23 – 2. The Path of the Dagger (4)
4.
Gerald and the children who earned the not-so-funny nickname of
… No, because Gerald’s party was invited by the guild to leave the inn, the atmosphere at the inn has been quite quiet for the past few days. Mr. Cooper licked his lips regretfully, saying that the sales of all the customers who came to see the magic item were quite good, but for me, who had been forced to march in the opposite way to my life motto, I was very satisfied with this peace. This is a -Like scene, I look around the hall with a satisfied face, and my ass and my ass who were diligently scrubbing the table…… Instead, he met Celine’s eyes.
From nob le mt l dot com
Nong.Deng.I.P.U.G.Ma? I looked into her light pink lips and shrugged my shoulders and nodded. Seeing that he warned with his mouth without saying a word, he must have been angry. This can be regarded as equivalent to alert level 2.
While Celine eagerly went back and forth between the kitchen and the hall, I leaned against the counter and sighed as I slowly wiped the cup. Who would have known that something like this would happen? Contrary to Celine’s misunderstanding, I didn’t really enjoy anything, and in the end I was also a victim. Meanwhile, Punta with a red nose, who was watching me like that, started talking to me while pulling my red beard.
“Why is it dead in broad daylight? There are people who really want to cry.”
“You are a dwarf. That’s Celine…….”
After talking, I suddenly looked at the table at the edge of the hall near the stairs. A woman in a thin dress, with her long pink hair pulled back like a curtain, with her head down, gulping down her special lard soup. She heard from another adventurer that she started staying at her inn the day before yesterday, and she could be said to be the one who made this sadal.
How did she feel me and Punta’s gaze? She stopped eating and lifted her head, and then she began to eat the soup quietly again. I guess I was hungry again, but I understand that extreme hunger comes when a hangover goes away, but it’s quite nice to think about coming down to the hall calmly even though that happened earlier.
“Hmm.”
“… ….”
Look there, Celine was washing the table, and as soon as her eyes met, she bowed her head even deeper than before. It seems that he realized the power structure of this inn right away after watching him beat me mercilessly. As Celine ambles by, she seems to be holding her breath, but as she moves a little away from her, she picks up her spoon again. Isn’t that what you put your nose in? We looked away almost simultaneously.
“…… No. Tell me what are you going to do?”
“Hmm, I don’t know what it is, but how come you and that girl never have a quiet day.”
“I guess it’s fate. So, why are you crying?”
“…… Money.”
“Money?”
“I played some games with the guys staying here last night, but I read all the bets and I have no balance.”
Hearing that, I lifted my tiptoe and looked at the glass placed in front of Punta. Come to think of it, it’s not beer as usual, it’s just water.
“For some reason, he said he wasn’t drinking. Who wants to gamble? That’s the shortcut to discrediting the clan.”
“Hu, what would a mere unemployed know? The feeling of a man with money in hand and a battlefield ahead. It feels more thrilling to bet your hard earned money.”
“Are you ignoring me now? …… I’m not playing or eating at all. He chops firewood, cooks occasionally, and look, he’s still guarding the kitchen in front of you. Though not intentionally. If this isn’t working, what is?”
“Jin, my friend. Waking up and chatting when the sun goes down doesn’t count as work.”
“Yes, you do too. You haven’t been to the workshop for the past few days, haven’t you been hanging around here? I’m just forgetting the money I don’t have yet. So, when will I get my hands on the ‘artifact’ you mentioned? Don’t you know that heaven helps those who help themselves?”
As I spit on my tongue and counterattacked with plausible words, Punta stared at me like that, then tugged at his beard like a habit and muttered.
“…… If you look closely, there are times when you show off your academic knowledge on the subject of day-to-day work. Are the rumors true?”
“Rumors?”
“Okay, just tell me a little bit. Is it true that you come from nobles from another continent?”
Ah, that sound again. I’m not happy at all if I’m misunderstood by the bearded short dwarf, if I don’t know if beauties mad at the rumors come to me. She waved her hand away saying it wasn’t me, but a series of coughing sounds came from the table where the woman was sitting. The timing is odd, but I thought I’d pretend it was. I sighed, took Punta’s glass, and walked around the counter. I don’t care that Celine is looking this way and I put down her glass.
“Go, thank you… ….”
“What?”
Dwarf Spit water or drink. This is enough for a minor revenge. After her emptying her water glass, I returned to the counter with a fresh expression on her back. Well, why is everyone looking at me like that?
“Jin by the way.”
“Huh?”
“Are you too preoccupied with cutting that piece? I’ve never seen a fort dig.”
“…… What is it?”
I raised the corner of my mouth slightly while answering bluntly. Although there are annoying corners, this is also the reason why I maintain a close relationship with this drunken dwarf. Unlike Celine, this guy treats my shabby pieces as ‘works’. It wasn’t a bad feeling to have my aesthetic sense recognized by a dwarf, though I was only one, who valued art more than any other race.
“I couldn’t find any inspiration. I’m so busy these days that I don’t have time.”
“That’s a pity, yes. If there were finished products, I was going to see one or two and buy them.”
“You? What money do you have? He said he didn’t have much money left.”
“That’s true, but my fellow countryman who works in the carpenter’s guild told me about you and he showed interest in the sculpture. Pay more and sell…….”
Kang! I hit Punta’s head with the back of the spatula. Is this damn dwarf proud to say that he earns profit in front of himself? Just as I was about to hit him on the greasy head a few more times, I had to take her hand away when Angela opened the back door and came into her kitchen.
“Jin? Are you watching the kitchen? Thank you.”
“No, what. But what are you doing? I heard that the chief called and left.”
It is said that at noon, all households in the village were summoned to the hall. I heard that Mr. Angela went instead of me because I was sleeping, but she didn’t look so good when I asked if she would give out supplies.
As I looked at her complexion, which was somewhat concerned, I asked, and Angela silently handed me a piece of paper. Notice…… ? Looking at the handwriting that seems to have been printed with her magic, it looks like an official document rather than handmade, but when I looked up at her, she added with a sigh.
“Well, not too long ago, there was an intelligence that a thief with a large bounty from the capital was heading to the East Side.”
“A thief? A bounty, who bet it?”
“I don’t know that much. Probably a noble from the royal capital? It could be a guard post.”
Of course, the bounty system existed in this world as well. Although their presence is thin due to the quest to eliminate the monsters that appear all the time, bandits and vicious criminals, if they are at the boss level, receive as much prize money as a strong monster. Of course, as long as you can verify your identity, it’s OK if only the head exists. However, seeing as he insisted that he was not a murderer but a thief, he must have trespassed somewhere or stole something…… I wonder what the heck did he do to get a ‘big’ bounty for that alone.
“Anyway, according to what he said, it’s not even a mess these days because of that thief. Always at an unexpected check…… I heard that the atmosphere of the city is so turbulent, but the East Side and Cornfield aren’t that far. Because you can hide in the town…….”
Aha. I nodded her head and carefully read the notice she gave me. Probably, each village received one or two copies, but since Angela brought a whole copy, since we are an inn that receives guests from outside, she must have brought it as a representative to put it on the wall.
As she said, I quickly read her preface, which did not contain the exact details of the incident, and carefully read the text describing the thief’s appearance and characteristics.
【Quite an expert, over 30 years old, a tall, skinny man with scars all over his body…… 】
Well, I don’t know. At least, none of the customers I’ve seen in the past few days have been so spooky. Judging from the fact that even though his appearance characteristics have been revealed to such an extent, he has not yet been caught, it seems that he is quite a phantom thief. I folded it in half so that the montage side was visible and went around the counter to get a nail from the shed and drive it into the wall.
“Hiccup!”
At that time, I glanced at the pink-haired woman, who seemed to have finished eating, and, as expected, met her gaze again, and now the hiccups had begun. As I stare at him, he puts the leftover carrot on the plate into his mouth and chews it down, as if he wants to make it stop in a hurry.
Well, when you have a hiccup, you don’t stop eating. I looked at her with her pitiful eyes and pushed her swing door open.
“Hiccup!?”
Look at that. Don’t stop