Chapter 48 - Companions (2)

After a brief silence, the dwarf finally found something to say.

“I-I see...?”

He sounded both bewildered and surprised.

“What are you so surprised about? Surely you have at least one of these yourself!”

“Well, yes, but... have you always been like this?”

Well, I had no idea what he thought he knew about me. But that was probably enough showing off. With his experience, those little details should give him a good idea of the quality of my equipment.

'Now he won't dare mess with my share, no matter how little experience I have.'

Of course, the notice had explicitly said “equal shares.” But I still distinctly remembered the glare he'd given me in the Blood-Tinted Castle, accusing me of being greedy when I'd offered to forfeit all the other loot in exchange for just the Rupture Stone.

'No matter how nice he seems, an explorer is still an explorer.'

Let someone look down on you at a meeting like this, and there would be no end to it.

So I sat down across from him without bothering to ask permission and casually said,

“Hikurod, you're buying the drinks. You got a Numbered item thanks to me.”

A subtle reminder of both my abilities and his debt to me.

“What? Hahahaha! Is that how it works?”

The dwarf merely laughed, making no attempt to deny it. Understandably so. I'd made the greatest contribution in the Blood-Tinted Castle.

“Well, you're not wrong! It's a little early, but I'll buy you all the drinks you want. Let's catch up over a drink!”

“Good.”

Our food looked like it would take a while, so we naturally started on the drinks that arrived first and settled into conversation. The dwarf got things started.

“I was astonished when I found out you were the one who'd applied. What on earth happened? Was there some treasure hidden in that rupture? Surely that young mage searched the whole place?”

As expected, the questions came pouring out. Given how I looked now, they were only natural. Not that I owed him enough loyalty to answer honestly.

“Well, something like that.”

“What does that mean? Give me some details!”

“There was treasure there, just as you said. That's all. Don't ask any more.”

The dwarf smacked his lips at my firm refusal. Apparently, he'd decided further questions wouldn't get him anywhere.

“I don't know what sort of treasure you found, but you certainly are lucky.”

Lucky, my ass. He was the one who'd walked away with the biggest haul from the Blood-Tinted Castle. I'd nearly died for mine. He'd done no more than his fair share and waltzed off with a Numbered item.

'I'm curious what dropped... but I can ask about that later.'

Our food had started arriving, so we continued the conversation while filling our stomachs. First things first.

“So, have you found any teammates?”

“No one really caught my eye. You're the first I've met with.”

“I see.”

I nodded, then went straight to the point like a proper barbarian—the real purpose of this meeting.

“So, what have you decided?”

Would Hikurod Murad accept me onto his team?

“Hmm, well... To be honest, until a moment ago, I mostly came to find out whether it was really you. Regardless of recruiting teammates, I wanted to have a chat. Ah, I did list the third floor for now, but if I can gather the right people, I intend to go as high as the fourth...”

What a long-winded way of putting it. He could have just said he hadn't originally intended to accept me.

“So you've changed your mind now?”

Under my steady gaze, the dwarf fiddled with his innocent beard and answered.

“Ahem, you could say that. After all, who would look at you now and think you were a beginner? If having a beginner aboard didn't make recruiting the rest of the team difficult, I'd never even have hesitated!”

If he was going to make such pathetic excuses, he shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. Still, that lack of cunning was probably part of the dwarves' charm.

“Then we're settled?”

“Hahaha! You could say so.”

I raised my glass, and the dwarf followed suit.

“Here's to working together again.”

I had a team. There were only two of us so far... but I could just pretend to discuss things with him while picking the rest to suit my own tastes.

* * *

“Hikurod, didn't you say a few others applied?”

“I did. Why?”

“What were they like?”

“Oh, them? Don't worry about them. Just rank-8 rookies with less than a year's experience.”

What? Was that a veiled jab at me?

As I seriously considered the possibility, the dwarf spoke as though something had just occurred to him.

“Ah! Come to think of it, I forgot to ask! How did you get promoted so quickly? A single Corpse Golem Essence shouldn't be enough for rank 7.”

“A single Corpse Golem Essence?”

Only after muttering that did I catch myself. Right. He'd been unconscious at the time, so he didn't know I'd absorbed the Vampire Essence. Hmm. But should I simply tell him?

As my internal debate deepened...

“Aha! Of course!”

The dwarf suddenly had his eureka moment.

“Hahaha! I wasn't thinking! With equipment like that, of course you could qualify for rank 7!”

Ah. Uh. Hmm... It was a reasonably plausible guess...

“... Well, that's about right.”

Since things had worked out this way, I decided to keep that fact to myself for now. We hadn't even fully assembled the team yet, and who knew what sort of people would join? Better safe than sorry. This might become my trump card someday.

'I can just explain away my regeneration with the Immortal's engravings.'

With our most important business settled, we continued drinking and talking about all sorts of things. Among them was why the dwarf had left his old team to form a new one.

“As you know, I took a short break from my team this time.”

“You did.”

I'd heard he'd impulsively requested leave in the hope of getting into a rupture.

“But when I tried to go back, they told me they preferred the warrior they'd hired as a temporary replacement!”

He went on to vent his outrage at his former teammates, but I couldn't sympathize at all.

'Wasn't leaving the team for personal reasons the problem in the first place?'

His former team leader had suffered the most. They still needed to enter the Labyrinth that month, and the dwarf had suddenly announced he was taking a break, forcing the leader to scramble around. It would be one thing if the replacement warrior had problems. But he was actually better?

'If I were the leader, I wouldn't take this selfish bastard back either. Who knows when he'd pull this again?'

Of course, I kept those thoughts to myself.

“Honestly, have you ever heard of such disloyal bastards?”

“Indeed. From what you've said, they truly don't know the meaning of loyalty!”

I'd learned that unconditional agreement was the way to handle situations like this. I might as well play along and ask what I wanted to know.

“I don't know how impressive they are, but if they knew what you got this time, they'd be kicking themselves!”

“What I got this time?”

“The Numbered item!”

“Ah! Now that you mention it, you're right! Next time I see them, I'll be sure to tell them about it and show them just how foolish they were!”

Was he already picturing that scene? The dwarf took a hearty swig and burst into gleeful laughter.

Good. This should sound natural enough, right?

“Speaking of which...”

I cautiously broached the subject.

“What did you get?”

“Hmm? Haven't I told you yet?”

“You haven't!”

I'd been curious ever since we'd met. I knew every Numbered item that could drop, but we'd cleared an unprecedented variant rupture. Maybe something unique had appeared. Like that mysterious chest Raven had opened and left behind in the boss room.

'Come to think of it, I never asked what was in there.'

I resolved to ask her about it when we met next week. As I waited for an answer, the dwarf grinned and set his thick arm on the table.

“These wristguards here are what I got.”

Hmm. I couldn't tell just from their appearance.

“What are they called?”

“According to the guild's appraiser, they're called the Guardian's Wristguards—”

“No fucking way?”

That had dropped?

“... Hmm? Do you know them?”

“N-no. I was just surprised by how impressive the name sounded.”

“Hahahaha! We really do think alike! I thought so too!”

No. 3112, Guardian's Wristguards.

A Numbered item in the three-thousands, normally obtainable only in ruptures on the fourth floor or higher. Never mind its effects—how much was this thing worth again?

“I checked the market price through the Central Trade Market. It seems to be worth around fifty million Stones.”

Motherfucker. Was this game for real? What the hell had this dwarf bastard done in there to deserve that?

“Hahaha! And that's an old price! Apparently there are hardly any for sale, so it might fetch even more! Not that I intend to sell it!”

“...”

“Oh, why have you gone so quiet?”

“It's nothing. I was just... a little... surprised. That's all.”

Honestly, perhaps it was the shock, but my stomach—filled with meat and alcohol for the first time in a while—was burning unbearably.

“I understand. Fifty million Stones! I nearly fainted when I first heard it myself, so of course you'd be surprised.”

Was this what it meant to get paid back tenfold? My earlier showing off was nothing compared to this dwarf bastard's.

“Don't be too envious. Keep exploring, and surely you'll get a Numbered item of your own someday. Though it won't be as good as mine! Hahaha.”

While the dwarf bastard laughed his head off, I slipped my hand out of his sight, smoothly lowering it beneath the table.

It was the hand wearing No. 9425, the Frost Spirit Ring.

* * *

Wristguards of Punishment? Fifty million Stones?

I decided to be as positive as possible. Aside from the minor issue of my stomach twisting so badly I kept feeling like throwing up, having a strong teammate was a good thing, wasn't it?

'... Let's just focus on building the team.'

Having pulled myself together, my first order of business was getting the dwarf promoted one explorer rank. To recruit good teammates, we first needed to look like an attractive team. There was an enormous difference between a rank-7 leader and a rank-6 one, a gap no amount of talk could bridge.

“Hikurod, go to the guild today and get your explorer rank raised.”

“... Just like that?”

“You have equipment worth fifty million Stones. If you request an assessment, the guild will certainly give it serious consideration!”

“But this is so sudden—”

“So you don't want to?”

“No, that's not it...”

“Then let's go now!”

I went with him and watched him submit the application at the guild, just in case he got sidetracked. For the record, the assessment took six days, a little longer than expected, but fortunately, he got his promotion.

That was when the applicants' qualifications on paper began to improve noticeably. More than ten applied each day. While the dwarf and I were carefully reviewing their credentials, happily agonizing over our choices...

“A-a mage?”

An application from a mage arrived out of the blue. Granted, this wasn't a Magic Tower mage, but a rank-8 mage whose background was administrative work at the guild or public institutions... Still, a mage was a mage.

“Bjorn, isn't something wrong here? A mage applying to a team like ours?”

“It is a little strange. There must have been plenty of teams offering better terms.”

“Th-then what should we do?”

A few things seemed suspicious, but we decided to meet him and sent word through the guild. And this morning, we finally settled on a time and place.

“He won't demand half the profits for himself, will he? They say mages are all terribly arrogant...”

I didn't know what he was so nervous about. He'd insisted on his share without giving an inch to Raven, and she belonged to the Magic Tower.

“What's there to worry about? If he makes a demand like that, we can just say no and leave.”

“R-right?”

Was it because this was his first time meeting a mage as a team leader?

I offered some halfhearted reassurance to the dwarf, who kept making a fuss and bouncing his plump legs. As we waited, a robed man entered the tavern and waved at us.

“Oh, a barbarian! A dwarf!”

Fuck. Was he a disaster waiting to happen after all? How could someone piss you off with such a short greeting? I could already see this ending badly, but I decided to watch a little longer, just in case.

“Hahaha! A pleasure. Are you the mage we're meeting today?”

“What do you suppose the odds are of encountering a mage by chance at a particular time and place?”

Thrown by the mage bastard's question, the dwarf looked at me.

Ha. Why did I feel like sighing already?

“... He means yes.”

“J-just as I thought! Hahaha! Anyway, pleased to meet you. I'm Hikurod Murad!”

“A peculiar name. I am Leor Wuerv Dwalki, a rank-8 mage officially accredited by Raphdonia's royal family.”

“... A-accredited by Raphdonia's royal family?”

What was he getting worked up about now?

“It means he does administrative work for a public institution, not the guild.”

“Oh, I-I see?”

The mage bastard's deliberately confusing phrasing was a problem, but the dwarf falling for every single line was starting to annoy me too.

“Haha! Quite knowledgeable for a barbarian. What is your name?”

“Bjorn, son of Jandel. Sit down.”

I'd intended to just watch unless I really had to intervene, but this was so frustrating that I decided to take over the conversation. It would save everyone's time.

“Dwalki, I read your application. I have a few questions. Is that all right?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have a Labyrinth entry permit?”

“Would I have come here without one?”

He could have just said yes.

“One more thing. You could earn plenty of money staying in the city. Why become an explorer?”

Rank-8 mages rarely went on expeditions, for a simple reason. They weren't skilled enough for the middle floors or above, but exploring the lower floors didn't pay much. They earned far more working for public institutions. Considering the difficulty of obtaining an entry permit and the risks involved, it simply wasn't worthwhile.

“Hmm, now that's a question I wasn't expecting.”

Dwalki tilted his head for a moment before continuing.

“It's simple. I wish to become a great explorer and bring honor to Baron Martoin's Family.”

He declared his ambition boldly, his face brimming with pride. The dwarf, who'd been quietly listening, recoiled in shock.

“A-a baron's family? Are you a n-noble? I mean, are you nobility, sir...?”

Nobles. Raphdonia's most powerful people, whom ordinary citizens could go their entire lives without ever meeting. Apparently quite pleased by the dwarf's reaction, Dwalki chuckled and proudly explained.

“Hehehe. My Aunt Enka, my mother's sister, is married to Baroness Martoin's third younger sibling.”

“...!!!”

The moment he finished, the dwarf drew in a breath so deep he seemed about to faint. Dwalki patted his shoulder understandingly, a benevolent smile on his lips. Looking at that smile, I thought:

“Do not be so nervous. I have no intention of using my status to mistreat anyone.”

Was this bastard actually out of his fucking mind?