Inside a building populated by a family of new immigrants in the town of Elk, there are five people seated around the dining table in the afternoon, a mother, a father, two sons, and a daughter.

Or that what they appear to be…

“Any harvest?”(The Father)

“The same as we found before, nothing more…”(The Mother)

“Same here…”(Son 1)

“….Let’s go through what we learned before. The Adventurers’ Guild was found to be guilty of many crimes with murder as the biggest one and for that, all of those involved in murdering mercenaries and townspeople in the past were all executed including the Guild Master, the Guild staff coming from the capital, and all of the Adventurers. And after that, the town was able to fight against the ‘Flood’ successfully without suffering any casualties. And after that, they were able to track back the cause of the ‘Flood’ to the twins dispatched by the Church and killed both of them. and after that, they discovered the corruption of two noble families the Church was using as puppets and executed them along with Hols from the Hols Slave Market that the Church deals with. And after that, they were able to kill all of the soldiers sent by the South Cardinal Kingdom to act like bandits. And then, they were able to stop the rebellion of the noble families that supported the Church’s involvement in Elk…”(The Daughter)

“They have stopped everything that the Church planned for them and ruined the efforts that have been stacked for tens of years along the way”(Son 2)

“And to top everything, they went and built that damn Library! The books in that Library are all a threat to our Holy Kingdom Vitos! And everything we tried to do in order to destroy the Library was thrown back at us!”(The Father)

“When we tried to burn it, the fire bounced off the building and came directly at us. And when we tried doing the same from the inside, the same thing happened to us. When we tried to take the books outside of the town, they disappeared right away, even though the merchants and other people were able to take them outside the town freely. And when we tried hiring thugs to attack the Library they were all gravely injured by that black-haired girl who works there…”(The Mother)

“And no matter who we ask they all give us the same answer, ‘It’s all thanks to the Hero of Elk, Soma!’ is what they say”(The Daughter)

“And we go to look for this man called Soma we are never able to find him…”(Son 1)

“The description we have of him is that he is a 40 years old mage wearing a purple robe and tall-hat, and he has his jet black magic staff wherever he goes. Looking for someone who has such a description should have been easy, and yet we can’t find him at all! Thanks to the merchants and mercenaries going to the capital, the dangerous books sold in this Library should have reached the Church already. But we have to eliminate the source of it all! We have to find this man Soma and kill him as fast as possible!”(The Father)

“We still have our jobs to attend to, we can’t stay at home more than this! People might start suspecting us…”(Son 2)

“I know!... for now each of you go to your respective jobs and keep putting the act of being ‘hard-working emigrants who wish to start a new life in the town of Elk’, I’ll go and send the weekly report back to the Church and will be out myself”(The Father)

All of them left the house and went to their afternoon jobs, all of them worked in stalls spread across the whole town in order to collect as much information as possible. The Father went to his room and wrote a letter containing his report about everything they were able to find, he then took the letter and gave it to a bird that was being kept in a cage next to the window, the bird opened its peak and ate the whole letter before flying out through the window.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After that, The Father made his way to the fountain in front of the Mercenary’s Guild pushing his stall, he assembled his stall next to the stall of an old man selling skewers and started preparing the stew he is selling in his stall, he spent his time talking with the old man and the customers who came to the both of them, and next to the both of them, a white-haired young man sitting on the rim of the fountain eating food he bought from both stalls and reading a book at the same time, the young man would come to eat and read here every day and now both the stall owners are already used to him. The young man finished eating, closed his book, and stood up to leave, but before he left he went to The Father and started talking to him.

“Old man, you look troubled, did something happen to you?”(Soma)

“Nothing important, it’s just that we are still not used to life here…”(The Father)

“I see, keep at it and you’ll get used to it in no time and if you need help with anything don’t hesitate to ask”(Soma)

“Thank you, but don’t worry about me, I just need to get used to life here that's all”(The Father)

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“…Soma! We have a very important visitor back at the Guild and they are here to nominate you for a very special request!”(Ito)

“A request for me? And just now you said a visitor, are they not from Elk?”(Soma)

“Yeah, they are not from Elk and they are here specifically to nominate you for a special request”(Ito)

“From outside the town huh…….. since they shouldn’t be aware of my true identity, I’m curious about what they heard about me. But before that, can they be trusted?”(Soma)

“Yes! To be honest with you, they are more trustworthy than my own father, and having them as an ally will help you achieve your goal easier”(Ito)

“I see, if they are at the Guild right now I would like to meet them right away”(Soma)

“Come! Let’s go then!”(Ito)

Ito and Soma headed for the Mercenary’s Guild right away and after arriving there, Ito led Soma to a meeting room in the back, and in there two women were waiting for them, one of them is a red-haired woman that appears to be in her thirties and she started smiling furiously at Soma the moment he entered the room, Soma thought in his mind that she gave the impression of being a lion sitting on a throne. The other one was a black-haired woman that appears to be in her twenties and she started looking at Soma with great interest in her eyes.

“Let me introduce myself! My name is Leona Akud, the Lord of the Independent Town of Learning Akud! And this is here is one of the teachers…”(Leona)

“Milin, I’m a teacher of History and Magic at the Grand Academy of Akud!”(Milin)

“I’m Soma, the head of the Alchemy Department of the Craftsmen Guild and I work as a mercenary as well”(Soma)

“Alright… Soma! How much do you know about Akud?”(Leona)

“Nothing much more than its title as the Independent Town of Learning”(Soma)

“Hahaha! I see! I’ll explain to you what Akud is and then I wish to make a special request to you, is that fine with you?”(Leona)

“Yeah”(Soma)

“Okay then, The Independent Town of Learning Akud is a small town that is located between five great mountains that surround the town from every direction, Akud is what people call a Natural Fortress. Thanks to that, the town is completely protected from monsters and humans alike, and so in the past, that location was seen as the perfect place to keep books, important reports, and knowledge in general safe, and that was the start of the town, and after that, an academy was built in there to benefit from all that knowledge stored in there and later down the line, that academy became the most important place in the town, it became the symbol of our whole town, till five years ago that is”(Leona)

“Did something happen?”(Soma)

“Yeah, the town’s political stance is that of none interference, and naturally we didn’t have nobles and what not to ruin that, but the Lord before me was a complete idiot! He allowed nobles to hold their positions inside the town by granting them pieces of land that are important to the whole town like mines, hunting grounds, and farms, and after I took the position of a Lord, I faced a lot of problems caused by those nobles. They started demanding to have authority over the academy and their kids started making life harder and harder for the other students and teachers alike”(Leona)

“Making life harder? How so?”(Soma)

“Excessive Bullying and Harassment! Right after I became a Lord I started receiving reports of fights and oppression caused by the noble kids, I tried to punish the kids as the Headmaster of the Academy but their parents started placing pressure on the whole town using the resources coming from their lands and made it impossible for me to deal with them, and soon enough, their actions escalated to sexual assault and enslavement, and last year we had our first student being killed by one of the noble students. That was my limit, and so I started putting a plan to purge every last one of those nobles in the town regardless of their age, but then some interesting information reached me, the information I received from my friend Alf-chan the Lord of this very town, was of a certain young man ridding the town of Elk of its corruption, and along with the information I received a number of books written and sold by that young man, it was as if divine salvation was bestowed upon me! And here I am right now in Elk to make a request of that young man…..Would you be interested to work as a teacher in my academy?”(Leona)

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