Chapter 24: Speculations of Machinations

“Excuse me, but could you please repeat that?” Tobias asked, his head just very slightly tilted to the side with some confusion.

“Alright.” She nodded. “I would like you to join our party.”

Tobias looked at her – her eyes didn’t seem to be lying (then again, he wasn’t too good with figuring out people’s intentions sometimes) and she seemed to be fairly serious about it. But then... “Why are you asking me now, of all times?”

The young woman looked around – business was back to normal, as people lined up and searched for quests on the signboard. There wasn’t anyone near them, and she looked back at him. Then she leaned in closer to him. “This is our secret... but my party also got attacked.” She whispered.

He blinked. Then he looked back at her, nodding in sympathy. “Ah, are they still alive?”

“They still are, thankfully. Damn Cleric refuses to let them heal using healing potions...” She replied, muttering the last part with annoyance. “But that’s the thing. They’re still alive, but they’re not in any condition to accept any quests... well, maybe except for those missing pet quests, but I guess you cleared those out already.” She let her shoulders shrug, as she sighed in minor dismay.

He let out a small wince. “But then... why ask me?” Tobias asked, and her eyes turned again to focus on his. Her eyes seemed to glow subtly, on second inspection.

“Both of our parties are out of commission for a while.” She said, shrugging. But then, in the next moment, her voice lowered into a whisper that even Tobias strained to catch. “But it should be obvious that there is someone... a party out there, that’s hunting down parties.”

He blinked again, then looked around discretely again. While no one was around them, the contents of their conversation seemed to spiral down into something which should be kept absolutely confidential. He leaned very slightly closer to her. “What makes you say that?”

“Three parties just got attacked recently. But the thing is, all of them are alive and at least one of them, usually the party’s Mage, is left alive to carry their parties back to the Guild.” She whispered. “I think they’re trying to send a message... telling people to stop accepting quests... I think that guy is responsible for our parties being attacked.”

Tobias blinked and stared blankly again, for the third time in a row. Whatever came out of her mouth was always mind-boggling enough to make him blink, and think for the longest while. But still... what she said might not be grounded, but it wasn’t too farfetched either. “But then... why would they do this to us?”

“I’m thinking... with the way how they’re trying to send a message, in combination with their attacks... I guess they’re trying to get Adventurers to stop trying to complete quests.” She whispered back.

Yeah, these were truly confidential things to talk about.

“That makes too much sense for me to dispute...” Tobias admitted, his voice low as he absorbed the information. “But the thing is, if we agree to party, wouldn’t that just mean that they would know we’re trying to sniff their trails out?”

She nodded back. And then she sat beside him, and leaned into his shoulder. “Don’t look my way.”

“What are you doing?” He asked, but he didn’t turn to look at her and let her do whatever she wanted.

“Being less innocuous, and in a prime position to whisper to you.” She whispered. “The party who attacked us might think that we’re only consolidating with each other because of our grief from what happened to our party.”

Tobias blinked. “Is that... how it works?”

Because if that’s how it worked, then it sounded relatively stupid. Not that he had the audacity to say that out loud, really...

“It’s less suspicious than simply talking with each other face-to-face.” She replied. The wide-brimmed hat really blocked any of her expression and face from him right now, even when he tried to peer from the peripherals of his vision. “And besides, don’t you like this?” Her tone turned into something which sounded like Bastille’s jeering whenever he and Clara got a bit too close with each other.

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“I don’t really care.” He shrugged, and the vibrations of his shoulder heaving upwards seemed to do nothing, as she still continued to lean on him.

“Is that so? I see.” She let out a disappointed tone. “Anyways, what do you think? You’re joining our party, however discretely?”

Our party? Tobias hummed, thinking to himself. “So the final member of this party should be another survivor from the other attacked party, excluding our own, right?”

“Bingo.” She gave a small snap of her fingers, as if to prove a point.

“And our job is to... technically find out who’s behind all of these attacks and prevent them from doing it again?”

“That’s basically it.” She said, and turned to look at him. “So you’re joining in or not?”

He briefly thought to himself, just a few moments. From the way she worded things, it seemed like everyone’s parties were still alive, even if they were recovering for now.

But the thing is, if there really was someone behind all of these attacks who wanted to stop Adventurers from completing quests, and simply letting them live would be ineffective... then how long would it take before they decide to start killing people, and letting only survivors spread word?

That was... troubling, to say the least. So he turned to look at her, and nodded. “I’m joining in.”

“You figured it out, didn’t you?” She asked, cryptically.

“What do you mean?”

“That whoever is behind these attacks might get even more violent real quick, especially now that nobody’s listening to them.” She grinned. “But that guy is an idiot – why is he simply showing his face?”

“Hm.” He hummed. “Maybe he’s really not responsible for the party who’s attacking people?”

“Who knows.” She gave a sigh. “Anyways, our meeting is over for now. We’ll talk later.” She shrugged, then stood up. And then she gave him a pat to the head.

He looked at her quizzically. She said nothing, but gave a flying kiss. The small action she did was only a disguise, as a piece of paper landed in his lap. Then she left wordlessly, having discretely delivered her message.

His fingers moved to pick up the tightly folded piece of paper, and he pocketed it carefully. His eyes scanned about to see if anyone was directly watching them, and there was none. Sitting up so that he could look like he’s resting his head against the cushioned chair, his eyes lazily continued to look at the different adventurers walking about.

Now... who looks like a potential lead...

***

“Marcus...?” Jacques groaned, when he saw the familiar Soldier sitting in a chair by his side. On the other side, there was Clara, who was still resting, while bandages covered her arms. Then his eyes widened in panic. “Is everyone alright?! Where’s Bastille?”

“Don’t worry, the Cleric said everyone just needed rest. Bastille’s on the other side of the room, and he’s still sleeping.” Marcus replied, with his somewhat infamous flat tone. But this time – he could barely hear the sounds of annoyance and sympathy tinging his almost indifferent tone. “Listen, Jacques... I managed to talk to the other parties who were attacked, and I... no, we managed to find out something.”

Then Marcus told him what he knew. All of the parties that were attacked have been promoted recently, and all of them had at least one survivor who could still function fine – most likely the person left in charge to carry their party to safety after the attacks, and all of them didn’t have a party member who died.

“But I think that’s going to change soon...” Marcus whispered, his voice bearing an incredibly strained tone. “There was already a person from a party trying to get everyone to stop accepting quests... Nobody listened, so I think they’re planning to be more violent to get their point across.”

“That’s terrible...” Jacques intoned, as his eyes were unfocused, trying to absorb the information. It was strange – his eyes didn’t pick up anything from the person who attacked them... “But why are they doing this?”

“Judging from what we – the other party members who weren’t recovering – discussed about, then we think that whoever this party-attacker is... they probably want to get access to all of the best quests for themselves... at least, that’s what we thought of.”

“How greedy.” He shook his head. His gaze fell towards Clara again, and just past her was Bastille. His eyes seemed to burn with a longing for vengeance. “Whoever did this to us... I want them to pay for it.”

“We all do. We’ll try our best, so all of you just rest in here.” Marcus nodded. “I do want you to keep everything a secret though, even from Bastille and Clara.”

“But why though?”

“I feel like the less people know about this, the better. But more importantly, it’s already risky to tell you as is. Remember how I whispered everything to you? Someone could be listening to us, for all we know. I’m only letting you know because you’re our party leader.”

Jacques blinked. When he worded it like that – it seemed like holding secrets, even to their own party members was quite important right now. But he gave a nod of understanding. “We’ll tell them sometime else, then?”

“Yeah.” Marcus nodded again, then got to standing up. When he walked towards the door, he only looked back once, and gave a small nod. “Get well soon. Tell that to everyone for me.”

“Sure, good luck out there.” He called back as Marcus closed the door.

Conspiracies were the first thing he heard while waking up, huh... Was this really the quintessential essence of adventuring?

That being said... for a Soldier, Marcus sure acted more like a Rogue, if nothing else. He was mysterious in a sense, acted independently to a degree, and was impossibly good at throwing a knife – or two.

But then again, Marcus was a strange, if benevolent person. What he does wasn’t really too much of his concern right now, especially with the growing headache from processing everything which happened. And besides, he knows that he’ll be fine. He was, after all, a monster slaying machine who moved like a whirlwind of blades – or something like that.

With a sigh to himself, Jacques raised his hand – except that motion hurt. He looked at his bandaged arms. It really wasn’t just some dream, was it? And judging from the way his hand ached, then he could assume that he broke a bone there. And it wasn’t just limited to his arm, as he felt different, dulled pains emerge from moving his body about.

Now... why couldn’t they just drink a healing potion and recover faster like that? Why did the Cleric seem so adamant against that concept...?

What did she mean a healing potion uses up a person’s life force to heal faster? How did that even work?

How about Healing Magic, then? She already did and it would be too bad to overdo it? Over healing leads to even more exhaustion...?

Jacques let out a sigh, and stopped thinking about it.

This really was a pain... He hopes that Marcus wouldn’t suffer the same fate.