The brick-colored bar was filled with the smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and roasted meat. And there was a lot of noise.
The atmosphere of the bar was a little better than that of a cheap bar, and it was a place that defended its dignity and pride at the very least.
“Hey, Malcolm, come here, you too.”
“Sorry, I’m on patrol duty now. I’m going to have a drink to warm myself up and then I’ll be off.”
Malcolm declined the invitation of a friend who happened to be there, and took a seat at the counter facing the wall.
Malcolm Stride was a Noble Knight of Noacurio. The system of granting the rank of Knighthood to a professional soldier from a commoner’s background was the same as that of Ciel-Terra. He now belonged to the Transportation Corps, a unit in charge of logistics.
The job of the Transportation Corps was to support the troops who were going to the front line. Although it might have been misunderstood as a simple job, it was never an easy job as a Transportation Corps member who transported goods even in rain or snow, made purchases, and risked his life to escort supplies.
Even now, Malcolm’s unit was taking a break from bringing in supplies from Wesala, and it was not his lucky day to have to stand on patrol at a time like this. Although it was thought that the front line troops stationed in the city were setting up patrols anyway, so there was no need for the Transportation Corps to help out, but it seemed that doing so would hurt someone’s reputation somewhere along the line.
In a situation like that, the knight barons come in handy. The knights were sent out as on-site supervisors for the time being because they thought it would be a bad idea to let conscripts do the work alone.
Moreover, there was a complication at the moment.
For some reason, the purchasing of supplies suddenly went awry. Someone was buying up all the food and fodder…
Thanks to this, the Transportation captain was tense and the atmosphere in the corps was not good. The workload of the entire Transportation Corps increased as they were forced to go around to rural villages to buy food. And in the long run, they suffered further economic decline.
There was no shortage of material for sighing.
Malcolm arranged himself a cup of booze in a ceramic vessel, a huge piece of roasted meat on the bone, and a loaf of crummy bread that would only make his stomach growl. He was about to reach out for a quick bite to refuel when he heard the words,
“Can I sit next to you? Noacurio’s Soldier.”
Gliding through the crowded tavern, a lone girl came up next to Malcolm.
She was a girl about his age with a flamboyant, floaty atmosphere.
Her long honey-colored hair glistened in the warm lighting.
She was wearing light armor made of some kind of leather. A new recruit, no matter how fine the armor she wears, looks like she’s being covered by it, but her figure was magnificent, and she didn’t look like just a frail little girl. At the very least, she was the kind of person who would not mind coming to a tavern like this on her own.
“Hey, sweetie, are you an adventurer?”
“That’s right. Well, you know what I mean when I look like this. Cheers!”
The girl clinked her cup against Malcolm’s on her own.
“I feel like you’re working hard.”
“I’ve got to go to work now. I’ll be on guard duty all night. “
“Wow. I’ll have to warm up then. I’d like two servings of ‘fire-breathing soup’, please, old man!”
Malcolm was flustered by the girl’s order as she held out her wallet.
“Oh, hey, wait. Are you treating yourself?”
“No, no, no. I’m earning enough to buy soup for any soldier I happen to meet on a whim. You have to try this place’s ‘fire-breathing soup’.”
The girl didn’t seem to pay any mind.
If it had been a stranger, Malcolm might have been suspicious, but when it was a younger, pretty girl, he felt no doubt and harbored no ill will.
“I’m sorry, shall I treat you then?”
–I’ve been lucky enough to be on patrol duty on a day when I could take a day off in town, so I guess I’m allowed a bit of luck in exchange.
“I’d love to hear about your work, if you don’t mind… Oh, as much as you can tell me, of course. I’m sure the military has a lot of secrets.”
The girl smiled good-naturedly and poked the table with her fingertips three times, twice, playing with her hands.
*
At the same time, in a back alley near the bar.
While biting into a dried meat sandwich (which she had coaxed Tracy to buy with money) and holding a call mark to her ear, Panilla (René) noticed a signal from Tracy.
Panilla’s (René’s) emotional sensing abilities now had her in a perfect 30-meter radius. She knew where people were. To put them under such perception was tantamount to locking on to them as a target for magic.
The tapping of fingers indicated that the person talking with Tracy was the person to the right of him. Once identified, all that was left to do was to magically aim and shoot. It was that easy.
“…≪Truth Serum≫”
＊ ＊ ＊
“Oh, Princess, that was dangerous.”
Tracy, returning from ‘information gathering’, shrugged with a half-disgusted look on his face.
“Everything was spewed out with an unquestioning look on his face. Everything from where the supplies were stored to the current management system.”
Tracy cracked open the mouth of a Transportation soldier and got the information out of him.
In this case, Panilla (René) supported him by using magic remotely. The magic spell «Truth Serum» which was a mental magic to make the other party lose the ability to make judgments and answer the questions asked was used.
It was important not only to get information out of them, but also not to be suspicious of it. It was not good for people to remember the fact that they had obtained information.
Malcolm, who had been under the influence of magic, would have only an impressionistic memory of ‘having a nice chat with a girl he met by chance”.
Tracy was horrified by Panilla’s (René’s) magic, but she did not think this was solely her own achievement.
“I’m not all that strong. Magic that tampers with the mind tends to leave aftereffects, so keep it to weak magic that doesn’t leave traces,… and then it’s a matter of interrogation techniques.’
“I know. But «Truth Serum» doesn’t usually work like that.”
“…I’m rather curious about your mastery of the art of interrogating people under the influence of «Truth Serum».”
“Nyaha, I learned it a long time ago.”
Tracy was a little bit good at it.
René thought she was really lucky to have picked him up. He was even better than expected.
When it came to killing someone head-on, she was good at it, but when it came to attacking from behind, skill was more important than strength.
“I’ll report the results to the witch. The remaining investigation is the identity of the “Tentative name, the Holy Beastmaster”. … It’s not that this one is being kept secret, but it was simply the atmosphere of not being known. People are willing to talk about it, but they can’t get to the heart of it.”
“I wonder who it is…”
Panilla (René) recalled the strange emotional reaction she had when she was confronted by Morgana, the mysterious old white-robed woman.
She said something terribly insulting, but Morgana’s mind at that moment was in an inexplicable state of calm, as if it had been painted over with cheap white paint.
It was like a frozen stain, nothing like Lawrence’s hatred.
What could have made the heart of a person become like that?
–Well, I don’t know if I should even think about it. I’m more interested in what she can do and how we can get rid of her.
“Well, I’m going back to the orphanage because dinner will be ready soon.”
“Yes, take care.”
Panilla (René) stopped in her tracks when she heard the unexpected words.
Even though it was a standard greeting, there was no deception in Tracy’s mind when he said it.
“… I never thought I’d hear you say something so caring about me.”
It was unexpected.
Tracy was just forcibly caught and tied up with a magic item and made to obey.
It was rather obvious that he resented her, and there was no way he could have cared and worried about René.
Tracy scratched his honey-colored head, looking a little uncomfortable.
“I don’t have the obligation to care, but… It’s a different story when dealing with the enemies of a beautiful boy or girl. The temple head is really too good a person to infer the malicious intent of others, or … such a person is on the loose, you know. “
“They’re like pebbles in the road.”
She knew what Tracy’s concern was. If it were about a normal girl, it would be a valid concern, but Panilla (René) was not a normal girl by any stretch of the imagination.
He was a cleric, a p*rvert who couldn’t even use holy magic, and he was no threat.
“If he gets in my way, I’ll simply kick him to the curb and be done with it.”
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