Danmachi : Strongest Supporter

Maybe once he started operating the café—or once he ran it well—the mission would naturally yield some progress, some kind of lead?

For that reason—who could ever have pictured it—a killer like him had spent the three days before opening receiving dessert training.

"Should be about done now."

Nanashu muttered to himself as he drew a whole tray of crème caramel from the oven, studied the state of the puddings for a moment, then transferred them all into an ice bucket.

A café obviously couldn't get by on coffee alone—desserts were one of its essential signature draws too.

And not just that: there were cold treats like ice cream to consider as well.

...

Elsewhere, Gin had taken up her post too.

In the back kitchen of a barbecue joint, she'd become a—glorious—prep cook.

At present, lined up before her were five whole cattle and five whole pigs.

Her task was to break these entire carcasses down.

"Hyah!"

Gin swung a cleaver the size of a serving platter, and with a single stroke lopped a pig's head clean off.

Another stroke split the head open; with deft turns of the blade she sliced off the ears, then lifted the neck meat away whole and set it aside on its own.

Compared with killing people, butchering meat was nothing—child's play, really.

It was just... she was a girl, for crying out loud, and they'd stuck her here doing this?!

'You've got to be kidding me!'

'And who's even the target of this mission?! What's "undercover" supposed to mean?! Don't tell me this place is run by the Revolutionary Army? Honestly, none of it makes any sense!'

Tsukushi, by contrast, had no real complaints about the work.

It was only that Gozuki's death had hit her quite hard—otherwise, given her temperament, she'd surely have struck up a decent rapport with the flower shop's other staff in no time.

Because when she'd been introduced at the shop, they'd mentioned that her father had only just passed away that day, all the others there were deeply sympathetic and gave her no trouble at all.

Every one of them harbored some grievance, to a greater or lesser degree, about their assignments. But all of that, too, was well within Noah's expectations.

Cornelia, dressed in a nun's habit, watched over the orphans the convent had taken in—surrounded on all sides by little children.

Fortunately, as the eldest-sister type, she didn't find caring for kids the least bit tiresome, and so she kept them patient company.

...

Guy was the only one who managed to stir up trouble on the very first day of his assignment.

"Newbie—patrol time! Seeing as it's your first day, I'll show you a few good spots."

An old soldier, already reeking of liquor first thing in the morning, gave Guy a hard slap on the shoulder.

Reading the situation, Guy realized the man wanted him to lower himself a little, so he bent slightly at the waist, knees dipping too.

Only then could the drunkard reach.

The old soldier hooked an arm around Guy's neck and roared with laughter.

"You're a tall one, aren't you, newbie? Good, good—makes it more fun this way." He laughed again, then went on.

"Name's Yasen. Just call me Big Bro Yasen. Now keep up, and watch closely—I'll show you how to be a proper Guardsman!"

Guy nodded in silence.

It was only once Yasen had turned away that his brow creased ever so slightly.

The Capital Guard wasn't quite what he'd imagined.

A few days earlier, when he'd received the assignment to join the Capital Guard, he'd actually been excited.

All this time his work had been assassination; a force of justice like the Capital Guard was something he'd only heard about, and rather looked up to.

Because the Capital Guard was the unit that protected the safety of the Capital's people—not the army, true, but a force for good all the same.

You could even call them heroes and it wouldn't be a stretch, would it?

In reality, though, the place was an absolute cesspit.

For one thing, every single person here was weak.

Not just unsteady on their feet—they lacked even a basic sense of combat awareness, and they were incredibly slovenly.

Now, Guy was a slovenly man himself, and being forced to watch this lot gave him a sudden, unwelcome understanding of how he must look in other people's eyes.

'No.'

'Surely I'm not anywhere near this bad?'

Trailing along behind Yasen, Guy discovered that this so-called patrol was nothing of the sort.

Within forty minutes, he'd watched with his own eyes as Yasen shook down local shopkeepers for protection money more than ten times over.

This wasn't the Capital Guard—it was just a pack of thugs.

"Hehehe, well? See that, newbie? This is the Capital Guard—pretty impressive and profitable, eh?" Yasen counted up the protection money he'd collected so far, grinning all the while, and the sight of it filled Guy with disgust.

His face cold, Guy asked, "You're not afraid someone'll report you, doing this?"

"Huh? Report me?" Yasen looked as though he'd just heard a great joke.

He waved a hand and said smugly, "There's no green kids dumb enough for that anymore. The smart ones know to fall in line with us."

"And what's that supposed to mean...?"

"It means, obviously, that the ones in charge of hearing those reports are our people too. Reporting us is a waste of breath. And the moment we find out who's been doing the reporting, we give them some special attention. They were unhappy with how things are, after all—so we just make their situation a whole lot worse. That way they won't have so many things to be unhappy about in the future, will they? Ha!"

Guy's fists had clenched tight.

"Hahaha", the man kept laughing.

He looked at this parasite in front of him and badly, badly wanted to drive a fist into that smug face.

More than that—if he could, he wanted to put this piece of filth down for good.

'...Wait.'

'Don't tell me this assignment is meant to make me do exactly that?'

Listening to Yasen run his mouth and swagger on, the more Guy thought about it, the more convinced he became that this had to be it.

The two of them came to a stop in front of a house.

Yasen stepped up and pounded roughly on the door a few times.

No one answered.

Even with no response, Yasen kept hammering away with all his strength.

After more than a dozen blows, the cry of a small child came from inside the house.

Hearing it, Yasen finally stopped.

A few seconds later the door opened from within, and a woman of around thirty stepped out.

"Heh, pretending nobody's home again, are you? How many times have you pulled that one? You'd better not be taking me for an idiot!" Yasen snarled viciously.

At his words, the woman quickly shook her head.

Her appearance, when she emerged, struck Guy as quite stunning.

"Please—please don't come here anymore. My business has gone under. All I want now is to live in peace."

"Hm?" Yasen's eyes bulged. "What was that? I saw you selling eggs on the street corner just yesterday. You telling me my eyes were lying?"

Hearing this, the woman was visibly stirred to anger.

She clenched her fists and shot back, "My business is gone. I'm selling the very eggs I'd eat myself just to feed four children—are you telling me you'll squeeze protection money out of that too?"

"Heh, is that so? I see, I see—all for the children's sake. How very noble." Yasen dropped his earlier ferocity, putting on a show of gentleness.

"So why is it you just won't agree to what I'm asking? Agree, and at the very least those four little ones won't starve to death."

"I—I've told you over and over, I have a husband..." The woman glared at Yasen with a habitual defiance, her tone resolute.

At that, Yasen tore off the pretense on the spot and bellowed again. "That dead-weight husband of yours went off to the battlefield to fight the foreign tribes—how could he possibly come back alive? Just treat him as dead and be done with it!"

Just then, four children came running out of the house.

The youngest looked only four or five, the eldest no more than six or seven.

The four of them planted themselves in front of the woman—yet none dared say a word.

Seeing that they had the nerve to glare at him, Yasen, emboldened by the drink, simply kicked one of the children aside with a blow to the chest.

Then he stepped forward, seized the frantic woman by the wrist, and hauled her toward him into his arms.

The woman struggled fiercely.

But her strength was far, far too feeble against Yasen's.

The humiliation of being unable to resist was more than she could bear, and glistening tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.

She turned a pleading gaze toward Guy, who stood silent off to the side.

In the instant their eyes met, Guy felt as though some switch inside him had been thrown.

His figure appeared behind Yasen in a flash, one large hand clamping straight onto the back of the man's skull, hoisting his entire body up off the ground.

In the midst of all this the woman lost her balance, her body tipping as if about to fall. But Guy reacted in time, catching her at once and steadying her against him.

Yasen hit the ground hard and lay there groaning.

Then he caught sight of Guy with his arms wrapped around the very woman he'd had his own eye on, and his temper came boiling up.

"You bastard! You planning to steal a woman right out from under me?!"

With the woman's graceful figure held against him, Guy was nowhere near as composed inside as he appeared.

If anything, just this much contact had already sent his mind wandering toward a good deal more explicit imagery.

He was only forcing himself to stay outwardly calm, which left his face looking grim and overcast.

Held in his arms, the woman's feelings were complicated too.

Fear, exhilaration, relief, worry... A tangle of emotions, and yet at this moment her mind held only two thoughts.

'So strong.'

'So hot!'

In short—she felt incredibly safe!

Fortunately, Yasen's shouting and cursing snapped them both back to their senses quickly enough.

Reluctant to let go, Guy held his position with the woman still in his arms and turned his head toward Yasen.

"I've put up with you this whole way, senior. I honestly can't fathom how a piece of trash like you ever got into the Capital Guard. I'm going to report you myself—don't think you'll slip through the cracks!"

Having spent so long as an assassin, Guy had always believed he and the others were on the side of justice.

They might operate in the shadows, but what they did benefited the Empire—they specifically killed the corrupt, the rotten, the villains.

This Yasen was, without a doubt, a bad man.

That being the case, he just had to report the matter up the chain, and his superiors would surely hand down an assassination order on the man.

And then he'd get to send this scumbag to his death with his own hands.

From the look in Guy's eyes, Yasen felt a bone-deep murderous intent, and the terror of it nearly made him soil himself.

A barracks bully like him going up against Guy, who had personally killed hundreds, was like a mouse facing a leopard!