A Good Connection and Lawless Ground (2)
Clatter-rattle-rattle.
Coins spilled out before Raul’s eyes.
It was the result of selling off the bandit corpses’ gear, along with the thirty-two gold rings the bastards had apparently shared so affectionately among themselves.
“Wow...”
The receptionist with the vermilion hair let out an empty-eyed sigh.
As if she hadn’t just carried the whole lot out of the mercenary guild’s vault herself...
“That’s absurdly much.”
“It is, isn’t it? Ah, sorry. I’ll count it properly right away.”
The receptionist, who had reflexively answered Raul’s mutter, flushed red and neatly stacked three gold coins and the scattered silver in a visible pile.
She was showing him the tally directly.
To prove she hadn’t been playing any tricks.
The tower of silver coins stacked up to more than six piles.
“T-total! Three gold coins and sixty-four silver coins!”
At her announcement, the mercenaries who had been holding their breath all let out gasps at once.
“Whoa!”
“No way!”
“First time in my life I’ve seen a mercenary carry out four gold coins and a mountain of silver in a single day.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“Dunno. I asked, but he wouldn’t say.”
“Who cares? As long as he buys us drinks, that’s enough!”
Raul hadn’t said a word, and somehow it had already become a settled fact that he was going to buy even more alcohol.
“Seriously.”
He found the whole thing a little ridiculous, but the corner of his mouth lifted slowly all the same.
With a pleasant smile, Raul set ten silver coins back down on the desk.
“This is for the drinks for those friends over there.”
“Woooo!”
“That’s insane!”
“So cool, big bro!”
“What big bro? He’s obviously older than you.”
“Anyone who buys you drinks is big bro!”
“Hey! Teacher! Come here! I know a truly incredible brothel, I’m telling you!”
Somehow, by the time things had reached this point, Raul’s title had shifted from big bro to teacher.
One after another, they all tried to invite Raul to their table, but he only waved them off.
And so Raul left the mercenaries’ tavern.
Night had already deepened.
Only a few shabby candles flickered across the pitch-black streets of Koyad, and the starlight beyond them somehow seemed brighter in comparison.
Raul wondered if this was the “good fate” the World Tree had spoken of.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
In the early dawn of the next day, Raul woke in an inn called the Horned Knife.
“Haaah...”
He had asked for the best room they had, but when he exhaled, a white puff still bloomed at his lips.
While he’d been away in the World Tree’s world, where it was always spring, Exeria had been steadily moving into winter.
“Phew. Right. Horus?”
Raul, still half groaning, suddenly remembered something and called for his guardian.
A tiny kitten white as a snowflake poked its head up from his Stigma.
“Come out here.”
Raul recalled that Horus’s species name was Sun Claw Lion, and the thought made him curious.
Meow-
His guess had been right.
The moment Raul tucked Horus into the inner pocket of his coat, a warm heat spread through his whole body.
Grrr, grrr.
Horus seemed to like the spot too, because he started purring happily.
Not a bad hand warmer at all.
Raul loosened up for a moment, then left the room.
Winter in the north was cold enough to bite through bone, but with Horus with him, he didn’t feel the chill at all.
That’s interesting.
He wasn’t sure whether it was really appropriate to use a guardian like this, but if the guardian himself liked it, then there was no point being picky.
In any case, with the streets still closed up and the shops not yet open, Raul headed out into Koyad before dawn and made for a quiet district.
There was a reason Raul had bothered to visit Koyad, even after taking the “time attack” quest, and even while he was planning to make money here.
Even in Exeria, Koyad was an extremely remote village.
It was so far out of the way that, except for a very small handful of classes, it didn’t even enter most quest routes.
And yet, whenever he played a character set in the western regions, Raul always came here at least once.
The reason was simple.
There was something here he could only get in this place.
Rattle.
In the street, wrapped in the thick darkness of dawn, Raul opened the door to a smithy that had been lit up all alone.
The old forge was easily the shabbiest-looking building in all of Koyad.
Almost immediately, a man with a flushed red nose and the heavy reek of drink turned his eyes on Raul, the intruder.
“We’re closed. Get lost.”
Hic!
Even as he made the ugly sound, the man raised the flask in his hand and took another swig.
“Phaaah!”
He drank in an overdone show of indifference, as if to make it plain that Raul’s presence meant nothing to him.
Drunkard Hammer, Jet.
The last time Raul had seen him, he’d only been a newborn baby, so he ought to be around thirty now...
To think that baby had grown up into this two-bit bastard of a drunk.
In a different way, that was strangely moving.
Raul let out a small snort and spoke.
“Where’s Jeade?”
“...What? You were a customer of Father’s? No, wait. You don’t look old enough to be friends with my father.”
Different class routes meant different historical settings, so this kind of thing was annoying.
Raul came up with a suitable excuse.
“My master and Mr. Jeade were close friends. I met him a few times myself.”
“Ah, so that’s it. Still, bad timing. Father’s up in Northern Fatal. His old illness has flared up again, so he can’t even lift a hammer now. If you were hoping to commission something, you’d best leave politely.”
Jet waved a hand through the air as if shooing away a fly.
Their rude treatment of visitors was a long-standing feature of this shabby old forge, the Grave of Stars.
Its dilapidated exterior, plus the attitude that practically begged customers not to come in.
Most players felt put off here at first and left the forge.
But that was the trap.
Because the Grave of Stars in Koyad held something you could not easily find anywhere else in Exeria.
“Well then, I suppose I have no choice.”
Even as he said it, Raul closed the door that had been left open and stepped fully into the forge, looking around.
“What are you doing?”
As expected, Jet, reeking of alcohol, scowled and started picking a fight, but Raul ignored him completely and moved through the forge with practiced ease.
“Hey, I’m talking to you. What are you doing? Get out, bastard.”
Jet stormed over in a fury as Raul idly touched the blades lined up on the display racks.
The moment he seized Raul’s shoulder roughly, Raul glanced back at him and held out what he had in his hand.
“Huh?”
Jet’s eyes flew wide open.
Normally, one might think he had been startled because Raul had suddenly shoved a weapon at him, but that wasn’t it.
What mattered was the thing Raul had said while pointing a rusty iron sword at him.
“Shall we start with this one?”
“You found the ancestor’s sword in one go...?”
He murmured it in a stunned voice, and Raul, seeing that promised look on his face, gave a faint smile.
“I told you. I’m someone who knows.”
Only then did Jet fall silent.
The secret of this forge lay in its name.
“The Grave of Stars.”
It referred to a place where weapons that had once truly been stars in some distant age had gathered.
Inside this forge, all those cleanly sharpened, neatly quenched arms and armor on display were nothing but a decoy.
There was an insanely low chance, but among the rusted, chipped weapons there was a “real” one.
Raul looked at Jet’s dazed face and said, “What are you doing? Go bring it already.”
“Huh? Ah, yes!”
Jet, who had understood what Raul meant, hurried into the inner vault and brought out several dozen scrolls.
They were none other than identification scrolls.
Raul sat down comfortably and asked Jet, “How much are they going for these days?”
“Ah... Just the cost of bringing them in is ten silver coins. I’d need to charge thirteen silver coins each, but...”
As though doubting Raul’s wallet, he spoke with a thoroughly troubled expression.
But for Raul, that worry was truly unnecessary.
Expressionless, Raul took out two gold coins from his robe.
“Then, including the ancestor’s sword, that makes fifteen silver coins per item. Fine.”
“S-sir, are you even human? How can you know our shop’s secret with a face so much younger than mine...?”
At that sight, Jet folded his hands respectfully and even knelt beside Raul.
“What?”
“Ah, no... I was wondering if you might be a vampire, or, um, an elf.”
“Something like that.”
Exasperated, Raul gave a perfunctory answer, and Jet’s complexion went pale.
Taking the first identification scroll, Raul offered him a bone-chilling bit of advice.
“I get that it’s tradition and all, but you should really ease up on the baiting. Keep it up with the wrong person and you might get kidnapped one day.”
“...I-I’ll take that to heart.”
Only after Jet had finally become obedient did Raul grin and lay the identification scroll over the rusted iron sword.
Then, as he infused the scroll with the divine power that would activate it, writing surfaced across its surface.
Ancient Iron Sword, Type C
Grade: Rare
So the first one was a dud, after all.
Fifteen silver coins to identify a single item.
To some, that might look like nothing but an obscene waste of money, but that was the judgment of someone who had never found a real one here.
In the Grave of Stars, it was possible, however rarely, to uncover weapons of legendary grade.
And even if they shared the same legendary grade, they were on a completely different tier from consumable items like soul stones or World Tree fruits.
A legendary weapon was, in practice, the kind of thing a character could keep using all the way until the end of the game.
Raul had come here to find a weapon of his own to use until he obtained a holy sword.
“Next.”
When Raul held out his hand toward Jet, Jet quickly passed over another scroll.
Ancient Bronze Spear, Type A
Grade: Rare
The next item was, of course, another failure.
The odds were low, but there was no problem.
For now, he had plenty of bullets.
How long had it been?
Raul was on his twelfth failure when something suddenly rustled against his chest.
“Hm?”
“Oh?”
As Jet and Raul voiced their confusion at the same time, Horus popped his head up from the front pocket of Raul’s coat.
Meow-
“Yeah. Did you sleep well?”
Raul gently stroked Horus’s head, the kitten still drowsy and not quite awake.
Horus seemed pleased, because he began to purr.
But then the little white ball of fluff suddenly blinked its huge eyes and hopped out of the pocket.
He stopped in front of a long sword all at once, then turned back to look at Raul.
Meow-
Raul, feeling a little suspicious, asked, “You want me to identify that?”
Horus nodded with complete confidence.
Raul stared at the longsword the kitten had chosen, half convinced and half doubtful.
Normally, the “real” items in the Grave of Stars tended to look pretty terrible on the outside.
But that longsword had a sheen and edge so sharp it was hard to miss.
That doesn’t look like one at all...
Raul was narrowing his eyes at the thought when Horus, standing before the sword, meowed louder as if urging him on.
Meow-!
“All right. All right.”
Worried the cat might decide to start using rune magic on its own, Raul had no choice but to pick up the sword.
Either way, his pockets were still full enough.
With no expectations at all, he draped the identification scroll over it.
Then, all of a sudden, it blasted out a blinding light.
Shaaaaa-!
Startled, Raul frowned, and when the light faded, the scroll bore a line so outrageous it was enough to make anyone’s eyes go round.
Sun King's Holy Sword
Grade: Legendary-Set
A legendary sword with a set effect?
Even Raul could not help but be stunned.
A legendary-grade sword, and with a set bonus on top of that.
It possessed not one, but two of the rarest traits in existence.
“What the hell is this?”
Raul was so thrown off that he scrubbed his face with one hand and checked the identification scroll again and again.
Meow.
By then Horus had climbed onto Raul’s shoulder and was letting out a triumphant cry.
Seeing that, a gentle smile finally formed at Raul’s lips.
“Horus, don’t tell me...”
Could he really have found a legendary item for him, too?
“You’re insane.”
To think a guardian like this had been created.
The Stigma of Logos was a cheat beyond anything Raul had imagined.
“Wow.”
He was truly at a loss for words.
Raul stroked the little lump of fur on his shoulder several more times, then lifted the Sun King’s Holy Sword with reverent care.
But the surprises did not end there.
Ding-!
A cheerful notification rang out all of a sudden, followed by a message.
Two Sun King relics have been obtained, and the set effect has activated.
2-set effect: ALL +5%
“All stats by five percent?”
A set effect that increased not just one specific stat, but all of the abilities that made up Raul’s body.
What struck Raul most, however, was the change to a special attribute that most relics and equipment could not even interfere with: Divine Power.
“Huh.”
The moment he gripped the Sun King’s Holy Sword, Raul felt a crackling sensation race over his whole body like sparks of lightning.
His C-rank Divine Power had remained unchanged for more than a year of travel.
After getting the Stigma, I’d basically given up on training Divine Power...
The Sun King’s relics possessed a set effect that even encompassed Divine Power itself.
If a mere 2-set effect gives me five percent to all stats, how strong is the next one supposed to be?
Beyond the holy sword, Raul had gained another goal he absolutely needed to collect.
But why a 2-set effect?
Once his excitement settled and he thought it through, it felt a little strange.
A 2-set effect meant he already possessed one of the Sun King’s relics.
No way.
Raul hadn’t even known there was an item set called the Sun King’s Relics in Exeria.
Then what exactly was this...
At the very moment Raul was growing serious on his own, Horus came into view on his shoulder, tail swishing.
“Ah.”
Only then did he remember again.
Horus’s species name.
“...Sun Claw Lion.”
Horus himself had been one of the Sun King’s legacies all along.
The value of Horus exceeded Raul’s imagination.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Having achieved the first objective, which he had expected would take at least a week, Raul felt noticeably lighter.
However much else there was to do, he had at least satisfied the need to accomplish this one thing, and that gave him the breathing room to prepare for the second objective: winter gear.
Even now, a thin white line of light stretched northward from the Stigma on the back of Raul’s hand.
That must be proof that the holy sword he had seen in the Revelation was lying somewhere in the orc territory.
The best-case scenario is that the holy sword’s somewhere in an undeveloped ruin zone that neither orcs nor humans have bothered to touch...
In the worst case, Raul might have to survive alone in enemy territory for months.
And since it was human instinct to imagine the worst first and prepare for it, Raul stocked up with the mindset that more was better, whether it was equipment or food.
As a result, nine-tenths of the gold and silver in Raul’s pockets, which had started the day full of four gold coins and twenty silver coins, were spent on winter supplies and food stockpiling.
By the time the sun that had risen in the early morning began to sink again.
Raul looked at the food and tools crammed into his subspace backpack and smiled with satisfaction.
Good. Plenty.
What remained was about a dozen silver coins for the road.
He had practically spent every last bit of money he had.
“Haaah...”
And so, with a yawn, Raul headed west, where the slanting sunset was clearly visible.
He stood in the dim shadow cast by great walls and tall buildings, arms folded.
If everything had gone according to his plan, then the people who constituted his third purpose for visiting Koyad should be showing up soon.
Raul straightened from where he had been leaning against a brick wall and spoke into the dark air.
“How long are you planning to keep peeking around?”
Anyone watching might have thought he was crazy, but in fact several figures were moving beyond the black shadows at Raul’s one sentence.
One of them strode forward boldly.
“Yo, friend. Long time no see?”
It was the blue-haired thug from the previous night who had elbowed his way into Raul’s table, Peygl.
“I don’t remember ever being friends with you, and we never even did business together, so what’s this about?”
“That’s right. You’re the one who broke that business deal, you son of a bitch. Do you even know how much I invested in this Red Demon Gang subjugation?”
“Is there any reason I should know that?”
“There is, why wouldn’t there be? We’ve already gathered over forty men, and I can’t just tell everyone to scatter because everything suddenly went to shit.”
“So?”
When Raul tilted his brows and tossed the question back in mockery, the bastard answered with a strange smile despite his anger.
“I’ll give you a little lesson, as your senior in life. You asshole.”
“Oh? A lesson?”
“Yeah. You know why mercenary nobodies don’t usually go around showing off money openly, even when they score something big?”
“Let me guess. Because they’re worried some roughneck like you will round up a bunch of thugs and come after them?”
From the direction Raul pointed with his chin, a crowd of hulking men surged into view, each one looking a full head taller than the blue-haired thug.
So there were forty of them, just like he said.
Sure enough, not a small number.
“Motherfucker, and you still pulled this stunt knowing that? What, do you think you’re some big shot? Some delusional lunatic who came here on purpose to lure us out?”
He had probably meant it as an insult, but Raul only gave a faint smile in response.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“What?”
“I did spend money like crazy to bait you and those thugs over there.”
Swish.
Raul slowly drew the Sun King’s Holy Sword fixed at his back.
And in a voice that was utterly cold, he murmured, “I was curious. I wanted to know whether the Devil’s Eggs had spread this far.”
“Ha! Devil’s Eggs? What the hell are you babbli—”
Raul cut him off and said, “And look, here you are.”
In an instant, he was no longer in front of the bastard but behind him.
His holy sword blazed white.