Similar to a boy who once cried ogres and found there were none—Owen Liddell found himself a bit ostracized for telling a mother that her son was dead. At least a couple of people in the village gave him nasty looks.
While the Innkeeper herself had been kind and reassured him that mistakes were natural when she served him breakfast, the others were not.
Tobias included.
But he ignored it now in lieu of walking around the village and tried not to glare at the sun basking down its harsh rays at him. It only made his headache worse, even as he left the shambly shack called the laboratory and home.
He was practically shooed away without any differences that he almost expected that a speaking stone with a record of her shooing the people away was what he heard.
The current Alchemist in the village did not want to see him. The rest of the others seemed to have moved on to bigger cities for more profit, which was reasonable, but it meant he needed to do something incredible to see her.
And he knew that Alchemists tended to have a zany side to them.
Owen Liddell hadn't gotten the chance to acquire many recipes from his father's notebooks. The man had probably written down in parchments of paper that got lost in his workroom or something else.
So this Alchemist was his best shot.
Although there was another thing that he learned today that got his attention more—no Mage Guild, Adventurer's Guild, or any sort of Guild… Well, there was the Merchant Guild, but it had only been one man in his house.
That meant he only had one place to go to.
"What do you mean that there's no need for your people to have a Mage Guild?"
"There's not much money to be found here," Vernon cleared his throat awkwardly. It was almost terrible to admit it as a Village Head, but that was the truth of the matter. "Sometimes a Runner goes here to deliver some packages from distant relatives, but we're usually better off having letters sent when our Merchants visit other villages and towns to trade."
Business barely trickled in to be short.
Owen Liddell wanted to be respectful. He was talking to an older man, but there was a stress he had to give. "The Oaken Ashwood has goblins living there, I stumbled upon it while I was looking for Tobias—and it was there that I thought he was dead."
Even though he said he didn't care about their thoughts, he clarified that.
"There's always been monsters in the Oaken Ashwoods, and rarely any of them ever stumbles out to attack the village. Most of them are busy attacking one another, you know?" Vernon said. "It's like multiple threats keeping each other in check. The wolves eat the goblins, goblins attack back, some owls strike at some mice and snakes loitering on the ground and trees."
Maybe that had worked.
Their village didn't even have many walls to protect itself. But he shook his head.
"Simply calling them monsters is a bit inaccurate. While they are in the Adventurer's handbook as monsters to be dealt with, they're more similar to uncivilized races—they can also think, if only predisposed to war and bloodshed. They're more cunning than animals is what I'm trying to say, and the fact that there's no Mage Guild here means I cannot send a message to my grandparents to send a team here and deal with it."
The Village Head blinked a couple of times and then scratched his head.
"I see, but if anything does happen, I'm sure that the villagers here can surely keep up with threats like goblins. They're not really strong, often small too. With even a stick and [ Lesser Strength ], we're capable of pounding one to blow its head to bits."
"While their size is small, but their numbers—"
"I appreciate the concern, Owen, I really do," Vernon said at last. His voice held a touch of finality and authority in it—because a Village Head was still a leader of numerous people—he gave the younger man a smile. "I'll keep note of it, but look at Tobias, even if his pack was stolen by the goblins—he came home unharmed!"
Owen ground his teeth. It was indeed something he thought was strange, but maybe it was because Tobias didn't look appetizing or had smelled like wolf dung when they stumbled upon him. Whatever the case, he stood up and nodded. "Thank you."
"If you want to send a letter to your grandparents, I think Egbert is going to travel out soon. You can send it for as cheap as three coppers or four in case you're interested." Vernon said before he left the man's place and stumbled out into the dirt road of the village.
His headache hurt and throbbed more.
And he only had one thing to blame—his stupid Skill.
[ Drinker's System Efficiency ]
Somehow it made his body react more heavily to the alcohol he had drunk, and he sported the worst hangover he ever had in a while. He felt sluggish, and the Skill seemed impractical.
He knew that some people gained something like [ Alcohol Immunity ] that resisted the effects of getting drunk, making them drink more because they wouldn't get splitting headaches or vomit atrociously.
While it had the backlash effect of not actually getting drunk, it was useful in beating other drinkers in alcohol drinking contests and such.
He on the other hand, maybe it was his stupid wish to drink himself to oblivion that he gained this Skill in particular. It made his body, his system, to be more efficient that it only took him a couple of drinks to feel the effects?
It was such a useless—
Owen stopped dead in his tracks. A sudden thought gripping him in the head that it was idiotic that his brain hadn't processed it from the moment he had woken up. He blamed the alcohol and hangover again.
Alcohol wasn't the only drink available.