Merchant Escort Quest #3
Merchant Escort Quest #3
Obviously, I had no intention of leaving Rebecca out of the plan.
She's my party member.
Though she does have her moments—head completely empty, acting on pure impulse.
And when she gets too full of herself, I can't help wanting to knock her down a peg.
Same instinct I had back on Earth as the eldest of five, laying down the law whenever one of my siblings got out of line.
"It was a joke. Don't take it so seriously. Let's move out together tomorrow."
"Of course I was joking too. I could never abandon a comrade I fought a vicious kelpie alongside."
Rebecca let out a relieved sigh once the mood settled. Not that she forgot to fire off a sharp remark.
"If you were going to allow it, you should've just said so from the start. Why beat around the bush?"
Hoping she'd figure out the reason herself, I deliberately didn't answer.
And so the first day of the escort quest came to an end.
Just because night fell didn't mean we could rest; we had to stand night watch against monster attacks.
And in this night watch chosen by drawing lots, I fucking drew the short straw.
I got the early shift, which meant my day started two hours before everyone else's.
This caravan ran the night watch on a random lottery system.
If you drew a winning lot, you were exempt for the day; if you kept drawing the loser, you were stuck on night watch every single night.
I have no idea why anyone would operate such a goddamn idiotic night watch system.
"Why is night watch drawn by lot? Isn't that unfair?"
The middle-aged merchant's answer to someone's question was something else.
"Life's all about luck, my friend. The absurdly lucky ones get all the spoils. If you're lucky, won't you be able to skip night watch tomorrow? Just wait patiently for the draw time."
A real manly answer that instantly shut down all complaints.
He's right, so I can't even argue. Fuck.
In the end, I woke up at 4 a.m. without a word and stood watch until dawn.
"Good mornin'."
"Yeah."
The person who stood watch with me was a shaven-headed swordsman.
The swordsman, whose head was shaved bald like a monk's, barely spoke during the entire watch, as if he'd taken a vow of silence.
I tried to kill time by shooting the breeze, but the swordsman ended every conversation with one-word replies, so I just stood watch quietly.
"Yes."
"No."
There's no way any conversation can be enjoyable with someone who only ever returns a yes or no.
As expected of a guy with a shaved head—seemed he'd shaved off his sense of humor too.
Eventually, I dozed off on my feet, and my watch came to an end.
Because nodding off during night watch is only natural.
Anyone who stays wide awake for two straight hours is the weird one. I was absolutely not derelict in my duty.
"Let's move out—!"
Morning came, and the whole party woke up.
Time to march again. But unlike yesterday, all the adventurers' eyes were on the rear wagon. Because to cool off, they had to somehow stick close to that wagon. The freeloaders' ultimate showdown was finally drawing to a close.
Or, it should have been.
Before any duel could begin, an unprecedented incident occurred.
The moment the merchant's sharp shout rang out first thing in the morning, I instinctively knew something had gone to shit.
"Who was it?! You bastard who left the windbreak open!!"
The potbellied middle-aged merchant was fuming, pointing at the wagon. Specifically, his finger was aimed at the cloth covering the wagon. The cloth had ventilation holes here and there, and it seemed someone had opened them all the way wide.
"Fuck... Our caravan's artifact."
At first, I didn't know why the merchant was throwing such a fit.
After a moment, the fat middle-aged merchant, having calmed down a bit, cleared his throat and finally started explaining.
"Last night, an unfortunate accident happened to my wagon. It was the wagon carrying the artifact called Eternal Snow. Someone opened the gaps in the cloth, and the artifact was exposed to sunlight."
"What's the big deal about being exposed to sunlight?"
"Eternal Snow is a mysterious snow brought from the northern snowy mountains. It contains the magical power to lower the surrounding temperature. But it has a fatal flaw: if it touches sunlight, it loses its cooling power. Until the Magic Tower can restore it, it's just an ordinary snowball."
"Then can't you just have it restored later? There's no need to get so angry."
"The important thing is that the wagon carrying the Eternal Snow was also storing food. We were transporting highly perishable food using the artifact's power. Because of last night's incident, the artifact is ruined, and the food loaded on the wagon is essentially ruined as well."
With a gloomy expression, the merchant took food from the wagon's cargo hold. What came out were twenty glass jars of fruit jam. I didn't know what kind, but they looked like high-quality goods.
"...So, who was it? Whoever opened the cloth, raise your hand and confess."
The merchant looked around at the group with a calm expression, encouraging them to turn themselves in.
It was just like an elementary school teacher telling whoever stole something to fess up.
But these weren't innocent grade-schoolers. They were seasoned adventurers.
There was no way the culprit would raise their hand in this situation. They knew they'd be stuck with a massive compensation fee, and their life would get real tough the moment they got caught.
Actually, the merchant was also partly responsible for not informing us of this beforehand. But either way, the culprit wasn't going to be caught easily.
"Who was it? The bastard who fucked up."
"What a pain in the morning."
As the merchant made a fuss, the adventurers' mood grew restless.
The people who'd stood night watch gave their accounts, but that didn't help find the culprit who opened the wagon cloth.
Of course, I'd just dozed off, so there was no way I'd have found anything.
In the end, the merchant, having achieved nothing, wore a gloomy expression.
Looking at the frustrated merchant, I thought he was reaping what he'd sown.
This happened in the first place because you run this caravan so sloppily.
Night watch by lottery, letting anyone get close to the artifact-loaded wagon with no restrictions, no proper orders during the march, and the whole formation was a mess.
Just then, the merchant looked at me.
The middle-aged merchant stared at me with the eyes of someone grasping for a final hope.
"Luke! You're a mage, aren't you? Haven't you learned some spell to lower temperature or something? Or a spell to prevent food from spoiling?"
"Nope, no such spell."
"Don't be so cut-and-dried... Think a little more. When I think about having to throw away all this jam, it feels like tears of blood will pour from my eyes."
What am I, Doraemon? Does he think I can just grant any wish if he asks?
Wendy once told me there were clients who blindly preferred mages without understanding magic, and this merchant seemed exactly that type.
The merchant actually grabbed onto my trouser leg and started clinging.
"Please!! I want to finish this caravan journey safely!!"
I couldn't just ignore a whining merchant.
No matter how stupid he is, the merchant is still my client. If he asks me to bust a move, I should at least fake an effort.
I sighed and turned my head.
The direction I happened to look, Rebecca was looking at me.
Rebecca mouthed words silently to me.
"Ig..."
Ig-nore? She's telling me to ignore the merchant? That's probably what she meant.
To tell me to blow off a client's request!
Truly what you'd expect from a promising young adventurer with a bright future.
Rebecca will probably never escape the Bronze Abyss her whole life.
Yeah, Bronze.
Unlike Rebecca, I had a drive to rise in rank.
I can't stay Bronze forever.
I want to escape this stinking Bronze Tier and climb to Silver, where you're treated like an actual person. They say Silver Tier adventurers get various benefits in Yoen-su city.
Like tax cuts, bank loans, things like that.
And above all, there's something more important. I want to stop dealing with those Bronze Abyss bastards.
'I want to hang out with decent Silver Tier folks who treat you like a human being. I wonder what it's like to do a quest with Silvers.'
Bronze trait: hating your own kind.
I had the will to advance.
But to get promoted, getting good reviews from clients on every request was essential. Because it all gets recorded in the reports that go to the Guild like clockwork.
"Alright. I'll give it a try. Don't get your hopes up too high."
I scratched the back of my head and shook off the merchant. At my words, he hastily let go of my trouser leg and stepped aside. I tried not to look at the merchant if I could help it. If I got his hopes up too much, I'd probably make a mistake.
As luck would have it, one idea did come to mind. I'd often pondered ways to use my water magic before. Not for anything specific, just drifting in daydreams to entertain myself during long training sessions—fantasizing, 'Wouldn't it be fun to use it like this?'
"Water."
I conjured a droplet of water in the air. Then I reached out and touched its surface. The droplet I'd created had one characteristic—it was cold. You might wonder what's the big deal about cold water, but warm water exists too. Cold is a trait in itself. It felt like the low-temperature cold water you get when you turn the faucet all the way to the cold side. So cold that if a splash accidentally hit your skin, you'd flinch.
This time, too, the droplet I created was cold. Cold enough that the palm touching it felt chilled. I carefully placed the droplet, which I held with both hands, on the ground.
"Rebecca!"
"What?"
"Bring me some of that jam from the wagon!"
Rebecca wordlessly fetched a jar of jam from the wagon. It was a glass jar about the size of a water bottle, filled with sticky yellow jam.
The middle-aged merchant watched me and Rebecca with a bewildered expression.
"What on earth are you trying to do...? What can you do with that water droplet?"
"Just watch. You'll see what I plan to use it for soon."
I took the glass jar from Rebecca. Then what I did was, after forming a hand seal, push the jar into the water droplet. Literally shove the jar into the droplet. The moment I applied force and pushed the jar in, water splashed everywhere. But even amidst that, the droplet maintained its spherical shape.
"Liquid."
I was using mana to manipulate the droplet. Simply maintaining a spherical shape wasn't very difficult. After a moment, I managed to enclose the glass jar inside the water droplet.
I levitated the water that had spilled on the ground and used it to fill in the damaged parts of the droplet. What was completed in that moment was a round water droplet with a glass jar inside it. Like a terrarium, I guess you could say.
I whistled as I looked at the finished product.
"H-he put a glass jar inside a water droplet."
"Mages are monsters, every last one of them."
The people around me stared, chattering with excited eyes. Countless adventurers and the caravan's mercenaries stared at the water droplet containing the glass jar.
The moment all eyes were on me, I took the water droplet with both hands and handed it to the middle-aged merchant.
"Wh-whoa!"
The merchant flinched in surprise as he held the droplet. No wonder he was surprised—touching water made of mana was surely a bizarre experience. A droplet that maintained its shape and mass even when touched.
"Well? Cold, right?"
"Cold! In-credibly cold!"
"With that temperature, think we can preserve the jam?"
"Y-yes, I believe so! I can guarantee it!"
The merchant was snorting with excitement. But unfortunately, his mood was about to peak right there. I cut off the mana supply to the droplet and stopped the manipulation.
Shwaaak—!
The moment I did, the water droplet collapsed. Water cascaded down like a waterfall, and droplets splashed everywhere. Fortunately, the merchant had been supporting the bottom of the droplet, so the glass jar was narrowly saved from crashing to the ground.
"What's the meaning of this?!"
The merchant, clutching the glass jar, looked at me with flabbergasted eyes. Seeing him with his pants soaked through, I felt a sense of relief. After all, this whole mess happened because of his own negligence. If you're the one in charge of the caravan, shouldn't you take responsibility?
But I couldn't say that honestly. I put on an apologetic face and played dumb.
"It was a minor mistake. I'm still not skilled enough with water manipulation. But I think it would be too difficult to use this method as-is to store the jam."
"Why's that? A moment ago you seemed to handle water quite skillfully."
"Think about it. I heard it takes a total of five days to reach the trade city. And this caravan has only covered one day's distance so far. That means I'd have to maintain that water droplet for a whole four days."
"Ah..."
"I doubt I could endure for four days even if my life depended on it. Using magic for too long puts a strain on the body. I might suddenly pass out, and the droplet would burst."
"So it's impossible...?"
The merchant's eyes lost all hope. His reactions are so transparent, it's fun messing with him.
"No. It is possible. Keeping the jam fresh for four days, that is."
"Out with it, then! Don't keep me in suspense!"
I spoke to the merchant, who was receiving live psychological torture via hope. Like a pigeon returning home by homing instinct, I decided to seek out the item I could handle most skillfully.
"Do you happen to have a basin? A big, wide basin."