7-2 Stalker

Hearing that, the young soldier froze like a statue.

Still clutching the cloak—more like a robe—that I had been wearing over formal attire, he was completely locked in place.

A mere border guard had threatened a noble from a neighboring country—worse, a high noble, a marquis.

That was unquestionably an international incident.

Then I quietly spoke to those sweaty, rough-looking statues.

“Hey. Give me back my robe. It’s cold over the river, so I’d been wearing it.”

Like a snail—or as if he’d been hit with Slow and time itself had started crawling—the young soldier sluggishly handed the robe back.

The higher-ranked one looked like he was desperately turning his brain over, trying to figure out how to escape this pinch.

“By the way, what exactly did you want?”

At that, the young soldier’s face went wide with shock.

“You said you had business with me, so I indulged you, didn’t I? I did, the marquis. Now say something, will you? Hmm?”

“H-hah… y-you see, that’s—”

Sweating like crazy, the captain who’d been barking orders earlier suddenly became unbelievably deferential.

Biting back laughter, I said this instead.

“This is a nice place.”

“Huh?”

The superior stared at me as if a pigeon had just been shot with a pea shooter.

“It’s quiet. No noise or chaos. To be honest, I’m currently laying low—I ran away from the mess in the Royal Capital of Alba, incognito. Let me relax a little.”

“Y-yes, sir…”

The superior still looked confused.

Good grief.

“You really don’t get it, do you? I’m saying I’ll let this slide. Today, the one who crossed here was a merchant and adventurer named Alphonse. He was absolutely not Alphonse von Granburst, Marquis of the Albatross Kingdom. Got it?”

I fixed the dull-witted soldier with a sharp stare.

He still looked too incompetent to understand what he should do, so I sighed and then glared at his captain.

“If a rumor spreads that I’m wandering around this country, then you lot…”

“I-I understand! Y-yes, sir, we’ll do exactly that. Y-yes, sir!”

“By the way, Captain. What would count as a good souvenir for children in this country?”

“W-well, in that case—are you heading to the Imperial Capital now?”

The captain asked with a fake smile and rubbing hands, so I silently nodded.

“Then at the moment, decorative picture crafts are famous. There are all kinds.”

Hmm. Decorative picture crafts, huh.

Some kind of ornament made with pictures?

That felt… a little iffy.

Would my completely streetwise little beast kids be satisfied with something that sounded that cheap?

Nope.

Antonio, you’re my only hope here.

Food that tastes good was always a sure win for them.

Good grief.

Why did I have to threaten soldiers from a neighboring country in a place I should’ve just passed through?

I should hurry to Antonio.

Cast Fly!

I accelerated hard, watching a bit of the scenery from above, and closed the distance in no time—toward the Imperial Capital, not the Royal Capital.

I wasn’t here as a wide-eyed tourist today, so sightseeing could wait.

I entered the Imperial Capital of Bern properly through the nobles’ gate—still as an adventurer.

Well, I was an SS-rank adventurer, and on top of that, the resident troublemaker, so the information would probably be reported upward immediately.

They had likely anticipated I might show up, too.

Silencing people at the border was just me taking it out on a bunch of idiots.

This country wasn’t made up entirely of fools.

News that I had arrived would reach the relevant places right away.

I’d expected the Imperial Capital to be on a much more tense footing, but it was a bit of a letdown.

I got in surprisingly easily.

Granted, this time it was entry in my capacity as a noble.

The atmosphere of entering the Imperial Capital wasn’t that different from the Royal Capital of Alba.

And that was disappointing—because the border checkpoint had been wonderfully “dictatorship-coded,” in the best way!

Well, Alba had felt tense at first too.

It had been a flashy fortress city, after all.

This place wasn’t like that—if anything, it even felt elegant.

Then again, in Alba, before long I stopped having to line up at the gate myself.

I kept getting distracted, staring at the scenery of a city I was visiting for the first time.

I contacted Antonio, but he said he couldn’t come right away.

So I wandered around, casually browsing shops, and that was when I found something that caught my eye.

Something like… ink paintings?

They had a deep, tasteful charm that pulled my gaze in.

It wasn’t that I really wanted to buy them, but they strangely tickled the heart of an old man.

Still, it’s not like I’d hang that kind of thing in a nursery.

And for some reason, there were scroll-like pieces designed to be hung on walls.

On a whim, I asked if they had blank, pure-white ones.

They said they did, so I took a set in multiple sizes.

I also bought a couple of ink-painting-like pieces I happened to like.

The quality of the paper was quite good.

It was wonderful—almost like traditional Japanese paper.

Maybe it was a specialty product from somewhere in the Empire.

What kind of plant did they process to make it?

It might even be something harvested inside a dungeon, for all I knew.

Of course, it wasn’t cheap, but it was worth the price—something I was satisfied with.

I was thinking I might check out children’s art too—maybe it could be displayed at the beast-eared nursery—when Antonio called.

“Hey. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Yeah. I’ve been looking around.”

We agreed to meet at the inn where he was staying.

According to Antonio, strange men had been tailing him since yesterday.

They kept their distance and didn’t seem to do anything directly.

He tried luring them into an alley as a test, but they never followed—they just kept watching from afar.

Not knowing who they were was creepy, and he didn’t know how to handle it.

More than anything, it made it hard to focus on the exam.

It could be harassment from fellow professionals trying to knock out a rival, but it didn’t feel like that.

He said there was something sharper—more hostile—about them.

“Either way, it’s creepy. We’re in the middle of enemy territory, after all.”

“Understood. So during your exam, I’ll keep myself busy playing with them. That’s why I brought that crest-bearing mantle in the first place.”

“Yeah, I’m counting on you. I can finally take the A-Rank exam. I want to focus on that. I’m going to fulfill Orston House’s long-held wish of restoration with my own hands.”

“Roger!”

Alright, our talk was done.

And with no annoying Guildmaster Armon around, I could cut loose and have some flashy fun.

Around that time, in the Royal Capital of Alba…

“Ugh!”

“What is it, Armon?”

“Legg, huh. No, it’s nothing. I just got a chill.”

“That won’t do. At times like this, you must drink the blue-finned lizard decoction passed down in House Wirston!”

“No, I’ll pass. That thing tastes like absolute garbage.”

“That’s why it’s good. They say bitter medicine works, after all.”

“More importantly—it’s those people. Antonio should be fine. But I really hope that man doesn’t cause trouble in the neighboring country. As Guildmaster, it’s a headache.”

“Well, he’ll cause trouble normally.”

Legg said it flatly.

“Yeah… probably. After an incident that reeks that badly, anything could happen. There’s no way that man will stay quiet. Still, it’s truly troublesome, because we can’t afford for anything to happen to Antonio.”

Around that time, Antonio and I were drinking at a tavern.

I was impressed by how surprisingly good the Empire’s alcohol was.

We chose a stylish open-terrace place where we could see the surroundings.

Then I spread out search coverage with my radar map and ran a query using the condition: “people tailing Antonio.”

A fair number of points started blinking on the map.

Just like with the item box, marking a target required visual confirmation.

Conveniently, one of them had come close enough.

And then—of all things—I made eye contact with them from where I was sitting.

I immediately placed a marker on them.

And I took a photo, too.

A woman, huh.

Realizing I’d noticed her, she panicked and quickly left the area.

Markers were useful, but they had limits.

You could only keep ten markers at a time.

It was a high-load skill—tracking targets continuously in real time.

Like an MP limit, it was probably a mechanism to reduce strain.

You could track anywhere magical essence existed, but in certain places, display could become difficult—

Deep underground, or places where the magical essence was heavily disrupted.

Still, if it was just one target, tracking them wasn’t that hard.

As long as I tailed them physically, it was fine.

I decided to leave the shop first.

Quietly, I slipped out through the back exit.

The marked target was a young woman.

She was quite beautiful, but not so much that she’d stand out on beauty alone.

Her hair color was common, she wore little to no makeup, and her outfit was neither flashy nor drab.

In short, she was dressed to blend in.

Probably on purpose.

If she dressed up and did her makeup carefully, she might transform into a real stunner.

Using stealth-type skills and Dissearch—the one I’d gotten recently—I tailed her at a slight distance.

She moved briskly over the stone-paved streets and headed into the nobles’ district.

After speaking with the guards at the nobles’ district entrance, she slipped inside at a quick pace.

Being abroad, it did feel exotic.

In Alba’s nobles’ district, the buildings felt softer, with rounded corners.

Here, the buildings had sharper edges—more angular, more crisp.

They literally gave off a “pointed” atmosphere.

Maybe the people’s hearts were pointed too.

That kind of situation could happen back in Japan, too.

In Okinawa, you could tell the laid-back vibe just by looking at the buildings.

Hawaii was like that too.

It was like the mentality of the people commissioning buildings, and the builders designing and constructing them, showed through.

There were also trends shaped by environment and region.

At one particularly large mansion among those buildings, her marker was swallowed up.

After taking photos for reference, I used line-of-sight teleportation.

Even if it was somewhere I’d never been, I could teleport as long as it was within visible range.

Guided teleportation using the radar map was possible too, but unless it was a place I understood well, it was too scary to attempt.

I wasn’t going to take risks unless I absolutely had to.

I got ahead of her and waited for her arrival.

Since she entered the mansion, I slipped inside as well by line-of-sight teleportation through a gap in the door.

I did it to confirm the interior at a glance.

It was spacious enough that sneaking in wasn’t a problem.

I had no interest in a clumsy scene where I teleported inside and immediately sent butlers and maids flying.

That would put them on high alert, and it would get ugly fast.

I wouldn’t be able to come near here for a while.

And if they realized there was an invisible enemy with no presence, they might call someone who specialized in detecting such things.

I followed her, and it seemed she was speaking with the mansion’s master in a room she’d been received into.

Before the door fully closed, I quickly slipped inside with another silent line-of-sight teleport and moved close enough to listen.

“You. Why did you return?”

A stern, older man—intimidating and rugged—glared at the woman as if interrogating her.

It wasn’t the aura of authority like an emperor.

It was more like… a professional. A man of the job.

A sharply disciplined air.

Maybe he was former military, or something similar.

“I’m sorry. I got too close, and the target saw my face.”

“Fool. You panicked. Listen well, Margarita. Don’t forget that the fate of you and your child rests on you.”

The man said it again, glaring hard.

The woman lowered her head, looking drained.

I photographed all of it for reference.

When their conversation ended and the woman left, I went exploring around the mansion.

I felt like a thief hero.

Now that I’d been here, I could teleport directly to various parts of the mansion whenever I wanted.

According to my appraisal, this place was the Nielsen Marquisate residence.

That man from earlier seemed like the head of the house.

But why would a great noble go out of their way to mess with Antonio—who wasn’t even a noble right now, just a rogue adventurer?

I put a marker on the man as well—he was most likely Marquis Nielsen himself.

That woman seemed to have circumstances too.

I had a bad feeling this was going to become a headache.