Chapter 29: The Royal Capital and the S-Rank Adventurer

 

“You can see the royal capital now!”

Said the caravan’s leader, and all the adventurers escorting the caravan looked in the same direction simultaneously.

“That’s the royal capital? All I see are walls.”

“Are you an idiot or what, they’re the royal capital’s city walls.”

“Ah, I see.”

The adventurers coming to the royal capital for their first times were quite obviously excited.

“Have you ever been there, Liliella-san?”

“Nuuuh, I did everything near Hexi before, so I’ve never been there.
How about you?”

“I’ve never been there either.”

It was going to be my first time in the royal capital in this life.

So, I was rather excited.

I wonder what kinds of developments they’ve made in this era’s royal capital?

♦ ♦

“Ooh, so this is the royal capital!”

“Amazin’! There’s a crap ton of people and loads of shops too!”

As we entered the royal capital, the adventurers accompanying us immediately began exclaiming in wonder.

“I’ve heard rumours about it, but seeing it in person really does make all the difference.”

Liliella-san seemed to be a little overwhelmed by the amount of people.

“Whad’ya think young man, amazing, right?”

The caravan’s leader asked me from up on the coachman’s seat.

“Y-yes, it is.”

“Really? You don’t seem very shocked to me though.”

“No no, I was just so shocked I forgot how to speak for a moment.”

“Gahaha, is that right, eh!”

The caravan’s leader said, laughing good-naturedly, but to be honest, I didn’t feel very shocked at all.

Mostly because the country’s royal capital didn’t seem to be as big as I had thought it would be.

The royal capitals in my previous lives had been much bigger, sometimes even literally overflowing with people.

But compared to those past royal capitals, this one’s size was hardly enough to get even a proper reaction.

But, since I didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else, I decided to hold my mouth shut.

“Now then, now that we’ve entered the royal capital, the request counts as completed.
Here, the document that says you completed the request.”

The caravan’s leader handed me a piece of paper.

“Request completion document?”

“It’s the piece of paper that says you completed the request.
You have to submit this piece of paper to the guild when you complete a request with a specific client in order to have the request marked as successfully completed and to get the reward.”

Liliella-san explained to me, having recovered from her amazement by the royal capital.

“Hee, so you can get things like this too, eh.”

“Normally everyone gets one when they complete a request?”

“Umm, I’ve only ever done monster subjugation requests where you get the rewards directly from the guild.”

“That too is unusual.”

Now that I think of it, this guard request was the first request I had ever done where I had to go meet the client.

“You two really helped us out.
Not only did you save our lives, you even helped solve that problem we brought with ourselves.”

The caravan’s leader bowed to us.

“Hey, you bow as well you idiot!”

The caravan’s leader grabbed Boz-san and made him bow as well.

“I-Iamverysorry!”

“No no, don’t give it too much thought.
I only helped a little.”

“It might’ve been only a little for you, but to us, it was extremely important.
So I’m really grateful.
It might not be much, but please accept this as thanks for having saved my idiot of a son.”

Saying so, the caravan’s leader offered me a small wooden box.

“What’s this?”

“It’s our most prized product, a magic item.
Go on and open it.”

“Father, is this that!? Are you serious!?”

Said Boz-san in surprise when he saw the box the caravan’s leader gave me.

It seemed like it was quite the valuable item.

“This is…”

There was a small pendant inside the wooden box.

But it wasn’t just decorative jewellery.

Why, you ask? Because a suspicious light was oozing out of the red gemstone embedded in its centre.

“It’s a protective amulet.
It’s a magic item that will save its wearer from death, but only once.
A long, long time ago, noble ladies wore them to protect their lives.”

“Hey, father, that’s our most prized product, right!? Is it really okay to just give it away!?”

“You idiot! They saved our lives! Not to mention he even saved your miserable hide from your debtors! Even this isn’t enough to properly repay him, you idiot!”

“Owwww!”

The caravan’s leader hit Boz-san on the head.

“So, please accept it.”

“…If that’s what you want.”

I took the pendant.

“I guess it’s time to say goodbye now.
We’re gonna go and finish saving this idiot’s hide.”

He was talking about the magic grass.

If you got involved with the underworld and didn’t complete a request, your life would be in danger.

So, the caravan’s leader and Boz-san were going to go hand over the goods.

We couldn’t let ourselves be involved in all that.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Liliella-san asked me, worried about Boz-san and his father.

“You needn’t worry.
Boz-san was only asked to deliver the bags, their contents technically don’t matter.
And from their point of view, he’s just a carrier who knows nothing about the bags’ contents, so they won’t do anything to him.
I mean, there’s no point in getting rid of someone who doesn’t know anything, is there?”

“So that’s how this works?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

Although to be honest, it was all just something I heard from an acquaintance of mine who worked in the underworld in my previous life.

That as long as someone wasn’t hostile, they were left alone.

If they did try to get rid of someone and failed, it had a high chance of blowing up in their faces with the military police or the knights investigating.

And if that was going to happen, it was best to leave the ‘clean-ups’ to a minimum.

An ‘unlike wild bandits, proper villains don’t attack indiscriminately’ kind of thing.

“Then I guess I really don’t have to worry.”

Good, it seems like I managed to get rid of Liliella-san’s worries.

“Heey, are you two gonna go to the adventurers’ guild?”

Some adventurers who had completed the escort request with us asked us.

“Yes, we have to report the completion of the request after all, and we’ve got something else to do there as well.”

I had to give them the letter from Mirisha-san concerning the Ancient Plant’s auction.

“I see.
Well, we’re gonna go get some rest in an inn for today.
We’ll report in at the guild tomorrow and look for jobs around here at the same time.”

“I guess it’s farewell, then.”

“Yea.”

But, just as we were about to go our separate ways, Liliella-san called out to them.

“Say, are you okay with that thing from the other day ending like this?”

“What do you mean ‘ending like this’?”

“The reason why the monsters attacked us.
You also got caught up in it, right?”

Saying that, Liliella-san pulled us all out of the way of traffic.

Then, she began talking about what had happened in a whisper.

“You arrived safely in the royal capital, but in the end, you did end up helping carry that here.
Moreover, you’re not even in their lines of sight.
What do you think about what happened?”

Liliella-san asked for their opinions on the case with the Magic Grass.

But seriously, why was she bringing that topic up again?

“We didn’t see anything.”

“What do you think of this thing you saw nothing of?”

She’s still at it?

“That’s not something we would be able to handle in the first place.
And anyway, if it weren’t for the young man over there, we’d’ve died in the first attack.”

“Right right.
So, we know nothing.
We were so focused on our guard duties we never noticed anything happening.”

Oooh… what nice people.

Liliella-san must’ve been worried about them telling someone about what happened.

But it seems like those worries were completely unnecessary.

“And anyway, we were able to defeat way more monsters than normal and get all their materials due to you being present.
We’re really grateful, and have no intentions of telling anyone.”

With that, the adventurers were saying that nothing had happened.

“And anyway, if we did go around telling everyone and made you hostile, our lives would be in danger.
We just got out of a life-threatening situation, so we don’t really feel like getting into another one.”

“Hahahaha, well said!”

Liliella-san answered with an ‘All right then.’, ending the conversation there.

“Then, take care you two.”

“You take care as well.”

♦ ♦

“So this is the royal capital’s adventurers’ guild, huh? It’s huuuge.”

“Indeed, it’s larger than the one in Hexi.”

Having said goodbye to the adventurers we had travelled to the royal capital with, we took a stroll through the city, eventually finding the adventurers’ guild.

It was almost twice as large as the adventurers’ guild in Hexi, a fact which surprised both of us.

I got quite excited thinking about just how many adventurers there would be there if the building was so large.

“Shall we go inside then?”

“Yes, let’s.”

With excitement in our chests, we stepped into the adventurers’ guild.

♦ ♦

“Wooow…”

“This is…”

The first thing that caught our eyes as we entered was the amount of people.

I had expected there to be a lot of them when I saw the building, but there were even more than I had thought there would be.

“No way, it goes further in as well…”

Indeed, as Liliella-san had said, the royal capital’s adventurers’ guild was also longer than the one in Hexi, not just wider.

I had thought it was twice the size of the one in Hexi, but if this was the case, that would make it four times as large.

“L-let’s report the request’s completion.”

“R-right.”

Surprised and excited, we headed to the reception.

“There’s so many.”

“There are.”

The building was large, but there were also a lot of reception windows.

About twice as many as in Hexi.

And there were more adventurers lined up as well.

♦ ♦

“Welcome to the adventurers’ guild.”

We joined the queue and submitted the request completion document when it was finally our turn.

“…All right, done.
Here’s the reward.”

Having gotten the reward, I didn’t forget to hand the letter given to me by Mirisha-san to the receptionist.

“Also, I was given this by the adventurers’ guild in Hexi.”

“All right.”

The receptionist took the letter, and turned the envelope around as if checking something.

“There’s no recipient? I’ll have to look at the contents then.”

Saying so, the receptionist opened the envelope with a paper knife and began reading the letter.

“…I see.
All right, understood.
We will get in contact with you once it is complete.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Will you be staying here for the time being, Rex-san? Or will take a request and stay somewhere close to the royal capital? If you’re going to leave the royal capital, you will only be able to get the payout once you return.”

Right, the report on the auction being over won’t reach me if I’m not in the city.

“All right.
I haven’t thought about what I’ll do yet, since I was going to take a look at the request board and decide then.”

“All right then.
Luckily, the royal capital also has more A-Rank requests compared to other places, so you’ll have a larger pool to choose from.”

“Are there really that many?”

I asked, and the receptionist nodded.

“Yes, there are a lot of people here in the royal capital, so naturally, the number of requests submitted is also larger.
And with so many people, there will be all sorts of requests, from F-Rank all the way up to S-Rank even.”

“S-Rank!?”

S-Rank was the highest adventurer rank.

So there are even requests for S-Ranks in the royal capital, huh.

“Does that mean that there are S-Rank adventurers here in the royal capital!?”

The receptionist looked amused.

“You two are in luck.
There are currently quite a few S-Rank adventurers staying here in the royal capital.”

“Ooh!”

“Normally they wander from country to country, so you never really know where they are, but they are currently staying in our country due to work.”

Ooh! S-Rank adventurers are here due to work!

“They left the royal capital today, but they’ll be back within a few days.”

Uwaa, there are S-Rank adventurers here, how exciting!

“It’s so exciting, isn’t it, Liliella-san!?”

“Eh? Really?”

But it seemed like Liliella-san wasn’t very interested in the S-Rank adventurers.

“Hm? Are you not excited that there are S-Rank adventurers here?”

“Not really.
Even if it were the strongest S-Rank adventurer, we have nothing to do with them.”

Well, I guess that’s one way to think about it.

“C’mon, we’ll bother the people behind us if we keep chatting, so let’s go.”

“Ah, right.”

Hurried along by Liliella-san, we left the reception behind us.

“First of all, there’s practically an S-rank here anyway, so there’s really no reason to be surprised.”

“Eh? Did you say something?”

Liliella-san muttered something, but I wasn’t able to discern what it was due to the huge number of people present and how quietly she had said it.

“Oh it’s nothing.”

♦ ♦

“Let’s leave looking for a request for tomorrow and just go and find an inn.”

Suggested Liliella-san.

“Hm? Don’t you want to check the request board? We did come all the way here, after all.”

“There won’t be anything important at this time of day.
Finding a place to stay is more important right now.
Ah, and just in case, I’m telling you right now that cheap inns can be dangerous, so we’re not staying in one of those.
Let’s stay somewhere relatively good.”

“You didn’t spend money on your equipment but you do on lodgings?”

I wasn’t expecting her to say something like that.

“Cheap inns are easier for thieves and robbers to get into.
So, you should always stay somewhere where at least a minimum amount of security is guaranteed.”

I see, you are defenceless while asleep, after all.

And speaking of defenceless…

“Oh, right, Liliella-san, take this.”

I took the protective amulet out of its wooden box and gave it to Liliella-san.

“Eh? Isn’t this?”

“Yeah.
I won’t use it, so you take it.”

“B-but i-it’s a magic item!?”

Oh right, there was that.

“It would be kinda weird if I, a boy, wore something like that.
So I’m giving it to you.”

I tried to give it to Liliella-san, but she stubbornly refused to take it from me.

“Y-you can’t! It’s a magic item! Just how much do you think it’s worth!?”

“Why, how much does it cost?”

“U-umm, I don’t know the exact amount, but even if it’s a one-use thing, it’s still a magic item, so hundreds of gold coins!”

“Hundreds of gold coins!?”

This old thing!?

“No way, it’s definitely not worth that much at all.”

I mean, just look at it?

“What are you even talking about.
It’s how much magic items cost.
Even a one-use magic item will sell for hundreds of gold coins.”

No way, I mean, it’s just something to protect your kids, right?

It’s just something some parent made so their kid wouldn’t get injured if they slipped away somewhere when the parent wasn’t looking?

Why did I know this, you ask?

Because I was the one who had made it.

Well, I say I made it, but that was back in my first life.

My boss back then asked me to make it because their kid kept disappearing off when they weren’t looking.

But it was rather surprising to see it had somehow made its way all the way back to me.

I mean, I could make one for just one silver coin, not a hundred gold ones.

In fact, I could have made one right then and there.

“Come on, just take it already.
I would like you to use it.
See, it even suits you very well.”

Spotting an opening, I hung the pendant around her neck.

“I-it suits me!?”

“Very much so.
Hundreds of gold coins is a small price to pay for your safety, Liliella-san.”

“…Oh all right then.
I gratefully accept it and will use it.
I guess it does make sense for me to use it, since I’m still inexperienced compared to you.”

I never said that?

“Seriously, if you keep doing things like this so casually, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it, in more ways than one.”

“In what ways?”

“Noooothing at all!”

Her face red, Liliella-san suddenly ran off.

“Hey, waaaaaait!”

“No I won’t!”

It was the same in my previous life and my before-previous life, but I really don’t understand how girls think.

♦ ♦

“Time for our first request in the royal capital.”

The next morning we arrived at the adventurers’ guild.

“What sort of request should we take?”

“Let’s see, well, since we don’t know where everything is or what public order here is like yet, I think it’s better if we don’t accept any guard jobs within the city yet.
If you want to do something, then it should be outside the royal capital, where we have way more freedom.”

“So basically, a monster subjugation request?”

“Speaking of which, there is an unusually large number of them.”

Indeed, looking at the request board, most of it was covered in monster subjugation requests.
And there were also a couple escort and permanent ones as well.

“And for so many different species of monsters too.
Like this, if you defeat a monster close enough to the royal capital, even if you don’t know what it is, you’ll probably still complete one of these requests.”

Said Liliella-san jokingly at the huge amount of subjugation requests.

“Let’s take a B-Rank subjugation request.
Our goals will be to get a grasp on the geography of the area and what monsters are where.”

I see, like this we can gather information while completing the request.

It’s how adventurers do things.

“Let’s go with this one then.”

We accepted the B-Rank monster subjugation request Liliella-san picked out.

♦ ♦

“Cyclone Break!”

The mini-tornado compressed to be even smaller hit the monster flying in the air, bringing it down.

The monster was dead the moment it was hit with magic, so I stored it in my magic bag before it even hit the ground.

I had been shooting down the monsters like this for a while now.

“Hmm, there really are a lot of monsters.”

I said, glancing at all the monsters we had defeated.

“So even you think so?”

“Yes.
There were a lot of monsters back in the Forest of Magic Beasts, but there are even more here.”

We were looking for the monsters that were our subjugation targets in the wilderness near the royal capital.

However, since we kept getting attacked by other monsters while looking for them, our search wasn’t progressing very much.

“I’d say that place is an exception though, since even the trees are monsters.”

“Yeah, this place looks like wilderness too, but there’s a huge amount of monsters.
And these Wyverns have started to get annoying.”

“…I think I just heard a really not-normal statement.”

Liliella-san said, turning and looking at me with narrowed eyes as we were dismantling a monster.

“Yeah but, Wyverns hiding among the rocks here keep attacking us, so I keep on having to shoot them down.
There’s probably a Wyvern nest or something nearby.”

“So that’s what the constant explosions and crashes I’ve been hearing were!?”

Liliella-san looked at me in surprise.

“Ah, sorry, did it bother you?”

Oh no, did it interfere with her fighting?

“No, it’s okay, since you saved me.
But since Wyverns are a subspecies of Dragons, even a B-Rank party would find it difficult to fight against one, so just how many did you kill?”

“Erm, let me think, one, two, three… around ten I think? There was also a big one.
I immediately put it in my magic bag after I killed it though, so I haven’t checked what it was yet, but it’s probably nothing big.”

“Uh-huh.
Yeah right.
I feel inclined to disagree with you on that point, but let’s just leave it at that.”

Liliella-san incinerated the useless parts of the monster she had dismantled with chantless magic.

That was also a part of her training chantless magic.

“We got all the monsters we needed for the request, so let’s head back, shall we.”

“Right.”

If we were too late, the city gates would close and we would be stuck unable to get in.

So, we hurried back to the royal capital.

♦ ♦

When we got back to the guild, we noticed it was strangely noisy inside.

“I wonder what’s going on?”

Looking around, I saw a crowd in front of one of the reception windows.

“I wonder what’s going on over there?”

As we got closer to the crowd, I noticed the corpse of a large monster lying on the ground.

“Oh, it’s a Wyvern.”

The monster on the floor of the guild was a Wyvern.

But it was not just one.
There were around ten.

“Amazing.
That’s an S-Rank for you.”

“S-Rank?”

I asked an adventurer nearby, having taken notice of what he had said.

“Did an S-Rank adventurer kill those Wyverns?”

“Hm? Seems so, yeah.
The party led by the S-Rank adventurer Rody, Cyclone, seems to have defeated that pack of Wyverns.”

Ooh, the S-Rank adventurer party is here!

“Most of the party’s members are A-Rank, and I heard you had to be at least B-Rank to join.”

Hee, it sounds like a high-ranked party.

“Oh, look, that’s Rody I think.”

A blond adventurer came out from the back of the guild.

“So he’s an S-Rank adventurer…”

The S-Rank adventurer Rody-san was wearing amazingly decorated, shiny silver armour.

The decorations on his sword’s scabbard and cape were also amazing.

They looked very expensive.

S-Rank adventurers also paid attention to their appearance.

And behind Rody-san were a number of beautiful women.

They were all wearing armour or robes, so they were likely Rody-san’s party members.

“Ooh, as expected of an S-Rank adventurer, even the women serving him are S rank if you get what I mean.”

“Haha, you wouldn’t get such beautiful women to serve you even if you were to become S-Rank.”

“Shut up.”

It was not surprising the adventurers had said that either.

They really were all beautiful.

“C’mon, let’s go to the reception already.”

Liliella-san said pulling on my arm while my attention had been stolen by Rody-san and his party.

“Ah, sorry.”

“Jeez, yet you stare at other women.”

“Eh?”

“It’s nothing! C’mon!”

Liliella-san pulled me along to the reception, angry for some reason.

“Excuse me, we’d like to report a subjugation request complete.”

“All right.
Please put the materials on this appraisal table.”

““““Oooh!!””””

Cheers suddenly came from nearby.

“What’s going on?”

The S-Ranked adventurer Rody-san seemed to be proclaiming something, his hands raised up in the air.

“Everyone, these Wyverns are just the appetizer.
What we are aiming for is none other than the Kaiser Hawk, the lord of the wilderness that suddenly nested nearby!”

““““Oooooh!!”””””

Kaiser Hawk were super-large, hawk-type monsters that were tens of times larger than normal hawks.

But not only were they large, they preyed on large monsters like Wyverns, and could even hold their own in a fight against a Dragon.

“That’s strange, Kaiser Hawks shouldn’t appear around human settlements.”

Ah, so Rody-san came here to defeat the Kaiser Hawk.

Monsters capable of fighting against a Dragon would certainly be dangerous for ordinary people.

But for Rody-san, the strength of a monster must be immaterial.

He’d fight against any monster no matter its strength for the peace of everyone else.

He was thinking of the people who couldn’t fight, just like the great swordsman Raigard!

“So, everyone, please rest assured! We’ll free the royal capital from the threat of the Kaiser Hawk in the next few days!”

“Hurray for Rody!”

“We have high hopes for you, S-Rank!”

Everyone became really excited at Rody-san’s declaration.

“Excuse me, could you please take out the materials?”

The receptionist behind me said.

Whoops, I got caught up in listening to the speech.

“Ah, yes, please pardon me for that.”

I took out the monster we had to subjugate for the request from my magic bag.

“Oh, that’s right, we defeated some monsters other than the ones here too, so could we ask you to buy them and dismantle them?”

“Of course.”

“They won’t fit on the appraisal table, so I’ll put them on the floor.”

I put the Wyverns I defeated earlier on the floor.

I put them all neatly one next to the other.

“H-hey.
Aren’t those Wyverns?”

“Isn’t that how many that S-Rank defeated?”

The adventurers around us began whispering among themselves like that.

“Hee, so there’s a party other than ours that can hunt Wyverns.
This country’s adventurers are quite skilled.”

Said Rody-san, coming over.

Nono, I’m sure anybody could hunt Wyverns if they wanted to?

“Did you two defeat those?”

“Y-yes.
They kept flying up from among the rocks, so I shot them down.”

I explained the situation and why I had shot the Wyverns down to Rody-san, who nodded along, impressed.

“Hee, normally you’d defeat them before they can get in the air, but you aimed for the moment when they slow down when flying up and changing the direction they’re going in.
What a strange way to kill them.”

“T-thank you very much.”

Actually, I shot them down normally… hang on?

Ah, I get it, seeing how I defeated the Wyverns, he was telling me I could also do it a different way!

Something like ‘Other than efficient fighting methods, you should also know versatile ones!’

As expected of an S-Rank adventurer!

“Although, you shouldn’t overdo it.
If you overestimate your strength, you’ll die in no time, no matter how skilled of an adventurer you may be.”

“I understand, Rody-san!”

“Pft, what a good kid.”

As expected of an S-Rank adventurer.
He always knows what he can and can’t do and never lets his guard down!

“Umm…”

The receptionist who was doing the appraising called out to me.

“Yes, what is it?”

“A-about this monster here…”

The receptionist pointed at the very last monster I had killed.

I had stored it away right after, so I couldn’t remember what it was.

Erm, let’s see, it was a…

“T-this is!?”

“H-hey, no way, is that that?”

“No way!!”

Rody-san said in surprise, and the other adventurers around us also began to murmur amongst themselves.

“Oh, right, a Kaiser Hawk.
I must’ve gotten it mixed in with the Wyverns I killed earlier.”

Now that I think of it, I do remember killing something bigger than the rest.

Was the reason the Wyverns were hiding among the rocks because this thing was out hunting them?

Meh, details shmetails.
They’re only Wyverns and a Kaiser Hawk after all.

“Yea, please buy that too.”

““““That’s all you have to say!?””””

For some reason, everyone around me retorted heftily like that.