Chapter 69

His palm stung. A little blood had stained the bandage, but the stain was not spreading.

Ricard thought about Marie. Yet no matter how much he thought, he could make no sense of it. Was it compassion or pity? Guilt? Interest? Love? He did not know.

Would he find an answer if he took the time to think it through? All he could conclude was that he truly did not understand love.

Joy because of love, pain because of love, happiness because of love, misery because of love.

It was more changeable than flame, and far hotter. To love was no different from searing one's entire heart in a fire. And that was why Ricard could not understand it.

SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK!

The sounds of ravenous eating broke into Ricard's thoughts. He raised his head and looked at the person across the table.

He had seen Sally eat once before, but it was less a meal than a massacre of food.

Boribori and Delphi stared blankly at her, their expressions suggesting they could scarcely believe such a person existed.

She was quite beautiful, which made the sight of her wolfing down food with her cheeks bulging like a squirrel's rather bizarre. It was as though she were possessed by someone who had starved to death. Strangest of all was how she stayed so trim while stuffing her face like that.

At any rate, after eating furiously for some time, Sally drained a bowl of cold soup, let out an enormous belch, and sprawled back in her chair.

BUUURP!

"Ahh, that hit the spot."

"..."

"Hmm, now where were we?"

"You were telling us you're the new Guild Master," Delphi said.

Ricard tilted his head. "What about Dunkel? Is he dead?"

"Yep, that's right. I killed that dumb fuck. Now I'm the Guild Master."

It was not true, of course, just a nasty joke. But without a trace of humor in her delivery, it was not very funny.

Apparently, they had installed Sally as a figurehead because Dunkel's identity had been exposed during the war.

That much was easy enough to piece together without being told.

"Then is there anything in particular we need to do?"

"There is, actually. Everyone has to take their first commission from the guild after graduating from the academy. You might call it your first and last test. Anyway, we use it to get a rough idea of your grade. But you two already have grades, so let's see."

Ricard and Boribori were already upper-grade adventurers. As students, they had merely held equivalent standing, but now that they had graduated, their status was official.

Sally took a stack of cards from inside her clothes. With practiced hands, she flicked through them one by one, selecting three in an instant.

Then she pushed the empty plates and bowls aside and laid the three cards facedown on the table.

"One easy, one grueling, and one dangerous. Which will it be?"

"What's the easy one?" Ricard asked.

"I put them facedown because I can't give you the details until you take the commission."

"How grueling is the grueling one?"

"I know perfectly well how good you are. But this isn't sword work. It's more like hard labor, understand? You'll have to put your back into it. That's what makes it grueling."

"And the dangerous one?"

"Slim odds of success. Certain death if you fail."

Ricard turned to Boribori, silently asking his opinion.

"Let's take the easy one," Boribori said.

"All right."

But Sally shook her head.

"No, no. You each have to pick one. You're not doing this together. You can get help from someone else or from your clan, but since you two graduated together, you can't team up this time. It's still a test, you know?"

Without hesitation, Ricard picked up the easy card and handed it to Boribori, then took the dangerous one for himself.

"Uh, um..."

Boribori looked a little flustered, but Ricard had already turned his card over.

<Special-Grade Commission: Eliminate the High Vampire Armand von Bahnstein

Client: Count Lehmann von Bahnstein>

The moment Ricard finished reading, Sally snatched the card back and burned it in the candle flame. She left Boribori's card alone. His was merely a caravan escort job.

"What's the reward?" Ricard asked calmly.

"An item rather than money."

"What item?"

"Ilya's Holy Oil."

Ricard and Boribori turned to look at each other at the same instant. They had discussed it at the academy that very day: the story of the hero who had been unable to walk from birth until the age of thirty.

"Sounds like bullshit."

"Try saying that to the count's face."

"Does that stuff actually exist?"

"Beats me."

It was hard to believe in something that only appeared in legends.

"Hmm. Do I have to go alone?"

"One trustworthy companion should be fine, shouldn't it? In any case, tell as few people as possible. I trust you to handle it. But do you have any idea how dangerous this is?"

"You told me to choose."

"I did, but you're so calm. I'm not sure you understand how serious this is. You should've just picked the grueling one."

Sally had said that the odds of success were slim and failure meant certain death, but she had not expected Ricard to actually choose it.

Was his confidence a product of his extraordinary skill, or did he simply have nerves of steel? The boy did not seem arrogant.

"Then why didn't you just give us easy jobs?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"True enough."

Ricard was exceptional in both skill and nerve. But Sally was hardly a sensible person herself.

Perhaps it was because she was not Dunkel, but frankly, she seemed recklessly irresponsible—the sort to set things in motion purely for her own amusement.

In practice, guilds almost never accepted special-grade commissions. The designation meant they had effectively given up trying to classify the difficulty, so such commissions tended to be left untouched.

Put simply, special-grade commissions were beyond human capability.

"Well, I don't have to start right away, do I?"

"No. Talk it over properly with your Clan Leader first. Giving up the commission is an option too. Just let me know. If you really intend to go through with it, we'll provide funds to get you started."

Whatever else they might be, they belonged to a clan. An adventurer's movements were for the clan to decide; the guild could not order them about. It was rather like feudalism.

Only the first commission after graduation was a special exception that the guild could assign directly. Ordinarily, a commission went to the Clan Leader, who either assigned it in turn or discussed it with the members before deciding.

After chatting with Sally about this and that, Ricard rose.

"We'll be going now."

"Congratulations."

"On what?"

"Becoming adventurers. Just surviving the academy is an achievement."

Sally seemed to be thinking of the academy in the days when violence ran rampant, students were driven to take their own lives, and dangerous missions were assigned to them.

But the academy of her student days, the academy Ricard had entered, and the academy of today were all different places.

Ricard gave a faint smile and shook his head.

"It's not like it used to be."

"Hmm?"

"We'll be off. I'm sure I'll see Dunkel again someday, too."

Ricard left the Beringen Guild building with his friends. Then they went to visit Molty and Lara, who had given up becoming adventurers and chosen to start a family.

The couple had news truly worth celebrating: they had had a baby.

Their baby came as something of a shock to Ricard. How could he put it? It hardly seemed real. He found it simply wondrous and astonishing.

Molty and Lara looked happy despite their modest means, and the Nord settlers around them had fully accepted them as neighbors.

The five sat together in the little house, reminiscing so happily that before they knew it, evening had come.

Ricard, Boribori, and Delphi therefore had no choice but to head back to the guild building for the night.

Before leaving, Ricard quietly looked down at the baby sleeping peacefully in its cradle. He still could not believe it. The baby's very existence felt like a miracle.

Marie suddenly came to mind, but he forced himself to turn away.

Back at the guild building, he lay down to sleep, but for some reason sleep eluded him for a long time. He tried to master the inexplicable ache within him, but there was nowhere to escape.

It would pass. Surely it would pass.

Nothing of note happened on the journey to Ehrenberg. They simply walked at a leisurely pace, savoring the browns and yellows of autumn.

They had only been away for three or four months, but the world was so perilous that when they reached the Ehrenberg branch, everyone was smiling simply to be reunited safely.

"Volka, you're looking every inch the branch head!" Ricard said with a laugh.

Indeed, he seemed to have put on some weight. A branch head spent more time behind a desk than out in the field, after all. It was only natural to gain weight without exercise.

His usual work consisted mainly of handing jobs over to adventurers and making sure the accounts were correct.

"Reminds me of the Torweil branch head," Boribori added.

Alter, the Torweil branch head, was the man who had issued the orders during their hunt for the deserter. He had looked less like an adventurer than an ordinary middle-aged man from the neighborhood.

Volka was not quite there yet, but his physique seemed to be heading in that direction.

"Heh heh. Honestly, it was only a headache at first. This is such a good job, I don't know why anyone would turn it down."

Volka merely grinned, apparently without a shred of pride. Well, at least it was good to see him so happy.

"Honestly. If you've got nothing to do, get up and carry a barrel or something."

Industrious as ever, Delphi unpacked and rolled up her sleeves the moment she arrived, without stopping to rest. She wiped the tables and cleaned cups and dishes.

As she worked, she pointed out the children the branch had hired. They were busy fetching water, carrying laundry, and doing other chores, so none came over to greet Ricard and Boribori. They merely stared from a distance as they passed.

"Let me tell you who's who. That's Roke, that's Remy, and that's Rona. Elga must've stepped out for a bit."

Looking them over, they all seemed to be about ten.

"What about Benny?"

"She's still too young."

"They look pretty young too."

"At least they're over ten."

"Where's Ice?"

"He's growing a belly just like me," Volka said.

"What?"

"Just kidding. He's probably doing the accounts in my room. That's all he does, but he hasn't grown a belly like mine. Go put your things away first. Wife! Bring us some drinks!"

He shouted the last part at Delphi. Had the two of them married?

Only a few months had passed, but it seemed there was some adjusting to do.

Ricard put his belongings in the room he had shared with Boribori, then knocked on Volka's door on his way back out. When he opened it and looked inside, Ice really was sitting at the desk doing the accounts.

"Oh?"

Ice's eyes widened. Somehow, he seemed to grow more expressive as time passed.

"We're baaack. Come on out. Let's catch up."

At Ricard's invitation, Ice rose with a small smile.

There were plenty of other adventurers at the branch, but Ricard's Viola clan was its core clan. In other words, they were effectively the owners of the building—or, in feudal terms, the ruling house of Ehrenberg.

When Ricard, Boribori, Volka, and Ice settled down by the fireplace, Delphi brought over four wooden mugs filled with alcohol, carrying them all at once.

"I'm taking this out of your commission pay, all right?"

"Really?"

Boribori had assumed the drinks were free. His eyes widened at the mention of a deduction, but Delphi merely raised her eyebrows coyly and walked straight off again.

"Hey, I'll pay. Just drink and don't worry about it," Volka said.

"So we really do have to pay."

"Nothing in this world is free. Running a branch turns you into a penny-pincher whether you like it or not."

"Have you gathered many adventurers?"

"A fair few. Most are drifters, but some are worth keeping around. At this rate, I might even become a Clan Master."

A Clan Master was someone with several clans under their command. Of course, the title did not guarantee obedience from those subordinate clans. That depended on the Clan Master's own capabilities.

"Seems like the more clans you take on, the bigger your belly's going to get."

"Heh heh. I don't mind a belly."

He worked hard enough in his own way, so it did not seem he had grown lazy. Volka simply seemed genuinely content with his life.

"Anyway, didn't you two get your 'first' commissions?" Ice asked, taking a sip.

"Yeah. Mine's fine, but there seems to be a problem with Riki's. Sally assigned it to him, then told him not to do it."

Boribori pointed at Ricard beside him. At Sally's name, Volka scowled.

"That bottomless-pit hag is still playing Master? Shit, now you've spoiled my drink."

"What's wrong?"

"That woman doesn't think. The other day, she assigned us a job she'd already given another branch. We nearly came to blows over it. We went to all that trouble to win the war, so why the fuck is she pulling this shit? Why did old Dunkel have to leave a woman like that in charge and go into hiding?"

"So what's the commission?" Ice asked.

"I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you, so keep this to yourselves. It's special grade. Killing a high vampire."

At Ricard's words, Volka froze with his mug tilted to his lips. He did not even spit out his drink; it simply dribbled from the corner of his mouth. At the words 'special grade,' Ice's face began to go as expressionless as it used to be.