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The percentage, or rather the variation in the number of people who know about it, gives the impression that it was spread by word of mouth rather than by an announcement or a warning.

“If someone was trying to spread the rumor, I guess that means they used a large number of NPCs as cherry-pickers.”

“Well, that might be the case, but this city is not exactly in the middle of nowhere, is it? The city is not a frontier city. There are fields of something outside the city, barley maybe? There are fields, people dressed like merchants and many horse-drawn wagons, so it’s probably a prosperous city in terms of agriculture and commerce.

If that’s the case, I think someone who knows the economic flow of the town well could aim for the greatest possible spread with the least amount of arrangements.”

Blanc told me this, and I looked around the town again. I hadn’t paid attention to it because I was only looking at characters who seemed easy to kidnap, but Blanc is right, it certainly seems to be the kind of city that tends to do that.

“…Amazing. Blanc, you’re amazing! You’re lying about not being smart! Your eye for detail and your knowledge is amazing! I’ve never seen actual barley growing before, and I wouldn’t have recognized it if you hadn’t told me!”

“No, I’d say it’s more like 70% what I’ve heard. My kids are smart. They teach me all kinds of things.”

“Those followers, the Mormos? They seemed capable, right? The abilities of the followers are also counted within the power of the Lord.”

“Is that so? I guess so, hehe.”

“However, if that’s the case, it wouldn’t be surprising if the information had already spread to other towns and cities nearby.”

Somewhere in a thread Wayne had once written, where he was calculating how to defeat Rare, he had also written that the prime minister of the kingdom had established a remarkable means of communication using a system of respawns of his followers.

Although it’s unclear whether nobles from other countries routinely use the same method, it wouldn’t be surprising if they devised and used something different from that. It may not be possible to obtain distant information in real time, but it is dangerous to think of things assuming the speed of information transmission in the real world, such as in the Middle Ages.

“I should have checked social networking sites to see if such information was circulating in neighboring towns. Ah, but it’s the event period, and I doubt many people are making small talk with NPCs right now.”

“Although I don’t think there’s none, searching for such words would be hard. The players are probably the ones who know more about Hiers’ demise than anyone else, and few players would bother to ask NPCs for that information.

That’s why the player named Justiz was interested in it as an unusual topic, and the player named MentaList probably got interested too.”

And thus, Rare became one of those who were caught.

” If the information is spread by word of mouth, especially among NPCs, it’s hard to track it down on social networking sites,” he said. The trouble is that similar information has already been confirmed by players. Searching would likely yield results only from the player side.”

If we want to get more information, we will have to increase the number of local collaborators.

“I wonder what we should do. Should we talk to more collaborators, or should we start hitting the knights and others who are closer to the heart of the matter?”

“There’s probably nothing new to learn from the local victims. I think the only thing we can find out is what percentage of people know about it and what percentage don’t.”

“That’s right. If we increase the number of samples, we might be able to get a better idea of who knows and who doesn’t know.”

“The population of this city is going to plummet…”

The return is too small for the risk.

If that’s the case, we have no choice but to hit the knights. But unlike the general populace, knights don’t die. If we continue with the method we’re using, our information will soon find its way to the nobles who rule this city.

“What do we do? Should we storm that castle now?”

“You’re aggressive. But well, considering our original goal is to find the whereabouts of Hiers’ royal family, we wouldn’t know just by asking the city’s residents.”

“That’s true. Uh, then what were we doing it for?”

“I was wondering if I could find out where the information came from. But it sounds like word of mouth, and I knew at the beginning that that wasn’t going to be possible. I guess I was just curious to see how many people knew about it along the way.”

“I was wondering what the goal was midway through, but I should have said it sooner.”

What’s done is done. We should think about the future.

If we wanted to find out the whereabouts of the royal family, we would need a noble or a source linked to them. The residents of the city were aware of the destruction of Hiers itself, but they did not seem to know anything about the royal family.

More precisely, for Rare, the whereabouts of the royal family don’t matter. What’s important is the location of the artifact.

If it were to be in this city now, the most likely place it would be that castle.

“…In the end, Blanc’s suggestion seems like the quickest way to go.”

“Huh? Storming the castle? Are we really going to do that?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, it’s okay. Rare-chan, you seem cautious, but you seem to have a habit of throwing everything away when it becomes too much trouble. I’m too lazy to do it, so I tend to throw everything away from the start instead.”

“Is that so? … Maybe.”

If we were going in that direction, it would be better to wait for the night.

Lastly, they prepared another collaborator, secured an inn, and disappeared, going to rest in that room.

*

“Now, if it’s this dark, it should be difficult to see us if we use [Curtain of Darkness] together.”

“You really stand out, Rare-chan. Can’t you use [Camouflage] like you do during the day?”

“[Camouflage] is not really suited for combat, because the outlines and other details appear blurred when the user moves violently. It’s fine if you just want to talk.”

“But you also deactivated it when brainwashing.”

“I have to show myself to them, otherwise the effect of [Charm] will be reduced. Also, I’m not brainwashing them, I’m asking for their cooperation.”

Quietly they take off from the inn’s roof.

The area around Rare and her friends may have been unnaturally dark compared to their surroundings, but it was in the dark of night and above the sky. It would be hard for anyone to notice.

“Where should we go in the castle? Should we look for something like the treasure vault, or would it be quicker to go and ask the lord directly?”

If we ask a lord, we can just kill him when we’re done with him and there is nothing left to do. My condolences to the city that suddenly loses its lord and its knights in shining armor, but it is better than being forced to endlessly turn its residents into collaborators.

“I’m not sure if it’s possible for a lord or a nobleman to be ‘used’ by someone else. Like Rare-chan and this Four Heavenly Kings guy, Sieg-san, right?”

I have thought about that possibility.

This is a very profitable approach for those who want to “use” them, but from the perspective of the nobles on the receiving end, those who are forced into middle management, there is no benefit.

I have to feed my subordinates, but I don’t receive any experience from them. You have to charge your superiors for the experience value, including that of your subordinates. However, from the superior’s point of view, his subordinates are nothing more than pawns to be discarded, and it would be a shame to go to the trouble of giving them experience.

It is not possible without a great deal of mutual trust.

If the upper echelons of the state were to do so, there is a fear that the lower-middle class aristocrats would revolt against them in droves.

Because the issue is directly related to the essential power structure of the states on this continent, it is not necessarily true that such civil strife in any one country will not spark off other countries as well.

“So I’m thinking that even if there were, it would be limited to relatives and friends that aren’t directly related to the vertical structure of power.”

“I see. If that’s the case, then the lord of this place is most likely the head of the relationship, even if there was such a relationship, since he lives in such a big castle.”

“That’s true.”

Blanc may be insecure about common sense, and she may have a tendency to act without thinking deeply, but she does not seem to be inherently dim-witted.

I thought she was a completely different type of person from myself, but perhaps she was surprisingly not so.

“So, should I aim for a room as high up as possible and with a light on? That’s the image I have of a great person.”

“Well, I don’t have any kind of indicator, so that should be fine. He’s such a ruler that he’s keeping a city of this size in production and commercial activity, and it’s likely that he’s holding office with the lights on after dark.

There is a large overhanging balcony around the middle of the castle. I guess that thing in the royal castle in Hiers was to show the king’s figure to the citizens of the capital, but is such a thing necessary for a castle in a city?

The room with the balcony has a very bright light leaking from it.

It doesn’t look like there’s any rooms with lights on the floors above it.

So, aiming for this balcony would be the best course of action.