Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Adventure Club #6
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“Spider webs?”
I hadn’t seen any. Even if I had, they were just tiny ones?
From the moment I first came in here, it had just been an old, rundown building. It smelled a bit moldy, sure.
Then I sensed a fluctuation in mana, and there you were, Theo Gospel, firing magic into thin air.
I tried to call out to you, but you bolted upward like you were fleeing from something, created a ton of barricades, and I couldn’t get in.
You didn’t hear me?
Probably the hallucinatory effects. This fairy forest is full of grasses and fruits that cause hallucinations. The most famous one is those spicy red pepper fruits—
Oh, you ate those for dinner last night?
The symptoms must have kicked in late.
Yeah, eating them can give you nightmares too.
Of course, even without an antidote, you’ll recover on your own after some time—
That was Lady Kallira’s explanation up to that point. So everything I’d seen—the spiders and webs—was some kind of hallucination.
The red soup Marmar had served me the night before must have been loaded with hallucinogens?
Maybe the nightmare I had was because of Marmar’s cooking too.
“Anyway, thanks to you, Lady Kallira, I survived.”
As I expressed my gratitude, I noticed Marmar flailing her hands wildly at Lady Kallira.
“Comrade! Spider, spider! That evil thing! Spit out my comrade! My comrade, my comrade’s dead!”
I looked at Marmar, who was trembling toward Lady Kallira while showing clear hostility. Marmar must still see her as a giant spider.
Did she think I got eaten in the hallucination?
So Marmar and I both suffered some kind of shared hallucination?
People really can see the same illusion, huh.
Did we get hit by some spell or magic?
「Calm situation judgment!
Gain experience from Talent 《Calm Thinking》.
All job experience +5」
Guess so.
I figured I should put out the most pressing fire first.
“Can you give Marmar an antidote too?”
“Easy enough.”
Lady Kallira moved her hand swiftly to inject Marmar, but Marmar’s hand slapped it away.
“Get that away!”
Marmar thrashed around. Kallira failed to restrain her, let out a sigh, and turned to me.
“Hold on, keep this one still—. Um, Theo, could you help for a sec?”
“Sure.”
I grabbed Marmar’s arms firmly, pinning her so she couldn’t escape or flail. Marmar bucked wildly in every direction.
“My comrade! My comrade’s possessed by the spider! It’s controlling him with webs! I, I’ll get eaten too…!”
“…….”
So this is what it looks like watching someone hallucinate. It’s gone past pitiful straight to hilarious. I must’ve been like that just a minute ago?
Better give her the antidote before Marmar racks up more blackmail material.
“Here, it’ll sting a little.”
Sting.
“Hieeek…!”
As the needle went in, Marmar let out her impish, bizarre scream. But only for a moment—soon she went limp, as if all strength had left her.
Marmar’s eyes opened about five seconds later.
“Spider!”
Like someone jolting awake from a nightmare, Marmar yelled and shot up. I took her hand and helped her up, checking her condition.
“How’s it feel? Better now? Still seeing webs or spiders?”
“No. What happened? Where’d all the spiders go? You chased them off, comrade! You saved my life again!”
Marmar seemed convinced I’d driven off the spiders myself. I had to tell her the truth.
“Everything we saw until just now was a hallucination.”
“Hallucination…?”
I explained everything to Marmar, who didn’t get it—from the food she’d served at dinner containing hallucinogens, to why we gave her the antidote.
“What? So the spicy food didn’t actually make me feel good. It was hallucinogens. I had no idea.”
“Yeah. Good thing there was no poison. But weird we saw the exact same hallucination.”
“S-sorry…. Must’ve been my fault you ate something weird and saw illusions….”
Only then did Marmar realize her mistake, fidgeting anxiously.
I didn’t know what to do. She’d meant well offering the food.
But it led to this…. If it’d been lethal poison instead of hallucinogens, I’d be dead.
It’s a miracle Marmar’s survived eating stuff like that all this time.
No wonder she drew a clock on her hand and thought it was real. She really is a bit unhinged.
I felt more urgent than ever about getting her a proper living space and diet.
Once this is over, I’ll definitely move her somewhere decent.
I’ll get ten million coins as a reward for ranking up to Silver Brooch, which should cover a deposit on staff housing easy.
As Marmar scanned around swiping at the air like she was checking for spider remnants, she spoke up.
“So, where did the hallucination start and end? Who’s this lady? Is she a hallucination too?”
Oh right—Marmar doesn’t know who Lady Kallira is. And Lady Kallira doesn’t seem to know Marmar either, though she hasn’t asked.
I figured they should introduce themselves.
“Say hi. This is Lady Kallira, and this is the imp Marmar.”
“Oho, an imp. First imp I’ve seen. No wonder she has a tail.”
Lady Kallira seemed intrigued by Marmar. Her red eyes scanned Marmar from head to toe, giving me chills for no reason.
“I’ve heard imp tails are valuable medicine for rare diseases. But they’re so expensive and scarce, impossible to get.”
“Eek!”
Marmar openly showed her wariness, whipping her tail behind her.
“I’m not giving up my tail! It’s a rare diamond tail!”
“I wouldn’t force a tail off Theo’s comrade. Does that mean she’ll be working with me from now on too?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
I nodded, and Marmar grumbled like it was outrageous.
“Comrade, she has red eyes. Red eyes are bad luck!”
While Lady Kallira took a liking to Marmar, Marmar clearly didn’t trust her.
“My tail’s telling me—she’s dangerous!”
Maybe Marmar’s keen senses picked up on the malice or killing intent clinging to her. Lady Kallira was an assassin, after all.
But isn’t that rude for a first meeting?
Feeling awkward, I glanced at Lady Kallira. She chuckled seductively, clearly amused.
“I like her spunk. I’ve been handling work alone lately, and it’s been exhausting with crowds. I’d almost want her as my assistant.”
“Who’d assist some red-eyed freak? You just wanna experiment on me, right? Some imp-hating mad science…!”
Marmar snapped back fiercely. But soon, in a tiny voice, she murmured.
“…How much per hour…?”
“Hourly? Nah, it’s daily pay. Hmm, let’s see. Six hours a day, about eighty thousand coins.”
“Hieeek…!”
Marmar let out a scream straight out of a horror story—even louder than during her hallucination. I flinched and ducked my head.
Somehow reading the scream right, Lady Kallira smacked her lips awkwardly.
“If that’s too low, I can go up to a hundred thousand.”
“A h-hundred thousand coins…!!!”
Marmar was on the verge of madness.
“With a hundred thousand, that’s twenty 5k-coin pork cutlets…. Or 500 eggs at 200 coins each…. Heh heh, I’d be an egg billionaire, hatch ’em and get 500 chickens. 500 chickens laying eggs….”
Watching Marmar deteriorate, Lady Kallira rummaged in her pouch.
“Hallucination not fully worn off? I’m out of antidote now. What to do?”
“Nah, she’s fine. That’s just how she is.”
“She seems off. Might rethink using her as an assistant. She’s cute for reception, but if her head’s not right….”
Marmar’s pitiful side apparently tanked her favor with Lady Kallira.
In the end, Marmar drooped her tail limply and huffed, “I-I don’t wanna be an assistant anyway—.” Their chat wrapped up there.
Managing subordinate relationships is harder than I thought.
* * *
“So this is the door.”
We descended underground with Lady Kallira. Seeing the door, she peered around, then hummed thoughtfully.
“There’s a reason you both hallucinated spiders at the same time. Look here.”
Lady Kallira pointed at the floor in front of the door.
Now that I noticed, there was a mat or carpet laid out there, embroidered with a black spider silhouette.
“It’s giving off a shamanistic vibe. Probably a talisman that inflicts bad vibes on anyone approaching.”
Combined with the food’s hallucinogens, it created our spider nightmare.
“Even after sitting abandoned so long, it still works faintly. Impressive craftsmanship.”
“Magic-like stuff, right?”
“Exactly.”
My earlier deduction was spot on—magic it was. Turns out my calm thinking has a knack for reasoning about spells and magic too.
Still, to go through all that over a stupid carpet.
“Tch.”
Irritated, I kicked it aside. Underneath were tons of dried spider corpses, wrinkling my nose even more.
“Eugh—.”
“Dried spiders!”
Marmar gleefully scooped them into her sack.
“Dried spiders are used in medicine sometimes. Valuable stuff.”
“Didn’t ask you, red eyes!”
Marmar stuck her tongue out at Lady Kallira provocatively. But Lady Kallira ignored her, rubbing the iron door.
“External locks are odd, and there’s a barrier spell at the entrance. But I doubt there’s real danger now.”
Scrape, click. Clunk.
Lady Kallira effortlessly undid the rusted locks we couldn’t budge. Her fearless display left me and Marmar shaking.
“See? Red eyes are dangerous! Don’t hire her!”
Even then, Marmar kept sowing discord between me and Lady Kallira. She must’ve been super salty about the assistant rejection.
Like a fox calling sour grapes it can’t eat.
「Calm situation judgment!
Gain experience from Talent 《Calm Thinking》.
All job experience +5」
Got it.
Ignoring that, all the locks were soon off.
Lady Kallira pulled with a heave—. But the long-sealed iron door was stuck fast to the floor, creaking without budging.
“Theo. Mind helping? If we pull together, it should open.”
“Sure.”
I gripped the door with Lady Kallira and yanked hard. Finally, the rusted door groaned open with overwhelming presence.
Sloooowly.
The chill blasting from the gap was eerie. Feeling it, even hostile Marmar shut up.
“Too dark. Doesn’t seem like anything lives here, but stay cautious just in case.”
Lady Kallira rummaged at her waist pouch for a torch.
“There should be a lantern around here somewhere….”
“Outta the way, redhead.”
Marmar, who’d gone quiet amid the oppressive dark, squeezed between us and stroked her tail.
Click—.
A weird switch sound came from Marmar’s tail, followed by something amazing.
“Whoa. Marmar, your tail’s glowing?”
“Heh heh, diamond tails can glow!”
Marmar’s tail blazed with dazzling light, blinding like oncoming high beams in the dark.
Too bright.
But Marmar smirked slyly anyway.
“How’s that? I’m way more useful than this redhead, right?”
“…….”
Lady Kallira said nothing to Marmar’s taunt.
She just eyed the glowing diamond tail tip with interest, smacking her lips.
Worried she might yank it off, I quickly changed the subject.
“Shall we head in? Watch your step.”
And so, me, Marmar, and Lady Kallira entered the basement room’s hidden chamber. I called it a “room” because it wasn’t huge.
First thing I saw was a beat-up billiard table, balls scattered on it. Lady Kallira picked one up and examined it.
“Ivory. Pricey stuff. Fifty thousand coins each, easy.”
“I saw it first!”
Marmar panicked and shoved the balls into her sack.
“Kidding.”
“Grrr…! Knew it, I hate you! You’re nobility, right? All slick lies, typical noble!”
“Oh? Do I seem elegantly noble?”
As Lady Kallira and Marmar bickered, I used Marmar’s tail light to slowly inspect the long-sealed room.
Besides the billiard table, it looked like someone’s hobby central: sofa, cot, books strewn on the floor….
Nothing useful, it seemed.
Still, figuring there might be something, as we rummaged around with my comrades— Marmar called out.
“Comrade, this. You gotta see it yourself.”
“What? Found the name Isaiah?”
“Dunno about Isaiah….”
Whoosh.
Marmar handed me a small book. Black leather cover, striking. On it:
「Adventure Club 5th Generation Activity Report: By Theo Gospel and Priga Nightfall.」
I hadn’t expected this.