share and sell
* * *
A huge conference room with a panoramic view of the city.
Among them were six people sitting around a splendid round table.
At first glance, it was an ordinary sight with nothing special at all, but if there were people who knew the identities of the members, they would have doubted their eyes.
The scene where the heads of the six families that had ruled the last city for the past hundred years and would continue to rule it gathered in one place and had a hard expression on their faces was not that realistic.
After a moment of silence, Oswald, the head of the Archon family, opened his mouth.
“You haven’t found him yet. What a disappointment.”
blatant underdog.
However, although the family heads were displeased inside, they did not reveal it outwardly.
All six families play an important role in maintaining the last city, but among them, the influence and prestige of the Archon family, which is the only one that can create a covenant that prevents the progress of pollution, is unrivaled.
“If you wait a little longer, there will be good news. Anyway, aren’t the reports still coming in?”
“The bounty on him is 600,000 gold. Calm down a little because the money-blind bastards will take care of it.”
Despite the people’s consolation, Oswald’s expression did not lighten.
“You don’t know how serious the situation is right now, are you? The city’s lifespan is running out! Do you have such idle voices when our fate depends on the mere lower class?”
A secret that only a few of the six families know.
The last city was a temporary shelter made urgently to avoid pollution, and it was not a settlement made with permanent life in mind, so many problems were popping up as time passed.
The most serious of these is the resource problem.
Food and water essential for living, raw materials used to make various potions and items, and mana stones essential for maintaining the function of the city were all rapidly declining.
‘In this way, everyone dies. I need to find a breakthrough.’
After long discussions and discussions, the six families came up with a plan to migrate in search of an uncontaminated land.
It is not known whether there are uncontaminated lands.
Even if there was such a land, the chances of finding it through a random search were extremely low, but they had no other choice.
The six families gathered their strength and dispatched a search party to find a new land in top secret.
And, of course, all attempts ended in miserable failure.
Despite sending hundreds of search parties for decades, not a single one has returned alive.
Resources that gradually reveal the bottom, people who let go of the string of hope one by one.
A miracle happened in such a hopeless situation.
‘I found this kind of equipment on the black market!’
A piece of equipment belonging to a search party who had gone out of the city was found to be being traded on the black market.
The one who brought the equipment was a lower-class citizen named Kuzan.
And after attaching someone to monitor Kuzan, I was able to find out an unbelievable fact not long after.
‘Kuhh! I hit a huge jackpot a while ago. Curious what it is? I went down to the underground tunnel and saw someone collapsed, so I went closer… … .’
‘It was dead, so I took off the equipment and sold it and got a share?’
‘yes? How do you know that?’
‘It’s a story I’ve heard more than five times already. Did you know I talk about that every time I drink?’
‘Ugh, then what about this story? Did I tell you this story too? Actually, that wasn’t the end, because he had a few more things in his arms.’
‘What? Did you find a bag of gold coins?’
‘no! A bigger beggar! There was a bottle containing pure, uncontaminated flowers, and a map with directions to somewhere!’
The people present just laughed out loud the moment they heard that.
As always, he thought that Kuzan was lying.
Of course, even if Kuzan was a person who usually tells the truth, no one would have believed the absurd statement that there were untainted flowers.
However, the six families were different.
‘The search party found uncontaminated land!’
The search party succeeded in its mission.
As proof, he tried to return to the city by picking a flower that was not contaminated, but died due to an unfortunate accident, and Kuzan took the flower and a map that recorded the search party’s itinerary.
Realizing this fact, the six families urgently sent people to retrieve Kuzan, the evidence and maps he might have, and Kuzan started to run away from the pursuers.
That was just a few days ago.
‘I can’t believe I won’t be caught yet.’
Oswald bit his nails with a nervous look on his face.
It was against the rules of etiquette, but if I didn’t do this, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to sit down because of the rising anger.
“Should I increase the bounty?”
“Even if it’s just the current one, it’s the greatest bounty ever, but raising it even more is just a pointless waste.”
“If you don’t try that… … .”
smart.
“Come in.”
The moment he heard a knock, Oswald accepted entry without hesitation.
It means that there is no room in the heart to the extent that one cannot even ask who he is or what business he has come for.
The messenger hurriedly lowered his head as if surprised by Oswald’s gaze staring at him.
“There is no need to be afraid. What’s going on?”
“Not too long ago, great people raised a man named Kuzan… … .”
“Did you catch him?”
“No, that’s not it. A man who claims to have found evidence and maps has come instead of Kuzan.”
Oswald furrowed his eyebrows and sighed.
“Are you a cheater again?”
The existence of uncontaminated flowers and maps is a top secret.
In order not to create a fuss, I vaguely marked it as evidence and maps, and in the past few days, I was able to receive numerous visits from scammers who came to me with trash and a crudely made map asking for a bounty.
Despite the fact that not one of them was sentenced to death for trying to deceive six families, scammers continued to visit whether the amount was high or not.
However, this visitor was a little different.
“He doesn’t seem like a simple swindler.”
“On what basis do you say that?”
“I introduced myself as a sewer executive.”
At that moment, everyone in the conference room couldn’t help but make strange faces.
The only force that doesn’t follow the will of the six families.
Among them, I never thought that an official who could be said to be the core of the sewer system would come here in person.
‘A guy who is about the level of an executive probably won’t try to cheat. Should I be happy about this?’
After thinking for a while, Oswald shook his head and said,
“So where are the evidence and maps?”
“I will meet you in person and hand it over. I’ve said it several times, but I can’t seem to listen to it… … .”
“Bring it.”
If all the sewer officials said they would come, maybe there was only one.
After Oswald’s permission was granted, the messenger slowly withdrew with his head bowed.
And after a while, a man came into the meeting room.
A jet-black robe and a jet-black mask that seemed to absorb even light.
A monster whose bare skin, such as his hands and neck, were all tightly wrapped in black bandages.
Oswald slightly lowered his gaze, checked his left and right six fingers, a total of twelve fingers, and nodded.
‘Crow is right.’
Crow.
He was an unidentified person whose gender, age, ability, race, and status were unknown, but he couldn’t hide his polydactyly.
“Don’t you usually send Dorothy for these things?”
“Dorothy has work to do. So I came.”
A subtle voice that sounds like a man or a woman.
It was a voice that I had heard many times, but I couldn’t get used to.
“Well, whoever it is, it doesn’t matter. stuff?”
“Before that, promise me first.”
“promise?”
“If you give me the goods, I will give you a bounty right away. six hundred thousand gold. with a lump sum.”
“Do you not believe us? We are six families. Do you think you can take away only 600,000 gold?”
“Promise me.”
“under! promise? I’ll do anything. If it’s real, I’ll give you 600,000 gold right away!”
After Oswald promised, Crow took a small glass bottle from his pocket and set it on the table.
A glass jar containing a small flower.
There was astonishment in the eyes of the heads of households.
‘It is a pure flower that is not polluted! It really was!’
The corners of their mouths rose and their shoulders began to shake.
With Crow, he was barely able to show his patience. If only the family heads had been there, the crucible would have unfolded.
Oswald, who had been looking down at the glass bottle without even noticing that he was drooling, came to his senses belatedly and said in a voice full of excitement.
“A map?”
Took!
A piece of parchment fell next to the glass bottle.
Although he had only seen the back, Oswald was convinced that this, too, was genuine.
The finest magic parchment, which was specially treated to emit faint light, was specially made for the search party.
After taking a breath, Oswald picked up the parchment and vigorously spread it from side to side.
And it just hardened.
“… … What is this?”
“It is a map as you see it.”
“No, I know that it is a map. What I want to ask is, why is it so small?”
Compared to normal parchment, it is only about one-fifth.
‘Did it get damaged while fighting the monster? No, I don’t think that’s the case?’
A smooth and clean cut surface as if it had been cut with a knife.
Oswald, who was turning and shaking the parchment here and there, suddenly realized something and looked at Crow and said,
“… … Where are the rest?”
* * *
At the same time, an unprecedented big deal in history was being signed in various places in the Last City.
“Oh my gosh! What a pure flower!”
“Did you really think I was lying?”
“Yeah, that can’t be. I believed in Dorothy from the start! … … . Wait, then this map?”
“How long will you live?”
A shelter in nature where spirits and fairies gather.
“It is an unpolluted land. There is clear evidence, so there is no way not to believe it, and this is true.”
“Make up your mind quickly. Do you know that there are many people who will buy this?”
“Well, I really want to buy it, but you know, we’re not that rich… … . If you gather everything you have and don’t have, this is the limit.”
“You can pay the shortfall in kind. I heard you made a 7-compression drivetrain last time? Just give me that, a composite vacuum tube, and a corrosion-resistant alloy… … .”
A steel giant made up of blacksmiths, engineers, and alchemists.
“Is this a possibility? No matter how you look at it, it looks too dangerous, isn’t it about being killed by dogs?”
“If you die, you die, so there’s a lot of talk. If you don’t like it, give it to me.”
“No, who doesn’t like it? Being picky with just one word. Wait, it’s not something I can handle on my own. I think we should have a meeting with the executives.”
A mercenary who oversees mercenaries and bounty hunters.
The Last City isn’t just six houses and sewers
All of the organizations with strength and power that were not as strong as the two forces, but by no means weak, bought a flower and a cut map for a large sum of money, and had no choice but to frantically search for the whereabouts of the remaining maps.
“Didn’t I have to cut it into smaller pieces?”
And the person who created this whole situation was regretting that he couldn’t cut the map into smaller pieces.
this is not a game
