The maid from Gardenia had somehow arrived there before them. She had tears in her eyes and looked ready to cling tight to Ann at any moment. The two drivers were there as well. They must have passed the group while they were out training in the meadows.
“I thought we sent the townhouse word.” Elm looked confused as well, as the butler reprimanded the distraught maid.
“Whether you are serving House Wolverié or an Invited, you must be prepared for changes of schedule of this nature. Pull yourself together.”
“But I was so worried!”
Seeing as she didn’t get dejected after that scolding, the maid must have been as strong a girl as Sara originally suspected.
“I’m sure she was worried, but she still had the energy to stroll around town and enjoy some shopping during her time off, so don’t mind her. Now, I suppose you’d like a bath first.”
Sara almost cracked up at that. The maid had been looking forward to coming to the capital, she recalled. She’d probably do fine here, then, Sara thought with some relief.
Having taken turns staying in town and camping out, the group was looking pretty shabby by now, so they all took baths and got refreshed before having dinner.
Discussing the events of their journey, they realized they’d have to make plans for their time in the city after all. There had been all sorts of unexpected developments along the way, so it was a good idea to solidify things while they had the chance.
“You should take a day to sightsee a bit before going and seeing the knights, Ann. If no one has time to accompany you, I can do so, but...”
Sara could tell that Elm was thinking Ann would enjoy herself more if her fellow young people were showing her around. She did plan on going, of course, but she didn’t know much about the capital herself, so she’d have to rely on Kuntz for this one. But it seemed they weren’t all in agreement on this matter.
“Wait.” Ann stopped them. “I’ll see the capital later. I can rest for today, but starting tomorrow, I have to make some money.”
Sara looked off into the distance. It seemed she hadn’t given up on that idea.
“Allen, you got odd jobs from the Hunter’s Guild in Rosa, right?”
“Yeah, that’s how it was in Rosa, but I don’t know about the capital. What do you think, Kuntz?”
It was always fastest to ask Kuntz about the capital.
“Hmm... There are a lot of merchants in the capital, right? I think most people would help out acquaintances or at nearby stores instead of going to the Hunter’s Guild, but you’d only make pocket change doing that. It’d be way faster to learn how to gather plants from Sara.”
“Plants, huh? I dunno about that...”
She loved moving around and was great at physical strengthening, but for some reason, Ann couldn’t tell medicinal plants apart at all. So, she’d been forced to give up on making money gathering plants right away.
Now that Sara thought about it, Nelly had always said she wasn’t interested in plants because she was a Hunter, but maybe she just couldn’t tell them apart either.
“The locals will always be at an advantage in the capital, huh?”
“Rosa was a small town and all the local kids were rich, so they didn’t work. That’s why there were so many odd jobs to do.”
True, Sara hadn’t seen many kids her age in the Third District back in Rosa.
“If you’re only making one or two thousand gil a day, it’s gonna take a while.”
“Even if I work hard enough to make two thousand a day, it’ll take fifty days...”
Ann didn’t have that much time, since she’d come here to join the knights.
“It really is crazy that you have to have money to become a Hunter so you can be a Hunter to make money.”
Sara thought back to their days camping out next to Rosa’s walls because they didn’t have any money.
“You don’t have to earn it all yourself, Ann. I originally was planning on selling all the plants I already had on me and getting my Hunter’s license right away. I didn’t want to earn all that money the hard way if I didn’t have to.”
“But...” Ann hung her head. It seemed she’d been looking forward to working for her Hunter’s license even more than joining the knights.
“You want to try a bunch of different jobs, huh? Well, it’ll be hard to do Hunter stuff after joining the knights. It’ll be even harder to work in town.”
Sara thought to herself. It wasn’t all odd jobs that she’d done. She’d made a lot of money delivering potions to the knights, and she had one hundred thousand gil right away when she sold the magic stones and horned rabbits in her storage pouch.
“What if you borrow the money from Elm using the horned rabbits you hunted as collateral, then? I could lend it to you too.” She was going to say Allen or Kuntz, but reconsidered since it was best not to get money involved in friendships and named Elm, her guardian, instead. Once Ann had her Hunter’s license, she could sell the horned rabbits she’d hunted right away.
“If you still want to work, you can make the last ten or twenty thousand yourself.”
Sara wasn’t going to stop her if Ann said she wanted to make the whole one hundred thousand working odd jobs. There was definitely a part of her that wanted to delay Ann from joining the knights if she could.
“That should be enough. I want to try it.”
No one objected to Ann’s decision, so the next day, Kuntz showed them all to the Hunter’s Guild.
They used physical strengthening to breezily make the long trip from the noble district to the central guild.
“You should take a carriage, young miss!” the butler cried, but Sara wasn’t sure about taking a carriage to and from work.
“Wait, I did that.” Haruto reflected on his early days as a Hunter. “I didn’t have any stamina because of that, so I couldn’t fully utilize my physical strengthening.” He was able to relate this tale to Ann, so he was putting his experiences to use, at least.
As Kuntz and Ann hurried to the Hunter’s Guild, Sara, Allen, and Haruto followed them at a slight distance.
“Four chaperones is overdoing it a bit, don’t you think?”
“I want to watch at least a little bit, though.”
“I’m a Hunter, so there’s nothing wrong with me going to the Hunter’s Guild, right?”
Basically, the three of them were just pretending they had something to do at the Hunter’s Guild so they could come along and watch over Ann.
“You were pretty harsh to Ann at first, weren’t you, Allen?”
“Of course I was. Compared to me and Sara at twelve, she was just so privileged, it made me angry.”
“Isn’t that a little petty?”
“Sure it is. But if everyone else cares so much about her, it doesn’t matter if I don’t, right?”
At least he was honest.
“What about now?” asked Haruto. He wanted to keep the conversation going, it seemed.
“I guess she’s like a friend’s little sister. She’s kind of a pain, but I can’t just leave her alone, and I’d look after her if someone asked.”
“Hee hee.”
He really did act that way around her.
“I bet Ann’s planning on catching up to you two one day,” Sara said.
“Guess we’re here to watch her take her first step down that road, huh?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
This might have been Sara’s first time wandering around the capital without a particular goal in mind. There were tons of Hunters speeding around here and there in the capital, so no one paid any attention to their group. Sara’s first time back in the capital in a while was rather relaxed.
“That’s the capital’s central guild. Oh, Ann went inside!”
They were pretty far behind her, so Sara didn’t think she could hear them, but she was able to spot horned rabbits Sara couldn’t. She wanted to be careful.
“You know, she’s gonna notice us as soon as we go inside. Let’s not worry about it.”
“Okay. I want to see the bulletin board anyway.”