202

Chapter 202 — In the End (4)

I somehow managed to get back inside the city.

I should never sneak outside the walls again.

That extra resolution came as a bonus.

BOOM!

“Catch him!”

“One got away! After him!”

“Don’t let him escape!”

But what was all this commotion?

On my way back to the inn, I noticed that the streets were in an uproar.

Apparently, some kind of arrest operation and ensuing chase had been going on since before dawn.

“Move or die—!”

As for me, however, I found myself contemplating something in the middle of it all.

Namely, why these damned incidents always had to erupt near me, directly along whichever road I happened to be taking.

THUD!

“Ghk!”

“Vermin…….”

And there was another question too.

Just how unlucky were these criminal bastards that, out of all the streets in this city, they had to come running toward the one I was on?

It was even that awkward hour right before sunrise, so I was literally the only pedestrian around.

Gasp.

Or could this possibly be another conspiracy?

A plot by the world itself to screw me over through utterly insane coincidence?!

“Uuugh.”

As if.

I promptly discarded that overinterpretation and tried to roughly guess what kind of criminal this bastard was.

Given how quickly the guards were closing in and the time of day, it did seem like the guard had deliberately launched a surprise operation.

“You are……!”

“Take him.”

“Thank you for helping us capture a Demon Worshipper!”

…Did he really have to be a Demon Worshipper too?

Had they launched a large-scale purge because of the last incident—the one that caused the checkpoint to be closed?

It had only been a few days, but they’d found them quickly.

“Ugh.”

Either way, he was someone who deserved to be arrested.

I handed the man I’d subdued over to the guards.

Maybe because I’d hit him once in the solar plexus and then slammed him onto the ground, the bastard groaned terribly.

“Ah, thank you for your assistance.”

“D-Damn you……!”

“Stay still!”

But no one paid any attention to his suffering.

Some of the guards even used additional violence on the already subdued man.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

Not that I had either the intention or the right to stop them.

“Damn it! If Envy… if Envy were still here… the likes of you would never……!”

“……?”

I feel like he just mentioned the name I killed.

I narrowed my eyes at the Demon Worshipper being dragged away.

There wasn’t much point in capturing him for a fresh interrogation now, but judging from the way he was invoking Envy’s name, he must have been one of Envy’s followers.

But Envy was already dead.

Was there even any value in following it anymore?

“Shut up!”

THUD!

“Ghk!”

I spent a moment wondering why Envy’s followers were here and why they were still clinging to it like some pathetic ex before shaking my head.

Demon Worshippers were like cockroaches.

There wasn’t much point in wondering why they were somewhere.

“Let’s just sleep…….”

More importantly, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours because of the sparring match before dawn, so I was a little drowsy.

I trudged back up to the inn.

BANG!

“Catch them!”

…and came back down again.

Apparently, because of what had happened last time, the city really had decided to conduct an all-out search.

The commotion seriously wouldn’t stop anywhere.

* * *

The Inquisitor returned after finishing her dawn prayers and heard some astonishing news.

“A purge… you say?”

“Yes. The operation has just concluded. Those who were captured have been transferred to the interrogation rooms.”

All the seeds of evil that had been hiding within the city had been captured.

It was good news, but somehow bewildering at the same time.

For the moment, she wiped the sweat running down her body with the towel draped around her neck.

Clunk.

At the same time, her other hand pulled a chair backward, and she sat down.

“If I’d known, I would have helped too.”

Had she known they intended to subjugate a group of evildoers, she would have postponed her prayers for a while.

The Inquisitor felt a little disappointed about that.

“Everyone knows how the Inquisitor feels, but… one hardly needs a sledgehammer to crack a peanut, does one? They must have been fully capable of handling it themselves, which is why they didn’t ask for our cooperation.”

The Archmage’s words weren’t wrong, however.

If there had been no other option, that would be one thing, but when an appropriately sized tool already existed, mobilizing excessively overwhelming power was unquestionably foolish.

The Inquisitor accepted her point.

“More importantly, how in the world did they obtain the information?”

“I do not know either. This operation was planned entirely by the city guard.”

Meanwhile, the person who had arrived just a little earlier than she had posed a question.

The Archmage stroked her own chin.

“I was told the Temple was merely asked to cooperate as a precaution and to make the suppression more effective.”

“Hmm.”

“Is there a problem?”

She hated to admit it, but there had rarely been a good outcome when that slippery fellow reacted poorly to something.

The Inquisitor’s expression immediately hardened as she focused on the conversation.

Just in case.

“It’s just… strange that they managed to find all of them simultaneously like this.”

Was it…?

Well, perhaps it was.

Demon Worshippers were like moths, forever gnawing away at the world yet rarely allowing themselves to be discovered.

In other words, they had to die, and she wanted to kill them, but unless coincidence intervened, they were remarkably difficult to spot.

“I found that part somewhat remarkable as well, but Bemurchen’s guard ordinarily uncovers one or two groups of Demon Followers every year. Perhaps this, too, is simply the result of diligent work.”

“Still, catching one or two groups in a year and arresting seven scattered remnants all at once like this are completely different things.”

“When you put it that way, I cannot particularly argue… but might the incident from a few days ago have had some effect as well?”

“…They became more vigilant and searched harder? Hmm. I suppose that does happen.”

But as the Archmage and the slippery fellow talked the matter through and gradually convinced one another, the Inquisitor found herself being swayed as well.

So it really was just the guard’s hard work……?

“Still, doesn’t it feel like they found them too quickly……? Even if they became more vigilant, only a few days passed before they suddenly found people who had remained hidden all this time…….”

Ah.

Or maybe not……?

“On top of that, they’ve been regularly sending out reconnaissance parties because they’re wary of the mermen’s movements. If you consider that the guard are ultimately soldiers too, wouldn’t they be short on manpower?”

“Then what exactly are you suspicious of?”

“I’m not specifically suspicious of anything… I’m saying I’m worried. If this wasn’t coincidence and someone deliberately engineered this outcome… then we don’t know what they were trying to accomplish by doing it.”

“That is not an unreasonable perspective. The problem is that if this truly was deliberate, what possible reason could someone have for doing such a thing……?”

While the Inquisitor grew increasingly confused, the Archmage and Deathbringer continued exchanging opinions.

“Even if we assume other Demon Followers did this… I wonder whether they had any reason to. Once they caused trouble at the city gate, they would have been discovered eventually, but if they had left these people in place, they could still have made use of them.”

“But other than fellow Demon Followers, would anyone know their locations so thoroughly?”

“That is also true. If someone knew where the Demon Worshippers were without being part of their group, there would have been no reason to remain silent until now.”

“Then there must be something to gain from this… but what?”

“…We will have to wait until the interrogations produce results.”

Unfortunately, there was still no answer they could reach.

In the end, they postponed reaching any conclusion until later.

“If an incident has to happen, I hope it at least waits until the sword is finished.”

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“I agree. We were told it would be completed in a few days… I do hope matters remain quiet until then.”

“Where should I put the soup?”

“Ah, set it here, please. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Instead, they decided to focus on the food being brought out.

Dishes that avoided extravagance without being overly simple were placed on the table one after another.

“…She’s late.”

As the slippery fellow said, by this point, there was one person who should have arrived but was nowhere to be seen.

“Come to think of it, Berserk isn’t here.”

The Inquisitor blinked as she agreed.

As an aside, the empty seat of yet another person came to mind for no reason at all, leaving her mood dampened.

“She already told me she would be late.”

The Archmage’s answer allowed them to abandon those useless thoughts.

The Archmage looked perfectly calm while answering, so they assumed there couldn’t be any major problem.

Of course, had they known that she had already been rejected by Berserk once before, and that the matter involving the Demon Knight had further caused her to lose confidence in interfering in other people’s affairs, they would not have been so carefree.

“What kind of training is she planning to do that she even had to say she’d be late……?”

“Maybe she isn’t training and met someone strong instead……?”

“That makes sense too.”

Because they didn’t know, they could wait in peace.

They even came up with plausible guesses.

“More importantly, someone strong enough to be acknowledged by Sir Fighter, with standards as high as hers… I wonder who it is.”

It was a fairly accurate guess, in its own way.

They simply never dreamed that the person in question was someone they already knew.

* * *

I meant to sleep for an hour at the inn, but instead I slept for three straight hours.

Having newly discovered a flaw in the sleep system—that after waking at my designated time, I could simply fall asleep again—I knocked on the workshop door.

“Come in.”

As always, the door opened automatically and let me inside.

The person I’d expected to be angry because I was late was instead intensely focused on their work, with dark circles deeply etched beneath their eyes.

Several flasks that looked as though they belonged in a school laboratory and a bubbling pot made Meister look strangely like an alchemist.

Rustle.

I neatly folded the coat I’d taken off and set it on the table.

Meister, however, didn’t seem interested in it at all.

Apparently whatever they were working on right now was more important.

“Whew.”

Then, after a moment—

Meister finally pulled away from the reagent bottle after a long while and leaned back against the chair.

“Over there. Those need Mana.”

Several batteries were piled on another table.

Considering I had left the workshop at seven yesterday and had filled every battery Meister had made by then with Mana before leaving, the sight was fairly astonishing.

When did they even make all these?

Even considering that I was somewhat late today, there shouldn’t have been enough time.

…Did Meister stay up all night?

“Whew.”

Their movements also carried a far heavier sense of fatigue than anything I’d seen over the last few days.

As I filled the batteries with Mana, I looked at what Meister had been making.

Since it was inside reagent bottles, I couldn’t tell what any of it was.

Were they doing scientific research or something?

“I’m dying…….”

Well…

If they wanted to do it, then they could do it.

I sat down on the couch while watching Meister groan.

When I suddenly felt an irritated gaze on me, unsurprisingly, it belonged to Meister.

“I’m sleepy and hungry.”

The words were delivered in an extremely dry and matter-of-fact tone, almost as though Meister were looking down on me.

“I said I’m hungry.”

Thanks to that, I couldn’t understand what they meant on the first try.

I mean, Meister looked exactly like Stock Character Number One from a comic: the dazzling noble with germophobia and an obsession with etiquette.

How was I supposed to immediately reconcile that image with someone whining like a child?

My brain rejected the idea before it could even process it.

And then there was the actual content of what they’d said.

Sure, I understand that you’re hungry, but what do you want me to do about it?

Persona aside, you and I aren’t even close……

We aren’t close enough to have this kind of conversation……

“Did you use fatigue as an excuse to abandon your intelligence?”

I stared at Meister with an emotion half a step short of outright contempt.

I had done them favors several times, but that certainly didn’t mean I had become their errand boy.

“I’m not that far gone, so stop looking at me like that.”

And Meister knew that too.

They stopped whining.

“Let’s make a deal.”

Instead, they offered something else.

“Since you said you’re an Adventurer, perhaps calling it a request would be more appropriate?”

As though this had been the plan from the beginning, Meister’s next words were perfectly composed.

“Details.”

“Delivering goods.”

It was exactly the kind of side quest I liked.

That is to say—

peaceful, small-scale, and simple.

“I trust you won’t refuse simply because it’s trivial. Vulgar Adventurers who care only about lining their own pockets may pick and choose their requests, but surely someone of your caliber wouldn’t do that.”

Meister even catered to my persona’s pride.

They subtly provoked me so I couldn’t refuse while carefully avoiding saying it outright, eliminating even the option of turning around and responding with a forceful, So what?

“…A sly trick.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

“Just tell me what I’m delivering.”

As a result, refusing now would only make me look petty.

I irritably urged Meister onward—while internally rejoicing at the prospect of a nice little side quest.

“First, deliver those finished products to their respective clients. That’s the first task.”

But apparently the words “delivering goods” encompassed quite a bit, because Meister’s tone suggested the explanation was about to become somewhat longer.

“Every time you deliver a finished item, the client will pay the remaining balance. Take that money and buy the specified materials. That’s the second task.”

“Anything else?”

“Some of the materials you need to buy require secondary processing. Take those materials to the appropriate workshops and commission the processing. That’s the third.”

The fourth task, Meister concluded, was to bring the remaining materials back here.

It was simple, but I had a strong feeling I’d be running back and forth all over the place.

“Ah, this too. Take this bottle and letter to the castle. Give them to the gatekeeper under my name and they’ll handle the rest. It isn’t part of the commissioned goods, so you won’t receive any payment for it. You only need to deliver it.”

Hmm.

I should correct myself.

This wasn’t a feeling.

It was a certainty.

“For reference, I’d like everything finished before noon. My work is backed up right now, so I can’t research your equipment, but I think I’ll have small openings in the afternoon.”

There was even a time limit.

I hadn’t intended to put it off anyway, so whether a time limit existed or not made little difference, but Meister really did seem to live efficiently.

They’d even accounted for the fact that if I remained outside for too long, they wouldn’t be able to research my equipment.

“Payment.”

“Hmm. One hundred thous—”

One hundred thousand?

“…Two hundred thousand gal.”

Meister changed the amount under my unwavering stare.

Compared with the requests I’d handled so far, it seemed extremely low, but when I thought about it carefully, perhaps it wasn’t.

Actually, maybe it was even somewhat generous?

If I remembered correctly, the sewer-cleaning request had paid something like four or five hundred thousand.

That involved risking my life to hunt demons, whereas two hundred thousand for a simple delivery job wasn’t bad.

Probably.

“But if any goods are damaged, delivered to the wrong place, or lost in transit, you reimburse me.”

“That will not happen.”

“Fine by me.”

After saying that, Meister added one last thing.

“On your way back, buy some porridge from the inn you’re staying at.”

Right.

They said they were hungry.

Fair enough.