Chapter 309: Dusk Street’s Great Detective (1/2)

This is the garbage dump.

The definite dark side of Tsige.

In the first place, the city called Tsige is the entrance to the border of the world.

The precipitous mountain range rising up high is also a rift.

As if connecting the left and right side of the cliffs, a thick and tall wall was made, and at the back of the mountain range, there’s a city that draws a half-circle at Aion’s plain.

That’s Tsige.

The outer wall that was made at the side of the plain connects directly to the Golden Highway, and even if you look down at it from far high in the sky, that thing that can be seen more clearly than the national borders continues all the way even to the remote region of Robin in the major power of Gritonia without stopping.

In terms of scale and history, the Golden Highway is a dream.

Now then, one extreme of that dazzling golden path is the mountain range side that separates the world and the wasteland.

Especially at the back of the wasteland, at the eastern mountain-side where there’s a dented zone, there’s a region spread at its center called the Dusk Street.

Because it is at a mountain-side, the sun obviously doesn’t reach well, and the price of the land is slightly lower, and the public order is greatly proportional to the amount of light it receives.

The worst one is Dusk Street.

Rather than calling it the slums, it is more like the den for the people that have fallen to the deepest they could.

Children, elderly, weak people who suffer some sort of heavy illness, poor people, or both; those kinds of people don’t get close to Dusk Street.

They can’t survive there after all.

It is in a sense the hood, a place in Tsige where there’s a lot of ruins. But those guys move from place to place as they live.

Moving from place to place is simply changing locations at fixed times to places that correspond to Tsige.

Construction rushes and bankruptcy rushes are of the same coin after all.

They have a special sixth sense in finding ruins that they can use as their spots and people don’t get close to.

They have no coin or the ability to earn it, and can’t cope with the changes of Tsige.

In other words, these people that have been left behind have an existence that’s providing charity to them earnestly, enough for them to survive.

We of the Kuzunoha Company also participated in this just the other day. Food, clothes, and other necessities were distributed actively.

…Just that, I honestly didn’t see any signs of them going out of their way to solve the root problem.

It was simply posing that they are contributing here.

But it is true that there’s people who are surviving from this.

The merchants don’t really care as long as they serve as tools to make them look good, but the people of the slums and at times the ones of the Dusk Street would get hired by bad natured criminals and end up dyeing their hands in crime.

Compared to them, the children at the orphanage are in the really good category.

In the current Tsige, the children in orphanages won’t be starving to death.

The personnel is carefully selected, and especially the old companies put their all in their protection.

There’s no knowing what talents a child can have sleeping in them.

That’s why, instead of having a child swallowed by the slums due to some wanderer, they would mostly be brought into an orphanage somewhere.

And so, the ones who are talented will feel indebted, and then will work for them passionately and loyally.

We are also sponsors of a certain orphanage.

We have no plans on employing them though.

What I am trying to say here is that…I am currently in this place that’s dark even at noon, where stimulation is sought more than even the slums, and a problematic area where influential powers are mixed in all this creating a location of minus security.

Meaning that, unless you actually come in, you won’t be able to get information from any information network regarding someone that is inside here.

According to what Rembrandt-san told me…

The young Rembrandt-san of those days spoke to a top of that time, he came into an agreement with them that both sides would in essence not interfere with each other, and if there’s danger to the city, they can not cooperate but won’t pull the leg of the other.

In exchange, as long as what happens inside the Dusk Street doesn’t leak to the outside, Tsige intended to give their tacit consent.

…

I see, is what I thought.

They put a lid on a deep darkness that would be too troublesome to deal with, and for the dimly lit parts they themselves would trample down on it and replace it.

Rembrandt-san and Zara-san really do resemble each other in foundation.

Well, it is funny that the one with the deep darkness is called Dusk though.

“The one other Tsige, huh.” (Makoto)

It is a place that the Kuzunoha Company and I didn’t come or did anything until now.

Honestly speaking, I am still not interested in it.

But…

According to the spy revolutionaries that we captured recently, there’s a big problem that has to do with this place.

They so conveniently didn’t have any more information than that, and due to not knowing what might be happening in there due to having no prior information about it, I have come here together with Mio.

“It is a place where there’s practically no delicious smells, so I haven’t come here.” (Mio)

“I also had no plans of coming, but if it involves the Kuzunoha Company, it bothers me. However…” (Makoto)

“?”

“I thought for sure that the moment we entered, there would be hoodlums with mohawks and thorny shoulder pads attacking us with flamethrowers.” (Makoto)

“…It is so silent.” (Mio)

“Yeah, it is.” (Makoto)

I feel gazes on us.

But they don’t attack.

If I had come alone, or were to bring along an employee of my store, I feel like they would jump on us immediately, so I had Mio come with me as a bodyguard since her face and name has been passed around. Guess it is working so well that it had the opposite effect.

“There’s a whole lot of half-baked ones, a good amount that are decent, and people on the level of demon generals…looks like there’s none.” (Mio)

“Agree with that. However, be careful about skill combinations and patterns of specialized types.” (Makoto)

“Yes, Waka-sama.” (Mio)

If it is Mio, as long as it is not quite the thing, there shouldn’t be any problems.

How they deal with this situation will reveal just how much the big shots of this place know about us.

At the very least, they won’t suddenly go for a forceful method if they know about the strength of Mio.

But Mio is so close.

Even if she is being considerate to not stand out, she is pinching a part of my sleeve.

This must be her way of saying that the ideal for her would be if we could hold hands.

…It would be one thing if this were a date, but…

This place’s public order is on the minus numbers, Mio.

Saying it out loud would be silly, but I also don’t feel like having her stop.

“Tch! …Waka-sama, looks like they have come to meet us.” (Mio)

It was really low, but I heard her clicking her tongue before her report.

The door at the end of the street.

There, huh.

I certainly do feel the presence of a decent amount of people.

However, it is unnaturally thin.

The chances that they are using some sort of cloaking is high.

Yup…no problems at all!

Let’s go!

We stopped walking for an instant, but we soon began advancing again.

*Clack*

The door…eh?

The ground just in front of the door opened like a hidden passage or the entrance of a shelter.

T-That was unexpected.

That place can open?

“…The Kuzunoha Company, right?”

“Yes, I am the representative, Raidou. This one here is my bodyguard, Mio.” (Makoto)

“…”

“Mio.” (Makoto)