Smooth Criminal

Florin Town, Kingdom of Etria

 A new day and the opportunity to continue on my journey back home. Since I came back with Karen showed me the way I have not gone back after seeing the prices of things in the city, it seems that I was short of money than I thought, and paying for the inn is not cheap actually. these last days  I have spent doing small errands in the city to get more money. Since I was just starting out my rank in the guild was quite low, so even if I could defeat difficult monsters they wouldn't let me accept them until I rank up with them, so the only things they had available for me were small normal tasks like collecting herbs or helping in repairing houses, what it was the same to be a handyman. Since I had enough experience in the latter to accept these assignments, most of them were to repair leaks in the roofs of the houses, the truth is that I did not even need a ladder, because it was faster to climb the walls than to have to ask who could lend me one. Also, more than one neighbor took advantage of seeing me up fixing the roofs and once offered me money to fix their houses too, although these jobs would not be recognized by the guild and would not help me increase my rank, money is money. 

When I was done with that and with enough money on hand I went shopping to finish getting ready: plenty of food in case something goes wrong, cloth for bandages, I tried to get alcohol to disinfect wounds but it seems they didn't sell at all the city but I managed to get vodka that can work instead, also managed to get the cooking pan. I ended up having a lot of money left over so I thought that since we were here I could buy something as a souvenir for the others at home, so I went to the main street where they sold the most artisanal things for tourists or curious people, I started to see that it could be a nice gift but the options were not many, everything was either very expensive or it was things from monsters like a chain of wolf teeth or quite elaborate knives. I really don't think they like any of this, since most of the girls around me except Momo are actually quite refined. Tamamo is a goddess who was royalty, Lisa was at least an angel with a prestigious job, Adelis works with diplomats from important countries and Maria is quite selective in terms of the things she likes. I don't think any of them like me to bring them something like a basket of lemons. In the end, my indecision reached Tifa, who told me that if I didn't know what to give, then I should choose a pendant since they were relatively cheap and everyone likes them.  Since it was good advice I decided to follow it and found a stall where they sold some quite nice ones at a good price, they were made of colored stones or minerals, but the ones that caught my attention were the magic stones because although they were without energy and for that reason the low price, they had figures of nearby animals, including the bull rabbit. According to Tifa, magic stones come from dungeon creatures like florin, they have quite a lot of accumulated energy and can be used to form magic staves embedded with spells or fire swords, but once their energy is depleted they are completely useless, and adventurers spend them changing their equipment regularly, basically the batteries of the remote control. I ended up buying nine necklaces, one for each one, and because I was sure that either Momo or Tamamo would end up doing some experiment with them, so spare parts too. 

At the end of the day, I went back to the guild to report that I had completed the work to go straight to the inn to rest. But just when I finished talking at the counter and was about to leave, a group of adventurers arrived, coming with a carriage, from which you could see that they were transporting the corpses of some people. A guild official came out to tell them that all of this had a procedure and that they couldn't take it to the lobby where everyone was, but the adventurers' counter-argument indicated that they were the "Furious Banner" group, the second-best group of adventurers in the city, they were all dead. This caused a stir among those present, the voices were fired everywhere, the rumors started. The guild official removed the tarpaulin that covered them and revealed their condition to the others. The corpses seemed to be several days old, but they were completely intact, so everyone could clearly know who they were, hell even I knew who they were. They were the group that tried to capture Tifa in the forest and that I had to kill them, the holes they had in their foreheads were the mark of my pistol. Same marks that everyone paid attention to because they were the only damage that the bodies presented. Questions immediately began to arise, what could have killed them? How did they die in one hit? What kind of wound was that? What originated it?. Most adventurers agreed that these injuries could most likely have been caused by needle throwers, but that was quite strange, since they were originally from layer 4 of the labyrinth, and the corpses were discovered outside the city. The only reasonable theory that people could come up with was maybe that it was a new type of monster and that this was its way of attacking, a pretty lethal one. 

I knew that this situation was not helping me at all and that although his hypotheses were quite far from reality, I did not want to take risks and let them catch me. I got out of there while the commotion was still going on. I already have everything I think needed for the trip, although I wanted to do a couple of test trips,  I'd better pass on that and do the entire route at once since I don't want to be in the city anymore.  I went to the inn and started packing everything, which wasn't much. Almost everything was mainly food or things to heal. The clothes I had on were just the ones I was wearing and the pieces of armor I wore over them. I can't wait to get home and take a bath as soon as possible because the inn doesn't have bathrooms in the rooms, so the only ones available were the public bathrooms, which obviously I can't go and use if I didn't want to be discovered. When finished packing, a rhythmic noise came out of the door, it seemed to be Karen because this was now her way of warning that it was her and not someone unknown. She was quite anxious to give me the breaking news, the group "Furious Banner" had been found dead on the outskirts of the city by what seemed to be a monster not yet discovered, or at least that was the official explanation. What she did not feign surprise was for what she mentioned later, it seemed that Sakura went to the guild also to see what she could help with and when she saw the adventurers she mentioned that it had been a "firearm", which the others told her. They said that they died from the head wound, not burned, that could be seen in plain sight, but it is said that she was trying to describe a new type of mysterious weapon, one capable of killing a person from a distance in a way almost instant. To make matters worse, she, determined to prove her position, went to the place where they found the corpses and discovered what she called bullet casings, irrefutable proof of the existence of this mysterious weapon.

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I had left a pretty big clue at the scene of the crime, one that I completely overlooked because all this time that I have used firearms I had never thought about them, since I'm usually pretty busy trying to stay alive, I don't pay much attention to things that don't matter. And of course, the perfect Sakura immediately noticed and drew the correct conclusion at first. With this information she was now fully convinced that there was another earth human in this world, for there to be a firearm here means that person came with her and used it either to defend herself or to steal something, so she believes that this person must or be in the city or its surroundings. Right now Sakura is looking for every stone trying to find her compatriot and "save" him or rather boost her ego by doing what she thinks will bring her more glory. While for his part the Lord of the city is quite interested in seeing if this mysterious weapon is real, so he is giving a reward for whoever finds this guy and presents the weapon as evidence, Sakura was happy for the extra help worse It doesn't take a genius to know that what he wants is the weapon and if he can reproduce it. But nobody bothered to ask the important question for me if he was a lost person and needed help, why didn't I look for it before? Well, the obvious answer was that they don't want to be found, which is completely true, I don't want to be found for any reason. I had no choice, I'm not going to risk anything, I have to leave the city beforehand because I have no way of knowing when luck will push Sakura again and make her take another big step towards me. 

Finally, Karen thought that the way things were, my situation would become much more complicated because now the city controls would increase and people would be much more careful trying to find this individual. And with all this, the chance of me being discovered diminished, together with my race, they would dismiss me immediately and imprison me in the best of cases. She had helped me tremendously since I got here, so I didn't want her to get in trouble for helping me, so it was time to part ways. I told her that I was extremely grateful for everything she had done but that it was better that she stop looking for me anymore because maybe she would be affected by meeting me and not reporting me to the guards. With a smile, she replied that she was only doing what she wanted to do and that I was not bothersome and that I was a friend, she even offered to help me escort me back to the dungeon but I stopped her, finally as a gift As a goodbye I gave her almost all the money that I had left because I would not use it anymore and the coins that I would have left would be a souvenir for my family, still, with her smile on her face she said goodbye and left. 

Around 2 in the morning, I went out the window of the inn and headed towards the huge black circle that was Florin's dungeon, first try to go to the normal entrance but there were quite a few guards there, many more than normal, clearly, they had taken measures in "case of", so I continued to surround the place looking for the best place to descend without being discovered. At some point, I entered what seemed to be the red light district of the town, the place where poverty abounded and where there were certainly no guards hanging around, so I paid a homeless man to hold a rope that I had bought for me to be able to descend safely. With this, I knew that I would start a race against time to get to the 25th floor as soon as possible and return home because I knew that Sakura in some stupid way would sooner or later go to the same dungeon too. 

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