84 This Hero and the Problem!

"Y-You know that Kenji told us to bring money for a reason, right?" Tael finally broke the silence to state the obvious. He was clenching his fists with obvious frustration, but the way he spoke betrayed his intention to hide his concern as well.

"It's not like I didn't want to bring the money, okay? I just couldn't! It's fine! I'll just… uh…"

"I'm not gonna let you steal anything while we're here Kany." I interrupted her drawl to drop this on her. I don't want some dwarf to have to go through what I once did in the past.

"Guh!" She let out. Afterwards, she looked towards the ground once more.

It was only now that I noticed that Erana had a very stern look of disappointment on her face. Her brown eyes were obscured slightly by the shadow upon her face since her head was tilted slightly downwards to look upon Kany. For some reason, I got a chill up my spine and from what I could tell by Tael's reaction, I'm not the only one that felt this.

"Kany…" Erana slowly began. Kany bolted upwards like a scared cat that had just been cornered, while her face showed an expression that could only be described as "utter terror."

"We talked about this… Why did you not take care of such a basic task? Did you seriously spend all your money on gambling again? I can't believe you would-"

"That's not it Erana!" Kany bolted slightly towards her. A new wave of confidence that seemed to be fueled by frustration had come over her.

"Then what is it?" Erana quickly asked. Her voice like daggers as she quickly stepped forward to match the fierce gaze of her friend. Tael and I slowly backed away a few steps as to not get caught in the crossfire. I am pretty sure I am more afraid of what is about to happen than I was of the hobgoblin.

"I-It's…" Kany began to stammer. Her gaze wavered slightly as she seemed to lose focus on what had driven her before. Fortunately for Kany, it seemed as if she regained her confidence quickly after. "It's personal business! That's all! I can't tell you what it is, you just need to understand that it made it impossible for me to take 500 juns here!" She quickly finished.

"So then what was your plan? Take Kenji-san's money? He already made it clear that you can't just depend on him!"

"No! I didn't want to take Onii-san's money or anything! I didn't want to take it from tall and lanky over there either." Kany slightly motioned her head towards Tael as she said this. I looked over at Tael to see if he would retort, but it seems that he is too enamored in this conversation to interject.

"Wait, we just finished a big adventure though." I quickly interjected. Things weren't adding up. Each of us should have received at least 1250 juns each from that job. Even if we needed to purchase new gear or pay for lodging, there's no way that Kany wouldn't have even 500 juns left. Not to mention, Kany hasn't obtained new gear since I met her, so she definitely hasn't purchased anything of major value.

Tael quickly grabbed my shoulder and placed a finger over his lips as he made a loud shushing noise. "Don't add fuel to the fire! This is only gonna end badly!" He whispered sharply into my ear.

"No man! This is actually important." I turned over to the girls and wrested Tael's hand off my shoulder as I walked towards Kany and Erana. "Why didn't you bring money? Did you forget or something? It's not logically possible for you to have brought NO money. Even 100 juns would be different than none."

"It's… personal is all I can say. Look, I'm sorry. Can we please drop it? Asking about it won't fix anything anyways." Her solemn expression showed me her guilt towards this. For the first time in a very long time, I could feel my curiosity begin to wane when I looked at her. I felt like I was encroaching on something that I shouldn't. I need to choose my next words very carefully.

"Well look… we-" I began to say, but the door behind me burst open as the dwarven smith Bugder came out.

"SHUT YER YAPS, OKAY? IF YA NEED MONEY, I CAN JUST PUT IN A WORD WITH A GENERAL FRIEND OF MINE. YA CAN GO KILL SOME DEMON KING DUNKS AND GET PAID FOR IT!" He shouted out. It was only now that I remembered where we actually were.

"W-Wait… he's not saying what I think he's saying, is he Kenji?" Tael slowly shifted his gaze between me and Bugder as he asked this.

"I AM YA PODGE. NOW GO TO YER HOTEL OR WHATEVER AND WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO COME. NOW LEAVE MY DAMN FORGE OR I'LL BASH IN YER SKULLS MYSELF!" He shouted whilst brandishing a rather large hammer.

Erana gave a quiet sigh and began to head away from the smithy. The rest of us naturally began to follow her without thinking about it.

We stepped on in silence for a brief period before Kany began to speak up.

"Look… I can take this job myself, whatever it is. I'm capable. It's gonna be fine!" She spoke as if trying to reassure herself.

Erana quickly spun around and slapped Kany with the same amount of force that she slapped me with once before.

"Idiot. As IF we'd ever let you do something so dangerous on your own! We're a party. We'll do this together." Erana quickly declared. She shifted her gaze upwards towards Tael and myself after she spoke as if in an attempt to find reassurance.

"Y-Yeah… We're gonna help you." I quickly spoke, as if instinctually in response to Erana's icy gaze. I looked towards Tael to see what he would say.

"I just wanna go to the hot springs…" He quickly began to sidle away from us, but I managed to grab his robe before he shrunk away. "Aaah! Fine! Whatever! I've nearly died twice with you people. I guess I can do it again. Seriously though, why did this have to happen on my vacation?" He slumped over as he pursed his lips in a slight pout, somewhat similar to what a toddler would do after they don't get a toy they wanted.

Kany looked towards the ground as she quickly stole gazes at all of us. Though I couldn't see her face, I could tell that she held tears in her eyes. Her hands quietly shook as she raised them to wipe her face before she looked up once more at us.

"Okay. I get it. I'm sorry I did this. I'll make it up to all of you. I promise!" Kany quickly declared.

We went back to the inn and entered our rooms, only this time instead of going in to relax, we were gathering our adventuring equipment.

"God damn it… the ONE time I get away from it all…" I could hear Tael muttering to himself as he gathered his things.

"Look, complaining won't fix anything. Let's sleep or something before the general guy shows up and gives us the job. You stayed up all night, right? It'd be bad if you passed out on the mission, whatever it is." I chimed in.

"Yeah… Fine. You're right." Tael shifted himself and layed down on the bed. I also began to rest my head on the cushion that was my pillow, but then Tael quietly asked me a question.

"Do you think Kany is okay? Nobody's… hurting her or something, right?" His voice sounded less like that of someone seeking answers and more of that of someone seeking safety.

"Well… if someone is extorting her, they need to be pretty freaking strong. Kany is level 12 after all. Let's also not forget that it's know that she parties up with all of us now, so they know that messing with her means messing with us. I'm sure it's something that can be fixed… but I won't deny I am also curious." I trailed off.

Tael simply listened to me in silence as he drifted away to sleep. It seems that he passed out quickly. This isn't surprising since he's been awake for the better part of 30 hours now.

After around 5 hours, I heard a loud knock on the stone door to our room and a booming voice of a man as he began to speak.

"I am General Uthguth! I was told there were 4 adventurers here that I was going to take in for a job or two?"