Chapter 22
Chapter 22 Newbie Adventurer Bern (20) - Senior
Bern was often described by those around him as not very adventurer-like, but he didn’t particularly dislike adventurer culture itself.
If a senior and junior adventurer met to talk, wouldn’t it suit the occasion better to do so in a tavern with beer than over tea in some respectable manor?
"Kyaa! Frensia has a few restaurants with good food, but this place is still the best for beer. How is it? Do you like it?"
After downing a huge wooden mug that nearly covered his whole face and setting it down with a thud, Alses looked every inch the rough adventurer Bern had vaguely imagined, and Bern couldn’t help but admire him.
Honestly, by Bern’s standards, the beer here was far too lukewarm and lacked any sharp bite, making it taste like plain water, but with the right atmosphere, even food and drink seemed to taste right.
"Yes, it’s not bad."
"Tsk. That’s a lukewarm reaction."
"If it’s a drink bought by a senior, I think ‘not bad’ could turn into ‘good.’"
"Hahaha! This kid looks so obedient on the outside, but he’s devious inside! Saying that and then not buying me a drink—what would I be? Don’t worry, I’m paying for everything!"
Amused by Bern’s answer, Alses burst out laughing heartily.
After that light icebreaker was over,
Blanca, who had barely touched her drink, finally spoke up.
"So, can we get to the point now?"
"Hm. Right."
Alses stroked his chin beard for a moment, then said casually.
"Well, to be honest, it’s a handoff. When you think about it, we’re basically leaving the cleanup after our failure to our juniors. Since we’re leaving anyway, we figured it’d be right to lend a hand before we go."
"...Is that really all?"
There was considerable bewilderment and disbelief in Blanca’s voice.
Because adventurers are both comrades and rivals, the adventurer world is especially a place where ‘generosity’ is hard to come by.
It was one thing if they were partners on the same request, but helping some unrelated party didn’t really bring them any benefit.
Among adventurers full of punks and thugs, people who faithfully repay the kindness they’ve received are rare.
Even if an adventurer does intend to repay the favor, you never know when or where they might drop dead before they can. That goes for both the adventurer and the person they owe.
They knew that if a culture of helping those backed into a corner took root, the whole industry’s survival rate would rise and ultimately benefit them too, but rather than hoping for that vague reward that might never come around, adventurers preferred to make a quick score and get out.
As if he understood Blanca’s question, Alses let out a booming laugh.
"I know, I know. I know what the young lady wants to say. If you see me sitting here all by myself, you can probably guess why, can’t you?"
"Could it have been an argument...?"
"Yeah. They got angry, saying that if we solved what they couldn’t, it would only hurt their reputation, and asking why we should help them. Tch, what a petty bunch. No generosity, no generosity at all."
As if venting his frustration, Alses gulped down the beer that was still about half left in his mug in one gulp, then shot a sidelong glance at the owner, who was just mechanically minding the place with a strangely hollow face.
"This place is currently run by the owner alone, but originally there was a daughter who worked here as a waitress. She bowed her head to us, saying that because people were anxious, she wanted to restore the city to how it used to be. She said she’d do anything she could and even volunteered to act as bait. We were having a hard time with the search, so we took her up on it after boldly promising that we’d definitely protect her. And yet there isn’t a waitress here now."
Blanca and Renya both swallowed hard.
That was because from Alses’s body burst a powerful aura of sorrow and indignation he couldn’t hide.
"In my entire adventuring life, that was the first time I’d ever had such a humiliating experience. I wanted to keep holding on to the request and somehow see it through, but before long I had no choice but to realize it, even if I didn’t want to. If you cling to something you’re incapable of, all you do is keep increasing the number of victims. So we gave up, and as a result, you all came. If I’m helping you, do I need any other reason?"
Unable to continue speaking, the two of them were answered by Bern, who opened his mouth in their place.
"No, that should be enough. Would you tell us the story?"
"Good. I’ll tell you as much as you want. According to what we found—"
After that, Alses began passing on the various pieces of information they had uncovered while staying here.
-The interval between disappearance incidents is basically random. Sometimes they take one person a day, and sometimes nobody is touched for days before someone is suddenly taken. But at the very least, one person disappears every week.
-The only way to prevent the disappearances is to stay awake. If even one person remains conscious in the space where the victim is, nothing happens there.
-Conversely, if every member falls asleep, they will infiltrate the place no matter how hard it is to get into and take the victim away. Even physically sealing the entrance doesn’t matter.
-Among the victims, there were some family members who tried binding themselves tightly together to prevent it, but the rope was simply undone and the victim disappeared.
-We tried setting traps, but nothing ever triggered, and when we tried tracking footprints and the like, that didn’t work either.
-The forest we initially suspected was the culprit’s hideout had already been thoroughly searched, but we couldn’t find a single piece of evidence.
"As a last resort, we even divided some of the would-be victims into several buildings and took turns standing watch all night... but that failed too. In a place where none of our party members were present, the night watch dozed off again, and the young women there disappeared in an instant. Maybe because that incident became traumatic, we can’t even manage to cooperate properly for night watch anymore. They say they can’t trust anyone except family."
After Alses finished speaking, Renya said with a sour expression.
"Is there even an answer to this? Lock the doors and it doesn’t work, set traps and it doesn’t work, physically tie the victims up and it doesn’t work—then what are we supposed to do?"
Renya knew just how overwhelming Bern’s strength was.
Whether the opponent was some unknown monster or an evil black mage, Bern had easily subdued even a knight who could unleash sword aura, so Renya had never once thought he’d lose—but now it seemed the situation was nastier than expected.
No matter how strong Bern was, if they couldn’t even get to the point of crossing swords with the opponent, there’d be nothing to win or lose.
"Hmm."
Meanwhile, Blanca felt a strange sense of incongruity and turned her gaze aside, only to find Bern, who was also deep in thought, there.
Their eyes met all of a sudden, and Bern gave a slight nod.
Feeling a strange sense of satisfaction, as though their minds had somehow connected, Blanca asked.
"That person who supposedly dozed off by accident—the one from the group that was taken—where is he?"
Alses raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Why do you ask that?"
"No matter how you look at it, isn’t that strange? It wasn’t just ordinary night watch, and they did it knowing that if they dozed off, everything would be over."
"Sleepiness is something that, by nature, can’t be overcome by willpower alone. No matter how tense you are, the moment you let your guard down for an instant, it’ll get you."
"Even if that’s true, it seems worth investigating at least once."
"Hmm..."
Thunk!
At that moment, the tavern owner who had approached without them noticing set a plate of food down on their table and said,
"If you mean Malcolm, he’s in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. The people who’d lost family members or lovers to him would try to kill him on sight, so he couldn’t stay in the city and got chased out."
Bern bowed politely to him.
"Thank you for telling us."
"You outsiders are still trying to find the culprit, so this much is nothing."
After saying that, the owner looked at Alses.
"Please. Don’t let my daughter’s courage be in vain."
Alses wore a bitter expression for a moment, then nodded resolutely.
"Leave it to me. I’ll cooperate with these people as much as I can."
From Alses’s earlier words and the owner’s attitude now, Renya seemed to have roughly guessed their situation and relationship, and he rubbed at his eyes as if moved.
Blanca, too, renewed her resolve to catch the culprit somehow, while Bern drank down his beer with an unreadable expression.
[You look like something’s bothering you. What’s wrong?]
‘Let’s see. Maybe it’s because the beer doesn’t taste as good as it did before.’
[What?]
Bern did not answer.
***
"I’m going to stay in this city for a while, so if you need help, call me anytime. Ah, don’t misunderstand—I’m not asking for any reward or anything."
Adding that he was the type who couldn’t stand losing, Alses left.
Renya said in a voice that somehow carried admiration.
"Wow, honestly, until now I thought adventurers other than you, big brother, and you, big sister, were just thugs who happened to be decent fighters, but I guess once you hit Rank 4, there really is a sense of class to you. That fighting spirit, that responsibility, that pride. No wonder he’s the face of the Eastern Branch!"
"Well, I’ve only spoken with him directly for the first time today too, but I haven’t heard any particularly bad stories within the Adventurer Guild either."
Maybe he was the closest thing to the kind of ‘adventurer who seemed straight out of a story’ that Bern kept talking about.
Thinking that, Blanca looked at Bern, but for some reason Bern said nothing.
She tilted her head, then soon started walking after Bern toward the outskirts of the city.
The sun set and darkness covered the surroundings, but once a fireball appeared in Blanca’s palm, the area was lit up again.
It was quite a waste of mana to keep it ready like this instead of firing off an attack spell, but with her mana having increased sharply recently, it wasn’t burdensome at all.
If her old self, who used to count every use even of a low-tier spell, saw her now, she wondered what sort of snide remark she’d make.
After walking for a while,
"...Wow. I heard it was an abandoned house, but this is a bit much."
Renya clicked his tongue in disgust.
As he said, the building in front of them was in terrible shape.
Peeling walls. Heaps of sandy dust. Even an eerily desolate atmosphere.
It was night after sunset, so that no doubt played a part, but at the very least it didn’t look like a place where people could live. Unless it was a haunted-house attraction.
"Mr. Malcolm. Are you in there? We came because we wanted to ask about the disappearance incident."
Despite the knock, there was no answer.
Four times, five times.
No matter how many times they knocked and called his name, it was the same.
"Could he not be inside?"
"That’s right, big brother. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t seem like anyone would be in a place like this."
Even with the two of them trying to stop him, Bern silently kept knocking.
When that went on for about ten minutes, an irritated pounding finally rang out from inside the building.
The door flew open as if it might break apart, and a man shouted irritably.
"What the hell! What is it? Do you know what time it is!?"
Bloodshot eyes. A face with cheekbones jutting out. The smell of alcohol reeking from his body. And most importantly, the hatchet in his hand.
Looking every bit the dangerous man, Blanca and Renya reflexively took combat stances.
But Bern spoke without a care.
"I’d like to ask about the circumstances at the time of the disappearance. Would you cooperate with us for a moment?"
"Cooperate my ass! I’ve got nothing to say, so if you don’t want to die, then get lost right now—"
"Then will you keep bearing that false accusation like this?"
"—What?"
At Bern’s words, Malcolm’s body jerked.
To the stunned man, Bern spoke again.
"I know it wasn’t your fault that you dozed off during night watch. I’ll clear your name, so cooperate with us."