The next day, Jake woke up earlier than usual and prepared to go out.
Unlike his usual attire of ornately decorated clothes draped with a white cloak, he was dressed quite plainly.
“You’re going to go out like that? What about maintaining dignity with clothing befitting the position of a noble?”
“Today I won’t be going out onto the streets with the status of a Hero.”
“What?”
“Today I plan to blend in among the territory’s people and gather information. That way we can grasp how well our plan is progressing, right?”
“If I’d known it would be like this, I would’ve just said let’s go yesterday.”
“Hm? What did you say, Klad?”
“That outfit you’re wearing now, isn’t it too fancy to be considered a commoner’s?”
Klad pointed out Jake’s outfit while changing the subject.
“Quite plain” was only plain when compared to what Jake had worn the past few days. Jake was wearing the clothes he had purchased when he first arrived at this village. It was that very high-quality outfit he had bought saying he would visit the Baron under the name of Hero.
If Jake’s claim was correct, these clothes weren’t a good choice for pretending to be a commoner. However, Jake completely overturned his opinion as if he had never made such a claim.
“I bought it from a commoner’s shop, so this is also commoner’s clothing.”
“You said before it was clothing for nobles.”
“Back then I had been wearing clothes that seemed like they’d tear with the slightest movement, so I was mistaken because it was a decent quality fabric I’d seen in a while.”
To Jake, who had spent the past few days wearing clothes prepared by Baron Nolson, such clothes no longer looked luxurious.
These were just clothes for commoners who wanted to become nobles.
“Unless you’re going to advertise that the Hero is here, change into those clothes that seem like they’ll tear with the slightest movement right now.”
“Mm. As you say, it would be better not to act conspicuously.”
Jake accepted Klad’s opinion and silently changed clothes.
When Klad used magic to change his hair and eye color, Jake took on the appearance of a common city youth.
Thanks to the mirror Baron Nolson had prepared, Jake was able to see his changed appearance for the first time.
“Amazing. In this state, even Father wouldn’t recognize me.”
“But the Duke’s house’s excellent mages would immediately notice that mana is spread around your face.”
“Then I’ll have to cancel the plan to visit the capital in this appearance.”
Klad took away the mirror before Jake could come up with more strange plans.
After changing Klad’s conspicuous black hair to an ordinary brown color and heading out to the streets, no one showed any interest in the two of them.
Jake confidently walked around the streets looking around.
“What we need to find out is how far the information has spread and how far people have come from.”
“We’re not actually going to face the demons, so why?”
“That way we can predict Father’s next range of action and move to avoid it.”
That’s right. Jake’s goal wasn’t to use Duke West to defeat the demons.
Right now they might be able to restore the village’s peace with the Duke’s house’s army, but that was only temporary at best. The Duke’s knights couldn’t exterminate the Demon King.
Jake’s real goal was to find the Hero’s Sword and the descendant of House Duke West.
‘I thought he was just showing off because he liked receiving attention, but it seems he hasn’t forgotten his duty.’
Perhaps it was himself, not Jake, who had forgotten what needed to be done.
Come to think of it, Jake still hadn’t told him the reason for searching for the Duke’s house’s heir.
He understood it wasn’t to line the pockets of House Duke West, but it wasn’t particularly good leverage against the Duke either.
No matter how he looked at it, why would Jake have to ask someone else to do something that wouldn’t benefit him at all, even while dying?
“Klad.”
Jake’s voice calling him ended Klad’s contemplation.
“I like this restaurant here.”
“Hungry?”
“That’s not it. Isn’t there a saying that restaurants are the best for gathering information?”
“That would be an inn with a restaurant, not a restaurant.”
There’s a saying that to gather information by eavesdropping, go where mercenaries head.
Inns with restaurants were places where mercenaries traveling all over the city gathered second most after the mercenary guild.
Among them, if you visited places that served alcohol and had delicious food late at night, you could gather all sorts of information that drunk mercenaries chattered about.
But what information could they get by entering a restaurant in broad daylight?
Especially when most people were out on the streets for the festival.
“Coming back with only half-baked information from somewhere…”
“Let’s go in quickly, Klad. I heard this place is famous for roast whole pig.”
So excited was he that Jake entered the restaurant without waiting for Klad’s answer.
In the end, Klad couldn’t say that a restaurant at midday wouldn’t help gather information and followed behind.
“One roast whole pig and corn soup, please.”
“The roast whole pig is a portion for three people, so the quantity will be quite large—is that alright?”
“Of course.”
“Beer?”
“I’ll decline.”
Jake, wearing commoner’s clothes, ordered food with the dignified speech of a noble.
A noble he’d never seen before pretending to be a commoner while ordering the restaurant’s most popular dish. If it had been a few days ago, it would have felt quite suspicious, but now, due to numerous outsiders visiting the city, no one paid attention to Jake.
“Here’s your roast whole pig and corn soup.”
Jake elegantly enjoyed his meal. Even without his speech, his appearance immediately revealed he was a noble.
Klad thought he should warn Jake to act more convincingly in preparation for when a situation came where he needed to hide being a noble, and put a piece of roast pig in his mouth.
“……”
Feeling eyes on him, he raised his head to find Jake staring this way with his mouth hanging open.
“What.”
“Klad, the roast whole pig…!”
“Are you that displeased about eating together at one table?”
“That’s not it. Klad, you can eat food.”
“Of course I can eat. Did you think I was some kind of undead monster?”
“But I’ve never once seen you eating a meal until now.”
For Klad, to whom managing mana was more important than food intake, eating was closer to entertainment than survival.
The reason he hadn’t gotten food for himself while obtaining food for Jake to eat was simply because he hadn’t felt like eating. He had even less interest in the hard bread or fruit Jake had thrown at him calling them gifts.
But Jake, who didn’t know this, looked at Klad with sparkling eyes.
It was a gaze that somehow seemed moved.
“Have you been giving up meals for my sake all this time?”
“Well, yeah.”
Klad, who didn’t want to explain in detail, roughly agreed with Jake’s words.
“I won’t forget your heart for me and will definitely repay you.”
“If you add up everything you already owe me, even giving me all of House Duke West wouldn’t be enough.”
“The Duke’s house won’t do. That’s not for you.”
“If you say so.”
Jake’s greed toward the Duke’s house was outside Klad’s interest.
Klad cut the pork and placed it on Jake’s plate. Jake, who didn’t understand that was a signal to just eat, paid no attention and comfortably finished his meal.
In the end, the two gathered no information during the meal and left the restaurant without any gain.
Rather, when they came out onto the street, numerous people had gathered and were murmuring.
“It seems the Hero-nim won’t be coming out today. What a shame.”
“There’s no reward for waiting since dawn.”
“The Hero-nim must need to prepare to go subjugate the demons. He must be busy.”
“We’re so fortunate the Hero-nim came. You don’t know how scary it was because of the demons!”
Those who had never received even a penny’s worth of damage from demons trembled and praised the Hero.
With each word of praise, Jake’s shoulders straightened proudly.
‘Weren’t you trying to gather information, but just wanted to go around hearing praise?’
It was a reasonable suspicion.
Klad resolved to bring up leaving today for sure.
“Let’s just go to the plaza, Klad.”
“Do as you like.”
There were more people in the plaza than yesterday.
Several who didn’t seem to be from Baron Nolson’s territory were also visible. They must be waiting with hope, not knowing when the Hero might come out onto the streets.
If Jake saw them excited with anticipation of meeting the Hero, he would probably be satisfied and return.
Klad thought it was good to have set the plaza as the final destination and quickened his steps.
‘…What?’
But something was strange. The closer they got to the plaza, the more tense the atmosphere became. It was a completely different feeling from the previous day, which had been noisy yet bright and cheerful.
The people gathered in the plaza were whispering with serious expressions. As if they were worried about something.
“Should we head back to the inn now, Klad?”
“Wait a moment.”
Klad concentrated on the murmuring sounds. He needed to grasp the situation as quickly as possible to understand what was happening.
“That… what news… the Demon King leading an army…”
Demon King? Army?
He was the one who wanted to ask what that meant.
Klad concentrated while even drawing up his mana. To filter out useless conversations from the noise of hundreds and thousands of mixed voices and accurately pick out only the necessary information.
“…this, army…”
“This… really, big trouble…”
“…what… if the demons come, our city is finished…”
“What on earth is this about? Why are demons coming here?”
“Because it became known that the Hero-nim is here, our city has become the demons’ target!”
Found it, the necessary information.
