Decorating themselves under new false names, Haruki and his party pushed in through the adventure guild's door. With only a single foot in, they all noticed a lingering sense of threat darting right into their direction. Unlike the rest of the kingdoms they'd been to, the people here didn't like change, much less new people. To them, it simply meant more crowds in their already densely populated cities.
'Werewolves, demi-wolves, lizardmen, and even orcs?' Surveying through the people glaring at his party, Haruki was much baffled to find just how diverse the races inside the establishments were. 'No humans though, well, not like they'd be left alive if the majority are monsters.'
Shifting his attention to the reception in the rustic guild, Haruki moved deeper into the squeamish frame of the building. With each step, the floor cackled as though ready to devour some unfortunate soul. Surprisingly, despite the place being packed with people, somehow the dust in the air was much more prominent than he'd expected, or perhaps, it was just the musk from the booze-guzzling monsters of men and ladies.
"Soooo…." Seemingly uninterested, the fox-nosed receptionist ran her gaze through Haruki's company. "What do you want?"
"We are looking for some adventuring jobs, can we have a look at any requests by patrons of the guild?" Having only ever been a rogue mercenary, Haruki had very little understanding of exactly how adventuring worked.
"Hmmmm…" Once again after scanning through everyone, she reached under the counter and took out a piece of parchment. "Fill in your information, and don't lie on the form because if you're caught lying on the document you'd be fined heavily."
"My one weakness, huh, document," taking the paper and a pen from the desk, Haruki spotted an empty table and quickly settled into it.
Busying himself as he filled up all made-up information, Haruki used a demonic spy on his staff to keep an eye out and assess the other adventurers. After filling up the information, he headed back to the receptionist to hand her the document. In return, she passed him a bronze pin that signified his party's starting level as per the guild's assessment.
"Can we choose a job now?" Haruki asked, and this time, the fox lady presented him with a stack of paper with about a dozen job listings by the patrons.
While scanning through the documents, Haruki created clones of his shadow and discreetly began attaching them to the adventures present inside the guild. Even though his clones could only use the spells he had in a very limited fashion, as long as they could spy on the adventurers using the magic spell shadow sneak, that's all he needed them to do.
Picking out a monster subjugation job, Haruki pocketed it quickly. Turning to his companions who were much aware of what he'd just done, he had them following him out the exit with the many eyes of the adventurers still sternly fixed on them.
On his walk through the dense crowd on the streets, Haruki, at first, couldn't find a place to consult his companions. Stuck amidst the chattery crowd and merchants hollering out to grab customers, he was forced to find a desolate street a mile away from the guild before finally getting to clear things with his party.
"This city…" Letting out a sight, Haruki looked over Asuka's shoulder at the bustling streets with hung paper lanterns, and smoke from food vendor shops rising up high. "It's a disaster."
"I guess, this is what happens when you dump people in a single place because you don't want them invading your cities," Riley added, looking back at the ruckus.
Standing between two tall buildings, the air between them was finally clear, and since nobody was around them, Haruki began explaining what he wanted to do moving forward.
"We're going to follow those adventurers, and maybe if we have time left we can do this stupid quest I picked up," He said, patting the pocket in which the parchment with the quest was. "Anyway, I want to turn them into our spies with hypnosis, since we can't risk turning people into demons anymore."
With the news of demonic presence in the empire now widespread, he didn't want to raise an alarm in the city in case the newly turned demons made a mistake and revealed their true nature by accident.
'After the kind of rogue behavior we saw in Aria when I first turned those people into demons, I can't risk having any new converts yet.' Lost in thought, Haruki began to wonder how he could effectively make use of the adventurers to his advantage.
"And what are we going to do with them?" Asked Riley.
"Well, there are two things," shifting his attention back to his party, Haruki decided to explain why he wanted to turn the adventurers into spies in the first place. "Asmodia still needs a bigger army and so do I, and if I don't keep working towards that goal I doubt she'd show us any mercy."
"Y-yeah…I never thought about that," biting down on her nail, Asuka wore a look of deep concern.
Having been threatened by the mistress of darkness herself once, she knew what kind of monster they were dealing with.
"As for the second point, I need to know everything about how things work in this kingdom, especially about the royals and nobles." Fully determined to take down the corrupted oligarchy, Haruki wanted to figure out what kind of monsters he was dealing with in this kingdom.
'And then there's the fact that I need control over the people in charge to keep my identity hidden while making sure that the kingdom is freed by giving into their deepest desires.' Being the tyrant of desire, he felt an intrinsic need to free the people from the royals before he pushed them into pursuing their depraved desires.
"Someone's moving, we should go," feeling his clone getting out of the guild, Haruki closed his eyes to the sight of a demi-human adventurer heading off with his party.
Having found their first victim, Haruki, and his party were off to follow them from a distance. However, ever since coming here, something quite pressing had completely slipped their mind. And that certain something, or rather someone, spotted them in an instant as they rushed through the city crowd.
'Demons, here? Interesting…' She thought, watching them from a golden carriage.
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