A day before they planned to north, Nanami caught up with Ioha when he was strolling around town shopping the last items he wanted.

  “I want to speak with you,” she said.

  Ioha looked at her companion. What’s her name again? Misaki, yeah. “Sit down somewhere?”

  Nanami shook her head. “You’re shopping?”

  Ioha nodded and swung his bag. “Small stuff.” Then he grinned. “And some luxuries.”

  The entire street was filled with stands and people milling around. A hot summer’s day had businesses move out from their stores onto the streets.

  “I see.” Nanami swung her own bag and grinned. “Notebook and charcoal. Have myself two bottles of schnapps as well.” She stopped by a stand and leafed through a few books.

  Most of the people in her company did, Ioha knew that. Something for themselves and something to share. This side of the gate, with no working electronics, books were in vogue. A small but growing community of authors made a living off writing the only Earth style novels existing here. Romance and techno thrillers sold best, and at third place, trust the Japanese old-timers to stay otaku, fantasy. For extra epic irony, litRPG functioned as magic realism here, with most everyone having status displays from the moment they gated to Isekai.

  “No books?” Ioha asked when Nanami put the volumes back. He had bought two.

  “One. We buy one each before we head out.” Nanami smiled. “We sell the accidental duplicates at other guild headquarters.”

  Ioha could see that happening. He’d seen Nanami’s members sneak half an hour of rest, leaning against the barn wall with a thumbed copy in their hands. One wall inside the barn served as a bookshelf. It held almost a hundred well-read books. Their library on long missions.

  “So, you want to speak with me and brought Misaki along.”

  Nanami nodded. “She took a mission. You’re the one closest to the new people, and I thought you should know.”

  She took a mission? Doesn’t she go on manhunts? “Yes?” A feeling of discomfort spread in him.

  “You remember the mission the kids got?”

  Ah, and we have to go back to the border zone. “Adventurers guild no good?”

  “It’s good.” Nanami protested. “It’s just that someone got a plant on the inside.”

  Got a plant on the inside? Any idiot who can stay alive can register. “Please explain.”

  “I’m not talking about your regular adventurer here. I’m talking about the staff.”

  And I’m a certified idiot. “I’m listening,” Ioha said and groaned mentally.

  “Misaki, I told you earlier. What’s your take?”

  The older woman didn’t as much as turn her face. “He can’t make a decent guess, and I’m out. I don’t cater to fucking morons.”

  Pleasant as usual. “Lord Clevasti,” Ioha suggested.

  “Lord Clevasti wants the clown-shop to deliberately kill their new members?” The last words came out accompanied by a sneer.

  Well, Clevasti hadn’t been a serious suggestion in the first place. “No. Just making sure.” Ioha was pretty certain he knew, but if he guessed wrong about one relationship, his entire analysis fell apart. “Would you say the adventurers guild follows Isekai law?”

  “Good boy!” Misaki said.

  “Even work together with the high court military?”

  “Excellent boy!”

  Then it was just as bad as he had thought. “So whoever is behind it just want a bunch of greenhorns killed in a way that makes it the fault of the adventurers guild?”

  “Uhum.”

  “Yoshida Akira. I saw him at Spellsword Academy. He’s with Lord Clevasti now, so I’m afraid Wergaist is involved, after all, Ma’am.”

  “Fine, Nanami, I’ll handle it,” Misaki said and plastered a smile to her face.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Ioha looked at Misaki. The woman’s smile carried no joy at all. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You, young knight, will do nothing at all. Stay a knight. You can thank me after this is finished.”

  The discomfort grew to fear. “What are you planning to do?”

  “Nanami bought a manhunt. A lot of people are going to die.”

  “Nanami?” Ioha turned to his captain.

  They rounded a corner and Nanami rifled through an assortment of tourist junk in the first stand they walked into. She barely looked at the items she obviously didn’t plan to buy.

  “Ioha, when I took them in, they became my responsibility.” She gave him an unhappy look. “We hunt monsters. I can’t fight a murderer. I simply don’t know how, so I’m paying someone who can.”

  “But isn’t that illegal?”

  The look he got in return was full of sheer surprise. “Illegal? What on earth made you think that?” She frowned. “Ah, one year primer and one year at school. You really haven’t lived here for all that long.”

  Well, no one had, but she was right. He’d spent all his time here in exceptionally closed environments. “I just assumed…”

  “You just assumed Swedish or Japanese law applied here? This isn’t Earth. Whatever the republic decides is legal is legal.”

  “But that isn’t rule of law!”

  “Of course not! At least not that way you know it. Five years from now, or even two, maybe, but not now and here. We’re building a nation, and many people don’t like that. We either make those who dislike it vanish, or we vanish ourselves.”

  “You mean you kill…”

  “No, young knight, she doesn’t mean that,” Misaki interrupted. “Most of the real morons come from Sweden. They’re kicked back, permanently. Counts as vanish. They keep yapping about human rights, but Isekai never signed. If they want their version of human rights, they can stay Earth side.”

  Yep, definitely worse than he had expected. “But…”

  “Ioha, Misaki sounds harsh, but she’s right. Most of them talk about human rights, but in the end they’re only interested in their own personal rights.” Nanami suddenly looked very tired. “People died from starvation here less than fifteen years ago. They crawled their way out of misery ten years ago. You can’t order them to give away what they gained from that struggle.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. I’ve verified a manhunt is legal in this case. We’ll carry it out. I have my entire company in town. As I said, you can thank me later,” Misaki said.

  “Verified?” There was something he didn’t understand.

  Misaki’s hands dug into the junk Nanami had just searched through. “You surprise me, young knight. Divine knighthood and you still don’t understand?”

  Ioha shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  Misaki picked up a gaudy tray with the adventurers guild headquarters poorly painted on it. She looked at it, grinned, coughed and put it back. “All our targets have been validated by the high court. Isekai decides which killers get to stay alive. We’re ending the days for Yoshida Akira and his ilk.”

  Ioha pouted. “That’s just switching one murderer for another.”

  For the first time, Misaki’s smile was genuine. “No. It's what did you call it, rule of law. Young knight, for the first time Isekai are getting real laws. It’ll take years to make people understand them, but they are real. You, if anyone, will understand one day.”

  They left the stand and continued down the street.

  Ioha tried to wrap his mind around what he had heard. Sanctioned manhunts meant the high court had sentenced people to death, and after that, it all degenerated into an economic transaction to get someone to carry out the executions. Because if there was a formal sentence, then it truly became executions even if it looked like murder.

  Rationally, he could understand that a person could be sentenced to death by manhunt. Sweden once had similar laws. Outlaw didn’t mean criminal, it meant someone who was sentenced to lose any protection of the laws, which for all practical purposes was the same as a death sentence.

  But why won’t they make it public? The answer came to him just as he asked the question, and it made bile rise in him. Isekai had just begun the journey to a truly independent state. It was still entirely dependent on tourism from Earth, and public executions were bad for tourism.

  “How?” he asked Misaki. “I mean, when you find them, how…”

  She looked at him. “Do you really want to know?”

  He didn’t. “Yes.”

  “You know the fishing boats?”

  Ioha nodded.

  “One of them has special netting. Do you want me to explain in detail?”

  Ioha shook his head. He understood. Making people vanish quietly was the goal, after all.

  One question still lingered. They had almost arrived at Miri’s restaurant when Ioha found the courage to ask.

  “Ma’am,” he began. “Why you?”

  Misaki gave him a sad smile. “Because of irony.”

  “Irony?”

  “I’m assigned the role of palatine.”

  “Palatine?”

  Misaki grinned. “You’d probably call it paladin, but it’s not really the same thing.” Then her smile vanished. “I don’t like being called a paladin. You should know why. I’m the palatine of Isekai and my company are my enforcers.” Then she grinned again, and this time it was an entirely predatory grin. “At least I get to stay truthful when I find my targets.”

  “Truthful?”

  “Yes.” In her eyes, a light suddenly glimmered.

  Ioha recognised it. He saw it whenever Heimdall pulled a prank on him.

  Misaki’s voice rose to satisfied laughter. “I never need to lie when I tell them that they have incurred the wrath of god.”