Chapter 52 (2/2)

“What do you mean by that?”

“This guild runs an inn in the floors above. I went ahead and rented two rooms, so we don’t have to worry about sleeping outside.”

Loren was familiar with bars running inns in the same building, but he didn’t expect the adventurer’s guild to run both a bar and an inn.

One would think, how many things the guild was dealing in, but both bars and inns were facilities that adventurers needed and thinking about how some guilds ran weapon and equipment shops as well, it wasn’t that surprising.

“We don’t know how long we would be in the dungeon until we hear the details tomorrow. We might have to live off rations for a while, so let’s treat ourselves to some good food.”

Even Lapis couldn’t get her hands on details such as how long the exam was going to be, but when adventurers went to explore dungeons, they would be in there for days, even weeks sometimes.

It was almost impossible to find food or water inside dungeons, and the food and water they bring with them had to be compact as possible, so they would end up eating rations the whole time.

This time they were going in with students, so Lapis guessed that it wouldn’t be that long, but also guessed that the school might limit food to rations to let the students get used to it.

“Well, I don’t think there is a need for us to do the same as them but eating good food right next to students eating rations doesn’t feel too good either, though.”

“I agree with you on that one.”

Loren sat down at the corner of the bar, but he pushed the menu towards Lapis without even looking through it.

Lapis, who was looking through the menu, trying to decide what to order, saw the menu that Loren pushed towards her and gave him a puzzled look.

“Order mine too. You’re paying anyway.”

“You can order what you want, you know?”

Lapis said so, without denying the fact that she was paying, but Loren shrugged.

“I’ve eaten at bars often when I was a mercenary, and the only thing we’ve said when ordering was ‘give us meat and alcohol’, and we would get our food. I don’t know what I should order.”

“That’s interesting…What did you do say in Kauffa?”

“The waitress gave me recommendations.”

Since Loren was at the guild’s bar very often, he became acquaintances with the waitresses that worked there.

At first, Loren asked them to give him food and drinks, but after getting friendly with each other, they started giving him recommendations and told him which dishes were good and to try them at least once.

Loren was thankful for the information, as he didn’t really care about food, but it was the first time he’d been in this guild’s bar and didn’t know any of the waitresses.

He guessed that he would just have to order food and alcohol, but since he was with Lapis, he decided to leave everything up to her.

“You should show some interest in this kind of thing too, you know?”

“On the battlefield, if you have food, that’s more than you could ask for. You’re lucky if it tastes good, but as long as it filled your stomach it’s fine if it doesn’t, right?”

Not having any food wasn’t uncommon, so it was quant.i.ty over quality.

It wasn’t once or twice that eating wasn’t something to enjoy, but instead it was an action to keep you from starving.

After going through such experiences repeatedly, you would stop caring what went in your mouth.

“That’s pretty dull, but then again, it was when you were a mercenary.”

While muttering under her breath, that she just needed to slowly reform him, Lapis started thinking about what to order for Loren.

Leaving that to her, Loren looked around the bar.

The atmosphere wasn’t much different that the bar in Kauffa.

A fun atmosphere that was sometimes noisy, sometimes unruly, and a bit dirty.

As Loren thought that the atmosphere shouldn’t be too different because it was used in the same way, he narrowed his eyes at a group that was out of place.

It was a very young group.

The group seemed unbalanced, with three men and one woman, but they seemed quite friendly with each other, and were talking too each other in hushed voices, glancing around the bar with curiosity. In front of them was a simple meal and cups, they didn’t look like they contained alcohol.

He started observing them, thinking that it was rare for adventurers to come to a bar and not drink alcohol, but his sight immediately blocked by a group of rough-looking adventurers.

One of the adventures from the group began to bother the lively looking girl with short black hair.

Her companions, the three young men, stood up to stop him, but the rest of his group blocked them and couldn’t help her.

After confirming that the girl looked uncomfortable and her companions were getting blocked by the other adventurers, Loren stood up from his seat, not saying anything to Lapis, who was still looking at the menu.

Bothering waitresses and employees was common among mercenaries as well, and it was laughed off if it didn’t go too far, but if a mercenary did that to a customer, as he was, he couldn’t complain if he got beaten up by the rest of his group.

To Loren, who had been taught that by his former companions, couldn’t ignore what was happening in front of his eyes.

“Loren?”

Lapis stopped Loren, who had started to move towards the quarrel, without looking away from the menu, and told him.

“I don’t mind you doing it, but don’t kill them, okay? You don’t want to go to prison before we even start the job, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, I know. I’ll go easy on them.”

“It’s disturbing other customers, so go shut them up quickly.”

Lapis told Loren that she would order the food in the meanwhile, not worried about him at all, and Loren told her to leave it to him, and continued walking over to the quarrel that was still going on.