Secret Agent Chapter 078 - A Mysterious Stranger Steps Into Contact (Patreon)

Zack Adder’s greatest concern, at that moment, was that she had snuck up on them without anyone present noticing. And he had been facing in that direction.

He felt a spike of anxiety, and that must have passed through is companion bond with Sienna, because she immediately abandoned her hunt and moved with all haste in his direction.

Saa!

Zack raised a hand, and spoke to draw everyone’s attention to himself.

“Excuse me, but there’s a concerned taipan headed this way.” He turned his gaze away from the interloper and to Henrietta, the young teen girl closest to himself.. “Can you make a bit of space, to give her a clear path?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then she got up and moved her chair to the side, closer to Sister Paula.

Just in time.

“Ahh, Misses Snake!”

“She’s so fast!”

“Look at her go!”

“Look at me Misses Snake! Hiss, hiss!”

The woman with blue hair widened her blue eyes and her lips formed a circle. “Ooh, an inland taipan, inside the city! Those are rare snakes, they are, this close to the city.” Her voice had the slightest hint of mockery in the tone, and her diction was similar, but not quite identical, to the way a middle class resident of the city might speak.

It was the glimmer in her eye that convinced Zack she was putting on an act—though of what, he couldn’t be sure.

But she was certainly more than met the eye.

And he had a more pressing matter to attend to.

Sienna was speeding towards them, kicking up little puffs of dust with each zigzag of her movement.

“Sienna, I’m fine,” he said, and patted his shoulder. But Sienna slithered to the ground next to where he was seated and coiled up before raising fully half of her body into an S shape, prepared to strike. Granted, the woman was outside the fence, several yards away, and well outside Sienna’s striking range, but Roxy, Sister Paula, and Henrietta all scrambled to move to the side, out from between the snake and her target.

Zack sighed dramatically and stood as well, and as he did, casually dragged his feet through their drawings in the dirt, effectively erasing them.

That done, he scrutinized the woman. She had a cavalier air about her, and there was something off about her clothes. While they were typical commoner chic, they fit her perfectly.

That was unusual. Most people in the city wore their clothes a little baggy, or a little tight if they had grown and hadn’t saved up to buy new clothes yet.

But hers fit perfectly, highlighting her figure especially around the waist and hips.

As for her hair, he suspected it was cleaned and conditioned. Suspected, because he’d never seen blue hair like that before. Dyed blue hair back on earth was often highly saturated and bright, standing out almost like a neon light among natural hair colors. But this blue was desaturated, giving it an almost natural look. And even when he leaned on his [Keen Eye] skill, he couldn’t see her natural hair color at the roots, nor the telltale signs of dyeing on her scalp.

“There’s only one adventurer in town with a [Tamed] Inland Taipan [Familiar], Mister Jack Werdruf, Rank F, and associate of the Rose Theater Troupe,” she said triumphantly, as if she had just won some contest. “Although I must say, if you gaze at me so lasciviously, I shall have to judge you an uncouth letch.” She brought her arms up theatrically, crossing them over her modest bust, and tilted her head just so to give him a look.

Roxy sighed heavily, relaxing slightly now that Sienna had come to a stop. Henrietta was clinging to Sister Paula and they both stood behind Roxy, but a quick glance showed that they were also already relaxing.

Roxy spoke. “I wish he were, Cori. But he got the [Resist Allure] skill faster than anyone! It’s such a struggle to get his attention.”

Ah, the [Resist Allure] skill. Zack had gotten it the day he promoted to Understudy in the Rose Theater Troupe, when he had made his formal introductions with everyone.

It was a skill he almost never thought about. He mentally loosened his grip on the skill, long habit that it was, and…

Oh no.

This woman—Cori, Roxy had called her—was gorgeous.

Immediately he pushed on [Resist Allure] again and felt his mind clear.

[Calm Down], and it cleared even more.

Priorities.

“Sienna,” he said, making clear who the most important girl present was. “It’s okay, there’s no threat here.” He gave Cori a meaningful look of his own. “Right?” he half growled, and flared his [Intimidation] just the slightest amount.

“Who, me? Little old me?” she said, looking side to side as though someone else was standing nearby. “Who could I possibly threaten? The big scary adventurer with his loyal [Familiar]? Certainly not.”

Not friend.

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“Yes,” Zack agreed, “but no biting.”

For once, Sienna didn’t immediately agree. Her wariness filled their bond.

“Sienna?” he asked, and slowly, Sienna lowered her head and forward body.

“Cori!” Sister Paula said with a scolding voice, now that Sienna had visibly calmed down. “If you knew about Jack’s snake, you shouldn’t have antagonized him! Look what you’ve done to poor Henrietta.”

Zack looked then, and saw that the girl was trembling. He instantly relaxed his [Intimidation], started [Acting] friendly and relaxed, and turned a stern thought to Sienna. Before he even said anything, the slightest bit of remorse made its way through the bond still largely full of wariness.

Up, Sienna requested. Shoulders.

Zack bent over, extended an arm, and Sienna quickly slithered up, making herself comfortable draped across his shoulders, over his pauldrons.

“Aww, look at what you’ve done, Jack!” Cori pushed the blame onto Zack, and he frowned at her and narrowed his eyes.

“You already know who I am, obviously,” the secret agent said, “but you’ve yet to introduce yourself.”

“Who, me? I’m nobody important,” she obviously lied.

*ding!* The skill [Lie Detection] has been acquired!

“I’m just a bored young girl looking for gossip, that’s all! You can call me Cori. With an I, not a Y,” she clarified.

Roxy and Sister Paula clearly knew who this woman was, so Zack turned to them. He caught Sister Paula’s eye first. “Cori stops by now and then to help out with the orphanage,” she said. “Sometimes she brings supplies for the children—clothes and shoes and coats and such.”

“I’ve run into her at other orphanages, too,” Roxy added.

Cori flipped her shoulder-length blue hair with one hand and preened.

Zack decided to jab back a little.

“‘Young?’” he quipped, raising an eyebrow at Cori. Sienna flicked her tongue out, her gaze locked on the woman on the other side of the fence.

Cori gasped loudly. “Ah, Roxy, did you hear what he said?! Can you believe that?!”

“Jack…” Roxy looked at him with faint disappointment. “You shouldn’t comment on a lady’s age.”

While this farce played out, coincidentally giving Henrietta time and space to relax, Zack’s mind raced.

This Cori woman might have gleaned some of his business plan, but making it work wouldn’t be as simple as she thought.

There were multiple parts that had to line up: a workforce to make the cards, the accurate information on the cards, the design that conveyed that information, and connections to get the cards made available within the Adventurer’s Guild.

Even if she managed all that, there was another way Zack could employ the children of the orphanage, though it would require more startup costs, and more market research.

Copying books.

Books were expensive. The cheapest book he’d seen at the market was twenty fortins. Roughly four thousand dollars, by his estimate, although pinning down an accurate exchange rate between dollars from Earth and fortins in this world was nonsensical in the first place.

If he was willing to invest the capital, he could buy a book, pay the orphans to make copies by hand, get them bound, and sell them. Granted, he would have to find buyers and figure out a fair price to recoup his investment, but it could be done.

So losing out on his information card idea wasn’t that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Zack Adder was fully confident in his ability to acquire money if he needed it.

What was a fortin, anyway?

It wasn’t the metal of the coin.

It wasn’t the design impressed upon that metal, either.

It was a relationship. A social agreement between everyone that a fortin had value and could be exchanged for goods and services.

Relationships were information.

Information could be manipulated.

Cori was feigning outrage at his comment about her age, but he could see that none of her theatrics reached her eyes. That glimmer was still there. She fully believed that she had an edge over him, and was toying with him.

She knew his false name, and about Sienna, and his affiliations with the Rose Theater Troupe and the Adventurer’s Guild.

But she had made a mistake, and she wasn’t all knowing.

She had said he was F Rank.

That was true, until roughly an hour and a half ago.

She claimed to be a lover of gossip, and clearly did have some kind of information network. But it wasn’t perfect.

And that didn’t matter.

She was currently trying to antagonize him. Obviously. Sneaking up on him, suggesting that his idea had merit, bragging how much she knew about him…

But if he took his own feelings out of the situation, it was practically a sales pitch for an information broker.

Zack raised his hands palm up, in a gesture of defeat. “Alright, alright, sorry. I shouldn’ta said that.”

Henrietta breathed a small sigh of relief.

“A friend of St. Bella’s is a friend of mine,” he continued, highlighting their shared relationship.

“And actually, I got a question—maybe you could give me some advice.”

Flattery can be extraordinarily powerful. But just telling someone how great they are is obvious. For some people, it makes them suspicious.

Asking for help, on the other hand?

Immensely flattering. It’s seen as more sincere, and gives the target a sense of power. They could deny the request, asserting dominance, or they could acquiesce and show magnanimity.

Zack was betting Cori would choose the latter.

“See, I just got this armor,” Zack patted his chestpiece. “But I don’t have a the underpart, the, uh, what’s it called…” He feigned a bit of ignorance.

“The gambeson,” Roxy supplied.

“Yeah, that. The gambeson.” Zack smiled at Roxy for a moment then turned back to Cori, whose expression was shifting from feigned outrage to interest and a small display of smug superiority. “You seem like someone who would know,” Zack continued, “so where’s the best place to buy a gambeson?”

He expected her to answer ‘the Guild.’ The Adventurer’s Guild had a discount for members, and they almost certainly did sell them.

Cori cocked and eyebrow and looked him up and down smugly.

“You’d think it’s the Guild, but you’d be wrong, Jack.”