NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: Main Character’s Qualification and Luron
Kazue POV
What is the main character?
The main character is a person in a story who mysteriously encounters troubles even without looking for them.
Troublesome things will naturally follow them like magnets.
Through solving these problems the hero or the main character would gain a reputation, be rewarded, and continue to become stronger.
I tried to explain what the main character was in my head.
So why am I doing that, exactly?
It was because I suspected that I am the opposite of the main character, I am a side character.
In the RPG games that I played.
Events such as a challenging side quest would appear.
The 1st village.
That should be a monumental step in the progression of the story.
Some kind of an event should have triggered somehow.
But it was not true for me.
Talona was just a simple village in the middle of the forest.
To be honest I was expecting a “flag” to be triggered.
Normally an event such as “save our daughter from bandits” or “save the village from attacks of monsters” or something on that line of an event should trigger.
But this village has nothing.
To be more specific it was a peaceful village.
If they do have errands, it was just a simple “horned Rabbit hunting” for food.
They would buy raw ingredients that can be processed later or sold to merchants.
No missing villagers.
No suspicious villager activities.
No recent monster-related problems.
Nothing.
Usually, this is where the hero would eventually discover the dark secrets of the village and be entangled in some problematic situation.
That is if you are the main character.
It was around noon when I arrived at the Village.
Right now, I am in the village chief's house.
They would let travelers use this house for them to rest.
It seems that in this world when an adventurer visits the village it was the village chief’s duty to welcome and accommodate them.
There I was able to receive that accommodation, I stayed in the village for 1 whole day.
I left the village without triggering any kind of event.
I left and continued my journey.
That's all that happened.
Then I remembered...
I am not the main character.
It’s just natural that nothing happens.
Such Flags won’t be triggered unless you are the main character of the story.
It’s not as if I am hoping to become the main character.
Never mind the thing about the “reputation”.
All I want was the rewards and to continue to increase my level.
I also wanted to happen to test out my skills.
[But I guess this is how a side character lives huh? Aa~ I need money.]
************
Many days later.
In the end...
Nothing special happened.
[Something’s wrong]
I thought
“Something’s wrong” <Kazue>
I said…
I had traveled quite a distance from the imperial capital.
A month has passed since I left, and the cycle of “me” arriving in a village and replenishing my supplies, and then leaving the next day would be repeated over and over.
Before I knew it a month have passed.
But nothing special happened.
I just arrive in a city near the edge of the Artesia Empire.
At a city called Luron.
This city is the last city I would be visiting before I would be leaving the Artesia Empire, there will be a few villages on the way heading toward the country of Triana.
I passed through several towns and villages before coming here.
“Something’s wrong.” <Kazue>
I said once again.
I am looking at the coin purse where I place my money.
Inside was 3 pieces of copper.
“Something’s wrong.” <Kazue>
I opened my dimensional bag and reach for something inside it.
I manage to feel something and pulled it out.
It was an empty water container.
I’m now totally broke.
Is this problem a problem the main character would have?
The answer is no, it’s a problem that most adventurers had.
I was expecting that I would have enough money for my travel from Artesia going to Riles.
But right now, I only have 3 copper coins or a total of 3,000 DAL.
With this money, I could only afford 1 meal.
“At this rate, I would die of starvation.” <Kazue>
I mutter silently looking at all the money I have.
Beside me were my familiars, Isamu, Kaori, and Hayate, they are looking at me.
They are looking at me stupidly as if not caring about the world.
They are not even aware of the fact that I am troubled with money.
Unlike them who could just eat wild monsters we defeat on the way, I on the other hand could not,
In the first place, I can’t cook because I don’t have a skill related to cooking.
Even if I try cooking anything, I would only burn them to a crisp.
I can look for fruits in the forest, but the problem there is that I don’t know if it’s edible or not.
Adventurer’s guilds can only be found inside a city such as this one.
Since there is no adventurer’s guild in places such as Villages and towns adventurers can accept quests differently.
In the villages and towns, there are things called the “Adventurer’s post”.
An adventurer’s post is a special post for adventurers where a quest is posted similar to that of the bulletin board posted in front of the Adventurers Guild.
Adventurers may take quest by visiting the adventurer’s post located in front of town halls or village chief houses.
The village chief or the town manager would confirm that an adventurer had taken the quest by stamping the request posted on the adventurer’s post with special seals.
To complete these quests, they will have to pass the quest request to the Adventurer’s guild located in large cities to collect the rewards and be confirmed.
In simple words, an adventurer would take a quest from the adventurer’s post and then complete the quest, after which go to the city to confirm the completion and claim the rewards, thus “Quest Complete”.
I entered the Adventurer’s guild of Luron.
There are unfamiliar faces of adventurers that I never met before.
I entered the guild with my pets and I could feel the gazes of the adventurers toward me.
Even so, I ignored them and walked toward the receptionist.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” <Receptionist>
The receptionist greeted me with a forced smile.
Just a while ago she was looking at me with surprise.
I stood in front of the receptionist's table and her expression changed.
She made a very professional smile.
“I want to confirm the completion of these quests please.” <Kazue>
I took out several pieces of paper from my dimensional bag and placed them on the counter together with my adventurer’s card.
These are the quest I took posted in the adventurer’s post in some village and town that I passed by before getting here.
Since this was the first city I’d visited after leaving the capital, this is the only time I could collect the rewards from these quests.
As I wait for my quest to be confirmed by the receptionist, I hear some chatter from the adventurers around.
“Hey, look at that tamer.” <Adventurer 1>
“Hee~ what an unusual tamed creature. Aren’t those, blue-eyed wolves? Keh! Why is that one so big?” <Adventurer 2>
“Wait, was blue-eyed wolf tamable? I’ve never seen a tamer with such familiar.” <Adventurer 1>
They seemed to be talking about the wolves following me around.
There’s no wonder why people would look at me with such questions in their minds.
Tamers are job classes who make contracts with monsters to fight for them.
Even for tamers, a monster such as the blue-eyed wolf is one of the monsters that have the reputation of being “untamable”.
Often time, tamers would contract with monsters with “Low” intellectual capabilities so they could control them with ease.
As a result, they would contract slimes, insects, and other monsters who are not known to be “intelligent”.
A Blue-eyed wolf is only an E-ranked monster and is considered one of the weakest among E-ranked monsters but also known to be very intelligent.
It was almost impossible to tame them, no tamers waste time taming them.
They would rather tame stronger monsters rather than weak E-ranked monsters.
Another reason why those people are looking at us with such eyes is because of the size of my pet wolf.
Leaving Kaori and Hayate aside, Isamu has grown quite a lot.
Isamu is three times larger than Hayate and Kaori making him look intimidating.
A few moments later
“Miss Kazue you managed to complete 13 E-ranked quests and 22 F-ranked quests. The total reward is 253,000 DAL.” <Receptionist>
“Thank you, I’ll take 153,000 DAL and leave 100,000DAL in my guild account.” <Kazue>
“Certainly, please wait for a moment” <Receptionist>
I inwardly jumped for joy.
[Alright! Money!]
I purposely left 200,000 DAL in my guild account for the reason that I need to pay my debt to Shaina.
I was quite happy with what I got, but I still need to replenish my supplies.
On the way here I have used up all of the resources such as food and water so I need to buy food for my journey.
“Here’s 153,000 DAL, Thank you for the hard work” <Receptionist>
The receptionist bowed to me after handing me the reward and my guild card.
“Uhmm. Miss Kazue?” <Receptionist>
“Yes? What is it?” <Kazue>
The receptionist seems to have something to say to me so I tried to listen to what she wanted to say.
“I am sorry to pry but I noticed that you are a swordsman.” <Receptionist>
“Ah, yeah what about it?” <Kazue>
For some reason, the receptionist seemed to be troubled after looking at my face as she asked that question.
“I was not intending to peak at your status card but since I thought that you were a new face, I got curious and took a peek at some information about you in your guild card.” <Receptionist>
“Ahh… It’s ok… what about it?” <Kazue>
“I was just surprised.” <Receptionist>
“Surprised?” <Kazue>
“Yeah, I was expecting to see a “Tamer” job class.”
She said while looking at the three wolves behind me.
“Ah… I see… No, I am a swordsman, it just so happened that these three became attached to me and became my familiars” <Kazue>
“Oh! That’s amazing! You’re not even a tamer and managed to tame blue-eyed wolves that are known to be “untamable”. How did you do it?! Did you learn a taming skill?” <Receptionist>
“Honestly I don’t know either.” <Kazue>
I replied honestly without thinking.
Around me, I hear the chatters from the adventurers once again.
“Hey, did you hear that?! She’s not a tamer!” <Adventurer 1>
“No way!” <Adventurer 2>
[Ugh, it looks like I would be attracting their attention if I continue to stay here.]
I pulled up the hood of my coat and hide my face from the crowd of adventurers.
I looked around the city and decided to stay here for a while.
I planned to stay in Luron indefinitely so I could rest and also sightsee.
Although I don’t plan on staying here for too long.
Having to stroll the city for a while gave me an idea of the general outlook of the city.
Just like in Altus and the Imperial capital, at the center of the city is a plaza.
From the center, you go is the establishments such as Restaurants, Inns, Workshops, Potions stores, Magic stores, Armors, and weapons stores alike.
From there as you go further the houses of the citizen whereas you go further away from the plaza the worst the houses look.
From the plaza, there is a road leading to the noble’s house which manages the city.
The noble house of Luron, where the city is named to.
I spend the day loitering about and searching for an Inn than can accommodate me and my pets for the night.
I decided to stay in an inn called Carlgate Inn.
The cost for a stay is 30,000DAL a night.
It was a decent Inn with a nice furnished room, it looks cozy and a nice place for me to rest.
Other inns cost less but they had rules to not allow familiars to stay.
Although the meal fee was a separate pay, I decided to stay in Carlgate for the night.
After all my experience sleeping outdoors and in other people’s houses, I feel more relaxed since I know that the room I am using is just for me and I paid for it.
I jumped on the bed right away like a kid on the soft cushion of the bed.
The pillows and the bedding smelled nice like fresh flowers.
There’s even a personal bathing room.
There was a small terrace facing the east.
I expect nothing less from an inn that cost that much.
The first thing I did was to have a bath.
Went with my wolves and bathe together.
I spend almost an hour in the bathtub, enjoying the water and the relaxing bubbles of the soap.
I also used that time to bathe my wolves.
After taking a bath I stayed on the terrace of the room to dry my hair with the wind.
Before I entered the bathroom, it was still bright outside but when I got out of it, it was already dark outside.
“Oh, come to think of it.” <Kazue>
I remembered.
“Kaori, use your wind magic to make us dry.” <Kazue>
Yes, Kaori can use wind magic now too.
She can now use Water, wind, and Ice magic but her water magic is her specialty.
“Arff!” <Kaori>
She barked while relaying a message to my mind “Right away!”
Small magic emerged from below our feet and a strong wind blew swirling around us.
Thankfully we are standing on the terraces of the room, if not the room would be in a mess from this strong wind.
“Kyaa, Kaori can you control the magic and make the wind blow weaker? This is just too strong” <Kazue>
“Arff!” <Kaori>
A bark replied again this time saying [I will try]
The wind blew softer to the point that the wind was just strong enough to dry us.
“This is perfect!” <Kazue>
“Arww!” <Kaori>
Kaori barked happily after I confirmed that she was doing great.
We stayed there for several minutes until were dry.
The wolves and I were dry from the wind Kaori made with her magic.
Although it was still early, I tried to sleep on the soft bed together with my pets.
It seems that my body missed a soft bed like this and it did not take long for me to get drowsy.
I snuggled with my pets and slept together on the bed.
[Alright guys, we don’t have to be on guard tonight so we can rest well.]
I said to my pet through my thoughts and after that, all of us slept without worries.
Just like dogs who love sleeping with their human, Isamu, Kaori and Hayate slept beside me.
I made use of Isamu as a hug pillow and embraced him while Kaori and Hayate rested on my back.
I let my consciousness fade and fell to sleep peacefully.
*********************
Next day.
I went out and walked to the guild, I passed by the bulletin board where the quest is posted and saw that there are a lot of requests posted.
The quest ranges from F-Ranked up to A-Ranked quest.
Compared to that of the imperial capital the quest posted here looks more challenging.
“Oh!!!” <Kazue>
I was amused reading about the quest posted there.
“Oh! Griffin subjugation?! This sounds fun… ugh but it’s B-ranked adventurers…” <Kazue>
“Wyvern! Cyclops! Berserker Brute?! What the hell is this monster?” <Kazue>
I excitedly read about the quest posted on the bulletin board there are a lot of quests that sounded fun.
The Adventurer’s guild has a rule which prohibited adventurers to take up quest 2 ranks higher than their own.
This means as an E-ranked adventurer I could only take up a D-ranked quest at best and taking C-ranked and higher is prohibited.
[Come to think of it I never took a D-ranked quest before.]
So, I took 2 D-ranked quests that seem to be manageable for me.
Unlike in the imperial capital, the quest here seems to be more challenging.
-----------------
Romera Fruit collection.
Rank: D
Detail:
Collect 20 Romera fruit from Romera Monsters found West of the City.
Note: Please be sure that the fruits are in good condition.
Reward:
100,000 DAL
-----------------
-----------------
Kobold Fang Collection
Rank: D
Detail:
Subjugate Kobold and collect 10 Kobold fangs for processing.
Note: Deduction will be placed for damaged fangs.
Reward
120,000 DAL
-----------------
I took the Romera Fruit Collection and the Kobold Fang Collection quest.
Both are D-ranked and the pay is reasonable.
Satisfied with the quest I took
That day I went out to explore and find Romera and Kobolds in the plains located west of the city.
“Alright! Time to get some money!--- Uwah ---”
I wanted to raise my hand and pump myself but I realized something
[I feel that I’ve been thinking about money a lot these days…]
[This is definitely Shai’s fault.]
I felt somehow disappointed with myself for a moment there.
-sigh-