About three months since Wiesel had taken over as the ruler of Alfado in Viktor’s place.
The town that had once been called the most livable in the entire earldom was changing rapidly — and not for the better.
Between the lack of any proper handover and the poor quality of the staff Grace Trading had supplied, every kind of work had ground to a halt.
On top of that, the officials hired at rock-bottom wages had no integrity to speak of, and bribery had become rampant throughout the town.
Worst of all, Wiesel — who had been smoothly talked into things by Grace Trading — had neither the will nor the ability to correct any of it.
“Those damned vultures……!!”
Sarmat Trading, a merchant firm with operations based in Alfado.
Its head, Sarmat, was shaking his fist in fury.
He’d been hit by bandits on the highway and immediately requested the knight order to deal with them — but.
He’d been told they couldn’t act without a handling fee.
The amount demanded was five gold coins.
Several months’ wages for a typical servant.
Not exactly pocket change, even for Sarmat Trading.
“Maintaining highway security is the knight order’s job to begin with! And now they want payment on top of that for bandit suppression — what kind of operation are they running!?”
“Please calm yourself, sir. Working yourself up like this isn’t good for your health.”
The elderly butler said it and held out a cup of cold water.
Sarmat took it and drained it in one go.
Then he exhaled slowly, working to settle himself.
“……Either way, their greed is insufferable.”
“Rumor has it Lord Wiesel and Laporte missed out on a significant deal. Some of this may be displaced frustration.”
“That business with the Sage from the White Tower wanting to buy the golems Lord Viktor left behind, was it?”
The spectacle of Wiesel and Grace Trading frantically contacting merchants all over town, trying to buy back golems that had already been sold to the scrap dealer — it was still talked about.
By the time Wiesel had made his move, apparently most of the golems had already been dismantled.
“I heard that the price the Sage offered was a hundred gold coins per unit.”
“Well. No wonder they’re upset. Quite a sum.”
“Indeed. I myself had no idea those golems were worth anything near that.”
Just a few months ago, golems had been a perfectly ordinary sight walking through the streets of the town.
The idea that they’d been worth a hundred gold coins each was genuinely difficult to believe.
Sarmat and his people hadn’t thought of them as junk the way Wiesel had — but they’d assumed they were worth a few gold at most.
“Viktor was exiled to the Sariel Great Forest, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. In fact, there’s something related to that I’ve been meaning to bring to your attention.”
“Oh?”
“The Sage who missed out on the golems appears to be planning to travel to the Great Forest herself. She’s been gathering capable adventurers for the purpose.”
It was a natural enough course of action — a Sage who wanted to study the golems would naturally want to meet their maker.
With the Sage’s considerable magical ability, reaching the Great Forest wouldn’t be impossible.
The problem, of course, was whether Viktor was still alive.
Surviving for months in that demon frontier, teeming with powerful monsters, didn’t seem realistic for an ordinary person.
The Sage would obviously understand that too, so she must have some calculation behind her decision — but even so……
“Does the Sage know something about whether Viktor is alive?”
“Not with any certainty, but……”
“Go on.”
“There was an adventurer party that escorted Lord Viktor to the Great Forest. It seems some of them stayed on as guards after completing their commission. Apparently they’ve become Lord Viktor’s retainers.”
At that, Sarmat’s expression shifted.
He immediately turned back to the butler.
“What’s the name of that party?”
“Sword of Dawn.”
“Those people……who stayed and who didn’t?”
“Everyone except the archer Henry. The information this time also apparently came from Henry, who returned alone.”
“I see……”
Sarmat folded his arms and fell into thought.
He’d hired them for escort work several times, so he had a reasonable read on Sword of Dawn’s capabilities.
Their leader Alicia in particular was quite formidable — a swordswoman with a real name for herself.
If they were with Viktor, he might actually have survived in the Great Forest, even with everything working against him.
And Viktor himself had taken a large number of golems with him when he left town.
This might be……
“Worth a gamble. Get my things ready.”
“Of course.”
The elderly butler immediately produced an adventurer’s card.
Then he took the massive hammer mounted on the wall of the room and handed it over.
Sarmat took it and swung it once — testing the feel of it.
“Right! Haven’t felt like this in a while!!”
In high spirits, Sarmat set off toward the adventurers’ guild.
A man who had once carved his own trade routes through monster-infested territory and built his fortune from nothing.
That man picked up a weapon for the first time in ten years, and became an adventurer again.