The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Proofreader: Xemul

After asking around, Loren's group found an inn that had space to park their wagon. But as soon as they started talking to the innkeeper about getting a room, the innkeeper quoted them a ridiculous price.

"One gold coin. There are four of you, so four gold coins."

"HUH?!"

Gula, who was negotiating with him, shouted in a tone that could neither be described as surprise nor anger. Loren, who was standing by listening to the conversation, did not raise his voice, but he did question the innkeeper's sanity as he stared at his face.

Normally, in an inn, two silver coins would be enough for a one-night stay for four people, including meals. Even if the price included the cost to park their wagon, a silver coin per person would be enough for one night. But the innkeeper here, a middle-aged man with a slightly balding head, had just quoted them an amount a hundred times higher than that. It would be strange not to be surprised.

"Hey, uncle, is there something wrong with your head? What, one gold coin? This isn't some royalty's lodgings, is it?"

"Is it expensive?"

"Of course it's expensive, you, senile old man!"

Gula yelled, pounding her fists on the counter where the innkeeper was. The wooden counter shook violently under the impact, but seeing that it hadn't broken, Loren thought she was holding back.

"A copper coin then."

"Pardon?"

Gula scowled, thinking she had misheard. The innkeeper said the same words to her without hesitation.

"One copper coin. Is it expensive?"

"No… It's very cheap. But are you for real?"

"Then one copper coin."

Gula unclenched her fists. Hearing those words, a second time, apparently she hadn't misheard.

Of course, the cheaper the price, the better. But not only was the price too low considering the average cost of lodging, it was also an outrageous discount of one ten-thousandth of the amount the innkeeper had initially quoted. It was only natural that Gula's face grew uneasy before becoming suspicious.

"Four copper coins for four people. With food. Is that all right?"

"Ah, yes…"

Gula, who looked dumbfounded, slid four copper coins over the counter. The innkeeper accepted them and took out four keys.

"Private rooms?!"

"All of our rooms are private."

The innkeeper's expression did not change as Gula looked at him in disbelief. He must have known that they were a party of adventurers because they came to the inn together and left Gula in charge of negotiations while the others watched.

It depended on the quality of the inn, but if an adventurer party like them stayed at an inn, in the worst case all four of them would be staying in one room. Even if that was not the case, it was common for adventurers to share rooms. If they, however, wanted private rooms, they might have to pay some additional amount.

And yet, the owner of this inn claimed to be able to provide private rooms for all guests at a price below the average rate. If he was being so blatantly strange like this, Loren's group would surely be suspicious.

"Hey, mister owner, isn't this a bit strange? In a lot of ways."

"Is there poison in the food, or has someone recently died in the room? Or is it actually haunted by the undead or something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The innkeeper did not seem to be offended by Loren's and Lapis' words, and replied without raising his voice in a calm manner.

Although it seemed blatantly strange, the innkeeper had already received the four copper coins paid by Gula and offered them the keys to their rooms in exchange. Loren was not sure what to think of it, but he then noticed that for some reason the other members of the group were looking in his direction. Seeing that he was obviously being asked to make a decision, Lauren spoke to the innkeeper as he picked up the keys from the counter.

"We'll use the rooms, but we don't need meals. We'll eat outside."

The innkeeper did not seem to be bothered by this and replied.

"The price is the same."

Normally, if you didn't want to eat at a regular inn, you should be able to get a discount for the cost of the meals. However, with the unbelievable price of one copper coin, it would be surprising if he offered something even lower.

"Where should we park the wagon?"

"In the yard. Tie it up as you see fit."

The inn had a large yard, and the innkeeper told them to tie up their wagon there, so Loren urged everyone to start moving the wagon.

The inn was surrounded by a fence and seemed to have a good level of security, but if the inn itself was this shady, the luggage on the wagon was also a concern.

"Don't leave anything of value in the wagon."

"It would be better to take the food out of the wagon as well. You never know what they might do to it."

The four of them carried luggage out of the wagons and distributed them to their rooms. This was done to lower the risk.

While at it, they also checked all four rooms together to make sure that there were no suspicious devices or items in the rooms.

"Let's lock up and go to the Adventurers' Guild to see what they say."

"Shouldn't we leave one person to guard the luggage?"

Loren considered Lapis' suggestion for a moment, but immediately shook his head.

"Somehow, I have a feeling that it would be better if we didn't act separately."

"A mercenary's intuition? We should follow it then."

"I think so, too."

"I'll leave it up to Loren, who seems to be the party leader, to decide what to do."

Thinking that there was probably no one else on the entire continent who would be entrusted with the responsibility of making decisions for such a group of non-humans consisting of one demon and two Evil Gods, Loren suggested visiting the Adventurers' Guild, which had been their original destination.

"There's something strange about the atmosphere, but it doesn't seem like a bad town… Oh, excuse me auntie, how much is this fruit?"

"A gold coin."

"Even here? …Well, isn't it rather expensive?"

"A copper coin then."

"Four, please."

Saying this in exasperation, Lapis accepted four red, round, palm-sized fruits from a middle-aged woman, who was probably the owner of the stall, and handed her four copper coins.

"I wonder if the prices in this city are all like this."

"Is it a fad to try to get people to pay in gold coins?"

Loren, thinking it was just like a children's game, was about to accept the fruit offered by Lapis when Nig suddenly extended its legs and snatched away the fruit. It stretched its legs all the way to a surprised Lapis' hand and took the remaining three fruits all at once, then deftly wrapped all four into a bundle with its thread and, still clinging to Loren's shoulder, sank its fangs into the wrapped bundle.

"A favorite?"

"Spiders do eat fruit, don't they?"

Even though she looked a little regretful, Lapis still patted the back of Nig back, who was holding the bundle of thread containing the fruits, thinking that it was okay if the spider was happy.

Wondering if Nig liked fruit that much, or if it wasn't fed enough, Loren walked through the entrance of the Adventurer's Guild and headed to the counter. There was no one queuing, and Ivy began to talk to the receptionist sitting there. But she received a reply that seemed to indicate that the conversation was about to get a bit dubious.

"…What do you mean the staff member who submitted the commission is not here?"

When Ivy, as an employee of the Adventurers' Guild, inquired about the commission from the Adventurers' Guild in Suest that had been sent to neighboring towns, the reply she received was that the commission had indeed been sent by the Guild in Suest, but the staff who sent it was not from this Guild, which made no sense.

"The commission surely was issued by our Guild. There is no doubt about that. However, the staff member who processed it is not in our Guild."

"Does that mean they resigned?"

"Who knows? All I know is that he is not in the Guild."

"The commission itself is not invalid, is it?"

If the Adventurers' Guild itself was the client, the commission would not be canceled. But if the disappeared staff was considered to be the client, the commission may be canceled due to its client being missing. Ivy was worried about this, but the staff responded without a change in facial expression.

"This is quite troubling. The Guild itself was set up as the client, and yet only the person who registered the commission can cancel it, so we have no way to handle it."

"You don't seem very troubled though?"

Unlike what they had just said, Loren could not sense anything 'troubled' in the staff's tone of voice or facial expression at all. When Ivy said this as if to probe for something the staff might be hiding, they tilted his head without moving a single eyebrow.

"Is that so? But I am troubled."

"Anyway, the commission is still open, right? If so, I would like to get information on the missing persons."

Ivy, perhaps deciding that continuing the conversation was not going to be very fruitful, broke off the conversation and changed her mind about asking for information only, but the response from the staff was not what she expected.

"Missing persons? There is no such thing?"

"Huh? But in the commission… There were also adventurers sent by neighboring Adventurers' Guilds, weren't there? Isn't there any information left about them?"

Ivy was a bit flustered, but the Guild's staff continued to respond in a matter-of-fact manner without losing their calm expression.

"I don't understand what you are talking about."

"I'm sure that other Adventurers' Guilds have sent messengers too! Not knowing about them is… No matter how you look at it, it is too much negligence, isn't it?!"

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying."

"W-well."

"Is that all you need?"

Loren lightly tapped one of her shoulders, who was at a loss for words, to get her attention. Ivy, who had leaned over the counter to pursue the matter further, looked at Loren to see what was going on, but when she saw Loren pointing to the exit, she reluctantly left the counter and walked out of the building.

"What the hell is going on?"

Lapis, who had been watching the exchange between Ivy and the staff, expressed her doubts about the contents of the exchange, but Loren was more concerned about something else.

"There's something wrong with this Guild."

"Do you mean that staff's responses?"

"That's not what I'm talking about. First of all, there was no one else at the counter besides us. Does something like that happens Kapha?"

"That…"

As Loren brought the subject up, Ivy thought about her own workplace. Even if there were downtimes, it seemed that while the counter was open, there was usually at least one adventurer there.

However, no one had come to the Guild's counter in Suest for quite a long period.

Of course, this didn't mean the Guild had no adventurers, but it seemed to Ivy that their number was so small that it was almost the same thing.

"And, a group of strangers like us was trying to get at a Guild staff, but nobody came to stop us. How is that possible?"

"That… Well?"

Thinking about this for a moment, Ivy realized that their party looked like the kind of people others would not want to get involved with. She then assumed that it was possible others were too intimidated by a large-built adventurer carrying a huge weapon like Loren to interfere.

"Anyway, we can't make any hasty moves while we don't know what's going on. Let's go back to the inn, have a meal with the food we brought in, and discuss our next steps."

"Aren't we going out to eat?"

Loren said apologetically to Gula, who looked disappointed.

"This town is strange. Until we find out the cause of the problem, I'm not going to put anything into my mouth without knowing where it came from. I won't force you though."

After hearing that, even Gula was not inclined to carelessly enter a local diner. So, Loren and the others gave up gathering information for the moment and returned to the inn as quickly as possible.