Capturing Sid accomplished two things at once. Lady Lania completed her mission, and Altaïr gained valuable intelligence.
Altaïr had originally wanted to spend a little more time strolling through the small market and chatting with Nomads from across the Great Desert, if only to hear the accent of home again.
But perhaps the impression the two of them had made earlier was simply too frightening. Wherever he went, people instinctively stepped aside and lowered their heads.
He found an older man who looked as though he might have a little more courage and asked whether he knew of any newly discovered ruins nearby.
The man immediately pulled a small ornament from inside his clothes. It looked like something between jade and bone. Reluctance was plain in his eyes, yet he still forced an ingratiating smile and pressed it into Altaïr's hand.
It was as though he were paying protection money.
It could not be helped. In these people's eyes, Altaïr and Lady Lania were sand pirates, and not merely common wandering bandits.
Had they not just watched this burly young man knock those fierce-looking thugs around like spinning tops?
Had they not seen the female bandit leader cut down a palm tree with a single slash, defeat the man who tried to resist with a few more strokes, truss him up in a cocoon of rope, and drag him away to an uncertain fate?
Right now, they only wanted those two terrors to leave as quickly as possible. Otherwise... otherwise they would be the ones leaving at dawn...
Thoroughly bored, Altaïr was about to return the trinket when Lania called, "Hey!" and gestured for him to hand it over.
She really was getting into character.
The Great Desert had no laws against unauthorized excavation. Anything found in the ruins belonged to whoever discovered it first. Even the authorities would not object if they saw it.
Then again, they were currently posing as sand pirates, the sort who would steal an egg from any Gargwa that crossed their path.
Altaïr sighed and tossed her the smooth, lustrous ornament.
Fortunately, Lania had not truly embraced the role of a bandit. As she caught the trinket, she tossed a coin pouch back to him.
Altaïr caught the pouch, weighed it in his hand, and muttered, "Pretty generous," before tossing it to the ornament's original owner.
The man did not dare catch it. Even after the pouch fell to the ground, he was too afraid to pick it up, terrified that a blade or axe would take his hand the moment he reached for it.
Altaïr clicked his tongue, picked up the pouch, and thrust it into the man's grasp. No longer in the mood for idle chatter, he turned to Lania. "Let's go. Sid had long since gathered whatever intelligence there was to find here. There's no reason to stay.
"The camp isn't far, only about an hour away by Sandship. How about we head back there for the night?"
"Fine." Altaïr's suggestion suited Lania perfectly.
Given the nature of her profession, she disliked lingering in such gray areas, especially while escorting a prisoner.
No longer bothering to maintain their pretense, Altaïr fell into step beside Lania. As the crowd watched them go with collective relief, they left the oasis.
They boarded the Sandship and set course for the ruins camp as night deepened.
—--
By the time they returned to camp with Sid, the other teams had long since arrived and were gathered in the tent, consolidating their findings.
In terms of range, the two "aerial units" were naturally far ahead. One was the observation scholar in a small Airship, and the other was Sajji riding Hakucho. They had scouted several hundred square kilometers in a single day and confirmed the presence of more than one Diablos. Unfortunately, they had yet to find the "Demon King."
The two Hunter squads conducting ground reconnaissance had surveyed their routes in far greater detail than either the Airship crew or Sajji's aerial team, but they could not come close in terms of efficiency.
In this vast sand sea, the faint traces Monsters left behind were quickly erased by wind and sand, making reconnaissance extremely difficult.
The three members of the Vanguard Hunting Party had practically spent the entire day staring at empty sand. Aside from encountering a few schools of Delex and Cephalos churning beneath the surface, they had found nothing.
The team led by Alva had fared somewhat better. Drawing on Mr. Alva's knowledge and experience, they had managed to confirm the whereabouts of one Diablos.
The sand sea contained nothing but dunes stretching to the horizon, yet Alva could somehow determine which direction was most likely to lead them to a large creature. It was an astonishing feat.
His sense of direction was even more remarkable. Even in a desert devoid of landmarks, he always knew his precise location, leaving Isis and the others dumbfounded.
When Isis and Morgan asked how he did it, Alva explained that he established a coordinate system with their departure point as the origin, used his consistent stride as a unit of distance, determined direction from the sun's position, compensated for the gradients of the dunes through calculation, and ultimately computed their coordinates.
Isis and Morgan listened with dazed expressions. Merely having to remember which direction they were moving and how many steps they had taken at every moment was enough to make them abandon any thought of learning the technique.
Mr. Alva could hurry along, perform mental calculations, and chat with them all at once. That degree of multitasking was simply beyond them.
Better to leave such things to clever people like Alma and Kitty, who aspired to become Handlers...
By the time Altaïr and the others arrived, the reconnaissance reports had almost been fully consolidated. Only Alva was still there, scribbling notes without pause.
Everyone looked bewildered when Altaïr and Lania hauled a bound man into the tent.
After Lania briefly explained the situation, Alva immediately began circling Sid with great interest and bombarding him with questions. All the while, his hands kept working on the analysis he had already begun, as though he possessed two independently functioning brains.
Once Alva had finished questioning him, Lania summoned two subordinates and ordered them to take Sid aboard the Knowledge Seeker and confine him there.
Meanwhile, Isis was intensely curious about their experience "infiltrating the black market." She hovered beside Altaïr, quietly plying him with questions.
After the prisoner was taken away, Lania's expression seemed to soften. She drew out the bone ornament she had "bought" from the Nomad before leaving the market and tossed it to Alva.
With studied nonchalance, she said, "Just a little trinket I saw at the market. I picked it up on a whim."
Alva caught the ornament and grinned like a child who had just received a new toy.
Although his main fields of research were biology and ecology, he had spent many years working under a professor who was equally skilled in archaeology, and ancient objects fascinated him as well.
"This didn't come from the Great Desert." Alva reached that conclusion at a glance and immediately began muttering to himself.
"I've never seen this material before. A bone fragment from some unknown creature? No, that doesn't seem right. It looks more like some kind of energy crystal, a little like the crystals in the Elder's Recess..."
Altaïr stared blankly at Lady Lania, whose lips held the faintest smile.
Well, look at that. I wondered what you wanted it for. Turns out it was just a little gift for your husband?
Beside him, Isis looked at him expectantly. "Did you see anything interesting?"
Altaïr: "..."
He regretted it. He should have taken the trinket when it was offered instead of trying to give it back. It had ended up in Lania's hands, and now he had dug himself into a hole.
Couldn't he have found something, even if it was fake?! Anything at all?!
Knowing Isis, Altaïr knew she would not get angry just because Mr. Alva had received a little gift and she had not, but she would still feel a little disappointed...
What could he possibly give her? The little clay figurine? No, he had borrowed that from Alma. Giving it to Isis only for Alma to see it later would be far too awkward.
Altaïr broke out in a cold sweat. Francesca noticed his predicament and promptly fanned the flames. "Well, that's a lovely little gift. Altaïr, you're a local, so surely you know what to look for. Didn't you find anything nice for Isis?"
She was holding a grudge.
Faced with either admitting he was less romantic than a former Guild Night operative or stubbornly trying to save face, Altaïr chose the latter.
He took the filthy logging axe from his back and handed it to Isis with a perfectly serious expression.
Isis: "?"
Under Isis's puzzled gaze, Altaïr forced himself to continue. "We were disguised as sand pirates and robbed another band of sand pirates. That's where we got this.
"We didn't get anything good this time. Once this quest is over, I'll take you to the black market, and we'll rob the bandits there all over again."
Francesca was not the only one left baffled. Even Lania could not help glancing over.
What were these two even doing?
"!!"
Isis's eyes lit up. "Then it's a promise!"
* * *
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