漫画大王

Chapter 129

Unlike before, the alleys this time were not filled with criminals but with guards, due to a series of missing person cases.

Harriet nodded at Ellen’s words.

“I learned a new noise-canceling spell recently. Let’s use that as we move.”

“Okay.”

“It would have been nice if we had invisibility magic, but I’m not there yet.”

“That’s okay.”

Harriet had learned a few new spells since their mission to the deserted island. While she had not been that interested in magic originally, she had come to realize that in practice, some spells were very useful.

The underwater breathing spell and the spell to summon a heat orb were two such spells. They were low-level spells she had learned by chance, but the former had been incredibly helpful when Ellen and Reinhart were collecting food supplies, and the latter had also helped to maintain the body temperatures of her classmates during a torrential downpour.

In fact, the many powerful offensive spells she had learned because of her belief that they would be powerful had barely been used, except on one occasion. The issue of casting time also made them less practical in real-life situations.

After that group mission, Harriet had come to think differently about which forms of magic were truly useful.

Lower-tier spells like the noise suppression magic could have been a great help while hunting when they had been stranded on the deserted island. Therefore, Harriet had started learning useful spells that could be immediately practical, and noise-canceling was one of those spells.

After a brief casting time, the spell was activated, and the noises that Harriet and Ellen made as they moved about, while not completely eradicated, were drastically reduced.

Ellen took the lead.

The rain meant the smell wasn’t too overwhelming, but it was clear that, in hotter weather, a terrible stench would permeate the entire area.

Piles of unidentifiable garbage, remnants of food, and traces of urine were everywhere to be found.

Harriet, unaccustomed to such sights, tried her best to avoid looking at them. The sight of rats scurrying about almost made her nauseous. It was a relief she didn’t scream.

Fortunately, the sound of rain and the noise-canceling spell meant the guards couldn’t hear the two girls moving about.

“What are all these buildings for?” Harriet asked.

Harriet seemed curious about the function of the buildings crammed behind the market, even if she could not understand the market itself.

“Houses, probably.”

“Houses? In a place like this?”

Harriet was a typical specimen of the high nobility and was completely unaware of the commoners’ lives. She couldn’t comprehend how people could live in buildings that were so tightly packed together that the whole compound resembled an anthill.

The alleys behind the complex, maze-like market were deserted, except for the occasional guards passing through.

Now and then, they came across homeless individuals crumpled up and sleeping in the alleyways.

Harriet was so taken aback by the sight that she couldn’t bring herself to approach them. Ellen stepped in to do so instead.

“Sir.”

“Hey, be caref—”

“Er, mmm... what? Who’s there? Oh my, why are young ladies like you coming all the way here?” The man replied.

“We’re looking for a boy of this height with blond hair. His name is Rein—”

“Ugh, I don’t know! How many times do I have to say it?”

The homeless man, who had been asked the same question numerous times and was reeking of sweat, offered no substantial answer.

Ellen and Harriet encountered a few more individuals who appeared to be neither criminals nor miscreants, but homeless individuals or beggars. However, each of them replied in the same weary way to Ellen’s question—they had never seen a little kid named Reinhart.

After dodging the guards for a while, their investigation ended up being futile. They did not receive any new information.

“... It seems like everyone’s already been asked about Reinhart.”

“Yeah.”

There were beggars around, but none that knew anything about Reinhart, and it seemed that the guards had driven all the criminals into hiding.

The question remained—did they need to barge into buildings and interrogate the occupants to determine if they were criminals or if they knew anything about Reinhart? Then again, it was clear that the guards were probably already doing that.

The two were hoping Reinhart would safely return, but they didn’t exactly have to be the ones to find him. At least that’s what they were both thinking.

Harriet cautiously broached the subject.

“Since everyone’s already looking about here... even if there were any clues, they’ve likely already been found. It seems we don’t necessarily have to wander around.”

Ultimately, the only conclusion they could come to was that searching around Wenster Market was futile.

***

Harriet and Ellen left Wenster Market and returned to the main road. Wenster Market had already been demarcated as a place for investigation. Their own efforts in searching around the area did not help.

“Maybe Reinhart never came here?”

“I don’t know...”

Since Reinhart still hadn’t been found despite the guards’ intensive search of the area implied that he might not have disappeared there.

It was possible that Reinhart had never gone to Wenster Market. That the criminals had all run away might not necessarily mean they had taken Reinhart; they could have had their own reasons to fear getting caught.

“Then... where should we look for Reinhart?”

“Something else seems strange,” Harriet said, bringing up another doubt.

“What is it?”

“The guards, they... asked the homeless people lots of questions, right?”

“Yeah.”

The unwillingness to be questioned again was evident on the faces of the homeless.

“However, even though the criminals fled, the homeless are still here.”

“That’s right.”

“The ones under the bridge said they thought they saw someone coming this way, but there wasn’t anyone, right? So, nobody knows about Reinhart.”

“The homeless under the bridge.”

According to the guards, the homeless took shelter near Wenster Market when it rained. If they had come here to avoid the rain, they would have hung around since the guards hadn’t been particularly intent on driving anyone away. Regardless of whoever was roaming around, the homeless would have remained in the back alleys.

The homeless were present, but none of the homeless individuals they had come across had come from under the bridge, since none of them knew Reinhart.

“Those people never entered Wenster Market in the first place.”

Ellen nodded in agreement with Harriet’s deduction. “We should probably start looking for them first.”

“Yeah.”

The area around Wenster Market was already crowded with people. Even without the two of them there, any clues that were there to be found would eventually be discovered.

The two of them decided to focus on a group that no one else was paying attention to—the beggars from the Bronze Gate Bridge—since everyone else was concentrated on the market itself.

***

Their guess turned out to be correct.

The Temple authorities and the city guards were focused only on the assumption that Reinhart had disappeared around Wenster Market. They were concentrating their efforts there, trying to find connections between the local criminal organizations and Reinhart’s disappearance.

They hadn’t yet reached the stage of searching for the group of beggars that Reinhart had initially been looking for.

This was a result of them following strictly to the orders they had been given. The Temple guards and the city guards were solely focused on the fact that Reinhart had gone to Wenster Market.

Since they were already mounting such a spirited search, Ellen and Harriet deemed it unnecessary for them to be there as well; instead, they had to focus their own search somewhere entirely different.

The beggars from under the bridge were known to the guards as a rather rowdy group. The guards had not enforced any sanctions against them, but neither did they favor them. Neither Harriet nor Ellen had seen the group with their own eyes, but as they imagined them throwing noisy parties and drinking under the bridge, they didn’t think it would be a pleasant sight.

Ellen and Harriet decided to return to the park entrance where they had first received information to look for the guard they had first spoken to.

However, the guard posted there this time was different, likely due to a shift change.

“Ah, those homeless people? They usually head towards Wenster Market during this sort of—”

“They’re not there.”

Ellen cut him off before he could repeat the same information. While it was possible that Reinhart had gone in that direction, it was clear that the group of beggars wasn’t.

“Hmm... Really? Then on a rainy day like this, where could they have gone... considering they have no home or shelter?”

It seemed like the homeless always headed into Wenster Market when the rain was fierce enough to make staying under the bridge unfeasible.

Another guard laughed at his comment.

“Who knows? Maybe those guys have started making a decent amount of money and don’t go to the market anymore. Maybe they’ve rented a room in an inn somewhere.”

The other guard shook head incredulously. “Money? What money could those homeless guys have? And an inn? That’s nonsense.”

The one who had interjected chuckled. “Those guys aren’t using candy to beg anymore; they’re selling stuff on the magical trains. Didn’t you know? That’s why there are hardly any complaints about them in the park now. But I run into them every time I go to work, and it’s gotten annoying.”

“They’re the ones doing the peddling?”

“Yeah, and apparently they’re making a pretty good living too.”

Ellen and Harriet exchanged glances as they overheard the conversation.

“Mic test, mic test. Dear citizens of the empire, I hope you are doing well.

“If I may take a moment of your precious time today, I would like to introduce a fine item to you.”

They had already encountered the group they were supposed to be looking for.

***

The fact that the beggars from under the bridge had shifted their operations to peddling items on magical trains was only of interest to those in the same industry, or in the underworld; it wasn’t something the general public cared about. Therefore, among the guards, only a few were aware that these ex-beggars had evolved into subway peddlers.

People didn’t care who the homeless were, just that they were there; and peddlers were merely seen as a nuisance, with no one giving much thought to who they might be.

Regardless, the magical trains meant that their operations could run regardless of rain or other conditions, unlike begging by the riverside. Thus, they were able to continue their trade on the trains even during the rainy season.

Ellen and Harriet quickly boarded one of the lines of the magical train.

“I really hope these people know where Reinhart is.”

“Yeah.”

Both of them harbored the faint hope that Reinhart’s absence from the Temple wasn’t due to some trouble, but because he was preoccupied with something else. They moved from carriage to carriage on the magical train, searching for the peddlers.

It didn’t take them long to find one. After going through four carriages, they discovered a peddler, spinning a top on the floor and promoting it as a magical spinning top, among other things.

The peddlers, following Reinhart’s directive, had taken showers and dressed appropriately, which made it hard to associate them with the homeless bums from under the bridge.

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen. Let me tell you a bit about this top right here—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Ellen said.

Since Harriet was quite shy, Ellen stepped forward to speak. The peddler smiled as she approached.

“Ah, for a young lady, just one silver coin.”

He seemed to think that Ellen had approached him because she was interested in the scattered tops. Of course, Ellen wasn’t interested in the tops at all.

“Do you know Reinhart?”

“... Reinhart?”

The peddler cocked his head in confusion at the unexpected name.

***

Fortunately, he knew Reinhart.

“He’s disappeared?”

“Yes.”

Upon hearing this, he quickly gathered the scattered tops and got off at the next station. Harriet and Ellen followed him out, and they found a quieter place to converse.

“Weren’t you aware of this?”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it... This is serious. I need to inform the boss about this.”

What “boss” was he talking about? In any case, the peddler seemed to think it was urgent to report this matter quickly.

“Thank you, kids,” He said. “But you are...?”

“Reinhart’s classmates.”

It seemed like he was trying to leave them behind, but Ellen and Harriet were determined to follow him.

Unable to shake off the two students, the peddler had no choice but to take them along to the headquarters of the Rotary Club.

Eventually, Ellen and Harriet realized why it had been inevitable that they hadn’t found any trace of the beggars from Bronze Gate in the Wenster Market.

The peddler was heading to the southernmost end of the imperial city.

“I heard you guys were staying near Bronze Gate,” Ellen said.

At Ellen’s words, the peddler, walking with an umbrella, shook his head.

“That was our original plan, yes, but we’re trying to settle down properly now.”

He let slip that they were in the process of moving on from living under the Bronze Gate Bridge, and were taking advantage of the rain to relocate their base. However, this area was near the boundary between the imperial capital and the outskirts. Ellen and Harriet silently followed the peddler to the last stop of the magical train line. They were in a sparsely populated outer area.

They inevitably felt tense. They were in an overly secluded place.

“What if this person had other intentions?”

Those were the thoughts that were unavoidably surging up.

“... I’m scared,” Harriet said in a frightened whisper.

“It’s okay,” Ellen reassured her.

As she remembered Ellen’s display of valor during the group mission in the jungle, taking on orcs with just a simple spear, Harriet felt a bit more at ease. Even if the peddler had ill intentions, dealing with him would be easier than dealing with those orcs.

Fortunately, their worries were unfounded. After walking for a while, several large tents set up in a quiet, open field came into view. The sound of people murmuring could be heard, coming from inside the field tents, and there was some construction going on at a site nearby.

“Are they... building something?”

“Seems like it.”

Though work wasn’t progressing much due to the rain, the foundations that had been laid and the partially-erected columns suggested that a large building was under construction.

“I only brought you along because you kept following me, but be careful with your words once we’re inside,” the peddler said.

“Be careful with our words?”

Seeing Ellen’s puzzled look, the peddler scratched his head.

“Our boss has quite a... let’s just say, she doesn’t care whether you’re students from the Temple or what. Assume that she won’t show any favoritism toward you.”

Ellen nodded, while Harriet sighed as if annoyed by the prospect of having to be mindful of the disposition of some queen of the beggars. Harriet, after all, was a noble of high standing who, under normal circumstances, would have no reason to mingle with such peasants.

The large tent was fully open on one side, allowing everyone to see the interior clearly. While one might naturally expect these beggars to look shabby, Ellen and Harriet found the reality to be very different.

Although they looked somewhat unkempt, probably due to the heavy rain, when compared to the destitute beggars they had encountered in Wenster Market, these individuals could almost pass for nobles just by their attire alone.

“... Hey, who are these kids?”

The beggars stared wide-eyed as one of their peers returned with two young girls in tow.

“... These two are clearly well-bred, aren’t they?”

Despite being in casual attire, Harriet exuded an undeniable air of nobility or wealth, and Ellen, with her exceptional appearance and demeanor, along with her neat clothing, seemed far above any beggar.

Harriet appeared somewhat daunted, but Ellen remained calm. However, the sudden appearance of two pretty young girls had already caused some murmuring among the crowd as someone pushed their way through.

A young woman with disheveled white hair walked up to them. While she wasn’t clothed that much differently from the others, the aura emanating from her golden eyes instantly marked her as no ordinary person.

It was the Hound of Irine.

“What’s with these kids?” Loyar said, frowning at Ellen and Harriet.

Ellen and Harriet introduced themselves to her as Reinhart’s classmates.

“... Is that so? But how did you find this place?”

Loyar’s expression was wary, as if questioning not only why Reinhart’s classmates would come here but also what reason they had for seeking this place out. For all she knew, they might have come searching for secrets related to Reinhart’s hidden troubles.

“Reinhart has disappeared.”

“... What?”

At those words, not only Loyar, but the other Rotary Club members who heard the words, were shocked.

The Thieves’ Guild had originally intended to use Reinhart as bait to lure Loyar out.

However, despite the amount of time that had passed since his disappearance, the Rotary Club was still completely unaware of Reinhart’s situation.