Chapter 78: Shady Contacts
Jonas kept an eye on his surroundings. While it was a small town, he was fortunate to have found a part of it that conducted shady business. While he'd mentioned to the others about him doing day labor, he never mentioned what kind of 'day labor.' While he'd never done any job that was out and out illegal, aside from a few minor points, most of the jobs he'd done were in the gray area of things. Where while it wasn't exactly 'wrong,' it wasn't eactly 'right' either.
However, his skills in that world were transferrable to other worlds, at least for the most part, as he knew some of what might be needed. Which also had helped him get his foot in the door in this world.
As such, he was working on mostly cultivating a source of information, including what was known about the surrounding area. Although, his first plan on this had been in mind of trying to learn first who might be trying to assassinate the king, but that had flown out the door with the knowledge of the goblins coming out of the dungeon.
In truth, Jonas had forgotten all about them and hadn't given the goblins any thought since they'd left the dungoen. After all, he hadn't expected that there might be a need for him to go back to the dungeon at all after they'd 'cleared' it.
So, as he approached the warehouse where the smugglers were operating, he was wondering how he should approach this. After all, he'd been pushing for information about the city where the king lived, but now he'd be asking about the surrounding area. In his experience, changes in inquiries like that often meant the person was thinking of setting up shop in the area, possibly as a rival. Which, of course, could get him on the bad side of the people he was trying to work with here.
The approach had to give them a reason that made sense and was believable enough that it wouldn't be questioned or ignored. Doubt was acceptable, as with shady dealings, there wasn't always a way to verify the reasons without actually getting into the fine details, which was always time consuming and often pointless. The truth would often get a person killed because of how outlandish the truth could turn out to be sometimes.
However, he couldn't accept that the truth in this case wouldn't be that outlandish. First, though, he would need to see what these people knew about goblins. If they didn't know anything, then it wouldn't matter what he said about goblins. As it could sound like excuses or worse. Yet, if they knew what goblins were, then they might be more willing to consider to possibilities of what he knew was coming.
"Back again already?" the guard at the door asked. "You know the boss hasn't had time to look into what you asked him last time."
Jonas nodded. "I figured he hadn't," he replied. "I came because I learned something that he might like to know about. Something that could ruin his entire operation here."