The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 12, page 20
“Yeah,” Clope confirmed. “That said, I don’t know how many times it’ll be able to withstand all of that. You’re the only guy I know of who can use something as crazy as divinity-mana-spirit fusion. If there were others around, I’d be able to do more testing...but that’s wishful thinking, I s’pose. I just don’t know a single other person who can use divinity, mana, and spirit. Sorry.”
Clope’s apology sounded heartfelt, and that was a testament to what an upstanding blacksmith he was. Still, no matter how you looked at it, this was on me.
“It’s fine, really,” I said. “You’re the only blacksmith who’s patient enough to stick with an edge-case adventurer like me. You don’t have to apologize.” I was being honest about how I felt. Without Clope, I would’ve had a hard time getting my hands on suitable weapons at all.
“You think so? I can come up with a number of people off of the top of my head whose curiosity would be piqued by an edge case like you. There’s probably just something about your type that attracts my type, so you’d better not worry about it either. But if you really feel like you have to make it up to me, then bring me more interesting things to work on. I’ll take everything you’ll send my way.”
Those were reliable words. With my monster body, there were only so many people I could commission for blacksmith work without reservation. Even though as a pseudo-vampire I looked no different from a person, I lived with the constant apprehension that I could be exposed at any moment. There were precious few people whom I could trust not to turn me in if that happened—or whom I’d let myself be taken for, if they did turn me in—and Clope was one of them. If it was within my ability, I wanted to do something for him in return. That thought spurred my next words.
“I’m happy you feel that way, but I still haven’t paid you back,” I said. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know. I’ll gather as many rare materials as you want, among other things.”
I meant it too, from the bottom of my heart. Clope, however, shook his head and said, “Forget about stuff like that. Just keep letting me forge your equipment, and I’m happy. Though...I can’t say I’ll never have any jobs for you, so I’ll gladly accept your offer. You’d better not say you forgot about it when I come to collect, all right?”
I grinned at the joke. “If you’re ever in a bind, I’ll make time for you no matter how busy I am. No job’s too small, so you’d better not hold back either.”
“Do I look like someone who’d be so miserly and reserved? When the time comes, I’ll be asking you for something big, so you’d best prepare yourself!”
◆◇◆◇◆
After chatting for a while, Rentt went home with his sword in his hand and a pleased look on his face, and Clope’s wife, Luka, returned to the Three-Pronged Harpoon from her trip to the blacksmith’s guild.
“I’m back, dear.”
“Welcome back. You’re later than usual—I was worried,” Clope greeted, then noticed that his wife’s usual smile was gone in favor of a troubled expression. “What’s got you looking like that? Did something happen?”
“Well...take a look, dear...” Luka held out a letter.
Clope took it, broke the seal, and carefully read the contents. When he was done, he nodded. “It’ll be a little difficult to ask him about this after what I just said...but maybe this came at just the right time,” he mused. “Looks like I’ll be taking Rentt up on his offer sooner than I expected.”
Chapter 6: A Certain Request
The next day, I went to the guild.
Why, you ask? Simple: I planned to test out the new sword I’d picked up from Clope yesterday in the Water Moon Dungeon, and since going without taking any jobs would be kind of a waste, I had come to find one that would let me kill two birds with one stone—the birds in this case being testing out my new weapon and earning some coin in the process.
I wondered if I’d ever shake off my thrifty personality. None of the progress I’d made so far had caused it to change...
“Two liters of slime fluid... Three skeleton magic crystals... Mmm, one of these will probably do.”
The monsters that spawned in the Water Moon Dungeon were all bottom feeders: slimes, skeletons, and goblins. There were other types too, but those were the main ones, and it was thanks to them that I’d been able to earn a living back when I was human.
Since I owed them, in a sense, a small part of me wondered if using them as the inaugural opponents for my sword was bad karma or something, but I didn’t have much of a choice. That was just the kind of job that adventuring was. Besides, leaving them alone to multiply would just lead to problems.
Depending on where you went in the world, you could find goblins interacting peacefully with humans, but almost every specimen that you encountered in dungeons attacked people on sight. There was no need to show them any mercy...though I would feel pretty bad if any of them turned out to be like I’d been at the start of my monster life.
I wondered how likely that was, and whether any of the monsters I had ever killed had been like me. That line of thought put a damper on my mood though, so I decided to stop pursuing it any further.
“I guess I can take this... Ah.” I didn’t particularly mind which job I accepted, so I went to take one for collecting slime fluid, but another adventurer beat me to it.
“Sorry...” he apologized, after we stared at each other for a moment.
“No...it’s fine,” I said.
From the look of things, he had taken the job first and only noticed my outstretched hand after turning around. That being said, it didn’t look like he was willing to go as far as handing it over—he promptly strode away to reception.
I supposed I had no choice now. My camaraderie with skeletons from being members of the same evolutionary line had stayed my hand from proactively using them as a money-making resource, but that courtesy only stretched so far. I reached my hand out for the commission slip...
“Huh?”
“Oh, sorry, mister. We’ll be taking this one, so...”
“R-Right...”
This time, it was a party of three women who beat me to it. Since I didn’t recognize them, I gave them a cursory glance: their equipment marked them as students of the Academy.
Since they’d based themselves in this town to survey the dungeon, more than a few of the students had probably taken up adventuring in the meantime, even though it wasn’t their main profession. I’d heard that a decent fraction of the Academy’s students registered as adventurers and went out on jobs while they were still enrolled. They were rather valuable too, since all of them were mages. As a result, the guild gave them a warm enough welcome. Still, compared to people who were adventurers as their main trade, they were lacking in some respects. That was why the people from the Academy hired local Maalt adventurers when foraying into the dungeon for their research.
The party of women left without a backward glance and headed toward reception. I was at a bit of a loss now that the jobs I had been eyeing had been taken. It didn’t help that I’d left the house somewhat late in the day since I hadn’t been particularly desperate for a job—testing my new sword out on monsters was my primary goal.
There weren’t many commissions left on the board, and the ones that were there didn’t match what I needed. They were all jobs along the lines of “I need flowers that only grow on the cliffs of Gist Gorge.” And while you could find monsters in all kinds of places, I was fairly sure I remembered that the ones in that area were mostly of the flying variety, and not the skeletons that I wanted to try my sword on.
It was difficult for undead to spawn in the Kingdom of Yaaran in the first place. That was actually a major reason I’d so easily accepted the explanation for it that I’d been given in the royal palace. Dungeons weren’t privy to such restrictions, of course—undead spawned in the Water Moon Dungeon on the regular.
Still, undead did still show up occasionally throughout the kingdom, which was something I would have known even if Her Royal Highness the princess hadn’t told us about it. I encountered them outside of dungeons decently often, such as when we’d run into zombies stumbling out of the woods on our way to my hometown of Hathara.
I toyed with the idea of heading out in that direction for a moment, but they’d already all been wiped out to the last, and it was so far away too...
I supposed it had to be the dungeon after all. My inner coin-pincher protested at what a waste it was to go there without taking any jobs, but sometimes that was just how things worked out. But then, just as I was about to surrender the issue...
“What? What do you mean?! This amount was fine before! How am I supposed to raise it on such short notice?!”
I heard a raised voice from over by reception. When I turned to look, I saw Sheila and a young man who looked to be pleading with her. He was considerably roughed up, his clothes torn; I wondered what had done that to him. Curious, I stayed around to listen to their conversation.
“You’re certainly right...but that was the case before a new dungeon formed in town,” Sheila said. I could hear from her tone how much she sympathized with the young man. “Maalt’s adventurers are currently in rather high demand, with all the commissions from the Tower and the Academy coming in. With this much as your offered payment, I doubt any adventurers will accept the job. The guild is still happy to process it, of course, but I’m afraid you’ll need to temper your expectations when it comes to whether anyone will take it...”
Maalt was way out in the sticks—we didn’t have that many adventurers. Despite this, we’d suddenly found ourselves in circumstances where a great many of us were needed. In short, demand was high, and supply was low.
Currently the guild was relatively deserted, as the majority of adventurers were out on jobs. Before the new dungeon had formed, it hadn’t been unusual to see adventurers sitting around here in twos and threes, drinking themselves blind.
Some clients would feel the effects of that change firsthand and find themselves unable to afford the hike in the market rate for a commission fee—and it appeared that this young man was one such individual.
I had the option of just ignoring him...but, well, the timing was convenient. I’d been unlucky too, having my commissions taken, so maybe it wasn’t a bad idea for birds of a feather to lick one another’s wounds...
With that in mind, I walked over to where Sheila and the young man were.
◆◇◆◇◆
“I couldn’t help but hear all the fuss,” I said, my expression feigning innocence. “Did something happen?”
“Rentt...” Sheila looked like she had already figured out that I’d been listening in.
The young man, on the other hand, turned a suspicious eye on me, but that melted away when he saw my skull mask and cloak. “Are you...an adventurer? Please, you have to hear me out!”
I was actually impressed that he’d managed to pin me as an adventurer so quickly, given my appearance...
Well, come to think of it, a guy who looked like me loitering around in a guild probably couldn’t be anything but an adventurer, huh? A lot of us did wear masks and all.
That aside, the young man seemed rather desperate.
“Master Rivul,” Sheila chided gently. “As a rule, adventurers have the right to decide which jobs they do or do not accept. Please don’t try to strong-arm them.”
Sheila’s warning probably would have been stronger if I hadn’t approached of my own accord, but she seemed to recognize that I had come over with an idea of what was going on.
While clients were an indispensable fact of life for adventurers, that didn’t give them the right to command us to do any task or push us into accepting any job. On those grounds, it was an established rule that clients could not coerce adventurers, and the guild protected us from them to a certain degree.
That protection had its limits, of course, and it was always judged on a case-by-case basis, so things often got hazy. In a sense, though, that was very guild-like.
With all that said, Maalt’s guild was reputable in that regard—probably because Wolf was the guildmaster. It was a blessing to have a capable boss. If only he didn’t send strange jobs my way every now and then...
I could save the contemplation for another time though—right now, I needed to focus on what the young man—Rivul, according to Sheila—had to say.
“Well, I just so happen to have found myself with some free time,” I said. “I got beaten to the commissions I wanted to take...but it doesn’t feel right to leave without any either. I can’t make any promises, but I can hear you out at least.”
Rivul’s desperate expression relaxed a little, and his grin lit up the room. “Really?! Thank you! Thank you so much!”
◆◇◆◇◆
Rivul and I moved to a new location, taking a seat at one of the tables in the tavern that was attached to the guild. Sheila had told us to call her over if I decided to accept his job and went elsewhere to start on some other work. It seemed like she had mainly been on reception duty today, but while in the old Maalt she wouldn’t have needed to do much else, that just wasn’t the case these days. There were piles of work to get through, and it was the responsibility of any free hands to assist, regardless of their department.
No wonder Wolf was trying to enlist my help too—and were those dark circles I’d seen under Sheila’s eyes earlier?
I decided to forget about all of that. Any further thinking in that direction felt like it would result in me deciding to help them out. I offered a silent prayer that the guild employees would be able to get time off soon...
“So, Rivul, right?” I began. Since I hadn’t heard the specifics, I figured that would be where I’d start. “What kind of job do you want done? It sounded like Sheila—uh, the guild clerk turned it down, or maybe said something about nobody accepting it.”
Rivul gave me a strained smile. “Ah, you heard? Yes, that’s essentially what she told me. I’m looking to hire someone to eliminate the skeletons that have appeared around my village. I thought I’d find somebody right away, but it looks like I was mistaken...”
Skeletons.
My heart stirred a little. They were just the opponents I had been looking for to try out my new sword. It was a good chance to find out what would happen if I tried to cut them with a divinity-charged blade. I’d hate to find out it had no effect...but if that happened, all I’d be able to do was throw my hands up. At least I’d learn that it was pointless.
In any case, Rivul’s story sounded like just the right thing for both of my needs: trying out my new sword and taking a commission. I knew that it wouldn’t have sounded so favorable to other adventurers though—skeletons weren’t particularly lucrative targets. They were bottom-rank monsters that could always be found in the Water Moon Dungeon, and all you could get from them were magic crystals and slightly tougher bones. There was no real reason to travel any farther out to hunt them.
Still, someone likely would have accepted the job...if it had been before the new dungeon formed in Maalt, that is. Even if it wasn’t a sizable profit, the commission payment Rivul was offering was still much more than what simply hunting skeletons and selling their materials on your own would give you. For a low-ranked adventurer, his job had plenty of incentive.
In Maalt’s current state, though, even the low-ranked adventurers were benefiting from the profitable jobs offered by the Tower and the Academy. What would have been a perfectly decent commission in the past just wasn’t as attractive now. I didn’t think this state of affairs would go on forever, but for the time being, Maalt’s adventurers were experiencing a small economic bubble.
As a result, even if Rivul put his commission up, nobody would give it a second glance.
“Well...you were just unlucky,” I consoled. “Days like these happen. I’m having something of one myself, really. Just a few minutes ago the commissions I was going to take were all snapped up by other adventurers one after the other. That usually never happens, but that’s life for you.”
“Maybe you’re right about that,” Rivul agreed.
We shared a moment of downcast commiseration with each other. Afterward, though, I raised my head. “Still, it has to be some twist of fate that us fellow victims of bad luck met today. That was why I figured I’d hear you out. See? It’s not all bad.”
“Oh, is that why? In that case, um...”
“Rentt.”
“In that case, Rentt, I guess I need to thank your bad luck...though I’m not sure if you’ll accept my request or not yet.”
“It’ll depend on the details. Just knowing it’s a skeleton hunt doesn’t tell me much. Could you give me the full story?”
“Of course.” After a moment, Rivul launched into the beginning of his story. “The village I live...well, lived in had nothing special going for it, but it was peaceful and quiet...”
◆◇◆◇◆
According to Rivul, although his village didn’t have much, they weren’t utterly destitute either. They always had stores prepared to get them through winter or a poor harvest, and while they never experienced any drastic improvements in their lives, they were happy. Their population numbered fewer than a hundred, and the village only consisted of not even twenty small houses, but they had still been able to get by because of the relatively low rate of monster appearances in the region.
“Where is your village, by the way?” I asked.
“Crask Village is about a day’s travel west from Maalt, along the Neris River... Yes, around here.” Rivul nodded and pointed out a spot on the map I’d unfurled while he’d been speaking.
I knew most of the villages and towns around Maalt off of the top of my head, but not this one. “I haven’t heard of a ‘Crask Village’ before,” I remarked. “And I try my best to stay updated regarding the nearby villages on a regular basis...”
“Nobody from the village really ever goes to Maalt,” Rivul explained, after a moment’s consideration. “We handle the trade of all of our produce and local specialties through traveling merchants too, so I doubt anyone’s really heard of us. We have everything we need, so...I guess we never really dealt with others much. Maybe a little bit with one of the nearby towns, but...”
