Chapter 29 – Guild Escort Quest #3

Of course, I have no intention of leaving Rebecca out of the plan.
‘Cause she’s my party member
It’s because she sometimes clears her head and acts naughty.
If you climb too high, you may want to crave it.
Just like when I, the eldest of five siblings on Earth, longed for my younger siblings.

“It’s a joke, so don’t take it too seriously. Let’s move together tomorrow.”
“Of course I was joking. I can’t leave a friend with whom I’ve defeated an evil kelpie.”

Rebecca let out a sigh of relief as her mood calmed down.
She, of course, hadn’t forgotten to say a word.

“If I’m going to allow it, I’ll give it to you sooner. Why wait?”

She didn’t dare to answer, thinking that she wanted to know the reason herself.
Thus ended her first day in charge of her escort quest.
There is no way to just rest just because it’s night, and you have to stay alert to beware of monster attacks.
In the vigil, which is decided by lottery, I won the damn thing.
It is Malvern who starts the day two hours earlier than others.
This corps was operating the vigil in a bokbulbok way.
If a winning lot occurs, a day is skipped, and if there are consecutive hits, it is put into a night watch every day.
I don’t know why they operate such an obsolete night watch system.

“Why is night watch a blessing? Isn’t it unfair?”

The middle-aged merchant’s answer to someone’s question was spectacle.

“Originally, life is all about luck. It’s the law that the lucky ones get everything. If you’re lucky too, wouldn’t you be able to get out of the night watch tomorrow? Wait for the lottery time.”

A manly reply that dismisses complaints at once.
You’re right, I can’t say anything. Fuck.
In the end, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning without saying anything, and stayed vigil until the morning.

“How are you?”
“Yes.”

The person who stayed on the watch with me was a long-haired prosecutor.
The prosecutor, who shaved his head like a dagger, didn’t say much during the entire vigil to see if he was keeping quiet.
I tried to clear my mouth to kill time, but the prosecutor ended all the conversation with a short answer, so I just stood on duty quietly.

“Yes.”
“No.”

No conversation can feel enjoyable in front of someone who only repeats yes or no.
It seems that he has shaved off his sense of humor like a person who shaved his head.
Eventually, I dozed off where I was standing, and the vigil ended.
It is natural to sleep during the night.
It’s weird to be on duty for 2 hours straight, but it’s definitely not negligence.

“Let’s go-!”

The morning was bright and everyone in the party was awake.
It was time to start marching again. However, unlike yesterday, the adventurers’ eyes were on the back carriage. In order to cool off, I had to cling to that wagon somehow. The first ball in the world of the bees has finally come to an end.
No, I had to stop.

Even before the duel started, something unprecedented happened.
The moment the merchant’s sharp shouts resonated from the wind in the morning, I instinctively sensed that something had gone wrong.

“Who is this! The dog-like bastard with the windshield turned back!!”

The pot-bellied middle-aged merchant was smirking while pointing at the wagon. To be precise, what the merchant’s finger was pointing at was the cloth covering the wagon. There were air holes between the fabric, and it seemed that someone had left them wide open.

“Fuck. An artifact from our upper ranks.”

At first, I didn’t know why the merchant was talking shit.
After a while, the overweight middle-aged merchant, who had calmed down his anger, began to explain while laughing.

“I had an unfortunate accident with my wagon last night. It was a wagon loaded with artifacts called ice caps, but someone opened a gap in the cloth and the artifacts were exposed to sunlight.”
“What about exposure to sunlight?”
“The ice cap is a mysterious snow brought from the northern snow mountains. It has magical power to lower the temperature around it. However, the ice cap has a fatal flaw, which is that it loses its ability to lower the temperature when sunlight hits it. Restored to the Mage Tower It’s just a plain old snowball until you entrust it with it.”
“Then why don’t you leave it to be restored later? I don’t think there’s any need to get angry.”
“The important thing is that the wagon carrying the ice caps is storing food. Perishable food was being transported with the power of the artifact. The incident that happened last night ended the artifact. As a bonus, the food in the wagon It’s over.”

The merchant took groceries from the carriage’s hold with a grim expression. What came with the merchant’s hands were twenty glass bottles of fruit jam. I don’t know what kind of jam it was, but it looked like something high quality.

“… So who is it? Let the one who opened the cloth raise his hand and embroider.”

The merchant recommended embroidery while looking around his party with a calm expression.

It’s just like that.
A teacher in elementary school told me to turn myself in to someone who stole something.
However, it is not the innocent elementary school students who are here.
They were worn out adventurers.
In this situation, the culprit could not raise his hand.
If caught, it is obvious that he will have to pay a huge amount of compensation, but at that moment, life becomes harsh.
In fact, it seems that the merchant who did not inform this fact in advance is also responsible. Either way, the culprit is not easily caught.

“Who is it? You accidental bastard.”
“I’ve been tired since morning.”

As the merchant made a fuss, the atmosphere among the adventurers became chaotic.
The people on the night watch each gave their own testimonies, but it didn’t help much in finding the culprit who left the wagon’s fabric open.
Of course, I, who was only dozing, couldn’t have found anything.

In the end, the merchant did not achieve any results, and he was wearing a gloomy expression.
Looking at the frustrated merchant, I thought he was self-employed.
You’re doing this because you run the guild in the first place.
Vigilance is a blessing in disguise, doesn’t it allow easy access to the wagon containing the artifact? Even when we marched, there was no specific order, so the procession was a mess.
Just then, the merchant looked at me.
The middle-aged merchant was looking at me with eyes searching for his last hope.

“Luke! Are you a wizard? Didn’t you learn something like magic to lower the temperature? Or magic to prevent spoilage of food.”
“There is no magic like that.”
“Don’t just cut your answer… Think a little more. I think I’m going to have tears in my eyes at the thought of having to just throw away all these jams.”

Not even Doraemon.
Do you think you can do anything if you ask for it?
The other day, Wendy said that she has clients who prefer wizards unconditionally even though she doesn’t even know magic, and she seemed to be just that type of merchant.
The merchant grabbed my trouser leg and began to hang on.

“Please!! I want to finish this trip safely!!”

You can’t just ignore a whining merchant.
No matter how stupid he may seem, the merchant is my client, and if he asks me to hit a hit, I have to at least pretend to hit.

I sighed and turned my head.
Suddenly, Rebecca was looking at me from the direction I was looking at.
Rebecca mumbled her mouth and she passed her words to me without sound.

“Radish.”

Ignore it?
Ignore the merchant’s words?
I guess that’s probably what it says.
How can you say that the client asked for a favor!
Indeed, he is like a dream adventurer with a bright future.
Rebecca probably never escaped the Bronze Deeps.

Yes, bronze.
Unlike Rebecca, I had a desire to rise in status.
I can’t stay in bronze forever.
I want to escape the smelly copper field and go up to silver, where people are treated like people. It is said that silver level adventurers are given various benefits in Yoensu City.
Whether it’s getting a tax cut or getting a loan from a bank.

And there is one more important thing than anything else.
I want to stop meeting the Bronze deep sea pups.

‘I also want to hang out with silver people who are like people. How would it feel to do a quest with Silver?’

Bronze Special.
Same Bronze loathing.

I had the will to advance.
However, in order to be promoted, it was essential to receive good reviews from the clients for each request. It’s because it’s all recorded in the report that goes over to the guild every time.

“Okay. I’ll give it a try. Don’t expect too much.”

Scratching the back of my head, I shook off the merchant. At my words, the merchant hurriedly let go of the crotch of his pants and got out of the way. I tried not to look at the merchant if possible. I felt like I would make a mistake if I had too many expectations.
There was one way that just came to mind.
I used to ponder how to use water magic. I didn’t mean to use it for something, it was simply a daydream to get excited during the long training time. Wouldn’t it be fun to use this like this – a fantasy based on interest.

“Water.”

I called a drop of water into the air.
Then he reached out and touched the surface of the water droplets.
The drop of water I created had one characteristic, and that was that it was cold. You may ask how cold the water is, but isn’t there lukewarm hot water as well? Being cold is also a characteristic.

It feels like the cold water that comes out when you turn the faucet all the way to the side.
Even by accident, if water splashes on your skin, you will be surprised.
Again, the water drops I created are cold.
To the extent that the palms touching the water droplets get cold.
I held the drop of water with both hands and carefully set it down on the ground.

“Rebecca!”
“Why?”
“Bring me some jam from the wagon over there!”

Rebecca brought a jar of jam from the carriage side without saying anything. She was a glass bottle the size of a decent water bottle. It was filled with yellow sticky jam inside.
The middle-aged merchant watched me and Rebecca with a puzzled expression.

“What the hell are you trying to do…? What can you do with those drops of water?”
“Just watch. You’ll soon find out what you’re trying to use it for.”

I accepted the glass bottle Rebecca brought.
And what I did was to stick the glass bottle into the drop of water after making the hand sign.
Literally, you put a glass bottle into a drop of water. The moment I pushed the glass bottle with force, water splashed in all directions. However, even in the midst of this, the water droplets maintained their spherical shape.

“Liquid.”

Right now, I was using my magic to manipulate the drops of water. It is not very difficult if it is simply to maintain the shape of the sphere. After a while, I was able to submerge the glass bottle in a drop of water.
I recalled the water splashing on the floor and filled up the damaged part of the water droplets.
What was completed at that moment was a round drop of water with a glass bottle inside.

Should I say it’s like a terrarium?
I whistled as I looked at the finished product.

“No, I put a glass bottle in a drop of water.”
“All the wizards are monsters.”

People around me were talking with excited eyes as they looked at me. Numerous adventurers and soldiers at the top stared at the drop of water holding the glass bottle.
The moment my eyes focused, I took the drop of water with both hands and handed it to the middle-aged merchant.

“Huh, huh!”

A merchant holding a drop of water in his hand and startled.
Don’t be surprised
It must be a strange experience to touch water created with magic. It is a drop of water that retains its shape and mass even when touched by hand.

“How is it, is it cold?”
“It’s cold! Oh, how cold it is!”
“Don’t you think you can keep jam at that temperature?”
“Well, I guess so! I can vouch for it!”

He was a very excited, snorting merchant.
Unfortunately, however, it seemed that this was the end of raising the merchant’s tension. I stopped the operation by cutting off the magic power sent to the drops of water.

Chow-!
At that moment, the drop of water collapsed.
Water cascaded down like a waterfall, splashing in all directions. Thanks to the merchant supporting the lower end of the drop of water, he managed to prevent the glass bottle from falling to the floor.

“What is this!”

The merchant held the glass bottle in his arms and looked at it with an absurd look. I felt relieved when I saw the merchant whose pants were soaked in water. This happened because the merchant was negligent in the first place. If it’s a manager at the top, isn’t it the law that he has to take responsibility.

But I can’t say it honestly.
I pretended to be apologetic.

“It was a light mistake. I’m still immature in the magic of manipulating water. But I don’t think using this method for storing jam would be unreasonable.”
“Why? It seemed like you were good at handling water just before?”
“Think about it. I’ve heard it takes five days to get to the trading city. This caravan has only traveled a day’s distance. That means I’ll have to keep the drip for four days.”
“Ah…”
“Even if you wake up after dying, it’s going to be difficult to endure for four days. If you use magic for too long, it will strain your body. At some point, you might pass out and all the water droplets burst.”
“You mean it’s impossible…?”

The merchant’s eyes lost hope.
It’s fun to tease because the reaction is certain.

“No. It’s possible. Keeping jam fresh for four days.”
“Tell me quickly! Don’t be shy!”

I opened my mouth to the merchant who is being tortured with hope in real time.
Just as a pigeon returns home through its homing instinct, I decided to find an object that I could handle with the most familiarity.

“Do you have a basin? It’s a big basin.”