"To be honest, a man with multiple beauties is not that uncommon, so I thought the information was lacking, but I knew it as soon as I saw you."
"...."
"They really are unbelievably beautiful women."
"Stop it. I get it."
Frondier sighed.
It was rather absurd information, but he had learned something.
'That provider guy knows a fair bit about my situation.'
That Frondier would come to the capital.
That he would look for a mask when he arrived.
That the person who would guide him to the place where he could purchase the mask was Carla.
That Carla would visit Colin at the store.
He had to know all of this information to approach Colin, of all people, and give him the information.
'Who could possibly know all that information?'
The most suspicious person was Antero. He knew about Frondier's existence and his connection to Carla.
Above all, he was the one who had been beaten by Frondier. Naturally, he would be burning with a desire for revenge.
Antero had no memory of Bune, the devil he had contracted with. That's what Antero had wanted. So the fight with Frondier would have been conveniently rewritten in his memory. But it wouldn't have been overwritten with a memory of victory.
On the contrary, he must have forgotten how badly he had lost.
'Antero, whatever kind of paladin he was, would naturally be aware of the current situation in the capital. There's nothing strange about that. But how does he know that I have many women around me?'
Frondier had never shown any woman other than Carla to Antero or his devil, Bune.
Circumstantially, the most suspicious person was Antero, but he knew something he shouldn't have.
Frondier thought for a moment and then asked,
"Who is this provider?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that."
There was no change in Colin's expression.
"...Fine. Let's say I don't know. So what about this provider?"
Frondier stopped caring about the provider's identity. If he didn't know now, it was more important to get the next piece of information than to waste effort trying to find out.
Colin frowned as if troubled by Frondier's reaction.
"...You're a tough one to deal with, Brother."
"Why do you keep calling me Brother?"
"My male customers seem to like that title."
...What kind of prejudice was this?
It couldn't just be prejudice if it had worked well so far.
"By the way, I don't recommend calling a woman 'Sister'. They really hate it."
"I won't. I'm not a merchant."
"But you never know when such a title might come to mind, do you?"
If Frondier were to call someone Sister... Even Frondier himself couldn't imagine it.
Colin rolled his eyes as if thinking about something, then let out a sigh.
"Actually, the information provider is a paladin named Charon."
Charon.
The one who supposedly received Poseidon's divine power, the one Frondier had to check on first.
And that Charon already knew about Frondier's existence and had provided Colin with information.
It was a bit of a shock, but Frondier didn't let it show.
"Suddenly you're being so straightforward."
"It's meaningless now that I'm on your side, Brother."
What was he talking about? As Frondier tilted his head in puzzlement, Colin said, "Charon told me to report to him when you arrived. Other than that, he said he wouldn't interfere. He said I could do whatever I wanted here."
"Then why not do that? Why are you revealing everything to me?"
At Frondier's question, Colin shrugged.
"Because I'm siding with the stronger side."
"...That's a bold statement. Are you confident that I'm stronger, even though the opponent is a paladin?"
"Choosing the right side is a merchant's virtue."
Colin looked at Carla.
"It's thanks to Brother that Miss Carla can look at someone else for so long now."
"......!"
Carla's eyes widened in surprise.
Frondier spoke.
"You knew about Carla's problem?"
"I didn't know the details. I just knew that she subconsciously avoided looking at others. Well, everyone has their own tendencies, and such cases do happen, but Miss Carla's was pathological. Beyond just avoiding eye contact, she tried not to look at any part of another person."
Colin's gaze softened slightly.
"But now she doesn't hesitate to look at me. I don't know what the problem was, but Miss Carla is a long-time customer of mine. It's only right that I side with someone who solved her problem."
Frondier was impressed.
Colin wasn't using any special abilities; he was acquiring information through long-time observation.
"Now you understand roughly why I'm in a difficult situation. If I don't report your arrival, the moment you and your companions start wearing masks, Charon will come looking for me."
"It wouldn't have been difficult at all if you had just reported it."
"But if something were to happen to you, Brother, you would eventually figure out that I was the one who spilled the beans."
Was it an intuition he had developed as an information broker?
If so, Colin must have been born with a natural talent for it.
But that aside, Colin's current situation wasn't something that could be dismissed as merely difficult.
"Do you even realize what kind of dangerous path you're walking on right now?"
If Colin was to be believed, then the moment Frondier arrived at this shop, Colin was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
If he hid Frondier's location, Charon would come looking for him in retaliation. If he reported Frondier's location, Frondier himself would come back for him. From Colin's perspective, both were terrifying nightmares.
And out of those two nightmares, Colin chose to avoid Charon and seek refuge with Frondier.
"That's why I said it's difficult. That's why I'm proposing a new deal."
With that said, Colin stood up. He then rummaged through another shelf, pulled out something rolled up, and spread it out on the table.
It was a map.
Frondier looked at it with interest.
'Unlike the one we used to get here, this is a proper map. It shows the terrain of the capital and the locations of various facilities in detail.'
The scale was properly marked, and the symbols used on the map were the common ones of this country.
"Charon who came to me, the information he conveyed, the strange and unusual energy flow currently running through the capital, and the man who appeared exactly as the information described. With this many pieces in place, even a child would understand the situation."
Colin wrote two names in the center of the capital drawn on the map: Hera and Aphrodite.
The current representatives of the two divided factions, those goddesses. And between them, Colin wrote the name Poseidon.
"This isn't some minor dispute. It's the sign of a civil war."
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