FSFSLU 18

Chapter 18

Like almost everyone living in the Rat Hole, Thompson’s voice was weak and feeble, like that of a sick man.

“I already warned him that you were someone not to be trifled with.”

Even so, the look he gave Gerolt was razor sharp.

Gerolt slowly turned his head. Thompson clenched his fists as he met Gerolt’s eyes.

For a moment, their gazes clashed.

“Is that all?”

Gerolt was the first to speak.

There was suspicion in his tone. Thompson quickly shifted his eyes to Isabel.

“It’s true. Priestess, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

She glanced at Thompson out of instinct, but before Isabel, who hadn’t yet grasped the situation, a quest appeared.

[Quest generated.]
[Tell Gerolt that Mayor Thompson is telling the truth. (0/1)]

“Ah! The mayor is right!”

Isabel exclaimed brightly, then looked up at Gerolt with pleading eyes, as if begging him to believe Thompson’s words.

It wasn’t exactly a convincing performance, but Isabel didn’t think Thompson was the kind of person who would lie, so her eyes carried a trace of credibility.

It was Gerolt who backed down first.

“Well, in that case, fine. I simply dislike it when my subordinates talk behind my back. Good thing that’s not the case here.”

Lise let out a small sigh of relief.

She felt as though she had lost ten years of her life. Gerolt had always ruled his men with an iron fist, never hesitating to purge them if he deemed it necessary.

She had been walking a tightrope under his rule, and now was not the time to fall. Luckily, it seemed this incident had passed without disaster.

Gerolt straightened his back from where he had bent toward Isabel, then slowly walked toward Thompson.

“So the lower Tammes is safe now. This priestess has driven out all the slimes.”

Thompson bit his lip.

“I’ll have to pay that place a visit myself soon. Good seeing you. Farewell.”

“Safe travels.”

Gerolt signaled to Dyke, who opened the mayor’s office door for him.

Gerolt went down first, and Dyke was about to follow, closing the door behind him, when—

A small foot wedged itself in the gap.

It was Isabel.

Lise and Thompson nearly fainted. They had been thinking how fortunate it was that the situation had ended quietly, without incident.

But Isabel seemed ready to cause trouble after all.

Was she trying to follow Gerolt out of the office? Just as Lise hurried forward to grab her, Isabel spoke up.

“Hello, Mr. Dyke!”

Her cheerful greeting was directed at someone none of them expected.

Dyke, who had never opened his mouth in this place, froze with a blank look on his face, the door half-closed.

“…Hello.”

He replied awkwardly.

“I’m Isabel, Mr. Dyke!”

“I know.”

Dyke waited for her to say more, but only her foot, jutting stubbornly into the doorway, blocked the door.

“Would you move your foot? I need to leave…”

At that moment, Isabel poked her head through the crack in the door and locked eyes with him.

Then she flashed a wide grin.

“How’s your little brother doing?”

Isabel didn’t know it, but behind her, both Thompson and Lise gaped in shock.

Mentioning Dyke’s younger brother among Gerolters was practically taboo.

Dyke didn’t know how to interpret her words. If that question had come from a Rat Hole resident or a fellow Gerolter, he would have taken it as a threat or provocation and responded with violence.

But this situation was unexpected. How could an outsider possibly know about Marcel?

Was it like with Gerolt—someone must have told her about him too?

After a moment’s thought, Dyke concluded it was pointless to dwell on it.

“…He’s doing fine.”

He gave the safest possible answer. Isabel, with a mischievous smile, added:

“Stay on good terms with your brother!”

She shouted brightly once more.

All Dyke could do was repeat his safest answer, same as before.

“Sure.”

With that, Dyke put slight pressure on the doorknob. Isabel, taking the hint, pulled her foot back. The door closed.

Isabel stared at the shut door for a while, then turned around with a strange expression. She clenched her fists inwardly.

“Mm!”

Dyke was the first person she had met after her regression whom she actually knew—other than the church folk.

In the first round, they had met as enemies. But if Isabel could find the demon sword before Gerolt did and destroy it, Dyke would never get his hands on it.

This time, surely, they could be friends.

Hadn’t he just said it himself? Marcel was doing fine.

Isabel remembered Marcel’s tears—the tears he shed after killing his own brother with his own hands.

That was the first time she had seen Marcel cry.

But this time, things would be different. Isabel would change the future.

And with Smiel, who gave her quests at every crisis to guide her, she was certain she could succeed…

“Isabel!”

Her solemn resolve was broken by an outside interruption.

Seeing Gerolt and Dyke leaving city hall through the window, Lise had finally lost patience. She grabbed Isabel by the shoulders and shook her hard.

“What the hell was that? How do you even know about his brother! You can’t just bring that up to Dyke! Do you want to get us all killed?”

“M-Miss Lise, please calm down a little—”

“Quiet, Mayor! I’m grateful you helped earlier, but she needs a scolding. If you don’t have tact, then at least keep your mouth shut!”

“Unnieee, stop shaking me… I feel sick…”

“What do you want me to do? I thought I was going to die because of your slip-up!”

“I’m glad you didn’t die…”

“What did you just say!”

Though Lise shook her violently, Isabel only kept laughing goofily.

Lise felt like she would explode.

I sat on a seesaw in the playground, scratching my head.

I had suspected it, but I hadn’t expected such a troublesome situation to come so quickly—something beyond the scope of my knowledge.

Sigh…

I am Isabel’s guardian angel. That means I can only communicate with Isabel. I can’t read her memories or her thoughts.

The only reason I can play the role of her guardian angel at all is because I have glimpsed the future through The Long Tale.

In other words, when it comes to people or relationships not described in The Long Tale, I am as ignorant as Isabel.

This case was exactly that. In The Long Tale, Gerolt had only been depicted as a gang boss who terrorized Hero Marcel’s hometown. Thompson had been portrayed as a weak-willed mayor swayed by Gerolt.

So this time, all I could do was quickly sort through and relay what Gerolt was saying after barging into the mayor’s office. I couldn’t provide Isabel with a perfect strategy.

If Thompson hadn’t stepped in, either Isabel or Lise might have been in real danger.

Of course, Isabel was still maintaining her barrier, so she would have been safe even in a surprise attack—but complacency was dangerous.

Don’t forget. The knowledge I have isn’t absolute.

I reminded myself.

Alright. Now that things had settled, it was time to deal with the next issue.

I looked down through the window, and my eyes widened. Lise looked as though she were threshing grain with Isabel as the flail—shaking her mercilessly. Isabel was being rattled like a rag doll, and Thompson made no move to intervene.

Well, Isabel might feel dizzy, but I decided to let it go for now. From Lise’s perspective, that reaction was more than understandable. At least she hadn’t grabbed Isabel by the collar.

But still—there was one strange point left.

Before leaving, Gerolt had mentioned slimes and the lower river, and Thompson had responded very naturally.

Come to think of it, in the early episodes of The Long Tale, it had been mentioned. Thompson had tried various ways to restrain Gerolt, though without much success.

Wait a second…

An idea came to me.

I quickly sent Isabel a quest.

[Quest generated.]
[Ask Thompson if he was the one who released the slimes into the lower Tammes River. (0/1)]

The moment I sent it, I realized my mistake.

Damn! I should’ve phrased it more carefully.

After all, wasn’t Lise right there in the room? She had suffered because of those very slimes. Depending on whether Thompson answered yes or no, her wrath might turn on him. I had to rephrase it quickly—

“Mayor!”

Oh no!

Before I could fix it, Isabel, ever diligent, asked the question straight out.

“Was it you who released the slimes into the lower river?”

Even while being shaken like a human threshing tool, she managed to ask properly. Thompson and Lise froze.

Lise stopped shaking her and yanked Isabel close.

“What did you just say?”

“She asked if the mayor released the slimes!”

“What nonsense is this? Do you have any proof?”

Lise let Isabel go and turned to Thompson, demanding an explanation with her eyes.

Thompson exhaled slowly.

“It was me.”

He admitted it.

Lise strode forward, raising her palm, and slammed it down on the table.

With a loud bang, everything on the table bounced three centimeters into the air.

“You mean to tell me my people have been suffering for four months because of you?”

“That’s right, Miss Lise.”

Thompson closed his eyes, calm, as if ready to take a beating.

Lise, though furious, couldn’t bring herself to strike him—but that didn’t mean she understood.

“Then explain yourself.”

“Because Gerolt must not be allowed to reach the lower river.”

Hearing those words, I realized something Isabel and Lise hadn’t grasped yet.

“Ah!”

The timeline became clear.

The exact moment Gerolt began seizing control of the Rat Hole had never been described. But it was definitely over ten years ago.

For years, he had secretly searched for the demon sword. At some point, he began openly showing his intent.

From upstream to midstream to downstream, Gerolt deployed the Gerolters to comb through the city and intimidate residents—all in search of the sword.

But no matter how he searched, he couldn’t find it. The demon sword wasn’t in the city at all. It was hidden in the surrounding mountains.

In the Long Tale—set in the year 893 of the Main Calendar—he eventually moved on. But this second round was still a year earlier. Which meant Gerolt was still in the midst of tearing the city apart in his search.

Thompson must have guessed, based on Gerolt scouring the upper and midstream districts, that maybe what he sought lay downstream.

He didn’t know what exactly Gerolt was looking for, but he understood one thing—it must never fall into Gerolt’s hands.

But Thompson lacked the strength to block the lower district by himself. So he hatched a plan.

He secretly gathered harmless, non-aggressive wild slimes. With the nearby mountains, they weren’t hard to find.

Then he released them into the lower river.

Ordinary slimes, transformed into toxic slimes, spread and engulfed the area.