With Shaka leading the way, it didn't take long for us to reach the inn.
One thing to note was that…Shaka was quite the kind person.
He could have walked at his usual pace and outpaced me since I was much shorter than him, forcing me to run to catch up to him, but he didn't do that. Instead, he deliberately walked at a slower pace so that I would be able to keep up with him.
It seemed like there was still a lot that I could learn about this new companion of mine.
When we arrived at the inn, I found that Nicole and Jessica were anxiously waiting outside.
The moment that they saw us coming over, they both ran over to me and hugged me.
As they hugged me, I could feel many people's glares on me.
Both of them were beautiful girls, so when they had stood there with worried looks on their faces, it had invoked the protective feeling of quite a few men. They had all watched over them, but they hadn't dared to make a move since they could see Jessica's sword.
Now that the cause of their worry had appeared, namely me, all of them glared at me.
I revealed a bitter smile as I received the hatred of all these men, but I patted the two girls on their back and calmed them down before asking, "What's wrong?"
The two of them looked up at me and said, "You disappeared after the meeting, so we thought that something had happened to you."
I shook my head and said, "Didn't I already say that I might be late since I would need to take care of some other stuff?"
"The driver came back without you, so we thought that something happened."
I remembered that I came with the driver and I had left him alone…
It was a good thing that he came back on his own, or else he would still be waiting there in front of the manor for me. Who knows how long he would have remained there if nothing had been said…
It seemed like I owed the driver an apology…
I patted them on the back again before comforting them by saying, "It was my fault. It was an urgent matter and I forgot to say something to the driver before heading off."
The two of them just kept glaring at me and I had no choice but to apologize.
Seeing the way that I acted around these two girls, Shaka looked at me with one brow raised as if he was surprised by something. Though if you thought about it, it wasn't strange that he would be surprised.
Nobles wouldn't act this way.
Even if I was a commoner that had married a noble, one would assume that I had been taught on how nobles acted so that I wouldn't embarrass my spouse.
But that didn't seem to be the case here.
After I finished calming them down, we headed into the inn to rest up.
After we reached my room, I realized that I had forgotten about something.
I turned to Shaka and asked, "Do you have a place to stay or are you going to stay here?"
Shaka calmly said, "I'll stay here with you. It's easier to coordinate with you if I'm nearby."
I gave a nod before saying, "You can just stay in this room with me then, there's plenty of room here."
Shaka was surprised by this, but he still nodded in agreement.
It was then that both Nicole and Jessica realized that Shaka was there. They had been focused on me since they had been worried about me, but since I had addressed him, they had no choice but to acknowledge Shaka.
Both of them looked at him curiously before Nicole asked, "My lord, this is?"
I introduced Shaka to the two of them before saying, "He's the helper that I found for us, so I hope that you will work well with him."
The two of them looked at Shaka with wary looks, but they still agreed to work with him in the end.
Once the two of them were settled and there was only Shaka and I left in the room, I told him the situation that we were facing and how I needed information.
Shaka just gave a simple nod in response before heading off to give command to his men to get the information that I wanted.
It didn't even take a day for them to gather this information.
The next morning, Shaka had already prepared the information that I asked for and presented it all to me.
The information that I had asked for was about Haley's father and her husband.
I needed to know what kind of things they would be capable of before thinking of countermeasures.
There wasn't much information about her husband since he was from a lower class to begin with. His whole family was from the slums and there wasn't much information about his father other than he had some kind of connection with Haley's father. It was unknown what kind of connection it was, but it should be some kind of life saving debt with how Haley's father treated her husband.
As for Haley's father, he was the chairman of the Zephyr Company, the fourth largest company in the entire kingdom. They were based in the north and this was the south, which was why there were few mentions of them here. There were a few Zephyr Company stores scattered about, but there weren't any in this city since Haley's own Big Bear Company was here as a branch.
The influence that they had wasn't small, they even had ties with several counts and a duke. This was a company that had a lot of backing, but it was just too bad that it was all based in a single area, so they couldn't access it.
But one thing of note was that…Haley's husband had been making ties with some people of ill repute in this city…