We arrived at the tavern Capitan had told me about, finding it packed.
“Hey, Rentt!” a voice I recognized called out amid the din. “Over here!”
I turned to Diego, Niedz, and his friends. “Looks like that’s us,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I led them through the crowd to find a familiar face—and one not-so-familiar face—sitting at a table. The former was, of course, Capitan, my mentor and a hunter of Hathara.
“You must be Diego, Niedz, Gahedd, and Lukas,” he said. “I’m Capitan. Taught Rentt his swordsmanship, among other things, and I’m more of a hunter than an adventurer. And this is...” He turned to the other occupant of the table, an old man.
“Mazlak,” the old man said. “Sailor. I’ll get you to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters and back, don’t you worry.”
Evidently, Capitan had already explained the plan to him. That saved us some time.
“An old man?” Niedz muttered. He looked skeptical. “You’re kidding, right? We’re putting our lives in the hands of a senior citizen?”
I’d specifically warned him not to be rude. Before he could say anything else, I made to smack him on the back of the head.
Mazlak noticed and waved me off. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, seemingly unbothered. “He’s not wrong about my age—I wouldn’t trust me on the first meeting either. But do me a favor and save your judgment for after you’ve stepped onto my vessel and seen what I can do. As adventurers, you should know that age isn’t everything, eh?”
He wasn’t wrong. There were a decent number of older adventurers not only in Silver-class, but in Gold and Platinum too. Sure, some of them were simply sitting on their laurels after climbing the ranks in their younger years, but many of them still had the skill to back it up.
At Mithril-class, though, things got a bit more hazy since a lot of information about adventurers at that level was kept hush-hush. But while I couldn’t say anything for sure, it made sense to me that if Platinum—the class below—had older adventurers, then Mithril would too.
Additionally, while it wasn’t uncommon for martial artists or sword-wielders to decline with age, a lot of mages or people in otherwise magically inclined professions only became more formidable the more experience they’d accumulated. Being able to level an entire city without moving so much as a step sounded like something straight out of mythology, but there really were people out there who could manage that feat. And I would’ve bet good coin that nobody was dumb enough to look down on them for their age.
Niedz must have come to a similar conclusion, because he looked suitably chastened. “My bad,” he apologized. “Wasn’t thinking. You can’t judge just by looks, after all.”
He said those last words while looking at me, which was fair enough. After the situation he’d landed himself in, he probably didn’t need anyone to teach him that lesson again.
Mazlak looked surprised by the sincere apology. “Hrm. Honest lad, aren’t you? Took you to be more the type that’d bite back. That’s good, though. We get sailors like you now and then, and they always go far. Most others end up losing their spirit—they just give up and go through the motions. You can always spot the cynicism in their eyes.”
Niedz’s expression made it look like those were the last words he’d been expecting to hear—probably because he’d never heard anything like them before. After all, up until now, he’d been exactly the cynical type that Mazlak had been talking about.
It was a common story—an adventurer became disillusioned with their life for whatever reason, but rather than choosing another path, simply allowed inertia and force of habit to carry them along. The only reason Niedz had managed to break out of that cycle was because I’d beaten him up and he’d been forced to resign himself to whatever I had in store for him. I agreed with Mazlak, though—if Niedz could stay humble and willing to learn, he would grow.
While Niedz resembled my old self, he had far more latent talent. In my case, I truly would have gotten nowhere, no matter how hard I tried. Not that I’d ever given up, regardless, of course.
“Sorry about earlier,” Niedz said. “I’m Niedz. It’ll be good to have a sailor like you on our side, Mazlak. Ah, I mean... Sir.”
“Just Mazlak is fine. Or even ‘old man,’ if you’d like.” Mazlak turned to the rest of us. “And you would be...”
We each gave a brief introduction. “Rentt,” I said. “Capitan’s pupil, I suppose you could say.”
“Gahedd, adventurer. Known Niedz for a long time, and can’t seem to get rid of him. Sorry about his attitude.”
“Lukas. Niedz, Gahedd and me go way back.”
Diego, however, didn’t say anything. Mazlak gave him an inquisitive smile. “Not going to introduce yourself, Diego?”
“Come on, Mazlak. What would be the point?”
“I take it you two know each other?” I asked, curiously.
“We do,” Mazlak confirmed. He held his hand over the floor at about the height of the table. “Ever since he was only yea high. Knew his old man for even longer.”
“Makes sense.” So Mazlak had known Diego’s father, huh?
“I heard we’d be riding a contracted vessel, but I never imagined it’d be yours,” Diego said.
Mazlak shrugged. “With everything going on right now, who else would brave the waters but me?”
“I suppose you’re right. Pops would always tell me stories about what a daredevil you were.”
“I imagine he would’ve, being my number one customer.”
A question occurred to me. “Diego did mention that his father was an adventurer,” I said. “Does that mean he explored the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters?” There were other dungeons that required you to hire a boat from Lucaris, but that one was the most famous.
Mazlak nodded. “That he did. Every day, at one point—though that was before Diego was born. As you can imagine, having a kid kept him pretty busy. Always had a good head on his shoulders, his father did—even helped him achieve his goal of saving up enough coin from adventuring to open up his own shop. Would’ve bet you anything that I’d have been gone before he was, but I guess these things take us all by surprise.”