Chapter 85: The City of Dharz

Chapter 85: The City of Dharz

「Leaving.」

「Take care of yourselves out there.」

『Are you sure it’s okay for us to leave you with all that stuff to do?』

「I mind not. The tasks you have left me are but ones that come with the profession.」

Jean’s healed up quite a bit over the course of the past few days. He’s finally able to walk again, though he does still need to borrow Bernado’s shoulder.

Jean said that he would handle all the administrative stuff that needed to be done. More specifically, he was going to report the matter to both the guild and country by handing the diary off to the proper authorities. He was also going to go purify the parts of the floating island that broke off and fell once he was done with all the paperwork and whatnot. He said that we didn’t have to worry about it because we were still in the midst of a journey. He had time, and though I was somewhat inclined to disagree, he insisted we didn’t.

That said, I was pretty grateful that he was willing to go out and handle it all. At the very least, I’ll make sure I properly dispose of the giant slabs of rock sitting around in my dimensional storage. According to Jean, we should be able to just dump them in a volcano or anywhere else that’s heavy on the earth element. If we just did that, the malevolent spirits possessing the rocks would naturally go away. Other possible places we could dump them included the bottom of the ocean, the interior of a canyon, or really anything along those lines.

「And with that out of the way, I bid you farewell.」

「Nn. Later.」

「Woof!」

『Take care of yourself!』

Fran got on Urushi’s back. We took off immediately after saying our goodbyes.

「Come back and visit some day. You will always be welcome here.」

We moved so quickly that the laboratory seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye.

『He was a pretty good guy.』

「Nn.」

『We really should come back and visit him some time down the line.』

「Woof woof!」

If we stayed on schedule, we would’ve long departed Dharz and gotten on a southbound ship, but we’d yet to reach the city. Luckily, things were looking up. There were no longer any obstacles between us and the city.

I sank into thought as we travelled.

Was that lich... really a lich? Well, I mean I guess it technically was, but, I mean like... who exactly did we fight? Did we fight the person who wrote the diary or his other personality?

I mean, it seemed to me that the whole reason his personality got all twisted was because of the Furnace of Malice or whatever it was it called, but, we ended up destroying said furnace. I’m pretty sure the “evil” lich had control before we destroyed the furnace, but what about after?

Would we have been able to survive if the Lich had really gone all out? Did he hold back in the end, or...?

Well, no point thinking about it now. It’s not like I’m actually going to be able to come to a conclusion.

「Master?」

『So which lich were we really facing in the end...?』

「Nn?」

『No, it’s nothing. I’m just glad that both that Lich and Stephan were able to pass on.』

「Nn.」

Two days passed by in the blink of an eye.

The portside city of Dharz was finally within our sights.

『I can see it!』

「Ooohh!!」

Our view of the city expanded as we climbed a hill. The sight that awaited us at its peak was a magnificent one, an ocean that glimmered a brilliant sapphire alongside a beautiful portside city. Though the city itself was a bit smaller than Alessa, it carried with it an air of elegance. Its docks were filled with ships of all shapes and sizes, it almost looked like it came right out of a painting.

「Woof woof woof!」

『What’s the matter Urushi?』

「Sea. Happy.」

『Oh, right, now that you mention it, I don’t think he’s ever seen the ocean before.』

「Bark!」

『Alright, in that case, why don’t we head on over to the beach in a bit?』

「Woof!」

Urushi began rapidly wagging his tail back and forth. He seemed really excited.

「Fun.」

『Really?』

「Nn. Never been to the beach before.」

And that was pretty much how everyone’s reactions went — not that it mattered. Mojh, the receptionist guy, had already verified the card’s integrity.

Annoyingly enough, the other adventurers wouldn’t shut up about it at all, so we weren’t able to actually get anywhere though.

「Still buying?」

「Right. My bad. You’re the real thing, so I can buy whatever you’ve got.」

「Nn. That spot ok?」

「Sure.」

Fran completely ignored all the other adventurers despite the fact that they were making a huge fuss and headed straight towards the Material Exchange Counter. She began placing materials on top of the leather sheet they used for material exchange.

Specifically, she first placed all the materials from the 10 or so lesser magic beasts we encountered on our way here before following with a few of the things we picked up from the undead within the lich’s dungeon.

We didn’t sell all of the materials we got from said dungeon because some could be used to mix potions and the like. The only ones we sold were the ones that couldn’t be used for anything but armour.

The more materials she piled on, the louder the adventurers got, but after the pile reached a certain height, their excitement started to die down; the boisterous noise was rapidly replaced by low murmurs.

And by the time she started pulling out materials from rank D magic beasts, everyone had stopped talking altogether. The room had gone silent.

「That’s all.」

「...」

「Nn?」

「...」

「Hello?」

「Sorry... I was just a bit surprised is all.」

「Transaction.」

「I’ll get right to it, but there’s a lot I have to go through. It should take about an hour to process. Would you mind waiting, or...?」

(What now?)

『Let’s try asking him for a room or something.』

(Got it.)

And so, Fran asked Mojh about inns that might still have vacancies, only to receive a... less than favourable answer.

「It’s fairly difficult to get your hands on a room round this time of the season.」

「Why?」

「As I’m sure you know, the Lunar Banquet is coming up soon.」

「Nn.」

「So, yeah, that. It’s something that happens every season. Barbra holds a huge festival every third month, and as a result, many folks tend to gather here in order to head over via boat. Thanks to that, the inns always end up booked completely full.」

「Ohh...」

Crap, it looks like we actually might have to end up camping out somewhere.

Fran seemed to know what this Lunar Banquet thing was, so I guess it’s probably one of this world’s regular festivities.

『Hey Fran, what’s this Lunar Banquet thing?』

(Festival.)

『Well, I mean I figured that much.』

(Full moon.)

『But aren’t full moons kinda like normal?』

(Only during the banquet.)

I tried to make sense of what Fran told me.

The Lunar Banquet is something that only happens once every 3 months.

This world has seven different moons. There was one large one, and six smaller ones. Apparently, the only time you’d ever be able to see all seven at once with the big one full was during the festival.

If it only happens once every three months, then I guess that means they only get “full” moons four times a year.

Oh! I get it now. The date marked on the calendar we found in Alessa was supposed to denote for the Lunar Banquet.

Today’s the twenty sixth, so that means there should be five more days until it happens.

Instead of sitting around inside the guild and just waiting the whole process out, we decided to visit a few more inns in the meantime. Unfortunately, all of the ten odd inns we visited were booked to the brim. The only rooms that were left over were reserved for nobles and the like.

What a pain in the ass...

『Looks like we didn’t manage to find anything yet... Oh well, it can’t really be helped. Let’s head back over to the guild for now so we can grab the cash they owe us.』

「Nn.」

Worse comes to worst, we’ll ask the guild to let us borrow like one of their tavern’s corners or something.