Happy New Year.
I hope you'll continue to support me this year as well.
"Well then... what should I do until the tournament details are finalized..."
Since the date hadn't been set yet, my options were pretty limited. The only things I could think of were checking over my weapons and armor and getting my body into shape, but spending all my time on just that felt like something was missing.
"Then why not head to the Guild? Even just glancing at what quests are available would help pass the time."
"That's a good point. There might be some interesting quests up there."
Following Grandpa's advice, I decided to head to the Guild with Slarin and the others. Incidentally, the only ones accompanying me to the Guild were Slarin and the other Familiars (though even so, Goru and Jiru were holed up in the bag as usual). Grandpa apparently planned to enjoy the bath again today and was getting his change of clothes ready, while Amour and Branca would each be preparing for the tournament on their end. On top of that, Hana had asked me to avoid visiting the viscount's estate unless absolutely necessary, since being seen meeting those two frequently before the tournament could cast doubt on its fairness.
"So we came by to check it out, but... there sure are a lot of people."
The Guild had nearly twice as many adventurers as the last time I'd been here, and it was quite crowded. Judging from the conversations I could pick up, it seemed that word of the tournament had reached the ears of the more proactive types, and they'd been flooding into Nanao.
The majority of adventurers at the Guild appeared to be beastkin who operated in the Southern Autonomous Region, though there were also some who looked like humans or elves among them, and a few of those seemed to recognize me.
I was pointed at from time to time, but nobody came up to talk to me, so I made my way to the bulletin board where the quest sheets were posted. There was a crowd gathered in front of the board, but they were mostly clustered around where the high-rank quests were posted, so there were fewer people in front of the C-rank quests than I'd expected.
Even so, it wasn't exactly the kind of place where I could take my time browsing, so I casually grabbed a quest sheet that caught my eye and headed to the counter. Incidentally, the quest I ended up accepting was a request to investigate and thin out a population of deer Monsters.
The deer Monsters were numerous and had voracious appetites — if left unchecked, they would venture close to the town and ravage the crops in the fields nearby. Individually, they were weak enough that even a D-rank adventurer could take one down, but they were fast on their feet and a pain to track through the forest, which was why the quest was posted one tier up at C-rank.
Having accepted the quest, I headed straight for the forest, but once I arrived, something unexpected happened. Namely—
"I never expected Goru and Jiru to have that much fun."
Goru and Jiru, who had been cooped up in the bag up until now, burst out and started playing with wild abandon.
The moment they arrived in the forest, the two of them leaped out of the bag — climbing trees, jumping from one tree to the next, scampering along the branches — and they were gone for quite a while. Fortunately, they seemed to retain enough sense not to wander too far from me, but even so, my heart nearly stopped when a Rock Bird tried to swoop down and snatch Goru.
I immediately shot it down with magic, so nothing came of it, but Goru and Jiru kept on playing regardless. Maybe if I didn't let them blow off steam in the forest every now and then, the stress would build up.
After playing around for about an hour, the two of them finally came back to me, only to immediately retreat back into the bag. As expected, they were fundamentally the stay-at-home type.
After the two came back, we started searching for deer, but we couldn't find any. I tried using "Search" multiple times to locate deer, but all that turned up were regular deer, not Monsters. Well, apparently deer were classified as vermin too, so I thinned them out while securing some meat, but since I'd come here planning to fight Monsters, it felt a bit underwhelming.
While moving along and using "Search" for who knows how many times—
"Hm?"
"Gruu…"
Suddenly, I sensed something and stopped in my tracks. At the same moment, Shiromaru let out a low growl and shifted into a combat stance.
Had it noticed that we'd spotted it and resigned itself? The one that revealed itself was a massive deer.
"That's our target this time… but it's huge. There's no way a D-Rank could take down a Monster this size."
I muttered to myself, but I never took my eyes off the deer, keeping myself ready to cast magic at a moment's notice.
The deer was only slightly smaller than Raiden, with a pair of large, impressive antlers growing from its head. It looked like an elk at first glance, but the tips of its antlers were unnaturally sharp, and the markings on its body subtly shifted to blend in with the surroundings — clearly, this was no ordinary animal.
"It looks like it has the Concealment Skill. That's probably why Search hasn't been picking it up until now. Shiromaru, circle around to its back. There might be others nearby, so stay sharp. Slarin, back up Shiromaru. Solomon, search from the air to see if anything else is hiding in the area… Let's go!"
"Gau!"
"Kyui!"
After I gave the orders, each of them moved into position. The deer tried to flee by pivoting on the spot, but its massive body worked against it — Shiromaru had already circled around behind it.
Perhaps realizing it was cornered, the deer lowered its body and pointed its antlers at Shiromaru. I couldn't tell whether it had forgotten about me or simply deemed Shiromaru the greater threat, but with its back turned and full of openings, I didn't hesitate to strike from behind.
"Ha — wide open!"
"Boh…"
Because it had lowered its body to aim its antlers at Shiromaru, its neck was left completely exposed. I closed in from behind and cleaved through its neck in a single stroke with my halberd. The deer had been trying to intimidate Shiromaru, but it lost its life before it could even finish its cry.
"Gau… Garuu?"
"Kyui, kyui!"
"Gaaaah!"
Shiromaru, who hadn't had a chance to do anything, looked disappointed—but he quickly noticed Solomon raising his voice as if signaling something, and with incredible force, he charged toward the spot Solomon indicated.
"So there were more of them after all… Slarin, let's go collect them."
I collected the deer monster lying before me, then chased after Shiromaru together with Slarin. After running for a while, we came upon what appeared to be a deer carcass that Shiromaru had taken down. Picking it up and looking ahead, I could see another carcass a few meters away, and yet another a few meters beyond that—the deer corpses were scattered in a trail. In the end, the deer monsters we collected, combined with the ones I'd taken down, totaled six.
Shiromaru was sitting and waiting by the last one, looking extremely satisfied.
"Good work, Shiromaru."
"Wow!"
"Was that all the deer?"
Shiromaru had gone off and started hunting deer on his own before I could give any orders, but given the situation, they likely would have escaped if we hadn't chased right away, so this time it was Shiromaru's doing. After praising him for a while, I asked whether there had been any other deer, and Shiromaru reported—through his cries and body language—that there weren't any, or at least that he couldn't find any.
Even with the Concealment Skill, it wouldn't eliminate scent, so there was no way to fool Shiromaru's nose. So I believed Shiromaru's report and decided to head back to Nanao. As a precaution, I had Shiromaru mark some trees around the area to make it seem like powerful monsters lived here. That should keep pest animals like deer and monsters weaker than Shiromaru away for the time being.
On the way back to Nanao, I carefully searched the surroundings for anything hiding, but all I found were ordinary deer, and they fled like startled rabbits at the slightest intimidation from Shiromaru, so I didn't bother hunting them.
"Excuse me. I have a report regarding this request."
"Welcome back. Is something the matter?"
Upon entering the Guild, I headed straight to the reception desk, pulled out the request document, and began my report. Fortunately, the receptionist who had handled my request was free, and she seemed to remember me as well, quickly realizing something was wrong.
"The request document states that while the monsters are ones that can be handled even at D-Rank, the search within the forest classifies it as a C-Rank request. I was told the same thing, but the deer monsters in the forest that matched this request seemed to be far too difficult for a D-Rank to handle."
I wanted to show them the monsters I'd defeated as evidence, so I asked if there was somewhere I could present them. They told me there was a butchering facility behind the Guild, so I had them call a Guild executive to verify as well.
After a short wait, when we went to the butchering facility, we found a lean male tiger beastman already there ahead of us. He was introduced as the Vice Guildmaster. Several other staff members were also present, looking on with keen interest to see what would be produced.
Under the Vice Guildmaster's supervision, I laid out all the deer monsters we had just defeated. The Vice Guildmaster and the staff let out startled gasps of surprise.
After all, these deer monsters were the B-Rank monsters known as "Spear Elk." By any reasonable measure, they weren't the kind of monsters a D-Rank adventurer could handle. Moreover, since they had been moving as a herd, I imagined this request should have been assigned to multiple A-Rank adventurers or a party of B-Rank or higher.
"I sincerely apologize! This is entirely our fault!"
The Vice Guildmaster bowed his head immediately upon reading the request document and seeing the Spear Elk before him. As an apology, the Guild would process the Spear Elk and deer at no charge. Furthermore, they would purchase the Spear Elk materials at a twenty percent premium above the normal rate.
I was taken aback by the sudden deference and generous terms, wondering if they were scheming something — but the Vice Guildmaster seemed to read my expression, and
"Actually, I was assigned to this Guild at Lady Hana's personal request..."
It turned out this Vice Guildmaster was a distant relative of Hana's, and since long ago had never been able to stand up to her — or rather, was treated more or less like a subordinate.
Perhaps Hana was that intimidating, because when I agreed to accept the conditions, the Vice Guildmaster's face relaxed with visible relief — but then
"Hmm?"
A voice suddenly cut through the air, and he froze stiff as a stone statue.
"I recommended you as Vice Guildmaster specifically to prevent things like this from happening, and not only did you make a mistake, you tried to cover it up?"
"N-No, I absolutely never tried to — wait, why are you here?!"
In response to the Vice Guildmaster's question, Hana smiled brightly.
"Do you honestly think an organization like the Adventurer's Guild would only send
one
of our people?"
That was apparently what had happened. Someone — I didn't know who — must have been an informer Hana had planted in this Guild. And through that informer, the whole incident had been relayed to Hana.
"Either way, I need to have a word with you. This time it happened to be Tenma who took the request, so nothing came of it... but if an ordinary C-Rank adventurer had accepted it, it wouldn't have been surprising if people had ended up dead. Oh,
I've already
gotten the Guildmaster's permission for this, so you don't need to worry about a thing. Now then, shall we go?"
"Noooooo!"
The Vice Guildmaster was dragged out of the butchery by Hana, screaming all the way.
"Tenma-sama, if it suits you, we can begin the processing right away — but is your schedule all right? Also, do you have any preferences regarding which parts you'd like sold?"
"My schedule is fine. As for the parts to sell... I've heard Spear Elk isn't particularly tasty, so sell everything except the magic cores and the pelts from both. Oh, and while you're at it, please process the deer as well."
The other staff members who remained at the butchery showed not the slightest agitation at the Vice Guildmaster being dragged away, and simply began carrying on with their work in a businesslike manner.
As expected of a place where professional butchers had gathered, the massive Spear Elk were dismantled in the blink of an eye. If even the Spear Elk went that quickly, the deer were separated by part and arranged on the tables in under ten minutes.
In the end, with the hands of several staff members, the butchering of six Spear Elk was finished in just over an hour, and the ten deer were broken down in less than thirty minutes.
"Here is the purchase amount. Additionally, as part of this apology, we can also offer you the opportunity to take the B-Rank promotion exam — what would you like to do?"
After the Vice Guildmaster had left, the woman who had been managing the staff approached me with the offer of a B-Rank promotion exam, but after thinking it over briefly, I declined this time.
The woman was surprised that I declined and asked for my reason, so I replied concisely:
"I belong to the Royalist Faction, so I'd like to have my promotion done at the Royal Capital. With this delivery request and my track record to date, I should be able to take the promotion exam at the guild in the Royal Capital as well."
Normally, this would be judged as still lacking in experience, but my accomplishments far outweighed that — winning the martial arts tournament, subduing the Earth Dragon, quelling the coup d'état — so the guild in the Royal Capital would surely make the call. Or rather, the Royal Family — especially Maria — would be recommending, or so it seemed.
When the woman heard my reason, she nodded as if remembering my relationship with the Royal Family, apparently satisfied.
It wasn't that there was any problem taking the promotion exam somewhere other than the Royal Capital just because I belonged to the Royalist Faction, but promoting after reporting to the Royal Family would be more effective in signaling my allegiance, and above all, it would spare me from having to listen to complaints later. Primarily Maria's...
"That must have been quite the ordeal."
When I returned to the inn and told Grandpa about the request, he uttered words of sympathy while barely holding back his laughter. Well, if I were in his position, I'd probably react the same way.
I also told him that I had been offered a promotion exam during this whole affair but had turned it down, and this time his expression shifted to serious as he said it was the right call. It seemed Grandpa was imagining what it would be like to listen to complaints from Maria and the King. Grandpa was strong-willed around the King, who had once been his pupil, but with Maria, whom he had barely any contact with, he clearly couldn't push back.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation. A messenger from Lady Hana has arrived — may I show them in?"
While the two of us were talking, the innkeeper called out from the other side of the door. Hearing it was a messenger from Hana felt slightly odd, but I gave permission and had them shown in.
As expected, it wasn't Branca (if it had been Branca, she would have come straight here without going through the innkeeper), but rather a familiar-looking yet never-spoken-to subordinate of the Viscount, and the message was that Hana wanted to invite me to a dinner party that also served as an apology. Originally, it had been Hana's side that suggested it was better not to meet much until the tournament was over, but since the guild incident had gotten out to other adventurers and such, she wanted to make the gesture of apologizing promptly. When Grandpa and I heard this, we understood, conveyed our intention to attend to the messenger, asked about the time, and sent them on their way.
"There's still two hours until the scheduled time... That's quite rushed. Grandpa, in this case, what do you think we should do about Slarin and the others?"
"Hmm... Ordinarily, it would be safer to leave them behind, but this time you could argue that Slarin and the others were victims too, so there'd be no problem bringing them along. However, until we get permission, they'll have to wait on standby in the bag."
That being the case, we decided to go as a group. Well, of the Viscount household's top three, Amour wouldn't object to Familiars being present, and Hana seemed to be fond of Slarin, so as long as we just brought them along, Viscount Robo probably wouldn't say anything either. Ultimately, tonight's dinner party was being hosted by Hana, so if we didn't bring Slarin, we'd probably end up with complaints instead.
The Viscount household's carriage would come to pick us up before the scheduled time (I said it would be fine to just walk over, but they insisted on maintaining the Viscount's face, so a carriage was arranged even though it was only a few minutes away), so I hurriedly took a bath — Shiromaru and Solomon too — tidied up, and then relaxed until it was time.
"Tenma, Lord Merlin, I'm sorry for the abruptness of this."
After a few minutes of rocking in the carriage that had arrived ahead of schedule, we reached the Viscount's estate, where Branca was waiting at the entrance and immediately apologized. To give a brief explanation, it turned out that because this dinner party had been decided on so suddenly, Hana had forgotten to check on my schedule until she was nearly done with her preparations.
Furthermore, apparently Viscount Robo didn't have very fond feelings about me being the guest of honor yet again, so Branca told me, "My brother might try to stir up trouble with you, but please bear with him as much as you can."
The reason was that since I'd been invited to this dinner party, there was a possibility I could be seen as also representing the Royal Family, so if Viscount Robo and I got into any kind of fight, people might think the Southern Autonomous Region was picking a quarrel with the Royal Family.
If it were just a personal squabble between me and Viscount Robo, it wouldn't really be a problem (though Robo would still come out worse for it), but with me standing as the Royal Family's envoy and him as the head of the Southern Autonomous Region, it could escalate straight into a war between the Royal Family and the Viscount's domain.
So Branca continued, "In exchange, my—"
sister-in-law
"—and I will handle our brother (Viscount Robo)." Incidentally, when he and his sister-in-law had volunteered to deal with Robo, he'd also said, "Our brother might actually die... but there's nothing we can do about it." The culprit behind that remark was almost certainly Hana.
"Well, I'll keep that in mind. But if he really goes too far, I'm going to leave mid-dinner. And I'll head straight out of the South from there."
"Please do. Actually, that would be preferable. That way, the worst-case scenario only costs one person—my brother."
It was a terrible way to put it, but when you weighed Viscount Robo's life against the lives of the many people in the Southern Autonomous Region (with Sana's share making up the bulk of that), it was a statement you could hardly call unreasonable. I do have a short temper myself, so I really need to watch myself here.
"Sorry for keeping you here like this. Let me show you to the venue—please follow me."
After chatting for a bit, Branca seemed to remember his role and began leading us to the place.
The room he took us to wasn't the same one where I'd met with Viscount Robo last time—it was much larger. Apparently, it was used for banquets and celebratory events. Tatami mats covered the floor, but the space could also be set up for a standing-style party; apparently, if you removed the tatami, you'd find hardwood flooring underneath.
"Tenma and Lord Merlin's seats have been prepared in the place of honor."
Branca guided us while pointing toward the table at the far end. Viscount Robo and Hana were already seated there, and at a nearby table sat Sana and Amour. After we took our seats, Branca sat down next to Sana, and once Viscount Robo had confirmed that, he stood up together with Hana.
"I'm sure most of you have heard already, but due to my own carelessness, I caused an unpleasant experience for Tenma Ootori, the Royal Family's envoy, and Lord Merlin... excuse me, Lord Merlin Ootori. This dinner party is therefore also meant as an apology to both of them. Normally, an occasion like this would be a relaxed, etiquette-free affair, but given these circumstances, please enjoy yourselves without causing trouble for those around you."
"...Now, let the dinner party commence. A toast."
"Cheers!"
And so the dinner party began, though the opening remarks were somewhat strange. The reason Hana had initially restated Grandpa's name was because Grandpa had glared at her (he'd deny it, but it was a pretty sharp look), but what stood out was how few words Viscount Robo said compared to Hana's lengthy speech. I suspected it had to do with how, when Hana delivered the final line about "not causing trouble," she had shot Viscount Robo a quick glance (he'd deny this too, but it was sharp enough that you'd think the temperature around him had dropped several degrees).
So it seems Viscount Robo did have some kind of scheme up his sleeve, but because Hana had already warned him off beforehand, his greeting ended up being suspiciously brief. He was probably planning something no good.
I don't know what he's got in mind yet, but I just hope things stay calm enough for me to enjoy the meal. At the very least, I really want the bloodshed to stop. It might... put me off my food.