838: Sendia's Current State

「Gah!」

「Are you one of the illegal slavers?」

「W-Who the hell are you, you little―― Gwah!」

「I’m asking the questions here. Last chance. Are you one of the illegal slavers?」

Further down a dark and narrow alleyway.

In a gap between the buildings, Fran had taken out her assailant.

Well, he did try to attack her, yes. But it’s more like she purposely exposed an opening and baited him into the crime.

The plan was to walk around in the back alleys and beat the information out of anyone picking a fight with her. Although she wasn’t at full power, she could still take out these random hoodlums in seconds.

However, the results were not as good as Fran had hoped for.

It seems the black market slavers don’t operate openly, even in this illegal city. From the ten or so thugs we’ve beaten up so far, I’ve heard nothing but stories about the legal slave dealers.

Still felt like a decent haul to me though. We heard a lot about this city worked.

There were apparently three major groups that were constantly on the verge of war with each other. Because of that, the governing body barely functioned.

Sendia was originally governed by a council system that consisted of the upper echelons of the city’s oldest organization, known as the Sanatorium, and other influential people. However, the control of the council had been steadily losing power.

The reason for this change was an outburst from the militant gang known as the Dragon King Syndicate.

Since all of the random punks we found were enemies of the Dragon King Syndicate, they all said it was some horrible terrorist organization, but I would take that with a grain of salt.

Simply put, it started as a group of dragonkin that wanted to mutually support each other. Eventually, they got carried away, repeatedly committing violent acts against the other organizations.

The other group in direct conflict with the Dragon King Syndicate was the Beastmen Union. As the name suggested, it was an organization mainly composed of beastmen employed as mercenaries.

Both of these gangs were said to be out for blood, getting violent whenever they meet. I bet they both thought they couldn’t afford to lose face.

The last faction intervening in these fights was the Adventurers Guild. The guild’s purpose was to maintain public safety at first, but the adventurers had a lot of bloodthirsty folks too.

And they were all adventurers native to this city. Many of this continent’s adventurers had some nasty histories, but only a select few would want to come to this illegal city. There’s no way all of them would be decent people.

Before anyone knew it, the guild had changed its stance from stopping the fights to one of the participants, and it turned into a three-way deadlock.

I wondered if the guildmaster, Prear, was making any attempts to stop the adventurers, but he seems to have left that part of the situation unchecked.

It wasn’t that he was incapable of controlling them. The old man we met at the guild was quite talented. He probably just had no intention of interfering.

Seemed to me that the adventurers wouldn’t stop that easily either.

So with these three big organizations at odds with each other, there was no way the council could move smoothly. I heard they were left unable to make any significant decisions.

「A-Are… Are you from the Beastmen Union…?」

「No.」

「T-Then――」

「Shut up already.」

「Hyah!」

「Don’t tell anyone about me. You know what happens if you do?」

Fran pulled me out and held me right in front of him. That was enough to terrify the guy, but then Fran gave him more of a fright.

「Urushi.」

「Grrr!」

「Hyaaaah!」

An Urushi appeared behind the man, at a size barely fitting in the alley. He went in a complete panic after the jet-black giant wolf suddenly exhaled on him from behind.

Seeing Urushi’s figure blending into the darkness here was way more impressive than normal daylight. No wonder the guy just peed his pants.

「This magical beast has a good nose. He just learned the smell of your disgusting pee.」

「Grrr!」

「If you tell anyone about me, he will chase you to the ends of the earth and swallow you whole.」

「Arf!」

「Okaaay! I won’t tell! I won’t tell anyone! Spare me!」

「…I’ll let you off the hook for today.」

「T-T-T-T-Thank you so much!」

We threatened him just like we did with the other thugs, then let him go. They wouldn’t be worth killing anyways.

However, it would be troublesome if any rumors spread about the black cat girl looking for illegal slavers. That’s why we had to make extra sure they kept quiet.

I didn’t expect that silence to last forever, but that’s fine as long he’s trembling in fear until Fran was done with this city.

（Got nothing again.）

『It’s only the first day of the search. That can’t be helped.』

（Nn…）

As we were walking, I felt a presence approaching from ahead. We were currently in a dark back alley, so maybe we got another assailant coming our way?

I paused to consider the possibility, but the attacker didn’t seem to be making any effort to hide their presence. Just a passerby then?

『No, this presence, this mana…』

（I recognize it.）

（Woof!）

The person approaching us was obviously someone we knew.

Fran waited in place.

Then, a huge figure appeared out of the darkness.

The man had an intimidatingly large body and long horns extending from his forehead. On his back was a rough-looking greatsword.

「Yo.」

「Ashwrath!」

The large man casually raising one hand to greet us was Ashwrath, the Rank S adventurer.

We heard that he was on this continent, but I guess he must have been hiding in this city the entire time. Prear mentioned another adventurer with an alias was here, so Ashwrath must have been who he was referring to.

「Long time no see, Fran.」

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