“Well, I’m always swinging my practice sword in my room. I fear that could be the reason.”
“...Do you mind if I start doing that with you?”
“Actually, could I join you as well?” I asked. “It’d be good exercise.”
“Of course! The more the merrier, right?” Frieze said, her voice perking up at the thought of practicing with everyone.
And so we walked along, savoring our conversation. Finally, we arrived at a building in Section One with an air of history: the guild. We entered without delay and, upon stepping inside, were met with a wonderful, appetizing smell. The clean and orderly guildhall had an attached cafeteria where numerous adventurers were merrily breaking their fast.
I gave the mess a sidelong glance before making my way to the reception window, where the receptionist with whom I was familiar was already waiting with a smile.
“Good morning, Mr. Kaito.”
“Good morning. I came to take a contract. Something close by, if you’ve got it,” I said. Normally I took whatever the receptionist suggested without paying attention to distance, but I had an important obligation tomorrow: the Spirit Festival.
Once every ten years, the entire country came together to hold a grand festival. It was said that the spirits of the people’s ancestors came down to visit on the dawn of that day. In an effort to ease the hearts of their predecessors, the citizens of the nation spent the entire day in revelry, feasting in their honor. It was believed that at sunset, the ancestral spirits gathered at the castle, where the Sword Saint spoke to them from within the halls.
“Return now to your homes, restful with the knowledge that your progeny remain safe under my watch,” they would say, the words acting as both oath and finale. The festival would then come to an end.
The Sword Saint was chosen from among the land’s adventurers. This time around, I had been the one to receive the appointment.
I had always been skeptical of spiritual matters. Experiencing the ethereal for myself had changed that. Maybe the spirits of the people’s ancestors really did return for a day even if one couldn’t see it with one’s own eyes. Even if that wasn’t the case, it made no difference: I had been appointed as Sword Saint and charged with the responsibilities pertaining to the post. I was thus obligated to be earnest in my attempt to communicate with the spirits.
With dereliction of duty out of the question, it was imperative that I finish up whatever request I took and return before the end of the day.
The receptionist, who was also aware that I had been picked for the job, quickly understood the situation.
“One moment, please,” she said, then turned to the cabinet behind her and began to search its contents. “How about this one?” she said, withdrawing a single-sheet bulletin and showing it to me. It bore an illustration of a mothlike monster labeled “Poison Moth.” As it was a danger level B monster, the reward for slaying it was thirty gold coins. Its listed habitat was “the Great Forest of Mist, Greeze River vicinity.”
It had been just under three months since I began my life in this world. At first, I’d hardly known left from right, but as I continued to travel as an adventurer, I’d come to understand the geography of my surroundings. The Great Forest of Mist was an expansive woodland 250 kilometers east of the royal capital. It was just a little farther than the abandoned mine where Oltea and I had first met.
Traveling that distance one way would take less than two hours. The beast would go down in one hit, of course, so the only unknown variable was the time it would take to find the thing. Still, it was only morning. Even if the search ran into difficulties, I would likely have no problem returning to the city within the day.
“The Greeze River vicinity, huh? Bit of a tough place to live,” I said.
“You know it?” the receptionist asked.
“Yeah. It’s one of the rivers that serve the royal capital as commercial arteries,” I said. In this world, long distances were traversed with boats rather than trains. All cities, including the capital, were connected by waterways along which both goods and people moved.
“The Greeze River is one of the most important thoroughfares linking this city to others, but it has been unusable since the appearance of the poison moth. It’s already been two weeks since then... If the interruption continues, shipments will be delayed and life in the city will be negatively affected.”
If shipments were delayed, goods would not arrive in the city. It would be a grave situation for me, given that my power to honestly collect made shopping a way of life. I had to defeat the poison moth without delay!
Oltea and Frieze looked over the poster closely, commenting:
“But this thing doesn’t look all that strong. What gives?”
“It looks like even the sailors could take this thing down if they really tried.”
Looks can, of course, be deceiving. Still, I understood where they were coming from. Danger level B monsters were always things like serpents, wyverns, or other creatures the outward appearance of which readily conveyed their strength. The wanted posters didn’t lie, though.
“Danger level B is appropriate for the poison moth,” the receptionist said in a warning tone. “If physical toughness were all you took into account, it would be even weaker than most E level beasts, but it can fly and it spreads its poisonous scales over a wide area. Inhaling just a few of those would have you dead in less than a minute.”
“Less than a minute...”
“Have us dead...”
Oltea and Frieze’s faces went pale, and each grabbed tightly onto one of my arms.
Even though one blast of magic could kill the moth, it could scatter poison from above. Fighting it would require flight, but the magic available to humans had limits. Flying, defending, and attacking all at once would quickly deplete anyone’s reserves.
In other words, it would be necessary to divide roles between multiple adventurers. Thus the danger level. Monsters that could be crushed by a solo adventurer were limited to level C and lower.
Then again, my beam was not a kind of magic. The goddess had recreated my body such that I was able to fire the beam as much as I liked. I didn’t have to worry about depleting magical energy in battle.
“As long as you pay attention to the direction of the wind, you shouldn’t have any problem fighting that thing from a distance, right?”
“I shouldn’t... The more pressing worry is how heavy the mist is along the Greeze River. I won’t know where the monster is going to come from,” I said.
The receptionist gave me a look of confidence and said in a bright voice, “You’re really strong, Mr. Kaito! You’ll have no problem taking it out.”
“I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations,” I said.