"…Gambling with his daughter as collateral…"
Lyu unconsciously furrowed her brow. After collecting the man, who had fainted in the street, she joined Syr in a corner of the tavern to listen to their story.
The woman's name was Karen and her husband's was Huey. They were a couple who made their living day to day in the magic-stone manufacturing business by helping out in a small store. They had lived in the city's western district until that very day—Huey liked to gamble, and had gotten involved in an incident as a result.
"I had no choice…By that point, there wasn't anything I could do. I had to. Why else would I wager my daughter, Anna…?"
After coming to, the battered Huey lifelessly explained the situation as he sat in a chair.
He had somehow ended up wagering the daughter he had raised with Karen as collateral in a gamble—and lost. Lyu, an elf known for her strict standards, couldn't hide the scorn and contempt in her gaze. Syr put her hand on Karen's shoulder to comfort her as she held back tears. Ahnya was shocked, as were the others listening as they went about their work.
"What was so unavoidable? This happened because you were playing with fire—didn't it?!"
"Th-that's…B-but, at first they were saying 'it's just a game.' But when I kept losing, the atmosphere changed all of a sudden! They talked about kicking in the door of our home if it seemed like I couldn't pay up what I lost. One thing led to another, and then I couldn't undo it…"
When he noticed Karen's teary-eyed glare, Huey swallowed the rest of his excuses. From what he had said so far, it was clear he had failed the last big gamble, losing his daughter and his house in the process. Earlier that morning, a bunch of thugs kidnapped his daughter, while Karen, dazed from being thrown out of her home, went to the only place left where she could calm down—The Benevolent Mistress. When she heard the details from Huey, they started bickering, and the rest was obvious.
Huey was talking about waking up with a massive hangover, handcuffed after the party ended, when Syr abruptly asked, "The others involved in this gamble, did they happen to be adventurers?"
"…Yeah, they were a bunch of delinquents from several different familias. They threatened me and wouldn't stop glaring…'If it's a wager for your beloved daughter, then we can give you one last chance…' "
Hearing that, Karen bent over the table, crying again. "You shameless…!"
As her insults came out as sobs, her already hopeless failure of a husband became subdued and bowed his head again and again. However, Lyu's eyebrow rose slightly in surprise. There was one part of the story that did not sit well with her. To be more precise, she had seen an operation that resembled this in the past.
"Your daughter, Anna, could you tell me a bit more about her?"
At her question, both Karen and Huey managed to raise their heads and exchange glances. Gradually, they answered the elf who stood on the other side of the table, staring intensely.
"Well, like I said before, she is my pride and joy…"
"Yes, she is very pretty, like I used to be, and she's good-natured. A little reserved, but she's a good girl."
Just as Huey started, Karen wiped her eyes and spoke up, full of confidence, while Syr politely nodded, encouraging them to keep going.
"In the western district, she had a stellar reputation. Some male gods even proposed to her. Of course, she turned them down with 'Please don't tease me,' and so on."
"And going out?"
"Hmm?"
"Did she go out much?"
"Well…At the flower shop she worked at, Anna spent a good bit out and about delivering things."
Karen responded, clearly confused by Lyu's line of questioning.
A good disposition. Attractive. Charming enough to catch a god's eye at a glance. And her job involved traveling through the city enough to be noticed. After hearing that, Lyu's confidence increased. Most likely, they were after the girl from the beginning.
"…A girl that cute would have definitely been sold to the Pleasure
Quarter. Argh! Who knows what is happening to her now!"
"Have you tried asking the Guild or Ganesha Familia for help?"
It's hopeless. The city is overflowing with similar reports. This happens every day. No one will be able to respond immediately."
Karen shook her head as she shot down Syr's suggestion to seek help from the Guild—the city's highest administrative authority—or a well-known familia that worked closely with them to police Orario.
Even if they tried to request an unofficial quest, it could only end in heartbreak because they did not have nearly enough money for a suitable reward.
"If only Astrea Familia were around…"
Lyu struggled to rein in her feelings so they would not show on her face as Karen absently whispered her plea.
"Just stop it already! Talking about a familia that doesn't exist anymore…"
"But if Goddess Astrea were around, I know she would help people like us! Why would such a kind familia just disappear…?"
After she finished speaking, Karen clutched her chest and broke down into tears. Huey's gaze shifted into the distance as he went silent.
Astrea Familia. The faction of the goddess whose emblem was the winged sword of justice. During the Dark Age when the Evils ran free in the city, they worked to maintain Orario's law and order, fighting the strong and protecting the weak. This familia of justice no longer existed.
The familia that Lyu used to belong to.
"…"
Lyu stayed silent as Karen sobbed. Syr, Ahnya, and the rest who knew Lyu's past studied their elf coworker with mixed expressions.
Busily working at the middle of the counter was Mia, who had yet to bat an eye at the story. She pretended not to hear the conversation, as if she didn't want to know how things shook out.
Lyu questioned herself as she heard their sad voices.
I quit already. No more helping strangers I've never met without asking for a reward or any compensation. I decided it would only be for the people around me. No more, no less. I can't be the one to bear the standard of justice anymore.
Lyu recalled the conclusion she had reached after falling into a firestorm of vengeance once.
Even though it would only be more hypocrisy…
The smile of a goddess who adored children flashed through her mind, along with images of her comrades in the familia. Above all, she remembered a close friend, a red-haired girl who had argued with Lyu—If you ever feel lost, stop thinking about complicated stuff! Just be true to yourself! Her goddess's blessing, still engraved on Lyu's back, suddenly ached.
Lyu closed her sky-blue eyes and sighed at the budding emotions she could not hide in her heart.
That evening, the sky was a dark blue. The moon watched over the giant walls that enclosed the city. Around midnight, Lyu walked along a side street by herself. The Benevolent Mistress was closed, and cleanup had ended. Syr had gone home, and the others split up to go to bed like always. The only one not back in her room yet was Lyu.
She had secretly left the tavern, wearing a long hooded coat and a lengthy skirt. Dressed as though she was selling flowers around the slums, she walked past dwarves and animal people drunkenly snoring by the side of the road. Many shops were closing, but the Shopping District and the Pleasure Quarter were just getting started. Orario didn't sleep, no matter how late. Even on this backstreet, the light of magic-stone lamps leaked out from several taverns out onto the street as they continued serving laborers or adventurers searching for a cheap place to drink. Her hood pulled over her head, Lyu stopped in front of a certain bar nestled in an alleyway where the hustle and bustle of the main street did not reach.
"…"
She descended a set of stairs and opened the beaten-up wooden door.
The scene that greeted her could only be found in a run-down, hole-in-the-wall establishment like the one she just entered. She saw a bony, guffawing chienthrope, a provocatively dressed Amazon who brushed off advances with her smile, and various demi-humans, their deep voices booming, huddled together at wooden tables. A smoky odor wafted in the air, as if something was burning.
A group of men in armor who seemed to be regulars were drinking and accosting every woman who passed by. Whether they were adventurers or not, clearly they were troublemakers. The place was a true den of iniquity.
As all the patrons inspected the new arrival in their midst, Lyu cut through the interior with practiced ease. Attracting suspicious gazes, she stopped in front of a table with a mound of gold coins and cards spread across it, where several men were gambling.
"You're a new face…Something you want from a place like this, Miss Elf?"
The one who spoke was a large human man with a sword at his waist. A grin crept across his face as he examined her attractive features and distinctly elfin ears peeking out of the hood. Demi-human men and women who appeared to be adventurers surrounded him. With subordinates on every side, he was clearly the one in charge.
"Does the name Anna Kreiz mean anything to you?"
As the distressed couple was leaving, Lyu had asked Huey where he had gone to gamble. At first, he had been drinking at a tavern on a major avenue, but after he had accrued losses he couldn't afford, he was taken to a backalley bar—this one.
"What, you her friend or something?"
The man's grin widened as if he had just found an interesting new plaything. His underlings moved toward the exit, blocking Lyu's way out.
"That girl's a jewel, you know. No one would believe she was just some ordinary city girl, just looking at her. I wanted to give her a go, too, ha-haha!"
"I'd like you to tell me where she is now."
"Oh, I see, I see…And you were expecting that for free, I suppose?"
At this point, everyone in the bar was watching Lyu and laughing or grinning scornfully. Finally, the man hauled himself from his slouch across the chair into a proper sitting position.
"So, missy, know how to play cards?" he asked as he drew a card from the deck on the table. "Since you came here all alone, you must be pretty confident in your strength, right? I'm not fond of brute force, though, so I was thinking maybe we could play a game. I'll bet the information you're after. You can bet money, maybe even put yourself up if you don't have enough to cover the wager."
"…"
"That's how this started, after all. That poor excuse of a father bet his only daughter, played a game, and wound up handing her over to us."
The man recognized that Lyu was an adventurer, or at least someone comparably powerful. He was taking precautions while simultaneously trying to draw her onto his home field with gambling. Meeting his gaze, she nodded.
"All right."
Placing a bag full of gold coins on the table, she sat in the chair across from the burly man. A split second later, an uproar broke out around her. The adventurers cheered for the spectacle that was about to begin.
"If I win, you'll tell me everything."
"Ah, no problem, no problem. That's if you win, though, missy."
Before long, their table was completely hemmed in by spectators excited to watch the game, but also preventing the gorgeous elf from escaping. Lyu squared off against the thug leader, surrounded by a wall of people.
"What are we going to play?"
"How's poker sound?"
Lyu didn't object as the man started to shuffle. Ordinarily, for the various people in the mortal realm, cards meant a standard deck. It was made of fifty-three cards in four suits with twelve cards each, plus one joker that could be used in place of any card. The suits were swords representing war, fruits meaning fertility, coins signifying wealth, and blessing in the form of chalices. One theory was that they originally dated back to the Ancient Times and had been adapted to games in their current form, while another theory held that the gods who descended to the mortal realm brought the designs with them.
Poker was one of many possible games. After cards were dealt from the deck, it was a contest between players to see who could assemble the best hand.
"What's in the bag, missy?"
"Fifty thousand valis."
The man whistled at her response. He furrowed his brow deeply as he cut and shuffled the cards in an easy, practiced manner.
"You should have said so sooner! If you happen to lose that money and still want to continue gambling…Well, then, like I said before, just wager yourself."
"…"
"I've lost count of the number of elves I've sold to the Pleasure Quarter like you. But please don't misunderstand. I didn't do anything to them until they couldn't pay back what they owed, you know?"
The man licked his lips as his gaze shifted to Lyu's slender neck, crawling across her pale skin.
Vulgar jeers and laughter assaulted Lyu's slender ears. It was intimidation. An attempt to agitate her. The psychological battle had already started. The leader of the toughs laughed as he started doling out cards.
"One thing I should tell you."
"Oh-ho-ho, and what's that?"
As her opponent finished dealing, Lyu's sky-blue eyes narrowed beneath her hood."—I won't tolerate cheating."
As she said that, she drew the shortsword at her waist and, faster than anyone could react, stabbed it down into the table.
The entire bar fell silent after the loud crash. Her opponent's eyes went wide and he started to sweat as the naked blade stood right between two of his fingers, a hairbreadth away from piercing his skin. His arm trembled as the card that he had hidden in the palm of his hand fluttered to the table.
"Next will be your finger."
The man went pale as Lyu retracted the sword after her calm declaration.
"Be careful. I always end up going too far."
With a sharp gaze, she offered one final warning. The people around the table nervously gulped.
Naturally, it was only a bluff. Lyu was neither cruel nor brutal enough to actually commit such violence over a game. However, the results were immediate. The man and his henchmen who had lost their insurance broke into cold sweats. She had thrown them off balance, and they could not read her. All that was left was to amuse herself with a normal game. Holding her cards so that the people around her couldn't see, she matter-of-factly built her hand. Lyu knew that in a gamble, someone who had been shaken once would keep jumping at shadows.
"Full house."
"…?!"
As Lyu laid her hand on the table, her wide-eyed opponent crushed his cards in his fist. She had won nine straight hands. The bar was shrouded in silence by this point. The dozens of chips the man had gambled were now gone, and Lyu had built a mountain of gold coins her winnings.
"You have to be cheating!" he exclaimed as he leaped from his seat.
"How rude. I do not have to stoop to your level to win a game," Lyu dispassionately responded.
She was too straightforward and not very good at bluffs. Some would even say that warnings and intimidation aside, she was incapable of bluffing. Without any other tricks, she just simply played the game in a straightforward manner. She took the cards dealt to her, diligently built the best hand she could, then hid behind an unreadable gaze.
Lyu's expression was frighteningly static. It was rare that someone could read her intentions from her poker face, and she never wavered in the slightest at her opponents' bluffs. By the end, when she spoke the lone word "raise," the thug's face looked as if a knife was at his throat.
Lyu often felt that gambling resembled an adventurer's technique and strategy. And with regard to the latter, Lyu had decades of experience with composing strategy in the heat of battle, so she generally saw through her opponents' bluffs without much trouble. The antics of a lower-class adventurer like the man across from her were no better than those of a toddler.
It was a simple matter once she had outwitted her opponent. Not to mention he had never regained his composure after she caught him trying to cheat once.
"You bastard, who are you?!"
"No one of consequence. I'm just here on a friend's behalf."
She recalled her experience when she was still part of Astrea Familia. In those days, it was not unusual for her to conduct undercover investigations at gambling parlors fronting for criminal enterprises. Once, they were trying to crack down on a bookie who was hassling normal citizens; another time it was in order to obtain intelligence about the main branch of an enemy organization. Pretending to be a customer and slipping under the bookie's radar took more than just above-average confidence. Technique and strategy were necessary.
The person who had taught Lyu how to successfully gamble was a colleague in Astrea Familia. After that prum girl with a wide grin half beat the method into her, she had put what she learned to good use so many times.
Lyu could instinctually see how to obtain victory.
"It's my win. Now talk."
Lyu looked up, remaining in her seat as the leader turned bright red and gritted his teeth. He looked around, flustered, before angrily shouting, "Get her, you assholes!"
As I thought, it comes down to this.
Lyu had wanted to finish things peacefully. She sighed as she readied herself while the underlings started to attack.
One minute later…
In less time than it had taken to finish the poker game, the demi-humans were battered and bruised and splayed across the tavern floor.
"Eek!"
"I know you people were targeting Anna from the beginning. Where is she now? Tell me."
Several tables were upside down. The bodies of henchmen were sticking out of mounds of chairs or the bar. Lyu grabbed the boss by the collar and lifted him with one hand from where he had collapsed to his knees. His bruised face twitched as he flapped his mouth like a floundering fish.
"Th-the Marketplace! That's where we took her!"
"The Marketplace…?"
"Those were the guys who gave us the job! 'We'll pay you well, so snatch the girl without roughing her up and bring her here,' they said."
"You're telling me the client was a company?"
The man kept nodding his head as Lyu raised an eyebrow dubiously. She pressed him for more information about who hired him, but all he did was stick to "I don't know."
When Lyu finally stopped questioning him, the women in the bar had all huddled, teary-eyed, in a corner, trembling in fear. Having gotten all she could, she dropped the man and left the tavern behind. Under cover of night, the elf moved through the town and returned to The Benevolent Mistress—but not before heading to a certain place.
The following day, Lyu was working in her usual waitress uniform when a single customer came to the restaurant and sat at a corner table. The time was late afternoon. This was usually when the balance of customers shifted, leaving few normal guests in the tavern.
Surprised that she had already appeared, Lyu walked toward her holding a menu.
"What would you like?"
"One black tea. After that, since I'm alone, I'd also like someone to talk with for a bit."
The beautiful woman with aquamarine hair and glasses carried herself with a refined demeanor.
Asfi Al Andromeda. She was an influential force in Orario who claimed neutrality while wielding an information network with broader reach than anyone else. She was also the leader of Hermes Familia.
The detour Lyu had made last night was a visit to the home of Asfi's familia. She had left inside the tightly closed gate a letter containing a written request addressed to Perseus. She had signed it with the name Leon.
Lyu withdrew to the kitchen with the order and quickly returned with a steaming cup.
"I didn't think you would come so quickly. Did you already…?"
"Yes, I investigated the location of this Anna Kreiz you wrote of," Asfi responded, elegantly sipping her tea.
The contents of Lyu's letter were a request for information about Anna Kreiz, specifically the whereabouts of the girl who had been carried off to the Marketplace.
"I owed you. At the end of the day, this is all because Hermes was causing problems." Asfi sighed as she grumbled. "A job is a job, and I don't like owing people. This is just paying back a debt—nothing more, nothing less. Obviously, I don't need a reward, either."
She made her position clear so there would be no misunderstanding: Her motivation was purely business and not a gesture of goodwill.
"Thank you, Andromeda."
"Let's move on."
Asfi shifted her glasses to hide her embarrassment at the sincere thanks even after what she had just said.