Ch.109Eastern Harbor: Gibson’s Port (4)

“Hey there. Any progress?”

The one who greeted us was Chief Inspector Graham.

Looking at the clock tower, it was already 27 o’clock. Master Saburo was gradually beginning to cower before his wife, while the children of the sun were boosting their immunity with liquid caffeine (coffee, that is) in hand, determined not to yield to the comfort of the moon.

“Unfortunately, there were no survivors.”

“Well… can’t be helped. So? Did you uncover what happened?”

I approached Chief Inspector Graham, who called over one of the police officers warming themselves by a nearby campfire to serve as a scribe.

“It was the Sahageen.”

“Sahageen? Those water-dwelling monsters?”

“Yes. The end of the cave connects to the seabed. The Sahageen had made their nest there. The victims either fled or fought against the endless waves of Sahageen, but…”

“Tsk… So? Did you find the bodies?”

“We found them, but… we couldn’t find any bodies that could be identified. They were either decomposed, eaten… generally too damaged.”

After I said that, Chief Inspector Graham sighed briefly, then poured himself another cup of coffee and dumped sugar into it.

He’d be drinking something sweeter than sugar water at this rate, but I had no intention of scolding him.

“Haaah…”

After draining the cup in one go, Chief Inspector Graham crumpled the paper cup and tossed it to the ground, then placed his hands on his hips as if in frustration.

“Damn it. Not a single survivor.”

“I’m sorry. There was nothing we could do.”

“I’m not blaming you specifically. It’s just… frustrating that we were too late. Unlike you adventurers, we police are helpless against monsters… We can chase away wild dogs or wolf packs, but Sahageen? Damn it all…”

Chief Inspector Graham rubbed his eyes and gestured to his subordinates to remove the blockade.

The taut police line sagged and collapsed, and I stared at it blankly.

“By the way, how did your party manage to survive?”

“We collapsed the ceiling with magic. We almost got buried ourselves, but well, we survived in the end.”

“Ha. Magic.”

He looked at Simon with envious eyes for a moment.

“We need more mages too…”

“Why not hire some?”

“Budget’s too tight. Those mage bastards have such inflated egos that you need to pay them at least three times the minimum wage to hire them.”

“Huh.”

The world was ruled by budgets.

Even Partishal’s police force had few mages, with most officers subduing criminals through sheer force while equipped with police gear.

The budget allowed for the Gibson’s Port police, which wasn’t even a tenth the size of Partishal’s, was predictably limited.

“That’s all then. I have no more questions.”

“You need to stamp the request form, don’t you?”

“Ah.”

When I held out the request form, he rummaged through his pocket for a pen and wrote “Request Completed” on it.

I tucked the form with its excellent inscription back into my pocket and headed toward the Adventurers’ Guild as the police officers gradually withdrew.

*

“Yes, I’ve confirmed the request completion. I’ll process your payment, so please wait a moment.”

“Hmm.”

The reward for this request was a whopping 10 gold coins.

Advancing to Silver rank definitely increased the average compensation significantly. It felt quite strange to be casually receiving this gold when I used to tremble at the mere sight of a single gold coin.

Of course, this particular request paid well because three teams had been wiped out without a trace, it happened in a wealthy district with good funding, and the police wanted the case resolved quickly. Still, 10 gold coins was nothing to scoff at anywhere.

“Here, one gold coin each.”

I distributed three gold coins to Simon, Lucia, and Kasia.

Simon silently placed his in his spatial storage, while Lucia and Kasia started giggling about what they would do with theirs.

“It’s already 30 o’clock. Let’s head back to the inn and get something to eat. Good work today, everyone.”

“Hehehe… how many bottles of alcohol can I get with one gold coin…?”

“Keep converting everything to alcohol and you’ll die young.”

“Even if I die now, I’ll still have lived longer than some people.”

“If you want a short life by elven standards, just listen to me.”

I smacked the head of the elf who was trying to convert everything to alcohol, then led my companions toward the inn.

After today, we’ll have three days left, so it would be good to explore this town a bit more until then.

What I mean is, while maintaining our blood alcohol levels at a minimum.

“Why do you like alcohol so much? Can’t you just drink cola or soda?”

“Nah. Without that tipsy feeling unique to alcohol, there’s no pleasure in drinking. Do you drink to get full or to get drunk?”

“Hmm.”

When she puts it that way, I don’t really have a comeback…

But I really don’t drink except with meals… It’s common sense that alcohol on an empty stomach causes indigestion.

“By the way, what does the party leader plan to do with seven gold coins? Even with three days, it would be difficult to spend the equivalent of 3,000 silver coins in this small city.”

“Well… I’ll buy something nice if I find it… otherwise, I just won’t spend it.”

I wasn’t particularly frugal.

I enjoyed the pleasure of spending money and always liked obtaining luxury items.

It’s just that until now, my income hadn’t matched my desires, so I naturally lived frugally.

“Is there anything you want?”

“Well… not really… I’m not one for flashy decorations anyway.”

“I suppose that’s true…”

Having no money is painful, but having nowhere to spend money is also painful.

Especially when it’s not 7 copper coins or 7 silver coins, but 7 gold coins—a substantial sum.

“Damn… I’m already starting to miss Partishal… At least there were plenty of places to spend money there.”

In Partishal, a metropolis with over 8 million inhabitants, there were truly endless ways to spend money.

Blacksmiths selling enhanced magical weapons, or specialty shops offering custom clothing made from all sorts of luxurious fabrics…

It’s just so frustrating that I’ve never experienced any of that.

“Well, I don’t plan on taking any more jobs either, so let’s think about it carefully. This city may be small, but it’s not useless, right?”

“True enough. It is a port city after all. There shouldn’t be any difficulty in finding goods from other continents.”

A local would be offended by such talk, but it couldn’t be helped.

Both my wife and I come from cities incomparably larger than this small town of around 300,000 people—the massive cities of Partishal and Faerus Vale. Simon has likely visited many large cities in his long life, and Lucia and Kasia, having grown up in human society, have probably seen their fill of cities with populations over a million.

“Well… let’s eat first. We’ve been chatting so much that we’ve already arrived.”

While we were arguing about what to do with this tidy sum of money, we had already reached the inn.

*

“Still, I like these mundane conversations.”

I sat down, reflecting on the conversation we’d had on our way to the inn.

“Reeaally?”

“Yes. I’ve longed for this kind of everyday adventurer life for so long.”

“Longed…?”

At my words, the elf sisters perked up their ears.

They now have a vague understanding of my past, but they still can’t know it better than I do.

“I grew up on the streets when I was young, and I’ve worked many jobs throughout my life. A day laborer tying mooring lines at the docks… a kitchen assistant trimming vegetables… even a cleaner sweeping and scrubbing inns… Do you know what I envied most during those times?”

“What?”

“Adventurers. Every time I tied mooring lines, armed adventurers would disembark from ships, stretching and speaking with exotic accents. When I was trimming vegetables in the kitchen… I could hear the laughter of adventurers drinking and eating noisily through the thin walls. And whenever I was wiping up vomit and spilled food with a wet rag, I could overhear their trivial conversations about how the pay for their latest request was poor, or what they thought of the prostitute they’d been with recently.”

“…”

“So, I’m incredibly happy now. I’m fulfilling what my younger self wanted to do.”

As I said this, I held out a gold coin to the server who had rushed over to take our order.

“Five portions of your best.”

“Ah… yes! J-just a moment!”

As the server who received the gold coin scurried away, I smiled and murmured.

“Adventurers earn good money. Sometimes more from a single request than a doctor would earn from performing a hundred surgeries.”

“…”

“But money earned must eventually be spent. Buying clothes, weapons, medicine, food.”

I looked around at my table.

One man and three women were now looking at me, and the feeling wasn’t bad at all.

“The money we receive can be considered someone else’s opportunity.”

“…Opportunity?”

“Yes, opportunity. Money to go on a date with a lover. Money to buy new clothes for a child. Money to live in a better house. They’re entrusting us with the opportunity to live a better life. They’re giving up that opportunity to us.”

“That’s quite an original thought.”

“Maybe, but for adventurers to exist, there must be those who don’t leave. Or rather, those who can’t leave.”

As I said this, I formed the number 8 with my fingers.

“Eight years old.”

“?”

“When I was eight years old. I tried to kill myself.”

“What!”

“Not because I had no hope, but because even despair was drifting away from me, and I felt that nothing remained for me. But then I saw the horizon. Clouds floating in the blue sky. And the horizon separating the navy-blue sea from the sky seemed close enough to touch.”

I recalled what happened in the Crucis Mountains.

Back then, I had grasped the clouds.

“I caught the clouds at Crucis, and now I’m waiting for the horizon to come to me. To become a wandering knight who conveys the will of the sun. In the end, things turned out well. Perhaps the sun began shining on me from that moment.”

I clenched my fist, feeling the power of the soul flowing through my body.

The power of my soul, awakened by receiving the sun’s message… the power created by my life.

“Adventure is a good thing… at least for me.”

With those final words, I closed my mouth.

My party members were now looking at the food worth 1,000 silver coins approaching from afar, and the server began pouring expensive brandy into my glass.