by Funa
Marcela looked at her smugly, as if her response were perfectly crafted for the sake of ridiculing the others. Reina gritted her teeth. However, now was not the time to make a fuss. The fact that neither she nor Mavis would be of any use in this scenario was simply obvious, even if Reina herself was loath to admit it.
And now, Pauline, already shaken by the record set by the Wonder Trio, stepped up to the plate.
“Gya-aha-gahaha! St-stop it, Pauline, stooop!”
Yes, Pauline had leaped straight over to Mile and begun tickling her sides.
“The winner is Pauline! One point for the Crimson Vow!”
“Objection!!!” the Wonder Trio roared, in what was, for them, rare form.
Reina sneered and said, “Oh? I don’t recall a rule that said that the method couldn’t be a physical one. The only stipulation was, ‘whoever makes her laugh the fastest wins,’ wasn’t it? Isn’t the one who can think of the best approach—or in other words, the smartest method—the one most suitable to be Mile’s companion? Does this not count as a mark of superior ability? Or do you intend to contest the victory after the fact, based on a rule that never existed, just because you lost?”
“Gah… V-very well, then! Now, it’s time for the next match!”
Overhearing this exchange, Mile tilted her head quizzically.
***
“Round Four: A Battle of Joy! This is the final contest! Whoever can make Mile the happiest shall be the victor! First up, the Wonder Trio!”
The Crimson Vow had gone first in both of the first rounds, so the Wonder Trio stood to begin the remaining two.
This time, Marcela took the stage.
“Miss Adele, we three shall be by your side, now and always. Even when you retire from being a hunter, even if you get married, even if you have children—we shall always remain friends. Our families will grow together, and we shall always, always, live a happy life together…”
“M-Miss Marcelaaaaa!”
Mile threw her arms around Marcela, overwhelmed with emotion.
“O-objection!” shouted Reina.
“…What is it now?” Marcela asked coolly.
“Obviously, I’m objecting to you leveraging the outcome of the battle for the possession of Mile in order to win a victory before that victory’s even decided! I don’t care if you tell her you’ll be by her side, but what’s this ‘we three’ nonsense?! Are you planning to chase us away and keep Mile all for yourself?”
“Oh really? Are you saying that there is a precedent for that objection? As long as we do not break the established rules, then we are free to do whatever we want, aren’t we? Who was it now who was speaking of obtaining victory via the ‘smartest method’?”
“Uh… Guhh… Y-you little—”
“What was that?”
“You vile little—”
“What are you all talking about?”
“Huh?”
As Reina and Marcela glared at one another, Mile’s voice came from behind them.
“I keep hearing you talk about ‘possession’ and who’s ‘suitable’ to be my companion… Just what is all this about?”
She was angry. Mile, who appeared to have grasped the true meaning of these events, was well and truly mad.
When Mile was fuming and pouting, her cheeks all puffed out, she was nothing to worry about. That just meant that she was a little peeved. However, when she had no expression at all… That was when you knew that a calamity was about to strike. You could tell from her face, but more so, from her harsh and cold demeanor. When she got to that point, you had better apologize quickly—or else there would be hell to pay.
And then, there were the times when Mile moved beyond her expressionless state and showed her anger again.
That was dangerous. That was incredibly dangerous.
To date, the only time anyone had ever witnessed this was during the battle with the elder dragons when she thought her friends were going to die.
This is bad!!!! everyone thought as one.
“I did think that it was awfully strange… This morning, I was having a lot of fun. I thought that all of you were staging this competition in order to entertain me, and I was enjoying it. But then, the atmosphere got tenser and tenser, and you all started saying weird things. In which case… I see now. I understand what’s going on here.”
“A-aaaah, um, well…”
Reina and Marcela both stammered nervously. The other four took a few steps back.
“I am no one’s prize!!!”
“W-we’re sorryyyyy!!!” the whole group shouted.
Mile was terrifying when truly angry. She was always so good-natured. And yet…
“Just what were you intending to have me do? To make me choose between my friends?! Miss Marcela!”
“Y-yes?!”
“Miss Marcela, if you had to choose between Miss Monika and Miss Aureana who to remain friends with, and were forced to cast the other by the wayside, which of them would you choose?”
“Wh-wha?! How could you possibly expect me to choose?! How could I toss one of them away, just like that?!”
Then Mile turned to Reina and said, “Reina, who would you choose? Between Mavis and Pauline?”
“Wha…? You can’t expect me to make that choice!”
So said Reina. However, Pauline thought back to the night where she was nearly abandoned alone at the inn and muttered to herself, “I would definitely be the one left behind.”
“My point exactly.” Mile continued. “And that is the sort of choice you all were trying to force me to make. You decided this all on your own without even asking my opinion.”
“Ah…” The six fell completely silent.
“But seven people is way too many for a C-rank party… A split of the earnings would be too low,” said Pauline.
“Yes, and with 1.5 on the front line and 5.5 on the backline, the balance would be atrocious,” added Marcela.
Naturally, Mile was the one split into 0.5. She counted half for each side.
What the two girls were saying was true enough, but then Monika lobbed in her own bomb.
“Surely having too many mages is a problem, but aren’t our roles important as well? As far as origins go, we have two daughters of merchants and one daughter of a traveling peddler, along with three nobles. We’d have two chiefs of staff, and a third, Adele, in special circumstances. We’d have two people who like to handle finances and negotiation and two who like to take charge. Along with one who surprisingly takes the reigns in emergencies…”
“Who’s this unexpected emergency leader you’re talking about?”
Mile’s question went ignored.
“This is hopeless. It absolutely wouldn’t work.”
“It is hopeless.”
“I think it is…”
Everyone was suddenly pessimistic.
However, Mile, as per usual, was unable to read the room.
“Don’t worry, guys! In my country there’s a saying: ‘With enough captains, a ship can climb a mountain!’ With enough people putting their heads together, the impossible becomes possible!”
“Mile, are you sure you know what that means? Do you really think that’s the correct interpretation?” asked Mavis, eyebrow raised.
For Mavis, who came from a family of knights—in other words, a military family— it was far too easy to imagine the fate of a small platoon that had too many captains.
“In any case, Miss Adele,” said Marcela, “I believe that traveling with us, the Wonder Trio, is the best choice for you.”
“Don’t just hop right back into it and start saying whatever you want! Plus your party’s name is the Wonder Trio, isn’t it?! It’s not a ‘quartet’—it’s a ‘trio!’ You can’t have your numbers going up! Mile is ours!!!” Reina vehemently objected.
“I don’t know what we’d do without Mile! She’s our precious piggy ba—dearest friend, after all!”
“Just a minute! What were you about to say, Pauline? Piggy ba…?
Just what were you trying to saaay?!?! Also, did any of you hear a word of what I just said?! We’ve looped back around to the beginning…”
“Maintaining the status quo would mean that Mile has to remain where she is.”
“Are you saying that you would try to drag Mile away by force? Did you not hear anything that she just said?”
“Don’t suddenly remember what she said when it’s convenient for you!”
“No, but we should be the ones to look after Miley…”
“What do you mean, ‘look after’?! I’m not a child!”
“But aren’t you?” the group asked in chorus.
“Graaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
And so, things dragged on as they always did.
In the end, another pointless day drew to a close with absolutely no progress whatsoever…
Chapter 42:
Spice
After some time, the Crimson Vow reached a certain town.
They still had not escaped the reaches of Brandel’s borders, but as there were no signs of Mile having been discovered, there was no reason for them to rush. Plus, even if someone did find her out, they could easily shake off any pursuers.
“Why don’t we spend the next few days in this town? We’ve been walking for several days straight now, but we do still need to try and make a bit of money. If we came all the way to another country just to plow straight through it, then it kind of defeats the purpose of going on tour. I want to at least be able to say that we did a few jobs while we were here in Brandel. If anything comes up for Mile, then we’ll just pack up and book it for the border immediately.”
Reina was right, the other three realized. It had in fact been some time since they had last taken a job.
“Spices?” Mile suddenly asked.
The other three followed her gaze.
Spice Gathering. Payment determined by amount and variety of spices acquired. Please speak to client for further details.
“Are you saying we should take this one? Just how does one come by spices? This is the first time that you’ve visited this town, too—isn’t it, Mile? You don’t have any acquaintances or associates in the area, and we have no way of knowing what kind of spices grow around here… But then again, I guess you’d know about that sort of thing. You’re so good at cooking, after all.” Reina sounded skeptical, but Mile just grinned.
“It’ll be fine,” said Mile. “I’ve already got a bit of an inventory anyway. Plus you’d normally expect people to go to a specialty shop or the town market or make a request for something like spices from the merchants’ guild. So if they’re sending their request to the Hunters’ Guild it means that…”
“Something else is going on?” asked Mavis.
Mile nodded.
Reina shrugged. “It doesn’t look like there are any other interesting jobs, anyway. I’d like to think that by now goblin hunting is a little beneath us. It’s probably good experience for us to take weird jobs like these now and then. Is that all right with you all?”
Naturally, Mavis, Pauline, and Mile, nodded.
“Very well then! This will be our first job in this town!” Reina announced, moving to tear the posting from the job board, but Pauline hurriedly stopped her.
“Hang on, you can’t just rip it off! This doesn’t look like it’s just a one-time job. Plus, the job isn’t truly accepted until we’ve spoken to the client and agreed on the terms. The final processing isn’t going to happen right here and now!”
“Oh, whoops!”
And so the Crimson Vow proceeded to the clerk to gather further details about the job before leaving the guild behind them.
***
“So this is the place,” said Reina, standing before a restaurant and looking up at the sign looming over them. It was a rather unnecessarily grandiose sign.
“In we go!”
She proceeded through the door, upon which hung a sign that said “Temporarily Closed.” The other three followed her.
Indeed, the client who had requested this particular job was the owner of this particular eatery—an incredibly run-of-the-mill, or perhaps a little more high-class than normal—establishment known as “Calamity.”
A shop called Calamity that’s looking for spices… What a peppery turn of events! Lights, calamity, action! Er, wait—isn’t “calamity” an English word that means like, “plague” or “disaster?” I’ve got a bad feeling about this… Mile thought to herself. However, no one in this world spoke English, so it probably didn’t actually mean anything. It would have to be a coincidence.
“Pardon us, we saw your posting at the Hunters’ Guild, so…”
When it came to most official exchanges, Mavis was the one to take charge. She was the oldest and seemed the most earnest, after all… And, of course, she was the true party leader.
Yes, the leader of the Crimson Vow was Mavis. Even she seemed to forget that now and then.
“Oh, came to take the job then, did you?”
Hearing Mavis’s voice, a man who appeared to be in his forties emerged from the kitchen.
“We can’t produce our own spices around here, and it’s gonna be a long while until the next shipment, so we’ve been in a bit of a pickle! But uh, do you have any leads on spices? They aren’t something that you can easily come by in this area, and of course normally we’d go to a shop or the merchants’ guild, but they don’t have any more to sell. I’ve already spent most of my dough, so I wouldn’t be handing this off to the hunters’ guild—which really is rather expensive—if I were looking for something easy to find,” the man explained, appearing half-optimistic and half-concerned.
As he went on to explain, this shop used an extravagant amount of high-quality spices in its recipes. (Well, compared to Mile’s experiences from her previous life, they were actually quite stingy with them, but…) Though their ingredients were expensive, they were considered a high-class establishment, so they still managed to turn quite a profit.
Though the shop was well managed, very recently, a calamity had occurred: the merchants who were meant to deliver spices to the shop from a far-off town were assailed by bandits and all their stock plundered.
Bandit attacks were incredibly rare on the route that they took, but, like it or not, that is what had happened.
Thankfully, as the shop had not received any goods, they did not have to pay for them, and they immediately placed another order. However, the spices originated from far away, and apparently, the suppliers had been hit with an unexpected influx of orders, meaning that they were going to be out of stock for some time yet.
For a high-class restaurant known for its well-seasoned dishes, not having spices was entirely out of the question. They had even decided to accept a slight decrease in quality in order to try to scrape up the necessary spices from nearby sources. However…
“The ones who normally enjoy dishes with high-quality seasonings are usually nobles or particularly prosperous merchants. The general populace typically doesn’t even visit any restaurants. They just use pungent herbs and vegetables with a lot of salt. Once you start introducing real spices, you have to raise your prices, or else your profits go down and you can’t stay in business. Our customers know good food when they taste it, and they come to prefer it over the cheap stuff.
“Generally this is not a problem for us, since using high-quality spices is our shop’s selling point. We’re the kind of place that the common man can only visit a few times a year, so the high prices are no issue. In fact, I’d say being pricey gives us more cachet. Of course, spices are a rather rare commodity to begin with. Now that we’ve already scraped up as much as we possibly can, there isn’t much left to find. We’ve already gotten everything we can from our neighbors, both on the capital side and on the border side…”
Apparently, this job was not going to be an easy one.
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll have most of the problems that normal hunters would encounter, thought three of the Crimson Vow.
Indeed, three of them thought this.
And it was the normal hunters who were doing the thinking.
“Well, you can let us worry about how it’ll get done. As for the terms of the job…”
Taking the reigns of the conversation from Mavis, Pauline hashed out the details with the shop owner. The result of their discussion was that, given the fact that they had no idea of the type, quality, or amount of spices they would be able to secure, the job would not be billed at a flat rate as with most task requests but treated as a regular mercantile transaction.
No matter how much the shop owner wanted the spices, if the restock fee ended up being too high, the shop would be in trouble. So it was agreed that he would pay no more than 1.5 times the standard market rate. Any more than that and it would start to dip into their profits.
On top of this, they mutually agreed that even if they failed, the Crimson Vow would not be required to pay a penalty fee, and it would not be recorded as a job failed but as a “job completed with zero results.” This was a complicated task, and even if the Crimson Vow were to fail, it would cause no further hardship for the shop. After all, at that point, the job could still be made available to other hunters.
With this arrangement, there was almost no risk for the Crimson Vow. Even in the worst-case scenario, all they would end up suffering would be a waste of their time. Such was the beauty of Pauline’s negotiating skills.
“With that, I believe our discussion is complete. We will present this contract to the guild along with our job acceptance report.”
With Mavis offering up the last word, the four moved to stand.
“Just a minute.”
Apparently, however, the shop owner was not finished.
“While you’re here, I want you to try our food. We only have a small quantity of the spices that we’ve previously acquired from afar, so I’ll make a little something with those and scrounge up another dish that can be made without spices. I’d like you to try both. If it gives you a bit more strength, things’ll turn out better for all of us!”