Chapter 276: translated
I Killed the Demon King. It was a Mistake.
Episode 276
Gloria headed toward the lodging as the guide led.
The lodging was a three-story hotel, but it was incredibly shabby.
Old chairs and tables, a broken grandfather clock, and creaking floorboards. It might as well have been considered an abandoned house, but more than anything, the suspicious gazes wary of unfamiliar strangers made Gloria and Raven slightly tense.
"This is the best hotel in this village?"
"Yes, that's right. At least there's carpet on the floor, isn't there? That means it's a place ready to welcome guests."
As the guide said, from the entrance to the counter, red carpet was laid out.
Of course, the problem was that it was extremely old and badly worn. The guide led Gloria and Raven to the counter.
The first floor of the hotel seemed to double as a tavern, with the counter staff wiping glass cups with a dry towel. Raven was somewhat satisfied that the staff was wiping glass cups with a dry towel.
Before coming here, they had passed through seven villages in the wasteland, where the staff didn't even use glass cups but rather wooden cups that smelled musty.
The staff took out a total of three glass cups, including the one they were wiping, handed them to Gloria and the guide, and poured tea water.
"What unusual guests."
"I've heard that remark exactly seven times now."
Raven drank the tea water. It was lukewarm tea water, neither cool nor warm, but the aroma was quite decent.
"It must be dangerous for women to travel the wasteland alone."
"I've heard that remark seven times too."
Gloria also drank the tea water. Water is the hardest thing to obtain in the wasteland.
The wasteland people barely distinguished between water for washing and water for drinking.
The wasteland people had adapted to the dirty water of the wasteland and could drink water drawn directly from the well without any problem, but this wasn't the case for Raven or Gloria.
Even Gloria, whose body was trained with aura, once nearly died from dehydration after getting sick from carelessly drinking well water. Gloria felt the gazes pouring over them completely as she drank the tea water.
Wasteland people are extremely wary of people in general. It's so much a rule of the wasteland that when two strangers meet while walking through the wasteland, they both detour far to the right.
If you don't detour to the right when encountering someone, it's one of two things. One is a barbarian and the other is a bandit.
Barbarians are fine because they don't fight unless challenged, but bandits are different. Bandits ride camels and rush in like wolves that have smelled blood to check the state of their prey.
If one appears to be well-armed, or there are many in number, or if weapons are concealed under baggy windbreakers, the bandits become very tense and openly discuss whether to attack or not.
But when encountering women, it's different. Bandits take out ropes instead of guns when they see someone who looks like a woman.
They throw ropes to bind the women and then sell them to slave markets or red-light districts.
The bigger problem is that for wasteland people, being a bandit is something like a side job. In this land where food and water are scarce, it's impossible to live an abundant life without taking from others, so taking whatever seems possible to take is part of daily life.
If an approaching person seems weaker than oneself, transforming from an ordinary traveler to a bandit is easier than flipping one's palm.
They had witnessed several times how travelers who initially turned away upon seeing Gloria and Raven would immediately ride their camels toward them once they realized they were women.
Gloria and Raven could feel that all the gazes from the wasteland people drinking on the first floor were identical to those of bandits. They were contemplating how to best handle Gloria and Raven to sell them to the red-light district.
Since openly waving bloody prey in front of a pack of wolves was no different from screaming for an attack, Gloria held out her hand as soon as she finished drinking the tea water.
"Please give me the room key."
"Three silver coins."
"What are you talking about? The guide should have already paid for the room, right?"
The counter staff pointed to the glass cups on the table.
"That's the price for water."
"You're saying one silver coin each for water?"
"That's right. Drinking water is precious here."
It was absurd. Putting out tea water without any explanation and then demanding payment was something only bandits would do. And there was no way tea water would cost one silver coin.
Even at its most expensive, it would trade for one-tenth of a silver coin or five revolver bullets.
In other words, it was clear that the counter staff was looking down on Gloria and Raven. Gloria considered breaking his nose, thinking that showing weakness here would invite troublesome provocations from the wasteland people. At that moment, the guide stepped forward and said:
"Hey, friend. Do you think I don't know that the first cup is free for all travelers?"
The counter staff chose silence instead of answering the guide. The silence also included withholding the room key.
Since they couldn't go upstairs without the counter staff giving them the room key, the guide slightly lifted his windbreaker and said:
"Stop being difficult and hand over the room key."
The counter staff seemed to be lost in thought for a moment after seeing the eight revolvers revealed inside the windbreaker.
The revolvers appeared to have been maintained by different owners, as the worn areas were all different. This meant that the guide had killed at least seven bandits excluding his own favorite revolver, which also implied that the guide's shooting skills were quite good.
The counter staff took two room keys hanging on the wall and threw them in front of the guide.
"Room 110, Room 210. Use those two."
"I can see Room 209's key hanging there, why don't you give us that one?"
"That one is reserved for another guest."
"Don't you understand what I'm saying? I want the rooms to be next to each other."
Gloria was tired of this wasteland life where even obtaining a room by paying money required a power struggle. She was really about to break his nose, but Raven grabbed Gloria's wrist.
"Let the guide handle it."
Creating a disturbance here would only make things troublesome for Raven and Gloria, and increase the work the guide would have to deal with.
As Raven suggested, Gloria waited for the guide to resolve the situation. The counter staff took back the key for Room 110 and threw the key for Room 209 to the guide. The guide skillfully caught the key.
"Don't cause any trouble."
"That's my line."
The guide handed the key for Room 210 to Raven and said.
"Let's go up for now. I'll send some food up a little later."
"Thank you."
***
Gloria and Raven climbed the creaking stairs.
Room 210 was located in the farthest corner of the hotel's third floor. When they opened the door and entered, they saw two poorly made beds along with a musty dust smell.
The beds looked as if someone had just used them, with bedspreads thrown on the floor and garbage scattered around. Of course, from Gloria's perspective, having spent nearly half a year in the demon realm, this level of filth wasn't much of a problem, but Gloria was furious about not receiving proper service despite paying money.
Raven took out a wand and used magic.
"Clean."
The windows opened, and dust from every corner swept completely outside, then the blankets on the floor were neatly folded and placed on the beds. Gloria sat on the bed and released her anger with a small joke.
"Magic users have it good. Just one flick of the wrist and everything gets cleaned."
"If someone else's work looks easy, it's better to think that person is remarkable. How many wizards in this world do you think can clean a room with the Clean spell?"
"Really?"
"If done incorrectly, the bed might fly away too."
Raven took off her windbreaker and hung it on the coat rack.
"More importantly, let's talk about our upcoming schedule. Kos."
Ding!
Kos shot out from Gloria's wrist. Then as Gloria skillfully took out a pencil and notebook from her bag and handed them over, Kos immediately began to move.
[From here on, I know the way. If we go a little further north, there's a red cliff, right? There's a small cave in the middle of the cliff, and if we go in there, there should be a sword.]
"Are you sure?"
[It's true. Just trust me once.]
To be honest, the credibility of Kos in Raven's mind was close to rock bottom. There should have been at least one time when things had matched up as Kos led them.
"Okay. Then let's ask the guide and go together."
[I think it might be too dangerous for the guide to go? The wind blows very strongly, and there were many quite dangerous monsters.]
"You mean 100 years ago?"
Hesitation.
Kos had nothing to say and his hand wandered.
Gloria felt a little sorry for Kos and decided to encourage her.
"What kind of monsters were there?"
[Drakes]
"Drakes? You mean the subspecies of dragons?"
Raven was also slightly surprised at the mention of drakes. Drakes were powerful creatures often called wingless dragons.
If soldiers of the dragon army were born from dragon teeth, drakes were said to be born from dragon scales, making them one of the top-tier monsters in the monster world.
[That's right. The place where I hid the sword was in a cave dug out by a drake.]
"You didn't tell me such a dangerous monster lived there, did you?"
[You didn't ask about that.]
"I thought I just had to go in and find the sword. I never imagined I'd encounter a drake."
Raven sighed and said.
"Is there anything else you haven't told us? Kos?"
[Besides the drake's habitat and the strong winds, I don't think there's anything particularly dangerous.]
Gloria scratched her head and asked.
"Raven, do you know how to hunt a drake? Or how to drive one away?"
"I've only seen them in documents, never hunted one myself."
"Can we just beat it up?"
"A drake isn't the kind of monster you can just beat up because you want to."
Raven organized the information in her head for a moment before speaking.
"First of all, drakes live in places with abundant minerals. Their main diet consists of minerals containing a lot of magic. The cave Kos mentioned was probably formed naturally as the drake consumed minerals."
"And a drake's scales change form depending on what minerals it eats. If it eats iron, its scales turn to iron; if it eats copper, its scales turn to copper. Of course, drake scales are much harder than ordinary steel or copper."
Kos, who had been listening quietly, scribbled with the pencil.
[The drake I encountered before had reddish scales, I think. It also breathed fire.]
"Breathing fire is a basic ability of drakes. Drakes can use different magic depending on what minerals they've eaten. What kind of magic did that one use?"
[I can't remember? I just hit it in the head once, cut off its tail, and it ran away.]
"Drakes are known to live for over 100 years. And the older they get, the more powerful magic they can use. So the drake we might face could be over 100 years old and might hold a grudge against you, Kos."
[What's there to worry about? You're a pretty strong wizard, and I'm pretty strong too, so we should be able to defeat it.]
"I might not know, but you're different. You haven't fully recovered yet."
Kos' body still bore scars from the fight with Caesar. Although they had been giving her magic stones regularly, it seemed it would take quite some time to fully recover. At that moment, there was a knock at the door.
"It's me. Rohan."
It was the guide.
As Kos returned to Gloria's bracelet, Gloria opened the door. Rohan entered carrying a tray with bread and soup in both hands.
"Just in case, I bought these foods from outside, not from the hotel. I'm not sure if they'll suit your taste, but they should be edible."
Meeting Rohan was the greatest luck for Raven and Gloria. He was skilled at controlling the atmosphere and excellent in his abilities as a guide.
Of course, they hadn't seen his combat abilities so they weren't sure if he was a good shot, but just for safely guiding them here without any trouble, he had fulfilled his duties as a guide.
"Thank you. Would you like to join us, Rohan?"
"If I could have a meal with such beautiful ladies, it would be my honor."
Rohan laid out the food on the table with a smooth smile.
"The bread here is different from continental bread; it's quite dry. To be honest, it can't really be called bread—it's just baked flour dough. But if you dip it in the soup..."
Rohan put a soup-soaked piece of bread in his mouth and exaggeratedly shuddered.
"It's heavenly. Please, help yourselves."
Rohan seemed to want to become an interesting person to Raven and Gloria. Gloria ate as Rohan suggested, dipping the bread in the soup. It wasn't exactly ‘heavenly’ as he claimed, but at least it was edible.
"Are you familiar with this place, Rohan?"
"Well, before living as a guide, I was an adventurer exploring the wasteland."
"Really?"
"Of course. Why else would I, a continental person, know so much about the wasteland? It's because I was an adventurer."
"So you're not an adventurer anymore?"
Rohan scratched his head and smiled.
"Well, in my heart I'm still an adventurer. Even now, I want to explore every corner of the wasteland and discover hidden treasures. It's not easy to give up that excitement."
"But why did you quit being an adventurer?"
"Because I found the world's greatest treasure."
Rohan opened the locket hanging around his neck.
"I realized that my wife is more valuable than any precious treasure or jewel in the world. So I simply couldn't continue the dangerous work of an adventurer. I couldn't leave her to live as a widow in this harsh wasteland without me, could I?"
Raven chewed her bread and said.
"Isn't being a guide also dangerous?"
"But it pays well. My dream is to earn a ton of money, build an inn, and in my later years, publish a book about my adventures. What do you think? Isn't that quite romantic?"
Raven was amazed that eyes wrinkled from the harsh winds and hot sun of the wasteland could sparkle so brightly. She thought that must be the look in the eyes of someone who has found their dream.
"By the way, do you think you'll be able to find what you're looking for here?"
Gloria and Raven hadn't told Rohan in detail about what they were looking for. And they hadn't revealed their identities either. This was because they couldn't predict what problems might arise if they revealed who they were.
"Yes. I think we can find it."
"That's good. Where do you need to go? If it's a path I know, I'll guide you."
"We want to go to the red cliff in the north."
Rohan's expression hardened.
"...You don't mean the cliff of Sturungarden, do you?"
"I don't know if that's what it's called, but I heard there's a drake living there."
Rohan fell silent, seemingly troubled by complex thoughts. Since even that chatterbox had fallen silent, Gloria and Raven also kept quiet, curious about how serious the matter must be, and waited for Rohan to speak.
"First of all, I strongly recommend not going there."
"But we must go."
"Well, I figured you'd say that. It wouldn't make sense to come all this way and then not go. But do you know how dangerous that place is?"
"I don't know exactly. Are there any dangerous monsters other than the drake?"
"No. That's the problem."
Rohan scratched his head and said.
"Who in their right mind would invade the territory of a drake that has lived for over 120 years?"