The Black Sky Pirate Laughs Beneath the Moon. The Crimson Mage Howls at the Stars (16)

By the time I noticed, even the receptionist was gone, leaving the first floor deserted. There were probably people working on this floor beyond the door behind the reception desk, but they all seemed to be holding their breath as well.

In the eerie silence, a portly Lef man appeared at the entrance to the building.

Mimino-san sprang to her feet in surprise, but I stepped in front of her, ready to draw my dagger at a moment's notice.

"Hmph. You guys are members of 'Silver Scales'?"

His dark ocher skin was strangely slick, and his abnormally fat body brought not a reptile to mind, but a frog—more specifically, a toad.

The buttons on his shirt were undone, and when he pulled back his hood, he was huffing and puffing. He had a stick like a chopstick in his mouth, but he took it out and plunged it into a metal jar hanging from his belt. He pulled out a sticky substance—which 【All Creation】 identified as "malt syrup"—and sucked on it.

"Slurp. I'm Aba, deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Bureau. I'd like to ask you about Section Chief Rurusha. I also hear that you committed fraud against 'Rororo Trading Company,' which is run by my cousin, so if you have anything to say in your defense, I'll hear it, too. Slurp."

"Sorry, there are so many things to address that I don't know where to begin. To clear up one misunderstanding first, we didn't commit any fraud."

"The company president says you swindled him out of a thousand gold coins. Slurp."

"Huh...? You were the ones who said you wanted to buy the Automaton we'd defeated for that amount."...