I Reincarnated Into A Single-Celled Organism! - I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 104

“My lord, it has been a while.” The woman managing the job board immediately dropped her a slightly annoyed look and bowed her head at the presence of the newcomers. “Are you, perchance, looking to take on a request?”

“Not today.” The boy in the lead responded before stepping forward, walking up to the pair of us, and giving Destiny a sweet smile while completely ignoring me. “Destiny, I have finally found you. I thought you might be trying to make another request. What did I tell you? Some requests are far too dangerous, you should find me, and I’ll join you for anything you wish to do?”

She crossed her arms, clear dissatisfaction on her face. “That’s the problem. I’m fine on my own, Cousin.”

“Don’t be like that.” He wore a gentle expression, but his eyes showed some annoyance. “You’re the young lady of the Lou house. Your father worries about you. He would be heartbroken if you were injured in any way.”

“As if he’d care about me any other time,” she muttered under her breath before suddenly reaching out and grabbing my arm. “It’s okay, I already have found a vassal to protect me. I don’t need you anymore.”

For the first time, the leader was forced to acknowledge my presence, but his look was immediately disgusted with just a hint of a sneer. “Him? A mortal? Do you think a mortal can protect you?”

“The two of us are enough,” Destiny protested. “We were just about to do a quest together!”

I couldn’t help but glance at her. That certainly wasn’t something that we agreed on. I had no intention of doing any quests now anyway. I was just doing some information gathering.

“Oh, will you?” His expression darkened, although his vicious gaze seemed mostly locked on me like I had some involvement in all of this. “What level are you anyway, mortal? We’re about the same age. I’m a level 2 Flawless. Although mortals don’t necessarily have the same resources as the houses, you should at least be able to reach level 6 or 7 in the mortal realm by the time you reach your age.”

“Cousin Shui, don’t act that way.” Destiny tried to stand between him and me, but he just stepped to the side to face me.

“By the best I can tell, you’re what, level 2?” He sneered, causing Destiny’s expression to whiten slightly. “Were you honestly going to take the young lady out on a request? Which was it?”

His eyes turned to the secretary, who quickly panicked and spoke. “It was the infernal wolves’ request.”

A flash of anger crossed his face as he turned to Destiny. “This was the quest you thought you were fine with on your own?”

“W-we were just looking!”

He snorted and backed up. “Arrest this man.”

“What?” Destiny looked like she was about to cry now, immediately blocking the way of his fellow men who tried to step forward. “Why are you arresting him?”

“An older man tried to lure the young lady of the Lou family from the safety of the city. I can only assume he had nefarious purposes.”

“That’s preposterous!” she cried out angrily. “I was merely helping him out. I’m far stronger than him anyway, what danger is he to me?”

“Just because someone is weaker doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.” The man named Shui sighed as if she was just a child. “He could have lured you to a group of bandits or even just tricked you into throwing your life away to protect him. All he’d have to do is alert the entire wolf pack and the right time and then run as you protected him. You don’t know how nefarious and unassuming assassins could be.”

“Ridiculous! Do you think he’s an assassin? I just saved him from getting mugged in an alley!”

“Something he assuredly set up to attract you on purpose.”

Although I found the guy annoying in several respects, I had to admit that he was at least a bit smarter than the crooks from earlier. However, what I couldn’t figure out was why he was seemingly picking on me. It was pretty obvious that I was an innocent bystander, but he seemed to be intent on dragging me down.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I finally spoke up. “I was just asking questions. I’m new in town.”

He raised his nose, looking down at me like I smelled bad. “And you think you even have the qualifications to complete requests, a low-level mortal like yourself?”

“I was under the impression anyone could complete requests,” I responded.

“Isn’t this guy funny?” he sneered, and looked back at the men behind him, they all let out chuckles. “In that case, I’ll give you a chance to excuse yourself. Go ahead and take that request.”

“What?”

“The infernal wolves, since you think you can handle yourself, I want to see it. We can also confirm you weren’t trying to entrap Young Lady Lou.”

“W-wait! He’s only a level 2 mortal. You said yourself it’s a deathtrap!”

“Oh, but I’m sure this guy who says he can protect you can handle a couple of F-rated sagebeasts.” He looked at the secretary. “Go ahead, show him where to take on the request.”

“M-my lord.” The secretary seemed a bit stunned as she spoke. “Although individual infernal wolves are considered F-rated, because of their nature of working in packs and the enhanced strength of their leader, they’re considered a D-rated threat. We’ve been trying to contact the original order to have its difficulty moved to the 2^nd floor.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. My men and I will attend as well. They’re all evolved, and I have reached a flawless state. If he runs into anything he can’t do, we will handle it.”

“I-it’s not that simple,” she responded a bit embarrassed. “The D-ranked team Richter Scale went on this mission earlier this week, and they never returned. Typically, we’d need to send out an investigation team one rank higher. Your team, Poseidon’s Talent, has not been promoted to C-rank as of yet.”

He frowned. “This is merely because I haven’t applied since reaching the third realm. I’ve been far too busy with family matters.”

“I had only revealed it to try to dissuade them from taking unnecessary risks. I am sorry.” She looked apologetic.

“Nonsense, we can still complete the mission.” He waved his hand, before sneering at me. “That is, if you can’t.”

“Cousin! You know he can’t!” Destiny glared.

“Cousin, cousin… why do you refer to me so coldly?” He looked at her. “You should be calling me fiancé by now.”

Her expression flushed with anger. “Our parents haven’t made anything official yet! I could still marry someone else.”

“Haha, I see you’re still nervous, but I’ll take good care of you. You don’t need to worry.”

“Who’s worried about you!” She glared before turning to me. “You don’t have to accept this. Although Cousin Shui has some authority as a guard captain, he can’t just arrest anyone he feels like, especially innocent mortals.”

Shui’s expression turned ugly as he looked at me. “I can detain anyone I consider suspicious. Of course, if our investigation reveals nothing, you’ll be released after two days.

“You… just let him go. He didn’t do anything!”

“It’s fine,” I responded. “I’ll do it.”

I did want to see how the whole thing worked. I still didn’t know much about this world. Although this guy’s intentions were bad, I didn’t think he would flat-out attempt to kill me. These sagebeasts didn’t pose a threat to me, and right now I was more worried about having my time wasted by this guy.

“My lord, I must once again warn you… this mission may be more dangerous than we think. A mortal and the young lady shouldn’t be involved, and you should prepare…” the secretary said warningly.

“It will be fine. It’s been a while since my men had to put in some work. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Then, do as you wish.” She finally bowed, taking a step back. “The mission is here.”

She gestured to one of the last contracts on the long wall of contracts. I approached it. She walked with me, and whispered discreetly. “Two days in prison isn’t worth your life. You should rethink this.”

I was a bit surprised. She seemed to care more about her charges than her dismissive and icy exterior originally showed. I found myself softening to her a bit.

“Do you think he’ll leave me alone once I’m imprisoned?” I asked honestly. “If anything, wouldn’t it be easier for him to kill me behind closed doors?”

Her eyes widened for a second. “Perhaps, you’re not as clueless as I thought. Given the nature of this request, I will set their tokens to monitor their actions as well. If they kill you, the token will register it, and we will know. I will make sure the council seeks justice. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t just throw you to the wolves. In that case, we’d have no way of confirming and it would just be their word we’d have to trust.”

Honestly, I didn’t think much of her justice system either. I had a feeling that even if they killed me outright, it’d be their word first. After all, they could claim I went crazy and attacked them or anything. At least, I trusted Destiny to speak honestly. Even then, for murdering a mortal, the punishment for someone as prestigious as a guard captain would probably be a simple slap on the wrist. At least, that was my guess so far. Well, it wasn’t like my life was actually in jeopardy, so I was just going to see how this all played out. I expected Captain Shui to teach me a lot about how this city operated.