Chapter 97
A small bar in Kairan, the city of adventure.
The tidy little nook stood out for being free of the stale stenches and screams of rotting wooden furniture that characterized any other bar. However, the bar was rarely open, as if it had no business, and it was rather unusual for its old owner who ran the bar alone without any help.
Nevertheless, its shelves were stocked with many kinds of alcohol unlike other small bars, and people wearing ornate clothes were regulars, making the bar a secretly popular spot. The old butterfly-shaped sign out front was praised for being antique.
It was the sort of hole-in-the-wall restaurant that could be found in any city, except that the place was rumored to have been overrun by gangsters looking to shake down their targets and had, at some point, vanished off the map.
That was why no ordinary person in the city knew of it.
The small bar was one of the branches of Psyche, a well-known information guild in the central region of the continent. The occasional visitor to the place was typically one who came to buy information.
Even the city’s popularity was a product of their manipulation and maneuvering.
Two men occupied one of the underground chambers there, in Psyche’s building.
One was the owner and bartender of another, more renowned bar, and the other was an old man with a white beard and a thick waist. The latter wore an outfit stained with a tinge of red, and held an old cane in one hand. His expression, filled with a certain sense of duty, made him look dubious of his conversational partner.