However, even after we left the marquis’s territory, we kept running into members of the underground organization wherever we went.
“Hmm… Is this their ‘even a blind arrow will hit something if you fire enough of them’ strategy?”
“Shun, you do have a way with words. Though, in their case, their arrows are so poorly aimed that even firing a hundred of them wouldn’t make a difference.”
Tory-san and I were talking over lunch, but every time we arrived in a town, we’d run into another bunch of guys dressed head to toe in black. At this point, it was starting to feel like deliberate harassment.
“There are several routes from the Western Margrave’s territory to the marquis’s territory, but there’s only one road from the marquis’s territory to the Royal Capital. So they may have been lying in wait in the towns along the way after we left the marquis’s territory.”
Sue, who is eating grilled meat beside me, explained why the attacks had suddenly increased.
Even so, the attackers were so incompetent that they weren’t remotely a threat.
“Can’t they at least attack us while we’re asleep or something? Even when they ambush us in town, they’re practically announcing their presence. It’s easy to tell because they’re practically leaking bloodlust everywhere.”
“Indeed. The army’s reconnaissance units are far better at concealing their presence. With these people, it’s almost as if they’re asking us to find them.”
They had a decent level of skill, but whether they had actually received proper training in conducting attacks was questionable.
And we got our answer that very night.
Piiiiii!
“Hm? What’s going on?”
I was sleeping inside the carriage at our campsite for the night when the sudden sound of a whistle rang out. Still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I climbed out of the carriage with Sue and Ao, who had woken up at the same time.
“What happened?”
“Another group of men dressed in black attacked us. There were five of them in total, but we’ve already captured every one of them.”
Oh, they’d already captured all the attackers?
That’s the national army for you. Just to be safe, I used Search Magic, but there was no one else hiding nearby.
Tap, tap.
“Hm? Ao, what’s wrong… Ah!”
“Did you notice it too, Shun-san? I never would have expected it to be that person…”
When we saw the attackers being held near the campfire, Sue and I were absolutely stunned.
“Shun, do you know that guy?”
“Yes. He’s that narcissistic-looking adventurer who picked a fight with us in the Southern Margrave’s territory. If I remember correctly, he was involved in an incident involving a bladed weapon, and his adventurer’s license was suspended.”
Tory-san had asked me about him too, but the person being restrained was none other than that narcissistic, overly suave adventurer who had tried to force his way into our party back in the Southern Margrave’s territory.
Still, this might finally give us a way to narrow down who was behind the attacks.
“The dark organization and the Human Supremacy Church may have been recruiting adventurers with disciplinary problems. In fact, the underground organization approached adventurers who participated in the tournament back in the Northern Margrave’s territory.”
“So they figured adventurers with criminal records and poor conduct would be easier to lure into doing dirty work. We should probably make an inquiry with the Adventurer’s Guild.”
It made perfect sense for a criminal organization to recruit criminals. And if they were only using them for grunt work, they could simply throw them away once they were no longer useful. In that sense, maybe the underground organization was becoming more organized.
For us, though, it was still nothing more than an endless string of annoyances.
“Tory-san, what are we going to do with these guys?”
“We still have room in the carriage being used for the prisoners. Put them in there. We need to make absolutely sure they tell us who recruited them.”
With that taken care of for the time being, we returned to our carriage and crawled back into our sleeping bags.
This is turning into a much bigger hassle than I’d expected. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
Previous ⚜ Table of Contents ⚜ Next
