“Gods, this is a nightmare.”

“What’s wrong, Sir?”

“Nothing.” I turned around, smiling pleasantly at the front desk attendant. “Just mumbling about some business situations.”

“Well, I do hope things improve for you, Sir.”

Still forcing a pleasant smile, I turned away from the man, my smile quickly souring into a frown as I counted the coins in my pouch again.

Seriously. Where did it all go?

Only a short while ago I felt as rich as could be, a whopping six hast, or sixty rost for a more layman perspective.

And now my pouch was down to a mere measly eight rost.

How?

I knew how, that was the worst part. The answer was simple. I’d spent three hast paying for my room for an extended period, and then after that I’d gradually been chipping away at what remained, a little less than three hast at that point, a day at a time, spending money in ways that only a truly rich person could.

Or someone with a stable income.

Of which, I was neither.

Damnit, I got carried away.

I was in desperate need of money, and until I knew for sure whether I’d gotten the job or not, the issue was only going to get worse.

Think Rook, what can you do? I’m sure you have some sort of skill set that can earn some money.

Outside the lodge, I stopped in my tracks as I thought it over.

“Well, I can….. Uh…” I held up a hand, intending to count my skills out loud.

“I know magic, and I can fight.” I held up two fingers. “Then, uhhh.”

Huh. Guess I don’t really have that much going for me, do I?

Outside of magic and fighting, there really hadn’t been much that I’d versed myself on over the years. I’d only spent until the wizened age of fifteen getting educated, then a sage hunter had basically chased me out of my own. I wasn’t dumb, not by any means, in fact I’d argue I had a better education than most, but in a city of scholars and academics, I may as well have been a moron.

Fighting. Magic. There must be something.

“Hello Sir. Where to today?”

“Good morning Vernice.” I nodded to the woman who had become my personal chaperone. “You know, I’m not certain.”

“Then shall we take a stroll through the city?”

“Yes, that’d be nice.” I nodded, but as soon as she turned around to enter the cart, a cart that was notably nicer looking since I’d been bankrolling her, I frowned once again.

And this is another place I keep losing money.

With every trip, I’d shell out anywhere from a few gilly, all the way to an entire rost. While I appreciated her services, she was sucking my funds away perhaps faster than anything else.

Can’t say I don’t enjoy having my own personal cab though.

Boarding the now more spacious cab, I couldn’t even really call it a cart anymore, Vernice took off, blabbering on random details she knew about the city.

It had been nearly two weeks since I’d come to the city, and in the time….

Well, not much had really happened.

I’d had my interview for the position of professor of the academy, but since then I’d failed to hear anything back from the school. I’d been told, after asking around, that it was likely to be the case, there were plenty of exceptionally qualified folk applying, even for a position as… less compelling as magical studies, but I still found myself growing exasperated and exhausted as I waited for a response back.

Aside from the job prospects, I’d only seen Scyla two other times, the woman was exceptionally busy as it turned out, to no surprise. In charge of her families interest in such an important city, from what she’d told me it was a constant battle of meeting with important people who were looking for information on rival nobles who’d also come to the city, or checking that all their affiliates, their eyes, and ears, were doing exactly as they were instructed, an extraordinarily tight ship that had to be run.

I didn’t envy it, not in the least, but I did find myself wishing she had more free time, if simply for the sake of my own boredom.

Without much to do, I spent much of my time in the Grand Library, researching on topic of interest. Sometimes it was magic, sometimes it was things as mundane and irrelevant as the life cycle of a butterfly.

Which by the way, was rather depressing. Apparently their were even some butterflies that upon reaching their butterfly state, lost the ability to eat, doomed to reproduce then die shortly after.

“… and there was a recent debate whether it was necessary or not.”

“What was that?” I snapped to, realizing I’d been lost in thought. “I was thinking about something.”

“It’s of no issue, Sir. I was talking about the recent issue regarding the adventurer guild.”

“What about the guild?” I asked, she firmly held my attention now.

“Their was some pushback against the guild founding a presence within Akadia.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“When Akadia was settled as the location for Parisian academy, the area was cleared of monsters and magical beasts for a rather large ways away. The guild apparently was pushing to have a branch located here, but the city council pushed back against it, an unnecessary cost.”

“There has to still be some need of adventurers, are there not?”

“Well, yes.” Vernice admitted. “But since the need is rather low compared to other places within the country, the commissions are left as contracts for individuals to take up themselves, with no portion cut out for the guild.”

“You don’t say.” I mused. “And where exactly does one find these contracts then?”

“Throughout the city there are postings where you can post any such contracts. Do you have one you need to post yourself?”

“No, not quite.” I chuckled. “But, if you would, could you take us to the nearest one?”

“Gladly, Sir.”

The great thing about being treated like a person of wealth, is that no one felt the need to question you on what or why you were doing something.

It’s my lucky day.

I wasn’t sure why the city would push back on having a guild branch here, the ‘cost’ would be negligible, and the benefits would far outweigh the potential costs, but then if it weren’t for that decision I would find myself without a potential avenue of solving my financial problems, still banned from the guild as I was.

Their loss is my gain.

Smiling all the way to where one of the contract locations was, we wove our way through the streets, noticeably busier than even two days prior.

Must be because of the ceremony for the sovereign’s daughter.

From what I recalled, it would only be a day or two from now when she was supposed to arrive, a big event in celebration not just of her appearance, but of what it was supposed to represent, the ‘bridging of our divides’ or how I’d heard it referred.

Whatever, not that it really matters to me.

“We’re here, Sir.”

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t.. that.

A board had been tacked upon a pole and tacked upon the board itself were scraps of paper.

“Is.. is this it?”

“There aren’t an exceptional amount of contracts, yes.”

“Right.” I nodded, getting out and walking over to investigate the contracts myself.

“Looking for hired muscle-”

Pass. I had no inclination to be showing my face just to scare off some thugs or rival business.

“Rout Rat infestation, needs dealing with-”\

Pass, clearing out Rout Rats would be a task in tedium, and would likely pay nothing more than a few paltry dansh.

“Pets keep disappearing, looking for help in-”

Pass.

Or, I was about to pass over it, until my eyes continued skimming the request.

“-hunting the beast responsible.”

“Well.” I muttered. “That’s unexpected.”

I’d anticipated it to be nothing more than a dog nabber, but if the contract were to be believed, it meant that for whatever reason the person behind the contract believed it to be some sort of monster or magical beast behind the disappearances.

“And that’s even more unexpected,” I whispered as I read where the location of the contract was to take place.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Vernice?” I called out over my shoulder.

“Yes Sir?”

“Take us to Haelsfree Street.”

------------------------------------------------------------------

Haelsfree Street. While the city of Akadia was rather opulent already, Haelsfree street was even more so. The street was home to some rather important figures, even the city mayor apparently called the street their home.

So why would they need to seek assistance from a random contract placed on a board in the middle of nowhere?

Something didn’t add up already, but there was only one way to find out what it was.

Plus, the fact that the contract was coming from those of Haelsfree street meant that whatever the pay was to be, I could bet it would help alleviate my current financial woes.

“Sir, I believe we have an issue.”

Pointing straight ahead, there was a massive gate blocking the street off from the general population, a booth next to the gate currently maned by a tired looking man.

“Do you have business here?” The man asked as we neared the gate, looking up from a book that I hadn’t noticed him reading.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“…and that is?” The man added after I remained silent.

“None of your business, that is.” I answered.

“Excuse me, but I believe it best if you lea-”

“Look, I’m not here to cause trouble, and I do have reason to be here, but if you must.” Reaching into a pocket, I pulled free a black card, flashing it at the man.

“Is that-?”

“Yes.” I pocketed the card once more. “That would be a black card for the Parisian Lodge. Do you really believe that I’m some sort of ruff-raff now?”

“No, Sir.” The man quickly amended his behavior, his back straightening as he responded. “Have a pleasant stay.”

Pressing a button, the gate began to slide open as our cart pulled through.

“You handled that quite well, Sir.” Vernice added as we continued down the far quieter street.

“Well, folks such as these only care about status, prove your status and they care not your reasons.”

“How insightful, Sir.”

Was that sarcasm I heard?

Ignoring it, I silently waited until at least we pulled up the extravagant home of our contract giver.

“Well Sir, I shall await your return here.”

Disembarking, I made my way out of the cart, directing myself toward the address specified on the contract as I considered the best way to approach the situation.

Whatever the cause is, it’s probably just a matter of they not wanting to involve any sort of official response in case they snoop in to their business.

Standing before the door of the house, I paused, hand hovering over the heavy iron knocker. Taking a deep breath, I finally grabbed it before giving it a firm knock.

And now we wai- well that was fast.

Almost instantly after giving the door a heavy knock, it was being opened, a man in a pristine looking suit standing before it.

“Is there something which you need?”

Not the response I was expecting, but okay.

“Hello, I’m here about the contract.”

“Contract?” The man wrinkled his nose, turning it up toward me. “I know not what you speak of.”

Oh, I get it. This is a ploy, don’t want just anyone to come snooping around.

Thinking quickly, I sighed before shaking my head. “I was sent here regarding the contract, my boss informed me you would be awaiting my arrival.”

“Your boss?” The man seemed confused as I dropped the reference to a mystery employer.

“Why of course.” I shook my head once more as if disappointed. “Ms. Eorial had informed me that you would be looking for our assistance regarding the problem, but I see her information was apparently incorrect.”

The man’s face instantly paled, as if the thought of turning away someone sent by the Eorial family frightened him, the ramifications unknown.

“Apologies. I seemed to forget myself. I will lead you to the mistress.”

I was pleased that my ploy had worked, as soon I was walking through the halls of the richly decorated home. It wasn’t exactly to my taste, exceptionally gaudy displays of wealth littering the walls as if someone had told the owner of the home that the more expensive the ornaments were, the fancier it would appear.

Within a few minutes the man, a butler I assumed, had led me directly before rather expansive looking foyer doors.

“I will alert the mistress of your being here. If you will, please wait a moment.”

I did as he instructed, waiting as the man slipped through the doors, speaking to the mystery mistress on the other side of the doors.

Wonder what she is like?

Only a short bit later, the man had returned, smiling pleasantly at me.

“You may enter.”

Standing tall, I pushed past the doors, before freezing in my tracks.

“Oh? Well, if it isn’t the one sent on behalf of the Eorials.”

“Uhh-” I coughed awkwardly into my hand. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Scyla.”

“Right, you expected to see the mistress of this house.” Scyla, if she was angry at me, wasn’t showing it.

“I think I understand why you didn’t look for a more… official method of dealing with your problem.”

“You would be correct.” Scyla was sitting cross legged, her hair bundled into a bun behind her head with a simple blouse and black tights, as she pushed aside several papers she had been sifting through.

“So, I didn’t know you had a home here.”

“I own several properties.” Scyla smirked. “It helps to diversify the locations of your homes, gathering too much incriminating information in one place can be much even for someone of my standing, my family would view it as a failure on my part and I’d be discredited for family head contention on the spot.”

“Right. So, uh, why do you need outside help for this problem? Don’t you have more than enough manpower to deal with such a small problem?”

“Certainly, but it’s something which I’d prefer to have you settle.”

“Wait, wait.” I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘have me settle’? You couldn’t have planned this out?”

“Of course I did.” She smiled proudly. “You think I wasn’t aware of your finances? After you appeared in the area, I wanted to enlist you for some assistance, but the issue was I knew-”

“No.” I cut her off. “I refuse to get involved with your family business.”

“-that you would say that.” She sighed. “Relax. This has nothing to do with my family business, it is entirely unrelated, part of why I chose not to use any manpower on the problem, but even if I told you that, if you didn’t come here yourself I figured you would refuse me regardless.”

Well…. She isn’t wrong.

“So, what would you have done had I not been lured in by this little method?” I asked.

“Simple, I would have found another way to draw you here.” She smiled at me. “Now, shall we continue the useless banter, or would you prefer to get down to the talk of business?”

“Fine, fine, you win. So, give me the details.”

“Oh, you aren’t going to ask about the payment details?”

“Need I bother?”

“That’s the attitude.” She laughed before her smile faded. “As the contract stated, their have been… disappearances of small pets recently.”

“Doesn’t seem like something you’d get involved with.”

“I would not, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m fairly certain that I know the culprit.”

“You do?”

“Yes, from what some of my men have reported, the beast in question is noted as being pitch black, feline in nature, and reports vary its size as anywhere between that of a large cat to that of a wolf.”

“That’s a rather large range.” I frowned as the wide range in reported size.

“Well, that’s the issue with a Shadow Blossom.”

“A shadow blossom? No chance.” I shook my head in denial. “What would a shadow blossom be doing here? They’re normally only found in the north.”

“Let’s just say a shipment of the rather… exotic nature, ended up releasing its contents as it was passing through the city.”

“You said I wouldn’t be involved with your family business.”

“Correct.” Scyla nodded. “It is not the consequence of my family business that the shadow blossom ended up on the loose. But, as it is loose in my city, it becomes my problem. I need this issue tackled, but a shadow blossom, while not normally aggressive to humans, that becomes a separate issue entirely when said shadow blossom is cornered. A gold ranked monster isn’t exactly an easy problem to solve without involving the authorities or official guild response.”

“Which makes me the perfect fit.”

“Correct.”

I frowned, still thinking about what she had told me. A shadow blossom was a rather… intriguing monster. Originally starting off as nothing more than a simple rose, if the rose was watered with the blood of a feline on a new moon, the rose would begin to bloom further, becoming what was known as a night rose. If the process was repeated over the span of a year’s worth of new moons, the night rose would finally blossom into a shadowy enigma of a monster, the shadow blossom, described as a large shadowy feline wrapped in thorny vines of dark lunar silver. A monster, they thankfully had no magical abilities, but that wasn’t to say they couldn’t be dangerous, they could burrow themselves into the earth and persist like that for weeks at a time, only emerging to hunt at night, their teeth filled with a poisonous sap that could rot the body from the inside out if untreated.

Perhaps the most difficult thing about a shadow blossom, was that it wasn’t even as simple as killing the shadow blossom and calling it a day. Upon death, the corpse could disperse spores that would infest susceptible organic life, in some cases leading to a plague of skin rot, and in others leading to the asexual reproduction of even more shadow blossoms.

Which is why this is an issue that needs to be dealt with carefully.

“Where was it last seen?” I questioned.

“So you’ll take the contract?”

“Don’t push me.” I grumbled.

“If you insist. As for where it was last seen, that is part of the issue.”

“Oh?”

“It was last seen sneaking around Parisan academy grounds.”

I grumbled, things suddenly taking a turn for the complicated.

“A shadow blossom doesn’t normally attack humans, preferring to hunt smaller prey.” I said. “But, if their were small humans, say, such as children.”

“And you begin to understand why this can be a rather… serious, issue if left unresolved.”

“Yeah, seems that way.” I sighed. “And you’re certain we can’t get officials involved?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded vigorously. “Especially with the arrival of the Regent-to-be in two days.”

“Yeah, that could only end well.” I muttered. “Which I’m assuming means you want me to get on this-”

“Tonight, yes.” Scyla confirmed.

“And will I see any help?”

“Do you really want others to be involved and know of your involvement?”

“Point taken.” I said, pointing at her with a quick flick of my wrist. “So, keep it on the downlow, and be fast about it.”

“Exactly.”

“Question.”

“Yes?” Scyla looked at me inquisitively.

“Weapon.”

“Excuse me?”

“I need a weapon.” I repeated back.

“Why don’t you just use that sword magic, thing, you showed off before?” Scyla said.

“Because you can think of it like a mana construct. Even a two-bit novice of a mage would notice if they happened to open their mana sense for any amount of time, as mana doesn’t just up and randomly assemble itself in such a way.”

“Just be discrete then.”

“Ahh, brilliant plan.” I rolled my eyes, sarcasm dripping from my words. “Let me just walk around at night, waving around a sword that is basically like a beacon shining up in the sky, when the damn regent-to-be is supposed to be here in a few days. I’m certain there won’t be any royal guards already skulking about, looking for anything suspicious, such as, say, oh I don’t know, a mana construct.”

“Fair point.” Scyla relented. “Then take this.”

Reaching down she pulled back part of her shirt to reveal a dagger belted on beneath her shirt. Unhooking it, she tossed the sheathed weapon over to me, which I caught deftly.

“A dagger?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m more of a sword guy.”

“Yes, well, as you’re certain waving around a mana construct is bound to attract attention, I’m certain that walking around at night waving around sword is bound to look suspicious.”

“Honestly, I feel like a dagger speaks of more nefarious intentions.” I countered.

“Perhaps, but a dagger is also easier to hide. Now are you going to keep bitching?”

“Fine.” I quickly belted the dagger to my side before crossing my arms across my chest. “One other thing.”

“Oh what is it now?” Scyla groaned, exasperated. “I never imagined working with you would be this much back and forth.”

“Well, I’ve been burnt enough times now to be weary.”

“Even of little ole me?” Scyla asked, batting her eyelashes at me.

“Especially of you.” I said. “No offense, but it’s not like we’ve had years of getting to know one another. We knew each other for a grand total of four hours eight years ago, and then we’ve seen other maybe three times over the last two-ish weeks. To assume you honestly only have what’s best in mind for me would be naive.”

“Guess you’re not the trusting boy you used to be.” Scyla smiled, a dangerously potent thing. “Good. Fine, what is it that you wanted to ask?”

“I get you have eyes and ears everywhere, but how were you so confident in devising a plan that led me here?”

“Oh, simple really.” Scyla waved the question off as if it were no big deal. “Knowing what you’ve been up to over the last few years, I was certain you weren’t secretly hoarding some massive stash of wealth, it was only a matter of time until you needed to find a source of income since I know the response from the academy hasn’t arrived yet. Your little chaperone has a rather big mouth, she tells everyone she knows of how she has found a wealthy tourist that she is milking for everything she can.”

I frowned, little hurt that Vernice would refer to me so callously, but neither was it exactly surprising.

“I just took that information and put two and two together. Made sure that the information regarding the local contracts reached your ears by first making it to hers. Had that plan failed, I had others I’d prepared as well.”

“Has anyone told you that you’re a schemer?” I said flatly.

In response Scyla stared at me, as if wondering if I was serious.

“What?” I asked after several moments, feeling self-conscious.

“I’m an Eorial.” Scyla said. “That’s like asking a fish knows it can swim.”

“You were far more charming when I didn’t know you as well.” I exhaled slowly as I spoke, the woman had an undeniable presence to her that was enough to overwhelm anyone if they weren’t ready for it.

“Oh?” Scyla’s eyes were suddenly sparkling, picking up on something I said. “So, I’m charming you say?”

“I, wait, huh?” I found myself at a loss for words, Scyla still smiling mischievously at me. “You know what, I’m leaving. I’ll have your shadow blossom problem taken care of, so screw you, and have a nice night.”

Whipping around I stormed off toward the doors I had entered the room from, accompanied by the sound of Scyla’s overly amused laughter.

Monsters. Monsters I can deal with. Women, not so much.

Finding my way outside, I stretched long, taking a deep breath as I thought my problem through.

Shadow blossom. Eliminate the shadow blossom without anyone finding out, and without the issue spreading.

“Easy enough.” I muttered. “It can’t be any worse than dealing with that.”’