“Both of us are mages, so it’s possible that the dungeon was somehow reacting to that,” said Estelle. “The passageway remained open when we exited the room, but of course, we don’t know if anything has changed since we left the dungeon.”
“Oh, if I recall correctly, you were the ones who fell victim to a pitfall trap on the fifth floor, were you not?” The guild staffer nodded to himself and paused in thought for a few seconds. “That is indeed a trap that reacts only to mages, so your hypothesis may well be correct. At any rate, some tests will be necessary to verify it. To continue, what did you see upon entering the passageway?”
“There was a door at the end that led to the hidden room, and inside, a treasure chest guarded by two reptilas was visible,” said Estelle. “We defeated them and retrieved the contents of the chest before leaving the dungeon.”
“You managed to defeat multiple reptilas as a party of two? Hmm. I don’t suppose it will be long before your party clears the twentieth floor of the dungeon.”
“Oh yeah, now that I think about it, what happened to Broze and his servant?” I asked. Given how impressed this staffer seemed by our achievements, I figured it would be easy to get a little information out of him.
He raised an eyebrow and casually replied, “Them? Of course, it’s terribly difficult for greenhorn adventurers to rank up in this city. It seems they’ve departed to train elsewhere so that Broze’s second can advance to Rank 4 before they return.”
I was only Rank 2, but since Estelle was over Rank 4, I was allowed to enter the dungeon in her company. Most newly registered Rank 0 and Rank 1 adventurers had difficulty finding parties that would trust them, but Rank 2 adventurers generally did all right. Still, though, you had to earn trust by completing quests, so you couldn’t rank up that fast. It had taken me about half a year to get to Rank 2. Maybe Broze’s second could get there in three months if he really pushed, but...
“Do you think they’re really coming back eventually?” I asked.
The staffer grinned. “I can’t be certain, but rest assured, the accessory at stake in your match has been entrusted to the guild for safekeeping. Even in the event that they never return, your party will receive it after successfully challenging the twentieth floor. It will, of course, be a different matter should they succeed before you, but that seems unlikely as long as your party works diligently and avoids complacency.”
Estelle and I glanced at each other and nodded in perfect sync.
“We intend to do our best to win,” said Estelle.
“Yeah. I have my own reasons for not wanting to lose this match,” I added.
“That’s good to hear. At any rate, let us return to the matter we were discussing. What were the contents of the treasure chest?”
Estelle gave me a look, and I said, “Oh yeah.”
I placed it on the table. The guild staffer looked surprised.
“This doesn’t appear to be a normal bag. Is it perhaps a magic bag?”
“Yeah. This is all that was inside the treasure chest.”
“I see. Please give me a moment to inspect it.” The staffer stuck his hands inside the bag. He nodded to himself, then took notes about its appearance, color, and size on the scrap paper. After returning the bag to the table, he said, “It appears this is a magic bag of decent quality. I will register documentation noting that it was your party that discovered this bag in a hidden room. Are you aware of the special tax exemption relevant to this case?”
“Yeah. Adventurers who report the existence of hidden rooms to the guild get a tax exemption on the items they find inside, right?”
I was worried there might be something that would disqualify us from the exemption, but the guild staffer just chuckled.
“Quite right—as long as the guild can verify the location of the room and other particulars of your account.”
“Huh? So what’s going to happen to the magic bag while you’re doing that?” I asked.
“You may keep the bag with you and use it. If the guild is unable to verify the existence of the hidden room, you will have to pay the full tax. But I trust that no adventurer would be so foolish as to antagonize the guild over a single magic bag.”
For a party to enter the dungeon, it had to have at least one member Rank 4 or higher. Somebody like that would have to have earned a fair amount of trust, and filing a false report wouldn’t be worth it, what with the demerits they’d suffer. Even if an adventurer did decide to make a false report for some reason, the guild would still come out ahead, since they’d be able to collect the full tax.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that we can keep the magic bag.”
I had been worried that the guild would come up with some pretext to confiscate it. Estelle seemed a bit confused by my reaction, though.
“Oh, please, Sai, there was never anything to worry about,” she said with a laugh. “The Adventurers’ Guild is a fair and honest organization.”
“Indeed. Perhaps there are corrupt branches somewhere, but the guild does not confiscate items unless they are dangerous. It is true that magic bags are valuable, but they’re by no means extremely rare.”
“Really? I assumed they would be really hard to get your hands on...”
“One wouldn’t be likely to find them exploring stores at random, but provided one has the money—and the connections—it’s easy enough to find a magic bag for purchase,” the staffer explained. “The bag that your party discovered, for example, would command anywhere from two thousand to three thousand gold coins. High-quality magic bags, meanwhile, can easily fetch over ten thousand gold coins. You’d be lucky to encounter such a thing even at auction.”
Nah, I don’t think it’d be “easy enough” for a commoner to buy something like that. One gold coin was the equivalent of ten thousand Japanese yen, so apparently the price of a magic bag ranged from twenty million all the way up to one hundred million yen. Even for commoners, that wasn’t unreasonable for a once-in-a-lifetime purchase like a house, but that was different from a bag. I had been a normal high school student not too long ago, and valuable items like that were still completely out of reach for me.
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me or ask about?”
“I don’t believe so,” said Estelle. “What about you, Sai?”
I shook my head, and the guild staffer nodded at us, then gathered the map and scratch paper and stood up.
“Very well. In that case, the guild will begin its investigation tomorrow. It should take no more than two weeks. Please do not leave the city during that time, but feel free to resume exploring the dungeon while you wait.”
He hustled out of the conference room, and we left the guild shortly afterward.
★★★★★★★★★
“I’m not sure how to put it into words, but I feel relieved and anxious at the same time,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Estelle asked.
We’d returned to The Independence, our usual inn, to eat lunch. Most of the people who stayed here were solo adventurers, and they usually ate lunch outside, besides which it wasn’t even noon yet, so Estelle and I were the only ones in the dining hall. Still, I took a careful look around and lowered my voice before continuing.
“I mean about the magic bag,” I said. “If the guild doesn’t find the room where we said we did, they’ll confiscate it, right?”
Estelle tilted her head and gave me an ambiguous answer. “Well, we’ll have to pay a twenty percent tax, but I take your point.”
“Yeah, but for something as valuable as a magic bag, twenty percent is basically an attempt to confiscate it, right? If the guild staffer’s estimate was right, then we could end up paying as many as six hundred gold coins. Or do you think it’ll be cheaper than that?”
“He’s a professional, so I’m sure his estimate was accurate,” said Estelle. “However, if we end up having to pay the full tax on the magic bag, it’ll be appraised first. If it’s actually of higher quality than average, there is a possibility that we’ll have to pay more than that.”
“Six hundred gold coins is already completely undoable, so that would really suck.”
We’d headed for the exit immediately after defeating those two reptilas, but it had already been past noon when we’d discovered the hidden room, so we’d had to camp out once during our journey back. We’d ended up spending two days and three nights in the dungeon, and we’d earned about forty gold coins for our trouble. If we factored in rest time and preparations before an expedition, plus necessary expenditures like lodging fees during our time outside of the dungeon, then the maximum we could earn in one day was probably about three gold coins per person.