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Chapter 9 - Reward

The lights of the guild were still bright, when I entered it. I guess it's open 24/7?

No, actually there was only the old man at the counter and the half of the guild was filled with those rowdie adventurers. The usual scene, everyone was drinking, laughing loudly. I guess similar to my world after work is over or something. No wonder that the most of the female receptionists weren’t there.

Well there were some faces which I recognized, some worked also as waitresses and were pouring beer in the mugs from the rowdie looking men, the probably adventures. There were also females, they weren’t a bit weaker than the men, in fact some were even louder. But well the in numbers, there were clearly more men at the bar.

Also if you wonder, why I’m able to look and recognize the female receptionists under the waitresses. That’s because they were actually directly looking at me. Incidentally many people were looking at me. Well I’m not surprised, I’m still covered in the blood.

To take advantage of the situation, I glared at those who looked at me. It seemed I must of looked somewhat intimidate or just as pathetic that they had to avoid to look at me.

Well never mind, I could avoid their attention, before a shitty event comes where an adventurer wants to pick up on me, I hurried to the old man.

“Boy, what happened to you?” (old man)

“I got into a fight with goblins.” (Ankoki)

I removed the iron gauntlet from my right hand and gave it to him. It was borrowed and he informed me that it was still in a good state. Actually It was meant to be part of an armor, meant to protect. But I used it for the offense and punched goblins and rabbit, which don’t really have a rough skin that could harm iron, with it. I was a bit relieved, because I didn’t wanted to make more costs and debts then necessary.

I pulled out the the large amount of goblin ears and rabbit corpses. Apparently it was the right ear which you usually cut to prove that you did the quest. That one also has sometimes a ring on it, so it was decided to use that ear as the proof. After explaining me that he glanced towards the corpses.

“You made quite the catch, those are pretty rare and not easy to get and you just killed for of them with your bare hands…” (old man)

“Use them to serve the guys here and take the money which you get from it. If one them want to buy it, he can. As long as I get the reward it works for me.” (Anoki)

It was night, so the most merchants or butchers weren’t working now, so it was smarter to sell them a drunken adventurer or let the guild use them as a dish. I don’t want to deal with preserving problems. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t long ago, when I killed those rabbits but they still could have started to rot. So better get rid of them fast.

“We can use the bigger ones with horns and will reward you for them with appropriate amount because they are rare after all. For the goblin quest I have to say sadly, that you won’t get the original reward, because you killed them as a commoner and not as an adventurer. And you can’t really use those little ones for dishes, so won’t get a reward for them either.” (old man)

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In other words, if I didn’t kill the rabbits, I wouldn’t really have gotten much cash, even if I massacred ten goblins and experienced something like a revelation of myself. Well not like the latter deserved any reward or something I guess.

“That's good to hear, give me only the reward of one of the horned rabbit and see the earnings from the other one as a repayment for the dagger and bag. It's unfortunate that the baby rabbits won’t sell though..” (Anoki)

I was dead sure it was considered a “bad thing” to kill the rabbits. Something like guilt was actually haunting me on the way to the guild. It also haunted me when I killed the goblins.

A feeling which said, the thing which I did and how I thought were wrong, but since I couldn’t really find an explanation why it was wrong for myself, I let the morals and justice from others aside, I didn’t really cared much for it. But I guess it showed in a way now, as it was telling me that I should at least let the children alive.

I feared that they spread the information about me, I mean my suspicion that rabbit were indeed intelligent proved to be right, so maybe the could have warned the other rabbits about me, which would lower my chance to get another high reward.

“But I really have to ask.. how did you kill those rabbits? There aren’t really any injuries.. so how did you manage to kill them without any weapons? Y’know those horned rabbits are considered to be quite smart.” (old man)

The feeling of guilt became stronger for some reason, well it warns me too I guess. I don’t think it’s a wise decision to explain him how I killed them. Firstly it could be against the “unwritten ethics of an adventurer” and second he could spread out the tactic and would decrease my chance to get profit with those rabbits which seemed to sell well because their rarity.

“You see, actually the goblins managed them in a cage and covered them with some cloth. Then they danced on them, as if they were doing a ritual or something. It looked pretty strange. It was easy to kill them because they were so focused on that ritual, I feel kinda sorry for the rabbits, maybe I could have saved them when I acted faster…” (Anoki)

“Don’t worry about that stuff, it still pains me to see the small rabbits die in this age but the horned rabbits here are adults, I can confirm that. Those goblins catched a family and killed them in that way.. I guess the goblin quest will become popular soon.” (old man)

My made-up story was better than expected. If something strange happens, people will get interested and if the goblin quest gets popular I could get the chance to team up with stronger adventurer and leech in the party. I could actually proof if my hypothesis of Level Up is true and if is, I could also find out at the same time, if leeching works, basically gaining XP for Level Ups in a group. I would be able to make some calculations and predict how many and which monsters I should kill for the next Level Up.

“How do you Level Up?” (Anoki)

Won’t hurt if I ask.

“You kill a certain amount of monsters, after becoming an adventurer you will get a “tool” which will help you regarding that.” (old man)

And thus my calculation plans were destroyed. Damn for once I thought school was useful but nope.

We chatted for a while and because I was interested I watched the old man how he prepared the corpses and made to an ingredient which the chef could use for a dish. I wanted to see how “gore-resistant” I was. After watching him for a while, I asked if I could skin the baby rabbits too. He gave me a strange look.

“Those are yours, it's on to you what you do with it.” (old man)

I failed the first one and the skin looked terrible with all my scratches. On the other hand the second looked perfect, that even the old man praised me. Well he also said I shouldn’t make it to an hobby to skin children rabbits. The guys who use rabbits as their animal barn would just bury the baby rabbit if it dies early. Not really different from my former world I thought.

It was then, when I was holding the skin of the second baby rabbit and got praised, that the old man noticed my left hand. The one which was pierced by the horned rabbit.

“Boy, have you maybe touched the tip of the horn once?” (old man)

“Yes, I did that, it is actually hurting me for a while now.” (Anoki)

“Thought so, when you were doing the first one, you seemed to make some strange movements with that hand, you did that to reduce the pain I assume. I would suggest you to go to the church. The priestess there can use healing magic. Judging by this injury I don’t think she would charge much.” (old man)

Healing magic huh.. Well that's good, but they even charge for the healing? I also wonder to which god they believed.

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