**Chapter 10: The Village Tyrant's Wisdom**
Soon, Kaito and Erza followed the woman into the villa's living room.
After a while, a pot-bellied man with a thin mustache walked in, sat down in the main seat, and looked at the two of them with doubtful eyes. "Fairy Tail sent mages?"
The meaning behind that look was obvious. Kaito had seen it many times in his younger days—people who looked at him like that before fights always ended up on the ground, later calling him "Brother Kaito" respectfully.
Erza had encountered it often too. Whenever she took jobs alone, many clients doubted her the moment they saw a child.
"The request I posted was to exterminate bandits, not play house with kids."
Erza replied, "You can rest assured. Since we accepted the request, I have confidence in completing it. If anything goes wrong, I will take responsibility. Now please tell us about the bandit situation."
The two had already agreed beforehand that Erza would handle communication with the client. Erza was worried Kaito would cause trouble, while Kaito simply didn't want any hassle, so it worked out perfectly.
Darlock stroked his mustache and said, "Bandits, huh… A group of evil scoundrels. As you can see, this is a rather remote village. I'm a farm owner, and my goods need to be transported to nearby towns for sale."
"Recently, a group of bandits appeared out of nowhere and robbed me of quite a lot of cargo. If you can eliminate the bandits and recover my goods, I will pay the full reward."
Suddenly, "Crash!" The sound startled Darlock. He turned and saw a young maid with a pale face had accidentally dropped a teacup. The tea spilled onto Darlock's shoe.
Darlock immediately flew into a rage. He kicked the little maid to the ground and roared, "What are you doing?! You scared me!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Mr. Darlock! I'll clean it up right away!"
"You can't even do such a small thing properly! Clumsy fool! Maria, take her away and teach her the rules properly!"
Both Kaito and Erza frowned. They clearly disliked what they were seeing, but it wasn't their business, so they stayed quiet.
Erza asked, "Then where were the goods robbed?"
"On the mountain road leading to Kakkuros City."
"Kakkuros City? I came through that mountain road and didn't encounter any bandits!"
"You didn't meet them? Then you were probably just lucky. But my cargo really was robbed there. That's all the information I can provide."
"Understood. I will search for their whereabouts and recover the goods."
"Oh! Then I'll leave it to you. Haah~! I'm going back to my afternoon nap. I hope to hear good news when I wake up." Darlock yawned and left the living room.
Kaito and Erza also left the villa. Erza said to Kaito, "Let's go."
Kaito stayed in place. "Go where?"
Erza looked at him. "Of course to that mountain road! Since the bandits robbed the goods, they must have left traces. We can follow those traces to find their hideout."
Kaito smiled at Erza. "Do you always do things so straightforwardly?"
Seeing Kaito smiling, Erza immediately became annoyed. "What? You have a problem with that?" She looked ready to fight.
Kaito shook his head. Erza was still too young right now and completely lacked the sharp, capable aura she had in the anime. She needed someone with rich life experience to guide her.
"What does shaking your head mean?" Erza became even more irritated when she saw him shake his head.
"Do you really think there are bandits?"
Erza immediately frowned and asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"Remember the carriage driver?"
"Of course!"
"On a mountain road, the people who would know best whether there are bandits or not are the drivers who travel it regularly. Did that driver mention anything about bandits?"
Erza thought back. The driver had talked a lot about the scenery and told many interesting stories along the way, but he never once mentioned bandits and had seemed completely relaxed.
"Darlock is lying?! Then why would he do that?"
Kaito shrugged. "How would I know why? But I think we should first go to the nearby village and ask around. We might get some useful information."
Erza nodded in agreement and looked at Kaito with new respect. She had thought he was just like the other idiot boys in the guild, but he was actually quite attentive.
"Because I'm the strongest, and my greatest strength has never been my fighting power—it's my wisdom!"
"..." The corner of Erza's mouth twitched.
Kaito naturally wouldn't tell Erza the real reason: he simply disliked that Darlock guy from the start. Anyone who would kick such a cute little maid was definitely a bad person, and bad people were bound to be doing bad things. Going against him was probably the right choice.