Kochugunshikan Boukensha ni Naru

Translator: SFBaka

Hm, what’s this? I got another reaction from my scanning magic. Judging from experience, I’m almost 100% sure this was a Black Bird. It was roosting up on a tree our convoy will be passing by. It’ll escape once it notices us, so let’s bring the pudgy fowl down right away. It soon came within visual range.

“There’s a Black Bird a hundred meters in front of us, Ria.”

“I’ll take it down!”

“Alright. Make sure not to let it escape. It’s roosting on that tall tree over there. But it’ll probably escape once it notices the carriages.”

We’re in the middle of a job, so we can’t just tell the convoy to stop for us though.

“I’ll try anyway.”

The maximum range of the Flame Arrow spell is 50 meters. Whether or not the bird escapes will be up to luck.

Our carriages steadily approached its position, but the Black Bird didn’t seem to have noticed yet. Cleria got in position to fire off a spell.

Whoops, it finally noticed us. In that instant, Cleria also unleashed her Flame Arrow spell. But the distance was still 70 meters, so the arrows, unfortunately, didn’t reach it…

is what I thought at first, but unexpectedly, the arrows flew on and successfully hit the escaping Black Bird in mid-flight.

Well that was surprising! Maybe Cleria focused on making the spell fly as far out as possible while she was constructing the image in her mind and imbued it with more magic power than a normal spell. This was certainly a blind spot. I didn’t even notice this sort of thing was possible. I’m still lacking in imagination, it seems.

A wave of cheers rose from behind us. They managed to witness Cleria’s spell casting in full after all.

I apologized to Jonas-san for causing a commotion and asked him to stop the carriage so I can recover the Black Bird. It’s possible to drain its blood while on the road anyway.

“How about we have them cook this for us back at the inn? Black Bird meat is tasty after all.”

Since we were allowed to make requests for our meals, I’m sure they’ll be fine with cooking it for us.

“That’s a fine idea! Let us do so. But I think it would be nice if Alan was the one to cook it. Can we ask to borrow the kitchen, perhaps?”

“Hm, I dunno. It’s a pro chef’s kitchen after all. It might be a bit troublesome.”

I was actually warming up to the idea of cooking again even though I sounded somewhat reluctant. I kind of wanted to try out the spices and condiments I bought the other day.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try asking anyway, I guess.”

“Yes, let us do so!”

We managed to reach the city without any further incidents. We had the request papers signed off by Jonas-san in front of the Adventurer’s Guild. We then bid goodbye to Jonas-san and his people.

“We are truly grateful for today’s matter, Alan-san. You were a great help.”

“It’s a job, after all, so we just did what was required of us. Thank you as well for giving us such a profitable request.”

“Well then, I shall contact you here at Nature’s Bounty inn if we ever get ahold of any new information.”

“Thank you. Please do so.”

Well, since we’re already here, we might as well hand over the request papers and report the request’s completion. We went in front of the counter assigned to the guild employee we were familiar with.

“We just completed a request. Please confirm,” I stated and handed over the papers.

“Understood. Oh, as expected of Alan-san and your companions. The evaluation the client gave you this time is『S』grade.”

“There’s a grading system?”

“Yes. It’s for the purpose of knowing whether or not clients are satisfied with the work of the adventurers assigned to them. A grade of B or C is par for the course, normally. The grading also factors in when considering the maximum reward money a party can receive after quests and their overall evaluation to serve as a basis for ranking up. Have you done anything that the client was particularly happy with, perhaps?”

I see. So it’s a sort of customer satisfaction survey. The guild sure has a lot of stuff going on.

“Nothing in particular, I think. Well, we did manage to encounter a Gray Hound pack and defeat them.”

“A pack… How many did you encounter, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“There were ten of them.”

“Eeeh!? T-Ten, you say? There are only the three of you in the Shining Star party, right? Did some of the men the client brought with him also fight?”

“Nope, we exterminated them ourselves.”

“In other words, the three of you managed to defeat and kill ten Gray Hounds?”

“Yup, we killed them all.”

“……I see. No wonder they gave you an『S』grade. Here’s the 5,000 Guinea reward by the way. If you want to sell the magic stones you recovered from the Gray Hounds, please do so at that counter over there.”

Oh yeah, you can actually sell off the magic stones huh. I honestly forgot about that and just recovered them out of habit earlier.

“How much do Gray Hound magic stones go for anyway?”

“Um, one Gray Hound magic stone sells for about 400 Guineas each. The amount is based on the market price of the magic stones themselves, which is 350 Guineas, and the exclusive subjugation reward of 50 Guineas per monster slain. So it would be better to sell them here at the Guild instead of anywhere else.”

“I see. Thank you very much for the info.”

It seems we’ll net a pretty decent profit. We can stay at a regular inn for four days just from selling a single stone.

“Um, hey guys, is it okay if we don’t sell the magic stones we got today. The leather armor I recently bought requires magic stones in order to function properly, so I kinda want to save them up just in case.”

I also had something I want to try as well.

“Of course. I don’t mind at all. Please do with them as you like, Alan.”

“How about you, Elna?”

“I do not mind as well. Please do as you see fit, Alan.”

“It’s still three in the afternoon, so do you want to give the Magic Guild a quick visit after we return to the inn for a bit?”

“Yes, let’s!”

We found the young daughter of the proprietress when we got back to the inn and tried to ask about borrowing the kitchen.

“It’s an unusual request, but we managed to procure a decent ingredient, so we were wondering if we could borrow the inn’s kitchen for a bit to cook it.”

“Un, I dunno. Let me ask dad first.”

A stern-looking middle-aged man appeared from within the inn after a few minutes of waiting. So this is the chef who cooked our meals yesterday huh?

“So is it you? The guy who asked if he could borrow my kitchen?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m a decent cook myself. We managed to hunt a Black Bird while out on a job, so I want to cook it if possible.”

I took out the Black Bird from my bag.

“Oh, that’s a big lookin Black Bird alright. It does look delicious. Well, we don’t have any other guests anyway. I’ll lend you the kitchen under the condition of me keeping an eye on you from the side. What do you say?”

“Really? That’s great. I’ll use my own spices and condiments while cooking. How much are you charging for this, by the way?”

“I won’t be chargin you one coin. You brought your own ingredients with you anyways. So, when do ya want to start?”

“A bit later. We still have some business we have to attend to after this. We’ll probably make it back before evening. We’ll start then.”

“That so. In that case, I’ll do the prep work for you while your out. It should be fine to divide it into appropriate cuts, right?”

“That’ll be great. Please do so then. Later then.”

I handed over the Black Bird and left the inn with the girls.

“He was quite the gruff individual.”

Cleria seems a bit angry at the man’s attitude earlier. Well, it certainly wasn’t a shining example of how to treat customers, especially considering the fact that they were a high-class establishment. He might have gotten away with it all this time because he was a chef who worked behind the scenes and didn’t entertain guests.

“Is that so? I find that kind of attitude easier to deal with, actually.”

“Well, I won’t press the matter if you say you don’t mind it, Alan.”

I wonder what kind of place the Magic Guild is. I’m really looking forward to it. We started walking and headed for the Magic Guild.