725: Effects of Labor Shortage

「What the hell!」

「You’re the one who started this, you know? I won’t forgive you even if you apologize.」

「Bring it on!」

「Don’t spit on me!」

On the way back to the inn, a group of adventurers were arguing in the middle of the road.

One of them seems to be drunk. They were bald-headed, and equipped in fur armor. True barbarian style, giving the impression that they were good at fights and not much else.

The ones arguing with them are young adventurers. They look like a more orthodox adventurer type. The one leading the argument is a female archer who is still quite young.

This is a common scene in Ulmutt, where there are not enough guards to intervene and stop them. The people around them looked annoyed and moved to the side to avoid them.

Neither of them is very strong, and normally we would leave them alone without getting involved. Or, we would beat them both up to stop them from fighting.

Fran still looks sluggish from the backlash of using her divine attribute, but she can handle these guys.

However, Fran stopped in front of them without attacking.

There was someone she knew in the middle of the argument.

「Hey. What are you doing?」

「What? Fran-sensei!」

The young adventurers, Naria and her friends, had previously been Fran’s short-term students. Naria turned to us and gave us an embarrassed look, probably because of the somewhat reproachful tone of Fran’s voice.

「What the hell?」

「Geh!」

The drunken man also shouted at Fran, causing spit to land on her face. Naria was clearly flustered after she saw that Fran was slightly grimacing.

「You’re bothering people.」

「R-Right…」

「And!?」

At Fran’s brief words, Naria, the archer, and Miguel, the greatsword user, looked pale and dejected. However, the drunken man had no idea of Fran’s ability, and began picking a fight with her.

「Don’t give a shit! Shut up!」

The simpleton tried to lay a hand on Fran, but…

「Hmph!」

「Gbargh!」

Well, that was expected.

「Miguel, just throw him away somewhere.」

「U-Understood!」

「Fran-sensei. I’m sorry to bother you with this.」

「Nn, he was in my way.」

Fran is thanked by Naria and Riddick. After listening to their story, I learned that this year was especially bad in the number of incidents. I guess they don’t have enough staff.

「I’m so tired coming back from a request, and I can’t stand to get tangled up with an idiot like that!」

「A request?」

「Right.」

It seems that the Adventurers’ Guild nowadays has a few hunting requests outside of town. The most common request is to take out undead.

The undead are still showing up, some even right outside of town. If such undead are left unattended, the monsters that feed on them will also gather, so they need to be exterminated as soon as possible.

「Dufour and his friends went off somewhere too! Everything is just so awful!」

「Dufour is missing?」

「Yes, I was going to make him help me with the job, but it looks like he already checked out of the inn… How pathetic, just because he lost the match!」

It seems that Dufour and his friends were so shocked by losing to Fran that they left Ulmutt as soon as possible.

While I was talking with Naria, a shadow suddenly caught the attention of my presence detection. They were looking down at us from the roof of a nearby building.

（Master?）

『…Urushi, can you get the guy on the roof?』

（Woof!）

『Then, Fran, you get the guys in the alley over there.』

（Okay.）

There are three lurking in the alley and they’re clearly emitting killing intent towards us. If they can’t hold that in, it must mean they aren’t very skilled.

「Sensei! I’m getting a strange feeling…」

「Shh. I know, just keep talking.」

「O-Okay, got it.」

They must really be weaklings if even Naria can sense them.

『All right, go!』

「Nn!」

「Grr!」

After I fired a lightning spell, Fran and Urushi moved into action. And soon after, they caught the stalkers. They were not strong in the least, and were easily defeated by Fran and Urushi.

After she saw Fran suddenly release magic then come back dragging some strange men behind her, Naria had a look of astonishment on her face.

「Eh? Um? Sensei?」

「They’re assassins. Probably.」

「P-Probably?」

「Nn. They were trying to kill me.」

Naria’s frowning a bit. I guess she thought it was a bit much to knock them out and take them into custody before we were sure.

We decide to go into the alley and interrogate them there so we don’t bother anyone.

I healed the guy I had paralyzed with an electric shock, and after intimidating him and breaking his spirit, we asked him the questions.

「Why did you guys target me?」

「I-It was just a job!」

The assassin blurted out everything.

As a result, we only found out that he was a low-level assassin hired by some noble person. He was originally a bandit, and was hired for a pittance.

『Let’s just take him to the Adventurers’ Guild.』

（Okay.）

There are a lot of reasons to go after Fran. She’s a celebrity for one, and maybe they wanted to make some dough from the illegal gambling on the results of the tournament.

I highly doubt he is working for one of the other participants still in the tournament, but the list of suspects is endless.

When we headed for the Adventurers’ Guild with the assassin in tow, we found that there was a commotion going on there as well.

Diaz had been attacked. Well, he easily subdued the assailants no doubt. So they were targeting all the semi-finalists?

「Oh? Fran-chan!」

「Elsa, take this.」

「Who are they?」

「Assassins.」

「Oh my! You got some too, Fran-chan? Okay, okay! I’ll take perfect care of it!」

「Please.」

「Somebody get these guys in jail!」

As Fran hands over the assassins, Elsa licks his lips for some reason and orders the adventurers to drag them out.

「I’m getting tired of it all… we’ll have to send someone out to check on Hiltoria-sama and Neidhart-sama as well… And if they have any friends lurking around, we need to get them, too.」

「Good luck.」

「Having your support will cheer me up a million times over! I’ll do my best!」

Anyways, this year’s martial arts tournament seems to be full of troubles… Raydoss spies, the undead troubles, Shallus nobles, and now the assassin ruckus…

It seems that there are not enough guards at all. Are they really going to be okay? Well, don’t expect anything from us since we’ll be resting up for the next match.

We need to get Fran back to full form.

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