Julian Ballard(2)

"It's here." The rabbit-eared woman pointed to a door. She then knocked on it.

"Who is it?" A voice from inside asked.

"It's me. I brought customers." The rabbit-eared woman answered.

"Customers, huh. Let them in."

When Vanoss and the others entered, they saw a beautiful wolf-eared lady seated behind a table.

Light brown hair, Hazel eyes, and a sharp gaze. The woman examined the group carefully and sniffed the air twice with her nose.

Afterward, she narrowed her eyes before calling at the rabbit-eared woman and whispering something in her ear.

Basically, using his enhanced hearings tried to hear their conversation, but it was in the beastmen's native tongue. Thus, he was unable to understand it.

After the rabbit-eared woman left. The wolf-eared lady spoke to the group.

"Customers, welcome. Please sit."

Following her words, the group sat across from her.

"I suppose you are here for information, right? What kind of information do you require?"

Marcel thought for a moment, to be honest, they were here because that mysterious woman told them to, she didn't tell them more shit, he has no clue what to do but he indeed heard this place can give you any information. Now a few seconds in deep thought, he finally opened his mouth.

"Okay, let me start. Firstly, with no google around here, I want detailed information about the greatest place in the world."

"Oh? If you're talking about the greatest place, it will be Academy City. Are the seven of you on a journey towards that place? That is a very VERY nice place... Mmm, yes, we do have many details and-"

"Boring!"

Interrupting her words, the dog-eared woman stares at the person who says it, turning out to be Vanoss.

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously, a school city? That's no different from a university, boring as shit."

"Is it so?"

"Yeah, what about forget about that shit, but we do hear you guys purchase some good stuff."

The wolf-eared lady smiled satisfied, "Ah right, we do have various rare items from advanced healing potions to magical items, and-"

And once again, her sentence was interrupted when Vanoss added, "Ma'am, we want the 'good' ones."

The wolf-eared lady's eyes widened upon hearing his request, "Wait, those classes of items were not for sales, only people with special membership cards were able to access."

"...Fine, we do have a list we've already written down."

Before the dog-eared woman could react, a paper smacked onto her face, grunting in annoyance, she glared at Vanoss who disrespectfully gave her the paper before looking at its contents. 

"Ah, okay. We can get those ready for tomorrow." The Dog-eared lady said with a smile, but her expression changes as she squinted her eyes, "Hold up, I'm gotta ask."

"Go on."

"What is a 70-inch... plasma widescreen TV?"

Turning their gaze at Vanoss with deadpan looks, they all asked.

"Really?"

Vanoss innocently shrugs, "What? It's better with Netflix, and-... Oh! Probably good with 3D as well."

Terroriser exclaims, "NO! That's a stupid fucking gimmick and everyone knows it!"

Watching them argue, the dog-eared lady decided to hurriedly change the subject before things get heated, "...Anyways, What is the other thing you want to ask about?"

Sitting beside Vanoss, Marcel fell silent for a moment. Then, he narrowed his eyes and spoke in a serious tone, "We were also curious about the thing that happened yesterday in the slums, anything you know about it?"

Instantly, the wolf-eared lady narrowed her eyes, "We do know, in fact, you are not the first to ask for that information."

"Can you give it to us?"

"Mm. Let me think…"

At that moment, the rabbit-eared woman returned and nodded towards the wolf-eared lady.

Seeing that, the wolf-eared lady smiled at the group, "If you are interested in that information and want those special items in the list, please follow me."

Marcel frowned, he isn't the only one as Terroriser did the same thing. Marcel then looked at him and used his gaze to ask if anything was wrong, But Brian shook his head.

There was no malice nor killing intent in the wolf-eared lady's words. Everything was alright.

The wolf-eared lady stood up and opened a door behind her. She then entered the door while gesturing to the group to follow.

Led by her, the group walked through a long corridor. Finally, they reached a door that the wolf-eared lady pushed open.

As soon as she entered there, she kneeled on a knee and spoke respectfully to the people inside.

"I have brought them here."

"Well done, Ellies." A male voice replied gently.

Then, that male voice spoke to the others.

"Nice to meet you, my friends. My name is Julian Ballard, and I'm the person in charge of the Beastmen's Information Branch in Orazvil City."

'A cat.' The group all thought while looking at the man in front of them. It was an elegant-dressed catkin with blonde hair and extreme blue eyes. He emitted an aura of elegance, and his eyes glowed sharply.

Not only is he present in the room, a few silhouettes stood in the shadows in the corner of the room looking at the group coldly, everyone stood nervously, well except for one, they all got some mafia vibes here when suddenly Vanoss came forward and greeted them.

"Howdy Doody."

One of them, a girl standing near the Cat man raises her brows looking at the Owl man weirdly. Marcel needed to look at her twice to recognize her race. A lizardkin.

After observing carefully the people in front of them, Wildcat spoke, "Hey bitch, I don't understand, why did you bring us here? Is this necessary just for a piece of information? Or is this some trap to lead us towards an orgy?"

The catkin smiled apologetically, "No, don't misunderstand. I'm sorry about this. In fact, this is not necessary. Normally, we would give you the information right away or give you the items one or two days after we received the payment without going through this. However, today's circumstances are a bit special."

"Something better than an orgy?"

"By the gods, why is your friend always talking about orgies?" The dog-lady named Ellies said in annoyance.

"Forget about that pig," Basically cast a glare at Wildcat, "Tyler, will you kindly shut the fuck up? I'll do the talking," he muttered before returning his gaze at the two beastmen, "Okay, care to explain about it?"

"Mm... you can say that we need to ask you seven a favor."

Marcel furrowed his brows. Something was definitively strange about this situation. He was ready to reject them, but the catkin, Julian, spoke first.

"Please hear my proposal first before deciding if you want to reject us. If you help us, we will give you all the things you require free of charge, plus a juicy remuneration. Furthermore, we will add another very valuable reward if everything goes well."

"...Heh." Delirious snorted, "Something smells fishy. Why would you ask for help from people you just met? Are you sure you are not trying to scam us?"

Julian nodded, "I understand your doubts, but there is a reason behind this. Let me explain the mission first. You need to help us to rescue a very important person that was kidnapped. That person must be rescued as soon as possible, and nothing can happen to him. As for their kidnappers, they belonged to the same group that was killed a few days ago."

"Mm?"

Most of them raised their eyebrows while both hiding a feeling of surprise. 

'Shit…'

"Mister Julian, we don't understand." Basically said, looking at Julian fixedly and speaking in a sharp tone, "You look like someone strong, somewhere at Rank 7 or 8 if I'm not mistaken. And we are just seven Rank 5 experts. I don't understand how we can be of help."

"You are right," The cat beastmen nodded without caring for Marcel's sharp glare. "In normal circumstances, we would never have asked for your help. The thing is, after that important person was kidnapped, we followed some clues and discovered a group of slavers related to that kidnapping event. These people were staying in a certain building. Our plan was to keep an eye on them and wait until they led us to the place where that important person was being kept, but…"

Julian's eyes narrowed into slits, "Yesterday, your group killed these people and severed almost all our clues leading towards that corrupted Senator." 

The words of the catkin froze the atmosphere in the room. Wildcat was about to pull out his deagle but got a glare from Terroriser, preventing him from doing something. Marcel knitted his brows, however, he did not show any sign of panic or surprise in his gaze. It was as still as a calm lake.

Surprisingly, all of his friends remained completely calm as well. It was as though Julian was not talking about them just now.

"That is a heavy accusation,  Julian. Tell me, why do you think it was us who killed these people?" Basically asked innocently.

Julian was slightly surprised by the group reaction, but he did not show it in his face. Instead, he moved his gaze towards the wolf girl that led the group here.

"Ellies, do you care to explain the situation to our friends?"

Ellies nodded and took a step forward, "Due to our beast characteristics, we beastmen have slightly better senses than other races. And even between beastmen, we of the wolf tribe have an excellent sense of smell."

An expression of realization appeared on some of the group's faces. 

"So it was that, huh." Moo added.

"Yesterday, after we learned that the Slave Traders were killed, I hurried towards the building to learn more about the situation. There, I managed to catch a whiff of the scent of six or seven people that were not among the killed." She explained, before she put on a grave expression and continued, "Unfortunately, that was far from enough to find them. You see, although my sense of smell as a wolfkin is several times better than a human, it's far from comparable to a true wolf. It's impossible for me to track the culprits just using their scent. In fact, unless they are less than ten meters away from me, I would be unable to recognize them."

"So, you recognized us as soon as you saw us?

Ellies nodded, "You three have a rather peculiar smell. One of you smells like an Undead." she said, looking at Delirious.

Noticing her gaze, Delirious's eyes widened, "Shit, I'm exposed."

"You don't need to worry. Seeing a friend with an undead is something uncommon, I know most of the people in the continent despise the undead race but you're like the most special one, we will leave it for now."

After his words, Delirious sighs in relief while Ellies return to her gaze at Team 6.

"You two were Beastmens, I guess an Owl and a Pig." she said, pointing at Vanoss and Wildcat. "You three smell like regular humans, nothing abnormal." she added, pointing to Marcel, Moo and Nogla.

Finally, the wolf girl looked at Terroriser, "And yours is the most peculiar one. You smell like a human, but for some reason, I smell traces of metal in most of your body. It was like your... fake."

Terroriser nervously chuckled.

"Thank you for your explanation, Ellies." Julian smiled at the wolf girl and indicated to her to step back. Then, he looked at the group of seven again. "So, what are you going to do? Are you going to accept our proposal?"

The group fell silent and thought about the situation.

To be honest, they were feeling rather depressed, they were sure they had not left any clue that could relate them to the people they and that mysterious woman killed in the crime scene. At least, nothing that could be found with this world's level of criminalistic.

The problem was that they thought of this world as the same as Earth, yet failed to consider this world's uniqueness.

On Earth, using one's smell to identify a murderer was something only seen in television series. But here, there were people with a sense of smell good enough to really do such a thing. But in the end, the damage was already done. Now they could only try to fix everything as much as they can.

Therefore, they will not show any weakness right now.

Basically: Assuming that your words are right, are you not afraid that we will kill you after you told us all of this?

Instantly, the atmosphere in the room turned tense.

Marcel could see the wolf girl crouching slightly, ready to attack, and the people or Agent-like figures behind Julian doing the same as the wolf lady. Julian, however, remained completely calm.

"Well, as you said before, I'm confident in my strength. Besides, you don't have any reason to attack us."

"And why is that?"

"Because we are not planning to reveal this to anyone."

"Ooookay ._."

Seeing their reactions, Julian smiled, "It looks like you are misunderstanding something, customer. My intention is not to use this information to threaten you. As I said before, we only want to ask you for a favor. I hope you can help us to rescue the person that was kidnapped."

'And if we choose not to?"

"Then nothing will happen. We will sell you the items and keep the fact that you killed the slavers to ourselves. Unfortunately, we will be unable to provide you with information about the slavers and the people behind them. But we will also indeed reward you with some payment if you agree. Such as this…"

Bam!

One of the silhouettes drops a huge bag onto the table in front of the group. When they peered into it, to much of their shock, it's a shit load of money. I mean a SHIT load!

"Gonna remind you, this is no ordinary bag but a high-class dimensional item that contains a hundred billion credits."

This time, it caused the group to feel even greater surprise.

"Jesus, why that much money, man?" Terroriser asked with his jaw drop, still fixing his gaze into the amount of cash.

Julian shrugs, "I'm just following the request from a group of mercenaries." he said, placing a paper in the table and everyone looks at it.

It was a poster, with the words, 'Hiring most badass mercenaries of all the lands! We could do anything from what you have requested, even if it is illegal'.

"These things were all over the city a few days ago." Ellies stated, pointing to the bottom. "It even has a price."

From what she said, the price she was talking about says, 'Price: 100000000000'.

Everyone deadpanned at the poster, it was obvious who made it, they all looked at Vanoss.

"No wonder people were not hiring us."

Now seeing the amount of money Julian will give them, they all decided to agree. While this isn't their problem in the first place, the Banana Bus Crew felt very interested in the information about the people behind the slavers.

More accurately, they were interested in a new adventurer, a mission, especially that certain black creature, giving them an alien vibe towards it. However, they were not so naïve as to agree simply because the other party left a good impression on them and gave an amount of money that is enough to give them a greater lifetime. Before that, they needed to confirm what their true intentions were.

"Tell us more about the situation."

Julian nodded, "In truth, the people you killed were just one of the clues we had to find the person we are searching for. We have another clue, but unfortunately, we are lacking in personnel. Thus, the help of strong and resourceful people like you is very needed. If you decide to help us, we will include you in the plan and give you more information."

"However, we are just mere Rank 5. I'm sure you don't lack people of our strength. Why did you need our help?"

"Yes, all of you are just in the Master Realm, the same group of adventurers that managed to slain magical beasts at the level way above yours easily, such as the Mammoth Goliath and the Elder Zy'tl Q'ae. To be honest, even if I myself try to face that colossal tree monster, I'm not confident in succeeding." Julian did not try to hide the admiration he was feeling towards the group.

Everyone fell silent. At this point, none of them couldn't find a reason to reject him.

Marcel notices his friends have the same thought, then he thinks for a while. After thinking for a while, he finally answered.

"We will think about it first. I'll give you our reply tomorrow night."

"Very well, I'll wait for your reply."