Ch.143[Chapter 143] Alliance

As twilight faded and darkness began to settle, Sir Dominic walked out of the card pack exchange and into the street.

He felt as if he were in a dream.

He had seen people going wild over his cards.

He had seen people looking enviously at those who possessed Little Sir Dominic.

He vaguely thought he had built up quite a reputation from what happened in Gachaland, but the response was greater than expected, leaving him dazed.

“…Perhaps I’ve been too strict with myself.”

Sir Dominic nodded in understanding.

“By the way…”

Suddenly, Sir Dominic checked the money he had received from the card pack exchange.

A considerable amount of Gacha Stone and Credit.

Money calculated proportionally as card packs containing Sir Dominic’s cards were sold.

Though Sir Dominic wasn’t particularly interested in money, having such a large sum before his eyes made him feel somewhat different.

“Tonight, perhaps I’ll eat something luxurious.”

Sir Dominic’s attention turned to dinner.

Coming from the harsh Feralant, he had no dietary restrictions or religious prohibitions, but it’s human nature to want to eat something delicious.

Right now, Sir Dominic was thinking entirely about meatballs topped with cranberry jam.

The meatballs he had seen while walking down the street before.

As someone from Feralant where even food was scarce, let alone meat, Sir Dominic found it difficult to imagine the taste.

Though he had received pork as wages, even that came from sick and starving pigs, so it didn’t taste very good.

But the meat he ate after arriving in Gachaland was truly heavenly.

Remembering that taste, Sir Dominic couldn’t help but be interested in balls made of meat.

Above all, what intrigued him most was the existence of cranberry jam.

Meatballs spread with cranberry jam.

He couldn’t imagine what it would taste like.

Sir Dominic had a curious personality.

He needed to satisfy his curiosity immediately to feel at ease.

Just as Sir Dominic entered an alley, anticipating a luxurious dinner—

“Chup!”

Thwack. A blow struck the back of Sir Dominic’s neck.

For a moment, everything went dark before his eyes.

“Haha! See! I told you this would work!”

“Why is this actually happening…?”

Mysterious voices shouted in triumph.

Sir Dominic’s legs gave way.

Of course, only for a very brief moment.

[[Tanker] trait resists imperfect status effects. Resistance successful!]

Sir Dominic returned to normal through his trait.

Of course, the attacker’s ambush was so sloppy that he would have withstood it even without the trait.

Sir Dominic, now standing upright again, turned around to see who had attacked him.

Then their eyes met.

The shorter man on the left spoke to the taller man in a seemingly panicked, high-pitched voice.

“Hey! It had no effect!”

“Huh…? That’s strange? In movies, this makes people faint…”

As the shorter man expressed his frustration, the taller man scratched his head in confusion.

Sir Dominic was so dumbfounded by this absurd situation that he just stared at the two in disbelief.

He was so bewildered that he didn’t even try to find out why these two had struck the back of his neck.

“He-he’s glaring at us!”

“O-okay. That person has only one eye, so if we split up, one of us can survive.”

“Th-then you go left. I’ll go right!”

The tall man looked to the left.

The left was blocked by a wall, and it was the direction where Sir Dominic wasn’t wearing an eye patch.

“No way! You go left! I’ll go right—”

“Excuse me for interrupting.”

Sir Dominic cut in, momentarily pausing this ridiculous farce.

The short man and the tall man were so startled by Sir Dominic’s sudden appearance that they fell on their backsides.

Then they looked up at Sir Dominic and gulped.

The light coming from the alley created a backlight, making only Sir Dominic’s eye gleam.

And that sight was terrifying enough to potentially become a trauma for both of them.

“Wh-what would you like to know?”

“Hey! We took an oath of secrecy!”

The tall man, seemingly overwhelmed by Sir Dominic instantly, spoke compliantly, but the short man, thinking of the contract he had made, spoke worriedly.

“R-right. The oath of secrecy.”

The tall man nodded.

The two men covered their mouths with both hands as if they had nothing more to say.

Seeing this, Sir Dominic felt the need to approach the situation differently.

However, Sir Dominic, who knew how to wield a sword on the battlefield but knew little about interrogation, couldn’t easily think of an alternative.

“What should I do…”

Sir Dominic unconsciously drew out his shield.

And he fell into thought as he ran his hand over the surface of the shield.

“…Can I talk? I suddenly want to betray and spill all the secrets!”

“That small guy is tiny and knows little! I know much more!”

In fact, these two knew something about Sir Dominic.

Since they had tried to ambush Sir Dominic, it was only natural that they had investigated their target.

And the two had discovered what had happened at the Executive branch a few days ago.

Having learned that Sir Dominic had subdued Trom by staying up all night, the two believed that a direct confrontation with Sir Dominic was futile.

That’s why they had attempted this ambush, which failed.

If strangers had seen Sir Dominic caressing his shield, they might have thought it was just an idle motion, but these two, who clumsily knew some truth, perceived it as a threat.

They didn’t want to be hit with a shield for 8 hours.

With that thought, both of them chose to confess without hesitation.

“We are the One Star Alliance. It’s a clan that only people with one star can join.”

“Our base is in the north!”

“If you want, we can guide you there!”

The two suddenly became servile.

Sir Dominic was once again bewildered by what was happening.

“No, well… I didn’t really want to know that much—”

“Well, well, as expected of one-stars? They can’t do even one job properly.”

At that moment, an eerie fog began to flow from the alley.

As the fog spread along the ground like a cool current, blurring visibility, someone’s silhouette appeared from the dark alley.

“Above all, betrayal? Trusting one-stars was indeed foolish.”

“Wh-who are you?”

“Do you know us?”

The two men shouted toward the mysterious figure that suddenly appeared.

“Of course I do.”

Whoosh. The sound of something flying through the air was heard.

A light, fluttering sound.

But the result was by no means light.

“Ugh…?”

A thin line was drawn across the necks of the two men.

The shorter man at least managed to grab his neck and let out one last cry, but the taller man’s head simply slid off and fell to the ground.

“Traitors.”

The silhouette revealed in the dark alley spoke with contempt.

Sir Dominic raised the shield in his hand and drew his sword.

Because he realized that the newly appeared person was no ordinary individual.

“Who are you?”

Sir Dominic didn’t rashly attack first.

Instead, Sir Dominic attempted dialogue.

“Someone who certainly doesn’t harbor good feelings toward you.”

The silhouette answered.

The fog was still thick, and the alley was dark.

Sir Dominic momentarily racked his brain and began to piece together the situation bit by bit.

“You called them traitors, so are you also from the One Star Alliance?”

“…Impressive. To deduce that much.”

The mysterious silhouette expressed admiration.

“If you know that much, there’s no reason to hide my identity.”

The cold fog wrapped around Sir Dominic’s legs, etching a chilly sensation.

Click. Click. Click. The lamps in the dark alley lit up.

Shadows dancing to the flickering flames.

Beyond them was… a magician fiddling with cards.

“How was my magic? The body separation magic, I mean.”

The magician flicked a card.

However, the card didn’t fly properly and fluttered to the ground.

Sir Dominic examined the card carefully, wondering if it had any significance, but nothing happened.

“They say Sir Dominic’s reputation is high, but to think you’d guess that I’m from the One Star Alliance.”

The magician placed a card on his hand, made a swooshing motion, and the card disappeared.

But it was so clumsy that the card hidden in his wrist sleeve was slightly visible.

“Not only that, but to even guess that I am the magician Malai.”

“…I didn’t know that much.”

“The timing of your discovery might differ, but you figured it out in the end. It’s the same thing. Amazing.”

The magician began to flail about, pretending to be mysterious.

A dove flying away, a wand turning into a flower, an endless handkerchief pulled from his chest…

But none of it worked properly.

Sir Dominic finally had some understanding of the person before him.

This magician was someone who couldn’t do anything right.

And he was someone who didn’t know anything properly.

…At least when it came to magic and rhetoric.