After a few more moments, the four adventurers popped in, immediately giving a hearty “Sorry ’bout that!” as they entered. The tent was a little cramped with all of them inside.
Once their goblin guide was gone, another one brought out some fresh tea for the group. There, see? Real service, out of nowhere. They must’ve picked it up from the dwarves—I knew they had been spending nights drinking with them, learning about their society and culture.
“Ah, good to see you again. My name is Rimuru, and I’m the leader of this little group. What brings you guys over here?”
I figured it was a valid enough question. They nodded at each other—must’ve expected this—and began to speak.
“I am glad to meet you, Rimuru. My name is Kabal, the leader of this band…more or less. This is Elen, and that’s Gido over there. We’re adventurers, all ranked B—you know what that means, I imagine?”
“Hi! Elen here!”
“Gido, sir. A pleasure.”
So they were a party. Being ranked B put them in the upper echelons, to be sure, but they would’ve faced a rough time in the cave, no? Maybe they were masters at hiding from monsters or something. And what about the other one in their ranks? I was sure there were only three of them in the cave.
“This, meanwhile, is Shizu, a temporary addition to our team for this mission.”
“Shizu. Charmed.”
It was hard to tell her gender or age strictly from her voice. But after honing my talents trying to differentiate goblins, I could tell right off—she was a woman. And, if my hunch was correct, maybe even Japanese? That was the impression I had.
The way she carried her teacup and the way she knelt just so, tops of her feet flat against the floor. That position, I thought, had to be rare in this realm, and her three companions certainly didn’t bother—the men just sat cross-legged on the wolf-pelt rug over the ground, and Elen chose to keep her legs to one side instead.
Ah, well. It wouldn’t be strange to have a culture somewhere on this planet that resembled Japan’s. I’d pursue that train of thought later.
Although, it occurred to me—was it me, or were these adventurers being way too cavalier with their own safety right now? So far, they seemed to be enjoying their stay immensely—eating, drinking, and laughing with each other. This was a monster’s den they’d wandered into. They knew that, right? Maybe they just had a screw loose, I dunno.
…Oops. Got sidetracked. Time to continue the conversation.
“You too, thanks. So…”
………
……
…
They were exceedingly forthright with their story, apparently not wary of my motives in the least. Their guild master had sent them to examine the area around the cave and check to see whether anything suspicious had taken place…but this mission was proving to stymie them.
“Yeah, that’s the thing!” Kabal continued. “We’re here looking for ‘suspicious’ things, but what the heck is ‘suspicious’ supposed to mean? We’re clueless here!”
“Totally!” Elen chimed in. “I wish he could’ve said, like, ‘Look for this or that or the other thing’ instead of leaving it so vague!”
“We might be good scouts and all that, but we can’t do everything, y’know?” Gido added.
And so they bad-mouthed their guild master without a care in the world. I almost felt sorry for the guy.
Along the way, this group had run smack into a large, suspicious-looking boulder with a hole in it. This is it! they must’ve thought, because they drew their swords and stabbed it a little bit…only to wake up an entire nest of giant ants. Brother. I didn’t know what to say.
It was a miracle they were alive—they’d spent the next three days constantly on the run, losing all their possessions on the way, before making it here. I had to hand it to them for managing that, really.
“Well,” I reflected, “I wouldn’t say there’s much ‘suspicious’ going on around here, no. The cave, mainly, I guess?”
Elen shook her head. “But we didn’t find anything in there, no. Did you know the story behind that cave? There’s supposed to be this big, evil dragon sealed inside, but we spent two weeks running up and down that cave, and nothing! Two weeks without a bath, and we got practically nothing for it…”
“Whoa, c’mon!” an unnerved Kabal barked back. “We can’t go around revealing that much to them!”
“What do you care?” Gido countered. “She’s the one who did it! It don’t matter to me!”
The men completely panicked at Elen’s unwitting revelation.
I already knew, of course, thanks to my last encounter with them. And these people liked a dip now and then, huh? Maybe I’d have to get a bathhouse built around here.
Moving on.
“So what were you looking for in that cave, exactly?”
It couldn’t have been treasure, after all.
Kabal somberly shook his head in response. “Well, if she’s said that much, no point hiding it. Like she said, rumor’s been going around that the dragon in there’s stopped responding…”
Hmm. Not that I could’ve known, but Veldora’s disappearance must’ve put the humans in a tizzy. That vanishing act, despite his being safely sealed away, was huge news—I guess this was some crazy powerful dragon after all, although to me he’d just seemed like a nice guy who liked to chat sometimes.
Must’ve been a big deal, though, if people were sending out search parties. Was building this town near the cave mouth a mistake?
“We brought along a Reaction Stone, too, because they said the cave was practically bursting at the seams with magicules…but it wasn’t anything near what we thought it’d be. I mean, the concentration’s a little heavier than your typical cave, but nothing outside what’s normal now. And that is pretty unusual, so at least we’ve got that to go back home with, but…”
“It’s still packed with strong monsters, though, so I don’t really wanna go back in again if I have the choice,” Elen said. “No treasure to speak of, either, and no magic ore. All that monster hacking you gotta do, and there’s no payoff for it at all!”
“Yeah,” Gido added, “you might find some bandit gear if you look a bit, but nothin’ worth goin’ out of your way for.”
Oops. No ore, huh? Well, what if I told you that there used to be loads of it…and I swallowed it all up? And what if I told you the magic had declined in there because I swallowed up Veldora, the guy generating all of it? That’s all basically my fault, isn’t it?
Oh well. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.