Drunken Truths #2
Drunken Truths #2
I stared at Kate with a dubious look.
With that innocent face, she didn't exactly look like someone who could hold her liquor.
And now she's ordering the hard stuff?
Wasn't she just going to pass out mid-drink?
"I don't mind. But are you sure you'll be alright? You're not going to keel over the second you start drinking, are you?"
"I'll be fine! I might not look it, but I've got a pretty strong tolerance. I can down a whole bottle of Spiritan and still be perfectly fine."
Spiritan was a local traditional liquor. A brutally strong distilled spirit with an alcohol content exceeding seventy percent.
If she could drink a whole bottle of that and still be fine, she could definitely claim to have a strong tolerance. Though it could also just be empty boasting.
"A drink together sounds good. I'll be there."
"What about the rest of you? To celebrate finishing the promotion match, we're going all night—!"
Kate, clearly excited, asked Ally and Brut. The nun was the one suggesting a drinking party. For any drinker, this was a chance you'd grovel to accept even if it was your own parents' memorial service. Refusing would get you branded a clueless idiot.
Brut answered first.
"Drinking? No. Brut must not drink."
"Why not?"
"Tavern gets smashed. You all in danger! Killed by strong, powerful blade."
"Ah, you're a bad drunk?"
"Yes."
So he had a habit of wrecking taverns when he got drunk? The mere thought made me shudder. If a giant lizardman like that seriously went on a rampage, there'd be no stopping him. If he bit someone with that crocodile snout, it'd be a horrific disaster.
Kate nodded, as if she understood perfectly.
"I see. Then, what about you, Ally?"
"Sister Nun, please allow me to shove my face into the floor before I speak."
Thwack—!
Without warning, Ally slammed her face into her own knees. She'd done it so hard there was an audible impact, leaving both me and Kate completely stunned. Ally lifted her forehead, red from the blow, and opened her mouth.
"I can't. As soon as I get back to Yoen-su, I have to work at the arena right away. I have to play the part of a gladiator."
"A gladiator? Y-you're joking, right?"
"I'm not joking! I told you before we left. That my brother released monsters in the arena. To pay for that sin together, I have to compete in the arena games. Alongside my brother."
The halfling siblings were going to fight as gladiators? That sounded like a hell of a spectacle just hearing about it. They weren't going to have a falling out mid-fight and start beating each other up, were they?
"You don't need to worry. All we have to face are weak trash mobs like goblins. But drinking still seems like a bad idea. It'd be a problem if I made a mistake while drunk. Please don't misunderstand, I really am not trying to skip out on drinking."
"Understood."
A nun proposes a drinking party, and half the party members evaporate. It was the kind of event that'd become a rumor in the adventurer community. Since they each had their own circumstances, there was no point in pushing them further.
I spoke to Kate.
"So, it's just the two of us drinking, then?"
"Looks like it."
"Not bad. Where do we meet tomorrow evening? Know any good places?"
"That place you took me to last time, Mongma-nim. The Moon's Blessing Tavern, right? Let's meet there!"
Kate and I made a promise to meet again at the Moon's Blessing Tavern. After we'd settled on the plan, Kate wore an extremely giddy expression. Did she really like drinking that much?
"Al... alone with Mongma-nim! Huhuhu."
Hearing her mutter under her breath, it seemed there was another reason.
But was a nun even allowed to drink? I wasn't about to get dragged off to the church for drinking with her, was I?
"Kate. Can you really drink? You are a nun."
"I don't mind at all. The Luminous Church only bans alcohol for its apprentice nuns."
"I see."
"Honestly, I secretly drank even when I was an apprentice. Huhu!"
That was definitely a track record befitting a trash-tier nun. I was getting tired of pointing out contradictions, so I just shut my mouth. If she could hold her liquor, that was a good thing for me. There's nothing sadder than someone passing out before you've shared a few glasses, like Rebecca did. As it happened, I'd been in need of a decent drinking buddy.
The wagon racing down the highway wasn't attacked by any monsters. While monsters did prowl around the roadside, Ally spotted them all before they could get close. We'd just hurry the driver along and speed up to shake them off.
When the next morning came, we finally reached the front gates of Yoen-su. Seeing the sturdy city walls rising before us, a few tears leaked from my eyes.
Was this what coming home felt like?
"One driver and four adventurers. You may enter."
The wagon passed the guards' inspection and finally entered the city proper.
The bustling cityscape, just like any other day, unfolded before us.
*
After returning to Yoen-su.
Before heading back to the Adventurer's Guild, we first stopped by the smithy. We needed to sell off the heavy equipment we'd looted from the orcs. We handed a heap of gear stripped from the orcs to the blacksmith hammering away at his forge.
"Well? Any of this worth money?"
"Most of it's too damaged to pay full price. But this glaive is an exception. A magnificent piece of work."
The blacksmith's eyes gleamed as he looked over the orc warrior's glaive.
"A glaive mixed with rare metal. With this expensive iron in it, I can give you 80 Silver for it."
"80 Silver, huh."
"Adding the other equipment, I'll tally it up to a total of 1 Gold. You won't get a better price for it at any other shop."
One Gold!
A chance to touch a gleaming gold coin.
Unfortunately, instead of a gold coin from the blacksmith, we received a hundred silver coins of equivalent value. We had to split the profits from the loot among the party members. In the end, the money that went into my pocket was a total of 25 Silver.
Still, it didn't feel bad at all.
Just holding the weighty clinking bundle of silver coins in my hand made me feel happy.
After settling the accounts, we left immediately for the Adventurer's Guild.
The time had finally come to report on our quest.
"You've returned safely, adventurers!"
The Adventurer's Guild lobby.
Wendy, sitting at the reception desk, was the first to greet us upon our return. After Brut placed the sack containing the orc heads on the desk, I gave Wendy our report on the quest.
"We dealt with five orcs in the abandoned mine of Kuntil-la Village. We had quite a bit of trouble since a warrior-class orc was mixed in with them."
"A warrior class. The quest's difficulty must have jumped a full rank. An orc with a class is a tough opponent even for Silver Tier adventurers."
"Luck was on our side. As it happened, a pack of kobolds was attacking the orcs inside the mine. We managed to launch a surprise attack and barely took them down."
"Kobolds appeared?"
The report didn't end just with killing the orcs. We gave a detailed account of everything, from how kobolds had nested in the depths of the mine to how traps were starting to reset.
By the guild's rules, adventurers who make diligent reports are sometimes rewarded. It wasn't just us running our mouths pointlessly. After the report was finished, Wendy smiled and spoke.
"Understood. Anyway, you've all completed your promotion match with flying colors. Congratulations on your promotion to Silver Tier, everyone. Your promotion ceremony will be held in a week. You'll be issued new Adventurer's Badges then."
Wendy made sure to process the quest reward without missing a beat. The base request fee of 8 Silver, plus the bounties on the orcs' heads. After we split the payout, I realized I'd made exactly 40 Silver from this quest.
"Good work, everyone."
After saying our goodbyes, the party members, myself included, disbanded cleanly.
"Great work, blonde Mongma-nim!"
"See you again, mage! In Silver—!"
Ally and Brut walked into the city with their chests puffed out. They weren't Bronze anymore. I guessed it was because they'd now be treated like proper people.
"You absolutely have to come to the tavern this evening! Don't forget our promise!"
"Yeah."
Kate said her goodbyes to me and hurriedly left for the city center. We could've hung around together a bit longer before parting. Did she have some urgent business? I could only stare at Kate's retreating back without a single glance over her shoulder, a puzzled look on my face.
"Well, I've got urgent business myself, I guess."
I didn't bother to stop Kate. I wanted to hurry back to the inn and see Rebecca, too. I was dying to show off that my promotion to Silver Tier was confirmed. I set off for the inn without a moment's hesitation.
Some time passed.
When I arrived at the inn, I realized, for some reason, that Rebecca wasn't in the room.
"Huh?"
I unlocked the door with the spare key I'd gotten beforehand and went in, but there was no sign of Rebecca inside. Moreover, the curved blade she always carried had vanished, too. If she'd just stepped out for a bit, would she have taken her sword with her?
Just in case, I went down to the lobby and asked the innkeeper, Brown.
"Mister Brown. Do you happen to know where Rebecca went?"
"Ah, you mean your girlfriend? As it happens, she left a note with me. She told me to give it to you if you returned first while she was out."
I received a neatly folded note from Brown. Unfolding the paper, I saw Rebecca's writing, scrawled in a crooked hand.
━Luke!
━I'll probably be back late tonight because of a quest. While you were gone, I took a simple quest at the Adventurer's Guild too. It's an E-rank quest to find a missing pet.
━So I spent all of yesterday looking for a cat. I was so bored without you by my side. And I barely know my way around.
━I want to see you again soon. Luke.
Reading the note, I realized what kind of errand had taken Rebecca out.
A pet search quest, huh.
I never imagined she'd be clearing quests while I was away. A pet search was a simple quest that could be done within the city. But the pay was usually shit compared to the effort. As expected of a newbie adventurer, she'd fallen for a trap, it seemed.
'Still, she left a note.'
Looking at the note in my hand, my heart felt warm. Had she thought of me returning while she was away? Thanks to that, my worries were eased. A small consideration, but nothing could make me happier.
"I'll head up to my room now, Mister Brown. Also, I can use the bath now, right?"
"Of course."
I said my goodbyes to Brown, returned to my room, and unpacked. I couldn't just wait idly for Rebecca to come back late into the night. I had a promise with Kate this evening anyway. By the time I got back from the drinking party, wouldn't Rebecca be waiting for me in the room?
After washing up in the bath, I closed my eyes for a while on the bed. I hadn't slept a wink the previous night, having stayed up in the wagon keeping watch for monsters.
I meant to catch a quick nap until evening.
But even with my eyes closed, sleep just wouldn't come.
The blonde-haired nun I'd just parted with kept surfacing in my mind.
"Kate."
I didn't know how many times I'd been seduced by Kate during this quest. Whether it was lifting her dress to show me her thigh, leaning her head on me like an affectionate lover, or even kissing me on the cheek at the very end.
At this point, I couldn't help but be curious.
What kind of relationship did Kate even want with me?
I was already going out with Rebecca. What could she possibly gain by seducing a man who has a girlfriend?
'There's no point in stewing over this alone.'
Honestly, I didn't have the confidence to withstand Kate's advances any longer. I wanted to resolve this question quickly and put an end to this ambiguous relationship. And as luck would have it, I seemed to have just gotten an opportunity to find out what was in Kate's heart.
━How about sharing a drink?
━You're alright with that? I'm going to be ordering some very hard liquor, you know.
A private drinking party, just the two of us.
And on top of that, we'd be drinking hard liquor. I'd just ask her what she thought of me when the mood was ripe enough.
"I'll settle this for good tonight."
I made that resolution.
Even if I had to borrow the power of alcohol, I was going to get to the bottom of this.