Chapter of Bottled Love: The Return

Karen and I sat down on a nearby crate at the edge of the camp, me in her lap as she slung her arms around my waist. There weren’t many people here, which was quite comfortable for us. Karen hugged me like a child would a plush toy, rubbing her cheek against my hair at times. And I would lean back, enjoying being wrapped in her arms, feeling safe and secure. If someone saw us like this, they’d surely shake their head at this couple that was flirting around with no regard for their surroundings. Not like we really cared about that.

We spent quite some time like this, flirting and just enjoying our moment of peace. The sun was already drawing near the horizon when we finally saw something in the distance.

“Yumi, look. Is that…”

“Nn? Ahh… Yes, Sis. It’s them. They’re back.”

In the far distance, I could see several wagons, mercenaries with no uniform equipment whatsoever sitting on the waroxen and a large carriage, transporting a massive mountain of flesh.

“Merim and the others are back.”

The wagons slowly proceeded along the road, approaching the city.

“Should we inform the others?”

“We’re on break, Yumi. Someone else will notice.”

“... Guess that’s true.”

Sitting on the crate, we enjoyed the evening air a little longer as we watched the caravan of mercenaries coming closer. They moved a lot slower than usual, likely because of the massive corpse they were transporting. By the time they had covered half the distance, the other mercenaries in the camp had spotted them as well, forming a crowd close by. A lot of “Wow!” and “Woah!” could be heard as they beheld the massive roper for the first time.

“But it really is big, isn’t it, Yumi?”

“Nn. Seeing it again now, it truly makes you realise that…”

But now it was just a corpse, only leaving behind a memory of the battle.

“Oh, they’re waving.”

“Are they?”

“Nn.”

They were still quite a distance away so it was hard to make out for the others who couldn’t see as far. But sure enough, some of the mercenaries sitting on the waroxen were raising their arms and waving.

“Let’s wave back, Yumi.”

While I was smiling at the view in front of me, Karen raised her arm and waved as well, returning the gesture.

“Might as well.”

I joined her and waved towards them. Some nearby mercenaries saw what we were doing, and they joined in as well. The noise grew as the mercenaries got more and more excited, the closer they came.

And soon enough, they stopped on the road. The doors to the wagons opened and dozens of mercenaries returned under the sun. Several wagons were turned around and driven to the field where most of them were parked, while the remainder left the road and approached the camp, accompanied by the men.

“Oh, Sis, I spotted Merim.”

“Where?”

“Over there.”

Merim was sitting on a warox, leading the group. He sure looked like someone of his position for once.

“Should we go and join the others?”

“Nn… Well, we did wait here for them. We might as well.”

I jumped down from Karen’s lap with the usual twinge of regret. Once Karen jumped down from the crate as well, we joined the crowd of mercenaries, shouting and cheering with all their vigour, welcoming their comrades back.

“Everyone! We’re back!” shouted Merim, lifting up his weapon high into the air.

The cheers and roars intensified in response, many mercenaries lifting their own weapons in response. Cheers, roars, the ear-deafening sounds filled my ears, telling only one thing:

The mercenaries had returned. All of them. And they were… Victorious.

---

“Do you know how much trouble it was to get this thing back, Captain? I can tell you: A whole lot.”

“Now, now, Merim. But now you’re back and we can all take a break.”

“Thank the Spirits, we can.”

Around half an hour later, Merim, Korwen, Ria and her fellow two magicians, Karen and I, as well as some others, all of us sat around a large, long table, having dinner. Merim took the chance to regale us with his outstanding tale of… transporting that corpse.

“Captain, we really need something to transport large monsters like that. Just because we can tuck some carriages on another, doesn’t mean that works well.”

“But it works.”

“It broke down at least five times! We would have been back by noon if we didn’t spend most of the time fixing that.”

Merim downed the mug in his hands in one large gulp and slammed it on the table. This was probably his sixth or seventh... and it showed…

“And Yumi!”

“Nn?”

“Those tentacles, you know, sure they were super helpful when dealing with the roper. But we had to dig them out! We had to dig the whole ground out because it fused with parts of the corpse!”

“...”

Wow, my condolences.

“And you know what the worst was? When we finished, they dried up and turned into mana crystals! What the hell did we dig them up for?!”

“...”

“Merim, calm down, I think you got enough ale for the night.”

“I sure as hell don’t. I need at least three times as much before I am done!”

“By the time you chugged another ten, you’ll have passed out and wake up with one hell of a headache.”

“Like I care!”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you tomorrow.”

Korwen shrugged his shoulders as he sipped on his own mug.

“So, seeing that Merim is probably not in a state to tell me how things have been going… Taddick?”

“Mh? Which part you wanna hear? The number of times the carriages broke down, wearing our vice-captain’s patience thin?”

“No, he made that point pretty clear by himself. Did you find anything of interest in the village?”

“Ahhh… Sure did...”

Everyone’s attention turned to Taddick as he began to explain what they found.

“You remember how that roper swept clean some buildings, don’t cha? Turns out that the building had a basement. A workshop, to be precise. Wood carving tools and weird magic tools. Also plenty of scriptures praising the witch to high heaven’s and back. But the most interesting part was a book about magic.”

“... A book about magic?”

“Sure. Took a peek but sure as hell didn’t understand a lick of it. We brought it back with us, so Ria and them can take a look at it.”

“Mh…”

They found a book about magic… Was it just a regular old book about magic? Or was it about the magic the Worshippers used?

“Ria, I’d like you to take at least a short look at it after dinner.”

“Mm… sure…”

“Good. So, Taddick, what else did you find?”

“Well, after we found that basement, we scoured the place for similar places. Saw some unpleasant stuff… But everything else was clean. Nothing about the Worshippers. Just regular, old villagers. Except that none survived.”

“... I see.”

Korwen took another sip of his mug.

“It’s unfortunate what happened to them… But that workshop, do you think it was a recent addition?”

“Some stuff was so dusty, I’m sure it didn’t see a cleaning the last three decades. So no, that wasn’t a recent thing.”

“Then there was a Worshipper there since the beginning… Haa…”

“Sure seemed that way.”

Then, did they select that village because there was a Worshipper there?

“Might mean that village wasn’t a random selection. We’ll report that to Ruben. Could be important. As for the book, we’ll decide what to do with it after Ria took a look. And you found nothing else of interest?”

“The workshop had quite a few books but they were mostly very common ones with fairy tales and the like, most of them about the Witch. I think they collected anything there that had even the tiniest mention of her. There were also some books in languages I can’t read, though. Ah, but we brought all the books with us anyway. Feel free to check them. Also took the tools.”

“Good job.”

“Oh!”

Taddick grinned before biting into the meat in front of him.

“I do have to wonder, though… A village is usually not a place where you find many books… Either he must have been important, a traveller from afar or the collection was something that was gathered over generations… Then again, books about fairy tales are not exactly something that would people make you suspect as a Worshipper either…”

“Eh, most of them can’t read, so they could have been about anything.”

“But some people do. I can’t imagine the entire village being illiterate. This isn’t the empire.”

“True that. But, Cap, not like you can ask them anymore.”

“... Right.”

Korwen shook his head subtly.

“Be that as it may… How did everything else go?”

“Mostly fine. The prisoners have been docile, way too docile in my opinion. That giant woman, though. Seems she was hired muscle. Realised too late she mixed with the wrong crowd.”

“Mercenaries?”

“Nothing that formal. Handymen. Travellers who did guard jobs on the side. They were offered good money to protect the Worshippers. Didn’t work out well as one can see.”

He chugged down his ale as if he wanted to forget what had happened.

“Not going to recite half their life story. Lots of shit went down after they joined. But she knew about at least two other villages that they had… harvested before this one.”

“Is that really what they called it?”

“Seems like it. The woman’s cooperative at least, compared to the other prisoners. We got mostly insults from them or nothing at all.”

Taddick shrugged his shoulders as if he couldn’t care less.

“We tied them up and gagged them. Their nonsense hurt my head way too much. And little made sense at all.”

“Mh, and I guess the woman didn’t know what they were planning here?”

“She didn’t. She was only told the most necessary things. Heck, she didn’t even know what to do with the ogres. She said there were certain people keeping them in line but she had no idea how.”

Korwen frowned a little, seemingly disappointed there wasn’t more information.

“I see. But at least she knows something. Ruben will be glad to hear that. If she’s lucky, she might be pardoned if she helps out.”

“And if she’s not, she’ll still hang from the gallows. She still contributed to that tragedy just as much as the Worshippers.”

“But that’s not our problem.”

“Right. It isn’t.”

Both of them smiled wryly at each other before continuing.

“Well then, outside those two issues, nothing much happened. We cleaned up what could be cleaned. Buried who could be buried. After that, we… tried to prepare the corpse for transport. That was one hell of an undertaking, Cap. Merim’s got all rights to be mad.”

“And I am!” shouted Merim in agreement, visibly more intoxicated than he should be…

Sure… Anyway, first things first: The thing’s not only massive, it’s way heavier than it had all rights to be. A miracle the carriages didn’t break under that weight if ya ask me.”

He glanced to his back, where the giant mountain of a roper corpse was lying. Following his gaze, I could see Emily and the girls running around it, inspecting it with all the curiosity those children could muster.

“And Merim already said it, but Yumi’s tentacles sure made it hard on us as well. They didn’t resist or anything… But they had one hell of a grip on the corpse. We dug up half the road so we could load them on the carriage as well. When we were done, they just decided to wilt and leave behind those round mana crystals. You can believe me when I say that I was pretty mad at that point.”

“Somehow… I’m sorry…”

I didn’t know they would… make so much trouble… I should have collected them before leaving.

“It’s fine. Just, next time, you know.”

“I’ll pick them up next time first.”

“Glad to hear that. Doubt many would be willing to dig another hole for nothing the next time.”

Yeah… I could relate to that a little.

“Anyway, after we got it freed and all that stuff, we went on to collect the mana crystal. Took some time but we got it. One huge thing, I tell ya, Cap. Haven’t seen one that large since we took down that Landeater.”

“That certainly sounds large.”

Unfortunately, I had no idea how large the mana crystal of a Landeater was. What even was a Landeater in the first place? I could take a guess from the name but… Nothing good, probably.

“Right it does. Thankfully, wasn’t too hard to get it out. Ria sure carved it clean out. After the girl’s tentacles dried up, we basically only had to dig it out. We transported it with the wagon and I left some people to guard it.”

“Mh, a crystal that size invites more trouble than it is worth keeping for… We might be able to sell it to Will or Ruben. I’d rather not keep that thing around for too long. Especially since we got alternative ways for mana crystals now.”

Korwen threw a glance in my direction. Well, yeah… He’d definitely have me make more mana crystals and mana orbs.

“Anything about the corpse itself?”

“Not much I could say about it, honestly. Seemed like standard roper fare.”

“Mm… We’ll have the magic craftsmen take a look at it tomorrow.”

Standard roper fare… I had to wonder, what did they make out of regular roper materials? Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one curious.

“Mr Captain, what can be made out of a regular roper?” asked Karen.

“Mh? A regular roper, huh… I’m not an expert on this so take it with a grain of salt. The most common way and the only one I am more or less familiar with would be leather. Roper leather is very elastic and flexible while still retaining some durability as a kind of leather. It’s often used for high-class clothing. For us, it’s interesting as a material for our tents. It’s weatherproof and doesn’t degrade easily. Plus, it’s light.”

“Huh… Then, our tents...”

“We have several ones made with roper leather but most of them are made of smoked cloth or linen. We have to replace them once in a while and tents of roper leather are pretty costly.”

So that’s how it was… Made me wonder if his reception tent was made of that leather. It looked like all the others to me. I’d have to check next time.

“Mh… And what else can be made out of it?”

“Well, that’s… I heard you can make some kind of drink out of to increase a man’s vigour at night.”

“... I see.”

Ah, Karen instantly lost all interest… Well, couldn’t fault her. That wasn’t really something she was caring for.

“I heard it also works on women…”

“Really?”

“...”

So much to that loss of interest.

“Maybe. In the first place, I have never seen that myself. I mostly heard about it from my men once in a while.”

“Ahh, some of the younger rookies occasionally talk about stuff like that after they had some fun in the city. Not sure how true it is. They wouldn’t notice the difference between such a drink and plain coloured water,” added Taddick.

“Pretty much that.”

The two nodded solemnly.

“I see… Maybe we should ask Elina,” wondered Karen.

Well, Elina sure might know about that… Although, I wasn’t sure why Karen would want that. In the first place, we already knew that I could, uh, produce something similar.

Makes me wonder if we could sell that stuff…

If people were interested… But before we did that, I wanted to make sure that wasn’t actually some poison in disguise.

“Well, I think that about covers it up as far as I know, though. Either way, since roper leather is quite valuable, we stand to make a tidy profit from the corpse. Depending on how they evaluate it, it might be worth even more.”

“In other words, it’s a lot of money.”

“Right, Yumi. That it is. Together with the mana crystal, it’s an amount that’s not insignificant.”

Even if Will decided not to sell us the fort, we still profited that much from this job, huh… Korwen seemed really pleased with himself, after all. But…

“Captain, what are you planning to do with all that money?”

“Mh? Mm… That depends, honestly.”

“On Will’s decision?”

“Yes.”

As expected, huh…

“If we get a positive reply, most of the money would likely be spent on restoring the fort. After all is said and done, it has been in disuse for a long time. We’ll need stonemasons, carpenters and many other craftsmen to bring it back into shape. That’s going to need a vast sum of money. If possible, we’ll also hire an Earth magician to fix the more severely damaged parts.”

“An Earth magician? Not Ria?”

“Well…”

He glanced towards Ria who was sitting opposite of us. She just shook her head in response.

“I’m… not good… at that… type of… magic…”

“That’s… surprising.”

She was good at so many other things… I would have thought that Earth magic would be among them.

“Krutz is pretty good at Earth magic but nothing compared to a skilled Earth magician who specialises in it.”

“I see…”

So we’d have to hire craftsmen and even a magician to restore the fort… And knowing that magicians could demand exorbital sums…

“After restoring the fort, I am thinking of hiring some craftsmen on a more permanent basis. Having a place to return to also means we can hire people who do not or cannot travel. A blacksmith willing to go out is a rarity. Not only because of the troubles travelling brings with it, but also the difficulty of working in a moving workshop.”

“Huh… So it’d be possible to hire blacksmiths to work in the fort?”

“Exactly. Not only can we increase their number, but we can also provide better work tools for them. And not only blacksmiths. Tanners, weavers, bowmakers. There are quite a few I’d like to hire if possible.”

Mh… That was going to be quite a lot already.

“Well, and anything after that is still under consideration, so to speak. At the very least, I am still thinking about the details.”

“Hmm…”

But he had a plan for what would happen after that. Which was… likely to travel beyond the areas he knew of… he did mention he wanted to see the Beyond, the place north, past the ocean.

“Also, a lot of the money is also going to everyone involved. So you should think about what you use your money for as well.”

“Mh… Using our money, huh…”

There wasn’t much I really wanted… Actually, there was one thing. That pocket watch…

“I wanted to get savonette… I should talk with Elina about that, shouldn’t I?”

“If you want one, that would be a good idea… Mm… Did you have anything special in mind for it?” asked Korwen.

“Huh… Well…”

I glanced towards Karen next to me.

“We wanted to get her one that looks similar to the one I have.”

“Ahh, I see. Well, in that case, I won’t butt in.”

Apparently, he wanted to suggest something in regards to the design… Too bad, I wouldn’t budge on this. Probably.

“Well, I don’t know how good of a savonette you want, but if you want a good one, you might have a better time with that girl’s master. He’s extremely skilled as a magic craftsman. But… if you want something beyond that, you might actually want to get one in Aldreigh.”

“In Aldreigh?”

“Yes. Aldreigh has very skilled craftsmen. They also charge accordingly, though, but if you save some of your wages until then, plus the bonus, you might be able to afford it.”

“Hmm…”

But that sounded like it’d be extremely expensive…

“That sounds a little bit too much…”

“Well, I’ll leave that up to you.”

“Nn… But, we aren’t in Aldreigh anyway so…”

“The fort would be close enough to the border that you can make it to the royal capital within a week. That’s why I planned to get certain supplies from there. And even if we don’t, our next stop would be Aldreigh anyway, barring any other incidents.”

“Ohh…”

So, we’d stop by in Aldreigh next, huh… I glanced next to me, to Karen, gauging her reaction. Alas, she didn’t really react. I wasn’t sure if it was just because there was nothing to react to or if she was just hiding it.

“You should look forward to it. Aldreigh is a sight to behold.”

“Is it?”

“Yes… Lafria is in a way relatively rural and small. You could say, it’s a cosy kingdom. The empire is the exact opposite, oppressive and dark. Especially in the darker corners of it. And Aldreigh… Aldreigh is… magical.”

“Huh?”

Magical? How was I supposed to interpret that?

“Its magical technology is ahead of any other country’s and it is full of capable magicians due to the demonkin’s natural aptitude. Thanks to that, there’s no shortage of magic craftsmen and magic tools. But what really sets it apart is the fact that they use magic as a tool of art.”

“Art?”

“Yes. Statues and paintings are among the more classic examples but they also create many other things, like flowers or even trees entirely created out of a magical crystal. There’s a famous sight in the capital called the Crystal Forest. An entirely artificial forest created by magic. It’s said to be breathtaking when witnessed at either sunrise or sunset.”

“...”

A forest made of crystals… That sure sounded like something I’d like to see.

“At least, the sight of the forest itself is already beautiful enough that you can enchant even these lazybones with it, right?”

Korwen turned to the people next to him. Or, rather, towards Taddick, who was nodding in agreement. Merim was… slumped onto the desk. When the heck...

“Only saw it once but even I had to say that it was well worth the visit. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t see it at sunset back then.”

“We might get a chance this year. We’ll see.”

“Mh, if you do, I’d gladly tag along. And I imagine, many others would love to as well.”

“If we show up with a large crowd again, the authorities are just going to get angry again.”

“Ahhh, right, that would happen. We might be better off going individually or in small groups, huh...”

Was this some vacation planning now? Sure felt like it. Suddenly, Korwen and Taddick started to discuss what they should do on the next visit to Aldreigh’s capital…

Guess I won’t be getting anything out of those two anymore…

With a wry smile on the lips, I turned around to Karen.

“Hey, Sis.”

“... Yes?”

“If… If we actually go to Aldreigh…”

“... Are you worried?”

“Well, a little.”

“...”

With a smile, Karen put her arm around my waist and pulled me into her arms.

“I’ll be fine. I told you, I will become a great magician and then show my parents how I have grown. Well, that won’t happen in such a short time, though… I guess I’m a little worried… But on the other hand, I can show you around the city. Mr Captain and Mr Taddick are right, it’s a very beautiful place.”

“Hmmm… Then, I’ll have you guide me.”

“Hehehe, with pleasure.”

The Aldreighan capital… I was going to look forward to seeing it. But before that could happen, there were other things to look forward to.

“Hey, captain.”

“—ld you… Mh? What, Yumi?”

Seemingly a little annoyed that I interrupted his discussion with Taddick, Korwen turned his eyes towards me. Maybe I should have waited, after all… Too late now.

“Did you hear anything from Will again?”

“... Ahh, well… I did.”

“Oh?”

“He plans to hold a celebration the day after tomorrow. We can bring up to eight people total.”

“Eight?”

“Right. Me and Merim are obvious. Greyward will come as well. After that you two and Fenna. For the remaining two, I am not sure yet. Might invite the Elder.”

“Huh…”

So he had decided on six people to come, huh…

“We should talk with Wanda tomorrow, Yumi.”

“Nn, we definitely should.”

I could already imagine her displeasure upon hearing she only had one day left… Was it even possible to do it in that short amount of time?

“Oh right, Lady Karker is going to come tomorrow morning.”

“Oh?”

“She’ll pick up the two girls. Then, we’re done with pretty much everything here.”

“That’s good news.”

Lily and Rina would finally be released tomorrow morning, wouldn’t they? The time without those two was a little… lonely, in a way. I was happy we’d see them again tomorrow.

“It is. I’ll be glad when all of this is dealt with. Really, I prefer it when people just give us a job, telling us to slay some monster and that’s all. Even if it was profitable. Anyway, Taddick, what I was saying—”

And then he returned to his discussion with Taddick… about planning their vacation. Well, if they had fun with it.

“Guess tomorrow is going to be lively, huh…”

“What are you saying, Yumi.”

“Nn?”

“Tonight’s going to be lively as well.”

“Oh?!”

Did she mean…

“Emily and the girls aren’t going to let you sleep so easily.”

“... Right.”

Forgot about that. Sorry, Emily, Maya, Sele. Really.

“Well then… Honestly, I’m not really that tired yet, though…”

“We did wake up late.”

“Nn. We did…”

But those three would go and sleep pretty early…

“Well, more time to enjoy hugging them.”

“Yumi…”

“Nn?”

“Isn’t it you who will be hugged?”

“... Nn.”

Body pillow Yumi, at your service. I was getting used to this. And I was enjoying it. A rather conflicting feeling but in the end, since I enjoyed it, I decided to let it go.

“Well, since we’re done with dinner… How about we join those girls and take a look at the roper? I haven’t seen it from close up yet.”

“Now that you mention it. Yes, let’s do that.”

With that decided, we both stood up and then said our good night to Korwen, who was too engrossed in his vacation planning to notice, and everyone else as well. Merim was completely out now… Helma would have a hard time tending him.

Well, not my problem… For now, let’s take a look at this.

“Emily, Maya, Sele!”

We called out to the three girls and waved towards them. Noticing our approach, the three returned with an energetic waving of their own. I couldn’t help but smile at the view. Time to humour those three a little.