Chapter 32: A Request and the Swindlers

“I beg you! Please accept this quest!”

“Like I said, I can’t do that due to guild regulations.”

That was the conversation that made its way into our ears as we entered the guild.

The voices themselves belonged to a receptionist and an unfamiliar man, who was talking quite loudly, obviously rather upset about something.

“But there’s a reward! Just have them defeat as many monsters as the reward can cover then!”

“We cannot accept such an irregular request.
We received a report that both the ranks and numbers of the monsters that appeared near your village are all over the place, and we can’t have people subjugating monsters only below a certain rank either, since there will still be higher-ranked monsters there.
And as per guild regulations, we will not accept any requests where the reward can’t be paid!”

It seemed like the man was in quite the bind.

In the end, the man left heartbroken at having been unable to do what he had wanted to.

“Excuse me, did something happen?”

Liliella-san asked the receptionist the man had argued with.

“Ah, no, it’s nothing major, I was just telling him that we can’t host a request if he doesn’t have enough money to pay the reward.”

“What kind of job was it? He looked rather distraught.”

“Well, he’s the chief of a village near here, and he wanted to make a request to kill some monsters that have been laying waste to the fields there.”

“It shouldn’t be that expensive of a request then, though? I’d get it if it were near the Forest of Magic Beasts or something, but you only need a D-Rank at most to guard a normal village, don’t you?”

“Normally, yes, but the number of monsters near the royal capital has increased by a lot lately.
There was a Kaiser Hawk near here that was subjugated, wasn’t there? Maybe they have something to do with each other, maybe not, but high-levelled monsters have been moving in closer and closer to human settlements.”

“They’re also going near the village of that person?”

“Yes, and apparently there are high-ranked monsters mixed in among them.
He’s asked for requests before, and he was able to pay us then, but it seems like they’ve become short on money lately, making requests rather difficult to submit.
And since the amount they could pay has fallen under the minimum designated by the guild, we couldn’t accept the request.”

“…That’s terrible…”

Now that I think about it, I have certainly heard rumours of there being an unnaturally large number of monsters near the royal capital lately, which must cause other villages and towns nearby quite a lot of harm.

And if the client can’t hold up their end of the offer, the adventurers’ guild won’t accept the request either.

The problem wasn’t that they didn’t accept the request.

Many species of monsters attacked humans.

And so, not only was there the possibility of them destroying fields or killing livestock, they might even attack humans.

And if that came to be, the villagers would have no choice but to abandon their village to protect themselves.

Ah, I see now.
So then Liliella-san…

“Sorry, Rex-san, I’m going to be doing something else today.”

Saying that, Liliella-san left the guild.

“Kyuu?”

The furball made a sound as if asking what I would do.

“We’re going with her, of course.”

Leaving the guild, I ran after Liliella-san.

“Please wait for meeee, Liliella-san.”

“R-Rex-san!? Why are you following me!?”

She was surprised by me going with her.

“But, you’re going to the village of the man from earlier, right?”

“Why do you think that?”

The real question is why wouldn’t I think that, but whatever.

“He reminded you of yourself, didn’t he.”

“!?”

Or to be more accurate, it had made her remember the time when her village had been unable to make a request at the guild and had been forced to abandon their village.

And thus, Liliella-san couldn’t turn a blind eye to that village chief’s troubles.

“…You’re right.
‘S why I became an adventurer in the first place.”

So she could save her family, take back her home, and never betray anyone in need of help.

“Yeah, protecting people in need of aid is the kind of adventurer you want to be.”

“…Yeah.”

“On a different note, where the heck has that guy gotten to?”

“Uhh, now that you mention it…”

We had completely lost sight of the village chief.

If we didn’t find him, we wouldn’t be able to help him.

“Kyuu!”

The furball, which until then had been happily lying on top of my head, suddenly jumped off.

It then hit my chest and barked? as if to say ‘follow me!’

“You can find him by his smell?”

“Kyuu!”

The furball yapped proudly.

“Alright, we’ll leave it to you then!”

“Kyuuuu!”

♦ ♦

“There he is! That person over there!”

We ran through the city, guided by the furball, eventually spotting the village chief some ways ahead of us.

“Hey you ove-”

“Wait!”

I stopped Liliella-san from running up to the village chief.

“Eh!? W-what?”

So she hadn’t noticed then.

“Look, those three people over there.
Aren’t they tailing him?”

“Uhhh?”

Indeed, there were three men a bit further behind him.

They were just strolling around chatting at first glance, but whenever the village chief turned a corner, they did so too.

See, they literally just did it.

“Eh? Are they thieves!?”

Liliella-san said worriedly.

But the royal capital was a large place, so the probability of stumbling across some kind of crime like this wasn’t all that low.

But still, this felt a bit different.

“Hmm, how do I put this, they don’t really give off the vibes of people who’re about to commit a crime, do they…”

“Now that you say that, it does indeed look like that…!?”

Liliella-san, who had been closely inspecting the three men, gasped.

“No way… it’s them! It’s definitely them!”

Liliella-san tried to run towards them all of a sudden, making me have to hurriedly stop her.

“Hey, what’s up with you all of a sudden!?”

“It’s them!”

“What, who!?”

Liliella-san pointed at them.

“It’s them! They’re the fake adventurers that tricked us!”

“Eeeeh!?”

No way, those three were the fake adventurers that caused Liliella-san’s village’s destruction!?

“A-are you sure!? They don’t just look similar!?”

“It’s definitely them! They’re wearing different clothes and they’ve aged a little, but it’s unmistakably the fakes who tricked us!”

Saying that, Liliella-san tried to run at the again.

“Let me go! We have to catch them!”

“Even if you catch them now, you’d have no proof! And if you get violent with them here, you’re the one who’ll be arrested!”

“But they’re definitely trying to trick him too! Like they did to us!”

“!”

Ah, I see.
She wanted to have them captured because she didn’t want the same thing that happened to her to happen to the village chief and his village, not just because they had tricked her village in the past.

“…Then, that’s even more of a reason not to catch them right now.”

“So you’re saying we should just watch as he gets scammed!?”

“Exactly!”

“Huh!?”

Her eyes went round as if saying ‘what the heck are you saying!?’

“Okay, listen here.
If we catch them now, they won’t have committed any crime yet, so the guards wouldn’t have any grounds to keep them under lock and key.
So, if you want to catch them, it has to be after they’ve gone to the village chief’s village and accepted the request.”

“…I-I guess you have a point.”

Listening to my explanation, she finally realized how rashly she had been acting, her face red from all the blood that had rushed to her head.

“So we’ll tail them all the way to the village chief’s village.”

“Can we really follow them? If there’s nowhere to hide on the highway outside, they’ll find us.”

Mhm, it seemed like her wits have finally returned.

“It’ll be fine.
I have an idea for what happens once we get out of the royal capital.”

♦ ♦

Having left the royal capital, we followed the three men following the village chief.

The men following the village chief went from shadow to shadow so they wouldn’t be noticed by the village chief.

They were also constantly looking around, making sure nobody saw them.

“So, what are we going to do now?”

Liliella-san asked me while we were hiding in a patch of shade.

If we continued like this, we would probably be found out.

“I guess it’s about time then.
Hey, furball, c’mere.”

“Kyuu!”

The furball jumped up on my head.

“Liliella-san, please hold my hand.”

“O-okay.”

She took my hand, her face reddening a bit.

Making sure they were both in physical contact with me, I activated a magic.

“Invisible Field!”

We were all covered in a light purple light.

“Eh? What’s this!?”

Liliella-san said in surprise.

“Let’s go!”

“Eh?”

Still holding Liliella-san’s hand, I began walking down the highway.

“Hey, we’ll be spotted if we get too close!”

“It’s fine, watch.
Heeey, you over there!”

I shouted at the three men hidden in the shadows.

“Hey!? What are you doing!”

Liliella-san said, panicking.

However, the men didn’t react at all, as if they hadn’t even heard me in the first place.

“Eh!? H-how!?”

Surprised by the fact that the men didn’t react at all, Liliella-san looked at me with a confused face.

“You did something, didn’t you!?”

Fufufu, indeed I did.

“Yees.
This is the effect of the stealth magic known as Invisible Field.
Once you activate this magic, the user and anyone in direct contact with them won’t be noticed by the people around them.”

“Eeh!? What the hell!? Magic like that exists!?”

“They won’t hear you even if you shout.
Also,”

Pulling Liliella-san along, I went up to the three men.

“A good day to you!”

I waved my free hand in front of one of them, but they didn’t react at all.

“they won’t notice you even if you’re right in front of them like this.
As long as we don’t actually touch them, they won’t notice us.”

“N-no way…”

Liliella-san stared at them dumbfounded.

“What the hell, with magic like this, you can do whatever you want without being noticed, the world’s quite literally your oyster!”

“Well, it has a bunch of limitations too though.
Ah, right, the magic won’t affect you if you’re not touching me, so please don’t let go of my hand.”

“O-okay.
Alright… wait, so we have to keep holding hands the whole time until we get to the village!?”

Hmm? I don’t know why, but her face just reddened a lot.

“So, let’s go to the village with these people.”

“…Going on a trip together with evildoers in order to catch them feels rather weird.”

And like that, the five of us tailed the village chief all the way to his home.