My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World

After we finished our dinner with the nobles, we returned to our inn, only to find the commander of the knights sitting at the bar.

"Ah… so you guys were out… I heard you stopped some kidnappers… good job." said the commander without even turning around to look at us, then taking a swig of mead.

'Huh? What the hell is wrong with him now? He is usually a rude and stiff asshole… Is he the rare kind of drunk that becomes peaceful when drinking!?' I thought as I walked past the bar to the stairs.

"Hey, kid." said the commander just before I could make my way to my room.

"What's up?" I responded without much interest.

The commander let out a slight smile, then stood up and walked up to me.

"I… wanted to apologize…" said the commander with a genuine expression of regret.

"Eh? You wanted to apologize!?" I said in disbelief. Commander Thomas Forey was a very proud man who didn't look like the type to admit to his mistakes.

"During our travels, I realized something…" He paused for a second, then turned to Harvey, who was standing there, amazed by the scene too.

"Hey, Harvey! I haven't been a good commander lately, huh!?" he said loudly.

Harvey walked closer to the commander and grabbed his shoulder. "No, you've been terrible…" He said with a slight smile on his face.

Jackson, Vespera, and I stood there in silence for a few seconds, not really believing what Harvey had just said to his superior. Then both of them started laughing uncontrollably while holding each other's shoulders.

"I knew it!" said Commander Thomas after composing himself.

"Ichiro, young man… I disgraced myself in front of you and your town. There is no excuse, but I just had to at least apologize to you, who has taken such good care of my men…"

"Uhh, it's alright sir… I guess…" I didn't really know what to say to the man. He was drunk but seemed rational. After bowing his head, he returned to the bar counter, gave the server a few silver coins, and went upstairs to his room.

"Umm, Harvey? What just happened?" asked Jackson, who, just like me, thought the commander wasn't the type of man to have a heart-to-heart talk with anyone. Harvey let out a sigh and asked us to sit down for a bit.

"You see…" He began telling us a little bit more about the commander.

Thomas was never the strongest or most powerful knight, but he was a good strategist. Meaning that most of the time, he commanded and delegated his Knight's Order to do their job efficiently.

That was why the king gave him that position. Because he recognized Thomas' leadership skills.

A year ago, Commander Thomas lost his daughter to an unprecedented illness, and a few weeks later, a magical medicine had suddenly appeared in the capital.

He was talking about my "Holy Panacea." It seemed that a merchant bought lots of them and somehow managed to get to the capital to sell them at exorbitant prices. Thomas did have the money to buy them, but it was too late.

His daughter had already passed away, and the fact that the only thing that could have saved her arrived only a few weeks later ended up messing with Thomas' attitude towards everyone.

That's why he felt so angry after seeing the prices at Mr. Olliver's store, and after he heard that we had those potions in stock for two years, it only added more fuel to his pain.

He probably thought that if he had looked harder and made it to End Town, he could have gotten the cure for his daughter. But to be honest, I was feeling pretty guilty, too.

If I hadn't kept all my products tightly at End Town but rather started exporting them to the other cities as soon as I started making them, his daughter would have had a higher chance of getting saved.

'Maybe I should really take care of this…' I had never thought about it this way, but the longer I did nothing to spread my potions around the kingdom, the more people would die. Either by not being able to afford the potions or simply not finding them.

After the depressing story, I went up to my room and lay in bed, still thinking about what steps I was going to take next in order not to let anything like what happened to the commander happen to other people.

"Hey Vespera…" I called my familiar's name to see if she was awake.

"Yeah, Ichiro?"

"Those kidnappers from today… Do you think some of them are still around?"

"Most likely, yeah. I wished we could have interrogated them…" she responded.

"Hmmm…" I pondered as I raised my body and sat down on my bed.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep like this… Vespera, we are going hunting." I commanded, and she knew exactly what I meant.

This group of kidnappers had not only sneaked into the city. They really tried kidnapping the daughter of the Lord in the middle of the day.

They were either desperate or stupid, maybe even both. There weren't that many of them during their kidnap attempt either, which made me think that they were probably testing their security.

"They are probably hiding somewhere in the city… We just gotta find their hideout and take them all out… Oh!" the lightbulb on top of my head lit up with an idea.

I was going to send both Vespera and Yoru into the prison where the kidnappers were getting held. If they both weaved through the shadows, nobody would notice them, and they could easily reach them and interrogate them.

I told them to use any means necessary to get the information out of them, except for killing anyone inside, and we quickly made our way out of the window to the prison.

I stood outside behind some buildings to not look too suspicious, and shortly after, my familiars merged with the shadows and infiltrated the prison.

Now, I don't know exactly how they did it, and I didn't ask them. But they didn't even last 15 minutes inside before they were already meeting back with me with all the locations for their hideouts.

They were hiding in three different buildings throughout the city, and counting even the ones in prison, there were a total of 30 bandits.

"Alright then… we better not waste any time," I said, and so, our night hunt for the kidnappers hiding in the city had begun.

We made our way to the hideout closer to us first. It was located in a narrow, dark street that somehow still looked quite fancy. The hideout was a residential building, so I didn't want to cause a commotion, especially so late at night.

I sent Yoru through the shadows and told him to find the kidnappers' room. After that, Vespera and I would go in and take them out quickly before they could make a sound.

Surprisingly, the plan went smoothly, and we quickly knocked out the 8 bandits that were hiding inside.

I left one of them still conscious so I could ask him a few more questions. I wanted to know the reason so many of these bandits were sent to the city to kidnap Lady Triana and who sent them too. But the people in that first hideout knew nothing.

When we arrived at the second hideout, I was a bit relieved that it was a house quite far from the others.

Yoru did the scouting and counted 12 bandits and three kidnapped children.

"I see, so they are not just here for Lady Triana…"

We quickly took down the door and took care of all the bandits inside before they could even notice what was happening. Once again, I left one of them still conscious.

"Why did you kidnap these children?" I asked the bandit, who was sitting on the ground tied up by Vespera's webs and with a bloody nose.

"To sell them! What else!?" said the bandit with an obnoxious tone.

"Sell them? And who is buying them?" I asked, placing the tip of my "bo" right on his throat.

"Am I supposed to know all the nobles' names!? Some big shot in the capital paid us a ton of money, so we do the job, get it, kid?" said the bandit with his extremely obnoxious tone.

"Some big shot in the capital? I guess we are lucky then…" I thought before giving the bandit a karate chop and knocking him out like the rest of his comrades.

We only had one more hideout to go, but now that we had rescued hostages, we would have to turn them in before we could continue. I asked Vespera to tie together all of the 20 bandits that we had captured so we could carry them in a cart to the prison gate.

I gathered the kids, gave them a Healing Potion, even though their injuries didn't seem too serious, and asked Yoru to carry them on his back to the gate of the prison while I carried the cart, which I had taken out of my void pocket.

Once we were back at the prison, the children got off, and Yoru weaved through the shadows again quickly to create a small distraction behind the guards, making them turn around and giving me just enough time for me to leave the cart full of bandits and the three children without them noticing.