Francesca shot Alva a fierce glare, cutting off whatever he had been about to say, then forcefully changed the subject. "Anyway, let me introduce these two. This is Altaïr, a 6★ Hunter like Isis."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Alva." Altaïr nodded in greeting.
Earlier, Altaïr had thought Alva resembled Lamarck, but now he seemed more like Erik. Both were the sort who always seemed to have a screw loose.
Perhaps that was why, despite his lofty position and seniority, Alva put on none of the airs of an elder. He returned the greeting with a friendly smile, treating Altaïr as an equal.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Altaïr."
"And this is Morgan, a 5★ Hunter," Francesca continued.
"Hello."
"Hello, Mr. Morgan."
"!"
Morgan was usually expressionless, but he couldn't help giving Alva a second look, suddenly finding the man much more likable.
After briefly introducing the three Hunters' ranks, Francesca proudly raised her chin. "Well? Two 6★ Hunters, one 5★ Hunter, plus the people who arrived yesterday. Surely that's enough fighting strength now?"
"Absolutely. Gathering so many skilled people in such a short time is exactly what I'd expect from you," Alva praised with a smile.
Whenever the conversation stayed away from certain topics, at least, he was perfectly capable of giving a proper compliment.
"Then what about their compensation?"
"You're handling that side of things, so I'll leave it to you." Faced with Francesca's forceful attitude, Alva sounded a little helpless. "Recruiting so many elite Hunters at once cannot have been easy, and you even brought Isis here. Do you really think I'd shortchange you?"
"Hehe, now that's more like it!"
After a few more exchanges had made everyone somewhat better acquainted, Altaïr raised the question that concerned him most.
"Mr. Alva, before we agree to join this quest, there is one thing we need to establish. What Monster are we dealing with?"
Even with Francesca acting as the intermediary and an old friend of Isis's family leading the research project, they still had to clarify the nature of the quest in advance.
It was a necessary precaution.
"Right, right. We haven't even mentioned the most important part yet."
Alva tapped his forehead, then retrieved a quest form from a drawer in his desk.
His expression and tone grew noticeably animated. "We plan to travel to the western Great Desert in search of a very unusual Diablos. It has a crimson-red shell, a color never seen before!
Is it an anomaly caused by some special environment? Could it be an unknown Subspecies? Ah, nature is always so full of mysteries and unanswered questions. The more we explore, the more we realize how small and ignorant we are...
Oh, right! It is also said to have broken off one of its horns, so we've given it the codename 'One-Horned Demon King.' What do you think? Doesn't it sound imposing?"
"..."
"..."
Altaïr remained silent for several seconds before finally asking in a thoroughly deadpan voice, "Mr. Alva, if I may ask, did this information about the oddly colored Diablos come from a Wyverian merchant who always keeps his eyes narrowed to slits?"
"Hm? Why would you ask that?" Alva looked at him in confusion.
"So it didn't?"
"I wouldn't say it did or didn't. A more accurate answer would be... 'I don't know.'"
Alva patiently explained, "Although I lead the Knowledge Seeker project, I don't personally investigate how every individual research project receives approval.
Any project significant enough to warrant deploying the Knowledge Seeker must be a high-value proposal approved by the academic committee. What concerns us are the results.
In short, we seek the truth behind the mystery, not the source of the mystery itself."
Alva appeared unconcerned, but Francesca gave the others a searching look. "A Wyverian merchant who always keeps his eyes narrowed? You mean the Argosy Captain?
Did he approach you?"
Isis quickly nodded. "Yes. You know him too, Francesca?"
"Of course. He runs an enormous business and has contacts everywhere. Back on Tidal Island, I relied on him to ship in a great deal of our supplies.
I suppose you could call him a good man, but he's extremely shrewd. People as innocent as you can easily be used by someone like him... Well, Altaïr excluded."
"He certainly tried to use us," Altaïr cut in. "When we returned to Tidal Island to say goodbye, we caught a ride on his ship. He approached me and beat around the bush, trying to persuade us to hunt that red Diablos.
After we pressed him for the reason, it appeared that a friend of his held a grudge against the Diablos. He hoped we could deal with it first, before his friend was consumed by the desire for revenge.
The sightings in the western Great Desert, the red shell, and the single horn all match. It must be the same target Alva and his team are investigating."
"Knowing your temperament and caution, you must have refused him outright. Even with his extensive contacts, it wouldn't be easy for the Argosy Captain to find several High Rank Hunters willing to take down that particular Diablos. If anything went wrong, he would also risk drawing the Guild's attention.
So he passed word of this unusual Diablos to the Royal Academy through certain channels and indirectly set this project in motion?" Francesca speculated, piecing together the likely sequence of events.
Morgan frowned deeply. "He couldn't possibly have anticipated that you'd join the Academy's project and that we were connected to you, then gone through such an elaborate detour just to reach us again, could he?"
"No, nothing like that. It's simply a coincidence. He isn't omniscient, and he had no reason to go that far."
Francesca waved a hand. "Before this, only Alva and I knew that I'd been invited to join the Academy's project. Nor was inviting all of you our only option. If you'd arrived a day or two later, I would have found someone else and departed.
Still, he was clever. A powerful and mysterious Diablos roaming the desert would not spur the Guild to urgent action because it posed little threat. Hunters wouldn't want to take the risk because its strength was unknown and there were too many variables.
Yet those very drawbacks are what make it so attractive to scholars. Whether we kill the Diablos during the investigation or simply gather enough information to lay the groundwork for hiring Hunters later, we come out ahead either way."
After hearing Francesca's explanation, Morgan finally relaxed.
He and Isis both looked at Altaïr.
As the team's de facto leader, the decision generally rested with him.
Altaïr did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked back at the scholar. "Mr. Alva, is our assignment to assist with the investigation, or to hunt the target outright?"
"To assist with the investigation," Alva answered without hesitation. "Hunting is one possible method during an investigation, but it is not the only option.
I know what you're worried about. Rest assured, we will not ask you to hunt it before we have fully identified and assessed the target's danger level."
"Understood. One final question. Will the Argosy Captain be joining this project or influencing its decisions in any way?"
"I can assure you that he will not," Alva said with a smile. "It is possible that the information that first prompted this project came from the merchant, but the 'One-Horned Demon King' research project is entirely directed and conducted by the Royal Academy.
Only the Guild can influence our operational decisions. For example, if we planned a hunt and the Guild suddenly ordered us to stop, we would have no choice but to abandon the plan."
"That puts my mind at ease." Altaïr nodded. "We're in."
Isis and Morgan naturally had no objections, though a question occurred to Isis. "So the Guild can actually interfere with the Royal Academy's expeditions? I thought research was supposed to be freer than that."
"Exactly! I find it somewhat unreasonable too." Alva adjusted his glasses, a hint of complaint in his voice.
"You can't give these scholars too much freedom." Francesca's lips twitched. "Ask our project leader what the scholars' original research plan was before the Guild sent someone to rein them in.
Honestly, that original plan alone is enough to convince me that the Argosy Captain had absolutely nothing to do with getting this project started."
"What was the plan?" Isis's curiosity flared even brighter.
Alva shrugged. "Find the Demon King a few mates and see if we could breed more red ones. Experiments require comparative observations, after all. Who knows? Maybe they would form a new Subspecies population."
"..."
"..."
P.S. His Immenseness, shouldn't you send a few Guild Knights aboard?
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