Chapter 9
The remaining items on my errand list were carrots, onions, and flower seeds.
As I entered the market, I bought the carrots and onions while asking the merchants about the Merchant Union.
At first, they brushed it off vaguely, but when I mentioned the old man in the alley and what had happened to him, they sighed deeply and clicked their tongues.
“Those guys have no compassion. They started out as vigilantes during the Mado War, but after the war ended, they changed. Once they got a taste for money with all that talk of membership fees, they started harassing people they shouldn’t. Life’s always been hard, whether back then or now, right?”
“The bosses number about six, and there are around twenty guys under them collecting the fees. This whole area is in the palm of their hands. If you refuse to join, it’s total chaos. They’ve got the police in their pocket, so reporting it does nothing. Now everyone just pays up because it’s dirty work.”
As expected, these thugs calling themselves the Merchant Union were lording over the neighborhood like it was their own turf.
‘That means they know everything about this city.’
That could be useful for finding the relic. After finishing my shopping, I hummed a tune on the way back to the mansion.
There was no need to think any more.
I had to take action starting today.
That night, close to midnight.
I changed into casual clothes and slipped out of the mansion without the Head Maid knowing.
This kind of secretive escape was one of the things a maid should avoid, but that was none of my concern.
Sometimes, there are tasks that can’t be accomplished without deceiving people. Especially when you have to hide your identity as a maid.
I entered the pub the potato-selling old man had told me about.
Ding-a-ling.
As I opened the door, the crimson lanterns lighting the interior swayed faintly.
The first thing I noticed was the large frame hanging prominently on the wall straight ahead. The faded black-and-white photo captured the faces of my dear comrades—heroes of the Mado War, publicized through the newspapers.
There was one middle-aged woman, four middle-aged men, and the bartender inside the pub. As I’d heard, there were six bosses.
‘Guys like this always gather at their hideout the night a problem crops up in their turf for a strategy meeting.’
I scanned around their waists, but no guns in sight. That meant I just had to watch out for the bartender.
I took a seat at the bar. Since no one had spoken up until then, I broke the ice first.
“A drink for the customer.”
The bartender scoffed.
“Hey, miss. You don’t look like you’re from around here. We’re not open for business, so why don’t you leave nicely.”
“Why not?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you open?”
In the increasingly hostile atmosphere, a burly man sauntered over casually and took the seat next to me. His face looked oddly familiar.
“Hold on, hold on. Let me handle this. Where you from, miss?”
The man leaned in with a sleazy grin.
“What’s your name?”
No wonder he looked familiar.
“Why aren’t you answering? You the crazy maid who smashed my little brother’s face in half?”
He was the trash’s older brother. Or maybe the brother trash?
Click.
In an instant, the bartender pulled a shotgun from under the table and aimed it at my forehead, his eyes cold and merciless as he warned me.
“Was it you? If you don’t want to die, come along quietly. Or I’ll turn you into pulp and ship you off on a slave ship.”
That action shattered even my last sliver of hope.
In the Empire, pubs were spaces for hometowns and people. But apparently not this one.
I stood from the chair obediently at the bartender’s warning. As I walked along the bar, the gun barrel followed my head.
When I reached the entrance leading to the back of the bar, I dropped low in a flash and swept my leg in a half-circle, kicking the bartender’s wrist.
Bang! The bartender flew into the display shelf lined with glasses and crashed to the floor, shards of broken glass scattering over him like snowflakes.
“Grab her!”
Next, I slapped the cheek of the bravely charging brother trash, slamming him into the wall. The two at the round table met the table, and the remaining two shared a deep kiss with the chairs.
“Ugh……”
Finally, some quiet.
This is the pub I know. A space for people, not trash.
“Any hidden guns?”
The middle-aged woman, who had her arms raised in surrender, stared at me with trembling shoulders.
“Did you hear me?”
“In the storeroom! H-here you go!”
“Don’t need it.”
I turned back to the bartender.
The brave bartender who had aimed at my head had one leg mangled and was rolling around on the floor. When I straightened his body and sat on top of him, he looked like he was about to die.
“So, when are you going to answer my question?”
“Your question……”
“Why aren’t you open for business? Is ‘pub’ written outside just for show?”
“We’ll open for business.”
“Then why did a bunch of guys who don’t even do business form the Merchant Union or whatever?”
“W-We’ll open for business.”
“Answer the question. Why did you form the Merchant Union?”
“For the protection of merchants’ interests in the city……”
“Who agreed to that?”
“All the merchants……”
“Did they really agree sincerely? You didn’t threaten them? Should I go around the neighborhood right now and ask? Dragging you around like a dog, confronting them one by one. Every time someone says they were forced to join, your lifespan drops by twenty years. Want me to do that?”
Strange.
Talking at length to these guys didn’t feel unpleasant at all. My own voice didn’t sound horrific to my ears.
It felt like I’d gone back to being Anderte, making my lips curve up more easily.
Thanks to that, my tongue danced like a fish in water.
“I’m sorry.”
One of the men sitting at the table with his hands raised spoke to me in a slurred voice, his molars broken.
“M-Miss, who the hell are you?”
I scanned the terrified faces of the six one by one, then pointed to the wall.
“That guy.”
The frame proudly displaying the black-and-white photo, cut out like from a knight’s tale.
In the photo, there I was from my Anderte days, along with Raphaelo, Natasha—the Empire’s sole princess—and a total of seven heroes, all laughing with our glasses raised to the sky.
It wasn’t a photo with some grand backstory.
It had been taken by the pub owner to boost the alliance army’s morale amid the sudden assault by the great mage Mephisto, when the front lines were being pushed north.
I’d wondered how such a photo would boost morale, but it must have been released through the newspapers after the victory.
“That’s me.”
“What do you……”
“We worked hard and saved the world. But it wasn’t so you trash could run rampant.”
The bartender’s eyes shifted from looking at a deranged crazy maid to something else. I dragged a chair over from the table, sat down, and wet my throat with water.
“You wanted to know who I am? Let me tell you my story for a bit. You can listen, right? Laugh off any awkward phrasing. I’m not great with words.”
“Y-Yes? Oh, yes.”
“I have an important goal I must achieve within three years.”
“Yes.”
“But you see, to accomplish this goal, the area around the mansion needs to be cleaned up. Especially from guys like you. You know who I mean, right? Thieves.”
“W-We’re not thieves……”
“Is that alley yours?”
I swept my gaze over the thieves. They were all busy avoiding my eyes.
“Is that alley yours? Answer me.”
“No, it’s not.”
“If it’s not yours and you’re charging usage fees, that’s theft. Because of thieves like you, dinner tasted bad tonight. The potatoes were in awful shape. The potatoes were awful because the merchant, scared of the stall tax, was selling in the alley. Alleys aren’t visible, so goods don’t sell for a long time. That makes them go bad easily, right?”
“……Yes.”
“So, without stall tax, the potatoes would be fresh. Fresh ingredients bring out the flavor and quality of the food, but bad meals can make you sick. If you get sick, and luck’s not on your side, what happens? You die soon enough.”
“Yes.”
I pointed at the bartender thief.
“In summary, if you collect stall tax, I die.”
“Yes. ……Yes?”
“So, I’m planning to kill you all before I die. Otherwise known as self-defense.”
I smiled at them.
“Story’s over. Who wants to die first?”
It was only natural that the thieves’ faces turned pale.
Someone gasped desperately.
Of course, I had no intention of killing them. Violence and murder are crimes on entirely different levels. Both serious, sure.
At that moment, the bartender who’d been rolling around slowly got up. His fearful eyes had turned bold and aggressive.
“We have the above us.”
So he had something to rely on.
The bartender spat out a wobbling fang and pointed at me accusingly.
“So you can’t kill us. The repays any slight tenfold! If all our heads roll, you’ll be their enemy, and you won’t survive.”
