Ch 86 -- Wyvern Attack part 1
The next morning I went to Lambert-san’s shop to deliver the soap, shampoo and hair wraps for sale on a trial basis. As soon as I entered the store Mary-san appeared.
"Mukouda-sama, I have been waiting for you." she said, obviously ready to get started selling.
"I’ve made up 30 sets of each item to start with, so where do you want me to put them?"
"Can you do put them here?" She pointed to some empty shelves in a corner of Lambert-san’s shop. Ah, you already have a sales floor arranged. That was quick.
"I asked my husband to set up an area for sales quickly because I talked about the items to my friends yesterday. I think some people are going to buy some right away." Getting the word out already?
I put the goods on the shelf leaving Mary-san to arrange them nicely. "Yes, this is excellent," Mary-san said, looking at the items. "Now what should go where..."
I was led by an assistant into the back room where Lambert-san was waiting to receive me.
"Mukouda-sama, Thank you for the quick delivery." he said, quickly getting down to business. "As agreed here are 84 gold coins as payment for the goods. Please check." As with the payment for the Black Serpent’s skin, he had prepared stacks of 10 gold coins in a row.
"That is correct." I agreed. I had intended to put the coins in my Sand Snake wallet but the money I had received for the Black Serpent skin earlier was still in there, filling it up. I ended up putting the gold coins in a spare cloth bag I had bought for soap.
Having concluded our business Lambert-san went into the store where Mary-san was already dealing with one of her lady-friend customers. Lambert-san and I were surprised at this development.
"I can’t even begin to understand how women’s gossip can spread so quickly." Lambert-san mused.
"Me too." I commiserated with him. We had told Mary-san to advertise these goods to her friends, but we had no idea there would be customers turning up so soon.
"Please give my best regards to Mary-san. If there are any issues, I will come quickly if you send a message to the inn." Saying that I thanked Lambert-san again and left the store. I wondered what to do while walking down the street. I had been super-busy for so long it was kinda strange to have some free time.
"I’m kinda bored... I don’t have anything I need to do right now." I said.
"Well, then let’s go hunt." Fer said, perking up.
"Well, it’s not something I want to do myself but I suppose so. I just don’t want to go anywhere unpleasant though."
"What do you consider unpleasant?" Fer inquired.
"That goblin village for example." I shuddered. All those green bodies... I had horrific flashbacks of the scenes at the goblin village.
"You’re crazy to be so afraid of small fry like goblins." Fer dismissed my fears carelessly.
"Be quiet. It’s because of you, Fer that I’ve got a phobia about goblins." And kobolds, and...
"Fuu, my esteemed lord and master is a coward, is that it?" Fer sneered.
"Hey, I’m not a coward...." I burst out. "It’s just that I’m careful, can’t you understand that? Anyway, maybe it’d be nice to go hunting but I’d like to understand the risks first, OK?"
"Of course, of course." Fer said sarcastically. Don’t snigger Fer, it’s not becoming of a level-1000 monster that can destroy a country. Safety first, though, safety always.
"Right then," I decided. "Let’s go to the Adventurers Guild and see if there are any subjugation jobs worth accepting." We headed for the Adventurers Guild.
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One of the staff members spoke to me as soon as I entered the Adventurers Guild.
"Mukouda-sama, I was instructed to take you to the Guild Master’s office as soon as you arrived. Please follow me." He led me to the office and knocked politely on the door before opening it and announcing me.
"Guild Master, Mukouda-sama is here."
"Oh good, please come in." The Guild Master said.
The Guild Master was seated at his desk writing something on a document. "I’ll be finished in a moment, please sit down."
As soon as I took a chair opposite the Guild Master he finished writing and got down to business.
"Firstly, thank you for dealing that Bloody Horn Bull subjugation so quickly." he said.
"It’s OK, Fer wanted to eat Bloody Horn Bull meat so he wasn’t going to waste time." I explained.
"I see, we’re still grateful it was done promptly." He glanced down at Fer who was sprawled on the floor beside my chair.
"So then, I have finally finished my discussions with Earl Langridge. He is very grateful to you for discovering the mithril mine on his lands. Although the Earl wanted to thank you personally I told him that you wished to stay anonymous because you didn’t want to stand out too much. He was quite persistent but I showed him the message from the royal palace that ordered that you were not be bothered or inconvenienced even by the nobles and that settled things. He was surprised that it involved the contracted beast Fenrir rumoured to be in the country, however he still insisted I pass on his warmest regards to you."
That means Earl Langridge wasn’t going to bother me. Good.
"So, as to the reward," the Guild Master continued. " Earl Langridge has been very generous. The total sum for the suppression of the Mithril Lizard, the discovery of the mithril mine and the purchase of the Mithril Lizard itself is," he paused dramatically, "5800 gold coins."
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F- five Th- thousand Ei- eight hundred gold coins? That’s weird. I thought I heard him say "5800 gold coins" but did my ears deceive me? "Excuse me, did you just say 5800 gold coins?"
"Yes, that’s correct, 5800 gold coins." he said smugly, enjoying my reaction.
............ gold coins, 5800 gold coins... 5800 gold coins, 5800 gold coins, 5800 gold coins... was there an echo in this room?
"Your surprise is understandable but what you achieved is worth every coin." The Guild Master reassured me. I didn’t do it, Fer did it, I thought to myself.
"Because it’s such a large amount, we will have to pay in large gold coins." Thump, thump, the Guild Master put several heavy cloth bags on the table. When I looked inside they were full of large gold coins. The regular gold coin is about 500 yen in size, but the large gold coin is as big as 1.5 gold coins as its name suggests.
I do not care who actually earned this, but I am going to buy a bath. I want a bath. I put the cloth bags containing the large gold coins in my Item Box. Just as I put away the last one someone banged loudly on the Guild Master’s door.
"Guild Master! There’s an emergency! W- W Wyverns!" One of the Guild’s staff members shouted as they burst into the room.
"Wyverns? Do you mean there’s a pack of Wyverns here?" From the way the Guild Master reacted it seemed quite a dangerous situation.
"A- a six-person party of beginner adventurers had gone to the western grasslands after they were re-opened for training and it seems that Wyverns have suddenly appeared there too... the beginners managed to get away somehow." The official caught his breath. "However, two of them are seriously injured. One of them is being treated and will live but the other is badly scratched and suffering from being poisoned by the Wyverns..."
"We’d heard rumours about sightings of a single stray Wyvern, was it carrying out a reconnaissance?" The Guild Master said. "They probably came to the grasslands planning to hunt the Bloody Horn Bulls but since they had been subjugated the Wyverns went after the adventurers instead. Damn it!"
Oh? Maybe it would have been better to leave the Bloody Horn Bulls alone? However they’ve already been subjugated so it’s pointless to speculate. More importantly, from what he said it seems that Wyverns were poisonous in some way...
"What’s wrong with the poison antidote?" the Guild Master asked.
"Well, unfortunately we don’t have any at the moment." the Guild official admitted.
The Guild Master swore. "A high-grade potion then? If you use a high-grade potion it won’t eliminate the poison but it will give us time to get hold of some poison antidote."
"Yes, that would work but... we’ve got plenty of intermediate grade potion in stock but we’re all out of high-grade potions too."
The Guild Master banged on the table. "Why have we run out of poison antidotes and high-grade potions right when we need them?"
"Sorry, sorry..." the Guild official apologised.
"Go ahead and use an intermediate potion anyway, it might help a bit." The Guild master ordered.
Potion?... Ah! "Wait, I have a high-grade potion you can use." I took out a bottle containing some of Sui’s Deluxe High-Grade Potion. Thankfully I had put it in a bottle I had bought in a grocery store, decanting it from the PET bottle it had been in before. Actually I had five of Sui’s Deluxe High-Grade Potions, ten intermediate potions and ten lower-grade potions in total, all in locally-bought bottles ready for use. Safety first, remember?
The Guild Master stared at the bottle I passed to him. "You’re a remarkable man, to own such a high-grade potion... I’m sorry, I will pay you any price you ask for this." The Guild Master ran from the room carrying the bottle of Sui’s Deluxe High-Grade Potion, followed by the Guild official who had interrupted us. Fer and I tagged along since there was no-one else left there.