Chapter 65: Fort Polwyn (4)
“It’s because…there’s a blood mage in that brothel.”
“You should have told me that beforehand…!”
“Miss Kaen asked me where we were going, so…I’m sorry.”
The brothel was the place of the ritual so I must have blurted it out without realizing it.
Kaen let her guard down and slowly approached me so I waited for her to open her mouth.
“In any case, it doesn’t change the fact that we need to go to the brothel, because the guy we need to deal with this time won’t come out of it.”
“He won’t come out of the brothel? How much stamina does he have, he’s…?”
“No, it’s not that……but we have information that his lair is inside the brothel.”
I answered with a slight pause because sometimes I could quickly lose track of the meaning of Kaen’s words.
Hearing this, Kaen let out a small “aha…” so I continued to recite the information.
“The opponent is a single blood mage. He has a lair inside the brothel, and the only way to access it is with the blood of a virgin.”
Ever since Kaen had asked me if I had any information, I’d been scouring Polwyn for quests that could only be solved by a “female character.” Unfortunately, there weren’t many options.
The best I could come up with was something that fit in with the “setting” that Kaen believed in.
The rewards weren’t great, but it was simple and if it strengthened Kaen’s faith that was a good thing.
“The blood of a virgin again…… Any information on the brothel we’re going to?”
Kaen’s voice was slightly shy as she contemplated my explanation.
“They said it’s a shop called Lustful Adventurers…”
“The name…”
“…For now, it’s a window shop.”
As soon as I finished talking to Kaen, I handed her the robes I had prepared and got ready to leave.
[ Hmm… a blood mage… ]
Sierra muttered to herself, but didn’t say anything else.
Of course I knew the location of the brothel, but I hadn’t been there before as Zetto, so…..Perhaps I and Kaen should take a walk through the streets of Fort Polwyn.
***
“The thrill of the angels… Not here… The furry… Not here… Hmph…”
My face was growing hot as I read the signs of the brothels.
I remembered traveling around the continent with my grandfather and seeing the occasional courtesan soliciting. However, in the northern part of the country, where the air is bitterly cold, most of them kept their doors firmly closed.
If I opened that door, I would be entering an unknown world.
‘The blood of a virgin…’
I like the idea of hiding in the shadows and catching bad guys in secret, but why am I being called this?
I’m suddenly reminded of what the chimera with the unicorn horn on his head said when I took down a chimera-infested crime syndicate.
‘A perfect virgin!’
I don’t know what a perfect virgin is, but… I don’t think that’s going to stop me from opening the door this time.
I turn my head to see Zetto following closely behind me.
“…”
His head was down, but when he raised it, I quickly turned my head forward.
It was honestly hard to be face to face with him lately because of the sauna. His body in the sauna was…
“…Ms. Kaen.”
“Hmph… Yes, yes…?!”
Suddenly, Zetto, who was behind me, grabbed my shoulders and spoke to me, causing me to stop making strange sounds.
I quickly straightened up and answered him once more.
“…What’s going on?”
“Have you found it yet?”
“Oh, if that’s the case…”
I trailed off and looked around.
“…I found it, ugh, Lustful Adventurers…”
I stood in front of the shop with him.
The door was firmly closed, but as we approached, we could hear women’s laughter and…and the occasional shout.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, “we’re just going in as customers.”
“As guests… That’s right…!”
It was a strange sound for a guest of the brothel, but I could understand the meaning of the expression.
I had never been in or out of a brothel before, neither as a guest nor as an assassin.
I was confident in my act and walked through the door, arm in arm with Zetto.
Zetto tilted his head as I linked arms with him, but the door had already opened.
As I stepped into the unknown the first thing I felt was warmth as the sticky heat of the window touched my nostrils.
The next thing I could see were the prostitutes working there and the customers. The prostitutes in particular were wearing very revealing clothes.
“Uh…”
“Focus.”
Zetto whispered to me as I stared with my mouth open….But I couldn’t help but stare.
With all the lewd and lascivious sights and the heat on my face, I couldn’t concentrate easily.
Zetto’s breath, especially in my ear, reminded me of the terrible dream I had in the inn room.
I felt extremely embarrassed, but Zetto didn’t seem to mind, as if it was natural and I wondered what this sight is like for him.
I wondered if he was really sensitive to sound as his face was flushed, though only slightly, as he heard the chanting inside.
‘Stay focused, Kaen…’
None of that mattered because right now we were here to kill a blood mage so I pulled myself together and followed Zetto to the inside of the brothel but just then, a woman, barely covered in vital areas, sneaks up on us.
“Hmph, never seen a blindfolded customer before.”
She came up beside Zetto and walked around him.
“It’s a shame you can’t see my body, but that’s okay, I can blindfold myself. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if we were both blindfolded and fucked like animals in the dark, but with a lover next to you? So…? Is it going to be the three of us?”
The woman was terribly talkative. Or rather, she was fulfilling her role.
Zetto’s lips didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything so I decided to do what she had told me to do.
I pulled a coin out of my pocket, handed it to her, and opened my mouth.
“I’d like to look around the room without any interruptions. Excuse me for a moment.”
I smile at her, and as she takes the coin, she turns to me and whispers.
“…Hoo hoo hoo, you must like your boyfriend a lot, I can satisfy both of you, so you’d better look around for a bit and then come back to me, this opportunity doesn’t come around often, hehe.”
The woman snorted and left us.
‘She’s going to satisfy both of us? How on earth…?’
I thought my face was going to explode from the picture in my head but just then, Zetto, who had his arm around me, whispered in my ear.
“I’m curious about that one.”
“Hmph, hmph… Don’t whisper all of a sudden…! You heard me, didn’t you?”
The erotic stimulation of his breath makes me shudder.
Normally, it would have been just a whisper, but the atmosphere emanating from the brothel seemed to have made my body feel strange.
“I have good ears, so I didn’t mean to… Just kidding, let’s move.”
Zetto said, flicking his own ears.
‘Really…’
For some reason, Zetto finds it hard to resist as if his body responds on its own terms.
I turn my head away from him, and the outfits of the courtesans come into view. I had dressed just as risqué in front of him because he was blind.
I needed to get out of here as my head started to spin so Zetto and I made our way to the depths of the brothel.
It was easy to avoid their gazes, as the customers and prostitutes alike seemed preoccupied.
“It looks like a normal brothel, but I don’t see any doors or anything.”
“Hmm…”
At my comment, Zetto snorted, unclasped his arms, and wandered around the room, staring at the walls and stomping on the floor.
Eventually, Zetto stood at one of the walls and called out to me.
“I think this is it.”
The wall he was leaning against was just a plain wall but Zetto then sniffs around the wall and mutters, “Blood incense.”
“Miss Kaen, would you like to smear some blood around here?”
Zetto, who has stopped sniffing, points to one side of the wall and asks me.
I trusted Zetto’s senses and soon after I bit down on my thumb and drew blood.
As I put my thumb on the spot Zetto pointed to with his finger the next thing I know, the walls vibrate and move, revealing a dark passageway.
“There really is one…”
“Yes.”
The passage was so dark that I had to hold onto Zetto’s arm as we walked.
He was walking very well in this darkness, with no light coming through since visual cues were useless to him.
It was both exhilarating and, in a small way, heartbreaking.
How many times he must have fallen and bumped into things to make his way through the darkness of the world.
With a bittersweet smile, I silently followed Zetto. His back, faintly visible in the darkness, felt reassuring.
“A virgin’s blood can be used to enter and exit the palace… I find that rather ingenious.”
Zetto said, walking ahead of me.
He was right, it was indeed an ingenious hiding place.
Not just any woman’s blood, but a virgin’s blood and it just so happens that the hiding place is in a brothel, where it is very hard to find a virgin. Moreover, even the entrance was hidden like this…
“…What could he be doing, hiding so deeply?”
As I thought about the hiding place, I turned to Zetto and asked.
“The answer comes when you think about what kind of people blood mages are.”
“If they’re blood mages…”
“Bloodstone. They’re crazy about bloodstones.”
I am interrupted by Zetto’s terse reply.
“So he’s hiding in this brothel… to make blood stones…?”
“I’ve heard that the courtesans in this building have been mysteriously disappearing, and it’s not uncommon that a courtesan runs away to erase her past and start a new life…Not many people are interested in the disappearance of courtesans.”
“It’s the perfect place to make a bloodstone.”
Zetto nods at my next statement.
“You said you’ve never dealt with a blood mage before, right?”
“Other mages, yes but… It’s not every day you see a blood mage.”
“There’s something important that you should never miss when dealing with a blood mage.”
His words bring back memories of my grandfather telling me stories about blood mages long ago and I answer him based on that memory.
“…You mean, whether the blood mages ate the bloodstone or not?”
“It’s good that you know. Fortunately, I don’t think the one we’ll be dealing with has made a bloodstone yet… I’m only going by the rumors I’ve heard from my informants… but they say he’s still short of making it.”
I feel unnaturally flattered by Zetto’s praise as he knows more about the world than I do.
From what he told me, he had traveled the world with his teacher, just as I had traveled the world with my grandfather.
‘Could we have met when we were younger…?’
Maybe we had crossed paths without realizing it. But as I thought back, I couldn’t recall meeting or seeing a little kid with the bandages over his eyes.
As we walk down the stairs talking to him, we start to see light.
“Looks like we’ve arrived. I can’t believe they made something like this in the basement of a brothel…”
I said as I opened the door in front of me.
As soon as I opened the door, something red and sharp flew at me but I easily dodged it.
The red spear slammed into the wall behind me, turning into liquid and dissolving.
“Some rats got in…? How did you get in…?”
A woman in a black robe in the room said.
“Did you come from the Order or were you sent by the Empire? There’s a virgin… and a blind man next to her… Ha, what kind of combination is this…?”
The blood mage began to ramble in a frenzy of anger but Zetto grabbed my shoulder and spoke up.
“Miss Kaen seems to be able to handle this on her own, do you mind if I leave her to you?”
“Of course.”
I said, pulling on the ‘gloves’ I had been given by Zetto.
The blood mage who had been eavesdropping on me and Zetto spoke up.
“The moaning of the crazy bitches upstairs it’s already giving me a headache. Are you guys going to do this too?”
“Just shut up and let’s fight.”
Blood began to gather in the blood mage’s hand at my sharp reply.
“Hmph, bitch… I’ll make sure to turn you into a whore and grind you into bloodstone.”
I figured out her level at a glance so I don’t think I’ll be using my grandfather’s swordsmanship again today.