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Chapter 52: - If Your Opponent Reads Your Backstory, Prepare a Backstory to Be Read
“… here?” Tia asked,
“Yeah. … probably.” I replied
I arrived at a shabby bar with Tia in tow, which exuded an indescribable pressure. Although I felt more than a little reluctant to enter the bar, mainly out of curiosity, I did not hesitate to go in.
I had only heard about this place during my first round and never actually visited it, but there was no mistaking this unique atmosphere.
“……………………”
When we passed through the door, which opened with a light click, we were met by a group of ugly looking men who had probably been drinking alcohol since daytime, staring at us. But Me and Tia, who were working as members of the Hero’s party, were not intimidated by their stares. We continued straight ahead and sat down at the counter, where a middle-aged man, the bartender, spoke to us in a heavy voice with an unfriendly expression on his face.
“This is no place for kids like you.” The Bartender said,
“Oi oi, why are you judging us by our looks … is what I would say, but can we skip that part of the exchange, since it’s such a pain in the ass?” I asked,
“.. huh. The hell――?” The Bartender said,
“Oi oi, since when did this place start babysitting――Guh!?”
“Like I said, those things are a pain in the ass.” I said.
The thugs who got involved in the situation were knocked out with a single backhanded blow from me. It was different when the opponent was a magic beast, but it didn’t take much strength to knock a human out. If one had the skill to hit the target accurately and sharply, and the willingness to accept the possibility of dying due to a wrong hit, as well as a banishment skill like [Orbit Reflector] it would be an easy victory… Was it alot? Well, it was probably nothing to worry about..
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“Or rather, will it be easier If I tell you we are sailing with Rebecca on her ship?” I asked,
“… tell me those things first.”
The bartender shook his head with a bitter expression on his face. It seemed that was the correct answer. If there would be a third round, I would keep that in mind.
“So? What kind of work are you looking for? I’m telling you, we don’t really deal with big jobs, okay?” He asked,
“It’s okay, I don’t want to be asked to do a massacre or something. Yeah, I want a job that can be accomplished in a couple of days at the most, and it can be difficult, but it should be a job that makes us a good amount of money. But nothing that will directly harm anyone.” I told him,
“If that’s the case, you’re at the right place.”
As I regurgitated a list of convenient conditions, the bartender extracted a worn out piece of paper from under the counter. Looking at the paper, I saw a drawing of what looked like a horse with horns on it.
“Magic Beast? Unicorn …. No, not that?”
Tia, glancing at the picture over my shoulder, muttered quietly, and the shopkeeper chuckled lightly and shook his head.
“There’s no way a unicorn could be in a place like this. This is a Raburu Donkey, a donkey with horns, so to speak. It is slower than an unicorn, but it is much more powerful. In the Adventurers’ Guild, it would be designated as a Grade VI magic beast.” The Bartender explained to us,
In this world, as in many others, there were Adventurer’s guilds. And the Grade VI was the kind of difficulty that a seasoned warrior would be able to handle. In other words, this thing was quite a formidable foe.
“Bring me his horns and I’ll buy them for 40 pieces of silver each. How about it?”
“Where does this guy reside? I mean, if it’s just a regular magic beast, why is it here?” I asked,
“Its habitat is in the woods to the east, just outside of town, but …… its horns are designated as proof of defeat.”
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
“What? What do you mean?” He asked,
“I understand. Sorry to interrupt. Let’s go, Tia.”
“E,Eh!? Err, bye?”
Tia hurriedly followed me as I quickly started walking away. Then, as we left the shady bar, Tia examined my face once again.
“Hey Ed, what did you mean by that? I mean, why did we have to take up a job here in the first place?” Tia asked,
“Why, we can’t shop without gold, you know?” I told her,
“I know, but you see, we got some money from the captain, didn’t we? Even if we can’t afford to pay for it out of our own pocket, we could at least buy a few household items with the amount she gave us, right?”
It was easy to forget when working as a member of a Hero’s party that consumed expensive recovery potions, but a single gold coin was quite a large sum of money. Prices varied from one part of the world to another, but here it would be half a year’s salary for an average person. Certainly, with this amount of money, we would be able to buy at least the daily necessities needed to live on a ship. …
“Look here, Tia. Maybe you’ve forgotten all about it, but we’re running from someone important and terrifying, you know? Do you think people like us, who have unexpectedly acquired a lot of money while on the run, will spend it without a plan?”
“Ugh!? I-I haven’t forgotten, but… you’ll use it if you need to, right?”
“I’m not saying we won’t use it. However, you never know when we might be abandoned, so it’s normal to want to make as much money as we can while we can, right? But the Adventurers Guild is the first place one would hit if looking for someone. We can’t show our face in places like that, so inevitably the only places we can get work are in these shady places.”
“Yeah. I understand that, but if you really didn’t want us to be found, wouldn’t you even avoid doing that?”
“Fufufu, There you go. It’s true that if we really want to avoid detection, it’s better to stay inside the pirate ship without stepping out of it. But if we go that far, it means the other party looking for us will have enough time to station his men on all the major ports and keep an eye on everyone who comes in and out. And, if Rebecca finds out that we are running away from someone who is capable of such surveillance, there’s a good chance we’ll be thrown off the ship. So, we take jobs behind the scenes to show that by not showing up at the Adventurers’ Guild, we appeal to the fact that we are being targeted by someone while doing a little work in town without being detected.”
“… So you’re saying that by taking the job here, you’re trying to give the captain an idea of the capabilities of the people who are out to get us?” Tia asked,
“That’s what it’s all about. Furthermore, we can examine our abilities by doing the work, and if we have a track record of the money we are making, we can spend a little more without raising suspicions. If we do not do this and make a really big purchase, people will wonder where we got the money. Once, we might be able to cover it up by saying, ‘We sold the jewelry we had in case of emergency’ but if we did anymore than that, we would be suspected endlessly of hiding something else. You don’t want to lose your peace of mind and sleep on a ship that still has a long journey ahead of it, do you?” I told her,
“Ha-…”
“W-What?”
Tia’s mouth was left open, and I raised my eyebrows and asked her about it. Then Tia closed her open mouth and responded with a smile.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it in a weird way, I was just impressed. I’ve thought about it before, but Ed really puts a lot of thought into what he does.”
“Really? I think this is pretty normal.”
“It’s definitely not normal! I can read the enemy’s movements on the battlefield, but I can’t predict a person’s movements that deeply and act accordingly. What do I have to do to be able to do that?”
“…If I had to guess, I’d say experience?”
It wasn’t just for show to cross 100 different worlds. The Minister in Waffer’s world was a cute little thing, but his numerous harassments using all kinds of schemes and tactics were almost like an art form. I used to get tangled up in it alot, but now I was able to avoid it smoothly and bite back…
“… Something makes me feel that Ed looks sad.”
“Whoa!? T-That’s not true, okay?”
“Really? Fufu~, You say a lot of things about people, but I think Ed is pretty easy to understand, too, right?”
“That’s――”
I was about to say something in protest, but then I just kept quiet.
“What?”
“Ha~. It’s Nothing. Let’s get on with it and get this job done.”
――Of course it was because of Tia. … I don’t mean to utter such embarrassing words.
(T/N: Last chapter of this month. Won’t be posting in june because Exams start from 20th june. Thanks for reading and support so far.)