“See you later.”
We decided to walk around the city after lunch, but Hikari and Mia are staying in the inn. I’m going to the adventurer guild with the others.
After leaving the inn, we go down a stairway outside, and head towards a big building facing the gate from the right side. There’s another big building across the street, but apparently that’s the guards’ station.
“There’s no one here.”
Says Chris, as there’s no one inside that looks like an employee. The building being so big just makes it feel even more empty.
I feel like there aren’t a lot of quests affixed on the wall either… Actually, scratch that, there are almost none.
“I haven’t seen you around. Are you outsiders?”
Receptionists tend to be beautiful ladies in pretty much every guild, but here, there is only a man and a woman, who both look very refined.
“Yes, this is our first time here. We have a few questions, so will it be all right if we ask them?”
It feels like Rurika is also feeling a little overwhelmed. Her usual direct way of talking sounds a bit weird.
“What do you want to know?”
“It’s about laurel tree fruit. Would you happen to know where we can find it?”
“…What would you do with it if you knew?”
“…We need it to treat someone we know. We heard we could find it here.”
She’s looking at us with sharp eyes. Is she sizing us up?
It’s not just the lady, the man is also looking this way like he’s very interested in this conversation.
“Yes, it is possible to obtain it here, but this is a bad time.”
“Bad time?”
“Yes. Violent monsters have been sighted in the area where the laurel tree is. It seems we can’t harvest their fruit.”
So we can get laurel tree fruit if something’s done about that monster?
Her words feel like a glimmer of hope, but the woman, Charis, cuts it off.
“But unfortunately, there are no adventurers here that can defeat them.”
She says that the levels of the adventurers here aren’t that high.
I ask why, and she tells me, sounding troubled as she does it.
“Adventurers here generally only hunt specific monsters. That is how it is here.”
“Then how do you handle this sort of thing?”
“…The royal palace dispatches people to hunt monsters we can’t handle. We don’t know why, but they aren’t hunting these monsters.”
Charis is also confused by how the royal palace is handling this, but she’s just quietly watching how they go about it, assuming they have some deep reason for doing what they’re doing.
It’s also partially because the monsters will go away on their own eventually, so they have no reason to go out of their way to face them if they don’t have the means.
“What kind of monsters are they?”
“Eyewitness reports say they’re minotaurs.”
Minotaurs… They’re the sort of monsters that would appear in some dungeons’ lower levels, so there’s no doubt that they’re strong.
I’ve heard that they’re stronger than some superior species, so they really are the sort of thing that you shouldn’t mess with carelessly, or you might just end up causing more damage.
“But they will go away if enough time passes?”
Asks Sera. That’s a pertinent question.
Will they move? Do minotaurs act like migratory birds in that sense? Wait, where is the laurel tree in this city anyway?
“I shouldn’t say any more. Yes… State your business to the gatekeepers there in front.”
The four of us all look at each other, but Charis says it’d be hard to get more information here.
“All right. We’ll go over there and ask.”
We leave the adventurer guild, and head to the gate.
It really is big. It’s so wide, that five wagons could easily pass through it at the same time. But more important than that, is the way it was constructed.
I can only see the surface, but it looks like it’s made of sturdy iron. And I feel magic energy too, and I feel like it wouldn’t budge even if it was attacked with magic multiple times.
“I don’t remember ever seeing you. What’s your business here?”
A soldier guarding the gate talks to us, as we’re standing here looking up at the gate like idiots.
“A-ah… I was just surprised by how solid it looks.”
“…And do you have any business here?”
“We asked about the laurel tree in the adventurer guild, and they told us to come here.”
The two gatekeepers start whispering to each other.
“It looks like you came from the outside, but do you have a permit?”
“We were given this…”
I hand over the permit I got in Marte, and one of the soldiers runs over to the station.
Not long after, he comes back with another soldier, who takes us to the station. Apparently he’s their chief, but he must be pretty proactive, to come out like this instead of sending someone else.
“This is a permit to stay in Altair. This won’t get you through the gate.”
Is the first thing he says.
“…Does that mean the laurel trees are beyond the gate?”
His expression changes a little. He’s easy to read.
“Yes, but you can’t go in. And if you do it anyway, you’ll be labeled as criminals.”
“So how can we go in?”
“…You need permission from above, but…”
“We just need to get laurel tree fruit. Can you ask about that for us?”
It seems he’s going to check that, so we tell them the name of the inn where we’re staying, and leave the station.
Then we check the slaver and ask about elves, and they say that while some combat slaves from the Republic of Eldo passed by here, there was no elf named Eris.
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Did the dragon king maybe agree to a basic permit to get them here but not full permit so they would have to do a favor for him my guess taking out these minotaurs
Thx for chapter
Thanks for the treat.