#042. The Noble Assembly is Too Kind (2)

#042. The Noble Assembly is Too Kind (2)

The noble district of the capital.

The Financial Faction boss’s residence.

The wealthiest aristocrat in the kingdom.

“Disaster! A mad party has emerged in the Sodom Guild, gobbling up requests at an unbelievable rate! They’re breaking through any encirclement and succeeding in hunt after hunt!”

The head of the Financial Faction seethed with rage.

“Impossible. Surely, we lured the Theresa Party away with a lucrative, long-term assignment!”

“It’s not the Theresa Party. It’s the work of the ‘Fastest Party’, led by the Inquisitor Maria, daughter of Theresa, and formed by Ian!”

“What in the heavens?!”

Betrayal.

Something that should never have happened, had.

“An Inquisitor aiding an Adventurer’s Guild? This violates our understanding! Why are those damned Church fanatics helping them devastate Sodom Village?!”

“Reports suggest the Sodom Guild Master is undeniably behind this manipulation. What are our orders?”

“Stop them at once! Make that lunatic understand for whom he truly works, someone who doesn’t even know which side he belongs to!!”

The Financial Faction boss’s booming voice reverberated, reaching even the adventurers dispatched to the field.

But the first-year Inquisitor, Ian, addicted to the thrill of devouring quests alongside the perfect team assembled by the cunning mind manipulator, was already beyond control.

The faction boss’s vassal trembled as he delivered a report from the ground.

“Our adventurers on scene, they were branded as heretics for harassing the village folk and other adventurers… Then they were besieged by a mob of adventurers that arrived late… Some were killed outright, and the rest are mostly in custody…”

The Financial Faction boss’s eyes went wild.

“Sodom, the Guild Master of Theresa… I underestimated him as a mere idealist, but he was hiding an outrageous ambition.”

Come to think of it, Sodom was a high-ranking official in his own right.

In this corrupt and depraved kingdom, he could not have risen to that position solely through merit.

He must be a schemer like any other bureaucrat, adept at intrigue and subterfuge.

“That fiend read our operation and used the callow Ian as a smokescreen, attaching the Guild’s hidden elite members to the Inquisitor. And we, ignorant as fools, just showered them with gold.”

He thought he was dealing with a naive simpleton, but he’d been thoroughly outplayed.

A noble, once wronged, cannot simply let it pass.

The Financial Faction boss felt the need to engage the Noble Assembly’s final faction.

“Contact the Martial Faction. Dispatch an assassination squad to eliminate the Sodom Guild Master directly. That cunning Guild Master may have left secret guards, so it must be a unit.”

“Understood.”

“No matter how quick they are, they must leave the guild before they are done with the request. If the assassination squad strikes Sodom Guild directly while both main parties are away from the village, even if the job gets messy, the message will be delivered loud and clear.”

The message that the price for defying a noble is death, will terrify the villagers.

Then the Guild will fall.

Revenge will be swift.

The Financial Faction boss, for the sake of his pride, now offered two high-paying bait quests – one for the Theresa Party and one for the Maria Party.

The bleeding isn’t meager, which makes for a more definite trap.

If the martial arts faction boss then coordinates, dispatching an assassination squad, the Sodom Guildmaster will have absolutely no chance of survival.

After the Sodom Guildmaster’s demise, no matter how strong Theresa might be, a guild without a head is destined to collapse.

Fools with only strength are easy.

Handle them well, and you can even turn them around and hold them in your own hand.

“Tell them to abduct the child, if possible.”

The Aristocratic Council’s retaliation commenced.

* * *

A hit job is something even the most lowly, gutter-born can commit for a few copper coins.

Of course, the higher the bounty, the more powerful or physically robust the assassin, the greater their skill or experience, and the more tight-lipped they are, ensuring they don’t leak the client’s story.

An assassin possessing all of these qualities naturally commands a high price.

And so, the nobles schemed.

Where could they find good blades who wouldn’t demand the full, exorbitant sum, who would be grateful even for a pittance and do as they’re told?

There are the artificially created assassins like Shoa, but they are disposable, prone-to-failure blades.

They also needed tools that would last a little longer, and be easy to replace, even if they did break down.

From that demand arose the ＜Darkskins＞, a sub-organization of the decision-making body known as the ＜Beastkin Revival Assembly＞, led by the 12 councilors elected as representatives of the Beastkin League.

If the races classified as Greenskins boasted tenacious lifeforce, these Darkskins were made up of races each possessing innate, natural-born assassin qualities.

Because they are Beastkin, considered base, and in need of support from human society, they readily select and consume these inferior races without hesitation, this selection process carried out with brutal ruthlessness.

“A directive from the Beastkin Revival Assembly. It seems that the camps of normally docile Beastkin, those who have dared to show their teeth, are interacting and coexisting with the chieftain of a human village.”

“Our goal is to annihilate these traitors who have become enemies of the Beastkin Revival Assembly, and to take down the leader of the human band that has joined hands with our enemy.”

Deviliah, leader of the Black Panther Beastkin race, the Darkskins’ leading race and one that holds a councilor seat in the Beastkin Revival Assembly, glowed with blue eyes in the darkness as she issued her orders.

“Any Darkskin who accomplishes a feat will step forward. The reward will be a 5-year permit for the status of Honorary Beast Race. Honorary Beast Races are exempt from ‘animal hunts’.”

In exchange for being excluded from the gruesome hunts carried out to eliminate disloyal elements within the faction, the talented within the tribe are trained as assassins and offered to the Beastkin Revival Assembly.

This year, the Black Mole Beastkin race and the Black Frog Beastkin race were vying for the vacant Honorary Beast Race spot within the Darkskins.

“This is a competition mission. The side that succeeds will enjoy glory, the side that fails will return empty-handed. Depart.”

At Deviliah’s declaration, the assassins of the two Beastkin tribes burst out of the hideout in an instant.

* * *

Theresa’s party and Maria’s party had earned recognition for their skills and left to fulfill designated requests.

“Hehe. Ian, seeing you like this, you really are like a kid. Just staring blankly out the window all day. Are you lonely because your dependable mom and girlfriend both left the village?”

He chuckled softly and shook his head at the joke from his veteran receptionist sunbae next to him.

“It’s nothing like that.”

Since they have been recognized for their skills, it is only natural that they take on tasks that require time to complete and go far away.

As the guild grows, and the affiliated adventurers are recognized for their skills, it is something that will happen more and more often, and that I need to become accustomed to.

But the one left behind feels this desolate.

-Time remaining until the 1st Army Party returns: 35 days

-Time remaining until the 2nd Army Party returns: 17 days

Later on, as they wait for the elite parties that don’t return, they anxiously await only good news.

Hoping that the brainwashing cast by the player helped a little more, that the variables could be cut off, that the adventurers they worked hard to raise are safe, all they can do is watch the decreasing expected return time.

“I’m used to waiting.”

“!”

“Being alone? I’m used to it.”

And another thing.

“That helplessness of knowing all you can do is believe and wait… I’m used to that too. It’s just… a habit of mine, trying to let go of things.”

“A habit…?”

“When I look out the window, the anxiety and distractions just… fade away.”

Suddenly, my senior colleague’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Ughhh. Rummaging through the sadness of a child soaked in learned helplessness, all because he waited for his dad who never came home, acting as the head of the household alone. I’m trash…!”

“Senior, come on. It’s not like that.”

Even as I was stacking up karmic debt, subtly brainwashing her not to feel too sorry for me, as always…

*Bang!*

A cat-like beastman guard, fur singed and covered in blood, burst into the guild.

“Male human! Help is needed, nya!”

“You were one of Hanyanya-nim’s subordinates, right? What’s wrong?”

“The beastman encampment is under attack, nya!”

A large-scale dispatch of adventurers was urgently needed.

I hit the emergency bell and initiated an urgent broadcast summoning all adventurers in town.

-Emergency rescue and subjugation request. Third-class adventurers and above are to gather at the Adventurer’s Guild immediately.

Like a ready-response team, adventurers flooded into the guild in an instant.

Their activity radius was pretty much limited to the area around the guild, and thanks to the lucratively-paid but not-too-difficult Horned Tadpole Horn craze, many adventurers had been taking a break, living it up in town.

“When Sodom village faced a crisis due to the sub-guild leader Gomorrah’s immoral acts sparking a revolution, the beastmen of the beastman encampment showed us kindness. Now, it’s our turn to repay our debt to them.”

The female adventurers of the town seemed less than enthusiastic.

“What is this? It’s not *our* village, but the beastmen are in trouble?”

“The beastwomen are already too popular with the men, so isn’t this a good thing?”

“Idiot. There are beastmen males too, you know? Did you think they don’t have any?”

“Ohoho. I heard the beastmen are so strong, they can go all night.”

“Communal childcare is the norm there, so they don’t even care who the mother is. You can just visit occasionally and give a ton of money. Just enough to keep the kid from feeling down, they say?”

For some reason, the female adventurers instantly did an about-face and regained their motivation.

“But… where did *you* get that information?”

“Ian.”

“Huh? Me too, Ian.”

Sensing something strange, gazes poured in from all directions.

Is this a plot to send us to the beastman encampment?

Such blatant suspicion filled the air.

The truth was, I *had* spread that information, just in case something like this happened.

Still, you can’t protect society with the truth alone.

If desire is smaller than other emotions, humans won’t act.

So, I amplified the desire.

Next, it was time to reduce the suspicion that outweighed that desire.

Parents, godfathers, wet nurses too.

I had already manipulated and twisted the hearts of many.

If repaying kindness meant forging fewer true bonds, how could one fear such a thing?

“I’m familiar. With the way the beastfolk raise their young. I have my own memories of being raised in a similar environment, receiving help from the elders in the alleyways, a sort of communal upbringing.”

“?!”

“A child born and raised in the alleys led the people of the alleys out. So, I choose to believe.”

I am a brainwasher.

A deceiver who twists and manipulates the hearts of men.

Using this wicked power, I will…

[Brainwash Activated]

[Designated Target – Adventurers]

[Command – This time, we are simply facing a larger, more distant, special alley, and this time too, we can guide them out of it.]

We are the people who can repay their kindness with kindness.

The species hatred between humans and beastfolk.

I committed a cruel act, distorting and shattering deeply ingrained instincts.

“Yes. They’re just people in a difficult situation.”

“Let’s protect our father-in-law’s tribe!”

“For the males who might become my husbands!”

Countless adventurers, their pure humanity lost, crossed the forest, using minds warped by brainwashing as their compass.

* * *

“As planned, those fools sent their main force out of the town to save the beastfolk encampment. Stupid humans. Now we raid the Adventurer’s Guild.”

Dark-skinned assassin beastfolk infiltrated the Guild.

And found the Guild Master’s office empty.

“?”

“Where did that b*stard go?”

“Bathroom?”

“No, look out the window.”

“Son of a b*tch.”

The beastfolk watched, enraged, as the Guild Master drove his carriage away on an emergency request, followed by a horde of adventurers pouring out into the street, raising their fists and shouting encouragements.

The assassin beastfolk, aiming to divide the enemy’s forces, had fallen into their own trap, splitting their own forces in half instead.