We finally arrived at the city of the last archbishop. We only need two more seals to release Arthur to continue with our main mission. It's worth noting that we've also tried to find out what might have happened, but since it's not our priority, we haven't learned much. Apparently, the journalists were investigating the place to see how this all worked, and they simply disappeared. I think it has something to do with the church. I haven't heard anything bad about it, and that's pretty bad, since nothing is perfect; it must be 100% propaganda, hiding all the dirty laundry.
But back to the main topic, we went to meet with the city's archbishop, who welcomed us immediately, and there was a reason for that.
The achievements and feats we did/or I did, all thanks to Trini and Sulli, are tremendous. Our fame and the prestige of the word "hero" grew for our group.
In passing, I told some of them about Arthur's situation, obviously changing some details like a good politician, about how the thieves' guild tricked him and he was imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and how we're great friends and friends don't abandon each other—all that sissy stuff. We're trying to free him.
With this, we can put a little social pressure on the church guys. Besides, I'm not entirely wrong about them blaming Arthur for things he never did or intended to do.
This time, we entered a chapel. The three of us were escorted out of the chapel, left alone, and inside, there was a woman praying to a statue of a hooded person.
Trini: "Should we wait for her to finish praying to her super-real God or something?"
Sulli: "I don't think you should say that to the person we need to get to give us their seal, right?"
???: "This is part of the job, it doesn't matter if God is real or not, the important thing is the courage he can generate in people and give them a good path to follow, also," said the woman standing up and turning around, "the crucial thing is that you are here, since I need you to do something no matter what, no matter the cost," she approached us and stopped about 3 meters away, "let me introduce myself, dear heroes, I am Archbishop Gaia Méndez, the person in charge of this city, follow me to my office, there I have all the information you will need."
We followed the archbishop to her office. Inside, it was filled with messy papers stuck to the walls. Inside, there were two people sorting and writing, ignoring us.
Méndez: "Um," I coughed to get the attention of the two people before addressing us. "Let me introduce you. These two are my assistants, Canuto and Reinaldo. They've been helping me compile the situation at hand."
Dante: "I've been curious for a while now. What's going on here?" I finally decided to speak.
Méndez: "Easy, it's the Thieves' Guild." Both Trini and Sulli tensed. Unlike them, I haven't faced anyone from that guild.
Canuto: "The Thieves' Guild originated about seven years ago in this kingdom, and thanks to them, the economic, social, and political situation has been slowly but steadily declining."
Reinaldo: "They steal, cheat, extort, murder, they do everything that people in the underworld would do, but on a smaller scale, but it's still worrying."
Sulli: "I've heard these guys are everywhere. My question is, why are you guys taking care of this?"
Méndez: "What's happening is that the church, the high-ranking people, discovered that their bases of operations are in this city, so the Pope entrusted me with solving this problem. Although I tried to ask my colleagues for help, they all excused themselves by saying they had their own problems." He went to his desk to take out some documents. "Although I know that some of them do have their own situations, and more so that the nobles of this country can cause a lot of problems, and some of them have secret business dealings with those guys, it's still something you should all solve together." He threw me the document he was holding. "This is all that's important to be able to complete your mission. I know what you want, so I'll make it quick and easy. You want the seal. Bring me the identity of the leader of the thieves' guild, and if you can capture him, that's enough, especially with the first one. If you'll excuse me, I need to sleep. I'm feeling very tired."
He proceeded to leave the room, leaving the five of us to stare at each other uncomfortably.
Reinaldo: "Forgive her, she's not usually like this, but ever since the Pope gave her this mission about two years ago, she's been putting constant pressure on her men."
Canuto: "Not to mention that she still has to continue doing her job as archbishop. We've really made very little progress on this situation. Being the place where guild members appear most, we need guards on duty 24/7, almost nonstop, to protect the citizens, and especially the nobles."
Reinaldo: "Therefore, we have very little personnel to investigate these subjects. When we heard they were here and their situation, we felt a ray of hope appeared."
Canuto: "That's why we asked you to help us with this."
Trini stepped forward, taking the lead from me.
Trini: "Don't worry, we have a grudge against these guys, so we won't let them go for any reason. I swear on Arthur's balls that they'll suffer the consequences of everything they've done." Poor Arthur can't even defend his balls in this situation. I hope no god listens to him, because if we fail, it would be unfortunate for him.
With the little money we had left, we rented a one-room cabin, which Trini immediately snatched up. Once inside, we began to look at the contents of the document. It didn't say much, but the important thing was that there were certain places they repeatedly pointed out they should pass through or stop.
This gave us the idea to try the capture and torture tactic. With this information, we'll try to capture a guild member and then get everything we can from them: where they are, who the leader is, where their house is, and their valuables—an eye, guts, important things. After all, the black market buys body parts at a fairly reasonable price if they're of good quality.
Now, joking aside, the idea is that with Hun's help, we'll keep an eye on the place. She'll tell us how true the situation written here is. We'll be looking for more information to confirm certain things or discover new data. The next day, we'll camp out a place, intercept someone, and torture/extract information from them in a very friendly manner. We'll start this the next day, and we'll mobilize to find this leader's identity before he realizes it and becomes more cautious than he is.
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I hadn't realized that the chapter was so short, well, what's done is done.