22 - King's Feast

"Of course we have law enforcement. The Valoritari. Great City Linna is the capital of the country, someone has to protect the King's city."

Kana rubbed her eyes and yawned as she spoke. I was dumbfounded by this new information.

"King's city? I've run all over this city and I've never seen a castle or government building or anything of the sort. Does the King live somewhere else?"

Everyone stared at me blankly, though Kana and Maja at least softened their expressions to understanding, since they knew I'd come from a different world. Tamon had a childish grin and pointed his finger at me.

"This country bumpkin doesn't even know the King lives under the city!"

Kana defended me as being a foreigner, and I explained to Tamon that where I came from, castles were built above ground, which he found to be a hilarious notion. Maja ignored his laughter and spoke over him.

"Who's to say the crown isn't involved with all of this? You could be offering yourself on a silver platter to those who seek to harm you."

"I know, I know. But if there's even a slight chance the guildmaster is operating discreetly and without the King's knowledge, then they're the only ones who can help us. Maybe we can save our home."

We went back and forth for a while, and Toast snored as he famously failed to read the room. Maja argued that the Valoritari might not listen to us in the first place, Tamon agreed that I was only armed with my word and a piece of paper, and Kana simply worried for my safety, but my mind was made up. I was going to bet everything on this 2% chance of success for the sake of the life that I had built with these people. And for Pinnea and our customers, and Toast. 

I'd spent my whole life in my old world giving up. Moving from job to job because some minor thing happened and I stopped liking it. Giving up on myself and giving up on having dreams of anything more than complacency. I'd realized here in this new world that my happiness came from the people around me, and if I could protect their happiness then for once I was going to give it my all. I picked up Toast who barely acknowledged that he was now in the air, and addressed the room.

"Where can I find a Valoritari?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had made my way to the northern gate of Great City Linna. Kana and the others said the gates typically had at least two Valoritari stationed there at any given time. Two didn't seem like a lot to defend a city gate in my eyes, but apparently the Valoritari were no joke, and two were enough to hold back a small army by themselves. It was the middle of the night and the streets were dead and silent. Toast stayed sleeping in my arms as we walked.

As I got closer to the gate, a man in white and gold robes, similar to those we'd seen at the church but with plated armour over his chest and a crown emblem on the front, stepped forward and cautioned us, asking us to state our purpose there. A random guy in the dead of night with a sleeping Spirit is rather suspicious, so I didn't blame him.

I tried my best to explain the situation without sounding desperate or crazy, but the knight seemed apathetic to my plea. His colleague appeared from outside the wall, and asked what was going on. They deliberated between themselves and admitted at the very least a written threat of murder should be addressed, but I'd need to be taken into custody while they looked into it because the circumstances were strange and suspicious to them.

At least they're honest.

One of the knights put two fingers to his forehead, and called out for his commander. I wondered if that was how Telepathy was actually supposed to work. All of a sudden a flash of pixels appeared before us, and a tall woman wearing the same uniform as the two knights walked through it. Her crown emblem had a strange character in the centre, and her long straight blonde hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail. Once again, if my heart hadn't been captivated by Kana on my first night here, I would have said that this was the third or fourth most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. 

The two knights I'd spoken to briefed her on my claims, and she turned to me with a serious look, demanding to see the letter. I handed it over, and after a quick scan she leaned into one of the knights and whispered something. Before I knew what was happening my arms had been grabbed and I was being pulled through one of the pixel portals. I had been transported to a building that I could only assume was the Valoritari headquarters. There were tons of knights buzzing around, doing paperwork, pouring over books and pointing at a board on the wall with string on it that reminded me of cliche cop show scenes where they were trying to pinpoint who committed a crime.

I was ushered into the basement, and tossed in a jail cell. They slammed the door with a loud clang, and we were left alone.

What.

I had no idea what just happened. It felt like they were listening to my story and things were starting to look up, and somehow I was the one arrested. I held Toast in my arms and plopped on the pile of hay in the corner. How considerate of them to give me a cell with a bed.

I felt my eyes well up. I had failed, and the King really was in on the whole thing. Me and Toast were going to rot in the cell until someone came to take him away from me, and the shop was going to burn and my friends would be homeless. 

I might not ever see them again.

I wrestled with feelings of guilt and loss, and the stress of the day had finally taken it's toll. I passed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I was woken by more loud clanging on the bars of my cell. A knight called out to me to get up and prepare myself to speak with the commander, and disappeared, leaving me to shake off my grogginess.

Toast spun in circles and summoned himself a hunk of 'goblin' meat, inhaling it before the knight returned. He led us back upstairs and into an office where the tall woman sat at a desk with papers strewn around her, and the letter I'd given her front and centre. She adorned a pair of glasses that amplified her cute points by 10%, but she still paled in comparison to my Kana. I was told curtly to sit.

Apparently a lot had happened since last night.

She introduced herself as Commander Ilta of the Valoritari Nightwatch. Ilta informed me that the letter I'd brought was the final piece of evidence they'd needed to bring down the corrupt guildmaster. They'd been following his activities for years, but he'd always managed to stay a step ahead of them by using his connections in the city, and throwing small fry under the bus when anyone got close to discovering the truth. 

His list of crimes were long, but not unrelated to what he'd mentioned briefly in the letter, so they could use it at the very least to arrest him for premeditating murder while they raided the guild hall for more damning evidence to keep him locked up. She regretfully told me that they had also allowed the burning of our shop to take place so they could catch the arsonist in the act, and have a witness for the guildmaster hiring others to commit some of his criminal activities. I felt my heart break a little hearing the news.

I asked if she knew anything about the Moroza he'd mentioned in the letter, and she revealed that adventuring as a profession overall had been on the decline lately, so the guildmaster had been trafficking higher level monsters closer to the city in efforts to boost requests and interest in joining the guild. He'd also been paying out large amounts of gold to fund experiments on the Moroza as they were known to be shapeshifters, and had successfully gotten them to transform into Boss-Tier monsters over the last few months. She couldn't tell me how, as the information was classified and still under investigation, but it was shocking to put it mildly. His plans seemingly backfired however, as adventuring hadn't increased, and now the bosses were running a bit rampant. Ilta didn't ask about Toast, so I dropped the matter quickly.

They suspect the guildmaster had also been writing to a high-ranking member of the church, but since they had no evidence linking the church directly, they had to settle for taking down just the guildmaster for now. I told her I believed the church was resentful towards Maja for leaving disgraced, and then indirectly stealing revenue with her healing practice and potions, hence the kidnapping plot. She agreed the church would never dirty their own hands, but the guildmaster was a de facto criminal for hire, so the relation was obvious, they just needed to pin it down to take out the rest of the persons involved. As far as I know, to this day the church is still evading the law.

Lastly, she described an epic battle between the Valoritari knights and the guildmaster and his lackeys, as he wouldn't go down without a fight. In the end the Valoritari overpowered him as the last man standing, and he was arrested and taken to the same prison I'd spent the night in. 

Why couldn't I have been the main character of that story for my isekai adventure?!

I cursed the Goddess for the first time in a while and tried to process the mountain of information that Ilta had dumped on me. Since I was largely unrelated to the investigation outside of being a victim of his threats and submitting the letter as evidence, she let me go and I carried toast over my shoulder and stumbled my way through another portal that left me in front of the inn I told them I was staying at. 

I was greeted with tears and hugs from my little family, and we all retired inside to talk about our future.