“You are coming very close to interfering, Ilia,” the regent said.
“I cannot help it. He is charmed and I am oath bound to protect any I cause to be in this state. If you are willing to purchase the information for the price he has told me then I can facilitate the exchange while he is charmed. If not, then I am bound to do everything in my power to protect him while he is defenseless. Once again, I cannot help it.”
The regent scowled. “Is that your final answer?”
“It is.”
The regent’s scowl grew. “Adventurer Jeremby, there has been a dungeon breakout along the northern road. As the highest level adventurer currently in Melgrim, I would like you to form a party and clear the forests tomorrow.”
Jeremby stiffened. “Regent, those dungeons are for level 40 adventurers and above. I am more than happy to accept the quest, but there are only a few low level 30 adventurers in the city. None of them are at my level. I would be taking them to slaughter.”
“And if we ignore the forest, travellers will die. Landlord Arnold can attest to that. I’ve been informed the men guarding his caravan were stalked no less than three times. And there is a trade wagon missing that should have arrived before they did.”
Jeremby looked at me.
I felt terrible but answered truthfully. “We stopped on three occasions. I couldn’t sense it, like the guard, but the forest went silent each time. And on two occasions, the environment turned electric.”
Jeremby nodded and turned back to the regent. “If that is the case, why has the military not reacted? The forest falls within its jurisdiction.”
The regent glared at him. “It is not the military’s job to clean up after Melgrim’s adventurers.”
“The law would state otherwise,” Jeremby replied. “During an unexpected breakout, the military is required to assist.”
“What about this breakout is unexpected? Your people decided to reduce the clearance frequency of those dungeons by ten days, so they could go off chasing profit in the Alvin Woods. Those timetables are there for a reason. It is your people’s fault that you are the only adventurer of the necessary level still in the city. It is your people’s fault that the only other adventurers are ten levels behind.”
Jeremby scowled. “With our current timetable, the chance of a standard outbreak is less than 1%. This is likely something different.”
The regent snorted. “There is no evidence of that. And as there is no evidence, the military is not obligated to assist. Your people gambled and lost. So either take responsibility for your actions and correct the situation or request military aid and deal with renegotiating the price of using Melgrim’s dungeon.”
Jeremby blanched. “I will take my people into the forest tomorrow then.”
Ilia was red-faced, barely controlling her anger and grief, tears streaming down her cheeks, but she didn’t say a word or even glare at the regent. Jeremby patted her hand while my heart ached for her, hoping that her grief wouldn’t affect her singing.
The regent turned to Ilia, smirking. “Is there something you would like to say?”
Ilia wiped her cheeks and curtsied. “I am honoured you have put so much faith in my husband. It will be good for him to have something to do while I assist Landlord Arnold in building his mental resistance to being charmed.”
“I’m glad you approve. Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you for the invitation. I am honoured to be here.”
The regent smirk became a frown as she turned over her right hand. A golf ball-sized silver crystal formed on her palm.
Cassandra squealed with giggly happiness. “Emily did it! She passed through her threshold.”
The regent’s frown grew. “So it would seem.” Her eyes turned to me. “She will have to thank you for your assistance. She would not have been able to do this without you, Landlord Arnold. Welcome to my home.”
I tried not to let my anger and pain enter my voice. Letting out my true feelings right now would only hurt Ilia’s singing more. “Thank you for the invitation. I am honoured to be here.”
“I hope you enjoy your stay.”
Ilia and Jeremby turned and walked towards the open door along the left wall. We entered a wide marble hallway and I fell in step beside Jeremby, mind racing. “How much gold do you need for your people to survive the forest?”
Ilia began to sob. Notes of anguish erupted from her, causing me physical pain.
Jeremby sighed. “A bit of gold isn’t enough to make up for ten levels.”
“I realise that. Your men would need 100 attributes each, to make up for their levels, so how much would the blessings cost? I’ve been told two crowns an attribute, but I’ve never purchased them myself.”
Jeremby shook his head, dazed. “That’s for common blessings. They would have to receive uncommon blessings as well if they wanted that many which can go as high as six crowns an attribute.”
“So, 3,000 crowns to cover the other five members of your six man party,” I said happily. “I can manage that. My bank purse is in my room.”
Ilia bit off a sob. “Arnold, you don’t want to give Jeremby your money.”
“I don’t?” I said, confused.
“No, you are being charmed.”
“Oh.”
That didn't sound right.
“Try to remember what that money was for.”
“It’s not really for anything,” I said honestly. “Maybe I’ll use it for paying off my taxes and interest on my loan a year from now, but I’ll probably have made enough money for that by then. I’ve got another 2,000 crowns to pay for the one in six months. So this money is essentially being put away for an emergency—and I consider this to be an emergency.”
Ilia froze, holding back a sob, and then turned to me, releasing her husband’s arm to grab me by the shoulder. “Arnold, I need you to think about this and tell me why you are making this offer in detail, only stating the parts of the reason that are related to me.”
I paused. “The regent punished you for protecting me by sending your husband and those adventurers on a suicide mission. She can send assistance, but she’s interpreting the situation how she chooses so she can hurt you for going against her. If those people die, it will be, in part, because of me. I don’t want to live with that on my conscience. I’d rather give Jeremby and the adventurers the money than have to live with that.”
“Would you do the same for someone else if they weren’t my husband?”
“Yes.”
Ilia nodded, wiping away her tears with her free hand. “Well then, I accept the loan.”
I frowned. “What loan? I was offering to give you the money.”
“And I cannot accept such a gift, but I will accept a loan.”
“Why can’t you just take the money?”
“Because I have my pride and this was not your fault. It was the regent’s. I will not have you pay out of pocket for something that is not your fault. I can’t accept such a gift.”
I scowled, beginning to get annoyed. “Why are you making this so difficult? Just take the money. I don’t want to loan it to you!”
“Why are you being so difficult?” she asked, leaning forward with a sudden smile.
“Because I just received a minor mental resistance mark apparently,” I said, reading the prompt that had appeared.
Well done, you have successfully managed to fight off some of the effects of a charm by momentarily becoming annoyed with your charmer, meeting the minimum requirements for Ilia bestowing the minor mental resistance mark upon you.
Congratulations, you have received the minor mental resistance mark.
A little charm is wonderful, it brightens up your day, but too much charm is a curse, which has your mind lose its way. You’ve had to learn this the hard way.
Minor Mental Resistance Mark
Level: 1
Effect: 10% resistance against minor charm effects.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE BEST PLAN
S REQUIRE MONEY AND PREPARATION
Jeremby waved as I walked through the adventurers’ guild entrance and then made a shooing motion to the regent’s guards, who tried to follow me in. “You have no authority here,” he said cheerfully. “Kindly remain outside. You have my word that I will make sure your charge is returned to you when he leaves.”
The guards scowled, but then nodded, and returned to the carriage.
The foyer of the adventurers’ guild wasn’t nearly as exciting as I would have expected. There was no one dressed in armour and not one weapon in sight. Instead, there were several sturdy-looking doors and a help desk manned by an elderly gentleman. Several tables with chairs furnished the space with a large enough gap between them to avoid crowding. It reminded me of a small cafe.
Jeremby stepped forward and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Arnold. My wife tells me you made a full but slow recovery.”
I nodded. “Yeah, ten days of following her around like a lovesick teenager is not something I want to repeat.”
Jeremby chuckled. “How high did your mark have to go? My wife wouldn’t say.”
“I had to evolve it past both the minor and lesser stages and get the mental resistance version up to seven,” I said unhappily.
Jeremby shrugged. “Not the highest it’s had to go to break my wife’s charm, but not far off.”
“So she said. Personally, I would like to forget the whole experience.”
Jeremby frowned, reading my tone. “If you’re afraid of it happening again, you could always pay a wizard to train you.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you should be immune to bards and the like from now on, but if you want to be completely immune, you will have to train your mark with wizards. They can cast charm spells that have the same effect but are more powerful. You’ll have to go through a similar situation as you did with my wife to grow your mental resistance, but once it’s done, even magic won’t be able to touch you. It’s standard training for high-level adventurers, wizards, clerics, and officers in the military.”
“I might look into it once I’ve had a little more time to adjust.” I shuddered. “I don’t like thinking about what I was like.”
That was the biggest understatement of my life, if not an outright lie. It wasn’t that I didn’t like thinking about it. It was that thinking about it revolted me on a level I couldn’t express in words. Everything I was vanished before the charm. The man who walked around under its effects was an illusion wrapped in an Arnold meat suit. It had my memories to draw from, but it wasn’t me. It was an addict.
I’d never tried hard drugs, so I had nothing to compare to the devotion I’d felt for Ilia, but even then I was sure that only the worst addicts back home came close to experiencing what I felt. She could have asked me to do anything, and no matter how heinous, I would have complied. Slaughter a kindergartener? Sure. Scam cancer patients? No problem. Leave a positive review of the new Star Wars movies saying they were better than the originals? I would have smiled while typing. It was sickening.
Jeremby nodded, understanding. “I get that. Now, I have some people who want to thank you for what you did.”
“I’m just here to buy items.”
Jeremby chuckled. “I know, but that doesn’t change what’s going to happen.”
Jeremby threw his arm over my shoulder and started leading me through the building. There was literally nothing I could do to stop the powerful adventurer. He’d told me he had almost 200 points in strength—which meant he could bench press a car.
We went through several brightly lit hallways that reminded me a lot of my high school, before entering a small conference room with a large oak table and chairs. A blackboard sat against one wall and there were shelves full of books against another.
Four adults, who looked like they could each fight a tank, sat around the table playing cards. The two women sat on the right side with the men on the left. They all looked up as we entered. I tried to check their names, but none were visible.
“Is this him?” the nearest one asked. He was a barrel-chested man with absolutely massive hands. He had long wild blonde hair like it had been years since he had seen a barber.
“No, Ames, I brought a stranger in here to mess with you. Sit your ass down and let me make introductions,” Jeremby said, grinning. “Now, Arnold, that useless sod who asked that stupid question is Ames; his ugly friend behind him is Obre. This is the angry lady Devra and her less angry and quite charming companion Silbi. Everyone, this is Arnold, your new benefactor.”
Ames grinned and waved. “Nice to finally meet you, Arnold. We heard you weren’t interested in meeting us, but we pushed Jeremby to set this up because we wanted to make sure you were okay with the loan you gave us. We understand you were charmed at the time, and we normally wouldn’t have accepted the offer, but when it’s a choice between almost certain death and taking advantage of someone who can stop that from happening, morals become more flexible. Though, now that we’ve lived through the experience, it doesn’t sit right with any of us not knowing how you feel.”
I shrugged. “I’m not exactly happy about spending the money, but I’d do the same again. And you can stop saying loan. It was a gift.”
Though we were talking about a literal fortune, what I said was entirely accurate. In my mind, the money I gave them was a gift. It wasn’t out of any lingering sense of guilt, and it wasn’t because I’m a generous soul. I fully intended to add the cost of this disaster to the price the regent would have to pay me for my exploit. There was no way in hell I was going to let her get away with this for free.
Silbi snorted and rolled her eyes. “Would you be comfortable accepting such a gift?”
I paused for a second. “No.”
“Then why should we be any different?”
“That’s fair, I guess…I’m still sorry you had to risk your lives on my account.”
They all laughed—like really laughed. It was almost a minute before they stopped.
“How much do you know about adventurers?” Ames asked, fighting off another round of laughter.
“Not much, to be honest.”
He smiled and slapped his chest. “Well, let me give you a short education in understanding how it works. If you’re not a noble who loses their class, it basically sucks. We’re all common folk. My parents were butchers like Devra’s. Silbi’s were hunters. Obre’s family were low-level merchants. We all started with nothing but the most basic adventuring equipment our families could afford. And we’re all that’s left of the class we trained with because, unlike those dead idiots, we invested every piece of gold we’ve ever earned into getting stronger. We all had attributes that are about five levels higher than our actual level and then you went and loaned us the money for another ten. We weren’t risking anything.”
“Well, I’m glad to have helped.”
Ames’s smile turned into a grin. “So are we. We’ve now got a proper chance to make some real money. You’ll have your money back in a decade, maybe less, except for Bolton’s share—that asshole’s gone and skipped town.”
I shrugged. “I’m not bothered.”
“Well, we are. We all agreed to pay you back and we will. If you ever need adventurers to slay something that needs killing, we’ll be there. Having said that, Jeremby told us about your giant problem and there is no way in hell we are getting involved with that. We owe you, but we don’t have a death wish.”
“It’s really that big of a deal?”
Everyone nodded, losing their smiles.
Ames got up and went to the shelf and removed a book. “This has everything the adventurers’ guild knows about killing giants in it.” He opened the book to the first page and turned it to face me.
In big bold letters, the page read: It is suicide to fight anything in this book with a level below 75 and a party of less than 40.
“Can I borrow that?”
Ames shook his head. “I can’t len
d you guild property, but you can purchase a copy from the quartermaster.”
“Speaking of quartermasters,” Jeremby said, “Arnold has an appointment with ours. You’ve all met him. You know he’s fine with the loan. Now leave the man alone.”
The four adventurers stood up, and one by one came forward to shake hands and say thank you. Each of them slipped me a small iron coin. I had no clue what they were for, and it felt like it was rude to just ask, so I held off until Jeremby and I had left the room and closed the door.
“What’s with the coins?”
Jeremby scratched the side of his jaw. “They’re death tokens; adventurers give them out to non-combatants who have done something they consider has saved their life. It can be a loan of money like what you did or something simple like a blacksmith agreeing to repair their gear and hold off on receiving payment until they have cleared a dungeon. Craftsmen and merchants display them to show adventurers what they have done for us in the past. There are rules around it, and the more you have, the more fairly adventurers will deal with you. If you get your hands on 100, you’ll only ever have to pay 25% above base for any item an adventurer is willing to sell. There are weapons and armour shops in the major cities that hold unspoken rights to selling to adventurers because of those tokens.”
“They sound useful.”
“They can be.”
We walked a little farther, and then Jeremby stopped outside a door and knocked.
“Come in,” came a squeaky, feminine voice.
Jeremby opened the door for me.
I stepped into a world of pink that smelled like lavender. The walls were pink. The furniture was pink. The carpet was pink. The desk was pink. Everything was pink. The woman behind the pink desk was dressed in a pink robe with silver sigil embroidery. Her staff leaned against the wall, which, due to its transparent crystal nature, also looked pink. An open book sat on the table in front of her and she had a pad and a pink pen beside it.
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 33