Chereads / Mushoku Tensei - Jobless Reincarnation / Chapter 36 - A Smooth Start

Chapter 36 - A Smooth Start

When we made our way to the front door of the Adventurers' Guild

the next morning, a lizard-man immediately approached me.

"Oh, hello there. I already took care of ranking us up."

For a moment, I had no idea who this guy was supposed to be, but then

I noticed the bug-eyed lady next to him and realized they were the petnappers

from yesterday. Their names were…uh, Jalil? And Vizquel, I guess?

In my defense, it was tough to tell one face from another around here.

There were a ton of lizard-people in this city, and it didn't help that these two

were wearing leather armor instead of the civilian clothes they'd had on the

day before. They seemed like totally different people when they dressed like

commonplace adventurers instead of commonplace citizens.

"Good morning, Jalil. Thank you very much for dealing with that."

"Wh-what's with the polite tone? You're giving me the creeps…"

"I'm just speaking respectfully. Is that a problem?"

"N-no, no…"

When I glared at him, Jalil quickly averted his eyes. "Nice to see you

as well, Vizquel. I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Uh…right." Vizquel was staring fearfully at Ruijerd. To be fair,

Ruijerd was glaring daggers at the two of them. Oh well.

"Well then, shall we head inside?"

"Y-yeah. Sure," Jalil said with a nervous little nod.

The moment we stepped foot inside the guild itself, a certain horse-

man spotted us and sauntered over. "Hey there!"

"…Hi."

This guy was hanging around in here again…? Seriously, how did he

make any money?

"Oh hoh, what's this? You're with P Hunter today, huh?"

"H-hey there, Nokopara. Been a while."

Apparently, Horseface and our new friend lizard-man were

acquaintances. "Yeah, long time no see, Jalil. I heard about you guys rankin'

up to C! Sure that's a good idea? Ya won't be able to work those pet jobs

anymore, ya know?"

Pausing for a moment, Nokopara looked from Jalil to me and back

again, then nodded with a horse-like neigh.

"Nooow I get it. No wonder ya pulled off that lost-pet thing yesterday,

kiddo! Musta convinced P Hunter to help you out, right?"

"P Hunter" was presumably the name of Jalil's party. Sounded about

right. "Yep, exactly!" I said. "We ran into them while we were looking for

that pet yesterday, and they offered to show us the ropes!"

"Oh hoh. So timid little Jalil's found himself some apprentices now?

And one of 'em's even a bogus Superd! Guhuhuh…"

Horseface was all too happy to buy my low-effort lie. He'd totally

misunderstood the situation in a rather convenient way for us. After chortling

to himself for a while, he leaned over to look around Jalil. "Hey, I don't see

Roman with ya today. Where's he at?"

"Y-yeah…Roman, uh…died."

"Ah, gotcha. That's too bad."

Roman was presumably the name of that man Ruijerd killed. Nokopara

didn't sound especially shaken up by the news. Maybe someone dying wasn't

even that big a deal in this line of work. Was I the only one who'd taken it

that seriously? Jalil and Vizquel seemed relatively indifferent about the whole

thing as well.

"Still, if ya lost Roman, why would ya wanna rank up now? That guy

was the best fighter in yer party, wasn't he?"

"W-well, I…" Jalil shot me a nervous glance. Seeing this, Nokopara let

out another knowing neigh.

"Ah, yeah, I see how it is. Ya don't have to answer that one. Course

you'd wanna look like a bigshot in front'a yer new apprentices!"

It was almost impressive how neatly he'd wrapped things up for

himself there. With a few friendly slaps on Jalil's back, Nokopara finally

turned and headed back toward the tables. I could hear the lizard-man let out

a small sigh of relief.

Seriously, though, what was that guy's deal? He was constantly

harassing us. Did he have a crush on me or something? Nah…if anything, he

seemed to spend more time looking at Ruijerd. Maybe he was partial to

rugged, scar-faced men?

Somehow, I doubted it.

"Okay then. Why don't we take a look at the task board, everyone?"

As we strode further into the guild, a few people shot us peculiar looks.

For now, we were better off pretending not to notice. Since the three of us

were apparently "apprentices" now, I made a point of asking Jalil and

Vizquel some questions as we looked over the jobs in the D- to B-rank range.

"Is there a difference between 'harvesting' and 'collection' tasks,

guys?"

"Huh? U-uh, sure. They call it harvesting when you're gathering

plants. The collection ones are mostly for stuff from monsters, I guess…"

Our new mentor's response was a bit on the vague side, but it seemed

roughly accurate. Harvesting jobs mostly seemed to involve finding

medicinal herbs and such…while collection was more of a catch-all for other

types of "fetch quests."

"Oh, right. Ruijerd?"

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry, but I think we need to focus on earning money and building

up our rank for a while."

"…Why are you apologizing to me?"

"Because we're putting that other matter on the back burner."

I did tell Jalil and Vizquel to spread the word about Dead End. I wasn't

expecting much on that front though. I'd briefly considered micro-managing

them to make sure they were helping people with a smile, but, fundamentally,

it seemed smarter to stay hands-off. So long as we kept our distance from these two, we could cut them loose if it became necessary. Even if their

criminal activities were exposed, and even if they tried to push the blame

onto Dead End, they'd just get laughed off—after all, they were much higher-

ranked than we were, and everyone already knew Ruijerd was a 'phony.'

"That's all right, Rudeus. I understand."

Since Ruijerd wasn't raising any objections, I proceeded to pick out a

few jobs in consultation with Jalil.

***

After exchanging a few words of greeting with the gate guards, the

three of us headed out of town.

In the vicinity of Rikarisu, it seemed that Pax Coyotes, Acid Wolves,

Great Tortoises, and Great Rock Turtles were your best bets when it came to

hunting monsters. Pax Coyotes you mostly killed for their pelts; Acid Wolves

for their fangs and tails; Great Tortoises were walking piles of meat; and you

could find magic stones inside the Great Rock Turtles. We'd decided to

ignore the Great Tortoises this time around, mainly because their meat was

absurdly heavy.

Great Rock Turtles were top-priority targets. The magic stones you got

from them were small but valuable, which allowed for some very efficient

hunts. Only problem was, these were pretty rare monsters at this point, and

you couldn't find any too close to places where people lived.

I'd ended up taking a Pax Coyote pelt-collection job back at the guild.

All things considered, they seemed like our best bet, since they came in

decent-sized groups that let you earn a nice profit from a single battle.

Of course, that only made things somewhat more efficient, given that

we had to track them down and skin them…so if we stumbled across any

Acid Wolves out there, I was planning to hunt those as well. We hadn't taken

on any jobs to gather materials from them, but with collection quests, you

could do the actual gathering part before you even accepted a job. Once you

had enough raw materials, you could take on the task and bring them straight

to the guild's purchasing counter. In any case…the Pax Coyotes were our main focus for now. You'd

usually get about ten per group at most. Given the time it'd take to track them

down and skin them afterward, I'd initially assumed we wouldn't be able to

kill that many in a single day.

After we hunted down and skinned our first group, though, Ruijerd

began gathering their corpses in a pile. At first, I didn't understand what he

was doing.

"Can you spread the scent around using wind magic, Rudeus?"

Ah. Now it all makes sense. We were going to use the smell of their

blood to draw other monsters to this spot. I proceeded to billow the air in

various directions, advertising our pile of fresh meat to the entire surrounding

area.

"Giant stone turtles can't be lured this way, but we should attract every

Pax Coyote in the vicinity at least."

It went off just as Ruijerd said it would. By the end of that day, we'd

killed more than a hundred Pax Coyotes—enough that I wondered if we may

have eradicated them completely from this area.

It had been a very hectic undertaking. Ruijerd and Eris slaughtered

wave after wave of the monsters for hours on end. And I squatted behind

them, working feverishly to skin the damn things.

It was grueling, repetitive labor. After pelt number thirty or so, my

arms grew heavy, my shoulders started to ache, and the scent of blood

became downright nauseating. Entertaining myself with fantasies of monsters

that instantly transformed into gold once their HP hit zero, I managed to

struggle on for some time, but I had to quit after roughly seventy pelts.

At this point, I swapped places with Eris.

Killing Pax Coyotes with magic proved much less agonizing than

skinning them. I picked the things off one by one for a while, slowly

adjusting the power of my spells to avoid blowing them apart or doing too

much damage to their pelts. This was definitely more my kind of work. It

actually involved some conscious thought for one thing.

But just as I was beginning to enjoy myself, Eris threw in the towel—

having managed maybe thirty pelts. Evidently, she was even less cut out for manual labor than I was.

I assumed Ruijerd would take over the skinning now, but by this point

we almost had too many pelts—the pile was getting unwieldy. We made the

call to start carrying the things back to the city, a job that would require

multiple trips.

"Wait," interjected Ruijerd. "Before that, we ought to burn the

corpses."

"You want to burn them? Not roast them or whatever?"

"Pax Coyote meat is truly foul. We're just going to set fire to them and

bury them."

When you left a pile of corpses lying around, they'd serve as a food

source for other monsters, encouraging them to multiply. Merely setting fire

to them wasn't enough to dissuade monsters from eating them; and if we just

buried them, they'd apparently come back as "Zombie Coyotes."

Accordingly, you had to burn the things and bury them afterward.

A nice little plan instantly popped into my head:

1. Kill Pax Coyotes. Take pelts.

2. Bury the bodies as is, producing tons of Zombie Coyotes.

3. Wait for a Zombie-Coyote-slaying job to be posted at the guild.

4. Profit!

Unfortunately, Ruijerd shot down the suggestion. It seemed that

deliberately allowing monsters to multiply was a major taboo in these parts.

Wish they'd write down these little local rules somewhere, man… "But

we didn't do this stuff for the monsters we killed on our trip over here, did

we?"

"It's not necessary when you've only slain a few."

Seemed like an awfully vague rule. Still, a festering pile of bodies this

massive seemed like it might be problematic from a public health perspective

too. Since I couldn't find any real grounds for an objection, I proceeded to burn the bodies to a crisp.

By the time we finished carrying our haul of pelts back to the city, the

sun was setting. Our first hunt was finally over. It had been a very productive

one. I was ready to go straight back to the inn and get some sleep.

Was I really going to be out there skinning dozens of those things

again tomorrow, though? I sort of felt like we'd earned a day off…

"We really cashed in big today, huh? Let's do even better tomorrow!"

But in the face of Eris's enthusiasm, I couldn't bring myself to

disagree.

***

A mere three days later, "Dead End" formally ascended to rank E.

"Nice work out there." With a few appreciative words, I handed Jalil a

tenth of the cash we'd earned on the hunt that day.

"Th-thanks, man."

Ten percent was what we'd agreed on, but…it didn't seem like that

much money. When I asked Jalil if they were really getting by on this, he

explained that he wasn't just an adventurer by trade—he also operated a

business in the city.

"What type of business?"

"Uh, a pet store."

Oh wow. So first you sell them, then you steal them? Kinda scuzzy,

man.

"Don't do anything too evil, okay?"

"Yeah, I know."

The pet shop business was apparently a legitimate one anyway. They

caught stray animals around the city, put them through a bit of training, then

sold them off as pets. Jalil was a member of the Rugonian race, a people

renowned for their beast-taming expertise. With the help of techniques passed

down through the generations, he could supposedly "domesticate" anything from a stray mutt to a proud woman warrior of the Beastfolk.

Goodness gracious, what a wicked tribe.

It was a good thing Eris and Ruijerd were here with me, or I may have

ended up groveling at his feet and asking for tips.

Leaving all that aside, this pet shop sounded like a profitable operation

—with an upside for the city as a whole, since he was taking potentially

dangerous animals off the streets.

"So, uh. Why did you even start abducting pets if you already had a

legitimate line of work?"

"At first, we were just taking in ones that got lost, but…I guess

something got into us."

Sure. It must have been pretty tempting once they got the idea in their

heads. And once they gave in to that temptation, it was all downhill from

there.

"Anyway, isn't it tough to run a shop while also working as

adventurers?"

"Nah, not really. We're stocked with enough pets to last us a while."

Apparently, they only kept the shop open until the early afternoon, then

switched over to working on guild tasks for the rest of the day. "Well, I guess

it's no skin off my nose either way. So long as you keep getting the

jobs done."

"No worries on that front, chief—we're adventurers in our own right.

And we're making sure to spread the word about Dead End too."

Hmm. If you say so…

***

We'd made ourselves a bit of spending money at this point, so it

seemed about time to buy new clothes and combat armor.

First of all, we picked out some clothing from a street vendor.

Eris didn't take long at all to decide. She just wanted something sturdy but light-weight and easy to run in, criteria that led her to a less than stylish

pair of pants.

It seemed like a sensible choice, especially given our current

circumstances, but I felt like it wouldn't hurt to have at least one "feminine"

option as well. When I pointed Eris to a frilly pink one piece dress I'd spotted

in a corner of the shop, though, she grimaced in disgust.

"…You seriously want me to wear something like this?"

"Can't hurt to have at least one girly dress, right?"

"Oh yeah? Then how about you buy something manly, Rudeus?"

She pushed a fur vest at me. It looked like something a mountain

bandit might wear.

Hmm. So if I put this thing on, Eris would wear a frilly dress?

It didn't seem like a bad deal for a second, but then I pictured the two

of us standing next to each other in our new outfits and immediately dropped

the idea.

Once we were done buying clothes, we proceeded to a local armor

shop.

Eris hadn't yet suffered any serious wounds in combat, and I could use

Healing magic to treat any minor injuries, so I'd been under the impression

she didn't really need armor. But as Ruijerd told me: "Your spells can't heal

fatal wounds or restore a missing limb, and Eris is still unaccustomed to

battle. Complacency and carelessness can cost young warriors their lives." It

wasn't a good idea for her to go without defensive gear.

The armor shop was a large and impressive establishment, although

still somewhat cruder than the stores I'd seen back in Asura. The wares on

display inside were universally more expensive than the stuff you could

purchase from the city's street vendors. The stalls and carts were your best

bet for cheaper items, and sometimes you'd discover a hidden gem among the

piles of junk, but shops like this offered reliable quality and a superior

selection. They also had a wide range of sizes…which was pretty helpful,

given that the two of us were children.

"Protecting your heart is really important, so I think we ought to buy the best one we can…"

At the moment, we were picking out a breastplate for Eris. There were

a wide variety of these for female warriors in particular, designed to fit

people with varying bust sizes.

"This looks fine to me," said Eris, pulling on a beast-hide model that fit

her perfectly. "What do you think, Rudeus?"

Naturally, I wasn't about to pass up a legitimate opportunity to stare at

a girl's chest. Hmm… Looks like things are coming along nicely. "You

should probably go with one that's one size larger."

"Why?"

Come on, think about it. "We're still growing kids. Anything that fits

you perfectly right now will be too small in no time." I picked out a similar

breastplate in a slightly larger size and handed it to Eris.

"It's all loose on me…"

"Nah, you're fine. Don't worry about it."

Muttering complaints, Eris proceeded to pick out other bits of armor

for various parts of her body. All the fighting we'd been doing lately had

given her a sense of where she was most vulnerable to injury. It wasn't hard

to find gear to protect her joints and vital organs.

Her head posed more of a dilemma, though. An overly heavy helmet

would only slow her down. Still, we didn't want to leave such an important

part of her body totally undefended.

"How about something like this?" I said, presenting her with a full-face

helmet that reminded me of one of the eviler Hokuto brothers.

"Not a chance," she said with a grimace.

Kids these days. No appreciation for the classics.

We went on try all sorts of different helmets, but Eris rejected every

single one of them on the grounds of heaviness, ugliness, smelliness, or

making it too hard to see. Ultimately, she settled on a headband of sorts; it

had iron plates sewn into it to offer some protection.

Of course, the hood we'd purchased earlier was solely to hide her eye-

catching red hair. It was meaningless from a defensive perspective.

"I guess that's all of it. What do you think, Rudeus? Do I look like an

adventurer?!"

With the cutlass-like sword Rowin had given us fastened at her hip,

Eris twirled to show off her new set of light armor. To be perfectly honest, it

looked a bit like a cosplay…especially since that breastplate didn't quite fit.

"Splendid, miss. Simply splendid. You're the very picture of a

seasoned warrior."

"You think? Hehehe…"

Eris put her hands on her hips and looked down at herself with a

satisfied grin. As she savored the moment, I haggled down the cost of her

equipment to one iron coin. Not a minor purchase by any means, but we were

buying a full set of armor here.

"Okay, Rudeus! You're up next!"

"I don't think I really need anything, do I?"

"Of course you do! You're a magician, so you should have a robe!"

I got the impression Eris had a certain fondness for stories where a

heroic young warrior set off on an adventure with a magic-using childhood

friend at their side. There were nights when the girl barely got any sleep, but

she was certainly spunky during the daylight hours.

Ah well. Guess I'll play along.

"Hey, mister. Do you have any robes that would fit me?"

The elderly owner of the armor shop walked over silently and opened

up one of his wardrobes.

"Here. These were made for halflings."

Inside, there was a wide variety of colored robes, all with slightly

different designs. They seemed to come in five hues: red, yellow, blue, green,

and grey. None were particularly vivid.

"Does the color make some sort of difference?"

"The colored ones have monster hair woven into the fabric. Gives you

a bit of protection against a specific element."

"Okay, so red would be fire, and yellow must be earth… Uh, what are the grey ones?"

"Just plain fabric."

Ah. No wonder those are basically half-price. The cost of the other

colors varied slightly as well. It probably had something to do with the

materials they used to make them.

"So I guess you'd want a blue one, Rudeus!" said Eris.

"Hmm, I wonder…" In close-range combat, I'd been known to use

explosive blasts to send myself flying through the air. Maybe red or green

would be best? Hmm…stop or go?

"What type of spells do you know, boy?"

"I can use all the disciplines of attack magic."

"Hmm. Well, ain't that something. And here I thought you were just

some kid… Okay. This one might cost you a bit more, but…"

After rooting through the robes for a moment, the old man pulled out

one that was a notably darker shade of grey. "That's genuine Mackey Rat

hide right there."

"M-Mackey…Mouse?"

"I said rat, kid. Not mouse."

The image of a friendly fellow in bright red shorts floated briefly

through my mind; I shook my head violently until it disappeared. The robe

felt more like cloth than the hide of an animal, but that was probably just the

nature of the material.

"So what advantages does this one offer?"

"It doesn't offer any special protection against magic, but it's tough as

hell."

I slipped it on, just to see how it felt.

"It's a little baggy on me. Aren't there any smaller ones?"

"That's the smallest one I've got."

"They must make some for kids, right?"

"Why would they?"

Now I knew how that little judo guy must have felt when he tried to

put on a Normal Suit for the first time. Ah well. I was still a growing boy, so

maybe this was all right. The thing did seem to be made of quality material at

least… Judging from the feel, it'd probably provide some protection against

stabbing weapons.

I somewhat liked that it was made from a grey-skinned rodent too. Fit

nicely with my last name.

"Hmm, okay. Maybe I'll go with this one."

"You like that, huh? It's eight scrap iron coins."

"Well, let's see…"

After haggling with the old man to the best of my ability, I ended up

buying the robe for six scrap irons.

While we were at it, I also picked up two other headbands like Eris's,

but in different colors. These ones were for Ruijerd and myself. We could use

one to hide that eye on his forehead if we ever felt the need to.

Why did I need one, you might ask?

Well…it's no fun being the odd man out, you know?

***

Incidentally, I'd asked Ruijerd to spy on Vizquel while Eris and I went

out on our shopping trip. I wasn't expecting much out of her and Jalil, but

depending on how they behaved, there was a possibility our reputation could

be badly damaged. It seemed prudent to at least check in on them.

When I explained this to Ruijerd, however, he'd retorted that I never

should have joined forces with them in the first place if I was that worried

about their character. Definitely a fair point. But on the other hand, our

arrangement with them had produced some major financial benefits. For the

moment, a bit of paranoia felt like a small price to pay.

Long story short—our petnapper friends were performing their duties

admirably. They approached even F-ranked jobs with a positive attitude and

surprising diligence. Today, Vizquel had worked an insect-extermination job. Her objective

was to eradicate an infestation of loathsome critters that had occupied

someone's kitchen. Vizquel happened to be a member of the Zumeba race

whose saliva was poisonous, but also highly enticing to all sorts of bugs. Any

insect that ingested it would either die or be rendered totally immobile,

providing the Zumeba with a tasty snack.

In other words, Vizquel was born to do this type of work.

The client was an elderly woman—apparently a stubborn, cranky sort

who never seemed to stop frowning. Ruijerd's impression was that she

wouldn't hesitate to chase off anyone who displeased her in even the slightest

of ways.

It didn't come to that, of course. Vizquel got to work at once and

efficiently annihilated the insects; Ruijerd confirmed after the fact that there

wasn't a single insect left alive in the old woman's house. Vizquel even

stopped up a few gaps with some sort of thread-like substance, as a

preventative measure against invasion from the outside.

"Thank you, Vizquel. Those things were driving me crazy."

"No problem. If you ever need anything, just remember the name Dead

End Ruijerd, okay?"

"Dead End Ruijerd? Is that the name of your new party?"

"Yeah, more or less."

After dutifully advertising our brand, Vizquel handed the old lady a

few extra pieces of bait made from her saliva, then politely took her leave.

With her job complete, she promptly met up with us at the guild to take care

of the reward swapping.

"Sounds like she's doing good work out there, huh?"

"…Yes."

I certainly hadn't expected that level of perfection. Not only was

Vizquel already acquainted with the client, she'd gone above and beyond on

the customer service. It probably left a much better impression than my ad-lib

door-to-door salesman act would have. "Hmm. I guess they're not rotten to

the core after all, Ruijerd."

"Perhaps not."

To be fair, I'd been a bit suspicious of them as well, but I guess we

weren't asking that much. They were basically just doing ordinary jobs and

mentioning "Dead End" at the very end. If we got them thinking that

cooperating with us meant easy money for them, that was all for the best. It'd

make them less likely to betray us too.

"However, the fact remains that they committed many evil deeds."

"Yeah, you're right. But right now, they're out there putting in an

honest day's work…just like you, Ruijerd."

"Mm…"

Being a "criminal" doesn't mean you're irredeemable; that applied to

them as much as it did to Ruijerd and myself. It seemed like a good sign that

they'd stopped abducting pets even though we hadn't outright told them to.

That said, we were only three days into this partnership. The memory

of their brush with death was still fresh in their minds. "Of course, they may

only be playing along for the moment. We should keep checking in on them

like this whenever anything changes."

Ruijerd furrowed his brow at that. "You joined forces with these

people. Do you not…trust them at all?"

"Of course not. The only people I trust in this whole city are you and

Eris, Ruijerd."

"…I see."

He started reaching out for my head, but stopped short.

I did trust Ruijerd, but it felt like I was starting to lose his trust.

I could live with that though. My goal was to make it back to the

Kingdom of Asura with Eris. I'd do my best to improve the Superd race's

reputation while I was at it, but earning Ruijerd's respect wasn't on my list of

critical objectives.

"Well then, why don't we head back?"

We set off back toward our inn through streets lit only by illuminator

stones.

All things considered, our adventuring career was off to a smooth start.