House arrest... I bought all sorts of supplies for the suspension, then hurried back to the house — the Beginning Footprint Clan House's Clan Master room.
The Imperial Capital, which I hadn't walked through in a while, had considerably more people than I remembered. There shouldn't be any events going on right now, but the main avenues were packed, and even the back alleys that were usually nearly empty were overflowing with people — lending credibility to the words Gaark had spoken.
The crowd was probably caused by Selen, the princess of Ygdra, arriving, but with this many more people, both the nation and the Explorer's Guild must be in an uproar.
The capital was already crowded. What was going to happen from here on out?
A booming economy was all well and good, but if this became the norm, we might need to relocate our base too.
"Suspension... I've never heard of anyone being told not to leave their home when they haven't actually committed any crime..."
Eva held her temple and made a troubled face after hearing the story. Indeed, I'd never heard of anything like this before either. Even Citry, who had the most knowledge in the Mourning Specter, said she'd never heard of it, so it truly was an unusual treatment.
What made it even more unusual was that the person receiving this suspension hadn't done anything good or bad whatsoever. Still, if the Explorer's Guild said to take a break, there was no reason to refuse.
"I'll treat it as paid leave and relax for a while. Sounds like the Explorer's Guild is going to compensate us too."
All thanks to Citry for negotiating on my behalf.
Upon hearing my words, Citry — who had fearlessly negotiated with Gaark — pressed her palms together and said, "We plan to stay in the capital for a while too. We've been a bit busy lately, and we need to sort through what we brought back... With Mimmi-kun there, we got a bit greedy, didn't we?"
Even though the Mourning Specter's usual hauls from challenging high-level Treasure Halls were extraordinary, saying they'd been "greedy" made me wonder just how massive their haul must have been.
Originally, the Mourning Specter hadn't possessed a Space-Time Bag. The price aside, they were simply too rare to acquire.
This time, thanks to the self-propelled treasure-chest-type Space-Time Bag — Mimmi-kun — they'd been able to bring back far more than usual. After all, Mimmi-kun was such a voracious eater it could practically swallow an entire town...
Incidentally, Citry had also been eyes-sparkling over the Code souvenirs I'd brought back. The members of the Mourning Specter were generally low on both material greed and avarice, but being an Alchemist, Citry's passion for — or rather, thirst for knowledge about — items was considerable. Perhaps, given enough time, she could even analyze the products generated by Code.
Luke rolled his arms around and flashed a wild grin at Citry's words.
"I haven't cut anyone in a while either. Gotta get my rusty arms back in shape. Fighting monsters and Phantoms isn't bad, but when it comes to pure swordsmanship training, nothing beats cutting down human-shaped opponents."
"True. Sparring with the same partner every day gets stale. You have to change things up once in a while... If Klye's on suspension, maybe we should spend some time training too."
"Sister, Luke... You've gotten even stronger since Ygdra. You need to pick your opponents carefully, or you might, um, end up killing them — n-no, never mind."
"Mm-hm, mm-hm."
So Klye's on suspension, which means the rest of us should train — what kind of logic was that? Well, as long as they didn't cause trouble for those around them, it was fine (which seemed unlikely).
With Luke and the others as guards, touring the capital for the first time in a while didn't sound bad, but since I was on suspension, there was no helping it this time... Gaark had apparently gone along too, so I'd just stay put in the Clan Master room.
"Right... Maybe I'll do some Clan Master work for a change."
I snapped my fingers, and Eva responded immediately.
"Clan operations are running smoothly. Please don't worry about that... Since you're on suspension, you should be staying put. Branch Director Gaark will scold you again... Being told to do nothing really is unbelievable."
Hmm, hmm, I see... Looks like I was really going to be on a proper vacation.
While I was thinking that, Elisa, who had been staring off into space, whispered a suggestion.
"Klye... Want to go to Ygdra on suspension?"
"...No."
I'd been told not to leave the capital, after all.
Getting to Ygdra via teleportation magic might technically be possible, but Ygdra was in the middle of a great forest and more dangerous than even Zebuldia.
Come to think of it, Elisa had apparently achieved her goal of continuing as a Hunter. Would she stay in the party as a Hunter going forward?
I looked at Elisa, but she just blinked at me with a puzzled expression. Well, honestly, that was fine by me... Perhaps Luke and company's rampages were being tempered by Elisa's presence since she'd joined the party...
"But seriously, the capital really has gotten more crowded, huh? Looks like there are lots of Hunters from outside too..."
"The Guild has been quietly warning the Hunters stationed in the capital, Sister. They've been told not to start trouble with the Hunters coming in from outside."
"Any tough ones?"
A lively city was great, but the fact that the Guild felt the need to warn people... Maybe I should avoid going outside even if I weren't on suspension, at least until things calmed down.
...Luke was saying something ominous, but if he went on a rampage, the outside Hunters might come fleeing in droves.
"We've also had quite a few requests to join the clan as Parties. We turned them down since they didn't have recommendations, though."
"Yeah... Basically just turn them all down. We're on suspension, after all."
"And then there were a few people who said they wanted to see the famous face of Thousand Transformations."
"...We're on suspension, you know. If they want to meet me, they can at least defeat the clan members first."
"...It's not like we're running some kind of dojo challenge."
Well, those people were almost certainly Hunters, so it basically was a dojo challenge, wasn't it? Needless to say, meetings would not be happening.
I was on suspension, after all.
What I should be thinking about now was what to do during the suspension. I looked over at Lucia.
"By the way... Lucia, what are you going to do?"
With a Treasure Weapon back in her possession for the first time in a while, if Lucia was free, maybe she could hang out with me and we could play around with some Treasure Weapons I hadn't used in a while. That was my thinking when I asked.
Lucia blinked, looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Actually, I've received a request from my professor to investigate something. I was thinking of looking into that..."
Professor. That referred to one of the professors at the Zebuldian Arcane Academy and the professor of the lab Lucia belonged to — Sage Crasta, the "Immortal."
I felt like I'd made her pretty angry over the whole Black World Tree incident, but apparently it hadn't affected Lucia's relationship with the Sage.
Well, unlike me, who managed to anger everyone and their grandmother, Lucia was competent...
But Lucia was busy too, huh? Looks like I'd have to ask Cruse for Treasure Weapon charging.
As I nodded along, Lucia continued, "It appears that several students at the Arcane Academy have recently gone missing. Based on the circumstances and numbers, it doesn't seem like simple abductions..."
"That's... a pretty alarming situation."
Students at the Zebuldian Arcane Academy — the pinnacle of magical academic institutions in the Zebuldian Empire — were bona fide elites. Talented mages-in-training gathered from surrounding nations, and there were no shortage of noble scions among them. For several to go missing without it becoming a major scandal was actually more surprising than the disappearances themselves.
...Well, it might have become a big deal that I simply didn't know about.
At Lucia's words, Liliz's eyes went wide in surprise.
"Huh, asking Lucia to handle it must mean it's pretty serious. That girl doesn't really mix personal and professional business, you know... She wouldn't bring most things to Lucia, right?"
"If it seems like a lot, we can help too. We can put off the item check later..."
"Lucia, if you run into any swordsmen, don't hesitate to call me! Doesn't even have to be swordsmen!"
"Hmm, hmm..."
The Mourning Specter members mainly acted together during hunts. Each person handled their individual commissions on their own.
But being able to casually help each other out when things got tough — that was the strength of a party you'd been with for a long time.
Needless to say, I was the one receiving help the entire time.
"Thank you. But I haven't looked into it thoroughly yet, so..."
"Right, right. Let us know if anything comes up. Well, I mean, I'm on suspension, though!"
"...Why do you look like you're having fun, Leader?"
Lucia said with an exasperated, somewhat ambiguous expression. I had said "let us know," but notably did not say "I'll help." What Lucia could do, I could do on my own... well, not really, but still.
At least I could listen, though.
Everyone really was a hard worker.
There, Liliz perked up and asked with a full smile, "So... how was Code? Was it fun? Looks like you turned down the Level Up, though—"
"That's... because I did something unnecessary at the end. I really feel terrible about the other two Level 8 Hunters who took the test with me. They did forgive me, though."
I never expected that stabbing something deep would cause the entire city to nearly fall. When I'd stabbed deep with the Key of the Earth, things had somehow worked out fine. Just because the situation was similar didn't justify such a reckless action.
Kaiser and Saya hadn't said anything, but those two really were remarkably decent people.
Citry pressed her palms together and smiled sweetly.
"I'd love to hear all the details! And about the souvenirs you brought back!"
"Ooh! Klye, so, were there any badass swordsmen? There were, right? Can we still do something about it? I wanna test out what I trained in Ygdra—"
"Like Citry said, how many times do we have to tell you — of course there weren't! It's a high-tech civilization city. Right, Klye?"
...There actually were. For the record, there were even doppelgängers of everyone and one of me. A new member named Elize had appeared too, not to mention the Ohii-sama situation. I'd have no shortage of things to talk about.
As for how I'd cleared the Level 9 test — it was essentially over during what was supposed to be sightseeing, so I'd have trouble if they asked for too many details— I crossed my arms, put on a hard-boiled grin, and decided to talk about the Level 8 Hunters I'd taken the test with — the people everyone would be most interested in.