Chapter 5 – A Chain of Encounters
We came back into Euron a week after leaving it, though I hadn’t been in the place long enough the first time for any of it to feel like coming home.
I glanced across at Freinil and found nothing there either: none of the reaction you’d expect from someone arriving somewhere new.
“Have you been to Euron before, by any chance?”
“Yes, several times. Though I had few chances to walk about the streets on my own feet, as I am doing now.”
She left it there and said no more, which did nothing but add to my sense that there was a story behind her.
It was evening by the time we got there, but we went straight on to the Adventurer’s Guild anyway.
There were twenty parties in the lobby at least, by the look of it, and a handful of people lined up at the counter, none of them in front of that unfriendly receptionist. She’s good-looking, plainly enough, so it has to be the curt manner that keeps them away.
“Excuse me. There’s something I’d like to report.”
“Oh. You are back, Soshi-san. A report of what?”
“We ran into an undead monster on the way home from Maneji. That’s the report.”
“Undead, you say? Do you have proof?”
“Yes, this.”
I showed her the misshapen magic stone and the staff the high-order Skeleton had dropped, and the receptionist’s eyes narrowed.
Ah. That’s the look of more trouble coming.
“I will hear it. Come through.”
I followed her into a room at the back, where a large table stood with chairs set around it.
We sat down, and only then did she appear to notice Freinil.
“Is this person a party member?”
“She is. We met in Maneji. I finally have a party.”
“I see. Forgive me, your name?”
“Yes. I am called Freinil. I have been permitted to join Soshi-sama’s party. I am in your care.”
Freinil bowed, and the receptionist turned a look on me that had something behind it. Not reproach, at any rate, so it wasn’t the man-my-age-with-a-defenseless-girl reading either. Did she know something about Freinil?
“I am in yours. My name is Mariane.”
She took her eyes off me at once and gave the greeting back to Freinil. It struck me that I had finally heard the woman’s name.
The receptionist—Mariane—laid out her writing things and turned back to me.
“Then let me hear the report.”
“Right. We left Maneji yesterday morning…”
I took her through the whole business of the undead we had killed the day before.
Mariane never let the blank expression slip, but she pushed for detail in places, which told me the case really was as rare as I had taken it for.
“This is the magic stone and the staff that high-order Skeleton dropped. I’d like to sell you the stone. The staff, if there’s nothing wrong with it, I’d rather we kept and used ourselves.”
“From your account and the shape of this stone, it is all but certain that the undead was a ‘Lich.’ In which case the staff is a ‘Staff of the Dead.’ If you intend to use it, I would recommend having it appraised.”
“Would there be some sort of curse on it, then?”
“On very rare occasions there is. We can take the appraisal here, if you wish. The fee would be one hundred thousand roms.”
“Am I right in thinking it’s a fairly powerful piece?”
“I am told it is of the rank ordinarily carried by mages of C-rank and above.”
A powerful weapon, then. The question is whether anybody will resent an F-rank like Freinil walking around with a thing like that.
Then again, the adventurers in this world don’t seem to run that rough, and hardly anyone tries to start something with us in the first place. Let her use it, and I can think again if something comes of it.
“Understood. The appraisal, please, in that case. That’s everything from my side. Was there anything from yours?”
“I neglected to mention it. A Lich is a monster placed at the top of D-rank, or in C. Please, on no account push yourselves.”
Mariane gave me the warning with her face as blank as ever. Perhaps the manner costs her more than it earns her.
The next morning I took Freinil to the training ground and found, unusually, that somebody had gotten there ahead of us. Zeal, the leader of the C-rank party ‘Fortuner,’ was swinging a longsword around in silence—no, a Dark Metal rod.
We started on the usual stamina work, and Zeal kept glancing over. Less at the training, probably, than at the fact that I had Freinil with me.
He spoke up when we stopped for a breather.
“Hey. Haven’t seen you around. Off scouting for party members, were you?”
“I went to Maneji to make the rounds of the dungeons. I happened to meet her there.”
“Huh… Though that girl’s awfully young. Doesn’t seem old enough to have ‘Awakened’ yet.”
“Yes. I thought the same, but I’m the exception myself, so I can hardly say.”
“Ha. True enough. It’s rare, but it’s not as if it never happens. I’m Zeal. And you, young lady?”
The greeting came at her out of nowhere, and Freinil’s words caught for a moment before she got them out.
“Ah. I am called Freinil. I hope you will think kindly of me.”
“Now there’s a polite young lady. Freinil, is it. Well, good to have you.”
Zeal made to go back to his training, then noticed something and stopped. What he had his eye on was the ‘Staff of the Dead’ in Freinil’s hands. The appraisal had come back the day before as ‘no problem,’ so she had it equipped already.
“Hm? Freinil, young lady, where’d you get that staff?”
Freinil answered the question by looking at my face. I took it instead.
“The truth is we ran into a Lich on the way back from Maneji. That’s the spoils.”
“A Lich? You put it down with just your own party, Soshi?”
“We did. It got a little dangerous.”
“Nah, I don’t think ‘a little’ covers it. Well, you can kill a King, so it’s not so strange. Sorry to ask, but that staff’s one our mage wants too. If you know anywhere they can be bought, I’d like to hear it.”
“So it really is a rare thing.”
“That it is. Liches don’t turn up often to start with, and mostly the staff breaks when you kill one. Rare’s rare.”
“So that’s how it is.”
“Still, a Lich showing up around here feels off to me.”
“Isn’t it the sort of thing that appears wherever there’s a graveyard?”
Zeal burst out laughing at that.
“Course not. If that were how it worked nobody could visit a grave for fear of it. Undead don’t come up outside a dungeon unless the miasma’s gone badly stagnant, and Liches especially are a special case. They don’t just appear.”
“…Is that so.”
Then why had we met one? If that’s my ‘Bad Luck’ skill at work, this is going to be a real nuisance…
I was chewing on that when Zeal put a crease between his brows and started up again.
“There’s talk going around, actually. They say undead have been turning up here and there lately. And that somebody’s seen a suspicious figure near where they turn up.”
“What’s that supposed to be? You mean somebody might be summoning them on purpose?”
“Right? That’s what you’d think. It’s a fishy story, but apparently there have always been people who do that sort of thing. Might be worth watching yourself when you pass a graveyard.”
“Understood. I’ll keep an eye out.”
No sooner back in Euron than I’d heard something outrageous. It was good news that the Lich hadn’t been my ‘Bad Luck’ skill’s doing, but something a good deal more troublesome than a Lich seemed to be on its way.
Left to myself I’d rather have let the whole thing pass me by, and all I had was the feeling that ‘Bad Luck’ would react to it anyway. That left exactly one solution. Get stronger, whatever it takes. That’s the whole of it.
We spent that day clearing the F-class dungeon, the point of the exercise being to get Freinil a skill. The boss was an ordinary Bearwolf and one ‘Holy Light’ settled it. The ‘Staff of the Dead’ turns out to be a serious piece of equipment: by Freinil’s account it cut the time she needs to gather her focus by about a fifth. It did seem to come out a little faster, and the power had jumped along with it. Which is one more thing I may owe ‘Bad Luck’ for.
What Freinil came away with was a skill called ‘Reduced Consumption,’ which holds down the stamina her magic burns when she fires it. She’s walking the mage’s road at a good pace in her own right.
The next day and the day after we went down the E-class river dungeon I had already cleared. Fishmen aren’t opposition anymore, and Stone Tortoises, once I lay ‘Heavy Blast’ on top of a swing, burst apart shell and all.
The Slimes we put to work as practice for Freinil’s magic. The Large Slime boss went the same way, sniped down with a single ‘Holy Light.’
For an E-rank party I get the feeling we sit a good way above the mark. The rare skills, probably.
Freinil’s new skill this time is ‘Charge,’ which raises a spell’s power in exchange for a longer gathering of focus. That one might turn into the party’s trump card.
Both of us came out of it with our adventurer levels up, and we walked back into town in a good mood and made for the Guild.
“Soshi-sama, I feel that I have become considerably more useful.”
“You have. Your magic works in a real fight now, and you’ve got the hang of moving in one. It’s far easier for me to fight than it was going in alone.”
“Truly? Then I am very glad of it. I shall work harder still, so that I may be of more use to Soshi-sama.”
She held the staff against her chest and smiled up at me, golden hair, blue eyes, every bit the beauty—and the same slightly heavy light in her eyes as always.
We were still talking as we made to go in when I felt an odd line of attention on us.
A girl was standing at the Guild entrance. Long hair with purple through it, and a little older than Freinil, by the look of her. There were dog-like ears on her head, so beastfolk. Her face was one you could call beautiful, and the strong-willed eyes in it were fixed on us and staying there.
“Soshi-sama, does that person interest you?”
“Ah, no. Just that she seems to be looking this way.”
“Might she have some business with us?”
“Who knows. If she has business she’ll say so.”
A man my age going about with a girl in tow draws interest for good or ill, but when the one doing the looking is a girl herself there’s no telling what kind of interest it is. I left it alone for the moment and went over to Mariane at the counter.
“Thank you for your work, Soshi-san. A buyback, I take it.”
“Yes, please.”
I put the magic stones and the materials out, and Mariane looked them over, then looked at Freinil.
“Congratulations. Freinil-san has met the conditions for promotion to E-rank.”
“Eh? Ah, thank you very much.”
The announcement came out of nowhere and Freinil’s eyes went round.
“Isn’t that awfully quick?”
“Multiple E-class dungeons cleared while still F-rank, a Rare Boss subjugated, a Lich subjugated. The record is more than sufficient. If anything we cannot keep her at F.”
Mariane answered my question with a cool face, though what it presumably came down to was wanting the capable ones somewhere they can be compelled onto a mass subjugation mission.
While she updated Freinil’s adventurer card, Mariane brought a bound book up to the counter as well. Open, it appeared to be a ledger of subjugation missions.
“There is a subjugation mission I would recommend to you, Soshi-san, as it happens. Would you care to hear it?”
“Ah, the matter from the other day. Please.”
“Yes. It is the subjugation of this ‘Terror Knight.’”
“A Terror Knight, wasn’t that a kind of undead?”
As I recalled it, that was the one shaped like a suit of armor walking around with nothing inside it.
“It does come to that. However, it is essentially physical in attribute throughout, so I do not believe there will be a problem. It appears to be wandering near a farming village to the north, and there are injuries.”
“How many of them?”
“The request says two. Please confirm on the ground.”
“Understood. I mean to take it. Freinil, any thoughts?”
I checked with her, and Freinil shook her head, put a hand to her chest and answered, “As Soshi-sama sees fit.” Mariane’s brows drew together at the sight of it and she stole a glance at my face. I would rather she didn’t have the wrong idea about us.
“Then we accept. Is the paperwork done with the adventurer card?”
“Yes. If you would hand it over.”
I was reaching for the card as told when I felt somebody coming up behind me.
“Hey, if you’re taking a subjugation mission, how about putting me in the party?”
The voice belonged to the beastfolk girl who had been watching us from the entrance.
It wasn’t the sort of thing to answer on the spot, so I had the subjugation request held and we went to hear her out properly. The beastfolk girl—Rani—led us to an eatery nearby.
The three of us sat down at a table and ordered, and then I asked her.
“So. Would you tell me how you came to speak to us?”
“How, he says… Simply put, I’d just come off my last party and there you were? I’m E-rank as well, and from what I could hear so are you, so I thought it might suit.”
There’s nothing put on about Rani, in what she says or in how she carries it, so it was probably exactly as she said. None of which told me anything I actually wanted to know.
“Two questions. First, why you left the last party. Second, why you decided ours would do.”
“Mmh. You ask awkward things, don’t you. I was thrown out of my last party. For being a jinx.”
“A jinx?”
“That’s right. They say monsters come out in swarms when I’m around, for whatever reason. I thought they were pinning it on me, but the truth is I got thrown out of the one before that for the same thing.”
Hard to say out loud, certainly, and there’s nothing wrong with telling that part of it straight instead of hiding it. As a way of getting on in the world it comes fairly close to gambling, mind you.
“And I picked you because the rank’s the same, like I said. And because a mister and a girl was a strange combination.”
“You want to join a party because the combination is strange?”
“I got a bit curious what you are to each other. Oh, and I know mister isn’t a bad sort from the smell.”
“That’s something you can tell by smell?”
“Sure. I’m wolf beastfolk, so my nose is good. Freinil doesn’t smell of mister, so I figured it was fine.”
“What relation is there between my not smelling of Soshi-sama and Soshi-sama’s character?”
Freinil tilted her head and looked from Rani to me and back again.
The things this wolf girl will come out with in front of everyone. I pressed a hand to my temple and put it to Freinil as gently as I could.
“Freinil. There’ll come a time when that makes sense to you. Until then, forget you heard it.”
“Yes? Very well. If Soshi-sama says so.”
It’s a mercy she’s a girl who takes things well. Though a girl who takes things that well is frightening in its own way.
“That part’s kind of interesting too. Doesn’t look like you’re forcing her into anything, either. What is this mister to you, Freinil?”
“He is not ‘mister.’ He is Soshi-sama. He is the person who saved me.”
“Huh. So that’s the relationship. Well, fine. So will you take me? My nose ought to earn its keep on a subjugation mission.”
“Is finding monsters the only thing you’re good at, Rani?”
“Oh, you can tell my fighting style by looking, can’t you?”
Rani wears a longsword at her hip, and for protection nothing but protector gear you couldn’t honestly call armor. Her clothes are purple to match her hair and on the revealing side. The skirt struck me as too short… I’ll choose to believe she has something on under it besides underwear.
“All I can tell is that you fight with a longsword. The type that runs an opponent ragged with speed?”
“That too, but what I’m best at is the magic sword. So I’m strong against monsters physical attacks don’t land on properly. I’m strong fighting normally as well, obviously.”
A magic sword—so that exists too. In game terms it must come down to fighting with an attribute laid on the blade, and it does sound like a help the day we meet something only attribute attacks touch.
“Hmm…”
Now then. The ‘jinx’ was a concern, but if it only meant more monsters it’s much the same article as my ‘Bad Luck (provisional)’ skill, and it doesn’t feel like something worth minding.
Beyond that, a person willing to form a party with me is a rare item in itself. Thinking about the boost in fighting strength, she’s someone I ought to take on. And being the only girl must leave Freinil uneasy in all sorts of ways.
There was also the tail. Rani has one, beastfolk that she is, and it had been hanging straight down the whole time. I don’t know whether a beastfolk’s tail means what an animal’s does, but if it does she was low, whatever her words and her manner said. Thinking that, I did find myself reluctant to turn her away flat.
“I can take you, but I’m the leader. That’s understood?”
“Obviously.”
“This party goes into a dungeon basically every day. All the time that isn’t that is training. Join if that suits you.”
Rani’s ears twitched at that. If it put her off, all I could do was let her conclude we weren’t meant for each other…
“Really? My parties up to now complained the whole time and never went near a dungeon, and honestly I’d had enough of it. I want to get stronger, so that makes me want in more, not less. So, glad to be aboard!”
Rani’s tail was going hard from side to side, which said she meant it.
Either way, there’s nothing better than companions who want the same thing. I do get the feeling we’re headed straight for black-company territory, but let’s believe that wanting to be strong is the right thing to want.
