TL Note: Sponsored chapter (3/3). Thanks again to Al for the amazing support! Much love
There I was, waiting in front of the promised meeting point in front of the bulletin board, but it had already been three to four hours. From the window in the Adventurer’s Guild, I could see that the sun was already starting to go down, and it would be night soon. It was way past the scheduled time, so I had long started to worry that something might have happened to them. I mean, I didn’t know anything about them, so all I could do was sit there and wait.
It was really starting to get late, so I started hesitating whether or not I should go to the reception desk to check on them. But as soon as I was about to get up to do so, I saw four people in white headbands walking towards me from the entrance of the Adventurer’s Guild. They seemed to be in the middle of a lively conversation, so I was a little relieved that nothing happened to them at least. They didn’t seem to notice me yet, so I decided to approach them and start the conversation.
“Umm, would you guys be [White Feiler]?” (Lewin)
“Oi, seriously…? Why the hell is he still waiting here?”
“Uwaa, what a creep….F*ck me! I thought it would be a safe bet too!”
“Haha, alright!! Looks like it’s my win! It was good that I could see that this guy was absolutely out of his damn mind when I took one look at the contents of that commission. Thanks to the odds being stacked against me, the profit is pretty nice this time! You have my thanks, kiddo!” (White Feiler Member)
Three people were looking regretful, while one guy was celebrating. After listening to their conversation a bit, it was clear that they were late on purpose and were betting to see if I would be waiting or not. It seemed like three of them bet that I wouldn’t wait, and one of them bet that I would be waiting here when they came.
Looking only at the part where they made a bet before meeting me, the situation was similar to the time with [Azure Alliance], but the bet that these people made was just plain sinister. It honestly made me feel a little sad.
….But at least they came. That meant they would at least accept the quest commission, right?
“Um, about the quest commiss–” (Lewin)
“Hah? Hold your damn horses!”
I did as I was told, and waited for the four of them to finish talking amongst themselves. After they lost the bet, three of the four people in the party were in a bad mood, so the situation would probably be a little rough…
As I was thinking that, the man who flared up at me earlier turned and came towards me.
“So? A request, was it? Four gold coins for an escort to Mount Cornello, right?”
“Yeah, the details and reward are correct. Will you accept it?” (Lewin)
“Thanks to a certain someone, I was just running out of money, so I have no choice but to accept it. Would it be okay to start tomorrow?”
“That’s fine from my end. The sooner the better, after all.” (Lewin)
“Alright, it’s decided then. Tomorrow morning at the Adventurer’s Guild. Don’t be late, kiddo.”
AD
…Perhaps accepting this adventurer’s party was a mistake. While I didn’t feel any discomfort from Ahmed, whose behavior was explicitly said to be bad, the discomfort I was feeling from [White Feiler]’s conduct was seriously bad. I was seriously wondering if I should report them to the Adventurer’s Guild, but I was even more scared of them getting revenge on me for that at a later date. For now, I had no choice but to meekly accept this situation.
This morning, I seriously didn’t want to eat even a single ounce of Magical Grass, but now I wanted to stuff myself full of Magical Grass and get stronger right this instant. After that promise with Ahmed, I started feeling the ever-increasing need to become stronger. The face-to-face meeting left me feeling uneasy about the upcoming quest commission, but even though their personalities were terrible, it didn’t change the fact that they had the necessary fighting power to escort me. That’s why I thought things would work out in the end. But, the fact that they failed their promotion quest two times in a row made me feel uneasy.
There wasn’t much I could do now, but the least I could do was to make preparations for it. I just finished shopping, but just in case, I decided to buy a few additional items.
After buying some things, I returned to the inn. The additional items I bought were some portable food rations, some Slime liquid, basic leather armor, and a dagger for battle.
Slime liquid was an item frequently used in the Healer’s Guild. If a plant was soaked in it, the effect would be transferred to the Slime liquid. Although it couldn’t be ingested, it was a quick and easy way of making an effective salve or ointment. As for the leather armor and the dagger, those were pretty much only for my own safety and peace of mind. Because they were on a special sale at the time, I ended up buying them.
Alright! Once those additional goods were packed into the bag, preparations were complete. All I had to do was wait for tomorrow to come.
Now that I had gotten everything else out of the way, I decided to start experimenting a bit with [Plant Master]. I quickly got ready for bed and laid down.
Today, I wanted to figure out how much magic power it would cost to synthesize Magical Grass. All I had to do to determine the cost of synthesizing Magical Grass was to divide my magic power capacity of 14 by the maximum number of Magical Grass I could synthesize in one go.
First Magical Grass synthesized, no symptoms. Second one, no exhaustion as well.
Third and fourth, still no problems. On the fifth one, I didn’t manage to finish the full synthesis before I was hit with weakness and exhaustion. My vision grew blurry, and my body slumped as I couldn’t put any strength into my muscles.
It looked like the amount of magic power required to synthesize one Magical Grass was 3. Since the cost of Magical Grass was six times that of Medical Herb, it was more cost efficient to be synthesizing Magical Grass. Thinking up to that point, I lost consciousness and fell asleep.