WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 7: Romance
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Three hobgoblins died instantly.
Etran insisted that Homing Arrow wasn't a powerful spell, but that was only compared to Fireball, which burned even its targets' bones, or Lightning Strike. It was more than strong enough to tear through skin and rip apart internal organs. Each monster had taken twenty such arrows at close range. Surviving would have been the strange outcome.
“Um... Sorry, but...”
“Oh! Ah, I'm sorry.”
Only then did Etran stop looking at the fallen monsters and let go of Dahlia.
Adventurer or not, different race or not, holding a young lady in his arms without letting her go was terribly rude. But Dahlia wasn't angry. She brushed off her clothes with a Pat! Pat! and whistled.
“We've each saved the other once, so we're even?”
“Pardon? Oh, yes. Thank you.”
Olivia let out a long breath, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. It felt like coming back from the dead.
“You really do need a mage.”
“Now, now. You need a capable mage!”
Etran might have lacked experience, but his magical skill was already at Wizard level. As Dahlia showered him with praise, Olivia grew curious.
“Are Mages and Wizards different?”
“Hmm... You could say Mages work in the field and Wizards work in the office. Wizards tend to be old folks who devote themselves to research, so their magic is better.”
“There are plenty of young Wizards these days, too.”
The titles weren't strictly higher and lower ranks, but Wizard was certainly the more honored one.
After resting over a little conversation, Etran's party got moving again. The fighting was over, so it was time to collect proof of their kills. This time, though, things were different from collecting ordinary goblin ears.
“These are boss monsters, right?”
“Probably?”
“Then did we just conquer the Shadow Castle Ruins?”
Another party had already been working on the dungeon, so they would have to share the credit. Still, killing the dungeon's master, its boss monster, entitled them to a large share. Guild rules said they should receive half, but this case was a little unclear.
“We weren't the original conquest party... I wonder how much we'll get?”
Olivia muttered while retrieving the katzbalger. In the trade's terms, they had only landed the final blow, so demanding fifty percent would weigh on the conscience. The Guild committee probably wouldn't award them that much, either.
“Anyway, let's finish up! Come on!”
They hardly needed to discuss where the treasure might be. There was the small door the first hobgoblin had been hammering on. Even if there was no treasure behind it, something must have caused all that fuss.
With the battle over, it was the supporter's turn to shine. Dahlia carefully checked the door for traps, then tried the handle. Click. Click.
There was no padlock or internal lock, but it wouldn't open. That meant it was either broken or blocked from inside. Etran asked for some professional wisdom.
“What do we do in a situation like this?”
“What else? What they teach you at home.”
Dahlia cleared her throat with an “Ahem!” and demonstrated the secret halfling art of knocking. In other words, she knocked on the door. Knock, knock.
“Anyone in there? It's Dahlia. Dahlia, the halfling seeker.”
The warrior and mage gave the seeker deeply doubtful looks. Humans could use that technique, too. Sure enough, some time passed without a response.
Olivia glanced at the hobgoblin's hammer, while Etran calculated how much mana he would need to break down the door. Such typically human impatience. Dahlia waited patiently and was finally rewarded.
“...Are you human?”
A voice came from behind the door. It was thin and weak, but it belonged to a person. Dahlia knocked a little harder.
“I said I'm a halfling! There are two humans here, too, but... Anyway, we're adventurers.”
“...The hobgoblins?”
“All dead. If there were only four of them, that is.”
Silence fell again. By now, Etran had also realized that something was wrong. He was considering pouring in enough mana to break down the door when sounds came from behind it. Clank. Rattle.
“Why are you so suspicious...”
Olivia started to complain, then swallowed the rest.
The room, once a servants' kitchen long ago, was a mess. That wasn't just the wear of passing years. A heavy smell of death hung in the stale air.
“...Where's Dermi?”
“Over there.”
The person who opened the door was a man in his thirties with rough stubble. Makeshift bandages covered his shoulder and leg, with quarrels, or crossbow bolts, serving as splints. Broken bones had been forced into place and secured. Even so, he was in the best condition of anyone in his party.
“Dead.”
“This one, too...”
The warrior and mage had lost their lives. The warrior was a familiar face: Dermi, whom Etran had met at the tavern a few days earlier.
“What happened?”
“Hobgoblins.”
The conquest of the Shadow Castle Ruins had been going smoothly. They had found a portrait in a storeroom on the fourth basement level. When they hung it in the main hall on the first basement level, a hidden dining room appeared. Dermi's party had cheered. Their long, long search was finally nearing its end.
“You didn't expect a boss?”
“We weren't that stupid.”
With goblins roaming the place, they had guessed that the boss monster would be a hobgoblin. They just hadn't known how many there would be. The moment they entered the dining room, six hobgoblins had attacked.
“Six?!”
“Two were shot dead.”
That meant the four Olivia and Etran had defeated were the last of them. Dahlia sighed in relief.
Dermi had been a fine warrior, but not good enough to fight six hobgoblins. The moment the shield shattered, so did Dermi's skull. James, their supporter, had fled at once. That was hardly surprising, given the complete lack of even an ounce of loyalty to the others.
“I heard a scream not long after. Did James get out safely?”
“Lying in the corridor over there.”
“...Stupid fool.”
While the fleeing adventurer distracted the hobgoblins, the mage and crossbowman had dragged Dermi into this room to hide. They had almost made it. They had been so close, just two steps short.
A wooden hammer thrown by a hobgoblin had folded the mage at the waist. Not figuratively. Physically.
Etran looked at the middle-aged mage lying beside the warrior. That was one death he hoped to avoid.
“That's how I survived.”
The trap specialist had died fleeing, the back of the skull smashed in. The mage had died trying to hide, back broken. The warrior had lingered unconscious before dying a few hours earlier. All that remained was one crossbowman with a dislocated shoulder and a deep cut at his ankle.
“You've been through a lot.”
The crossbowman smiled weakly. It was a remarkably healthy smile for someone who had spent so long shut in this cramped room with corpses, listening to the Thump! Thump! of a hobgoblin's hammer.
“So, where's the treasure? Isn't this the treasure room?”
The mourning didn't last long. Dahlia brought up an important subject. As a fellow adventurer, the crossbowman took no offense. He pointed to the boxes stacked in a corner of the kitchen.
“Silverware.”
“Silver?!”
“Pure silver. It should fetch thirty thousand dena.”
Half of that, under Guild rules, would be fifteen thousand dena. Enough to spend a year doing nothing.
'That won't happen.'
Another party had discovered the Shadow Castle Ruins and worked out how to clear it. They had also killed two of the boss monsters, reducing Olivia's party's contribution.
'Still, maybe twenty percent... Or at least ten percent...'
Whether those hopes would come true remained to be seen.
@
After discussing it, Olivia's party returned to North-Landing.
The tavern keeper laughed heartily at them for giving up after just one day, then saw the crossbowman and rushed out in alarm. Quite apart from being a Guild administrator, the tavern keeper was an experienced adventurer and understood the seriousness of the situation at once. There was only one reason an artillery fighter, rather than a tank, would return with injuries like those.
“Dermi?”
A head shook from side to side. A healer arrived, followed by a cleric, causing a small commotion. Then flowers whose buds had yet to fully open were placed in mourning on the table Dermi's party had often used.
The mourning didn't last long.
The living had to go on living, so everyone went about their work. News that the Shadow Castle Ruins had been conquered reached the royal capital and spread throughout Northland. The names of the party members who had taken part were announced as well. Olivia, Dahlia, and Etran were on the list.
“What? Five percent?!”
Olivia slammed the bar counter with a Bang! Beer sloshed out of a mug and dirtied the bar, though it had been dirty to begin with.
“Your party was registered as a rescue party, not a conquest party. Even that five percent is a reward from the heir to Dermi's party.”
“Why? No, seriously, why?!”
“You didn't build up any contribution in the Shadow Castle Ruins.”
“We killed goblins!”
“Those went under the Well Cavern.”
Olivia thumped a fist against their own chest in frustration. But every point the tavern keeper made was correct. Just what one would expect from the Adventurers' Guild. Their paperwork was thorough and flawless.
Five percent of roughly twenty-seven thousand dena, calculated down to the last unit, came to 1,337 dena, which was paid to Olivia's party. It wasn't a small sum. Instead of worn-down silver pieces worth one dena each, they received a pouch of silver coins worth twenty dena each. The king's face was properly stamped on them, even if it was a little crooked. It was the most money they had handled in some time.
The corners of Olivia's mouth kept rising and falling. Pleasure mixed with disappointment, the feeling of having gained something mixed with the feeling of having lost something. A truly adventurer-like set of emotions. Etran changed the subject, partly to calm their worked-up leader.
“What should we do about the Well Cavern?”
“What do you mean, what should we do? Conquer it, of course!”
“I'm still hungry!” Olivia declared, thrusting a fist into the air. Dahlia put a hard baguette into Olivia's mouth, and steel-like teeth bit through it with a Crunch! As expected of a warrior who had defeated a hobgoblin one-on-one.
“If the master monster of the Shadow Castle Ruins was a hobgoblin, there's a good chance the Well Cavern's is one, too. Connected dungeons tend to have similar natures.”
“Then that's even better! We've already proved our artillery works, haven't we?”
Just as Etran recognized their abilities, Olivia and Dahlia trusted and relied on their genius mage's skill.
“Now that the Shadow Castle Ruins have been conquered, no more lesser monsters should appear there. And with so few people around, the shares will be bigger. This really is the perfect chance. What do you think, Etran?”
“Me?”
“You're a member of the party, too. You should give us your opinion.”
Etran was flustered by the two pairs of eyes looking at him so seriously, but he pulled himself together. He joined in as a man who did his share, as a member of the group.
“I'm in, too. It'd be a shame to waste all that packing, so let's get it done.”
“That's the spirit! You're a bold kid, whatever your looks might suggest!”
Olivia's party toasted with mugs of beer and milk. It all felt strangely familiar, but their enthusiasm carried them past that. Five days later, news of a second dungeon conquest spread through Northland.
This time, Olivia's party was listed first.
The Guild administrators and some adventurers took an interest in the party whose names had appeared in both dungeon conquests. The presence of a name that had recently caused a stir in the world of magic helped, too. A small but solid reputation was taking shape.
“Four hundred and fifty dena? Four hundred and fifty?! We found a jar of gold dust, and all we get is four hundred and fifty dena?”
“The gold sold for a good price.”
“Then why?!”
“You already took an advance against your share.”
“......”
Still, adventuring was a good profession. With hope and romance to be found in it, it wasn't easy to quit. It certainly wasn't because they needed to make a living. They weren't complete idiots. Why would they do work that left them with nothing?
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