I Became the Handyman That the Heroines Are Obsessed With

Episode 5 – Meeting with the Chief of Information Organization, Black Feather (1)

Leaving the small commotion that happened early in the morning at the inn behind, I left the inn.

Since breakfast time was over, I saw people walking in the street.

Seeing them moving after mealtime, they were probably headed to work.

In my opinion, it was extremely rude to stop someone heading to work and ask them questions.

So, I had to find a place where people who returned from work or came from outside unfolded various stories, rather than people walking to the workplace.

Let’s think from the perspective of a person who has finished a tough day’s work.

Say you have been working under the scorching sun with farming tools or tools from morning until sunset.

My hard-working body naturally expected a reward after a whole day.

In that case, where would the footsteps of someone who has worked hard with difficulty head towards?

That can be a place that sells something that can wash away the fatigue of the day.

In fantasy novels and many games, that place was often called.

‘Sky Wind Bar’.

That is a bar, a place that sells alcohol.

The bar was a place where various information came and went, and various events occurred due to drunk people.

Naturally, there are hardly any people who drink alcohol early in the morning, so the inside of the pub looked quite quiet.

The first thing that caught my eye as I walked into the bar was a mustached middle-aged man cleaning a glass beer mug with a clean cloth.

He seemed to be the owner of this pub.

“A customer so early in the morning. Unexpected.”

“I didn’t come to drink in the morning, I’m going around looking for some information.”

“Hmm?”

The mustached middle-aged man, who was wiping the beer glass with a cloth, reacted to my answer.

He seemed surprised.

“Did you come to the pub to look for information?”

“Isn’t it obvious that one must visit a tavern to gather information?”

He seemed surprised that I came to the tavern in search of information.

No, since it is very likely that many people gather in bars, isn’t it natural to come here to get information circulating among them?

And as far as I know, in the world of the Erasto Chronicles, taverns also serve as a kind of restaurant.

During the day, they sell meals to people, and when it gets dark, they switch from serving meals to serving drinks and snacks.

So I thought there would be quite a few people coming to buy breakfast in the morning, but this seems to be a false hope.

“Hmm. So, you’ve come to find information?”

He stopped wiping the beer glass in his hand and placed it on the counter.

For some reason, his energy seemed to have changed quite a lot.

Just a moment ago, he was just an ordinary tavern owner, but now he felt like someone living in a back alley involved in something illegal.

Uh, hmm. Is he annoyed because I didn’t come to buy a drink, but to find information?

This could be very troublesome.

◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈

A man with a wonderfully grown mustache. His name was Justin.

On the surface, he was the tavern owner of the Skywind Tavern, but his true identity was one of the leaders of ‘Black Feather’, which could be described as the continent’s most formidable information agency.

His former place of duty was Belsael, a large city about a three days’ walk away from the oak-tree town where Skywind tavern operated.

Belsael was a city where merchants supplying goods to Glesius Academy replenished their spent supplies and rested before setting out towards their destination, the academy. It was also the place where merchants, after supplying goods to the academy, had another round of rest and maintenance, hence making it the place where the most information about Glesius academy circulated.

There was a reason why he, who was in charge of such an important place, came to this small village.

A long time ago, there was an incident that almost led to the demise of the ‘Black Feather’.

The organization that almost brought the monumental information organization, Black Feather, to ruin was the Demon Cult.

They were the ones who served the devil, not the gods that bestowed the ‘ability’, but the demons that gave the power to wield ‘magi’.

The target of the Demon Cult was to let the demons rule the world.

Therefore, their biggest obstacle was the information brokers.

There was a time when the information that they passed on dealt a great blow to the Demon Cult, which led to a large-scale attack on the information brokers for the survival of the Cult.

As a result, the Black Feather was driven almost to the brink of destruction, but conversely, the Demon Cult also suffered tremendous damage due to the intervention of ‘Ability users’ and disappeared without a trace somewhere in the continent.

Since that day, including the Black Feather, all information brokers have been dealing primarily with Demon Cult-related information, and when traces of them are found, senior-level individuals are dispatched to gather information about the Demon Cult.

Recently, traces suspected to be of the Demon Cult were found near the oak-tree village.

As a result, Justin was dispatched to the oak-tree village, where he collected information while working at the tavern, disguised as the Black Feather’s base.

But today, an intriguing individual visited here.

With black hair and black eyes, they seemed unmistakably from the Far East, but their clothes and speech suggested they were from here.

‘Come to think of it, didn’t someone say a man from the Far East arrived yesterday?’

Justin had built a connection with the village’s self-defense force leader over a few drinks, and according to him, a man from the Far East had arrived late yesterday evening.

According to Hannes, a member of the self-defense force on duty that day, this man had the ability to repair things.

As proof, the man from the Far East had skillfully repaired a relic left by Hannes’ younger brother.

Justin was familiar with the relic left by Hannes’ younger brother.

It was an item Hannes used during a monster hunt that endured monster attacks and became dented, and Justin distinctly recalled its external appearance.

However, the relic shown by Hannes looked brand new, bearing no trace of deterioration.

Knowing of Hannes’ tight financial circumstances, Justin couldn’t help but believe his word.

Recalling this, Justin, on a hunch, struck up a conversation with the man from the Far East who appeared in the tavern.

“A customer this early? Quite unexpected.”

“Not here for a morning drink. Just gathering some information.”

“Hmm?”

At the mention of gathering information, Justin grew suspicious.

Surely someone after information wouldn’t come to a tavern early in the morning?

Such an occurrence was beyond Justin’s comprehension.

He believed that one should approach an informant if they sought information.

However, Justin had frequently witnessed drunkards spilling secrets they alone knew at the tavern.

Thus, he wondered if this man hoped to extract information from the intoxicated.

“So, you’re visiting a tavern to look for information?”

“Isn’t it evident that to seek information, one must first stop by a tavern?”

Hearing the man from the Far East, it appeared he already knew this place dealt with information.

It was strange. How did he know the Black Feather, an information broker organization, operated out of this tavern?

Seeing the man openly admit he came to the tavern for information, Justin started to view the newly arrived customer with caution.

“Hmm, I see. So you’re here for information?”

Justin was sure. This man knew that this place was the outpost of the Black Feather, the top informant organization, and he came seeking it.

With that in mind, there was no need to keep up the friendly middle-aged man act.

Thus, Justin began to unravel the strength he had held back.

Upon which, the man from the Far East broke out in a cold sweat, evidently unsure of how to react.

And Justin felt something odd there.

‘Why is he pretending to be scared? If he knew this was the Black Feather’s lair, he wouldn’t be acting like this.’

His reaction was too naive for someone who knowingly entered the Black Feather’s haven.

Thus, Justin’s mind began to spin, building hypothesis after hypothesis until he could come to a conclusion.

‘Is he pretending to be naive, a camouflaged presence?’

He believed that the man from the Eastern Continent was pretending to be innocent to deceive him.

Therefore, Justin’s momentum grew stronger, and the more he did, the more flustered the man standing in front of him started to appear.

‘He’s a man not to be taken lightly. Truly a terrifying guy. To not readily reveal his strength to this extent! Seems like a formidable master.’

In the end, Justin gave up testing him.

This decision came from the belief that he was not weak, he was merely a strong man saving all his energy, pretending to be weak.

‘Indeed, he is a master hiding exceptional skills. If I had gone further here, there would have been trouble.’

Even when the man standing in front of him heaved a sigh of relief, his misunderstanding only deepened.