Chapter 187
Athus felt a sense of displeasure.
The bearded man's attitude was excessive.
"Why, hic, would the White Lord be here, sir!"
"......"
"Even if this village is owned by the Denoebang family, still!"
Athus was accustod to not showing his emotions.
Even so, he felt the urge to grip his sword.
The bearded man was swaying back and forth, laughing drunkenly, and it was quite an unpleasant sight.
"...I should take this bottle back."
"Huh? Uh, uh, uh?"
As the bottle before him was about to be taken away, the bearded man sobered up with a start.
He wiped the smile off his face and spoke again, as if pleading.
"Wa, wait a mont, sir...!"
The man smiled obsequiously.
With his shaggy hair and bushy beard, he looked like a hairy mushroom.
"Actually, yes, I am the White Lord."
As he smiled, his teeth were revealed.
They were stained yellow from how much he'd been drinking.
The stench from his mouth was so foul that Athus wrinkled his face.
"Yes, that's right. That's . See? So if you could just leave the bottle...."
"......Do as you please."
Athus set the bottle down.
The man scrambled over and kissed the bottle.
He began to chug it straight from the bottle, the gulping sounds loud and clear.
He drank with tears welling in his eyes, as if afraid soone might snatch it away.
The tavern owner cleared his throat as if he had never laughed.
He had laughed along with the bearded man, but then he rembered that Athus was a knight.
Athus didn't explicitly express his displeasure.
However, those jade-colored eyes had the power to intimidate his surroundings even when he was still.
He silenced the tavern with a single glance and walked away.
"How embarrassing."
He plopped down in front of .
"To strike a pose and co away with nothing."
"Really?"
"...Hmm...."
The jade-eyed man let out a groan.
I chuckled.
A downcast Athus was not a sight one saw often.
"Let's get up. Let's spend the whole day wandering around."
***
We wandered all day.
Athus went around the village, making inquiries everywhere with great skill.
We were able to circle the entire village of Raenit before rumors could spread that so outsider was asking about the White Lord.
"We ended up back at this tavern."
"What do you think, want to go around one more ti?"
"I doubt we'll get anything more."
The jade-eyed man turned his head.
"Has it been too long since I left the Security Bureau? To think I'd co up so empty."
"Lies."
I glanced sideways at Athus.
"You have a hunch, don't you."
"......"
Athus avoided my gaze.
"...Even for , not every hunch is correct."
He didn't deny my words.
As I'd said, a thought had been floating in Athus's mind from the very beginning.
He just hadn't said it because it sounded too crazy.
"You just don't voice the ones that won't be correct, so from the outside, it looks like they all are."
"But you have a general idea of which ones will be correct and which won't, don't you?"
I said, as if nudging Athus in the back.
"Go on, tell . What thought ca to your mind?"
"...We've walked through the whole village. We've probably t almost every villager."
Athus looked inside the tavern.
The man with the beard and shaggy hair, who from a distance looked like a hairy, dirty mushroom, was still clutching an empty bottle and causing a scene.
It was a truly pathetic sight.
"If the White Lord is truly hiding in this village, then the one holding the clue is...."
His finger pointed towards the inside of the tavern.
"...that beard, that man."
"Hmm. It's certainly hard to believe."
The sound of snickering was clear.
That the bearded man, who looked like a drunkard to anyone, or at worst a beggar, held the key to finding the White Lord.
"Still, shouldn't we check?"
Through the window, the bearded man got to his feet.
It seed he was about to leave the tavern.
More accurately, the tavern owner was in the process of kicking him out.
Along with a scolding to please wash up once in a while.
"He's coming out just in ti. Let's follow him."
***
The bearded man exited the tavern.
As soon as he stepped out, he collided with a group of n.
Their rough appearances and excessively puffed-out chests marked them as local thugs.
Among them was a particularly large man who seed to be the leader.
He saw the bearded man coming out of the tavern and his face contorted.
"...Ah, the sll."
The thug leader spat out a curse.
"Drunkard, stop."
"...Uh, Yon, it's been a while...."
"Don't act friendly."
Yon, the thug leader, made his already rough face even rougher.
"I told you to stay out of sight."
"Heh, heh... sorry, I was drunk and forgot...."
"Because of your stench, I lose my appetite for a drink!"
The thug leader swung his fist.
There was a crisp thwack.
The one who got hit was the familiar beard, the dirty man who had gotten a drink from Athus.
"Why does Henson keep letting a guy like this in the shop?"
Yon grumbled, shaking his fist.
"Giving him three full glasses of wine every day...."
"Ah, they said he deposited a large sum of money a while back."
"With what money could this guy?"
"Heard he has a rich relative?"
"Aha. I was wondering how a guy who doesn't even work could drink every day...."
The thugs surrounded the bearded man and smiled vilely.
One of them even stomped on the fallen man's head.
"Drunkard, let us get a piece of your rich relative's fortune too. From now on, if you want to drink, you'll have to spend so money on us."
"...I, hic, don't have money for that...."
"Ugh, the sll! Turn your head when you burp!"
The thug leader clenched his fist.
For a country punk, it was a fairly large fist.
The bearded man braced himself to be hit and squeezed his eyes shut.
But the pain never ca.
"......?"
Athus was holding the thug leader's wrist.
The thugs let out sounds of bewildernt at Athus's sudden appearance.
"What are you doing, a group of you against one? You should at least know how pathetic you look."
"...What, who are you... ugh!"
"If I told you who I am...."
The jade-colored eyes flashed with a murderous light.
"Could you handle it?"
"......"
The thugs were at a loss for words.
They glanced at Athus's waist.
The way he properly wore a sword marked him as a knight to anyone.
Moreover, the person standing behind him, , clearly looked like the son of a noble house.
We were obviously not the kind of people to ss with.
"Quietly get lost."
"......Yes."
Athus's voice was frigid.
The thugs, as if they had never raised their voices, bowed their heads politely and quickly retreated.
"...Oh, sir, Sir Knight!"
"Get up."
Athus sighed and offered his hand to the bearded man.
"Are you okay where you were hit?"
"I'm fine. It happens from ti to ti...."
"Does this happen often?"
"Heh, normally I leave before those guys show up, but today I drank too much thanks to you, sir...."
The bearded man scratched his head.
A white powder, like dandruff, fell in the showers.
Athus displayed superhuman patience and did not frown.
"More importantly, did you, hic-uugh, make any progress?"
"No luck."
"It's been the sa for everyone. There were a few who ca to this village looking for the White Lord after hearing so strange rumor. Without exception, every one of them just bought so apple wine and went back."
The Raenit apple wine is exceptionally delicious, after all.
The bearded man laughed like the drunkard he was.
To laugh like that right after being hit, he was truly good-natured.
"Still... it seems you're not planning to go back right away?"
"It seems so."
"I'll be rooting for you."
The bearded man raised his gaze.
"But this village doesn't have any proper lodging."
"I saw a small mansion on the way here. It's probably the Denoebang family's."
"...Uh...."
"Houses like that usually have guest rooms, so I was thinking of asking there."
"...That mansion, you an?"
Athus raised his head as if to ask if there was a problem.
The bearded man laughed, hehe, and opened his mouth.
"...Why hide it, it's my house."
"You live in a nice place?"
"Hehe...."
Even at a glance, it was the largest and most magnificent house in the village.
It wasn't a luxury one could enjoy just by having a rich relative.
"There are guest rooms, right?"
"...Um, well, how should I put it...."
"There are rooms, right?"
"...Hic, this, I'm getting tipsy...."
"Right?"
"......"
Athus stared intently at the bearded man.
His intention was clear.
The bearded man wanted to act drunk, feign ignorance, and change the subject, but the blazing jade-colored eyes would not allow it.
The bearded man showed his displeasure openly, but Athus ignored him just as openly.
With him acting like that, the bearded man couldn't refuse any longer.
After all, hadn't Athus just bought him an expensive bottle of wine and saved him from the thugs?
"......If you're okay with it, we have so spare rooms at my house......"
"We'll gratefully accept."
"......Tsk."
***
The bearded man led the way.
Staggering, swaying, his steps back to his own ho were anything but eager.
Part of the reason was that he was bringing unexpected guests.
Athus and I followed behind him.
For so reason, I was holding back the many words I wanted to say, quietly following a step behind.
Athus stared blankly at the bearded man.
From behind, he looked even more like a mushroom.
Both his shaggy hair and his beard reached his waist, unkempt and matted with dirt from things like wine, saliva, or dust.
Hairy, dirty, mushroom.
It was a very rude expression to use for a person's appearance, but it was so apt that it couldn't be helped.
"Co to think of it, I didn't ask your na."
"...It's not a-a great na-a, sir."
The bearded man dragged out his words.
He was already clutching another bottle of wine.
It was a new bottle he had gotten by begging Athus.
His drunken face was flushed bright red.
"I didn't ask the gentleman behind you his, bu-urp, na either-er-er."
"My na is Shion."
"......Since I wasn't the one who asked, I'll pretend I, hic, didn't, ugh, hear that, uuuugh."
I quickly interjected, and the bearded man shook his head from side to side.
Fearing we might ask for his na again, he scurried to his house.
His footsteps were surprisingly nimble.
"Here, here, co-o in, it's a little -essy but don't mind it."
The bearded man threw open the mansion door.
Athus and I had no intention of losing when it ca to keeping a ssy house.
After all, hadn't Serena nagged us several tis about the sanitary condition of Art Gallery Lamponé?
However, even we couldn't help but be horrified.
"A little?"
"...A little?"
It was an absolute pigsty.
It was a crude, if not vulgar, expression, but there was no better way to accurately describe this disaster.
A ssiness that surpasses a certain threshold reaches the realm of the abstract.
One couldn't even say where or how it was ssy; simply everything, following the laws of chaos, created a sanitary cacophony.
The floor, so full of trash there was no room to step, a festival of diverse stenches, insects whose identities one did not want to know, the air so heavy and stagnant it had rotted.... It was a sight that would make even a regressed prince, accustod to blood and flesh, recoil in horror.
Looking at a place closer to a garbage dump than a house, or rather, the murder scene of the very concept of hygiene, the bearded man said proudly.
"Heh, hehe... still, I dusted not too long ago..., so it's a little better."
"...How long ago was 'not too long ago'?"
"Umm, it was... winter."
"It's autumn now."
"That wasn't too long ago."
"......"
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