WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss

Chapter 033

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Chimera Hunt (1)

“President.”

When I knocked, tap tap, the door opened without a sound. It wasn’t that she hadn’t locked it, she simply hadn’t closed it properly in the first place.

There aren’t many besides me who would come all the way to her private bedroom rather than the President’s office to find Karisia, but isn’t her security awareness a bit too lacking?

I thought about saying something but gave up. She’ll manage fine on her own.

Actually, the one to worry about isn’t Karisia, it’s the intruder. If you get caught by a human whose specialty is death beams, you’re done for.

“Come in-”

As I waited before the opened door, a languid voice came through.

“Wasn’t it your principle that you dislike being alone with the President outside of work hours?”

A mischievous joke tossed with a light chuckle.

…It’s a joke, right?

“As our wise President says. I came to report that I’ll need to go on another business trip.”

“Huh?”

Disbelief lingered on Karisia’s face. She must be thinking, what did I eat wrong to volunteer for work the moment I returned from a business trip.

The other directors don’t know me well, but Karisia would have figured out my temperament, that I’d rather not work whenever I can help it.

“What’s going on?”

Strangely, her voice had turned brusque.

“We’ve lost contact with all of the demon-beast tamers who accompanied Director Dimedes. Director Neiro and I will check the situation and handle it.”

“That’s a bigger deal than I thought.”

Karisia rested her chin on her right hand. She was probably thinking, ‘If it’s just Dimedes, can’t we simply give up on him?’

“Dimedes’s death itself isn’t much of a problem, but at this rate, it’ll be hard to meet the requirements for passing the listing review.”

See. Just as I thought.

From Karisia’s perspective, Dimedes’s value isn’t that great. Considering the chimeras taste for human flesh, he was closer to a headache.

A few civilians in frontier cities getting eaten by chimeras wouldn’t draw the Ten Towers’ attention, but there’s always that one-in-a-million chance. In a way, this kind of self-destruction might even be favorable news.

What’s truly surprising is that she’s even bothering with the listing review I proposed.

“Take this.”

Karisia tossed me something glowing. It was the crystal of Phoibos’s sacred relic I had handed to her on the way back to Etna City.

“…I gave it to you for you to use, President.”

“I’ll be holed up in Etna City drawing up urban redevelopment plans for a while. What danger could I possibly be in? You take it.”

I accepted the crystal with a faint twinge of unease. Somehow, I felt there ought to be some means of protecting Karisia.

But the President’s will was so firm that, as her employee, there was no other choice. The crystal, slightly smaller than a palm, looked a bit too large to fit into a pocket.

‘So….’

I recalled the explanation from the original work. The crystal could shrink or grow in size according to the user’s will. The smaller it became, the narrower the prophecy’s reach, but the easier the interpretation. Conversely, the larger it became, the more complex the prophecy grew, but it could read further into the future, was that right?

The dangers that would befall me would be direct attacks at most. Better to shrink it and carry it.

When I focused my mind on the Phoibos crystal, sure enough, it shrank. This was a size that wouldn’t look out of place tucked into the corner of a pocket.

“Wrap it up and come back as soon as you can.”

Karisia’s send-off ended there.

I bowed and left the room.

***

“I heard that on your last business trip, you infiltrated a subcontracting organization of the Ten Towers. What method was it?”

Neiro asked from inside the mana-engine train departing Etna City.

The relationship was far too complex to simply dismiss Blasphemia as a ‘Ten Towers subcontractor,’ but Arabel, who had been ordered that ‘since you extracted the information, you should explain it as well,’ had no leisure to give a detailed explanation.

Unless a director had a special history like Divius, it was difficult to know about the secret organization Blasphemia, so someone needed to explain it, but…

Arabel’s head was on the verge of bursting from pondering the words written in Charlotte branch chief’s final message: ‘Ortes is Blasphemia’s secret inspector.’

The message transmission Ortes had requested while escaping the Charlotte branch only accelerated her anguish. The address of the message’s recipient, its details unknown, was surely that of a high-ranking figure in Blasphemia.

Who could know whether even the order to ‘explain Blasphemia’ was Karisia’s way of testing whether Arabel had caught on to Ortes’s identity?

If she misspoke, she had no idea what might become of her.

Arabel, after agonizing, judged that ‘in the end, what matters is the content of the information, not its source,’ and explained Blasphemia as vaguely as possible.

The only one who could guess where Ortes had gone and what he had done was Divius, who had once belonged to Blasphemia.

Because of that, most of Hydra Corp’s directors regarded Blasphemia as something of an intelligence guild with excellent security. They couldn’t possibly think of it as a combat group whose members were all battle mages who had undergone special bodily modification.

Even so, the name of the Ten Towers carried weight.

If he possessed the infiltration and tracking skills to penetrate an organization tied to the Ten Towers all alone, there would be things for even a hunter to learn from him.

Neiro expected some secret method, for instance, disguise or tracking arts that used special magic.

It would be a method difficult for hunters to use, but there might also have been ways to take control of the organization’s insiders with mental-manipulation-type magic.

What extraordinary method could the President’s right hand have used to deceive the ears of the Ten Towers and carve his way into their shadow?

“Nothing particularly special. I coaxed someone who knew the entrance and walked in through the front gate.”

“Through the front gate!”

“Yes. There was a brief commotion on the way out, but no clues were left behind.”

Indeed, his skill was worthy of that arrogance. The fact that he had broken in through the front gate proved he could employ disguise arts so refined that even the organization’s own members noticed nothing.

The commotion during the escape made sense too. Judging from his words that ‘no clues remained,’ he must have sabotaged the organization’s database that recorded things like CCTV.

“Indeed. One must be at least this capable to become the President’s right hand….”

Neiro admired in a low voice.

‘What’s this. Is that old man aiming for a higher position too?’

Ortes was disconcerted by the unusual thirst for honor. Even after experiencing Karisia’s skill in handling people, he wants to get even closer?

‘Divius was the same. Why are these directors so greedy for work?’

Those in high positions are supposed to be appropriately idle so that those below can be at ease, you know.

***

The place the demon-beast tamer Dimedes had headed for was a wilderness filled with grotesque rocks and strange stones.

A plain of stones where mana stones were unearthed but with no profitability, and above all, with no Magic Tower to oversee the region, wanted criminals flocked there.

It was a distance that required a long walk even after getting off at the nearest mana-engine train station. Ortes, having alighted at the station, entrusted the tracking of traces left behind by Dimedes and his gang to Neiro.

Naturally, that was because Ortes had never formally learned tracking arts. His creed was that when a specialist existed, the work should be left to the specialist.

‘There’s no way someone skilled enough to infiltrate an information organization through the front gate without anyone noticing would lack depth in tracking arts. Why would he deliberately hand the task to me?’

It surely wasn’t the fine-sounding tale of sharing the credit. Neiro easily grasped Ortes’s intention.

‘He’s testing my skill. I can imagine what would happen if I fall short of his standards.’

…Or so he thought he had grasped it.

‘This blunder by Dimedes might have made him reconsider the directors’ usefulness. I must do my best.’

Neiro took out reagents for tracking the demon-beasts Dimedes commanded. He loaded the reagent into the gauntlet’s input slot and entered commands.

When one normally speaks of magic calculation auxiliary devices, it’s easy to think of enchant-ware in the form of prosthetic bodies that cut into the human body and are implanted. The varieties of magic calculation auxiliary device, mana proxies, were diverse.

What Neiro used was a proxy gauntlet linked to the augmented reality displayed on his gas mask. The components of demon-beast saliva and fur that reacted to the tracking magic appeared on the display inside his gas mask.

“As you’ve probably already noticed, it’s this way. Fortunate that Dimedes wasn’t the type to be thorough with demon-beast management. Plenty of traces still remain.”

***

Beats me.

I followed behind Neiro, who was explaining this and that like a tour guide.

“Hmm. I see traces of pacing around this area for a while. Because of the butcher shop, perhaps? The demon-beasts seem to have been rather hungry. But they didn’t run wild here. They headed straight out of the city.”

“Up to that point, just as reported?”

While traveling on the mana-engine train, I had skimmed through the reports Dimedes had submitted. Indeed, in the first day’s report, he said they had set out for the Bacchus cult without delay upon arrival.

Somehow, Neiro spoke in a hurry.

“No matter how odd a man Dimedes was, he wouldn’t put nonsense into a report to the President. Every member of the board possesses at least that much loyalty.”

***

“How could I possibly doubt the directors’ loyalty?”

Phew. Neiro let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected the verification to begin from such a fundamental point.

In the current situation, where Ortes had the dismissal of the entire board in mind over a single blunder by Dimedes, it was best to clear up unnecessary misunderstandings quickly.

“However.”

Neiro’s nerves went taut.

“It’s just that this matter is so far beyond common sense.”

The director himself and all his close associates went out to catch some drug addicts, and they all vanished en masse. It was indeed beyond common sense.

Neiro cursed Dimedes. He’d never liked him to begin with, but he never imagined that because of that bastard, his own neck would be squeezed too.

He needed to find that corpse as quickly as possible and present it to Ortes.

“The demon-beast tracks lead to the aforementioned stone field, just as in the report. I’ll move at once.”

Whether pleased by the swift movement, Ortes readily nodded.

Neiro resolved that once he returned, he would boast to the other directors that their necks were still attached thanks to him.

***

Damn it. I should’ve bought something to eat while getting off at the station.

I lamented my own lack of preparation for failing to bring a packed lunch.

Neiro was so devoted to the work that it wasn’t the mood to suggest having a meal first. I had no choice but to follow with a smile.

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