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I Will Save You – Part 01

Through sheer coincidence, Hikaru stumbled upon the knights guarding Count Morgstadt’s mansion in the temple.

I need more information.

“Either way, she’s getting transported to the capital. Our job is done.”

“Bullshit. Is that why you came to the temple? To repent?”

“Not at all. We only did our jobs.”

“And I’m saying that’s bullshit.”

“Hikaru?” someone called from behind.

He jumped about five centimeters from surprise.

She was wearing a bright green dress tied at the waist with a leather strap. On her collar was a gorgeous beige scarf, and she was carrying a white bag. It was Freya in her casual attire.

“I didn’t expect to see you here. Wait, were you actually following me? You shouldn’t do that.”

“You’re the one who called out to me.”

Hikaru followed the knights with his gaze until they disappeared into the crowd. It was too dangerous to chase after them now. If he wanted to get more information, he could just sneak into the Count’s manor again, which he could do later.

The Adventurers’ Guild should know something.

Freya said that the guild was inquired about the incident.

“Are you free at the moment?” Hikaru asked. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

---

“Can I really order anything?” Freya asked, hiding half her face behind the menu.

“Yes. Go ahead. It’s my treat.”

“Are you sure? I’m gonna order…”

“I said it’s okay.”

Freya had led Hikaru to an open terrace café.

“Okay, then! Excuse me, I’ll have a molasses peach parfait and reishi mushroom tea!”

“What?!”

Studying the menu, Hikaru’s eyes widened. What are these prices?! The lunch he bought from a food stall cost 30 gilans.

“Oh, sh-should I order something cheaper?” Freya said.

“I-It’s okay. I don’t like sweet food, so I’ll just have some water. You can order whatever you want.”

Freya hummed to herself.

This was a give-and-take. A little bit of expenditure was fair.

It should be easier to get answers from her if she’s in a good mood.

“Now, then. I have two questions,” Hikaru began.

“What?”

“What do you mean, “what”? I told you I wanted to ask you something.”

“R-Really? I see… I thought that was only an excuse to invite me for tea.”

I get it, Hikaru thought. She’s used to people asking her out.

“I thought it was strange for you to ask me out for tea out of the blue,” Freya said.

“I-I’m sorry…”

“It’s fine. Providing information to beginners is all I’m good for anyway.”

Oh, no. Her eyes were going blank.

“Y-You can order some more if you want.” Hikaru quickly showed her the menu.

“Excuse me, a green apple pie too, please.”

She ordered more without a shred of hesitation. More gilans out the window. Hikaru wasn’t sure why he said that, but he convinced himself that it was better this way. That he made the right move.

“So what did you want to ask about?”

“Right. It’s about Unken. He’s the guildmaster, isn’t he?”

Hikaru set aside Count Morgstadt’s murder for later.

“Did he tell you that himself?”

“He insisted he was only an assessor.”

“He’s an assessor, then. He’ll chew me out if I say anything.”

“In other words, he has that much power over you. So he is the guildmaster. Plus you said it yourself. The guild doesn’t have any other staff.”

“Oops. Did you want to know who the guildmaster was?”

“No, that’s not it. How do I put it… He looks quite capable. What kind of a person is he?”

“I only heard rumors,” Freya prefaced. “Usually it’s skilled adventurers that are appointed as guildmasters. But I heard that Sir Unken wasn’t an adventurer. Apparently, he was working for a more public institution.”

Unken himself basically said that those with assassination-type Skills did not form parties. That didn’t apply to pure spies, of course.

“But after finishing a huge job there, he retired and worked for the Adventurers’ Guild.”

“Hmm… What kind of a job was it?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this,” Freya said, pointing at the menu.

It was something called a Twin Tornado Juice and cost a whopping 150 gilans.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Hikaru regretted paying three nights in advance. He should’ve also at least taken the payment for the meat and hide, which amounted to 7,500 gilans.

There were some fine notes under the mysterious juice, but he didn’t feel like reading them.

“Can I?! Really?! Like really, really?!”

“A man doesn’t go back on his words,” Hikaru said.

“Hurray! I’ve always wanted to try this one.”

She mentioned something about how only a man and woman could order it, but Hikaru ignored it. He didn’t care about the juice; he just wanted more information.

“So anyway. Please continue.”

“Ah, right. You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You promise? If you tell anyone, I’ll secretly place a penalty on your guild card.”

“I promise. Wait, you can do that?! You better not!”

“Sir Unken was probably…” Freya lowered her voice. “…a spy or assassin working directly under the king. I think.”

“I see. And?”

“…”

“Hello?”

“I expected a better reaction. I was really nervous, you know.”

“I mean, I imagined that was the case. So how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“Well…”

A waiter brought the syrup peach parfait, and Freya started on it. It was jellified peach, apparently made entirely of nectar. It was cut into cubes and dressed in fresh cream. Just looking at it made Hikaru’s mouth sweet.

The reishi tea, on the other hand, looked just like the green tea in Japan.

“They say Sir Unken came to the guild around fifty years ago,” Freya continued.

“That was a long time ago, huh?”

“Yes. He finished this huge task at his previous job a little over fifty years ago as well.”

Hikaru nodded, urging her to continue.

“That was around the time when Ponsonia’s neighboring country, the Quinbrand Empire, had someone else succeed to the throne. Before then the Emperor was Balzard, a tyrant. Rumors say he was assassinated.”

“…”

“Apparently, Emperor Balzard declared that he was going to destroy Ponsonia. At that time the kingdom was weak from an outbreak of plague. There’s no doubt that Ponsonia wanted to assassinate Balzard the most.”

“So all the circumstantial evidence fit the theory perfectly.”

“Yeah. But that’s not all. Once when I delivered some documents to Sir Unken’s office, I saw an old note on his desk. It was a thank-you letter from His Majesty the King. He left it there when he went out for a bit and came back right as I took a quick peek at it. I couldn’t ask him about it. He was fuming, like, ‘Did you see it?!’ It was terrifying.”

Freya quivered. She looked like a Chihuahua.

“There are only a few cases where a king would personally send a thank-you letter to someone,” Hikaru said. “Usually it would be the prime minister, agency heads, or an aristocrat. Generally, a king would only send a letter of appreciation to someone who accomplished a significant feat during wartime.”

“Exactly! Wait, why do you even know that?”

“I had a friend who was a noble.”

He wasn’t lying. He got that from Roland’s knowledge.

“If your guess is correct, then Unken is a hero who saved the kingdom,” Hikaru said.

“Yeah. Isn’t that amazing?” After finishing the parfait, Freya dug into the green apple pie next. “Hmm! Delicious! Nothing beats stress like sweet food!”

“I-I’m glad you’re happy.”

I don’t think I can finish all that on my own.

A national hero, huh? With those Skill levels? Fifty years ago means he was 161 years old. Did his knowledge and experience come into play? I’ve allocated more points to my Stealth-related Skills than Unken. Does that mean I’m fit to be an assassin? And I can assassinate even an emperor? That’s crazy.

Hikaru thought that if he knew how strong Unken was, he could gauge his own level as well. But now he was just getting more and more confused.

“All right. I have one more question.”

“Ask away. Oh, but you can’t ask about my address, okay?”

Freya was now welcoming questions; eating sweet food seemed to brighten her mood.

“I’m not gonna ask you that.”

“What? You’re not?”

“Do you want me to ask or not? Well, whatever. What I wanted to ask is…”

Hikaru hesitated for a moment, then decided to just get straight to the point.

“I heard the culprit behind Count Morgstadt’s murder has been arrested.”

Freya’s hands froze in the middle of cutting the pie with a knife.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Some people were talking about it.”

“No, no, no, that’s impossible! Like I said before, this case is highly classified!”

“And the culprit is a young girl.”

This time Freya was speechless, her mouth agape.