Chapter 145 : Chapter 145
Chapter 145: Time and Legend (1)
Of course, I quickly caught her again.
“I don’t let go of a Companion once I’ve caught them, Ibi.”
“──?!”
She must have forgotten in her haste, but Ibi was still wearing the ‘Ring’ on her finger.
As long as that was the case, no matter where Ibi hid, I could find her quickly.
Although, she wasn't exactly hiding tucked away in a corner, either.
“H-how, already!?”
Ibi, who was probably stuffing her mouth full of skewered meat she bought from a street vendor, froze the moment she saw us.
I tapped the ring on my finger, which was flashing brightly toward Ibi, emphasizing my victory in the short game of ‘Cops and Robbers,’ and.
“──Ah.”
Only then did she realize her mistake(?) and immediately tried to pull the ring off her finger and throw it on the ground.
Yet, the fact that she couldn't actually throw it away, only trembling her fist, was so Ibi-like.
I naturally received the skewer that had been in her hand—or rather, I lightly took it before she could drop it—bit into it, and asked nonchalantly.
“You’re not going to throw it away?”
“Because the enchantment would be a waste! You bastard!”
Ibi finally yelled, then instead of throwing the ring in her hand, she sighed and slipped it back onto her finger.
Then, as if to vent her frustration, she snatched the skewer roughly from my hand and took a huge bite.
But for some reason, she flinched again mid-bite, and the enthusiastic chewing motion of her mouth began to slow.
Ibi's face, staring at the skewer which was already nearly half gone despite being completely new just moments ago, was slightly flushed, as if another wave of tipsiness had hit her belatedly.
“Are you feeling very tired? Do you just want to rest alone?”
“No, I'm fine!”
When I asked, seeing her condition, Ibi immediately brushed me off, as if my concern was unnecessary.
“You’re not going to run away again, are you?”
“…I won’t run, you idiot.”
She muttered irritably at my teasing question, then shoved the remaining half of the skewer entirely into her mouth.
***
Logan said that a great commotion had occurred in Tiaria while we were away in Krom.
The corpse of Don Paulo, whom Kain had ‘executed,’ was discovered.
As a result, with the throne officially vacant, the cartel forces, as feared, split and began fighting a civil war.
Therefore, the Kapers of Tiaria, including Logan, were busy cleaning up the mess.
By preemptively sweeping up the organizations, for example, to prevent their conflicts from spreading to ordinary citizens as much as possible.
But unfortunately, this city was rotten to its core.
The cartels that began to spring up everywhere like mushrooms from the ‘King’s’ corpse were only a part of it.
The reason Don Paulo could act like the king of the underworld was because of the city's true rulers—the great nobles—who had either condoned him or outright joined hands with him all along.
Even if it was through a misguided method, there was a reason Ibi wanted to use war to collectively behead them and overhaul the city.
And it was also true that, short of such an extreme measure, there was virtually no way to bring them down overnight.
They still held power and were the owners of this city.
Therefore, as long as they existed, even with Don Paulo and the Kain who backed him gone, the ‘cartel’ would never disappear.
They always needed people to dirty their hands on their behalf so that their own hands would always appear clean.
This is why, unlike the other cities we had visited—Stout or Daian—in Tiaria, we could receive a token of alliance from the Kapers based here, but not an alliance with the city itself.
The rulers of this city were fundamentally incapable of standing with the ‘Champion.’
They were the type who were targets for overthrow, not people to join hands with.
So, the chaos would likely continue for some time.
Logan, who was well aware of this fact, said.
“But please do not worry. We will take care of the chaos in this city.”
Fortunately, not all the soldiers in Tiaria existed to protect those rotten great nobles.
Thanks to this, the Kapers, along with the City Guard members they usually cooperated with, had already succeeded in wiping out some of the organizations that had split off from the Tiaria Cartel.
Therefore.
“Please defeat the Demon King.”
He asked us to trust them.
As if he firmly believed that if we could save countless lives by going all the way to Krom, we could surely stop the threat of the Demon King as well.
“Of course.”
I answered confidently.
That was the plan from the beginning.
And to do that, thorough preparation was required.
Naturally, good equipment was one of those things.
So.
“Wow—”
We went to see Nero.
Not the usual place we visited—a cluttered warehouse converted into a shop, tucked away in an obscure alley.
“There are so many strange tools…!”
But the new ‘workshop’ she had set up thanks to the investment funds.
Miki, whose eyes automatically lit up at anything new or strange, was naturally captivated by the workshop's interior, which was on a completely different level from last time.
“The Ria Merchant Company prepared things quite thoroughly…”
Even Toric was impressed.
“Are you here, Ms. Nero?”
“──Aha! Oh, oh, everyone!?”
However, the moment she saw us.
“W-w-welcome── Guwek!?”
Ms. Nero's customer service(?) remained the same: she flopped down on the floor in a bow, making one wonder how she could fall so spectacularly every time we saw her.
And then Miki and Lily, startled, rush to help her up—this far is the template.
But truly, even though the environment wasn't narrow and cluttered with things like the old warehouse, making it impossible to trip over anything, her determination to trip over her own feet if there was nothing else was respectable.
There are some people who don’t change even if their location does.
Did she have a Hidden Trait like 'First Action when greeting a customer is always a Critical Failure?'
“Your new workshop is splendid.”
At my compliment, Ms. Nero, helped up by the two, scratched the back of her head and smiled shyly.
“T-thanks to all of you, I got a nice workshop. The person from the Merchant Company was very kind to me…”
She said they provided a spacious location, all the tools and materials she requested, and even things she had forgotten to ask for.
“A-and, I no longer have to meet customers separately; I can just focus on crafting here… Hehehe.”
Ms. Nero, who was smiling, seemingly very pleased with the latter part.
“Aha! B-b-but of course, if it’s you all, you’re welcome anytime…!”
She belatedly added, worrying unnecessarily that we might have taken her words the wrong way.
“I’d like to… welcome you.”
Even that was spoken in a progressively timid voice, offering an answer utterly devoid of conviction.
To be frank, such a Ms. Nero would be an easy target for opportunistic merchants to exploit.
Her skill is genuinely too good, but her other abilities… especially her communication skills, are so catastrophically low that she’d likely just agree to whatever they proposed.
Above all, she has almost no avarice and barely cares how much money she makes, and even if she were starving, she'd be unable to properly complain due to the communication issues mentioned earlier.
That's why I connected her with the Ria Merchant Company.
Since they were in a cooperative relationship with the apostles of justice, they were at least people who did business in a ‘decent’ manner.
She wouldn't be exploited.
Even if they tried, since I was involved in the contract, I could check on it myself.
However, just in case, I specifically asked Logan to keep an eye on things before we left for Krom.
In short, she was now also in a cooperative relationship with Kapers.
The Kapers had no reason to refuse cooperation with Ms. Nero, an expert whose skill could even completely erase the 「Slave Brand」.
“Um, um, more importantly, what brings you here today…”
“Ah, I was wondering if you had any new Artifacts you'd crafted recently.”
“…Aha!”
At the mention of wanting to see her new creations, Nero's face lit up again.
“I-I actually made some things, hoping to give them to all of you next time you visited…!”
It was as if she had been waiting for that very question.
She then asked us to wait a moment and went off somewhere, only to.
“Thank you for waiting── Whoaaaa!?”
Nearly trip and fall again, hurrying back with a box so large it almost obscured her vision.
Miki, who had been watching her movements with apprehension from the start, quickly caught her this time before she could fall.
“Are you alright, Ms. Nero?”
“Ah… Th-thank you, Sir Knight…!”
“…!”
Miki, who seemed slightly touched by the title Sir Knight, mumbled, “A-as a Knight, I only did what was natural…,” and looked bashful—a truly gratifying sight.
“O-oh dear!?”
That was until Ms. Nero belatedly realized that the box in her hands had flown out during the near-fall.
The box was thankfully caught by Ibi, who was standing in front.
More accurately.
“Hey, you son of a…”
Ibi, who had been talking to me and hadn't been looking, felt something flying at her, quickly turned her head, and was immediately hit in the face by the box.
So, 'caught' might not be the right word; it might be more accurate to say it naturally landed in Ibi's hands.
“Hiiieeeek…!!”
For Ms. Nero, who was already intimidated by Ibi's naturally sharp—thuggish—demeanor, the look of her slightly furrowed brows, which was not a misunderstanding this time but a genuine expression of annoyance, must have been a terror too great to face rationally.
In the end, despite Miki's support, Ms. Nero simply slumped down in place, trembling violently and flattening herself even more than when she first tripped.
“P-p-please, just spare my life…”
Along with a submissive plea that she would do anything we asked.
“Why are you harassing her again, Ibi…”
“I, I'm the victim here!?”
Ibi complained with a very wronged expression, and while she was technically the aggrieved party, anyone unfamiliar with the situation would clearly see Ms. Nero groveling before a thug who had come to collect payment and failed to meet the quota.
It seemed she wasn't that hurt by the box, and more importantly, Ibi's personality wouldn't allow her to vent her anger on someone who was groveling like this, so she eventually sighed briefly and 'forgave' her, telling her to get up.
“So? What are all these?”
When she asked, looking down at the box in her hands, Nero sprang up with an "Aha!" and courageously began to speak again.
“Th-these are things I made to express my gratitude to all of you for setting up such a wonderful workshop for me…!”
In other words, a box filled with Legendary-grade Artifacts.