“The whole thing was creepy.” Hiiiiive turned away. “Come on, folks. Let’s get outta here.”
“Huh? I haven’t even checked my stats yet…”
“You can do that later. We’re going. Move it.”
The Yamata players hurried out of the dungeon, leaving Aegis behind.
✦ ✦ ✦
A group of thirty or so players, including Crest’s Party 7, were headed to Olsrott Monastery.
A monastery was a place where monks and nuns lived, practicing their faith, holding various ceremonies, and offering daily prayers to their object of worship, but the monasteries in the game had been empty of NPCs thus far. The same went for churches. Players took the abandoned places of worship as a sign that in the cruel world of Eternity, there was no god, no salvation.
Barbara turned around. “You really don’t need to trouble yourselves,” she said to Kyouko, Shoukichi, and Kettle.
“I keep thinking, if only I noticed sooner what was going on, we could’ve saved more people. I want to at least help collect their mementos to feel a bit less guilty,” Shoukichi explained.
He was doing his best to keep up a cheerful front, but there was a hint of sorrow in his smile.
Kettle nodded, as if to say her reason was the same as Shoukichi’s. She was gloomily staring at the monastery, which was visible in the distance.
The squad of players might seem excessively big, considering they were only going to retrieve the mementos of the Liberator’s victims from the monastery, where monsters didn’t spawn. However, they were taking every precaution in case there were more player killers at large.
“By the way, have you spoken with Makoto yet?” asked Barbara.
Kyouko and Kettle said yes. Shoukichi looked away, embarrassed.
“Shoukichi cried like a baby when Makoto called,” Kettle teased.
“H-hey! His voice just made me tear up, is all…”
Barbara giggled.
“? What’s so funny?” Shoukichi asked her.
“Oh, I wasn’t laughing at you.”
I can’t tell them that Makoto burst into tears when he called…, thought Barbara.
Kyouko peered curiously at Barbara but couldn’t figure out what had her so tickled.
“What do we do with the Liberator’s item drops?” asked Rao.
“Good question. Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable selling them…,” replied Reilan.
K, who was walking in front of them, looked over his shoulder. “We’ve already sorted through the drops, so the Liberator’s aren’t mixed up with his victims’. You can do what you want with anything you pick up.”
When they defeated the Liberator and his accomplices, they’d sifted through the dropped items. Anything with an identifiable owner was delivered to the friends of the deceased. The rest were put in the guild storage. The Liberator’s gang left behind a lot of items that had belonged to them, though, and those posed a problem. The guild storage wasn’t unlimited, but nobody wanted to claim the killers’ belongings and take them for themselves.
“We’re using their weapons as grave markers, but we don’t want to leave the armor on their graves…”
A memorial for the Liberator’s victims had been set up within Crest’s Calloah grounds. The killers got their own graves, too, but away from their victims, in a dark corner. The problem with leaving their armor on the graves was that there was a perfectly good chance they had been looted from unidentified victims, and should a friend of such a victim recognize the armor on a killer’s grave, they might be confused and think their friend had been a killer.
“You wouldn’t want someone who didn’t know where those items came from taking them out of the guild storage and wearing them around town. They’ll have to be sold or used for delivery quests,” said Rao.
Some of the delivery quests required players to turn in items. Hopefully, they’d find NPCs asking for those specific pieces of equipment at some point. Then they could exchange them for EXP or other equipment. As a last resort, they could sell them to NPCs.
“Hmm? I wonder what’s up…”
The others followed K’s gaze to a scout running toward them.
“Enemies…?”
Reilan reflexively reached for her sword. Everyone in the party tensed up.
“You won’t believe it!” the scout shouted as they approached. They pointed to the monastery, needing a moment to catch their breath. “It’s full of NPCs!”