Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 32: Investigation

As Christina walked down the street of the slums, Koko was tempted to jump down from the buildings and ask her about what had just happened before she noticed that the girl had now stopped in front of a group of hungry looking children dressed in torn clothing. Kneeling down beside one of them that seemed almost asleep, Christina dug her hand into a small pouch attached to her belt before bending down and placing what looked like coins in their hand. However, after looking up at their benefactor, the child's face suddenly contorted in anger as they threw the coins down at Christine's feet.

"Why bother now?! You've already taken everything from us!" The child, which turned out to be a small girl, yelled before getting to her feet and running into one of the many back alleys. "You're not a hero at all!"

Standing still and gripping her own hands tightly enough to bare white knuckles, Christina looked incredibly frustrated from the way that Koko saw things. And when Christina once again began to walk down the street, Koko thought that she'd seen enough before she headed back towards the blacksmith from earlier. After seeing that the family that had once been inside was nowhere to be found, Koko jumped down to the street to ask the next best people about what had just happened. Because with the obvious dislike on their faces from the scene, she figured that the guards that had done nothing to stop it must know something at least.

"Excuse me!" Koko called out to the guards, who were thankfully still stationed at the intersection as it must have been their post.

"What's the matter?" The first guard asked.

"Nothing's wrong, I'd just like to ask your opinion on something." Koko replied. "It's about what happened to that blacksmith over there."

"It's absolutely disgusting, that's our opinions on it." The first guard stated while sneering in the direction of the other guards surrounding the building. "Even without any evidence, all the church has to do is make a claim that someone's a heretic or criminal and they can confiscate everything that a person owns and say that their doing them a kindness. Normally it's not so bad, but lately that hero has been 'liberating' at least one building per district every month. It's put a lot of normal families on the streets with the once respectable citizens becoming nothing but beggars..."

"Can't you do anything to stop it?" Koko asked, concerned that such a thing was happening.

"Nothing at all." The guard spat again. "The church has always existed to help the hero, who has always in turn helped the kingdom. They're old laws, but as mere guardsmen we can't do anything to interfere if she's the one supervising it."

"I see..." Koko said thoughtfully, though she only grasped the basic picture of the situation. "Just to be sure, when did all of this start happening?"

"A few months ago when that priest and the hero arrived at Goldgate." The guardsman sighed before looking at Koko curiously. "Why do you want to know so bad?"

"I'm just doing a little personal investigation is all." Koko replied. "Thanks for all the help. I'll let you get back to your job!"

"The entire city is a giant nervous wreck because no one knows if they'll be the next target or not, though we do know for a fact that several of the families that were involved were innocent." The guardsman continued as he waved in farewell. "I don't know if you'll turn up anything, but if you somehow manage to stop this, then the entire city would be grateful."

"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind!" Koko replied before running away, gaining some distance between them before she stopped and sat down on a nearby crate in order to think things through. From what it sounded like, the 'hero' was using her status to falsely convict people and take all of their things. However, after following Christina, she assumed that the girl had no intent of this at all as she couldn't think of any reason that she would be troubled by it otherwise. Rather, it almost seemed as if she had been being ushered by Father Celdric to do it... Perhaps the man himself needed to be investigated. But then, even if she discovered that he was corrupted, no one would believe her, right? If anything, they might just see it as an act of jealously towards her roommate, seeing as she was the weakest in the school and Christina was ranked second.