26. What adults do
* * *
“Raimu, I will seal you.”
─ ぅ, keaaah
Raimu, whose movements were constrained by Evan and Rainia’s pincer attack, was eventually sealed by the wizard Now.
Raimu, who was pouring all his mana into regeneration, could not resist Nau’s seal. If he had had that kind of energy, he would have shook off the attack of the two and ran away, or conversely, he would have knocked them down.
Evan, who saw Raimu being sealed, threw down his sword and gasped.
“It’s over…… ?”
“Yes. The seal is over.”
“Haaa…… Really, I thought I was going to die.”
It is an extremely subjective judgment, but Evan felt that hunting this demon was more difficult than a dragon.
The dragon could be cut, but Raimu couldn’t even cut it, so it was all the more so. Realizing that there is no absolute strength in this world, only relative strength, Evan thought he should come up with one or two ways to overcome even the most powerful opponents.
But after a while, as the tension eases, the current situation begins to invade my head.
“Sister Rogue…… Are you dead?”
“Yes. Dead.”
“Your expression doesn’t matter.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just used to it.”
Hearing Lainia’s words, Evan let out a laugh and turned his head belatedly when he saw a wagging tail in a corner of his field of vision.
Nine tails with profuse fur waggled. The owner of the tail was Rania.
‘What is this… ….’
Did she have her original tail? After thinking for a moment, Evan remembered that she didn’t have a tail covering her hips.
Then what the hell is that tail? As Evan gazed at her tail in puzzlement, Lainia hid her tail behind her back as if slightly embarrassed.
Even if she tried to hide it, it was impossible for her plentiful nine tails to be completely covered by her small body.
“What is that tail?”
“…… I don’t know either. I just drank what was inside and it became like this.”
“No, Mr. Lainia was more of a fox than that? Aren’t you a wolf?”
Lainia politely nodded her head. She then burst out laughing.
“Then I was going to ask why the party was named White Wolf?”
“Do you know how to read your mind?”
“What? hahahahaha-! This is an idea that everyone knows how to do. Probably because everyone asked that.”
After she said that, Lainia started fiddling with her tail with a slightly deep expression.
She looked around her once and realized that she had never told her story to anyone except Agnes, and she opened her mouth quietly.
“Okay, where do I start? I am…… Actually, she is a princess.”
“Eh.”
“Eh.”
“A lie.”
“…… Stop talking one more time and I’ll stop.”
“Sorry.”
“I won’t hang up, so come on… ….”
“Hmmm, so I—”
* * *
La Nia is a part of Nine Lives, a union of beasts, and she was one of the successors of the head of Gyeongguk Gyeongseong.
So the word princess wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t very meaningful. Beastmen give birth to dozens of children at once, and all of them are called princes and princesses.
─You have no talent.
Among the countless children the chief gave birth to, Lainia stood out in particular. Of her many children, only she was not born with her tail.
Since ancient times, for the fox tribe, the tail was a key element that charmed the other person. Without even a single tail, she was an immature child and a failure, both as a beast and as a fox.
And for young children, difference can be wrong.
—Hey, look at him.
─It has no tail. Funny.
─Is there any other place? Shall we take a look?
A ruthless prank done amidst the indifference of adults.
While being bullied by children, she thought this.
—Ah, I could die at this rate.
It is a prank played by children, and the intensity of discrimination is getting stronger. Thinking that if she continued like this, she could be killed using the joke as an excuse, Lainia secretly made her escape.
Perhaps as a reaction to her not being born with a tail, her physical abilities are superior to those of a normal fox beast. She eventually succeeded in escaping from the territory she lived in without any problems.
She was Rainia who managed to escape, but there was not much she could do for a prisoner with no status or acquaintances. She wandered from place to place and eventually she became an adventurer.
“The reason why we named the party Wolves is because we were embarrassed to be foxes. People couldn’t even tell if I was a wolf or a fox because I was a canine anyway.”
“That…… Don’t blame me too much.”
“What? Ah- I must have thought I was blaming myself. Quite the opposite. I am proud to be a fox beast myself. It just made me feel bad that the foxes were benefiting as they wished for my name.”
“…… Yes?”
“It’s not that I’m embarrassed, it’s that the family members are embarrassed.”
“Oh, that means.”
Hearing all of her stories about her, Evan thought for a moment, then remembered one thing about her and looked at her.
“Do people in that family also have nine tails?”
“No. In most cases, there was only one, and at most, there were two or three.”
“Then have you become more powerful than the people in that family? Mr. Lainia has nine tails in her. She outnumbers them three times.”
“…… You are right.”
Linia waggled her tail, as if saying that she was better than her family felt good. Seeing her tail swaying weakly from side to side, Evan felt a sense of well-being at the same time.
But after a while, Evan realized that the reason she had changed was because of something she ate inside of her.
She doesn’t know what it is, but since it was guarded by a strong guy like Raimu, it must be an extremely good or rare item.
Rainia swallowed it all up. She said it without any discussion with herself.
“Wait a minute, Mr. Rania.”
“Huh? Why?”
“In the end, didn’t Lainia just gulp her treasure inside her?”
“…… She had no choice but to save her comrades.”
Since it was Lainia who struggled to protest, Evan resolutely settled her results.
“I decided to take 50% of the items from this dungeon as mine…… Now that I swallowed that treasure, half of Lainia is mine?”
“Is that so?”
“In theory—right?”
Evan smiled as he stealthily peeked at the nine tails that did not move in surprise.
She couldn’t make a girlfriend, but she got a slave who was a fox.
* * *
“If you are defending on behalf of a stupid leader, that is wrong.”
Unfortunately, Evan never had a slave who was a fox. She’s because Nau, her party member, has made her right instead of her trying to be taken as her slave.
“So, this dungeon itself will cost a fortune. Is this sound?”
“Yes. Of course, the potion Rainia ate was also a great elixir, but that was a story of conclusion. I couldn’t test whether it was poison or medicine, and Lainia could have taken the medicine and died.”
“Ugh…… Is that so?”
Now’s claim was this. The elixir that Lainia drank was an elixir with ridiculous performance, but there was no way to prove it.
If what Lainia drank was not the result of the archmage’s research, but the poison that the mage had put in her as a joke – she would just die a dog’s death.
Even if that wasn’t the case, she argued that the potion shown in the video was not a clinical test to see if it was suitable for Suin-she defended that she had to accept the money rather than bet it.
“Compared to that, this dungeon definitely pays off.”
“Is this a nice building?”
“Yes. I can’t prove whether the drug is real or not, but I can prove that the Archmage touched this building.”
From noble mtl dot com
“Is it expensive then?”
“Extremely. If it’s our mage tower, we’ll pay 1.5 Million elso.”
“1, 1.5 Million elso…… !”
“Now, what do you want to do? It’s true that our leader did something wrong, so I’ll give up my rights to this dungeon now. If not, go to a proper appraiser and appraise the price of the potion the leader drank.”
“That…… So, what do you choose?”
“If you choose the former, you will receive 1.5 Million elso for sure, and if you choose the latter, there is a possibility that you will not receive a single penny for 750,000 elso.”
Evan thought for a moment. Whether she will receive 1.5 Million elso definitively or 750,000 elso and gamble.
After listening to all the explanations, Now’s words were very persuasive. Now that it is impossible to verify whether or not the elixir Rainia had such a special effect on anyone, she could not be sure that the price of the elixir would be more than 1.5 Million elso.
She’s like an elixir that wouldn’t have had much effect even if she took it anyway, so Evan chose her former as if he had given it to Lainia as a gift. What- isn’t it better for the world to have one more nine-tailed beauty than to eat herself and become a Super Evan?
“The former.”
“Good choice. Little.”
After completing the deal, Evan turned his head to where he had been looking. He smiled awkwardly, as if Agnes was over just in time.
“…… Are you done?”
“Yes. It’s over. I don’t even have a body, so I have to do something like this.”
“Who wouldn’t say something?”
“It is always possible for an adventurer to die during an adventure. You must have prepared for the dead log as well? He has already left a will for us.”
“A will?”
“When he dies, he asks me to donate his portion to the church.”
“…… I didn’t write it.”
“We wrote everything.”
Evan smiled bitterly at the fact that others had written wills.
Evan didn’t even think that she would die in this adventure, but she had lived as an adventurer for a long time and prepared for death in advance.
They were seeing a world different from their own.
This is a real adventurer— Evan realized the difference between himself and the girls.
* * *
Evan revealed the dungeon he owned to the guild, and the dungeon was soon put up for auction. Archmage’s Dungeon was sold for 1.5 Million Elso, as Nau said. 1.53 Million elso to be exact.
It was the archmage’s dungeon that appeared after a very long time, and the fact that the archmage’s traces of magic and magic research records remained very well was the reason for paying the price.
Well, for Evan, the reason was that whatever the price, it was enough.
“1,224,000 Elso excluding the 20% auction fee.”
“…… I have that tax exemption right.”
“Yes! That’s why we exempted you from paying 30% of the tax!”
Evan, who left the auction house while listening to the terrifying sound of the auction house staff, looked back at the auction house with a laugh.
‘Someone makes money while struggling to die, but someone sits down and pays 20% through commission sales… ….’
She was quite upset, but she never thought that she would be able to open her own auction house, attract people, and make a living from it.
There was no way she could do that in the first place. In this country, the auction house is state-run, and not only the auction house, but most of the things that just sit like that and collect fees.
If you don’t have the confidence to fight and win against the country—to be precise, if you don’t have the confidence to fight and defeat the monstrous Changwang, you shouldn’t even go there.
‘1.22 Million…… Roughly 1.2 Million, and here another 10%…….’
According to the prearrangement that he would eat 50% of all by-products from the dungeon, out of the remaining 1.22 Million elso, 600,000 elso belonged to himself, and the remaining 50% belonged to his partymates—but these party members were the ones that Rinia used as a magic potion. By eating , the right to the dungeon was replaced.
Evan wondered if he could eat the remaining half, but he didn’t. He had a party member who didn’t give up his percentage. Although he was exactly the one who couldn’t give up.
“This is it.”
Slightly- Evan raised his head and slightly frowned at the noisy church with children running around. This was the church that Log left behind as a will.
Perhaps among his requests, according to his will to send his share to the church here when he dies – Evan himself came with money. But he said not to do that.
In the past, when more than a thousand people died at once in the county, I didn’t feel any special emotions…… A heavy pressure, which is now difficult to take a single step off, pressed against his shoulders.
“What, sir?”
After walking around in front of the church for a while, the nun of the church approached first and spoke to Evan. Shocked, Evan thought about running away, but feeling that if it wasn’t now, he wouldn’t come here forever, so she looked at the nun calmly.
“Lo, Sister Log’s colleague… ! That, over there.”
“Ah- you went to God’s side?”
“Yes? Yes eh…….”
“I see. The child eventually…….”
“Hey, that- I was the leader of your sister’s party. Because I can’t keep it right…….”
“No. From the moment you chose the profession of adventurer, you must have been prepared for the risk. You have no reason to criticize yourself. Or, perhaps, did he let the guest do his part to kill the child on purpose?”
“That’s not it!”
“That’s all right. That child will also be happy in the afterlife.”
Seeing the nun’s calm expression, Evan handed her the money and the will she left behind with a bewildered look on her face. The nun who saw the amount of 120,000 El Sora opened her eyes wide as if surprised for a moment and drew her name for a moment.
“Thank you for telling me this. Customer.”
“No, it was something I had to do…” ….”
“There are a lot of unscrupulous people in the world who close their eyes to what they have to do. What’s more, I don’t mind spending this much money…… By any chance, did you have a special relationship with that child?”
“If it is a special relationship…… ?”
“Something like a lover.”
“That, that’s not it! We just met for the first time!”
“For those who have seen it for the first time…… You have a good character.”
Hearing that she had a good character made Evan feel a little tingle in her heart. Because she knew she wasn’t that nice – she was the kind of person who didn’t blink at the deaths of thousands.
But to her surprise, the nun in front of her also looked like that. She would have been quite close to her if she left it as a will, but she had a nonchalant attitude as if someone else had died…….
“How could you be so calm?”
“Yes?”
“Rogue sister died, as if someone she didn’t know died…… Why are you so calm? Sister.”
“Aha- I see what you mean. Are you having trouble? Customer”
She looked at her Evan with a smile that was incomprehensible like a priest’s, and she drooled as she wondered what to say.
No matter how much time had passed, the nun who had organized her thoughts opened her mouth.
“First of all—I can’t sympathize with everyone’s pain. Because we are not gods. It is rather arrogant to believe that such a thing is possible.”
“Arrogance…… ?”
“Yes, it is enough for us to save those we touch and to feel the pain of those we touch. It is said that compassion is an emotion that humans should have, but it is impossible to be buried only in it.”
The nun kept her silence for a moment and listened to her laughter coming from her church.
“Can you hear this laughter?”
“…… Yes, I can hear you.”
“This laugh is the laugh that the child, Miss Log, protected. It is the will she left in this world.”
“Aren’t you sad? Rogue sister is dead.”
“Sad. It feels like his heart is about to break. However…… Enduring such pain and smiling in front of children is what adults should do.”
“Adult… ….”
She was still a distant concept to herself. She was a grown-up, she couldn’t believe that Evan could be a grown-up herself.
The nun looked at Evan, who was so troubled, and she smiled slightly.
“Guest, she is going to prepare flowers for the child from now on. If you have some time…….”
“It’s okay.”
“I see. Then please wait while playing with the children inside.”
The nun took her Evan into the church. The children, who had been playing with the other nuns and laughing, stopped laughing in an instant when they greeted a stranger.
“Come on! Everyone. This is Ms. Rogue’s colleague…….”
“This is Evan. Evan Carlster.”
“This is Evan. She said she ran errands for her sister today.”
“Rogue sister!?”
“Really? Where is your sister!?”
“Log sister, Log sister!”
Hearing that Evan had come to replace the log, the children clung to him and started looking for the log. The nun smiled quietly and moved away from her seat, leaving Evan to be harassed by her children instead of her nun.
“Brother, brother. Why didn’t your sister come with you!?”
“Is your brother or sister your boyfriend?”
“Can’t you play pa-hu-pa-hoo today!?”
As she watched the children clinging to her and searching for the log, Evan instinctively realized what the nun had been saying about ‘what adults should do’.
He faked a smile and hid the log’s death.
“Yes. My sister said she couldn’t come because she was busy. Instead, you can eat a lot of delicious things.”
“Really!? Then you can eat cloud cotton candy!?”
“All Drake Steaks!”
“I-I am an egg tart made from Thunderbird eggs… ….”
“…… Your taste buds are more advanced than I thought.”
Evan laughed and waited for the nun to return, playing with her children. After a while, Evan, who had built a small tomb with the returning nun, quietly prayed in front of it.
I felt like I had grown up a bit.
I still feel sad about Rogue… Bring her back…