Schuren’s parents were visiting in five days, and apparently, they were pestering him about not having married yet. They wanted grandchildren, and he wanted us to help shut them up.
“And by ‘shut them up,’ I mean with force. They promised that if I could beat them in a fight, even with enchanted items, they would stop pestering.”
“How old are your parents?”
“They’re both sixty-five this year, but don’t let that fool you. They’re both incredibly strong. I can hire whoever I like to face them, since they would also consider that an expression of my abilities.”
Based on what he told us, his parents seemed surprisingly open-minded. Schuren’s shoulders drooped. Apparently, he had hired ten people so far, and all of them had failed miserably. His parents still regularly hunted monsters, so they were extremely powerful.
“I might be their flesh and blood, but I have no particular gift for combat. Perhaps it’s that insecurity that makes me so interested in enchanted items…”
“I don’t think you have anything to be insecure about,” Luna said. “You’re trying to make up for your shortcomings in other ways. I would never look down on someone for that.”
“You really are incredible,” said Schuren. “On the topic of the fight, how do you both feel about taking them on, two against two?”
From the sounds of it, a one-on-one victory would also count, but I wanted to beat them both. Schuren seemed to feel the same way. I didn’t have an issue with it, so I turned to Luna.
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “I’d be happy to help.”
“I appreciate it, Luna,” I told her.
“I mean, one of my party members is in need. How could I not offer up my gun? Plus, I’m kind of curious about his parents.”
They had to be incredible to be tearing up monsters at sixty-five.
“I’ll tell them,” said Schuren. “If you can’t beat them, I think I’ll have to give up and get married.”
The fight would take place in five days, in the yard before his house.
“Why do you think Mr. Schuren doesn’t want to get married?” I asked Luna as we left.
“He probably just wants to keep collecting, but I think he gets lonely sometimes.”
I couldn’t help thinking that getting married might make his life more stable. As we headed out, Schuren’s maid came out running after us. Her name was Mirenka, if I recalled correctly.
“Excuse me, Lord Schuren forgot to tell you something. Do you have a moment?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“He said that his father wears heavy armor, so light attacks won’t work.”
“Got it. Thanks for letting us know.”
Mirenka bowed and ran back inside. She was around thirty, and she seemed like a very loyal woman. She also looked good in a maid uniform and was surely skilled at her job.
“Hang on a second,” Luna called after her. “You wouldn’t happen to know if Mr. Schuren is in love with someone, would you? I’m curious.” Luna held out a coin. Honestly, I was a little shocked to see her try that.
“I apologize,” said Mirenka. “But I cannot accept. I can’t tell you anything unless Lord Schuren permits it.”
“I got it. Thought as much. Sorry for asking such a rude question.”
“Oh, no, don’t apologize. I’m the one who’s been rude, and to a cleric like yourself. If you’ll excuse me.”
Mirenka ran off, and I asked Luna why she’d offered to pay for that information.
“I was just worried that his servants might sell him out. It was awful of me to test her like that.”
It was probably a relief to find out Mirekna wouldn’t sell out her master . Perhaps Schuren just had a keen eye for the people.
After that, we decided to pick up a request from the guild. That way, we could earn a little money and get some practice for our upcoming tag-team battle. Odin’s guild hall was as bustling as ever. We seemed to be winning the fight for new recruits. I was glad that people were picking us over Lahmu, Efreet, Shiva, and the others. When we greeted Lola, she was all smiles as usual.
“Looks like you’re swimming in new recruits.”
“I sure am,” she said. “But the real test isn’t until next month. That’s when the people from the country come to town. It happens every year. Right now, the other guilds aren’t really giving it their all.”
It wouldn’t be long before the height of the guild scouting battle arrived. After all, the guilds prospered on the backs of their best adventurers. And the best way to get quality adventurers was to woo promising youngsters.
We asked Lola if she had any suitable requests for us, and she told us that hand monkeys, a kind of monster, were running rampant in the forest. There was a request for one of their corpses.
“Hand monkeys come from another land,” Lola explained. “So we don’t know much about their biology. I’m sure you can manage to collect one of them for science, Mr. Noir.”
“The pay is good too,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“Be careful, okay? We already had some adventurers withdraw from this request. Also, once you complete it, the guild has something to discuss with you.”
“It does?”
I was confused. Lola brought a finger to her mouth.
“And I have something to discuss with you,” she whispered. “I hope you’re excited~!”
She enunciated each syllable slowly and lasciviously with her plump lips. I felt my cheeks flush, but I kept my cool.
At Luna’s suggestion, we stopped by a secondhand shop to look for anything that was strong against monkey-type enemies. When we asked the owner, she took a ball down from the shelf.
“A ball of spider silkworm cocoon is good against them. It’s very sticky.”
Normal silkworms produced silk, but spider silkworm silk was sticky and very hard to use. That was where they got the “spider” part of their name. But their silk was useful for items like this one. It didn’t have any skills, but it was exceptionally sticky, so getting hit by it was extremely unpleasant. But an “unpleasant” effect alone wasn’t worth that much in a fight.
“Monkeys move between trees,” the owner explained. “So if you were to apply this to the branches, then…”
Oh, I get it. The monkey would get stuck as it moved. The silk might even make it lose its balance and fall. As long as we didn’t let the monster get away, we’d have it beat.
“But that seems kind of difficult,” I said. “How will we know which tree to use it on?”
“I guess we could just buy out the store’s stock and try out different options,” Luna suggested.
The store had twenty balls for three thousand rels each. The reward for completing the request was three hundred thousand rels, so after consulting with Luna, I decided to buy them all.
“Really? Thank goodness! These were never going to move. I’ll give you a discount.”
The shopkeep dropped the price to two thousand rels each. Even if we couldn’t use all the balls against the monkeys, I was sure we’d find other uses for them.
I took a moment to investigate the silk balls. They had a sand-filled bag at their core, around which the silk threads were wrapped tightly. If they had been made of silk alone, they wouldn’t have been heavy enough to throw.
“Can I let you handle those, Sir Noir?”
“You got it. You’ve got your gun to worry about anyway.”
Our preparations complete, we headed to the forest.