"Hah… I'm exhausted."
"Indeed…"
While I was talking with Alan, the captain-commander at the knight order headquarters, a former squad leader named Aida showed up to visit once she heard that Primera and I were there. Up until then, the conversation had mostly revolved around Primera's retirement ceremony (apparently, as a squad leader, she was required to hold one) and handover matters, but once Aida arrived, the topic shifted entirely — to Primera's embarrassing stories and tales of her blunders — and from there, the two of us ended up getting teased mercilessly.
If an aide hadn't come in a panic over our schedule being way over, we would've kept getting roasted at knight order headquarters for who knows how long.
"I wanted to grab a meal before heading to the guild, but we're pressed for time, so should we just go straight there?"
"That sounds good."
In Raiden, we could arrive in just over ten minutes on horseback, so we decided to forgo the carriage and travel as a pair. I'd never ridden double with a woman in town before, so it was a little embarrassing, but since we were about to become husband and wife, it wasn't exactly strange.
"Tenma, take the left road up ahead. You're not allowed to ride horses on the right without a permit."
"Got it."
I'd rarely traveled by horse through Gunjou City, so I hadn't known, but apparently there were quite a few roads you couldn't use without permission. We'd received a carriage pass when we first entered Gunjou City, but since we didn't have one for horse travel specifically in Raiden, we were told it was better not to go that way.
We ended up taking several detours from the route I'd planned, but even so, we arrived much faster than we would have on foot.
"About a little behind schedule, I'd say?"
"That's about right. The time I gave was only approximate to begin with, so I think it's within an acceptable range."
Thanks to riding through Raiden and Primera's expert guidance along the roads, we arrived at the guild only slightly behind schedule. You could say it came at the cost of some date time, though.
"Let's head in… Hey, does something feel off to you?"
"Now that you mention it, it does seem strangely quiet… Ah…"
The moment we stepped into the adventurer's guild, Primera and I both noticed something was different and looked around. And almost simultaneously, we spotted the same scene. It was—
"Three versus three in a staring contest."
"I suppose it's better that they're not causing a scene — well, actually, they probably did cause a scene and got chewed out by Flute, didn't they?"
Just as Primera said, the three of them were glowering at each other across the table, but the only reason it hadn't escalated further was probably because Flute was shooting them a warning glare from the reception desk.
"Seriously, why is Reni here?"
Whether it was because they heard that mutter or not, the six who had been locked in a staring contest all turned to face us at once.
"...Flute, long time no see. Is that child yours?"
"Yes, long time no see indeed. This is Max and my child. His name is Harto."
Harto was fast asleep without a care in the world about the hostile atmosphere permeating the guild. He must have inherited the Guild Master's thick skin and Flute's iron nerves.
"So, Tenma. Those people over there seem to be waiting for you — do you not need to go to them?"
"Before that, I'd like to know what happened."
They wouldn't dare approach with Flute right beside me, but the moment I moved even slightly away, they'd probably swarm me. From Flute's perspective, she wanted me to take the six who had approached and escort them right back outside. Well, about half of them could be considered my responsibility, so I'd probably have to proactively march them outside... but before that, I at least wanted to gather some intelligence.
"Even so, it was just the three members of the 'Wildcat Princess' party who came to check the job board as usual running into Amour and the others who were here to hang out, and they just ended up tussling like they always do. Mind you, it was getting a bit violent for what you'd call 'tussling'... but I had a word with them and they calmed down, so I asked them to stay behaved."
That was Flute for you. Lily and the others were one thing, but there probably wasn't anyone else who could keep Amour — someone she'd only recently become acquainted with — that well-behaved.
I'd finished hearing Flute's account, so now I really had to go to where the six of them were... but first, I decided to look for the two who weren't over there. It might look like I was still stalling to Flute, but the more people there were to act as intermediaries, the less burden each individual would have to bear, so —
Companions
were necessary.
"Grandpa and Jeanne are... there!"
The two of them were sitting in an inconspicuous spot on the opposite side from where the six were, staying perfectly still as if trying to erase their presence. And the moment they made eye contact with me, they quickly looked away, pretending they hadn't noticed.
So I first sent a glance toward Amour and Reni, then headed toward Grandpa. At that, the two of them also stood up and started moving over to Grandpa's side. When Aura and Lily saw that, they naturally gravitated toward the area near Grandpa's table as well.
"Right then — I won't ask what started it since it's the same old thing, but don't cause trouble for those around you. Also, Grandpa, don't you dare abandon your duties as a guardian. That is all! Dismissed!"
On this matter, I wanted to keep things simple and just give the standard warning without digging too deep, since nothing good ever came from prying further... but Flute was shooting me an absolutely terrifying glare, and the adventurers and staff nearby who had been eavesdropping all gave me looks that said, "Yeah, right." Well, I'll just ignore that.
I cut my words short to signal I was done, then asked Jeanne and Aura to order drinks for everyone. Grandpa muttered something about "I'm not their guardian" as he ordered alcohol and snacks instead of tea, while Flute sighed in resignation with a "Well, as long as they don't cause trouble."
"Um… so, when exactly am I going to get to make my retort?"
As I sipped the tea Jeanne and Aura had handed out, taking a breather, Lady Reni spoke up to me somewhat hesitantly.
"Well, I'm guessing Amour told you about the trip to Gunjou City and you tried to get ahead of everyone to surprise me, right?"
Back when it was still a frontier barony, she had teamed up with Lady Rani and Doni to try and surprise me, so it wasn't hard to believe. Well, that time it was just a coincidence we ended up in the same place, but if she'd known the destination in advance, I could see her trying something like that.
"Still, I think you got to Gunjou City way too fast. Amour tends to leave letters with contacts in the south, so I imagine you picked it up somewhere along the way."
My guess must have been right, because Reni didn't say anything more about it.
"Tenma, are you done?"
That was when the Guild Master finally showed himself from the back. Whether he'd been working until now or just hiding, I couldn't tell, but having appeared only after things had quieted down, he was receiving decidedly cold stares from the adventurers and staff. Then again, he didn't seem to care in the slightest.
"Actually, there's something I wanted to discuss."
The Guild Master glanced toward Flute as if to confirm something with her, then walked over to me while saying that.
"What might it be? If it's about money, please give me about a year to think about it."
"No, I wasn't planning to lend you any… Well, anyway, it's not about money. Lately, adventurers have been bringing in a lot of horned rabbits, and I was wondering if you could take them off our hands."
Apparently, word of me coming to handle wedding-related errands had somehow morphed into a story about me coming to collect horned rabbit meat. A good number of adventurers had expected a quest like the one I put out at Lady Serna's wedding to appear again this time, and so the volume of deliveries had surged.
"I do have a use for them, so I'm willing to take them — but you'll need to have them butchered first. Also, I'll need a bit of a discount."
"The butchering goes without saying, but for the discount… talk to Flute. She'll get angry if I make deals on my own."
It would have been easier for me to negotiate directly with the Guild Master, and I was sure he knew that. I tested the waters by holding up three fingers toward Flute, and she held up one. After some haggling over the discount rate… we landed on fifteen percent off. I'd wanted at least twenty percent, but this was probably the best I could do against Flute. If it had been the Guild Master, I could have pushed harder and maybe gotten twenty-five percent…
"Here's the payment. Also, please have the Guild put out a notice that we won't be buying any more beyond this."
"I understand. Besides, the overhunting of horned rabbits has caused their numbers around here to plummet. Even if we let adventurers sell what they bring in to the market from now on, it won't cause the price to collapse."
It felt like I'd been roped into helping the Guild clear out its stock, but there was no denying there was profit in it for me too. On top of that, I was going to need a massive supply of meat for the wedding and the after-party regardless. Getting it at a discounted price, even if only slightly, had to be considered a win.
"Oh, and this is a wedding gift from the Adventurers' Guild."
While I was putting the purchased horned rabbits into the Magic Bag, the Guild Master brought over a different bag from the one that had held the horned rabbits and set it down in front of me and Primera.
"Inside there's thirty maldori, ten boar, and eighteen deer worth of meat. It was caught during summer so there isn't much fat, but that makes it nice and light."
Apparently, the Adventurers' Guild members who had attended Serna's wedding had organized the hunt themselves, and the Guild staff handled the butchering. It was quite a lot, but the Guild Master said with a grin that there had been even more slack compared to when I had brought my haul in, which drew laughter from the Adventurers' watching us.
"Since that's the case, feel free to take it all. Consider it compensation for those guys who practically freeloaded at Serna and Anri's wedding."
The Guild Master kept laughing as he said this, but the moment he noticed the laughter from the Adventurers who had presumably attended the wedding growing quieter, he promptly scurried off into his office.
Primera bowed to the Adventurers to change the awkward atmosphere the Guild Master had created, and I followed suit. Soon enough, the Guild returned to its usual mood. Well, it had partly been the Adventurers' own brand of humor mixed in, so it had never been truly serious to begin with — that was probably one of the reasons things calmed down so quickly.
We spent a while longer in a pleasant atmosphere (with some exceptions), but it was getting close to time to head to the Manpukutei, so we thanked the surrounding Adventurers once more and left the Guild.
"That was a nice haul. He said there wasn't much fat on it, but depending on how you cook it, it should be perfectly usable for the wedding."
"You're right. We should be grateful to everyone."
"So, what kind of dishes are you planning to make with all of that?"
The old man, me, Primera, and Jeanne were getting excited talking about how to prepare the meat we'd received... but behind us, six people were locked in a standoff. And that didn't stop even once we arrived at the Manpukutei.
"Hey there, Boss! Landlady! It's been a while!"
Since it was nearly dinner time, the dining hall was packed with people, but the Boss and the Landlady immediately noticed me and waved. They looked too busy to come say hello, though, so I decided to take a seat and wait. However—
"Say, Tenma... that seating arrangement at that distance seems awfully dangerous, doesn't it..."
Since the only available seats were a four-seater and a six-seater, the standoff between Amour's group and Lily's group forced them all to sit together.
"Lily and the others use the Manpukutei as their base, so I don't think they'll do anything stupid that could get them thrown out. Amour has Reni with him, so as long as Lily's group doesn't make the first move, things should be fine. Aura doesn't have the guts to act on her own when she's already at risk of being fired."
I said this loudly enough for all six to hear, and they all flinched in unison, the hostile tension easing just slightly. Aura in particular was visibly shaken, so there was no chance she would make a move now.
I was thinking they'd behave for a while—
"Hi!"
A voice came from under the table. I looked down in surprise... and there was a little girl. Well, I immediately used Appraisal to figure out who she was, and since she was a child who wouldn't be out of place here, it made sense.
"Hello, Soleil-chan."
Primera seemed to recognize her right away since they'd met several times before, and when she greeted her, Soleil-chan responded with a smile. Nearly a year had passed since they last met, so without using Appraisal, Primera might not have recognized her. That's how quickly children grow.
"Hello."
"Hi!"
Soleil-chan kept staring up at me, clutching onto my pants the whole time.
"Tenma, I think she wants you to hold her."
When the old man noticed me looking confused, he said that, so I tried reaching down to pick her up. Soleil-chan raised both her arms above her head in an enthusiastic gesture. I picked her up and set her on my lap, and she sat there beaming, happily looking around at everything. As for the six who'd been glaring at each other earlier, whether it was because of the orientation of their seated bodies or because they sensed an ominous vibe, I couldn't tell—but after glancing over just once, they completely ignored us from then on.
After me, Soleil-chan was passed around to Primera's lap, then Jeanne's lap, and when the old man held her, she started looking drowsy, so the proprietress carried her in her arms and took her off to bed.
"Sorry for having you watch Soleil. And my apologies as well, Lord Merlin."
Coming in the opposite direction from the proprietress, the old man was bringing over drinks and plates of food one after another.
"This side and this side are for Shiromaru and the others. They're leftovers and scraps I was going to throw out, but that's fine, right?"
Along with the meat he'd cooked for Shiromaru and the others, he'd brought over bones from which he'd already extracted stock, as well as trimmed sinews that he'd grilled or boiled.
"That's perfectly fine. Thank you. I can't bring them out here, so I'll feed them inside the bag."
"Ah, do that."
Basically, the vast majority of Manpukutei's customers were regulars, so bringing Shiromaru out might have been okay. But unlike before, Solomon was there now too, and there were customers who'd started coming after I'd left, so it would probably cause a commotion. Well, even setting that aside, having animals in a dining hall was unhygienic and should be avoided.
"Even so, Soleil-chan didn't seem interested in Amour and the others at all. Lili and her group are based here, so you'd think she might've warmed up to them."
When I muttered that, Primera gave a wry smile, and Lili and her friends looked uncomfortable. Amour, upon seeing those three, was making a face that practically screamed "I'm dying of curiosity."
Suspecting something had happened between them,
"She just doesn't like them, plain and simple!"
"Soleil-chan is friendly and curious by nature, so she's sweet to pretty much everyone."
"She's really sensitive to tense atmospheres and hostile vibes — the moment she picks up even a hint of that, she won't go anywhere near them!"
That's what one of the regulars who'd been drinking nearby told us.
"She's been around lively places ever since she was born, so noise doesn't bother her — actually, I think she even likes it."
"That's right. Whenever we're drinking here, she always comes over and sits beside us with a big smile on her face — she's the poster girl of the Manpukutei, no question!"
The other customers started chiming in one after another with info about Soleil-chan. So maybe she just hadn't approached Lily and the others because of the tense atmosphere — or at least, that's what I thought, but...
"Those three are always fawning over Soleil-chan way too much, and they're always fighting over who gets to carry her. Can't blame her for not liking them!"
That turned out to be the real reason. Judging by how Lily and the others reacted, the information checked out.
Amour and Aura, having picked up this juicy bit of information, immediately started teasing Lily and the others, but...
"I'm guessing Soleil-chan didn't go over there not just because she finds Lily and the others off-putting, but because she realized Amour and Aura are the same type."
"Probably."
"That's what I think."
"Well, I suppose so."
And without either of them noticing, we all exchanged exasperated looks.
While we were at it, the proprietress came back, more food was brought out, and we kept eating and drinking amid the lively atmosphere, when—
"Primera! Get to the Knight Order headquarters right now!"
Suddenly, Aida burst into the Manpukutei, completely out of breath.