The Maid Is Not Dead

I could barely hear what Mrs Rhynes was saying, my mind persistently elsewhere. It took conscious effort to drag myself back into the present frame of time when I realized I was being questioned.

"Pardon me?"

The senior Guild attendant looked at me sourly over her spectacles, as she often tended to do.

"I asked you, do you wish to be paid in silver or gold?"

An intact, immaculate troll heart and liver, tongue, and eyes. The sum amounted to about 585 silver marks. Roughly two gold marks (VGM), or close enough.

"Can I have one mark in gold and the rest in silver?" I answered on a whim.

"You can."

The old woman went to retrieve the currency.

Therein lay the main cause to my distracted state of mind. I was only able to bring back the aforementioned parts of the corpse due to their hefty size. The rest of the invaluable troll materials I could only scatter and hide in the burg for later retrieval, like a squirrel its winter stash. Naturally, the longer it took me to deliver, the further the value of the parts degraded, even in the cool, dry climate of the dungeon. It was a lot of money going to waste.

Funds had ceased to be a serious problem for me, perhaps, and I had no pressing need to even keep questing. Since the doors of the dungeon were now unbarred for all, my ranking was largely irrelevant, and my personal finances well and far in the green. But it was sinful to be wasteful. As someone born outside the range of organized civilization, I was taught to view profligacy as an evil on par with murder, and no reasoning could take the guilty feelings away. And it was not for nothing. Monster materials weren't valued only because they were trendy monster materials, but because there were people out there who genuinely needed them. It was always bread off someone else's table, even if not mine.

All of this could have been avoided if only I had Master Ryndell's storage magic...

That spell was fast becoming an even worse obsession to me.

Then the heavy sound of a sack of metal striking the counter shook me out of my reverie. Quite a chubby coin pouch posed in front of me, and it was only then that I belatedly realized what I'd ordered. Even after deducting the singular gold mark from the total, a formidable hill of 295 silver and ten coppers remained. Hardly any of the local traders could accept VGM, so I only considered my purchasing power instead of the convenience of storage.

The solitary gold mark rested like an overfed sultan on top of the pile.

The lack of a bank in town was becoming another problem.

"If you wish to count them, you can use the tables over there," Mrs Rhynes nodded towards the new area set up towards the east side of the guild hall.

This had never been an issue in Faulsen's bureau before, but with the dramatic increase in quests and questers, and the coinage processed, demand arose for a more private corner where people could sort out their funds, equipment, and such. Long, narrow tables had been commissioned from the carpenter, divided by tactful, decorative side panels that blocked the view to the neighbor's side.

I didn't particularly care to recount the sum, or if there was a coin or two missing, but this was another essential part of the adventurer culture. In some places in the world, it wasn't considered theft if you made it too easy to steal, and telling the Guild I didn't mind what was or wasn't in my purse was one such foolish signal. Being careless with my money would also cost me respect as a professional. So I had to at least pretend I cared.

"Ms Lunaria," the old clerk called me as I was about to leave.

I half turned back, the sack of coins heavy in my hands. "Yes?"

"First a direwolf, and now a mountain troll. I do not intend to tell you how to do your work, but if you plan to continue stunts of this sort in the future, I would strongly recommend forming a proper party. Sharing the profit may be worth it, if it means also spitting up the risks. Doing what you do all by your lonesomeness is not what I would call smart. You should spare a thought for the people you leave behind when you are no more."

"Thank you for the advice," I said, and went away to count the money.

I looked up a free desk, set down the pouch, loosened the leather string tying the mouth of it, stuck my hand into the pool of cold pieces, raised it, and let the coins pour down through my fingers, and repeated the gesture a couple of times, wondering whatever had made people think these smelly, dirty chips of metal were worth anything, and what would happen if that illusion of value were ever broken?

Then there came a tall man in a long brown overcoat, who stopped at the table parting to my right, and slammed down an enormous sack onto the desktop, which the dividing panel failed to fully hide. A handful of coins spilled out, and I saw almost all of them were pure gold. The man made no effort to collect or hide the scattered money, but hauled down off his shoulder an enormous arbalest with a frame of clear steel, and set it on the floor to lean against the corner of the table.

The adventurer was neither old nor a boy, perhaps in his mid-thirties or early forties. A tanned, weathered man who had shed childish softness from his visage and confronted life without the sparkle of idealism in his brown eyes. His sun-bleached hair hung partially over the brow, and a rough stubble accompanied the strong line of his jaw. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Despite this, you might perhaps have called the man handsome, if looks had to be brought up, though I was never much of a judge of that. It was only yesterday that I was praising troll aesthetics, so take it as you will. He looked the way a human male was supposed to look, and had heard about personal hygiene. This was a fairly rare quality when it came to male adventurers, mind you.

Meanwhile, it seemed that he had formed his own assessment of myself on the side.

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"Hey, little sister," the man suddenly said to me. "You have an honest air about you. Could you watch my things for a bit? I'd rather not drag this much metal into the loo with me. The little fella's shy enough, as it is."

I was not a fan of his terms, but it didn't seem he gave them in jest.

I wished to point out I was clearly above average height for women on the continent and not so little, but it couldn't be denied he was both taller and older, so I was left without a retort. I did not wish to linger but a direct request for help was made, and I was bound by the laws of the service industry to comply.

"...As long as it doesn't take all day."

"Thanks," he said. "I tend to be speedy."

Then he indeed turned his back on me and departed for the men's room across the hall, entrusting a small town's budget and his primary weapon in the control of a complete stranger. It was like he was asking me to run off with it all. Although, having nowhere to run to was the chief issue in my case.

Truly, the world was a big place, and no two dwellers of it were the same.

But as the man turned to go, I caught a glimpse of rose gold flicker on his breast. This carefree fellow was a B-rank adventurer and clearly not from around.

My gaze drifted back to the abandoned coin bag and its overflowing contents, left as they were. One of the coins was not like the others, neither gold nor copper nor silver. It looked more like a small medal than money to pay with. Within a coin-shaped casing of clear crystal was a carmine circle and within the circle the pale metallic side profile of a young lady.

Before I knew it, I'd picked up the coin and viewed it closer.

The image of the head was so intricately detailed, the subject looked nearly alive. That metal relief was produced by technologies lost to the coin makers of today. Although I had never seen one before, I recognized at once I was gazing at an authentic platinum mark, and the ladyship captured in it was none other but the Hero-Queen Beatrice of lost Vallacia.

The coined image shook me to the core of my being. So heart-achingly noble and beautiful—and so very reminiscent of our Princess Anastasia. The two might as well have been sisters, even when parted by a rift longer than a millennium.

Then I saw the adventurer return from the restroom.

Still reeling inside, I put the coin back onto the table and returned to wrap up my own, quite a bit less glorious reward. I was careless. The man had to have seen me fiddling with his things. Surely he didn't set up the situation on purpose, so he could lay whatever contrived accusations on me? Was he not rich enough already?

On the inside, I braced myself for an argument. But none followed. The man came to his station, picked up the spilled coins and tossed them haphazardly one by one back into the sack. At the platinum mark, his hand stopped. He held the image of Beatrice in his fingers for a time, looking wholly unimpressed by the grace of the great Queen of elder times. And then, without a word, he turned to me and laid the coin down on my side of the table.

"That's not mine," I said, narrowing my eyes at the man.

Did he think he could buy me like any old town wench? Though it must be said, he was putting quite an offer on the table—but the dignity of an Imperial Maid was priceless.

Yet, the look on the man's face stalled my rising wrath. There was no such hunger in his gaze. Only utter indifference. His was a wholly extinguished look, like that of one who had been failed by life and all his ambitions, and had no more interest left for amusements and games but only carried on out of a long-ingrained routine, because he no longer knew how to stop, like a mechanism deprived of its operator. It was such a tragic look.

He said, "It looked dear to you."

The words caught me like an arrow from the night.

I glanced at the platinum mark again. He was not wrong. Just how dear, words couldn't describe. All of a sudden, strength drained from my legs and I fell to sit on a chair by the table. It was as if a dam had cracked and a flood held in check for a long time came bursting through, unstoppable. I gripped the coined image of the long-dead monarch like a fanatic her idol, as tears poured out of my eyes, and then I was full-on sobbing, trying in vain to hide my face with my free hand.

Princess. Oh, Princess.

It's been so long. So dreadfully long.

In a child's life, a week could seem like a month and a month like ten years. Every day I spent fumbling blindly around here in this foreign land, Her Highness was gaining new experiences, learning new lessons, meeting new faces, and changing and growing and becoming the person the Heavens had meant her to be. And I couldn't be there with her to see it. I was missing all of it, every important moment in her life, and this time we lost could never be recovered. I had done my best to escape that simple truth, but here and now at the platinum-white reminder in my hand, I couldn't not think about it any longer, and was crushed by the weight of the knowing. The flow of time was merciless.

Without a word, the B-rank adventurer watched over me until I eventually managed to master myself.

Swallowing my shame, I handed the mark back to him and mumbled,

"...I'm sorry you had to see that."

"You didn't need to give it back," he said.

"No. I have yet to do anything to earn it."

The man stood there staring at the mark for an awkward moment, as if not knowing what to do with it, and then presented,

"Then how about I make a request to you?"

I scowled at him again. "I do not offer that sort of services."

"Oh-ho," he uttered. "You have your mind in the gutter, little sister. That sort of joys I can find a great deal cheaper in town. But what I'm asking is only that you hear me out. Lend me your ear and feign interest for a bit, and I'll consider that favor enough. Do you think you could manage that? Colleague to colleague."

Even a child knew that if an offer sounded too good to be true, then it was most certainly not true at all. A B-rank was not to be underestimated, and I was reluctant to go anywhere in his company. I studied his expression for a time, searching for any signs of hidden intentions or falsehood, but nothing about his apathetic, languid demeanor suggested he meant anything but the literal meaning of the words.

This man had seen me at my most vulnerable moment, but wouldn't mock or judge or patronize me for it. For that, my conscience said I owed him.

I couldn't imagine what sort of balderdash he thought was worth a platinum, but I had no more work left for today. There was still time before either Vera or Norn would be at home, so I had no reason to go back to the house either.

"…"

And so I became acquainted with a B-rank adventurer, someone standing higher up along the ladder I'd take upon myself to climb.