Chapter 141 — The Cultist's Identity
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
Hearing the sound behind her, the veiled woman turned around. She saw a half-elf with sharply pointed ears standing not far off, clutching a large sack of roasted beans in her arms and crunching on them noisily as she eyed the woman with open suspicion.
"You can... see me?" Metzern Bernia, the veiled woman, looked at the half-elf she had met once before with some surprise. Of course she remembered her—as a senior agent of the Mithril Vault, her memory was excellent, and so she also recalled with perfect clarity just what sort of fighting prowess this half-elf guard possessed. A half-elf barely stronger than a goose could actually see through her concealment so easily?
"Is seeing you supposed to be hard?" Amber crunched away at her roasted beans. She still hadn't placed which faction this veiled woman—whose whole style was so at odds with the rest of the camp—belonged to, so her face was full of curiosity. "So who are you, anyway? A trader here to do business? Has this place finally got merchants willing to come?"
How she had managed to connect the person in front of her with a merchant was anyone's guess...
"A merchant... well, if you insist on putting it that way, I suppose it fits," Metzern smiled and casually dismissed her concealment and her psychic-suggestion spell. Fortunately there was no one else nearby; otherwise the settlers coming and going would have seen a person appear out of thin air in the middle of the street and there would have been another uproar. "You're a guard of Duke Gao Yang Cecil, aren't you? Please show me the way—I've come to discuss some matters with him."
"Oh (crunch crunch), right," Amber tossed a couple more roasted beans into her mouth and stepped up to Metzern, holding out a hand. "(Crunch crunch) Three copper coins."
Metzern froze. "For what?"
"Guide fee (crunch crunch)."
Metzern: "...Would you be interested in working for the Mithril Vault?"
"Huh?" Amber blinked, then the words Mithril Vault jogged something loose. She immediately remembered, and with a swish she put several meters between herself and Metzern. "Ah! The Mithril Vault! I remember now! I've seen you before!"
"That would be me," Metzern said with a smile, finding this half-elf genuinely amusing—every one of her exaggerated, startled reactions was memorable. "Your lord invited me here, so do you still want the guide fee?"
"Tch. And here I thought I'd earn a little extra on the side. Running errands for that old stiff and I can't even make a courier's fee—what a rip-off," Amber muttered under her breath, then waved a hand. "Fine, fine, come on. I'll take you to see him."
Under Amber's lead, Metzern soon arrived deep in the territory. She saw a large tent standing in the middle of an open clearing, and beside the clearing foundations had already been laid, with great piles of bricks, timber, and stone stacked to one side—it looked as though a large house was about to be built.
"He's in the tent. He shouldn't be napping at this hour," Amber said, striding toward the tent. "Wait out here—I'll go in and announce you."
A moment later, Metzern heard that half-elf's brash voice ring out from inside the tent: "Gao Yang! That agent called lepony is here to see you!"
Metzern frowned in puzzlement: Why did that one and everyone around him pronounce things so strangely?
Gao Yang had waited many days for this agent lady to call on him, and only today had she finally arrived. Her attire was much the same as last time—an oddly styled gauze dress, a pale purple veil covering her face, and an aura both mysterious and elegant.
Amber had spotted the agent wandering near the brick kiln, and before that, not a single person had reported that an outsider had entered the territory.
She really was a young lady who came wrapped in mystery.