Kochugunshikan Boukensha ni Naru

Translator: SFBaka

Editor: Thor’s Stone

These past few days have been incredibly hectic for me.

It’s partly due to our ongoing crackdown against criminal elements with the cooperation of the capital garrison, of course. But even on days when we’re taking a break from raiding criminal hideouts, I attended meetings with Dalshim and the others and checked up on Katolle’s team to see if supply procurement was going smoothly. I also had to attend the selected civilian and adventurer candidate’s follow-up interviews, meet with the various guilds we’re cooperating with, deal with visitors, and so on. Anyway, there was a ton of stuff to do.

Even though each day was so incredibly frantic and busy for all of us, it looks like things were going pretty smoothly.

After attending a lengthy meeting in the morning, I finally had a little free time for myself, so I just lazed around inside my room for a bit. After a while though, I realized now wasn’t the time for lazing about. I decided to consult Iris about something that was on my mind for a while now.

“Hey, Iris, can I take up some of your time?”

A projection of Iris decked out in full imperial officer uniform appeared inside my room. Of course, her form was just an illusion being shown by Nanom by tweaking my vision.

Just recently, I asked Iris whether or not she wanted to communicate via virtual window or AR mode, and it seems she preferred AR comm.

“What is it, Captain?”

“I’m curious about the current situation in the royal capital. Oh, and I also want to hear specific details about the rumors concerning us.”

If there were any problems, Iris would inform me straight away, so I put it off until now, but it wouldn’t hurt to know more details about the current situation.

“Understood. Let’s go and call Selena and Sharon over as well.”

“Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”

Before long, Sharon and Selena entered my room. When the two found chairs to sit on and made themselves comfortable, Iris began her report.

“First, let me tell you about the precautions we implemented. Currently, we have five drones constantly stationed over the royal capital on full alert. So far, we haven’t observed any suspicious movements from the royal castle and the military.”

“Are you saying they aren’t actually concerned about the prison break?”

“I wonder. Things aren’t clear yet, but it’s a fact that the inns occupied by Shining Star are under constant surveillance. The men dispatched to keep an eye on you seem to be professional intelligence agents.”

“……Hou. Are they monitoring this inn as we speak?”

“Yes. There are presently two agents keeping an eye on it.”

One of the walls of the room turned into a screen, and images of shadowy figures standing in positions where they could clearly observe the people entering and exiting the inn were projected.

They were probably about 50 meters away from the inn itself. They seemed pretty casual, and you wouldn’t even notice they were keeping an eye on the inn if it wasn’t clearly pointed out to you beforehand.

I see. These guys definitely were intelligence-gathering professionals.

Maybe these guys were sent by the prime minister. Well, I suppose it’s only natural for him to keep a constant eye on us.

“I have set the highest alert level for these people.”

“You’re keeping an eye on the people they come in contact with, right?”

“Yes. But there are no signs of them entering or leaving the royal castle. Apparently, these observers are operating as independent organizations in a sense.”

“……I see. Continue monitoring them and alert me if there’s any development.”

I won’t let them off if they try something against us, but I’ll leave them alone as long as they keep their distance.

“Alright then. Can you tell me about the state of the citizens of the royal capital next?”

“Yes. We, or rather, Captain is now very well known in the capital. There is practically no one who hasn’t at least heard of your name in the capital. It seems that Gloria’s appearance in the castle and you confronting her has massively boosted your fame.”

“That much huh…… Well, at least no bad rumors are flying about, right?”

“Of course. You’re practically regarded as a hero here. The castle guards have been constantly retelling the story of how you faced the dragon alone at the castle when it attacked, and the story about the dragon following you to Gantz has also become even more widespread.”

To think I’d actually get regarded as a hero…… I guess that’s just how much people are in awe of dragons. This is all thanks to Gloria’s outstanding acting performance.

“What about their reaction to our crackdown against criminals?”

“Initially, there were people saying that it wasn’t good to perform such a forceful and uncompromising crackdown on the criminal organizations, but that all disappeared once the bulletin board was set up. Now, the majority of the royal capital’s citizens are praising our crackdown efforts against criminals.”

The screen projected on the wall showed people flocking around the bulletin board that was set up in front of the garrison station to take a look.

Yeah. At my suggestion, it was decided that we’d post the name list, charges, and corresponding punishments of the criminals we’ve caught in front of the city garrison stations scattered all throughout the capital. Since we’ve spent a good amount of time and effort investigating and gathering evidence, there’s no way I would miss making use of them like this.

It seems a bulletin board like the ones we put up has never existed before, and it became unexpectedly popular with the royal capital’s citizens. The boards were always crowded with people every day.

The lives of the majority of the people in the royal capital aren’t easy. Under such circumstances, it was easy to imagine that the people would find it great to know that criminals were being punished for perpetrating all sorts of crimes, especially since these criminal rings actually live better lives than them most of the time.

Of course, updating the information on the bulletin boards costs a certain amount of money, but that’s no problem since we’re covering it with the earnings made from the loot we confiscate from the criminal hideouts.

“The crackdown has become quite a hot topic, but people are also wondering just where we are getting the information. It’s very surprising to the locals since we know a lot of information regarding all the various criminal organizations and bandit groups even though we’ve just arrived at the royal capital lately.”

“Yeah, I suppose they would wonder about that.”

“Some criminal gangs are especially keen on finding out our information source, but, of course, there’s no way they would be able to do so. As a result, it looks like a sort of hunt for information sellers happened recently.”

There were no mass media organizations in the royal capital, so people relied solely on word of mouth, and people who specialized in selling information called informants to purchase vital pieces of information.

The criminals seem to be hunting down these informants for fear of information about them leaking to the authorities.

“Informants huh…… It looks like our actions ended up inconveniencing them unintentionally. What happened to them?”

“Most of the informants active in the royal capital have disappeared before those criminal gangs got to them. They might have fled from the capital. But as a result, the criminal organizations practically shot themselves in the foot because now they are the ones having trouble getting information.”

I see. That’s what one would expect from professional informants. They’re quick to get info and have a wide net of useful connections. I suppose disappearing without any trace is par for the course for people like them.

“So it turned out to be advantageous to us in the end huh. It looks like we’ll be able to fulfill the quota soon.”

We’ve already managed to capture more than four hundred bandits and criminals. Even if we take it easier these next few days, we’ll still be able to reach the quota of 500 bandits with plenty of room to spare. If our actions are that favorable with the masses, then I suppose we’ll just have to keep it up as long as we still have time.

“What do they think about our plan to develop our new territory?”

“The interest of the populace regarding the project is pretty high. It’s already widely known that we have been buying as many horses, wagons, food, and supplies as we can. The fact that we’ve been recruiting craftsmen of various disciplines through the Craft Guild has also made the rounds and is a very popular topic as well.”

Video footage taken from inside a pub was displayed on the screen. In it, we saw six men sitting together around one of the pub’s tables. The footage zoomed in to show the men’s faces clearly.