All in all, the Laurel and Hardy gang donated eleven sets of clothing and a paltry twenty-three silvers and fifty-seven coppers. I left them, but not before promising to give either their clothes or the monetary proceeds to children in need. I told them I understood they didn’t give much, and the children’s need was great, but it was the thought that counted. I felt better after that, even Hana’s tension seemed to be relieved.

Ah, the smell of the adventurer guild building always caused me to reminisce. Something about its stained wooden panelling reminded me of old dusty government buildings. It didn’t seem too busy and there were still quests available. A quick tour past the quest board brought our attention to an interesting quest. The merchant’s guild issued a job to deliver emergency supplies desperately needed in Obon within forty days. The small reward of five small gold for every successfully delivered cartload seemed disappointing considering the level of risk.

The delivery quest, issued two days before, hadn’t been touched. Heck, even I wouldn’t under normal circumstances. That amount of gold couldn’t buy a large enough army to escort a caravan along a road known to be covered in monsters. The whole job smacked of political gesturing. I figured Obon just wasn’t that important a town, but Olivia later corrected my thinking when she explained that the only regular supply route ran through the Blister Oak Forest and the merchant guild refused to endorse merchants in their guild deciding to travel along that road.

The guild argued that the exorbitant costs of protection reduced their profit margins and insisted the palace military clear the road first. Since Obon technically fell under the palace’s auspices, they greedily petitioned the king in order to save them money while pushing the responsibility angle and using Obon’s starvation as the fulcrum to get what they wanted. Weirdly, they obviously felt bad enough that Obon suffered and ironically, to resolve themselves of any feelings of guilt, the merchant guild issued a quest through the adventurer guild to deliver goods to Obon. They obviously knew no adventurer would be stupid enough to take on that quest for that amount of gold.

They never calculated me into their balance sheets. When I thought of Alma, Orilay and the kids suffering while the world played politics made me angry. I just wish I knew exactly at whom I should be angry with though.

I know what you are thinking; having a transfer storage skill made a world of difference and you would be right. For one thing, I didn’t need to protect a wagon train and only one person needed get through to Obon. To be honest, the idea appealed to me but the quest’s expected level of difficulty required a minimum adventurer level of intermediate. I had to give it up, there was no way I could take that quest and besides, the guild would never endorse me with my Basic level.

“Mr. Karosaki, Mr. Karosaki.”

Olivia’s call echoed through the hubbub that surrounded us. She indicated to me to approach the reception counter. She looked her usual radiant and energetic self, adding an extra air of freshness to the place.

“Hi Olivia, how are you?”

“I’m fine Mr. Karosaki. Good to see you again Hana.”

“I take it you want to speak with us?”

“Oh yes. We have your quest reward.”

She handed me two pouches for our subjugation rewards of 314 silvers and 58 coppers each in small leather bags, cumulative total of 629 silver and sixteen coppers. Olivia didn’t hand anything directly to Hana because she was officially still not an adventurer. Olivia had nonetheless split the quest money in two bags as I requested. Olivia continued.

“Additionally, the subjugation ear you supplied us was from an ogre general. The guild considers that a notable subjugation and as a result, in those pouches, we have not only given you ten small gold reward including the ogre’s earring, but we’ve also increased your adventurer ability level to intermediate. The only reason you haven’t been advanced to expert level is due to your lack of experience.”

“That’s number three then.”

Hana’s dry quip floored me. Why did I managed to kill another ogre general, that was my third in as many months. That was the very last ogre I killed with my long shot. Although I could pat myself on the back, I couldn’t but wonder if there was a human hit list in the monster world where I just moved up a few more levels. I could only dumbly nod while thanking her. The increased adventurer ability level meant that I could take the notices of half that quest notice board in future.

“Eh, what do you mean three?”

Olivia asked.

“Shane here killed two ogre generals before joining the guild.”

“What?”

I sighed. I didn’t want the world to know…

“Apparently his first was when he was naked.”

And Hana repeated the very thing I didn’t want the rest of the world to know.

“Really?”

My resolute silence simultaneously answered Olivia’s question and rebuked Hana in no uncertain terms. Olivia read the mood and expertly changed the subject.

“Thank you for working with the Harpies and Smashing Owls. From what I heard you all had a rough time and perhaps one day you could tell me all about it. Considering that many adventurers are still missing, we can talk about that later.”

She looked a bit saddened by recent events, I forgot that the guild staff also invested into the adventurers. I would think by then, most unprepared groups would be running out of supplies.

“By the way, a private quest arrived for you.”

Olivia added.

“What private quest?”

She leaned a bit closer and said softly.

“The palace has issued a private request for both of you.”

“They can do that, even if I’m not an adventurer?”

Asked Hana.

“Yes, they can. And besides, we can sort out your guild application. It’s extremely rare for the palace to issue private quests, you should feel quite honoured.”

“What’s the quest about?”

“I don’t know personally, but a representative of the palace will meet us here tomorrow morning to discuss the details.”

“Can I say no?”

“I suppose you could. But I would seriously consider their offer since royalty could be important contacts to have when your adventurer ranking goes up.”

“Why would that be?”

“The reason the number of higher-level quests reduce in number is not only due to their difficulty, but also because the number of sponsors reduce. Think about it, how many people or institutions do you know can afford to pay hundreds of golds at a time for a quest?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Well, she had me there, I couldn’t argue the point. Hana was also nodding.

“Okay then, we’ll be here tomorrow morning. By the way, you wouldn’t perhaps know how I could get some manpower to help me with some manual labour?”

Olivia’s interest was piqued but her professionalism shone through again and she didn’t pry.

“The adventurer’s guild can be expensive if you’re looking for non-skilled labour. In that case I’d suggest you submit a request with the labour guild.”

Olivia explained the best way to the labour guild.

“Come Hana let’s head that way next. I have some rocks to sort out.”

“What rocks?”

Could you believe she’d already forgotten?

Meanwhile at the office of the king in Shimmerstal palace, Karato reported to the king on recent events. Unknown to everyone else, Karato and a team of knights returned from retracing Shane and Hana’s recent survival hike through in the Blister Oak Forest. When the king discovered Shane went missing, he immediately dispatched Karato to investigate. Karato’s team sported one of the best trackers in the kingdom, the one person he trusted to track them down. Following Hana and Shane’s safe return, the king waited for Karato’s findings.

“What do you have to report?”

“Something quite interesting actually.”

Karato explained how he discovered the initial incident of the smashed cart and the subsequent flight to the river. It didn’t take him long to realise they must have hidden in the river and doubled back at some point since their footprints headed in both directions. He realised they hid their scent by covering up with ogre scat, liberally strewn around the area, something not typically done, even by ogres. Their tracks then headed south into the forest.

“Hold on. You say they really covered themselves in ogre scat?”

“Definitely. It’s probably a good reason they survived the initial incident and could head for Gryphon rock.”

The military knew about the mesa, they themselves used the outcropping enough times in the past, but they called it Gryphon rock.

“I heard they barricaded themselves there.”

“When I arrived at Gryphon rock the fight was already over a few days before, but I battled to understand what happened in the battle. Look at this.”

He handed the king an object that looked like a heavy metal bar with a splayed metal end. It looked like a heavy force split the splayed end open. The king wasn’t a blacksmith, but there was enough life experience to tell him it was an unusual find. Karato continued while the king continued inspecting the object in his hand.

“I found five of those strange objects scattered around the cave, near each of what I assume were ogre kills, but I couldn’t find any corpses.”

“You are contradicting yourself. Surely there must have been carcasses?”

Even in a forest full of monsters and wild animals, completely removing an ogre carcass, let alone multiples of them, would a be impossible expectation.

“Of goblins corpses, we found many. Of ogres, not one. Judging by the number of ogre tracks we found and later confirmed by the adventurer guild’s report, there should have been at least eight ogres.”

“How do the bodies of eight ogres just go missing?”

“Perhaps an answer to that lies in what we found. There were many large rings of bare earth, some near where I found those metal objects, as if everything in the vicinity about the size of an ogre had been stripped from the ground. Each ring of bare earth looked perfectly round, unnaturally flat, and bare of any grass or rock. Almost as if someone had meticulously cleared the ground.”

“I assume you questioned the other teams about it?”

Karato nodded.

“I did. And each of them said they couldn’t talk about it other than to say Shane saved their lives.”

“Really?”

That impressed the king. What would force adventurers to keep quiet about something that important.

“You’re wondering why they didn’t talk about it? I noticed every one of them wore a blue ring on their fingers, my feeling is those rings are related to their silence.”

“You think Shane bought their silence?”

“Yes.”

“Then those must be some expensive rings.”

“The guild staff said on the evening when those two returned to the guild they weren’t carrying anything in their hands or any packs, yet they later produced subjugation evidence. Unfortunately, no one paid attention to how they did that.”

“Could it be storage rings?”

“My thoughts as well. But pocket dimension storages don’t leave rings on the ground, nor are there any I’ve ever heard of that can hold an entire ogre, let alone an ogre’s arm.”

“You mean he has another type of storage?”

“Almost certainly. What’s more, he can supply enough of them to buy everyone’s silence.”

The king rested on his chair. Storage rings were extremely rare items, even royalty battled to find them. If Shane were able to hand so many of them out to adventurers, he had access to a large amount. The implication of that information was staggering. The commercial and military applications of multiple storage rings belied common sense. Perhaps that was the problem.

“I assume you instructed those you interrogated to remain quiet on the issue?”

“I threatened them with execution if they spoke of it.”

The king approved. He didn’t want the nobles getting wind of it.

“When are you speaking to Shane again?”

“I’ll see him tomorrow for the marsh iron quest.”

“Well done. Keep me informed. And get him to stop handing out storage rings or whatever those things are.”

King Leopold rubbed his temples, it wasn’t often he suffered from headaches, but he felt one coming on, not thanks to Shane Karosaki.

Hana and I reached the labour guild building on the southern end of the city. On the stone cut exterior of the building looked like the adventurer guild although the one in front of us was only a single storey high but as soon as we entered any similarities ended. The building was a square forty by forty meters with stone finishing everywhere. Even the desks were made of large blocks of cut stone and only the wooden chairs could be moved. It was quiet and smelled of dust and stone. There wasn’t a reception area, rather a set of orderly stone desks set in rows behind each other. It reminded me of the fifties with the old typewriter clerks of the day sat behind each other in neat rows with the strict supervisor walking between the desks, monitoring them. Except there didn’t seem to be any supervisor…

“I’m the supervisor here. What do you want?”

Boy, did I get that one wrong. A few steps away from the door behind one of the closest desks sat a stern woman I never met before. When we reached her desk, the supervisor didn’t look up as she continued writing on a slate. Why did I get the distinct feeling she wanted us to go away? What was it with those guilds that they always seemed hostile with first time customers?

“Ahem…hello. Could you please help us regarding some labour we require?”

“Are you representing a private or company’s interest?”

She asked without looking up.

“Er, Private.”

“Have you made an appointment.”

“No.”

The supervisor sighed in resignation.

“Have you asked for an assessor yet?”

“No.”

A sigh again.

“Okay, you see that desk there in the far corner at the back, speak to that man.”

She pointed to a spot in the back. There was a partly hidden desk far in the corner that suffered a natural light deficiency. I guess there were many people that ended up in that situation with companies.

“It must be the naughty corner.”

Hana whispered to me as she started giggling. I didn’t know what surprised me more, that we had to go to the remotest place in the building or that she cracked her first joke. Pummelling those gangsters earlier must have perked her up.

We found a bald, muscular, and middle-aged man sat at a stone desk, facing us with his back to the wall. I couldn’t help but wonder if all problematic customers were sent to that corner. As soon as I arrived, he stood up to shake our hands and greeted us over the table. His rough face carried a slight stubble around his square jaw and his eyes were a piercing blue, the colour of a clear winter’s day. I liked his eyes; they were free of concern, indicating someone with good intentions. But his large handlebar moustache drew the most attention. It more than compensated for any baldness he suffered from.

“Hi. Good to meet you, my name is Mr. Papadopoulos. How can I help?”

“Good to meet you Mr. Papadop…”

I battled to get my tongue around his name.

“Papa-dop-o-los. Don’t worry lad, I get that a lot, you’ll get used to it.”

“Could I call you something else perhaps, a nickname or something?”

“No. It stays Papadopoulos. It’s a family thing.”

I couldn’t dislike the guy; he was as unyielding as that stone table. Kind of fitted the hard labourer mould, I guess. As soon as he shook my hand, I knew I had the right guy. His hands felt like sandpaper and his cracked nails showed a lifetime of physical labour. His arms could pick both Hana and me, like sacks of concrete under his arms, with little effort. I introduced Hana and myself and gave a brief introduction of what I wanted.

“So, to confirm. You would like to sort piles of rocks and remove any monsters that are stuck in them for you?”

“That’s pretty much it I guess.”

“How much rock are you talking about, and how big are the rocks?”

“It’s difficult to say, perhaps as many as twenty heaps double my height, with rocks the size of my chest and smaller.”

He thought for a while.

“Mm. I think I’ll need to do an assessment first. Can you take me to a pile?”

I rubbed my head in thought. I hadn’t considered the implications of people seeing the transfer storage in action.

“Is there a place where you can work on the rocks?”

“Outside the eastern gate there’s a big open area a thousand paces towards south. You can’t miss it. Place your cartloads there. Once I’ve assessed one pile, I can have people there relatively quickly. When can you deliver a sample?”

His assumption that I had carts fitted my plans just fine, so I didn’t correct him.

“It can be there this afternoon after lunch.”

“That quickly huh? I like your enthusiasm. Okay, let me meet you there and I’ll bring a few people around just in case we can start immediately.”