great strength.
As a warrior, should he exclude vampires, or should he try talking to them first? He also asked El Cid once, but unfortunately his answer was not very helpful.
[Vampires were rare in my time. The strong ones joined the Demon King’s army and were all beaten to death by me… . If this is what you think of as an ‘ordinary vampire,’ I’ve never seen it before.]
The possibility of coexistence with humanity is not yet known.
Still, it might be worth talking about, Leon thought. A warrior is a being who punishes evil, but judging what evil is is his domain.
Vampires are on hold for now.
As soon as he could make a decision, several people approached him.
It was an unfamiliar, unfriendly, and unpleasant presence.
“Hey, Gustav! “Did you guys at least rent out the 5th floor?”
A mercenary with strong energy entered the room.
He was a man with a cross-shaped sword mark on his face, looking like he had been trained in martial arts.
Gustav, seeing the man, put down his drink and stood up.
When the two giants faced each other, the room instantly became stuffy.
“Good day, Jerome. “Don’t make a fuss.”
“You’re still handsome! Hey, am I your friend? “Why are you giving orders?”
“If it sounds that way, I’d like to ask you again. “Just go.”
Despite Gustav’s polite attitude, the mercenary named Jerome laughed unpleasantly and spat.
Yellow saliva stuck to the smooth, polished floor.
“What if you don’t like it?”
“-Come outside.”
Gustav growled, holding the great sword propped against the wall.
“You must have walked when you came, right? “I’ll let you crawl when you go.”
