Chapter 135: Misadventures of the rookie adventurer, part 4
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Translator: Denryuu; Editor: Ryunakama
After getting dressed, I saw Meiri and her escorts back to her room. As I turned around to leave, she tugged on my sleeve.
「Stay with me until I get sleepy.」
「When did you become so spoiled?」
「Just for today, okay?」
With her mother always busy, she probably felt lonely most of the time even with her escorts around. Lyla had gone off somewhere with Rodje in black cat form, most likely because she felt that Meiri was in safe hands with me around.
Meiri snuggled beneath the sheets of the king-sized bed and thumped its surface, gesturing for me to join her. I did the little princess’s bidding, occupying the space beside her with my lowly presence. Lying on my arm instead of a pillow, she closed her eyes.
「When will you settle down, Roland?」
「Hmm.」
I’ve never thought about it before, but I could very well be fighting till the end of time.
「Once my feet have been thoroughly cleansed of dirt, perhaps.」
「Didn’t we just have a bath?」
「Not literally… though I believe the fact that my feet are still stained keeps me going.」
Huh, she said. Her voice grew sleepier as we talked.
「Will your feet be clean once I turn fifteen…?」
「If only.」
Meiri rolled over to face me and pecked me on the cheek.
「A goodnight kiss for you. Lyla told me she does that a lot!」
「That Lyla… not exactly the best mentor out there.」
She turned her cheek towards me so that it would be easier for me to return the favour.
「Okay, fine.」
I did as she wanted.
「Welp… I’m wide awake now…」, said Meiri, sliding fully beneath the duvet and kicking her feet up and down.
Eventually, she calmed down and fell asleep after making some small talk. I climbed out of bed taking care not to wake her and left the room, letting the Pretty Girls’ Squad take over.
I returned to my room to find Dee inside.
「You need something?」
「There’s something I want you to see. Here…」
She handed me a tightly folded piece of paper.
「What’s this?」
「A letter from Bale-kun. He says he prepared some ‘bargaining tool’ in case anything happens to us, and hid it somewhere.」
I read through Bale’s letter. According to him, he had hidden an envelope under the mattress of the apartment in which he and Dee used to stay. Now that he had returned to his hometown safe and sound, he said that we could use the item he had prepared as we wished.
「Here it is. I went back to that apartment to take it」, said the vampire, passing me an envelope.
「Another letter…?」
Neither the addressee nor the sender could be determined by looking at it alone.
「A compulsive thief, that guy」, commented Dee. 「Went out of his way to steal it from his Guild Master’s office.」
Bale’s letter illustrated his process of obtaining the envelope. When he got hold of it, it was already open. However, he had been unable to decipher its contents. I took the letter out of the envelope and examined the envelope, but found nothing on it whatsoever.
「I think it’s just a letter that hasn’t been written in an envelope that hasn’t been sent. There’s absolutely nada written on it, not even a sender or an addressee」, commented Dee. 「That guy was always kind of a scatterbrain.」
But the envelope clearly shows signs of having been spit open…
The letter inside it contained traces of magic as well.
I used the entry-level fire spell ‘Match’ and held the flame beneath the letter, but to no avail. Even though we tried various methods to reveal the hidden message, it stubbornly refused to reveal its secrets.
「See, it’s just an ordinary piece of paper…」
Ignoring her utterance, I tried letting the moonlight fall on the letter. At long last, pale white words began to materialise.
「Ara-ara, maa-maa…」
「This seems to have been written in some sort of magic paint that reveals itself only in the presence of moonlight.」
Dee and I read the letter silently, and knew who it had been addressed to by the time we were halfway through it. It was without a doubt the Guild Master of Welger & Co. The sender hadn’t included his own name.
「I wonder who it’s from…」
I, for one, knew immediately who had sent it. He had sent it a few months ago too.
‘Requesting your assistance in the abduction of Amstel’s daughter’.
The only person not part of Welger & Co. who had been involved was Barbatos Guerrera, a noble from Ferland.
「The way the letter was sent and the method of encryption are typical of an assassin.」
Now that I think about it, the men tasked with watching Amstel and those sent to silence Bale had all seemed like assassins.
「He has connections with assassins. Maybe he’s part of the community… or even one himself…」
「For the sender to have taken so many precautions… why didn’t the Guild Master quickly dispose of this letter?」, asked Dee.
「Perhaps he doesn’t trust the sender fully.」
「So he’s leaving it as evidence?」
「Yeah. We don’t know whether it can be used as evidence or not, but better safe than sorry.」
The letter was long enough to warrant multiple pages, which we of course read through.
「Roland-sama… this…」
「Hmm…」
The rest of the letter contained nothing but incendiary phrases.
‘Provision of funds’… ‘expansion of military might’… ‘destruction of Ferland’… ‘methods to be taken to achieve that goal’… ‘noble comrades in arms’…
「This will rattle the very pillars of our Kingdom」, I said at last.
Barbatos Guerrera was pumping funds into Welger & Co. — this must be the source of the funds that Dee had heard about before. And the association would provide support for the baron.
The same Welger & Co. that had its sights on controlling the Principality of Vadenhaag itself.
「Most of the requests submitted to the underground guild are from the association. And assuming that the underground guild is doing so in order to recruit the cream of the underground crop…」
I could hear Dee swallowing hard.
「If we do nothing…」, she muttered.
「We’re on the brink of a civil war.」
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