Chapter 141.

After following Malecia out of the secret area, his subordinates asked with worried faces, "Is it okay to antagonize that person like that?”

Malecia looked indifferently at his anxious subordinates. His nonchalant eyes made them all shrink back at the same time.

"It's fine. Do you think I've never worked with stuck-up magicians like that? For punks like that, if you don’t come off strong from the beginning, you’ll never be able to get any work done.”

For those types of people, if you didn’t show that you’re on the same level, they’d come out high-handed throughout the work and wouldn’t even pass on the proper information. Rather, if you become enemies from the beginning, you and the other would end up finishing the work quickly then try to kill each other, so there was no interruption in the work.

Of course, very rarely, would they put work on the back burner and try to kill you by digging a trap. However, in such cases, Aries would punish them directly, so no one rashly tried to backstab the other during work.

Thanks to that, whenever Malecia met a collaborator like Jiren, he had to fight with his life on the line after the work was finished, but the work itself would be completed without any issue. He who had survived even after becoming enemies with numerous magicians through killing would rather choose to become enemies.

After leaving the inn, Malecia looked at his subordinates and issued an order, "Scatter and collect information about the ruins. Move in pairs when active.”

"Yes, understood."

The subordinates moved in predetermined groups and mixed among the crowds of the streets.

Left alone, Malecia sighed and pulled down on his hood heavily, and covered his face.

-o-

Lotten's market streets were quite lively thanks to a large crowd. If most of them were not wearing weapons like swords and axes on their waists, it would have seemed peaceful, but unfortunately, it was a little far from peaceful.

The reason why the market was still casually open despite there being strong-looking armed men strutting down the streets was that there were heavily armored knights on patrol.

While walking around the market streets, I saw insignias of more than ten different knight divisions including White Deer, Black Water Buffalo, Golden Sheep, and Eagle. Some of the patterns were new to me and seemed to be knight divisions belonging to the city of Lotten and its territories.

I bought two steamed buns from a street stall and handed one to Dane Walker.

While taking a big bite of the steamed bun, Dane Walker said, "Thank you, I'll enjoy it."

The reason why I was walking around the city with Dane Walker like this was because of the Lotten branch director's order. Not long after waking up and getting to work in the morning, the branch director ordered Flam and me to take turns going on patrols in the city. The reason was obvious. It was to deliberately show off Dane Walker and intimidate adventurer’s that might cause trouble so that Dane Walker, who was hired as an escort for Flam and me, could directly take actions to deal with them.

It was a pretty effective method because not only adventurers, but everyone knew of the platinum plate adventurer, Dane Walker unless they were a wanderer. Perhaps this was why Guild Director Glont purposely made Dane Walker our escort.

So Dane Walker and I came out to crack down on adventurers in the name of patrolling the city, while Flam was probably working hard on the paperwork at the Lotten branch.

I should get some snacks for the toiling Flam when I come back later.

"So how does ruin exploration work? I think the ruin is probably too small for all of these people to enter."

According to the data provided by Milpia, although the ruin had not been properly excavated yet, the size of the ruin was not that large. Assuming there was a passage leading underground, the shape of the ruin was speculated to be like a labyrinth. It would be fine if they were just temporary tourists, but it was too small to accommodate people who wanted to dig for treasure.

"Well, first, the ruin is guarded by soldiers and knights, so people can't just simply go in there.”

"Then I guess most of the people gathered in Lotten won't be able to set foot inside the ruin."

Dane Walker nodded. "That’s right. Usually, to determine the value of the ruin, archaeologists will first go in with court magicians and knights as escorts. And professional treasure hunters will also go in to find if there is anything like secret rooms."

"Then is there really a need for the adventurers and mercenaries gathered here?"

Dan Walker waved his hand at my question. "It's not necessarily like that. Even if archaeologists and court magicians go in, it's a small number compared to the size of the ruin. So exploring will take too much time."

"Oh, so you mean adventurers and mercenaries will be hired as explorers."

Before I left for patrol, amongst the documents, I briefly saw one about the selection of explorers.

Dane Walker nodded in affirmation. "Yes. The adventurers and mercenaries gathered here are here to be hired as explorers."

"It seems they are using a method of providing rewards for finding treasure." I took a calculated guess.

Dane Walker responded with an illusion of sprinkling petals with magic. "Ding, dong, deng! That's right. You can't sell the treasure, but if you're lucky and work hard for a few months, you might be able to get a few years’ worth of commission fees. Instead, if you destroy the ruins even by mistake, you’ll be punished accordingly.”

Is this petal a concept? At that moment, I felt an urge to play around and was tempted to intervene in the magic and turn the illusion into man-eating plants. But I endured it.

"Then I guess the business trip will be over when the explorers have been selected and the adventurers scatter."

"The civil servants from the headquarters will probably get sent back before all adventurers scatter."

Since the headquarters in the capital had few people relative to its size, we seemed to be able to go straight back once the work here became stabilized.

"How long do you think it'll take to select the explorers?” I asked.

Dane Walker locked his fingers together and thought for a moment, then answered with a smile, "A week at the earliest? If I think about the time from when the ruins are discovered to when everything is complete, it usually takes around a month.”

Since Dano went on the business trip two weeks ago and the ruin was discovered a little earlier than that, in about a week, it would have been around a month since the ruins were discovered.

"It all gets completed quicker than I thought."

When I gave a look of surprise, Dane Walker smiled pleasantly.

"In fact, when the explorers were chosen, they half-forced everyone to disperse them using brute force."

I did think that there were too many knights and soldiers. They must have gathered not only for security but also for the purpose of disbanding the protesting adventurers and mercenaries.

I was patrolling the streets of the market for a while when I heard a loud noise from afar.

From whence the sound came, a bunch of men were grabbing each other by the collar. Based on the fact that I could see a bronze plate under the coat, they seemed to be adventurers.

Dane Walker helplessly sighed. "Stay here for a second.”

Saying so, he approached the adventurers who were in a fight. Then just the way that the branch director wanted, he dealt with the adventurers, who were fighting with magic.

I was looking at Dane Walker’s mediation from a distance when I found a man nearby wearing a hood with his presence suppressed and observing Dane Walker.

The man carefully observed Dane Walker and turned his head. Then, his eyes met mine.

The man in the hood approached me and I finished the rest of the steamed bun in one bite.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“No problem,” I said with the steamed bun stuffed in my mouth.

Then the man's lips went up as if he found it interesting. If you looked closely, it seemed he might be one-eyed as he was wearing an eye patch.

"Oh, you can talk after you're done eating."

I nodded at the man. I swallowed the steamed bun quickly and said, "Do you have any water?"

The man’s one eye looked at me like he was seeing something strange and gave me a water bottle.

I received the water bottle, drank it, and thanked him. "Thank you. The steamed bun was very sweet and made me thirsty."

The one-eyed man received the water bottle back and told me the reason he spoke to me again. "Not a big deal. Rather, I want to ask you something.”

"Yes, go ahead."

When I nodded, he asked carefully, "Looking at the uniform, you seem to be a civil servant working for the Adventurers’ Guild. Do you perhaps know when they are going to be recruiting the explorers for the ruin?"

The one-eyed man’s gaze didn't seem to be very curious, rather it seemed to be curious as to how I had found him.

I didn't know because the one-eyed man didn’t release his aura but based on what I could feel now, he seemed to be stronger than Rosellis. He might even be strong enough to be compared with Guild Director Glont.

"I think they’ll probably pick them within a week."

When I looked at him as if nothing was wrong, he seemed slightly flustered and made an excuse. "I'm looking for a spot as an explorer this time.”

No matter how I looked at it, that was a lie. The one-eyed man gave off a smell that made me feel like I should not get involved with him.

Looking at his hands, he was a man who had held a sword for a long time. Looking for a position as an explorer when he possessed considerable skills, he seemed to be up to something. Most of the time, if someone was up to something at a ruin, the person was a tomb raider.

"By chance, if you know when the excavation will begin in earnest, could you tell me?” the one-eyed man asked with a smile.

Considering that he was not being aggressive, but polite and did not seem anxious, he was not poor and desperate. However, his clothes weren’t made of expensive high-end fabric, but instead, his clothes were cheap and easy to move in. He seemed to place importance on practicality.

I purposely gave a suspicious look and smiled. "Who knows? I haven't been here long, so I don't really know."

It didn't seem like the tomb raider needed money but felt like he was being ordered to do it. It was best to ignore at times like this. If I got involved for no reason, a very troublesome situation could occur. My work wouldn’t necessarily increase if the ruin got robbed, but if I got involved with a tomb raider, I could get investigated by an investigation agency before the work was completed.

I had enough experience being trapped behind bars when I was caught as a suspect in the poisoning of Director Pelgrant. I’ll refuse any more cold jails.

"Is that so? Thanks for your time."

"No, it's nothing. I hope you achieve what you want."

"Thanks. I'll make it happen." The one-eyed man and I smiled and said goodbye.

Since he was a person of interest, let’s make sure to remember his face for he could become my rival.

"Did something happen?”

I laughed and shook my head when Dane Walker asked after returning from settling all the adventurers’ disputes.

"No, nothing happened. He just asked for some directions."

"Really?"

Dane Walker tilted his head at the sight of the one-eyed man disappearing amid the crowd.

"Hmm, I feel like I've seen him somewhere before."

"He just looks like an adventurer or a mercenary. Maybe he seems familiar because he is in the same field?”

At my words, Dane Walker mumbled, stroking his chin. "I don't think so..."

"Let's just resume our patrol."

I moved forward and left Dane Walker who kept looking in the direction that the one-eyed man went.

"Wait for me!"

Dane Walker quickly caught up.

Come to think of it, I should try slowly heading over to the ruin exploration since the investigation was important. It was also a good opportunity to test the newly acquired Witch of Pride’s bracelet.

The ruin wouldn’t collapse just from letting my magic run a little wild, right?