Chapter 26 (1/2)

“You chose quite the safe job, collecting herbs.”

After the one-sided sc.r.a.p at the bar, Loren went to the quest board, chose a quest at random, and walked out, wanting to avoid the commotion.

The quest that he picked was “gathering herbs in a nearby forest”.

Since there weren’t any strong monsters living there, the difficulty was the lowest, and the guild bought the herbs at two copper coins apiece.

It seemed like selling resources and ingredients rather than a quest, but to the guild, which had adventurers getting injured all year long, the more they could get their hands on the better. This is why this quest was always on the quest board.

“There’s no monsters there so I don’t need to have a weapon.”

To Loren, who didn’t have a weapon, this quest was perfect for him, but when he thought about how cheap the herbs were, he didn’t feel like doing it.

The amount of money he needed to compensate for the chair, table, and the wall that broke when Loren punched the iron rank adventurer was four silver coins.

The wall costed three silver coins and the table and chair costed one, so no Loren’s total debt was fourteen silver coins and ten copper coins.

“You’re going to need seven hundred and fifty herbs to pay off your debt.”

“Don’t say something so discouraging. There’s no way there’s that many of them in this forest.”

The forest they were heading towards wasn’t that large.

That’s why there weren’t dangerous monsters, but there was no way such a small forest would have the number of herbs that Lapis pointed out.

It took an hour to get to the forest.

Loren wasn’t sure how it worked, but he did know that the day was split into twelve parts, and an hour was one out of the twelve. In large cities, the bell rang at every hour to tell the time.

As soon as they reached the forest an hour later, Loren walked in and started looking for herbs.

Herbs had helped Loren a lot back when he was a mercenary, so he knew a lot about them.

They had slightly pointed leaves and was hard to mistake for a different plant.

“This is so dull.”

Lapis, who was following Loren, stopped to pick a stalk.

She raised it up in front of her eyes and stared at it. She then threw it into the sack she was carrying.

“Why are you collecting herbs too?”

“I need to earn some money too. I won’t look good if I don’t have any money to lend you when you need it.”

Loren thought that she didn’t need to do such a dull quest, as she seemed to have enough money already to lend him some, and drooped his head with a limp expression.

He figured lending him money was the reason why Lapis, who had enough money for herself, was taking part in the quest.

“Anyways Loren, you’re missing quite a lot of them.”

“Ugh…I’m not good at these kinds of things.”

Loren had found quite a bit and put them into his sack, but he couldn’t help but overlook some.

Lapis was gathering the herbs that Loren missed, but the sizes of their sacks were roughly the same, showing Loren how much he was overlooking.

“If there was a battle or two going on, repaying you would be so much easier.”

Although Loren said that, if someone asked him if he wanted to go back to being a mercenary, he couldn’t say yes without hesitation.

He lived most of his life as a mercenary, but it wasn’t like he enjoyed killing people for a living.

He was sad that his group was destroyed, but now he started thinking of it as an opportunity to turn a clean slate.

“Even if there was a battle, you don’t have any equipment. Or do you want to try signing up as a soldier and get equipment that way?”

“That’s something I’d rather not do.”

In Loren’s eyes, the equipment given to ordinary people gathered by the recruiting office or who were drafted was miserable things.

Although the country readied funds to purchase good equipment for soldiers, but the money would pa.s.s through the hands of a few people, and the large sum of money would disappear.

Even though the funds get smaller, the amount of equipment they need doesn’t change.

Of course, the leftover funds reflect the quality of the equipment, and the soldiers were given spears that snapped after one jab, leather armor that would crumble just by wearing it, and other things that seemed like a joke.

This wasn’t known among ordinary soldiers, but the member who oversaw the group’s finances told Loren that this was why the soldiers they faced in battle were so weak.

“We’re really not finding much.”

After some time pa.s.sed since they started gathering herbs, Loren and Lapis reached the far end of the forest.

Which meant they managed to cross the whole forest while gathering herbs.

Even after walking this distance, Loren’s sack that contained the herbs that he gathered was only half full.

The number of herbs that he managed to gather was around twenty.

“It can’t be helped. This quest is always open, so someone is always coming here to gather herbs.”

The sack of herbs that Lapis had was the same size as Loren’s.

There was enough time until sundown, but considering the time it’ll take them to get back to the city, they needed to start heading back now.

Loren didn’t want to risk sleeping outside without a weapon, and wanted to sleep in a bed if he could.

“I guess we should head back.”

“We’re at a slight loss, though.”

Loren gave Lapis a nervous look, but Lapis continued with a cool face.

“The inn that the guild recommends costs thirty copper coins a night. Food would cost between five to seven copper coins. If you decide to have a drink, a gla.s.s costs two copper coins. In total, a day’s living expenses range from forty-five to fifty-three copper coins.”

Loren gloomily did the calculations and figured out that the money he would get from the herbs wasn’t enough to cover all of that.

He had to face the reality that if this continued, there was no way he was going to be able to pay Lapis back.

“I would like to suggest making up your mind about borrowing money from me to get some good equipment.”

“I’m going to have to start thinking about that. Wait, how are other copper rank adventurers living? Don’t tell me…”

Loren thought that maybe they were covered in debt as well, and Lapis answered as she tied her sack tightly.

“They’re definitely head deep in debt. That’s why they try to get quest where they get paid a lot. If they succeed earn money, and if they fail they might die. The most solid route is raising your rank to iron and having a veteran party pick you up.”

“I guess this world is pretty rough…”