It’s been ten days since we left Zuirya.
We are traveling via rental wagon to the town of Avid, through the capital.
It’s nice to travel only with people we know. People in the empire tend to be haughty, and it’s tiring when they try to start something with us. Especially since our group has a lot of girls.
If they did as planned, they’ve announced that we beat the tenth floor boss to the people in Zuirya by now. Although I have no way of knowing how they took the news.
I just know the soup Mia made is as tasty as ever. And as I tell her that, I hear the sound of swords clashing.
“Someone’s popular.”
I turn towards them, and see Rurika and Argo doing a mock battle.
Rurika vigorously swings her swords, and Argo is sweaty. Sweat flies every time he moves.
He faced Hikari and Sera before Rurika, and Rick and the others before too.
It looks like their estimation of him went up after he dealt the finishing blow to the tenth floor boss, and now that everyone knows he’s a hard worker, Rurika and the others keep asking for his guidance and challenging him to mock battles.
I’ve done a few mock battles with him too, and what I’ve learned is that he has an exquisite power tuning.
We were using the same swords, but the way he adjusted how much strength he used changed the power and speed delicately.
There were many times when I thought I would block something, and it slipped through and hit me.
All he did was change the timing, but he executed it intentionally in various ways for maximum effect.
It’s not flashy, but there’s a lot I can learn.
“So Sora, what about that girl?”
Asks Guilford while I think about my mock battles with Argo. He’s talking about Kaina.
“We’ll think about it after we get to Avid.”
I need to place a Transfer magic item before I go get her.
If I called her before we left Zuirya, it would’ve drawn attention, so I didn’t.
“I-it’s over…”
Says Argo as he stumbles his way over here.
He looks like he had a tough time, but kept training with them without complaining.
Then we take turns keeping watch as we rest, have breakfast the next morning, and keep going.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Is that Avid…”
The town called the smithing town has a lot of smoke rising from it. We pass by many wagons along the way, because many merchants get weapons here. And a lot of adventurers also visit it not for its dungeon, but to have weapons that are tailor made for them.
These weapons are more expensive than mass produced ones, but there are always customers regardless.
In particular, the Ale and Ironhammer clan, one of the five big ones, has enough requests to have a waiting list.
We’re told this by merchants camping nearby.
This clan was created around dwarves, and its members are all people who wished to be the pupils of these dwarves.
They’re all about self-sufficiency. They are fighting dwarves that get their own materials to forge weapons.
Once we reach the town, the first thing we do is head to the stable managed by the merchant guild. We go through the procedure to return the wagon there, and head to the merchant guild.
We told the merchant guild in Zuirya we were coming to Avid, and they told us that if we’re staying here for a while, renting a house would be cheaper than an inn.
We’re shown a few houses, and we rent one. It feels cramped for eleven people, but we settled on this one because Argo and the others are going to the republic after they check out the equipment here.
Also, all the reasonably priced inns are full.
“Sorry.”
Says Argo, but I can store the beds in my Item Box, so we can secure enough space.
Then Argo and the others go check out equipment, and we head to the adventurer guild.
It’s still daytime, but the adventurer guild is full of people. And I guess that’s why the moment we go in, we feel a lot of eyes on us.
Once we learn more about the dungeon, we understand why there are so many people.
The dungeon here is a cave for the first two floors, and a field in the third. People can get ore by mining the walls and boulders.
Of course, there are also many worthless rocks.
It’s important to note that if you place something on the ground, it disappears. Other dungeons are like this too, so it’s common to use wheelbarrows.
And since it’s a dungeon, there are monsters.
There are golems and… Apparently fishmen.
People are drinking here during the day because, like in Majolica, there’s a period of transition. These periods happen regularly, and the walls and boulders of the dungeon are repaired.
Apparently some people have lost their lives because they just happened to be there in places that were being repaired, and they were swallowed into walls.
And people avoid going into the dungeon right after the transition period because it’s full of monsters. Conversely, not many spawn during normal hours.
A receptionist tells us that some people stay in the dungeon specifically to hunt monsters. A lot are after the mithril golems that sometimes spawn.
They’re pretty hard to defeat, but taking one down will make someone instantly rich.
Thanks for the treat.