CH 6

“Coming back with a ‘flower in each hand’ uh? Where did you go to hit on girls?”

Just do your job. Shouldn’t you ask us for our guild cards first to check if we can go in?

Is that the first thing you say when people get here?

I silently hand him my guild card, and the gatekeeper checks it without complaining.

Isn’t being too friendly a problem? Is he just bored because no one else is here right now? Is he actually just jealous because he’s single? It’s not like we’re close or anything.

The two girls silently enter the city too.

“Let’s go to the adventurer guild first. We’ll thank you for helping us afterwards.”

We enter the guild together, and I feel a lot of eyes on us.

I’ve been here a few times, but this never happened before.

Hm… Are we drawing attention because we’re a strange group? There’s nothing wrong about that, so I wish the death stares would stop.

“See you later.”

Says Rurika, seemingly not bothered at all, and I feel the atmosphere here get worse.

And I just accepted a simple quest too…

“I have the medicinal herbs.”

I deliver the medicinal herbs I picked to Mikaru.

The quest is about delivering a set of ten medicinal herbs, so if I deliver more sets of ten, it’s like I completed more quests.

This type of medicinal herb is used to make potions, so there’s always an active quest to gather them.

This means that if I accept a quest to take down ten wolves, but take down thirty, it still only counts as that one quest to take down ten. Of course, magic stones and materials can still be sold.

“Why were those two with you?”

So someone’s curious over here too. Her eyes are brimming with interest.

“Ah… I was in the place that was recommended to me to pick medicinal herbs, and we bumped into each other when they were being chased by wolves.”

“Chased by wolves?”

Mikaru sounds surprised, because she knows the duo of Rurika and Chris is pretty strong.

The adventurers that are listening in on our conversation also look surprised, and the guild suddenly becomes noisy.

Guild employees that are talking to Rurika and Chris run to the back of the guild, and after a while come back with a man.

The adventurers all go quiet when they see him, and everyone’s eyes are drawn to this man.

“Can you explain it to me again?”

His demeanor is soft, but his eyes are sharp.

In the completely silent guild, Rurika’s voice echoes. And when she’s done talking, the guild becomes noisy again.

There’s a pack of wolves in the forest relatively close to the city.

This is dangerous for adventurers and requires special attention, especially since that forest is visited by a lot of novice adventurers looking for medicinal herbs.

The man stands up and starts giving instructions.

A few parties that were taking a break here in the guild also request to participate, and some guild employees run outside to alert the other guilds and contact the gatekeepers.

“We can leave the rest to the guild master. Let’s go sell the wolves.”

Rurika comes to me after she’s done talking, and the three of us go to the purchasing counter.

No one is looking at us anymore, even though we’re walking together. Was that information that shocking? Everyone seems busy. I’m guessing they’re happy because they know why we’re together in the first place too.

As I expected, they assess the materials and tell me the materials from the wolves I took apart are bad.

I try to tell myself it’s normal for a beginner, to encourage myself.

I receive half the reward for the materials. I ask them why we’re not splitting it three ways, but Rurika tells me not to worry about it.

She says a beginner should just take what he can, and that they’ll buy me dinner to thank them.

I go back to the inn, leave my equipment there, and head to an inn they told me about. But before I leave, I make sure to tell the innkeeper I’m not eating here tonight. If I tell her ahead of time, I get a free lunch some other day, since I’m skipping dinner.

I was told this after coming back to the inn to have lunch while I was doing delivery quests.

Apparently the fact that I’m paying for multiple days in a row has an effect on this too.

I think she feels like if she gives me perks like this, I’ll pay for multiple nights straight again. She has a strong merchant spirit.

I reach the inn I was told about, and stop abruptly.

Part of it is because it’s close to the center of the city I guess, but it’s completely different from the inn I’m staying in. The outer walls are all painted, and the whole place exudes cleanliness.

The first floor is a dining hall, but all the tables are neatly lined up, and there’s enough space between them. I feel like it wouldn’t be cramped even if the place was full.

When I say why I’m here, I’m taken to a private room.

After waiting for a bit, Rurika and Chris enter too. Chris is still wearing her hood.

“Thanks for waiting. I ordered some food, but is there anything you want to eat? Or can’t eat?”

I don’t really understand, so I leave it to them.

If I don’t like it, I’ll think about it then. I’m not going to get anything out of the menu either. There’s a lot of ingredients in this world I still don’t understand.