The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

"I… I am not sure how to tell the difference between male and female when it comes to Elephant Frogs, Sir Liberomancer… but how is that relevant?" the village chief answered.

"It might change how I deal with the issue," I explained. Summoned creatures could be varied in certain aspects by the summoner - biological sex was one of them. I could summon a male Elephant Frog one time, and a female one the next - which was even more evidence that you didn't summon the same creature whenever you used a summoning skill. "Elephant Frogs have marked territories, and sometimes compete with each other for them. However, a female will not fight a male, and will simply run away if challenged."

"Ah, well, I don't really know the difference-" he began to say.

"It's not a problem," I reassured him. "Whether it is male or female, I'm pretty confident that I can handle it."

The topic now moved on to payment.

On the one hand, I knew how most villagers lived in Chipker - they would not have a lot of money, even if they all pooled their resources together. The job would take me at least two full days, about a day to get there, some time to deal with the frog, and then about the same time to come back. It should've been an easy job - that's what I thought, though I didn't put much emphasis on that part while negotiating. I wanted to ask for enough money to justify the effort and a bit more if possible without seriously damaging the village's bottom line.

If this was a video game - and if he was just another NPC, I would've just asked for the maximum permissible amount. But this world was real, and there were consequences for everything that I did. I didn't want to ask for too little either as I had my own needs…

It wasn't just the price itself that was an issue. The village chief was able to pay a small portion of it in Denarii, but wanted to see if the rest could be paid in the form of some of the produce that the village grew. I had no idea how I would sell that though and shot the idea down.

"Ah, the issue is, Sir Liberomancer," the village chief said, "if you want to be paid entirely in coin, I can arrange for that… eventually. The problem is that the harvest is still a few weeks away. And until then, we simply will not have enough currency to satisfy your price. If you're willing to wait until then for the rest of the payment…"

Granny Qi had told me countless stories of how life had been back when she had been a little girl, and as such, I readily believed what he was saying given it matched with what I knew. It was also while reminiscing about stories of her childhood hardships that I felt that I should give him a bit of leeway.

Between being paid now and being paid later - it was obvious which one a person would prefer. But, the net profit was still enticing enough. I did, however, insist that we not just shake hands on the deal but also get a written contract drawn up by the guild. I did not think that they would bilk me out of my rightful payment, but you could never be too careful, especially given the current tensions between humans and lizardmen.

I didn't know how much of that hatred had spilled over from the city to the villages, but if it was just my word against his, I was a bit worried that there might be some bias if our case ended up before a lizardman judge.

Once we were done I told him that I was ready to leave the next morning if that was what was needed, for which he was rather thankful.

I told Granny Qi I was leaving for two days and then we headed out of the city.

We rode to his village on a horse and cart that he owned - while things were frosty between humans and lizardmen in Arconia, was it the same outside the city? The issue was that even if things hadn't trickled down from the city to the surrounding villages, the villages were rather segregated when it came to the two species, with nearly all villages being entirely lizardmen or entirely human. Some of the villagers might have gone decades without even seeing a human, let alone speaking to one.

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Who knows what kind of beliefs they would hold towards humans having been raised in such an environment?

"So, who is taking care of your village while you're away?" I asked him, wanting to break the ice while we traveled. "I'd think that maybe someone like you would have more important things to do than wander off into the city."

"Oh, I've left my son in charge," he said. "And it's just for a while. Not to mention this is one of the most important things going on in our village - so I felt I needed to take care of it myself."

I nodded. "And how did you know that I had handled something like this before?" The only other people in the city who might've known about this were Granny Qi and myself - no wait, I had told a few of my coworkers the story when they had asked how I had gotten the inspiration to make my grimoire about the Elephant Frog. News might've leaked out to the guild through there.

"The guild told me you had handled something like this before when I presented them with the problem," he answered, confirming my suspicions. "On that note, how do you intend to handle the Elephant Frog?"

"I have my own summon which will deal with it," I answered. Even if it was a male, I was sure that it would win any contest with me being its backer. "Don't worry though - I have no intention of killing it."

"That is good to hear," he said.

I looked out at the countryside - I had not been in or near a lizardmen village up till now. One thing that was obvious which differentiated the two was what they farmed - the humans were more concerned with rice, while the lizardmen preferred to set up fish farms.

Other than that, they were not that different at a passing glance. The designs of the houses were slightly different, but a good portion of them were just rough structures made of mud and had thatched roofs with the occasional wooden or brick building thrown in. The elaborate designs that both species preferred when they lived in the city were nowhere to be seen out of practical necessity.

It was a bit of a long ride to our destination, so I tried to make some more small talk. "If you don't mind - could you tell me a story about your village?"

Part of making grimoires was drawing not only from your experiences and non-fiction, but also stories like folktales. Maybe I would get a stroke of inspiration after hearing of one? I was also genuinely curious if there were some lizardmen stories I hadn't heard before.

The village chief tapped his chin. "Well, there is this somewhat famous story in our parts, I don't know if you've heard of it before but…"

"If I have, I'll let you know."

"Well, long ago, before the Ruler of the Astral Winds had even laid eyes upon this place, people lived in relative harmony," he said. "They would go out to fish, and the bounty of the Arconia was enough for people to live off of. These were simpler times, but not everything was nice and cozy."

"One day, a lizardman and his father went out to sea in order to fish. Unfortunately, a storm caught them and blew them out to sea, far further than was safe for them to venture out. Upon realizing this, they tried to sail back to shore as fast as they could… but they were not fast enough," he continued. "The boy was the only survivor - but he described a giant squid - the size of a hill, which erupted from the depths of the ocean, and swiped away part of their boat like a child might crush a stick forgotten on the forest floor. Days later, the boy finally made it to shore, but the loss of his father gripped his mind completely. He could not get over it, and day in and day out, his desire for vengeance consumed him as he began to accumulate wealth and power. Decades later, he set out to sea with a massive fleet, aiming to kill the beast which had taken his father from him."

"For days they searched the waters, until, when they were about to abandon hope, they saw it - a squid so large it could easily fit a house into its maw, with each of its tentacles being over a hundred meters in length. The others, who had thought the boy, who was now a man, had exaggerated about the creature's size realized that there was no lie - but now they were faced with a massive problem - how could they handle such a behemoth?" he said, pausing for dramatic effect. "But they had no need to worry, before a single arrow or spell could be fired, the squid's head was bitten in half in front of them by a giant shark. The two beasts began to fight, with the waves from their struggle nearly enough to capsize the fleet that had been built, but, though two ships were eventually lost, most of the fleet managed to make it back to shore intact. The squid had been killed - though not by them, but by a shark that was even bigger than it." He looked out towards the fish farms. "The story has a few morals to it. One, do not venture too far out into the sea, for you don't know what kind of monsters you will find. And two, there is always a bigger fish."

I looked out towards the ocean, and gulped. I had wondered why the oceans were not more commonly used in this world for transport and the like… but even the most powerful Rank Four Liberomancers of today would have difficulty fighting off beasts of that scale.

"Yeah, we have a saying like that where I'm from as well," I said. I had heard many stories about sea monsters back on Earth, and this world was no different - the only difference was that I was sure that there was definitely a kernel of truth to the stories of this world. "Thank you for the story."