Ah, This Isn't Working (1)
Several days had passed since Ain, brimming with confidence, had asked them to help with his experiment.
In the days that followed, they made all manner of preparations for a new adventure. Haru wrapped up every last guild-direct request she had taken on. Er and Jina tracked down replacements for their spent equipment and geared up. And Ain, with his companions' help, refined his abilities and pushed his proficiency higher.
Then, one day—
"I wouldn't mind a lizardman request. With our lineup it wouldn't be seriously dangerous, and they're just strong enough, right?"
Ain was studying the guild's request board when Er, his companion, spoke up.
"I don't want lizardmen. It brings back memories."
"Why? It worked out fine in the end, didn't it? We even made some extra on the side."
"That money Kal supposedly had stashed away barely amounted to anything. You spent almost all of it on medical bills."
"And the fact that there were still more medical bills after that is the really ridiculous part."
"...I wonder what happened to Kal. The tendons in his leg were severed."
Ain answered in a blunt, indifferent voice.
"How should I know. He's probably getting by just fine. Who knows — maybe he even made some good friends."
"...Well. That's not our problem. Sparing his life was already more than he deserved."
"Yeah."
Ain sounded so genuinely uninterested that Er wiped the matter of their former companion from her mind as well. He's probably doing fine on his own. With that, she let the thought go completely.
"Lizardmen don't show up much around here. No wetlands or swamps. What about goblins or gnolls? They're weak, and there are plenty of them."
"Those things are too weak. Something like a lone, half-blind orc..."
He trailed off. Er's past suddenly surfaced in his mind, and he glanced at her with an awkward, uneasy look.
But Er herself didn't seem to think anything of it. She only spoke once she noticed his gaze lingering on her.
"What's wrong? Over one orc?"
"...If you're fine with it, then never mind."
"Of course I'm fine. I have this."
She lifted the rosary at her throat and showed it to him.
Confronted with the token of the promise he himself had given her, Ain flushed red at the ears and turned his head away.
"What are you two doing right now!!! We came here to find a request!! Cut it out!!"
Jina, who had been watching the whole thing from right beside them, erupted like a geyser of flame. The two people in front of her looked like they had zero interest in finding a decent request. The thought that they were just using this as an excuse to flirt with each other was unavoidable, and Jina was furious.
"I'm going to get all lovey-dovey with Ain too!!"
"...Alright, I'll look for a request seriously."
"Do it with me too!"
"How about this one?"
The two of them neatly ignored Jina's last remark and started examining a request posted in one corner of the board.
"It's a request to retrieve a grizzly bear's gall bladder. The payout's a bit low, but the adventurers get to keep everything else besides the gall bladder."
"...A grizzly bear — that's those huge brown bears, right? The hide and bones are pretty expensive, aren't they?"
"There's demand for the meat, too. The organs get bought up by alchemists and mages."
All in all, it was a fairly lucrative hunt — and yet, surprisingly, it wasn't very popular.
The biggest reason was that mana stones almost never dropped from them. Lately they'd been hunting nothing but monsters touched by black mages, so their sense of it had gone dull — but mana stones weren't something you just picked up easily. And if it was a mana stone from a magical beast rather than a monster, even less so.
A grizzly bear was a wild bear that had absorbed nature's mana and transformed. The simple fact that mana stones rarely came from them was enough to make most adventurers avoid the hunt.
"The danger level would be a bit higher than a regular orc. Might be a little tough by Karpe standards."
"Doesn't matter for us, though, right? We've got two Silver-ranks."
"...True. A request like this would be plenty for an Iron-rank party at most, or a Bronze-rank solo."
As she said it, a thought flickered through Er's mind, and she spoke it aloud before she could stop herself.
"It might be about time we moved our base of operations."
"Move our base?"
"...It's nothing. Not something to think about right now."
She plucked the request form from the board.
"I'll go register it. Ain, calm Jina down a bit... and wake Haru up. We're leaving right away."
"Okay."
He glanced toward the reception desk where the clerks worked, but the familiar face wasn't there. Is Lize off today? he wondered — and then Jina spoke up, her voice thick with sulking.
"Hmph. Ain. Don't you think you've been too hard on me lately?"
"...What are you talking about all of a sudden."
"It's obvious! You only ever pay attention to Er, and I..."
Jina looked up at him as if she'd genuinely been hurt. Ain scratched his head, struggling for something to say.
"...What are you even talking about."
"Are you going to play dumb again? I'm done letting you—"
"I don't need to worry about you. I trust you to handle things just fine on your own."
Jina was Ain's one and only junior sect sister. He knew exactly how outstanding a warrior she was, and how hard she worked.
"I believe in y—"
"You think I'm going to fall for a line that cheap?"
"Ah, this isn't working."
Jina puffed out her cheeks at him.
"If you keep this up, I've got an idea."
"...What."
"Can't be helped, can it? I'll just have to... you, Ain..."
"...You'll what? And then what?"
"Heheh..."
"What is it already!?"
Ain's spine had gone cold. His outburst was enough to make Haru, who'd been dozing off this whole time, rub her eyes and sit up.
A moment later Er returned from registering the request, and the conversation between Ain and Jina came to an end. But—
"...I mean it, Ain."
No one heard the words Jina murmured.
"Grizzly bears are territorial. They almost never leave their own range — they just wander around inside it."
That was also why they ranked so low on the subjugation priority list. A grizzly bear that had claimed a territory rich in prey had no reason to come down to human settlements or stray beyond its borders.
"In a place like this — rugged terrain, plenty of wildlife — the damage would've been minimal. The mountain itself is big and tall, too."
"The bastard picked himself a nice spot."
Which was why, even after the grizzly bear had been sighted, it had been left alone for so long. Judging by how little time remained on the request's deadline, a considerable stretch had passed since the first sighting.
But even a low-priority target had to be dealt with eventually. If their party hadn't taken the request, who would have hunted the grizzly bear?
Ain voiced the question, and Er answered.
"Who knows? It probably would've been dumped on someone as a guild-direct request."
"You think so?"
"Yes. The Karpe Guild almost never has unresolved requests. Requests that sit untouched for a long time tend to get cleared right around the deadline, so I figure that's what happens."
As if someone were taking it upon themselves to resolve every leftover request. The Karpe Adventurer Guild almost never let a request expire unresolved. It was one of the curious things about the Karpe Guild — but that was all it was.
What they needed to think about right now wasn't some faceless guild-affiliated adventurer. It was the enormous bear-beast they were here to hunt.
"So how are we supposed to find a grizzly bear on a mountain this huge? Are we going to set up an ambush somewhere?"
"Jina. Do you see the claw marks on the tree you're leaning against?"
"...Huh. What is this."
Jina pulled her hand back in surprise. Three deep gouges were carved violently into the bark.
"That's a grizzly bear's territorial mark. They leave their scent, too, but they also leave visible traces like that."
"...So this is already grizzly bear territory?"
"Yes. According to the request, the entire mountain is its range. We should start staying alert."
Er turned to Ain.
"Ain, what do you want to do? Should we set a trap? Or..."
"We wouldn't be able to test anything practical that way, would we?"
Ain smiled with complete confidence.
"Let's just hunt it the normal way. I need to see if I can keep up with how you two move."
"...Jina, is that alright with you?"
"Fine by me."
With Jina's consent, Er unslung the shield and sword from her back and took them in hand.
"From this point on, keep the noise as low as you can. Bears have poor eyesight, but their hearing is extremely sharp."
"Is that right?"
"Er, you know a lot more than I expected."
"I've been an adventurer for a long time, and..."
Her voice trailed off. Something unnameable and distant gathered in her green eyes.
"I've done it a few times. Bear hunting."
Every emotion that crossed Er's face as she said it made Ain fall silent. Regret. Joy. Sorrow. And love.
If he had to give that tangle of feeling a single name—
Longing.
It was so raw, so aching, that even Haru — still yawning and looking exhausted — could feel it. No one could bring themselves to speak to her.
"Why is everyone looking at me like that?"
"...You looked incredibly wistful just now."
"Hard to even say anything."
"D-did I?"
The person in question apparently hadn't noticed. She blinked at them, eyes wide.
Ain looked at her, closed his mouth, seemed to think about something — then shook his head twice, scattering the thoughts, and spoke.
"We'll hear about your personal history later. If bears really do have that kind of hearing, we need to be careful from here on. So..."
"From this moment, the request begins."
Her party members nodded.