Chapter 16 – In trouble
After that, we were able to pass through the forest without incident.
We joined up with the other children, and everyone was happy that Cyan was safe.
Apparently, they all wanted to help her out, but were too scared to move, so Lars ended up being the only one who went to help her.
Cyan then explained that I came to rescue her, and everyone thanked me… It was a bit embarrassing to receive such straight-forward words of thanks.
“You really did save me though. You’re strong.” Cyan told me.
“Ah, well, I’m just a bit good at magic…” I muttered.
After a short while talking to everyone like that, we started moving back to town.
While everyone was chit-chatting about all sorts of things, Lars started speaking to me.
He seemed to be a bit apologetic, but his eyes were also sparkling with something that seemed to be admiration, “I’m sorry for yelling at you like that.” he told me.
He had always been yelling at me before, so being spoken at normally like this felt a bit unusual.
“You don’t need to apologize. What you said was not wrong.” I replied.
There is nothing wrong with being careful. Even if his methods didn’t earn much money, they were the best way available to him that would let him stay alive.
Besides, I think it’s a lot better to earn a small amount of money each day, than to try earning big, getting seriously injured, then needing to pay for some expensive treatment.
Well, perhaps he was excessively cautious with the well-being of other people though…
In any case, while we were returning to the city, Lars told me his story.
Apparently, he used to live in an orphanage within the town of Marine.
The orphanage was very poor and the children there were always hungry.
Therefore, Lars, who was the eldest, became an adventurer in order to improve the lives of the children there, even if just a little.
He doesn’t earn much as an adventurer, but he donates whatever he can to the orphanage.
Some of the orphans were inspired by his actions and became adventurers too, so they now live together as a party.
Since Lars is the eldest, he seems to be acting as a leader and is keeping all the children together.
They’re renting a cheap house for them all, and in addition to collecting medicinal herbs, they all work together to do chores all over town to earn some extra income.
After all, Lars is truly a serious and hardworking boy. He is much more determined than I am.
… I’m looking at him as if he was a younger boy, aren’t I? Even though he is clearly older than me, and as far as appearance goes, he probably looks about twice my age.
Either way, after Lars finished telling me his story, he asked me about myself, but before I could say anything, we arrived at the guild.
Lars and the other children were going to report later, after they reunited with the children who were working elsewhere, so I decided to deliver the herbs and monster corpses that I collected first.
I can’t make much money from herb collection if I spend most of my time making potions, but I’m still getting enough to pay for lodging, so it’s fine. It’s not like I want to purchase anything in particular anyways.
Well then, let’s go to the tavern first and foremost.
I don’t want to drink alcohol, but I want to have the tavern keeper look at the potions I made.
I don’t know if it’s part of their job to analyze potions, but since they sell potions, they’re probably able to judge if a potion is good or not.
So, I took a potion out of my Storage and started trotting ahead.
I’ve already confirmed that it was effective, so if the tavern keeper recognizes this as a proper potion, I will consider selling.
Oh, and since I was able to make a low-level potion already, I’d like to try working with medium-level and high-level potions next.
I was thinking about this kind of thing as I trotted towards the counter.
But then, I bumped my leg onto something, lost my balance, and fell down.
The impact made the potion I was carrying fly away, hit the floor, and start spilling its contents out.
Ah, the bottle is fragile because I made it myself. I suppose it’s nice that I learned this now instead of later.
I got up, lightly tapped my clothes to get any dust out, then looked back to see what I bumped onto.
There was a middle-aged man there, sitting with his leg sticking out.
I could tell at a glance that his leg was purposefully put in my way, he deliberately made me fall.
“Oh, I’m sorry, miss. I broke one of your important potions.” The old man said that, but I could see that his eyes were glaring at me, and they were filled with hatred.
This was the first time I have ever met this old man though, so why? Did I do anything that bothered him?
“But it’s your fault, isn’t it, miss? I don’t know what kind of cheating you’re doing, but you somehow catch monsters all the time, and you make easy money from them.
“When I bring the same kind of prey you do, I am only paid half the price, you know?” The old man told me.
Well, that was probably because he brought prey in poor condition, but I didn’t tell him that and remained silent instead.
Essentially, this old man seems to be taking his frustrations out on me.
From what I can see, he is a middle-aged fat old man, but he also wears a sword on his waist and is wearing something that looks like leather armor, so he should be a proper adventurer.
However, his face is red, and he seems to be drinking beer… Or rather, he is probably completely drunk.
“Being an adventurer isn’t a job where you can easily earn money at, you know? We have to go and carry our own prey back because we can’t use stuff like Storage. You know that, brat?
“If I could use stuff like Storage, even I would be able to make way more money. Don’t get carried away, brat.” He brought his face closer to me and raised his voice as he kept on speaking.
Moreover, he was spitting as he spoke, some of it even landed on my face… It was disgusting. He smelled like alcohol and was now getting this smell stuck on me. Gross. Absolutely gross. Why are you talking about work while being this drunk?
[Hey, Haku, mind if I take care of this?] Aria asked me telepathically.
[Please don’t. Just try to be patient?] I replied.
Aria’s voice was extremely cold, but I’d prefer it if she didn’t get involved.
Fundamentally speaking, this guy is just venting his frustration and releasing his stress, so this should end soon if I just listen to him without doing anything.
So, I kept on watching him with a cold expression, hoping that this would end already.
… The old man didn’t seem to like it though. He hit his mug hard on the table, then stood up.
“I don’t get it! It’s annoying to look at you!” He exclaimed and raised his fist.
I immediately applied body strengthening magic to my arms and crossed them above my head, to protect myself from the incoming blow.
I could have tried to apply the body strengthening magic to my legs and jump away, but there are tables and guests around, and I don’t wanna clash with them while avoiding this old man’s punch, so it’s better to just protect myself instead.
That’s what I thought as I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.
However, no matter how much time I waited, no impact came.
I opened my eyes and questioningly looked up, trying to see what had happened… And then, I saw a younger man holding the old man’s arm.
“Hey, stop it, old man.” The helpful man said.
“Hah!? The hell you doing!?” The old man exclaimed and tried to shake his arm off.
But the younger man had an unexpectedly strong grip, so the old man could not get away from it.
I recognized the younger man. It was Ryuk. The adventurer on his 20s that helped me a lot back when I was trying to register at the guild.
“Old man, do you even understand what you’re doing?” Ryuk asked him.
“Shut up! This has nothing to do with you, bastard!” The old man replied.
“Oh really? Why don’t you look around for a bit?” Ryuk told him.
The tavern, which had been quite busy and noisy this evening, was now dead silent. Everyone was staring at the old man, and their eyes were filled with disdain.
The old man seemed to have finally realized the gravity of the situation, so he clicked his tongue and lowered his arm.
Seeing that, Ryuk let go of the old man.
“I’ll remember this.” The old man spat out, then left the guild.
At the same time, I could hear people say things like, ‘awwwn’ and ‘how lovely’ towards Ryuk.
Seems like the act of helping a young girl in trouble made people get a good impression of Ryuk.
He didn’t seem to pay much attention to that though, instead he reached out to me and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m okay. Thank you for the help, Ryuk.” I replied.
“Well, the little ones over there asked me to.” Ryuk glanced towards the guild’s entrance.
When I followed his gaze, I noticed Lars and the others waving at me.
I see. They saw that I was in trouble, so they asked for reinforcements.
I waved back to them in gratitude, and Lars’ face turned a bit red when I did that, for some reason.
“Well, if I saw you in trouble, I’d help you out even without anybody asking, missie.” Ryuk told me.
“Why are you here, Ryuk?” I asked him. It was a bit of a coincidence that he arrived just at the right time, after all.
“I was on my way back from a request. Some orcs were sighted near the river, so me and a few other adventurers were hunting them.” Ryuk explained.
I see, so he saw me in trouble just as he came back to report, then.
Ryuk then started picked up the pieces of the small bottle that had fallen on the ground, his expression clearly showed sadness in it, “It’s thoroughly broken… The potion was expensive, wasn’t it?”
“Ah, not really. I made it myself, so it didn’t really cost me.” I replied.
“… You made it? A potion? You can do that too, missie?” Ryuk asked.
“Y-yes… Wait, actually, are you good at analyzing potions, Ryuk? I’d like to take a look at it if you can.” I took out a potion from my Storage and gave it to Ryuk.
One may have been broken, but I made a few of them, so that’s not really a problem.
After receiving the potion, Ryuk stared at the bottle for a small while, then turned his gaze towards me, “That’s the potion you made, missie?”
“Yes, it is.” I nodded.
“The shape of the vial is a bit different from normal, but it certainly does look like a potion… Missie, can you lend this to me for a bit?” He asked me.
“Eh? Okay. I don’t mind it.” I replied.
Ryuk then went to the counter with the potion in his hand, showed it to the tavern keeper, then started talking about it.
I was planning on doing that myself, but if the tavern keeper will listen to Ryuk more easily than to me, then he is saving me the trouble of explaining things myself.
He talked for a while, occasionally pointed towards me, then eventually came back.
“Thanks for waiting, missie. This is definitely a low-level recovery potion. The tavern keeper has a good eye for this, and they assured me of it.” Ryuk told me.
“Really? That’s pretty nice to hear. I was confident in the potion, but I was worried if I’d be able to sell it.” I replied.
“You’re planning on selling it? Then you should talk to the tavern keeper about it. If it’s a good potion, then they’ll buy it for a reasonable price.” Ryuk said.
Oh, I’m glad to hear that.
I wonder how much it will sell for… I wouldn’t mind selling them now, but I think I’d rather sell them in bulk later.
Moreover, I want to go take a bath now, as the stink of alcohol has truly stuck to me.
So, I thanked Ryuk and left the guild.