283 Underlying Circumstances
"How did you survive that absolutely hopeless situation? You even popped up behind us without anyone realizing... Did you use space magic to do that? You must be right, there's no other explanation! You're a practitioner of grand magic aren't you!?"
Forget apologizing, Mary went ahead and inquired my background instead.
"Oy! You moron! Quit it! The hell you're asking him!?"
Melgis immediately held Mary's mouth down. But that only stops her going further, there's no retracting what's been said.
"Our bad. Forgive us. This won't happen again."
Danku bowed at 90 degree sharp at me. Covering for his friend's gaffe.
I see my chance there.
(Hmm, think I can use this as an excuse to get away from this group...? No, maybe I should wait and see a bit more?)
I don't really care either way about Mary not apologizing.
My brain is hard at work trying to figure out the common ground that will settle the matter with this whole dungeon deal.
Melgis seemed to mistook my frowning face as anger, his face went dead pale.
On the other hand, Mary who still had her mouth held down is getting red as she kept wriggling.
"I don't need your apologies. Just make sure to keep our agreement. Regardless though, I'm not going to answer those questions."
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After saying that much, I walked away and headed for the gate. Kidd and Firuna had stayed behind to speak with the authority, and we decided to meet up there afterward.
(The 'event' relating to this dungeon is probably coming to an end if we go separate ways here. There's also a chance of it reaching a point of no return if I keep ignoring the dungeon. I gotta follow through till the end if I don't want to leave any regret.)
It's a huge pain in the rear and it's likely something to do with my 'fate'.
All of this must be that god's fault.
A quiet anger raged in my mind before I put a lid on that.
(If this keeps up, maybe I'll eventually run into an event that lets me land a hit on that god... yeah, as if.)
Forget hitting, I might even be able to cut now that I got the means but since that's likely never happening, I abandoned the idea.
As I kept walking ahead while ignoring the pouting look on Mary's pretty face, we arrived at the gate where they handed over that Barid guy.
Kidd and Firuna were already waiting for us there, while frowning.
Danku asked and their replies made us frown as well.
"What's wrong? How'd it go?"
"...The marquis had it all prepared already. They told us we can't prove the bandits' connection with the marquis. They're also not gonna interrogate him even after disposing that bandit leader."
"I see. He worked quick. No, he had already foreseen the possibility of those bandits having the table turned on them."
"Guess we should celebrate the fact that the marquis thinks highly of us huh?"
Kidd and Danku joked around while scowling.
Firuna added.
"Barid has been acquitted on all counts. The reason given is because he's an adventurer backed by the marquis."
"Aah~. That total nutjob's gonna come for us again given time y'know? Tenacity is one thing that Barid's good at."
Melgis made fun of Barid.
Mary then spouted up an extreme take.
"He's definitely going to show up in the dungeon, isn't he~? That's our chance to get rid of him for good. I mean people went missing all the time in there anyway."
Kidd cooled her down.
"Yeah but that could be part of a scheme to set us up. We can't take an extreme measures willy-nilly, you hear me Mary?"
"Yes, they might use it against us, accusing us of something completely unfounded."
Firuna calmly agreed with the idea of Barid coming for them.
Here I asked these guys.
"So are you guys giving up on the dungeon? I mean, surely they'll back off if you do."
However, each members of 'White Fang' reacted to my word.
"Hell nah, we're not giving up!"
"I will not flee in disgrace!"
"I ain't gonna admit defeat!"
"Of course not~!"
"Turning tail and running away is not an option!"
Turned out all of them have unyielding spirits.