“Still, while I don’t mind training you, I’ve got something I need to do right now,” Capitan said. “You’ll have to wait until I’m done.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I heard as much from Gharb. You’re searching for sea spirit herbs, right? In the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters?”
“You know my usual harvesting grounds?” he asked, looking surprised. “I don’t think I ever mentioned that to her.”
When I’d first dropped by the Lucaris adventurer’s guild, the receptionist had explained the most common method of acquiring sea spirit herbs—just asking fish-folk to gather them for you. When she’d asked Capitan to gather some, Gharb had probably assumed that was what he’d be doing. I’d also heard that asking for a fish-folk’s help wasn’t as simple as it sounded, so I assumed my mentors had connections in that regard.
“The receptionist at the guild told me all about it,” I explained. “She recognized your name right away—sounds like you’ve got a pretty good reputation with them. It helped that the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters seems to be famous around here too, since she had a decent idea of its usual products and harvestables. That’s about all the info I’ve managed to gather, though—I only got here today. I just figured finding you and asking you directly was the best way to save me some coin.”
“You’ve really got this whole adventuring thing down pat, huh? Really makes you seem dependable. I remember it taking me several days to find out that you could even harvest those herbs from the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters...”
I didn’t take what he’d said as discrediting his skills or ability, mind you. Adventuring wasn’t Capitan’s main profession in the first place, whereas gathering information through bits and pieces of small talk was routine for me. A lot of the tidbits I picked up tended to sound insignificant at the time, but every now and again they’d pop back into my memory on the right occasion and prove themselves useful.
I reckoned that if Capitan dedicated himself to an adventuring career, he’d pick up the investigative chops to sniff out information on things like harvesting locations in no time. But at the end of the day, he was a hunter of Hathara, and that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon.
“It’s just a matter of practice.” I shrugged. “Like learning how to traverse a forest. Even if you know all the tricks, you still have to go out and do it every day for a while before you really get it down.”
“An experience gap, huh? Can’t argue with that. I definitely don’t leave Hathara enough to keep my skills sharp in that area.”
“The fact you made Bronze-class despite that is incredible enough. The way I see it, that’s pure talent, and I don’t know if I can ever measure up...”
“Hey, Bronze-class covers a pretty big range. Besides, the mischief they pull during the guild exams even gave me a headache. I basically just brute-forced my way through, but I’m betting you showed much more finesse, right?”
Perhaps it went without saying, but since Capitan held a Bronze-class adventurer’s license, he had to have passed the Bronze-class Ascension Exam. So although the actual content of the exam was different for everyone, we could both commiserate over the guild’s penchant for tricking candidates.
Of course, the point of the exam was to see if you qualified to be a Bronze-classer, so someone who was far beyond that level could simply plow through it on pure skill. Capitan was a master of spirit, and I’d bet on him in a fight against any ordinary Bronze-classer out there, so I couldn’t imagine he’d had too much trouble. I, on the other hand...
“It’s a real testament to your ability if you can brute-force your way through something like that,” I said. “I definitely couldn’t have managed it.”
“I think tackling it the proper way is more impressive, personally,” Capitan replied. “Guess we can chalk it up to people being cut out for different things. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’d have a problem with the Silver-class Ascension Exam—not with where you’re at right now, anyway.”
It seemed he was still overestimating me. “I’m glad you think that, but honestly, I don’t feel ready,” I said. “I’d like to spend every day until the exam improving what I can—especially spirit, since I’m still partway through my training in that. Picking up some new temporary stopgap for another skill would only hurt me in the long run—but with spirit, I’d be improving something I’ve already spent years building up bit by bit.”
“Makes sense. I suppose I’d better find those sea spirit herbs quick, then. If only there were fish-folk around...”
Oh, so he had intended to ask a fish-folk. “I take that to mean you couldn’t find any at all?” I said, questioningly.
“Yeah. Usually—well, the last time I came to Lucaris, anyway—there’s a number of them hanging around the city, but no such luck this time.”
This was my first time in Lucaris, so I didn’t know what was ordinary and what wasn’t, but there were a lot more beast-folk here than in other cities I’d been to. If there were any fish-folk around, though, I certainly hadn’t seen any yet.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did they all move away or something?”
While humans had a strong tendency to settle in one place, it was more common for other races to lead a more nomadic existence. There were a few who clung even more tightly to their homes than humans did, of course, but fish-folk were generally said to have some wanderlust in them. Lucaris’s whole fish-folk population very well could have just decided to move elsewhere on a whim.
“No, nothing like that,” Capitan said, before pausing. “Well, maybe a little like that, actually. See, there were never that many of them in Lucaris to begin with. They’ve got their own settlement off the coast, down under the water, and they make fairly frequent trips to the surface for trade. Some ended up relocating here permanently for work, sure, but right now, pretty much all of them have moved back to their underwater town—and they’re staying there.”
“Did something happen?” I asked. If an entire ethnic group had up and left, there had to be a reason. Lucaris looked peaceful on the surface, but perhaps things weren’t as tranquil as they seemed.
“Yeah,” Capitan said. “You know about the demon lords, right?”
“Of course—the apex of monsterkind. There are only four of them in the entire world.”
Demon lords, like dragons, were said to be beings of unparalleled strength, but the definition of the term was a little vague. There were a number of powerful monsters that didn’t qualify for the label—the Vampire Sovereign, for one.
I’d asked Lorraine why this was the case, but even she couldn’t tell me. It seemed that the term “demon lord” had been in use since ancient times, and the nuance of its original meaning was now lost to the people of the modern age. It made me wonder what made the demon lords so special.
But enough digression—Capitan was talking.