Volume 8: Hard Bound Books are Hard
1947 Words
"Why are we doing this again?" The examiner couldn't believe what was happening. "It's not ike you can hit the target with that arrow, right?" He looked at the arrow Kryllo was holding in his right hand.
"Just remember what I told you!" Brittanya cheered on.
"What did you tell him?" Jaeger asked her as he was looking at Kryllo.
"Don't run towards the target but hit the target with his arrow." Brittanya seemed proud of what she said.
"Hopefully he listens to you." Jaegar was a bit more doubtful of the situation.
Kryllo was standing still for a while. The examiner was waiting patiently, when Kryllo suddenly moved. His stance was like he was going to throw the arrow like a spear. The examiner couldn't believe what he was seeing for the second time.
"What is it this time? That's not how archers shoot an arrow!" The examiner couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"As long as... I hit the target... with an arrow, right...?" Kryllo looked at the examiner then looked at the target in front of him. He then threw the arrow. It hit the bull's eye.
"What the hell?!" The examiner was dumbfounded.
---
The party exited the Archer's Den headquarters.
"I can't believe they let you in to the Archer's Den." Jaegar was still surprised at what happened. "Hey, Brittanya. Did you know that he could do that stuff?"
"Nope." She smiled at Jaegar.
"What? Then why did you ask them to test Kryllo again?"
She put her finger on her chin and looked up. She pondered for a moment. "Well, if he couldn't do it, then you would just go back to prison, right?"
"Yeah. We would have."
"Oh. I see."
"What do you mean 'I see'? You didn't plan anything if that happened?"
"No. Not really." She smiled at him again.
"We could have been hanged if Kryllo couldn't do it!"
"I guess I would have gone solo then." She smiled yet again.
"Maybe I should have gone solo." Jaegar put his hand in his face in regret.
---
They walked around Dosael a little bit more to familiarize themselves with it. The city was much more developed than Jiputin, since Dosael was considered as one of the major cities. The city walls were made of stone and there were guards patrolling on top of it. The party decided to stay in an inn after a while. It was night time already and they were having dinner at the first floor of the inn.
"Hey guys." Brittanya was staring at the cloth pouch she was holding. "I don't think we have any money left, after we paid for the rooms and this food."
"That's because we wasted a day without doing anything." Jaegar continued eating.
"I did... something..." Kryllo protested while continuing to eat.
"Oh, you did something, alright." Jaegar shook his head. "And we also gave all the gold we got in Jiputin to the old lady who took you in."
"That's enough from you, Jaegar." Brittanya scolded him.
"Ok, Mom." Jaegar finished eating and put down his spoon on the table. "Tomorrow, let's start doing our mission again! We'll take on jobs involving hunting down monsters." Brittanya and Kryllo nodded in agreement.
---
"So... which one...?" Kryllo was holding two sheets of paper with different requests written in them. The three of them were inside the city's tavern the following day.
"What the hell are these?" Jaegar couldn't believe what he was seeing while browsing through several requests. "Why do the monster-hunting jobs pay so low? Two silver coins for killing twenty wild wolves? Are you kidding me? Even if we can do a lot of requests, we'll waste our time just to save up some money."
The barkeep heard him complaining. "Well, there are a lot of adventurers and whatnot in Dosael. The demand for hunting jobs is not that high. Requests will surely be taken by one group or another." The barkeep then moved away to serve a customer.
Brittanya was holding a request in her hand and was reading it thoroughly. "How about this one?" She handed it to Kryllo.
"Request for... bodyguards..."
"Let me see that." Jaegar grabbed the sheet of paper from Kryllo. He read it silently then reacted loudly. "Ten pieces of gold?! We'll take this!"
"But it doesn't have anything to do with hunting down monsters. Are you alright with that?" Brittanya was concerned. "Though, we can use the money."
"If the pay is this high, it means it's dangerous. And when it's dangerous, there are bound to be monsters involved." Jaegar's confidence cannot be mistaken. "Let's go meet the one who requested this and hear more details."
They left the tavern and went to the specified location in the request. They went to a different inn than the one they stayed in. The one who put up the request was staying in one of the rooms inside. They knocked on the door.
"Excuse us, we found your request at the tavern, and wanted to talk about the details." Brittanya shouted from outside the room, hoping the person inside could hear her.
The door opened. A young man with golden hair greeted them. "I never thought someone would choose my request this soon." He was surprised to see Brittanya. "Oh. I did not expect to see a beautiful girl to take this request. Guess we will have an enjoyable time during this job." He was smiling at Brittanya.
"Hey." Jaegar called the young man. The young man then looked at the girl's companions. "You're that thief that got caught."
"I already introduced myself. How could you forget? It's Leonze."
"Oh, right."
"So you got out of prison, too. How did you escape?"
"We... didn't..." Kryllo answered for them.
---
They were now talking inside Leonze's room. They then introduced themselves to Leonze.
"Are you sure this isn't some kind of scam? I mean, how are you going to pay us that much gold?" Jaegar was skeptical while he has arms crossed and looking at Leonze.
"How do you think I got out of prison?" He smiled at him.
"Wait, how do you guys know each other again?" Brittanya was confused with the conversation.
"We met him... inside prison..." Kryllo explained to her. "He was caught... stealing apples..."
"Ah. The one we saw being beaten up by some people?"
"Please, don't remind me." Leonze was embarrassed.
Jaegar suddenly laughed. "It's really ironic that a thief gets caught while stealing. What kind of thief is that?"
"Not by choice..." Leonze remarked. "Anyway, can we talk about my request now?" The others nodded. "You see, I want bodyguards because I want to go inside the abandoned fortress just outside of Dosael."
"Why do you want to go there?" Brittanya asked.
"Hey, Jaegar, remember that old man we met inside the prison?" Leonze looked at Jaegar. "Remember when he said something about the Legendary Artifacts?"
"Oh, what, do you believe that crazy old man?"
"I was following a lead that pointed it to being near here at Dosael, and the only logical location where it could be is that abandoned fortress. I wasn't hoping for much since my lead wasn't guaranteed or anything, but when that old man said those words, I thought maybe there is some chance it is true."
Jaegar sighed. "I have no intention of asking you why you're chasing fairy tales and legends. But since it pays good money, we're going to do it. And there are surely monsters inside, so that's good."
"That's fair enough. We'll leave first thing tomorrow. Let's meet at the southern gate."
The three left Leonze's room. They were walking towards their own inn.
"Is he... really a thief...?" Kryllo wondered to himself.
"He is. He had the Thief Association's crest in his clothes. Much like the gloves they gave you from the Archer's Den and my armor from the Knights' Order, they are proof we are part of those Job Class Organizations." Jaegar explained in detail.
"I see... So is Brittanya... part of—"
"Oh no!" Brittanya suddenly shouted.
"What is it?" Jaegar reacted to her.
"We still don't have money! We can't stay in the inn."
---
The next day, the three of them met with Leonze at the southern gate. It was still almost before dawn.
"Why do you guys look so tired?" Leonze was already waiting at the gate when the three of them arrived.
"We had to finish a lot of monster hunting requests, because we didn't have money to stay at the inn." Brittanya explained while yawning loudly.
"Why does staying at inns cost too much!" Jaegar was visibly irritated, mainly due to their lack of money and sleep.
They then exited the gate and started to walk towards the abandoned fortress. Kryllo was walking with them while his eyes were closed.
"Is he alright?" Leonze asked Brittanya, as he was looking at Kryllo.
"He's sleepwalking, I think? Don't worry about him." She smiled at Leonze.
"I'm starting to worry about my safety, to be honest." He smiled back. "We'll get there after a while. I've heard that the place is crawling with monsters now, with some strong ones, at that."
"Yes! I knew it." Jaegar cheered in joy.
Leonze whispered to Brittanya, "Why is he happy?"
"It's his, well, our mission to eradicate monsters."
"Oh yeah, I heard about that in prison. Though I still don't understand why he would be happy about being in danger."
---
At the cliffs surrounding the abandoned fortress, there were some people gathered and having a discussion.
"Hey boss, our scouts saw a party of four headed this way."
A woman was sitting on a rock, her face covered in a mask. Her long, violet hair was being blown by the wind. "Oh, I wonder what they're planning on doing here."
One of her companions stood up. "Should we get rid of them?"
"No, I want to see why they're here. Could it be coincidence? Or is it..." All of them stood up. "Anyway, we Bounty Hunters were paid to do a job. Let's get to it."
---
"We're here." Leonze was looking at the entrance of the abandoned fortress. There were stone walls surrounding the fortress, and the giant wooden gate was detached and fallen on the ground. The fortress itself was made of stone and has several floors. One would need to bend their neck backwards just to see the highest point of the fortress.
"Where... are we...?" Kryllo finally opened his eyes.
"Good morning!" Brittanya greeted him.
"Everyone, be careful." Jaegar warned them as he was looking around. "I can feel that monsters won't be our only problem here."
"Well, we won't get anything done by standing around here. Let's go inside." Leonze started walking through the entrance. The other three followed him.
When they were inside the fortress, it was dark and they couldn't clearly see what was ahead of them. They were in some corridor and rubble made of wood and stones were scattered around.
"Brittanya, make some fire." Jaegar handed some stones to her while he was holding what seemed to be a torch that was put out a long time ago.
Brittanya started to rub the stones together. "Fire that comes from stones, come forth!" She was rubbing the stones so fast that sparks started to fly and the torch Jaegar was holding then lit up.
"Hey, isn't she a mage?" Leonze puzzledly watched Jaegar and Brittanya. "Why does she need stones to light—"
"Now, where are we?" Jaegar quickly grabbed the torch and put the fire in front of them. There were monsters looking at them.
- Writer
