Chapter 73 (1/2)

Ch. 73: Hearing a Story Without Destruction

There wasn’t a rumor about a school that shut down going around.

The job that he had accepted for it via the adventurer’s guild, was supposed to have given significant human as well as material casualties, but apparently it wasn’t enough to shake the school’s foundation.

Either that, or that muscle head of a principal was actually quite good at his job, thought Loren as he was in the guild’s bar with Klaus, who was buying him a drink.

As for why, ever since Loren became an adventurer he had been with him quite a bit, and from his standpoint, Loren had helped him many times and was very thankful and it seemed like he felt that he owed him a lot, so he had called him saying that he wanted to buy him a drink.

At first Loren wasn’t interested, but as Klaus continued to ask him, he decided that Klaus would leave him alone if he let him, so today was the day that they had decided to meet up.

“I don’t know about drinking from the middle of the day, though.”

It was something he had been doing since he became an adventurer but having someone buy him a drink was a different story, he thought as he swirled the cup in his hand.

The drink inside was something a lot more expensive than what he usually drank, and he felt a bit bad.

Sitting in front was Klaus, with a plate of sausages in front of him and drinking the same thing as Loren, looked at him with surprise.

“What’s with that face?”

“I didn’t think you were one to worry about something like that.”

Loren wondered if he looked like such a rough person.

He had never seen someone drink before working, at least, back when he was a mercenary.

Most of them didn’t because they knew it would cost them their lives.

But of course, there were exceptions so there were some who drank regardless, but those were exceptions of exceptions, so they weren’t relevant.

“Adventurers have some time on their hands when they aren’t on jobs, so it must be different from being a mercenary.”

Klaus said with a small smile when Loren told him about the times when he was a mercenary.

The smile along with his good looks was enough to convince Loren why women couldn’t resist him, but since he was the same gender, all he could do was snort.

“I think that smacking your lips on expensive drinks when the sun is high isn’t too bad every now and then.”

Loren dropped his gaze down to the purple liquid swirling inside his cup.

The cheap drinks that Loren usually drank was mostly made from grains, but what was in his hand was made from fermented grapes.

The cheap alcohol that the bar served was stored in large barrels and was poured from it, but what they were having was inside a bottle, which he guessed raised the price even more.

“It’s wine from Vargenburg. They say that this year’s batch is exceptional.”

“Vargenburg? Where’s that?”

Klaus froze for a second at Loren’s question.

After a moment he gave Loren an unbelievable gaze, but Loren glared back, since he didn’t like it when guys stared at him like that, and he didn’t like the way Klaus was looking at him.

Klaus saw Loren glaring back and waved his hands in a panic, afraid that he had worsened his mood.

“Wait a second. You know the name of this city, right?”

“Kauffa, right?”

“Kauffa is a city of a nation on the southwestern part of the continent called the Kingdom of Vargenburg, but have you not heard it before?”

All Loren thought was, “Oh, okay”.

He did think he was a bit too unconcerned, but back in his mercenary days, information such as the name of the nation and what the locals called place where the battlefield was going to be was only needed by the leader or the executives.

To mercenaries, who didn’t belong to any one nation, they first thought about who their enemies were and how to defeat them rather than the name of the nation or the land, and that was still the same for Loren.

“If you start getting more known as an adventurer, you’ll get job offers from the nation as well as nobles so you should really gather some information.”

“I’m barely making enough to feed myself, so I don’t think such a day will be coming anytime soon.”

He didn’t say the it won’t ever come, but if such a day were to come, it would be far into the future.

“I don’t think it’ll be that long with your skill with your sword.”

“That’s just my arm strength. Anyone could do what I can if they could swing this around.”

As Loren patted the black great sword next to him, Klaus let out a weak laugh with an awkward smile on his face.

Anyone could tell that Loren’s main weapon, his great sword, was exceedingly heavy just by looking at its gigantic size.

Klaus couldn’t think of anyone other than Loren who could swing such a weapon around.

It was heavy enough that if someone asked him if he could use it like Loren could, he would immediately say no.

“I did learn normal swordsmanship…but it didn’t really sink in.”

“I’d like to see it once.”

“It’s not much. Even my leader told me I wasn’t cut out for it and gave up trying to teach me.”

Loren felt an indescribable emotion when the word ‘leader’ left his lips.

When he was still a mercenary fighting under his leader, he had never imagined that he would experience his group being destroyed, being separated from his companions, and becoming an adventurer in an unknown place.

But in reality he was an adventurer in the city of Kauffa, located within the Kingdom of Vargenburg, with no idea where his companions were or how many of them managed to survive.

On top of that, he had a demon priestess that served the Knowledge god that stood as his companion, so he had no idea what other kinds of people he would meet.