The Duke simply grinned. “Thank you for the warm welcome. Go find a chair and join us; I think you’ll find this interesting and informative.”

Serenity noticed that the chair the daughter brought back matched the one he was sitting in; they’d clearly come from the same room.

“Andarit, this is Serenity. Serenity, this is Andarit. She’s my Daughter-Heir, but the last time I checked she took after me and preferred the use of her first name.” The Duke grinned as he teased his daughter.

Or was he teasing? He might have been telling Serenity to be less formal. “Does that mean you want me to call you … uh, what was your first name?” Serenity could remember the “Lichbane” part, but not the personal name.

The Duke laughed. “Yes, please call me Kalo while we’re in private. Proprieties have to be maintained in front of outsiders, but they can be taken too far. There isn’t time for them sometimes. Especially not with your position. Now, you were saying something about erkal when Andarit arrived?”

Serenity shrugged. “They’re monsters. Weak ones that rarely go above Tier One, but quite a few of them seem to have monster cores. Is that really such a surprise?”

“They’re just animals…” Andarit trailed off while her father flipped the green book open and started paging through it. He stopped on an illustration of an erkal. The next page showed the giant lizard’s skeleton, then its muscles. It wasn’t until three pages later that Kalo stopped skimming pages and stopped.

He looked up, seemingly to confirm that they were both paying attention, then started reading. “A rare condition found in some elderly erkal is the formation of a nodule in the spine; it is consistently located at the point where the neck joins to the body, near the upper shoulders and ribcage. The nodule is painless and does not at first affect the erkal, but if it grows enough it can protrude upwards, interacting with the harness. Continued development is believed to cause functional issues; however, these have not been documented as the irritation from the harness running over the protrusion causes the animal to act irritable and aggressive, removing any possibility of continued service as a draft animal. All known examples were therefore swiftly put down.”

Kalo tapped the page. “It can’t be too rare if it’s in here. Is that what you mean? That nodule?”

“Probably?” Serenity wasn’t confident. “I’d have to see one ot be certain. It sounds reasonable, though; they generally form somewhere important. I’m not sure how consistent it is.”

He’d only paid limited attention to monster core recovery in his first life, after all, and he didn’t really need to know it now. Not with his Loot Core Skill.

“That could explain some things. I wonder…” Kalo muttered before turning and pulling a book from a different bookcase. It was bound so that it lay almost completely flat when he opened it. It was filled with lines and what looked like scribbled notes. Kalo paged through it before shaking his head. “I’m not sure which Court it was; I’d have to check the city records. It’s been too long, but I’m pretty confident it was one of the Courts that paid for the new slaughterhouses. If they knew this, it would explain a lot. I thought they were simply exploiting an unreported dungeon or two.”

“You don’t know where all the dungeons are?” That was basic. Finding dungeons and keeping them cleared out was one of the things that mercenaries did. The Guild would organize it if they were paid to, but on many worlds it was more of a side job that people did when they didn’t have a formal contract. For many dungeons, you’d actually pay the Guild for access.

Finding undiscovered dungeons was a relatively common contract as well, if monsters turned up in an area where they hadn’t been before; the local citizens didn’t generally like random attacks, and they could either pay for it directly or by handing over some of their rights to the dungeon itself. “Oh, right, you mentioned that the Mercenary Guild isn’t welcome on Zon.”

“You’re not from Zon.” Andarit’s words were almost accusatory. “Why are you here? Why would you come to a place like this? There’s nothing here! Nothing worth the cost.”

“Andarit.” The Duke turned towards his daughter. “There isn’t nothing here. You know better than that. There’s Lowpeak. Our home.”

“That’s a reason for me,” Andarit retorted, “not for a stranger!”

Serenity put up a hand to stop them. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to watch. “It’s fine. She’s … not entirely wrong. This doesn’t sound like a planet I’d come to under other circumstances. Travel isn’t that expensive, but time is. I only have about ten years before I absolutely have to be home, and that isn’t a hard timeline. I should head home sooner than that.”

By now, Serenity was convinced; they didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping of Earth-humans. The Duke could probably have hidden it, but Andarit wouldn’t have been able to. More than that, it was clear that there was a reason the Duke wanted a bodyguard for his daughter. He probably considered himself capable enough without one. “Quite a few people from my planet have been kidnapped. I’m trying to track them down, to give them a chance to get home. The source has been stopped, but dealing with everyone involved would be a bonus. It’s less important than getting my people home.”

Kalo looked like he’d just eaten something sour. “That’s why you were at the Hiring Hall, wasn’t it? Looking for any sign of your people. And I was used to get you to leave.”

Serenity shook his head. “All I found was the cells they arrived in; metal, with a Sleep rune on the ceiling. Mana-powered, I’d guess. It would explain why Djen was worried about it giving out unexpectedly. I didn’t get to see where he actually keeps captives, so I don’t know if any are still there or not. I did hear him talking about a tithe of some sort; I’m not sure what that’s about.”

“A tithe of people?” Andarit wrinkled her nose. “That’s just wrong.”

Kalo nodded but seemed distracted, staring at a space over Andarit’s shoulder. Or perhaps he simply wasn’t looking at Serenity? “You think they’re being enslaved. That Djen is a slavemaster.”

Serenity sighed. “Yes. Slavery seems the most likely reason. Actually, that’s one of the better options. The one I’m worried about the most is ritual sacrifice; bringing people back to life isn’t within my current capabilities and isn’t likely to be soon. Worse, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was something like that. Interplanetary kidnapping is not easy, and fooling the Voice takes a lot of knowledge. It’s not something that can be done easily, so it seems likely there’s a reason.”

Kalo’s head swung towards Serenity. “Fooling the Voice? That’s not possible.”

Serenity shook his head. “Of course it is. Almost anything’s possible. It’s just very hard.” He pulled up the Quest information and shared it; that would probably be easier than trying to explain it.

[Tutorial Trouble: There is a problem in the Tutorial. Students are being directed to incorrect locations at the end of the first Phase. Assist the Voice’s investigations, find the responsible parties, and arrange for appropriate punishment]

[Step 1: Find out how it’s happening in the Tutorial] [COMPLETE]

[Step 2: Investigate on Zon] [ONGOING]

[Optional Goal: Put measures in place that will prevent the same scheme from working in the future] [COMPLETE]

[Optional Goal: Recover the lost Earthlings and return them to Earth (if desired)]

Serenity could tell Andarit was listening to the Voice while Kalo read the message. He waited while they absorbed the information.

Kalo finished first. He leaned back in his chair and frowned. “I’m not sure this is compatible with what I intended to hire you for. Andarit would have to go with you to the slave market.”

“Wait, what does you hiring him for a job and me going to the slave markets have to do with each other?” Andarit turned to her father, openly puzzled.

Serenity decided to step in; if this was anything like the last time they’d started arguing, it would be better to stop it before it started. “The job he’s talking about is bodyguard. Yours, specifically. I guess it would still work if you agreed to stay home or stay with your father while I’m gone, but not being available sometimes doesn’t really seem like bodyguarding.”

Andarit gaped at Serenity for a moment before turning on her father. “I don’t need a bodyguard! I went to Tzintkra alone and it was fine!”

Maybe he should have let her father handle it. It sounded like all he’d accomplished was adding fuel to the fire.

Kalo shook his head at his daughter. “It wasn’t fine. It made you overconfident. You came here and openly mocked other noble heirs, including two who were already jealous of Lowpeak.” He paused and reached into his pocket.

When Andarit started to retort, he spoke over her. “And it’s likely because of that that there was an assassination attempt on me today. Well, perhaps not assassination; it might simply have been an attempt to humiliate or permanently injure me. Fortunately, the bodyguard you say you don’t need stopped it before we had to find out.”

Kalo set the cloth-wrapped bundle on the table then pulled the cloth open, revealing the spike with a handle.

Andarit gasped; she seemed to recognize the weapon. “What was on it?”

Kalo shook his head. “Don’t know yet. I haven’t had it analyzed. Would you take it and put it in the carrysafe?”

Andarit reached for it and pulled the cloth back over the top of it then paused. “You just want to talk to … what was your name again?”

Serenity smiled. He knew that feeling. “Serenity.”

Andarit nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Thanks. You just want to talk to Serenity without me.”

“You’re right. But it does need to go in the carrysafe and I thought that asking you to take care of it might be nicer than asking you to leave the room. Please knock when you get back; I’ll let you know when you can come in.” Kalo smiled slightly.

Andarit sighed, seeming just like an aggravated teenager for a moment. “Fine.” She carefully picked up the once again cloth-wrapped weapon and headed out of the room.

Serenity noticed that she didn’t slam the door as she left.

“I think you and she will fit just fine,” Kalo offered. “As long as we can figure out a way to accomplish both goals. Her presence could be useful while you’re looking, since you’re not a noble of Zon or with a Court and revealing affiliation with Order’s Guild would be counterproductive.”

“Order’s Guild?” Where did that come from? That was the Guild Margrethe was with, but Serenity wasn’t affiliated with them. He half-planned to contact them once the Tutorial ended to prevent the same sort of issue he’d had with Margrethe, but that was the only contact he had with them.