Rorschach walked down the street, his attention occasionally captured by the shops.
"Shopkeep, how much for this pewter goblet?"
"Ma'am, are these small fish fresh?"
Most of the shops were closed. The few that were open changed their expressions the moment they heard Rorschach's non-local accent and immediately refused to sell to him.
In the end, Rorschach only managed to buy three jugs of ale and a few small fish. The latter became a treat for Gaisde Yazi.
"CAW! CAW CAW!"
As he passed the entrance to a dead-end alley, Rorschach suddenly spun around. He extended his hand and made a grasping motion, tightly seizing the man who had been behind him.
'I'm practically on the dark side of the Original Force... I mean, Magic,' Rorschach thought. 'It's as if I'm holding the man's life in my hands.' If he wanted, he could command the Mage's Arm to either snap his neck or dislocate his spine, giving him permanent half-body paralysis.
What was surprising was that neither the man nor his companion made a sound. Despite being held by an invisible hand, the man showed no sign of panic, as if he had simply stopped walking naturally. Rorschach tilted his head toward the dead-end alley. The two men understood, and all three of them entered the alley together.
"Alright, fess up. Resistance will be met with severity!"
"Rorschach Mage! By His Majesty the Emperor, we're colleagues!"
Rorschach felt the strain from his [Qilin's Arm] was becoming a bit much. He simply released the man and began to absorb a small amount of Magic Power from the environment instead. "You're right. Let's go have a cup of tea!"
The only restaurant still open was nearby, a small eatery run by a Half-Elf family. The waitress had a lovely face, and when she smiled, she revealed a hint of pearly white teeth. Her voice was like a songbird's. "Your tea, for three. With the honey and sugar you ordered on the side. Please, enjoy."
"Thank you! Thank you!"
Rorschach watched the two men across from him, speechless. In this era, sugar wasn't cheap enough to be left on restaurant tables. They had specifically ordered honey and sugar on the side. They picked up the small bronze spoons and viciously scooped a spoonful into their cups, then viciously scooped another. Their cups, which had been eight-tenths full of tea, now contained half a cup of sugar. To top it off, they licked the honey-covered spoons clean.
'Sugar may not be cheap these days, but is this really necessary?' Rorschach couldn't help but feel a bit of contempt for the agency's operatives. As someone who had chugged Oriental Leaf tea back in college and had drunk his fair share of herbal tea on the road in this world, Rorschach added no sugar at all, taking an elegant sip.
The freshness of the plants, a subtle bitterness, and even the fragrance of the soil... 'This tea tastes like boiled twigs! Six Silver Coins! That swindling Half-Elf merchant dares to sell boiled sticks for six Silver Coins!'
Rorschach's face darkened. "Right, we can indeed be considered colleagues. But you two seniors, I'll say it again: Resistance will be met with severity!"
The senior was unfazed, and even gave him a thumbs-up. "Kid, we like your style! You've got guts! A real future ahead of you! As long as you're tough enough to stay alive!"
The other senior paid him no mind. "It's been two weeks! Two weeks of sleeping in the wild, and I finally get to drink tea this sweet! This is great tea!"
"So you've been following me all the way from the Imperial Capital?"
"Following you? We were ordered by the bald boss to protect our agency's promising young talent! Master Mage, please watch your wording!"
"Brother Rorschach, your crazy idea not to take the Airship really screwed us over! This was supposed to be an easy field assignment, like a vacation! We finally scored a cushy job, and it turned into a wilderness survival mission!"
"Get to the point! You both know my name, so it's only fair you tell me yours. Seniors, please state your names first."
"It's a codename, kid. We can only tell you the codename. I'm 'Forest Patrol Falcon'."
"Night Owl."
"So what's our boss's codename? Vulture?"
...Brother Falcon almost couldn't stop himself from applauding. "Brother Rorschach, you are truly brave and fearless!"
Night Owl took another sip of tea. "Kid, mind telling us how you found us? Was it that Ranger gal in your squad?"
Rorschach had no intention of selling out his captain. In this era, the structure of intelligence agencies was still immature. Mostly, it was powerful figures like kings or archbishops who had their own eyes and ears.
The agency was currently subordinate to the Empire Army, still in a hybrid state between a military force and an intelligence organization. His captain was a pure Empire Soldier and had simply assumed the three of them were all from the agency's headquarters in the Imperial Capital. If she were the head of an intelligence node, she would never have exposed the existence of "Forest Patrol Falcon" and "Night Owl".
"It has nothing to do with anyone in the merchant caravan. Under [Magic Detection], one of you had a Magic Aura at your waist and under your arm, and the other had one on your right leg. I cast it several times, and you were both within my detection range, even when I stopped multiple times along the way. That's more than enough to prove you were following me."
These corresponded to the Magic Gun, Alchemy Bullets, and the Enchanted Dagger.
"[Magic Detection] is only supposed to work in a fan-shaped area in front of you, isn't it? We always stayed to your side or behind you."
"Nothing is impossible in this world, especially when it comes to Magic." Rorschach had no intention of telling them his modified detection spell had no blind spots.
Casting [Magic Detection] requires entering a state of concentration. A spell like [Fireball Skill], for instance, doesn't need attention after it's been launched, allowing the caster to move on to the next casting action. However, spells like [Mage's Hand] and [Magic Detection] require the caster to constantly maintain the spell's operation while in a casting state. Casting multiple spells simultaneously is a difficult technique that only High Tier Mages could possibly master.
Rorschach's actions of picking through and carefully examining goods on the roadside were a cover for casting [Magic Detection]. At the same time, his stop-and-go pace allowed him to confirm the two tails behind him.
"Now that I've caught you in the act, shouldn't you show some sincerity?"
"We're on official business! What's there to show?"
"I see. In my report to the Mechanical Director, I'll have to be sure to mention how easily the organization's operatives can be exposed, and perhaps analyze whether it's due to objective factors or personal, subjective reasons..."
"Alright, we know when we're beat! Brother Rorschach, just say what you want. It's only right for seniors like us to help out a junior!"
"Good. Do one thing for me. Do you have any intel on the Lowe Commerce Association?"
"We do, we do. His Majesty from the Holy Kingdom has a secret stake in it. He's also helping that fatso collect luxuries, rare treasures, and intel on the Empire from the Northern Continent."
'I just happened to run into something like this? Maybe it's the fate of a Transmigrator...' Rorschach couldn't help but take a sip of his twig-water to calm his nerves.
"The favor is simple: I want to find out what exactly is in the shipment Ah Le is transporting, and why a Cult has its eyes on it. The caravan has already passed the checkpoints in the Imperial Capital and here, so a simple inspection probably won't reveal anything. As for how to do it, listen to me..."
...
After Rorschach left, the captain stopped her interrogation of the caravan members. For Ah Le, however, bigger trouble was brewing. He alone was taken to a small, partitioned room where a young man questioned him in private.
Ah Le noticed that the slogan in the large room had been "Confess for Leniency," while the sign in this small room had changed to "Resist for Severity."
"Mr. Merchant, we found two identity documents on you. One from the Empire, and one from the Valois Kingdom."
"In the Empire, I am a citizen of the Empire. In the Kingdom, I am a subject of the Kingdom. At the end of the day, I'm just a businessman."
Mr. Ah Le calmly explained, "If I present proof of identity from one nation in the other, I'll be taxed heavily as a foreign merchant."