Who was the busiest person in the mercenary guild?
The mercenaries who formed a sea of people every day as they wandered through the guild office in search of work?
The clerks who endured the pressure of mercenaries clamoring, “Please, give us work,” while finding and brokering mercenaries who perfectly matched each client’s requirements?
The mercenary captains who sometimes went so far as to grab those clerks by the collar while trying to maximize their mercenary company’s profits somehow?
No. All of them were wrong.
The busiest person in the mercenary guild, the one without a moment to open his eyes, was the office assistant who handled every bit of menial work inside the guild office.
“Old man, how many times have I told you to clear away this pile of wastepaper? If I’ve said it once or twice, shouldn’t you hurry up and get it done!”
“Yes, yes...... I will clear it right away.”
“Hey, old man! Make some new document forms over here and fill them in. Hurry, before the mercenaries start making a fuss because we can’t accept requests without forms!”
“Ah, yes.......”
“Old man, clean this up in front here. Maybe because two mercenary companies started brawling in the middle of a meal earlier, it’s turned into a complete mess.”
“Old man, is there anything to drink here? Bring me something cool. Ah, and clear away these empty cups too.”
“Old man, please take out the trash here. I’m so busy right now that I don’t have a hand free.”
“Hey, old man. It looks like water is leaking from the ceiling, so go up and fix it.”
“.......”
Clerks and mercenaries alike are working me to the bone as much as they please. While working busily without even a moment to sit his backside down anywhere, the old man grumbled inwardly. He was convinced that he was the busiest person in the mercenary guild.
The old man worked as an office assistant at the Yoyeong Guild Office, located in one corner of western Neuschrun, the kingdom’s capital. Office assistant was the title, but in truth, the old man’s role was that of an odd-job worker.
Perhaps because of that, the old man was almost never properly called by his name. Even though he had the perfectly proper name “Hans,” he was merely called things like “hey” or “old man,” treated as a being who did not even need to be properly recognized. It could not be helped. The old man was an odd-job worker who did menial tasks, and by nature, an odd-job worker was not important enough that one had to remember his existence.
Accordingly, there was no one who knew that the old man was secretly brokering shady requests such as assassination, kidnapping, and espionage. Even though they were requests that would turn the world upside down if even one of them became known, the old man’s faint presence meant they never rose to the surface. They merely circled inside the old man’s head and existed as points of pride for him alone.
Among them, there were two achievements the old man was most proud of. The request from eight years ago, in which the queen of this country had been assassinated under the guise of an accident, and the request from three years ago, in which the king had been poisoned to death with an unknown poison.
Of those, the queen’s assassination request was the first request the old man had brokered, and at the time, throughout the entire process, the old man had trembled in fear that “the moment I am discovered, I will meet a horrific death.” Especially because the queen had been politically skilled, had many friendly nobles, and had even received support from commoners through various relief policies. He knew that if the truth were revealed, people would not leave him alone.
However, even after quite a long time passed, the truth about the queen’s death was never revealed, and even now, eight years later, people merely knew that the queen had died in an unfortunate accident.
And so the old man was able to realize it. He had always thought himself insignificant, but in truth, he was a dangerous being known as “a power in the shadows.” He came to believe without a doubt that he was the one and only remarkable being capable of secretly handling every dark request in the world.
Of course, even the old man was not without the anxiety that “someday, everything may come to light, and I may suffer something horrific.” Yet it was also true that whenever he heard people say things like “someone died in an accident” or “someone’s whereabouts have become unclear,” without knowing anything at all, a thrill ran through him. It felt as though he had truly become “a power broker of the underworld.”
Then, through the request to assassinate the king three years ago, the old man came to look down on everyone in the world as beneath him. People believed the world was quiet and peaceful, but in truth, tremendous selfishness and damp, shadowy desires hid beneath it, and he thought that the reason those things could remain hidden was all thanks to his seasoned skill. Since the queen had died through his schemes, and now even the king had ended up the same way, it was only natural that the old man grew full of himself.
And so, the old man suddenly came up with this thought. For how long must a great figure like me be ignored while doing only menial work? Is it not about time I grow my own power, establish an assassins’ guild, and receive respect and awe as guild master?
Once his thoughts reached that point, the old man decided to recruit the useful ones among the mercenaries whose requests he had brokered until then. And as he began putting that thought into action, the old man realized something extremely surprising. It turned out that the mercenaries who had received requests brokered by him had all ended their lives not long after completing those requests, through accidental deaths, robberies ending in death, suicides, and the like.
When he first learned that fact, the old man could not help being greatly flustered. But he soon regained his composure. He himself had been living perfectly well for eight years without any mishap. Therefore, the mercenaries’ deaths must have had nothing to do with the requests he had brokered.
Tsk, for all that they have bodies like bears, how weak they are. Mocking the dead mercenaries, the old man made a decision. From now on, he would select and broker only mercenaries who were “selfish and conscienceless enough that no matter what mishap befell them, they would not die easily and would never even think of suicide,” then recruit them as his subordinates.
Before long, the old man discovered a mercenary who fit those conditions perfectly. He was a mercenary who had drifted into the guild office where the old man worked after the mercenary company he had belonged to for a long time suddenly disbanded. He was a bastard who had barely survived and escaped while the mercenary company that had accepted some lord’s insane request to “massacre the domain residents” in exchange for a magic scroll as payment was annihilated by those very domain residents.
He truly was a talent who fit the old man’s conditions perfectly. Not only was he conscienceless enough to accept a massacre request because he was blinded by wealth, he had even survived in the midst of annihilation. Thinking this was the one, the old man immediately decided to approach that mercenary. As it happened, one kidnapping request had just come in, so he even had a plausible excuse.
“What? What kind of work are you brokering? I have no intention of doing work that doesn’t pay.”
“That is a useless worry. No matter how little, you can receive at least this much.”
Declaring so, the old man explained that the payment promised by the client was about one hundred times the usual payment for a one-off request brokered by the guild office. Perhaps the enormous amount caught his interest, because only then did the mercenary drop his indifferent attitude and begin showing great interest.
“Is that true? The payment is that high?”
“It is. The request is simple too. All you need to do is take a little girl and abandon her in the forest. Do not worry about trouble afterward. They say she is an orphan with no kin, with no parents and no backing, so there should be no issue.”
“Hm, if that is the case....... Fine. I will try it.”
After the mercenary accepted like that, the old man took the mercenary to the royal forest spread out near Neuschrun. When the king had been alive, hunting tournaments had often been held there, but after the king’s death, it had been neglected, and now no one approached it, making it a fitting place for a secret meeting.
After they waited for some time in a hunter’s cabin located deep in one corner of that forest, a carriage soon came racing toward the two and stopped. A middle-aged woman and a little girl got out of the carriage. Both were wearing robes made of luxurious material, but they did not seem to be mother and daughter.
Then they must be the client’s errand woman and the target to be abandoned. Thinking that, he examined the girl for a moment, and then the two of them were startled. Because the girl’s appearance greatly resembled the most famous appearance in the kingdom.
The girl’s hair was perfect platinum blond, without a single mottled patch, and her eyes were blue with a faint jade hue. And that was also the “royal symbol” possessed by those born with a thick concentration of royal blood.
“Hey, old man. Did you not clearly say she was an orphan with no kin and no backing? How does that look like an orphan with no kin and no backing to you? No matter how I look at her, she looks like a precious person who would cause great trouble if we touched her carelessly.”
“Th-That is true, but.......”
While troubled, the old man felt a strange ecstasy. It was because he realized that after assassinating the king and queen, he would now even assassinate their precious only daughter. Thinking that another achievement would be added to the record of himself, “a power in the shadows,” naturally made the old man swell with pride.
And so, struggling to suppress his excitement, the old man looked with satisfaction at the sacrifice for his achievement. The little girl was whining to the woman with a somehow disappointed look.
“Where’s my brother? You said my brother came to see me. That’s why I came, so why are those people here?”
“Do not worry, Your Majesty. They are guides. They will guide you to where he is.”
“Really? Those people will take me to my brother?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
As the woman nodded like that, she took a small bottle from her chest and handed it to the little girl. The bottle contained a black liquid that was steaming faintly.
“Please drink this before you follow them. It is tea that warms the body and prevents you from catching cold. He will not worry if Your Majesty does not fall ill.”
“Okay. My brother always worries about me, so I have to do well.”
Nodding with a somehow resolute face, the little girl drained the liquid in the bottle in one go. Gulp, gulp. The thick, pitch-black liquid vanished down her small throat.
After watching that sight indifferently for a moment, the woman glanced at the mercenary and spoke to the old man.
“Is that the mercenary who will carry out this request?”
“Yes, yes...... that he is.”
“It would be troublesome if he is someone who does foolish things behind the scenes. You know that, yes?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
The old man smiled broadly and nodded confidently. It was a smile that meant there was nothing to worry about, since he planned to recruit this mercenary after this request anyway. Whether he did or not, the woman merely muttered to herself, “It will soon no longer matter anyway,” and turned toward the little girl.
“Your Majesty, have you finished drinking?”
“Yes. But is this really tea? It tastes very strange.”
“It is medicinal tea.”
After taking the empty bottle from the little girl’s hand as she frowned deeply and said, “Even so, it tastes too bad,” the woman replied briefly. Then she gave the old man and the mercenary a look and lightly pushed the little girl’s back.
“Now, you may follow those two.”
“They’re really taking me to my brother?”
The woman did not answer. Instead, she merely urged the old man and the mercenary to hurry and take the little girl away.
How long had they walked through the forest with the little girl like that? The old man and the mercenary encountered two attackers.
“Let that child go. If you do, I will at least spare your lives.”
A young man with the same platinum blond hair as the little girl and emerald eyes blazing with killing intent, pointing his sword at them.
“Uh, w-wait......! I still have something to think abou— Aagh?! No, Master! Why now, of all times......!”
And a boy who had hurriedly followed after the young man, pulled out the grimoire hanging at the back of his waist, opened it, and screamed.