Secret Agent Chapter 084 - Rest and Preparations (Patreon)

Vlad and Nerezza were out of the apartment when Zack Adder returned, feeling energized from his workout and the protein heavy meal he had shared with Fyodor. Sienna was happy to return to her terrarium after a full day away, cutely gulped up some water, and then coiled up on her sunning stone under the magically-powered heating lamp with its red crystal.

Zack disrobed and sniffed his clothes underneath his armor.

Gross.

Sweat, leather, the rotten foul odor of thurgenrats, and a mix of herbal scents from the apothecary were all blended together.

Thankfully he had other clothes he could wear.

Hunt tomorrow? Sienna asked.

“No,” Zack answered. “I’ll be running around the city. You can just stay here.”

Hungry.

Zack tilted his head and eyed the taipan, her mostly tan head resting on her coils as she looked at him with one eye. There had been something in the semi-wordless message. A sense of ‘If so, then I am hungry and want to eat now,’ all packed into one word.

Either she was getting smarter, or he was understanding her better, or both.

Had there been animals on Earth that could make conditional statements?

He knew some animals could think and reason and even use simple language…

“Let me take a shower first and then we’ll go down and see if you can find a mouse.”

Sienna remained still on her rock, but pleasant feelings of acquiescence filled their bond.

A shower, reapplication of his hair and skin dye and false scar, and then a somewhat short hunt.

As they stepped out into the cool night air, Zack sniffed, and he could smell at least a few mice nearby. He even saw a flash of grey in the gloom of the side alley, but Sienna seemed picky. She slithered down his arm and passed the closest mice, instead finding a rather small one, barely forming a bump in her throat as she swallowed it whole.

Sleepy tomorrow. Hunt after.

“Oh, Jack has returned!” Vlad’s voice cut through the mostly empty street between them, and Zack turned and saw that Vlad was walking with a bit of swagger, closely tailed by Nerezza who stalked with prim grace and a faint scowl of disapproval.

Not at Zack, of course. She met his eye and her expression turned professionally neutral, and she dipped her head in silent greeting.

They climbed the stairs together and Vlad regaled Zack with the blow-by-blow of his visit to the red-light district, even as Zack put Sienna in her terrarium and Nerezza gathered up Zack’s dirty clothes from the floor and into a laundry basket.

“...And then Jasmine—lovely girl, stunning, I’ll have to introduce you—she told me she heard from a squire who heard from a maid in the Castle that a [Hero] had been summoned, and he’s set to depart on his holy quest tomorrow morning after a consecration ceremony at the Grand Cathedral…”

Zack twitched, and both Nerezza and Vlad saw it.

Internally, he grimaced, but he managed to keep his face still.

“Jack, are you alright?” Vlad asked with a tone of concern.

“I’m fine,” Zack lied, and they both clearly saw through it.

Nerezza narrowed her eyes, but Vlad sighed dramatically.

“Jack, if you’re going to [Lie]—” he used that pronunciation that indicated he was talking about the [Skill], rather than just the action, “—then you must do so properly. Now, you already have the [Acting] skill, so you can just—”

“Young master,” Nerezza interrupted the energetic Vampire, “I do believe that Master Jack has had a long day, and simply needs rest.” Her face was like a mask, but there was a slight hint of concern in her tone of voice.

“Hmm…” Vlad hummed as he reflected on the last several days.

Zack’s mind, though he could certainly feel it moving sluggishly, had latched onto something Vlad had said, however.

Not about the [Hero], although the news that Brad and the [Party] were leaving the city was valuable.

Rather, it was the fact that information from the Castle had made it into town via the red light district, just a few blocks away from where he currently sat in Vlad’s apartment.

“Jack,” Vlad said gravely, “If I’ve been pushing you too much, then—”

Zack interrupted his attempted apology.

“No, no,” Zack waved his hand. “It’s fine, really,” he told the truth and meant it. “I’m really just tired. And I have a question about the, er, the red light district…”

Vlad’s face lit up and Nerezza scowled and visibly bit back a sigh of exasperation.

“Aha! Yes, please, ask away! I’m something of an expert about the pleasure district! And worry not, I shan’t say a word to the ladies of our dear Troupe, no matter how much they ask!”

Zack blinked. The girls in the Rose Theater Troupe were asking about that kind of thing?

But he put that thought aside and rotated his arm at the shoulder demonstratively.

“I was at Fyodor’s earlier, and joined—”

Vlad’s expression crashed to the earth like a meteor, a look of ill-disguised disgust on his face. Nerezza’s scowl disappeared and the mask of professionalism reasserted itself.

“Don’t tell me,” Vlad exclaimed, “that you’ve joined that brotherhood of sweat!”

Vlad himself was quite slender, and appeared all the more so given his height and the style of clothing he wore. Fyodor was on the taller side, but didn’t look it so much because of how bulky and wide his frame was.

Zack nodded. “I have,” he admitted. “I want to get stronger.”

Vlad groaned and threw his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose, really hamming it up.

“Young master,” Nerezza chided him, and instantly he corrected his posture and became serious. Still, he sighed once more.

“Anyway,” Zack said, forcefully taking control of the conversation once more, which was difficult given Vlad’s conversational and acting skill, “my question was about massages. I can tell I’m going to be sore tomorrow, given the workout I did this evening.”

It happened every time for him. If he took time off from the gym, he’d be extra sore the first week he got back into his routine. And the first two days after were always the worst.

But massages helped.

And if he could get intel on the Castle all the better.

For all that everyone inside the Castle had seemed aware of the [Hero] and his [Party], very little information had spread throughout the city. Nobody was talking about it, and even though the Director had heard about it, that had apparently taken him some effort digging up the information.

Vlad nodded solemnly. “Yes, you certainly will need some aid recovering. Very well. I will introduce you to Delilah. Her hands are like magic.”

Zack raised an eyebrow.

“Like, real magic?”

“I meant metaphorically.”

Zack yawned and made no attempt to [Stifle] it. Then he rose, and was about to bid Vlad goodnight, when—

“Master Jack, what time do you intend to rise tomorrow?”

Nerezza looked him straight in the eye.

“Well, probably sunrise, so I can—”

“I would recommend you sleep in, if at all possible. The young master kept you up late two nights ago, and last night there was the party. If you are now also strength training, you must get adequate sleep.”

Nerezza’s tone brooked no argument.

And Vlad nodded along, sagely.

“Indeed, indeed,” he said.

“I have business across the city two hours after dawn,” Zack said, and Nerezza nodded.

“Then I shall wake you an hour after dawn. Sleep well.”

“Yes, yes, good night, Jack, my friend,” Vlad said.

Before bed, Zack checked on Sienna one last time. She was now curled up in her little cave, but she eyed him as he peered in.

Sleepy time now, Saa.

“Yeah,” Zack yawned. “Good night, Sienna.”

He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

***

In the Royal Castle of Forti, final preparations were made.

The [Priestess] met with the Pope, to receive her final orders for the journey ahead.

Not only to aid the [Hero] and heal his [Party], and not only to purge every demon they encountered. But also to ensure the [Hero’s] ideological purity, and shelter him from the confusing heresies of the false churches.

“Maria, the time has finally come. You will receive that which you desire tomorrow, at the ceremony.”

The [Priestess] grinned triumphantly.

The [Guide] and the Princess met with the King and reviewed their contingencies one last time. Their first goal was to find the Holy Sword Excalibur, the only weapon capable of truly killing the [Demon King], and to that end they would travel west to the mountain keeps of the long-lived Dwarves, master craftsmen and miners and brewers and lore-keepers.

Lady Elizabeth Hawkeye, pride of the Hawkeye family, visited her family manor one last time, for they knew not if she would e’er return.

Su of Famalfi, with the aid of one of the castle maids, composed a long letter to her family in the idyllic seaside towns, and ensured that the majority of her pay as a member of the [Hero’s Party] would be sent there via the Adventurer’s Guild.

Anastasia, the assassin, met with Cardinal Antoine and received from him a pocket mirror in a clamshell case, enchanted with a powerful communication spell.

“Report to me your location regularly, and if you encounter and slay [The Learn]. If he shows himself in Fortinium, I will summon you here.”

She nodded mutely.

“In the meantime, aid the [Hero] to your utmost. Slay his foes without fail, and continue to protect his life as ably as you did with the lynxen.”

“Yes, master,” she whispered.

And the [Hero] himself, Bradley Northcourt, personally conducted an inspection of their carriage and supplies for the morrow’s departure.

No other Knights or Guards would accompany them as they went, for the [Party] was already comprised of the most powerful people the Kingdom and the Church could muster.

He would allow no mistakes. He would not permit himself to overlook anything, this time. He would protect his [Party], he would find Zack, and he would save the world from the threat of the Demon King.

Satisfied with his inspection, he returned to his room to [Pray] in solitude.

“O Holy Goddess Arianna, I beseech you, protect my friend Zack from the demons and keep him safe until I can rescue him.”

And although he felt his mana consumed by the [Prayer], as it always was, it was only his prayers on Zack’s behalf that saw no response from the Goddess.

It filled him with unease.