“Phew…”
We took a long rest next to the vengeful spirit spider that had attained enlightenment. All party members except Kikel were incapacitated due to injuries or exhaustion.
“Drink, Hilde. Heals wounds!”
“Ah, thank you.”
While I was resting against the mine shaft wall, panting heavily, Kikel, who had tended to Wolfgang and Laute’s wounds, handed me a potion.
Apparently, these were potions Wolfgang had been carrying?
The quality itself was just the level of widely available low-grade items, but even this was an excessive luxury for an iron token adventurer.
Wearing no armor and just throwing punches, he probably had to carry potions because he got injured overwhelmingly more often than others.
Instead of that, wouldn’t it have been a wiser choice to save up money for potions and get a suit of steel armor made…?
Well, if Wolfgang had that level of intelligence, he probably wouldn’t have chosen to be an unarmed combat warrior in the first place.
Considering his intelligence, the fact that he understood the concept that using potions could heal wounds was already worthy of applause.
“Haaah…”
…Well, let’s not criticize him further.
He did end up being helpful to the party after all.
Thanks to Wolfgang’s mindless waste of money, not only he himself but also Laute and I were able to treat our wounds and recover.
Isn’t it fair to say that the bald unarmed combat warrior, who had been lying around throughout the entire battle, finally proved his worth?
Though he was a healer rather than a damage dealer.
* * *
Since the potion’s efficacy was quite low, it was a considerable time later that we were able to leave the mine shaft.
After recovering some strength, I put my helmet back on first, then sat across from Kikel, who was warming himself by the campfire, and rested while thoroughly drying my wet clothes.
“Sniff, sniff.”
Kikel twitched his nose slightly.
He had clearly noticed what tragedy had befallen my pants, but he maintained a silent composure, not saying anything about it.
I was truly grateful for his consideration.
“My goodness…”
Laute, who had somewhat recovered thanks to the potion, examined the vengeful spirit spider’s corpse while fixing her cracked left arm to her body using broken shield pieces as a splint.
“To cut this like this. How on earth…?”
She closely observed the severed head I had cut off, or opened up the inside of the spinneret that had shot out her sword like a bullet.
“…Ms. Hilde, how exactly did you cut this?”
Then, she turned to me and asked like that.
“It just worked when I did it.”
I didn’t have much to say. I couldn’t exactly explain about Brunhilde’s trait, Iron Arm, after all.
“It just worked, what do you mean…”
“Well, you know… sometimes people in life-threatening situations exhibit unbelievable strength, right? It was probably something like that.”
“Was it really…?”
Laute tilted her head with a slightly dubious expression.
“No, is such a thing possible with just that…? Even a knight couldn’t do it this cleanly…”
Laute muttered to herself while touching the cut surface of the vengeful spirit spider. Her doubtful voice echoed softly.
A knight.
Well, if we’re just talking about physical specs, it is indeed knight-level.
Not just any knight, but one with talent and potential overflowing enough to be selected as a member of the hero’s party.
Now, well, I’m a wanted criminal in the Rhine Kingdom, but still.
…Oh, come to think of it, she must have seen my face too, but she’s not saying anything about it.
Did she not recognize me?
If she were a citizen of the Rhine Kingdom, she would have recognized me immediately, but she’s probably from here in Hervor.
If not that, maybe the situation was so urgent that my face didn’t even register?
Well, either way, it was truly fortunate.
“Hmm…. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Thanks to you, we were able to survive, so I can only express my gratitude.”
Laute bowed her head in thanks.
She said she could even hand over her share of the request fee if I wanted, but I declined, telling her to keep it.
Laute’s equipment was in as tattered a state as mine, so she’d need to repair or completely replace it, and how could she afford to change her equipment if she handed over the request fee to me?
If she took on a new request to raise money and ended up dying due to poor equipment, I’d just feel uneasy for no reason.
Rather than that, it was much more comfortable to just be a bit generous.
* * *
“What, you three took down this monster…?! Truly amazing…!”
Wolfgang, who had finally woken up, jumped in shock when he saw the corpse of the vengeful spirit spider with its head cut off.
Laute, who let out a chuckle at that sight, explained to Wolfgang what had happened while he was unconscious.
“So that’s what happened!”
Wolfgang expressed his apologies for not being able to help and his gratitude for protecting him while he was unconscious.
He didn’t even complain about his potions being used without permission.
He said that as a fellow party member and life savior, he would have offered the potions himself even if we hadn’t taken them on our own.
His admirable attitude made me decide not to take away his request fee.
Anyway, after that, we cut up the vengeful spirit spider’s corpse and gathered everything that could be worth money.
Claws and fangs, venom sacs and back shell, and even part of the head to submit to the guild as proof of subjugation.
We struggled to cut all of that off with axe blows and mace strikes, then wrapped it in spider silk and carried it on our backs as we walked out of the mine shaft.
Then we immediately headed to the carriage and loaded the vengeful spirit spider’s byproducts into the cargo hold. Meanwhile, I quietly changed into new pants that I took out from the cargo hold.
It’s a good thing I brought a spare set of clothes. Otherwise, I would have had to return to the city wearing stained pants.
* * *
“Ah! You’ve returned, adventurers! Have all the giant spiders been dealt with?”
When we went to find the village chief to report that the job was done, he welcomed us with open arms, smiling good-naturedly.
For us, who had suffered greatly encountering the vengeful spirit spider because of this bastard, his smile only made us feel irritated.
“We dealt with all of them. However, there was a bit of a problem.”
“A problem, you say…?”
I briefly summarized to the village chief, who was tilting his head, what we had experienced inside the mine shaft.
The story of how a spider monster far more powerful than ordinary giant spiders appeared, and we barely managed to subjugate it after struggling for our lives.
I omitted the information about it being a vengeful spirit spider for now. It wasn’t something to bring up right away.
First―
“Therefore, it’s the unanimous opinion of our entire party that the originally set request fee is nowhere near enough for this request. You understand what I mean, right?”
Let’s see how the village chief reacts to hearing this first.
“…Are you saying you want to raise the compensation?”
The village chief frowned deeply. As if to say, what nonsense are you talking about?
Ah, this is a lost cause.
From that reaction alone, I could be certain. That getting the compensation raised was hopeless.
“Hmm… this is troublesome. You see, I’m in a position where most of my funds are tied up because I’ve kept the mine shaft closed for so long…”
See?
“Moreover, isn’t a compensation deal not going through the Adventurers’ Guild a violation of guild regulations and an illegal act? So… I’m sorry, but it seems it would be rather difficult to increase your compensation.”
He stood firm, citing proper reasons to say it couldn’t be done, looking like not even a single silver coin would come out if we pressed him.
In other words, to extract a ‘fair’ compensation from this village chief, we would need to use the previous village chief’s journal and the vengeful spirit spider’s head to blackm…
…No, to negotiate.
“Ah, is that so? I’m sorry for making an unreasonable request.”
Of course, I had no intention of doing that.
Blackmail always leads to future troubles.
Rather than blackmailing the village chief for compensation, it would be tens of times safer to just stab him to death and plunder all his possessions.
The dead cannot dream of revenge, after all.
However, plundering was also not an option that could be chosen as an adventurer.
An adventurer who stabs and kills a client for not giving a bonus? Doing such a thing would immediately make you a wanted criminal.
“No, I should be the one apologizing. To think I can’t even raise the compensation for those who have worked so hard.”
When I immediately withdrew my attempt to renegotiate the request fee, the village chief finally smiled again and spoke words of false humility.
“As both a village chief and a client, I’m truly ashamed…”
Ha, he speaks well.
Yeah, laugh a lot now.
“Well then… we should be heading back to the city, so could you please sign this request form?”
I cut off the topic of wage negotiation and held out the request form, asking him to sign confirming that the request was completed.
Once negotiations had broken down, there was no reason to stay in this rural village any longer.
“No, it’s late at night, wouldn’t it be better to rest for a day or so…?”
What are you trusting us to rest on?
“We’d like to do that, but… everyone’s injuries are quite severe. It seems we should return to the city as soon as possible to receive proper treatment.”
I politely declined the village chief’s offer and received his signature confirming the completion of the request on the form, then returned to the carriage with it.
“How did it go, Ms. Hilde?”
Laute, who was resting inside the carriage, turned her head towards me and asked about the result of the compensation negotiation.
“It’s hopeless. He had no intention of paying even a single silver coin.”
I shrugged and answered that there was no room for negotiation.
“In that case…”
“That’s right. We have no choice but to deliver the vengeful spirit spider’s head and the journal to the church side as planned.”
Patricide is a capital offense punishable by extreme punishment.
If the evidence was just the journal alone, it might be different, but now that there’s such clear physical evidence as the vengeful spirit spider’s head…
“Then, they’ll handle it properly. In the Goddess Church’s way.”
If we hand this over to the Goddess Church, the church will directly intervene to change the village chief’s address to an underground prison or a stake.
If the village chief’s crime is confirmed, we as the informants will also receive some kind of reward.
And if we sell off all the vengeful spirit spider’s byproducts, it should be enough money to completely replace all our shattered equipment and then some.
Unlike the giant spider subjugation reward which has to be split four ways, we agreed to divide the vengeful spirit spider’s byproducts appropriately between just me and Laute.
“Hmm, I think that’s much cleaner too.”
Wolfgang nodded his bald head as if to say it was well done.
* * *
The Adventurers’ Guild request office in Vespian, which we returned to, was strangely bustling unlike usual.
We went to the desk where the receptionist girl was sitting, informed her that we had completed the request, and showed part of the vengeful spirit spider’s head as proof.
“―So this is the head of that vengeful spirit spider.”
“W-wait a moment. Did I hear that correctly? A vengeful spirit spider? You said a vengeful spirit spider?”
The receptionist girl was so shocked that she stood up abruptly, pushing back her chair. It took a really long time for her to calm down.
“Oh my goodness. Really, a vengeful spirit spider… No, how on earth did you…?”
“We were lucky. Maybe because the possessing spirit was an old man, it was a bit weak.”
I laid out a reason that she could somewhat accept while recounting our party’s heroic tale.
“So, what about my promotion? Is this enough?”
“Of course it is. Even if you had just come back after subjugating giant spiders…”
The receptionist girl nodded with a bewildered face.
Although the copper token itself hadn’t been issued yet, she said that as soon as we report the contents of this request, a copper token level adventurer badge would be issued immediately.
In other words, it was like a copper token (real). It was a satisfactory result.