CH 476

「Kyukyu, Kyu!」

A small 20cm dragon. At first glance, the small black dragon, that looked more like a stuffed toy than a creature, gave a joyful cry as it flew around Rei, Set, and its master, Elena, who were walking through the streets of Exil.

「Oh, Yellow-chan. You’re in a good mood today.」

「Kyu!」

The owner of a stall that sold magic items for daily use, such as fire starters, called out to Yellow, who flew over with a happy cry.

The middle aged woman in her forties gently petted Yellow as she smiled.

While Rei’s group had been exploring the desert floors, Yellow had been left at the inn as Elena judged that the intense heat would have an adverse effect on Yellow’s growth.

Of course, at night, Rei and Elena would return as well as Set, who had the role of Yellow’s guardian to some extent. However, Yellow was mostly free during the day.

Yellow’s way of spending time was to go outside and play around, which aroused people’s feelings of wanting to protect it. As a result, Yellow soon became popular with people in the area.

That said, Yellow only went out near the inn, so while his popularity was high nearby, it didn’t spread as explosively like Set, who had walked all around town.

「It seems you’ve been taking care of Yellow.」

Elena called out to the stall owner with a smile.

As the stall owner did business close to the inn, she naturally knew the prominent guests of the inn as well.

This was more so for an adventurer with a Griffon like Rei, or a beautiful person like Elena.

Even so, unlike the men who had happened to pass by earlier and had become distracted by Elena, the stall owner quickly recollected herself. She did business close to a high class inn, so maybe she was used to seeing beautiful women?

「N-No. That’s not true. Yellow always gives me a warm feeling when I see it.」

「Fu, I see. I’m glad to see that Yellow has been helpful. ……Well, thanks for taking care of Yellow. I’ll have this.」

Saying that, Elena picked up a ring that could be used to start fires as she handed over two silver coins to the stall owner.

When the stall owner saw the silver coins, her eyes widened in astonishment, even wider than when she had first seen Elena.

The ring Elena had picked up was only worth a few bronze coins, even with the inflated cost of magic stones on the market, it wasn’t something you would pay two silver coins for.

「This, this is too much!

「It’s not just for the ring, it’s also thanks for taking care of Yellow, so don’t worry about it.」

「But……」

「Well then. Yellow will be joining us the next time we enter the dungeon, but it’ll still come around to play again. Please take care of Yellow again then.」

Elena deliberately cut off the stall owner, who was about to protest that Elena had given her too much, and caught back up with Rei, who was waiting for her a little further away.

Sitting on Elena’s shoulder, Yellow turned back and gave a cry as if to say ‘see you later’.

「Then, Set. Take care of Yellow for a bit.」

「Guru~」

「Yellow, quietly stay with Set. We’ll be right back.」

「Kyu!」

Set and Yellow responded to Rei and Elena respectively as t

Seeing the two of them off, Set and Yellow lay down in the space for tamed monsters as they conversed with each other in ‘gurus’ and ‘kyus’. The people nearby that saw them felt calmed and gave them food or stroked them, eventually creating a healing space of sorts.

As they entered the guild, the gazes of the adventurers near the doorway were automatically drawn to them.

The two of them were already accustomed to stares, so the headed straight for a counter without feeling bothered.

「Talking about the request to strip materials, we should have done that when we came back from the dungeon to sell materials.」

「If we’re going to put up a request, the sooner the better right? If we had put up a request coming back from the dungeon yesterday, adventurers might have already accepted it by the time we returned from the dungeon today. If we put up a request now, the actual stripping of materials will probably have to be the day after tomorrow.」

Rei arrived at the counter, nodding at Elena’s words, as he called out to a receptionist.

「I would like to put up a request. The request is to strip materials from Kobolds, Desert Lizardmen, an Earth Crab, Bloodydiles, and a Spiral Rabbit, about 50 in total. However, we’ll be going into the dungeon today, so that number might increase further. I will leave it to you regarding what ranks can accept it, but I would like to limit the total number of people to 10 at most. Anyone who accepts the request should meet me at Exil’s front gate at 9am tomorrow. The reward will be……that’s right.」

Speaking up to that point, Rei started to think.

Rei had just thought about how to strip materials and had forgotten that a reward also needed to be paid out.

(That time, one gold coins was split with Culotte’s group, right? Then, I’ll increase the reward a bit……)

Quickly gathering his thoughts in his mind, he turned to the receptionist.

「5 silver coins per person. And if all the materials are stripped by the end of tomorrow, I’ll give them an extra silver coin. Also, I will be supervising the stripping of materials. If any materials are stolen, please write down that I will take appropriate action.」

「Y-Yes!」

The receptionist seemed to sense something dark in Rei’s last words as she quickly nodded.

「You can decide the rank of the request. If possible, put it up on the request board as soon as you can so that it can be completed by tomorrow. Here’s the reward.」

Saying that, Rei pulled out a pouch from the Misty Ring and put down 5 gold coins for the main reward and 10 silver coins for the additional reward.

「We’ll pay the request fee after we return from the dungeon and the request rank has been decided. ……Is there anything else we need to do?」

「No, there’s nothing else for now. There may be additional terms to sort out later……」

「As for that, as I said earlier, you can let me know when we get back from the dungeon. That’s all I need for now.」

「I understand. Then, please sign here.」

Signing off on the particulars of the request that were written on the document given to them, Rei and Elena handed it back to the receptionist before leaving the guild.

Some of the adventurers in the guild who were looking for requests with big rewards had been listening in to Rei’s conversation with the receptionist and waited for the request form to be put up on the board.

However, it ended up taking an hour for the request to go up on the board as the receptionist had to submit the request to her superior, assign a rank to it, and then actually put up the request.

Even so, the adventurers must have decided that 5 silver coins to strip materials, plus an extra silver coin if they finished within a day, made it a lucrative request. A good number of adventurers caused a commotion in their attempts to seize a spot in the 10 available slots.

「Sorry about that, we took a bit longer to sort everything out.」

「It didn’t take us more than 30 minutes, so it’s not actually that different from normal.」

「Guru~……」

「Kyu!」

Rei’s words were met with a cry from Set as Yellow also gave a cry of agreement from Set’s back.

「I guess that’s true. So then, the next floor is the first undead floor. Fortunately, unlike the desert, there aren’t that many floors, but it seems like it will be troublesome. At the very least, it will be cooler though.」

Instead, your sense of smell will become paralysed.

As she said that, Elena, who had actually been to the 16th floor for a brief moment yesterday, frowned unpleasantly as Set involuntarily pressed one of his claws against his nose.

「Kyu?」

Yellow was the only one who gave a cry as it flew around, delighted at the prospect of entering the dungeon with everyone else for the first time in a while.

Elena had tried to tell Yellow several times that the undead floors came with an undead stench. But, seeing how happy Yellow was, she couldn’t help but decide to leave it for now, which also made her feel guilty for not saying it.

「……Everything is an experience, I guess.」

Yes, Elena said to make herself believe.

They ate skewers from the usual skewer stall, showed their dungeon card to the gatekeeper, and headed for the plaza in front of the dungeon entrance, which was as lively as ever.

No, ‘lively as ever’ probably wasn’t the right word. It would be more accurate to say that adventurer activity, that had slowed down from the Levisor family incident, had come back again.

「Three warriors and an archer here. Are there any thieves? There’s a reward bounty! We will be searching the 9th floor!」

「We’re looking for a spear user!」

「We have four archers here! We’re looking for two people to act as vanguards!」

「A mage, any mages here!? I’m looking for a mage that can use purification magic or fire magic!」

Such voices echoed out, but Rei frowned lightly when he heard the last one.

「What’s wrong?」

Noticing Rei’s reaction, Elena asked, but he silently shook his head and said nothing.

(Purification magic or fire magic. ……I’m pretty sure that party is also heading for the undead floors. Although there are other floors with undead, it won’t be great if we end up running into them.)

Running into other parties not only made it harder to obtain monster materials and magic stones, but in Rei’s case, it also affected Set’s fighting style.

If Set had to hide the fact that he was different from ordinary Griffons, he wouldn’t be able to use any obvious skills like Fire Breath where people they didn’t know well could see.

(Well, it is still possible to fight with less flashy skills like Evil Eye Impact, Poison Claw, and King’s Awe. Oh, can Size Transformation be used? ……No, as expected, it would be impossible to come up with an excuse for Set shrinking to half his size.)

Stroking Set’s head while thinking to himself seemed to make Yellow envious. Giving a cry as if to say ‘me too!’, Yellow flew off Set’s back with its small wings and landed on Rei’s right shoulder.

「Kyu!」

「So cute……」

As Rei started to gently stroke Yellow as well with his left hand, he suddenly heard a voice.

The voice itself wasn’t very loud and was drowned out by the surrounding voices, but Rei didn’t miss it.

Rei didn’t plan to do anything to the person who said that though.

Baby dragons were already rare and Yellow was cute as well.

In fact, it wasn’t just the owner of the voice, many other male and female adventurers in the plaza were also looking over at Yellow stealthily.

However, some of them also had greedy eyes at the sight of a baby dragon, and their gazes were not missed by Rei, Elena, or Set.

The three of them firmly remembered their faces so that they could take immediate action if any of them tried to make a move. Like that, the four of them proceeded for the transfer device as they talked to each other, ignoring their surroundings.

Since it had already become reasonably well known that Rei’s group was a fixed party that didn’t accept invitations to form temporary parties, most people didn’t call out to them.

That said, there were still those who couldn’t read the atmosphere or had just arrived in Exil a few days ago and didn’t know anything about Rei’s group.

「Hey, you two with the Griffon and the Dragon. Would you like to join our party? You look like a warrior and a mage, right? We have a spearman, an archer, and a thief. How about it?」

A man in his mid twenties with a strong build came walked over to them.

He gave a friendly smile towards Elena, who he judged from her age and height to be the party leader.

However, his face showed that he was more interested in getting to know Elena than in genuinely inviting her to his party.

That said, the reason why Rei and Elena weren’t too bothered by him was because he didn’t give off a vulgar feeling.

「I’m sorry, but as far as parties go, we’re fine for now. You’ll have to find someone else.」

「Is that so? Well, it can’t be helped in that case.」

When Elena refused, the man didn’t press further and simply waved his hands before leaving.

「I wish they could be all like that.」

「Yeah.」

Elena and Rei exchanged their thoughts briefly before heading over to the transfer device and entering the dungeon.