Chapter 30: Chapter 29: I’m a Sneaky Deer! (1)

Naru walked through the passageway with Hakuya, there was a slight breeze which suggested the passageway had an exit. Although she stumbled a few times eventually they approached a ladder and upon climbing up Naru found herself in what seemed to be a headquarters of sorts.

“What is this?” She asked

On the wall was an assortment of weapons and there was a shelf that was filled with various bottles, in the middle of the room was a large table with a large map of the country along with a smaller map of the city. Naru could excuse the weapons and bottles, but the maps were what intrigued her. In this world, maps were expensive commodities. Requiring someone to hand draw them before being sold, it was a tedious task and they were pricey. A map of the city was simple enough and would already cost her a year’s salary, she couldn’t figure out how Hakuya had a country map laid out so casually.

Hakuya walked to the table,

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but here’s mine, what’s a magic deer like you doing here”

Naru glared at Hakuya

“Why can’t I be here?” She said, indignantly.

Hakuya shrugged his shoulders,

“Magical creatures tend to stay in the forest, they don’t usually become barmaids,” He said matter of factly.

“It’s none of your business”

Hakuya shrugged his shoulder,

“Well, I guess it was a good try, it’s not like we particularly where you come from.”

He began to trace his finger on the table, and across the map in the room.

“It's rare to see your kind around here, I was intrigued mostly, but also thought it was a great opportunity. Frankly, I don’t particularly who you are as long as you’ll be useful to my little organization”

“Organization?” Naru asked.

“Mhmm, how should I describe it. Perhaps it would be better if I describe it in terms of what we do. We work for the crown, doing intelligence gathering, investigating, and occasionally…”

Hakuya paused.

“Contract killings”

Naru’s heart tightened when she heard the last sentence.

“Killings,” she said softly

“Well, I probably won’t have you doing that… yet, but yes. If the crown is meant to walk in the light and lead the people. We are the ones who walk into the dark to make sure they are always saying. We are the eyes and ears of the crown.”

“So why are you working as a bar owner,” Naru asked.

Hakuya gave a wry smile,

“Mostly because it’s fun”

Naru felt like crying,

[Is this all an elaborate joke!] She wanted to cry out, although she knew such an elaborate set-up was too much for just a joke. She thought back to all the times she had customers come to the store and ask for Hakuya. They always went to the storeroom and she never thought and further that there was a secret passageway hiding there.

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“So why do you care about me” She said.

“Well, for one, you’re a magical deer who’s managed to hide in this city, although you did bungle protecting the girl.”

Naru looked at Hakuya with a confused expression

[bungle? How does he know how I protected her.]

Hakuya only smiled in response to Naru’s confusion,

“Oh you don’t think I wasn’t aware of that right? Those men were sent by me after all, appreciate you didn’t kill them, it would’ve been a hassle.”

“You set me up!”

Hakuya put his hands up in apology

“Now, now, it was just a harmless test, they wouldn’t have hurt you… too much if you failed.

“You’re a rotten, rotten man you know that. I’m just a girl.”

Hakuya scoffed

“A girl? you broke both their ribs and now I have to pay for their medical costs who are the true villain here.”

His expression turned neutral,

“look, you have something I want, the natural gifts of a deer, and I have something you want. I had my suspicions but you were a part of a deer nest that was recently destroyed weren’t you”

Naru felt herself stiffen at Hakuya’s words. She was being reminded of the events that had led her to the city, it had been a while since she had thought about them, but every so often she would have nightmares about her father being shot through the chest.

“We can investigate that, I can tell you at the very least we weren’t involved,” Hakuya said.

The words struck a chord within Naru, in truth she only had one goal in her mind, and that was seeking the ones who’s had destroyed her idyllic deer life.

“We have the operational capacity and tools, to investigate it, I can’t make any promises, but I can at least find hints of what happened.”

Hakuya pulled out a gem from his pocket, Naru didn’t recognize it, it was small than any deer crystal. She realized it was some other gem, likely pulled from another poor magic creatures.

“These things, as you might know, are harvested from your kind.”

The crystal seemed to glow in his hand and a small orb of water appeared.

“They are useful little tools allowing humans to cast magic as you do, but the problem is that the magic that comes from these gems are always less potent than the creature they came from.”

Naru could sense what Hakuya was implying.

“So you want me for my magic.” She asked him