A Simple Job
"You brought something the ogre was carrying?"
"Yes. This."
Seriel held the bracelet up for Elian to see. He studied it with a careful face, then looked at me.
"Would you be willing to turn it over to me? I will pay you properly."
"Of course. I was going to sell it anyway."
Elian set the pouch of silver he'd been carrying down on the table. I didn't even need to count it. The weight alone said the sum was enormous.
"Th-this much? All of it?"
While I stood there stunned, Levan tapped my arm.
"Hold on a moment."
He stepped forward and examined the pouch with a sharp, appraising eye. Elian only smiled.
"Not enough?"
At that, Levan glanced sidelong at me and grinned.
"A little more on top would be nice. We both nearly died getting this."
It wasn't even a lie. I'd died once and come back, for that matter.
Elian seemed to consider it for a moment. The smile at the corner of his mouth made it plain he had no real interest in haggling with us in earnest.
"Hm. In that case, I have no more coin to spare, so allow me to offer information instead. Would that be acceptable?"
"Information?"
Levan looked at me as if the decision were mine. Good information was worth more than ordinary money, and a man of Elian's standing wasn't likely to fob us off with nonsense.
"All right."
The coin alone was already more than enough.
"It was something I meant to post through the guild before long. I'll tell you ahead of time."
Elian drew a map from inside his armor.
"West of the castle lies a place that was once a fortress of Belmor. Now only the undead remain."
Ah.
The moment I heard it, my mouth fell open.
"It is dangerous... but a great deal has been left behind there."
"A-and?"
When I asked, Elian smiled faintly.
"The skeleton swordsman guarding the place must be eliminated. The road west is blocked because of him."
Belmor's western fortress. It was the first quest in the game, the one that began if you wandered the field at random after you started.
I'd been steering clear of it, figuring it was still too dangerous, and now it had come looking for me.
"Defeat the skeleton swordsman who guards it and bring me the sword he carries, and I will give you a fitting reward."
Just as I'd thought. That quest.
The skeleton swordsman. For as long as I'd played Darkland—right up to my last memory before I came here—he was the boss I always cleared.
Not that he was anything I could afford to take lightly. I'd fought goblins and ogres with my life on the line, and the skeleton swordsman was on another level entirely.
"The name alone is terrifying... Why leave a thing like that to us instead of handling it yourselves?"
Levan asked, suspicion plain in his voice, and Elian nodded with a rather grave expression.
"Belmor's army is concentrating on the war against the gnolls. Reclaiming the western fortress and opening the road is important work as well, but the gnolls are Belmor's greatest threat at present."
That much was true. While adventurers like us handled other matters, Belmor Castle poured its strength into the war with the gnolls. That was the backdrop of Darkland.
"Think we'll be all right? A skeleton swordsman..."
Levan asked me, uneasy.
"We heard it as part of what we got for selling that bracelet. Isn't it enough just to know?"
Levan nodded at my words, and Elian smiled and nodded as well.
"Yes. I hope you'll remember, and that you'll see it through. Then I'll be taking this."
With that, Elian left with the bracelet in hand.
Once he was gone, Seriel came over, her interest fixed on the pouch of silver I was holding.
"Even so, I didn't expect him to part with so much so readily. And it seems he shared important information as well."
The fee. Right.
I took out some silver and gave it to Seriel. Even after the appraisal fee and the brokerage on top of it, the pouch was still heavy.
"Thank you. If you find anything else of value, please bring it to me."
Seriel offered me a gentle smile and a small bow.
Then Levan and I stepped out of the appraisal office.
"You thinking of going?"
"Mmm."
Elian had said he was telling us ahead of the posting. Before long the castle might put it up through the guild, and once that happened plenty of people would come charging in to compete.
"If we're going to do it, sooner is probably better."
"So you are thinking of going."
"Well, that's the kind of thing that pays, isn't it?"
"True enough, but..."
Unlike himself, Levan kept trailing off, as if something unsettled him. There was something he was afraid of.
"Have you ever seen an undead?"
So that was what had been bothering him.
I shrugged. I hadn't seen one since coming here either, but I had a rough sense of them.
"You haven't?"
"What? Ahem. Hard to say. I feel like I might have, once."
Levan shrugged as if flustered and gave an awkward laugh. From the reaction, he'd never seen one at all.
"The first time can be frightening. But in some ways they're easier than things like goblins."
"Th-they can be?"
"They're slow, overall."
Their fighting power once they closed in was dangerous enough, but they moved slowly. A limit of corpses dragged back to their feet.
"You just can't let them hit you. Their bodies are rotting, so you can catch something."
"Ugh. That's awful."
Levan shook his head and let out a sigh.
For the first time since I'd come here, I was stepping into the main story. Until now I'd only been surviving day to day. Meeting the Goddess when I died yesterday—had that been a kind of beginning?
The moment I understood I'd been dropped into the world of Darkland, my goal had been to see the ending. Probably because that was how I'd get back. So this, too, was something I had to do.
"So where are we going now?"
"Hm?"
Levan cut in just as my thoughts were about to run long. I hadn't really had anywhere in mind.
"Nowhere in particular, then. Let's at least take a simple job today. The west is somewhere we haven't been much anyway. If it's work that takes us that way, that should be fine, right?"
At that I looked at the pouch of silver.
"Then we buy a sword again first... and go take a light look, just to test the waters?"
"Good. The healer asked us for a favor."
"Ah. Right."
Only then did the pain in my body make itself known again.
"I needed to go anyway. Works out."
"What, you've been like that since yesterday?"
"Yeah. I wanted to deal with this first."
As I spoke, the pain pulled my face tight, and Levan, watching me, let out a hollow laugh.
"Honestly. Let's go."
We headed straight for the castle infirmary. It sat right beside the inn.
The place was unusually quiet today. Out front, a woman was hanging white cloth to dry.
"Oh. You're back."
Healer Airika. Fair-skinned, with bright blonde hair and deep green eyes, she wore the bright, faintly smiling face of someone who might never have been angry in her life.
She smiled at Levan, then looked at me beside him, and her expression stiffened.
"Oh—Selen?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you, um..."
Airika came closer and, with careful hands, pushed up my sleeve. When the place the goblin's thrown knife had struck came into view, her eyes went round.
"You left it like this, and you were all right?"
"...That's why I'm here now."
I laughed, a little awkward, and the hand holding my arm tightened.
"Come in."
Airika went into the infirmary first. She led the way back to where the beds were, and once I'd followed she drew the curtain.
"Would you take your top off for me?"
"Ah, yeah..."
When I did, an awful lot of wounds showed. Cuts and stabs scattered across me, and bruises along the arm and torso where the ogre had had hold of me.
"You came back yesterday, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Got back yesterday."
"I see."
Airika cleaned the wound on my arm, then looked at me for a moment with wide eyes.
"With injuries like these, you must have slept wonderfully. I half expected you might still be asleep."
"Ah, well... it was bearable."
The softness settled back into her voice.
Then Levan slipped in through a gap in the curtain.
"The moment she got back yesterday, she drank until she was out cold."
Still smiling, Airika turned toward him.
"Levan, please step outside."
"Oh. Uh. You were undressed."
He withdrew at once.
Airika let out a small breath, then leaned a little closer and inhaled.
"You had quite a lot of mutton, I see."
"We made a lot of money for once, yesterday."
"It goes well with drink, doesn't it?"
"Y-yeah. It did."
As I answered and drew a breath, I caught Airika's scent, so close. A sweet fragrance that seemed to heal me from the inside out.
They said a healer's mana could mend the body by scent alone. Thanks to that, the aches throbbing all over me eased almost at once.
"You said you made a great deal of money?"
"We got an ogre heart and sold it. All these wounds are from fighting that thing."
Airika watched me quietly, a faint smile on her face. Had I explained it a little too enthusiastically?
"An ogre. You really did accomplish something. Those are hard even to lay eyes on."
"Yeah, well..."
She pressed her lips together, dabbed medicine onto the wounds, and wrapped them in bandages.
"All done."
I dressed at her word, and she drew the curtain back.
"Selen's body ought to be worth more than an ogre's heart. Isn't that how it usually is?"
"Ahaha... I guess so."
She wasn't wrong. Yesterday I hadn't even realized I was hurt this badly.
Levan, who'd been standing in front of the curtain, flinched and stepped back, then gave a weak laugh at the sight of me treated and dressed again.
"See? What did I tell you. I said get treated first."
"When?"
"Was it dawn yesterday? You said mixing a recovery potion into the wine would be fine."
At that, Airika's eyes went round as she looked at me.
"Wh-what are you talking about? When did I ever..."
"Oh, maybe it was the fellow at the next table. My memory's a bit fuzzy too."
Levan was laughing as he said it. The bastard was doing it on purpose.
Airika watched the two of us in silence, as if we were hopeless. Levan turned his attention to her.
"Right. Airika, you said you had a favor to ask."
Only then did a faint smile return to her face, and she nodded.
"I'm not sure I ought to ask the two of you. For something like this."
"Anything's fine."
At my answer she let out a short breath and spoke.
"I'd like you to gather some herbs for me. I've run out of red herbs, and the merchants coming to the castle say they'll be a little late, so I need enough for about two days."
Herb gathering. A simple request, and one that paid for certain.
Better still, there was a good chance no fighting would come of it. No reason not to take it.
"We'll be back soon."
"Thank you. There should be a place where the herbs grow west of Belmor. As soon as you can, please. Would two bottles of recovery potion be all right as thanks?"
Good terms, for a simple gathering request. I took the recovery potion Airika held out first, and Levan answered.
"Of course. We'd help with something like that even without pay. Haha."
"Oh. Is that so."
Afraid she might take the potion back, I clutched it tight and muttered,
"Not for free, though..."
As if it didn't matter what we did, Airika gave an indifferent, businesslike smile and nodded.
"In any case, I'm counting on you."
Finding the herbs meant the west either way. I'd better stay sharp.