‘Bread’s Bakery’ could be said to be the most crowded place in Lovis City. Because it was famous for its delicious and pretty bread, even travelers passing by would make a point of visiting this bakery, so the only clerk was always very busy.

He was busy trying to do all the calculations, display, and guidance by himself, but, as he counted the money coming into his hands, Ihe couldn’t help but laugh, so the clerk also moved busily with a very happy heart.

It was well past lunchtime in the afternoon when he finally had time to catch his breath.

The clerk stretched his back and rubbed his overworked limbs from the morning.

But that peace was short-lived. At the sound of the door opening, the clerk instinctively turned his head.

“Welcome!”

“Thank you for your hard work~.”

A leisurely reply came back.

Only then could the clerk open his eyes wide to see the other person’s face.

‘Are they children of noble birth?’

From the very beginning, their appearance was unusual.

The oldest-looking blond man was awkwardly frozen and looking around, as if he was not used to this kind of place. The mischievous-looking young man standing next to him also looked around with wide eyes.

“Everything looks really delicious.”

“Okay. Should I buy some bread? I’ll just credit it to your expenses.”

The silver-haired young man who had first greeted him agreed. The clerk thought to himself stupidly that there really was such a thing as pure silver hair.

In the meantime, they picked out various breads and handed them to the clerk.

“Do the math. And…”

The silver-haired young man, Arendt, gestured to him.

As the clerk approached him quickly, he opened his mouth in a sly tone.

“I have something to ask you.”

Arendt took something out of his pocket and slipped it into the clerk’s hand.

The clerk’s eyes widened a little. The clerk quickly placed the silver coin Arendt had handed him into his apron. Then, he smiled brightly and asked,

“How may I help you, sir? Just ask!”

“Good.”

Arendt nodded with satisfaction.

It was a quick transaction, but it was difficult to avoid the eyes of a skilled knight.

Richt licked his lips.

“We never agreed about this…”

“Brother, this bread looks really delicious!”

But Arthur’s hand, moving as quickly as Arendt’s, covered Richt’s mouth with the bread.

“Cough!”

“Yes, it’s delicious. It looks like you’ve done a great job.”

When Arthur gave Arendt a sidelong glance, Arendt gave him a thumbs up from behind.

“Then let me ask you a few questions.”

“Yes, yes!”

The clerk, preoccupied with the silver coins, kept nodding his head without even knowing what was happening.

Arendt lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Where is the owner by any chance?”

“Huh? The boss is out of the office right now…”

“Hey, I know that too. Do you know where he went?”

“That’s…”

The clerk mumbled. His eyes rolled around and then turned back to Arendt.

“Do you have any business with him?”

“Should you know that?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you if you don’t tell me exactly what business you have. Money is good, but my job is important too.”

This time, the clerk’s voice became clearer. It seemed as if he had sorted out the conflict in his mind.

Arendt nodded and took a step back.

“Aha, so telling where the boss is is serious enough to threaten your job?”

“Where are you from?”

As he took a step back, the clerk glared at him warily.

Arendt tilted his head indifferently.

“If it’s difficult to talk about?”

“I’m also in trouble. Wait a minute. I heard a rumor that a knight from the palace entered the city this morning… could it be you?”

“Well.”

Arendt responded dryly.

The clerk’s face became even more fierce.

“Please leave. I have nothing to tell you. I’ll just give you the bread.”

“Oh, I see. Then there’s nothing I can do… huh?”

Arendt suddenly noticed something and opened his eyes wide as he looked behind the clerk.

The clerk also reflexively looked back.

At that moment, Arendt’s hands moved quickly once again.

Boom! Bam!

It was a truly brisk knock-out.

Arendt caught the clerk with one hand as he fell down like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Oh, he really fainted.”

Arthur thought, ‘Is that the right thing to say after hitting him?’ But before he could form a sentence and say it out loud, Arendt spoke first.

“It’s clear that there’s something. It’s going to be hard to get anything more out of this guy.”

“…”

Still, the bewildered gazes of Richt and Arthur, who were still eating bread, poured in.

Arthur stammered.

“Well, even if I say it now… is it really okay to do this?”

“Why? Even the manager gave his permission. There’s something going on with the owner, and it’s clear that this kid is an accomplice. It’s not like he’s an innocent person.”

With the captain’s permission…

The two men’s eyes wandered into space. Naturally, before putting this plan into action, they reported it to Laius.

Although Laius hesitated a bit, he still allowed them to act on their own, so it wasn’t a problem.

That’s certainly true, but…

Can you call that a knight?

Richt and Arthur were gripped by intense questions.

While the two were standing still, Arendt dragged the clerk by the back of the neck and went inside the bakery.

A moment later, Arendt came out again, dressed in a clerk’s outfit.

It was perfect, with a simple shirt, a lightly draped scarf, black pants, black work boots, and even a hood wrapped around his hair.

“How is it?”

“Yeah… it suits you well, you brat.”

That appearance could only be described as that of a bakery clerk.

Even though it’s overly pretty.

Eventually, Arthur gave up. Richt, who had finally finished chewing and swallowing the bread, could only sigh deeply because the timing to intervene had already passed.

“What are we going to do now?”

“Let’s do some work, you know. Seniors, go out and explore the area. Who knows, you might find something different?”

Arendt replied, adjusting his hood again.

The words were polite, almost commanding. When the two men’s expressions became strange, Arendt drove the wedge in once more.

“Why? Are you worried about being ordered around by the youngest apprentice? Then you should have moved first. Be quick.”

“Okay, so just shut up.”

Richt growled, resting his hand on his chin and forehead.

There was no other way since the person had already been knocked unconscious. Arendt, who had confirmed that the two people with slumped shoulders were trudging out, turned around and looked around the bakery.

“It’s been a really long time since I worked at a bakery.”

Arendt took out a silver coin from his apron pocket, flicked it with his fingers, and then put it back in his hand. It was a waste to bribe someone who couldn’t get anything from it even if you gave him money.

“It’s delicious.”

“Right.”

Arthur and Richt exchanged a few words.

They sat on the fountain, munching on bread. The bakery across the street was operating smoothly as if nothing had happened.

Arthur, who was staring blankly at Arendt who was stuck in the crowd, let out a weary voice.

“Why is that guy so good at that?”

“How could I know?”

Richt also responded with a sullen expression.

The clerk inside had been switched, but no one was able to find fault with it, so it was harmonious.

Suddenly Arthur remembered what had happened at the East Safe. Arendt naturally changed his tone and lured the leader of the bandits into the vault.

The moments when he was fighting or sparring, making use of other people’s movements, and the times when he was acting like a friendly clerk while completely suppressing his dirty temper, might have been similar to those times.

‘Imitate…’

It’s not even a baby gecko raised at home.

Arthur grumbled to himself.

As a moderately developed city, Lovis City was moderately lively, moderately crowded, and moderately quiet.

It was as if the word peace had been copied verbatim.

There was nothing particularly strange.

Since the Emperor and the Crown Prince began to join forces in earnest, the empire has rapidly become more stable, and there have been no major conflicts in the past ten years.

It was a waste of time to say that even the common land lottery had disappeared.

After seeing that even the police officers were leisurely patrolling as if they were taking a stroll, they eventually had no choice but to turn back.

When they returned to the bakery, Arendt, who had completely transformed into a bakery clerk, was skillfully serving the customers, and they ended up munching on delicious bread on the street.

“Still, it’s strange.”

“What?”

“It’s so peaceful. There’s no one causing trouble.”

Arthur continued, resting his chin on his hand.

“In places like this, there’s always a bunch of thugs who take up space. There should be at least a few rough guys… it’s as if someone came out and cleaned things up.”

“You cleaned it up?”

Richt asked back at the strangely perplexing words.

Arthur simply nodded to him.

“Yes, what those guys fear the most is not the police or the knights. It’s the thugs who are stronger than them. Usually, places where one organization exerts strong control are often strangely peaceful.”

“Right.”

“But you can’t be so sure about that… Even if it’s peaceful, the fact that the people at the top are bad guys doesn’t change. Then, the civilians and the security forces can’t help but get a little bit infected by that atmosphere of fear, but there’s no sign of that at all.”

This was something Arthur, who was born a commoner and knew the rules of the back alleys, could figure out.

Richt nodded slightly and looked into the distance.

“But there are a lot of people dressed as travelers. I often see people carrying weapons.”

“Right? I’ve seen quite a few of them since the entrance to the city.”

Considering that it was neither a tourist destination nor a transit point to other regions, it was quite an unnatural occurrence.

The people living here didn’t seem to notice anything strange though, and one interesting thing was that it was quite common to see people entering bakeries carrying weapons.

They looked closely at the unfamiliar clerk, Arendt, and then quickly bought a few loaves of bread and left. The two could only assume that they were on guard because the staff had suddenly changed.

“It seems that this is the limit of what can be found out from the outside.”

“Okay.”

What was left was Arendt’s part inside.

The two men’s gazes fell on Arendt.

As it happened, he was dealing with a man in a traveler’s robe. The man, carrying a tray laden with a random selection of breads, strode toward Arendt.

“It’s my first time seeing your face.”

“Yes, the person who was originally working there suddenly couldn’t come, so I came here as a substitute at the request of the boss.”

Arendt answered with a broad smile.

Then the man frowned slightly and asked back.

“Are you having any problems at work?”

Work, work…

It wasn’t a word you’d expect to come out of a bakery.

‘At last.’

Arendt narrowed his eyes.

Arendt slowly turned his head and asked in a subtle way, lowering his voice tone slightly.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“There is.”

“Can I ask what business you are in?”

It was a slight application of what the clerk had said earlier. Then the man smiled with satisfaction.

“Is the ‘Moonlight Market’ open today too?”

“…Yes, of course.”

It seems that it was a slang term used between the clerk and the customer.

When Arendt smiled brightly, the man nodded and turned around.

“Tell the boss that I’ll be visiting at night.”

“All right.”

The man stumbled outside, carrying a bag full of bread under his arm.

Arendt gestured toward the two people sitting outside.

Then Arthur, who had been looking this way, frowned and pointed at the man who had just left.

Arendt nodded to him.

After a while, Arthur and Richt slowly got up from their seats and moved towards the place where the man had disappeared.

Now the sun was slowly setting outside.

Arendt kept working.

“It was worth it.”

It seemed like it would be okay to close down the business soon.

Arendt quickly closed the door when there were no customers and even took down the awning covering the entrance to the store. He spent some time eating the few pieces of bread that were left.

And soon after, a noise was heard from the open back door.

It was the sound of Richt and Arthur dragging in a man who was fluttering like a live fish, tied up tightly.