Water Magician

Volume 1, Part 5, Port Opening Festival

Two days after Ryo returned from the Lord’s mansion. Three days after the battle with the Devils.

The four from Room 10, including Ryo, were having breakfast at the guild cafeteria.

“Finally, it’s our first escort request!”

The Swordsman Niles was feeling very excited.

“Hey Niles, your body won’t hold up if you start feeling so excited so soon.”

Ryo warned Niles as he was getting too excited and had a hard time eating.

“But I’m glad. With Ryo joining, everything will be fine even if something happens.”

The Priest Etho expressed his thoughts while eating in a graceful manner that showed his upbringing.

“This is my first time working with people from another party.”

Amon, the only F-rank adventurer who was an Apprentice Swordsman, also couldn’t hide his excitement.

“You’ll be fine if you do exactly as what you heard from Abel last night. He’s still the leader of a B-rank party despite how he is. He probably has a lot of experience.”

The four of them were taught by Abel, who they happened to meet at the cafeteria last night, about the fundamentals of an escort request.

“With an escort of ten, there will probably be five wagons. Well, in some cases it can increase to about seven, but the manner to arrange them doesn’t change. Typically they will assign three escorts for the front wagon, three escorts for the rear wagon, and the remaining four will spread out to defend the middle.”

“We can’t rest in the wagons, right? … What a shame.”

“Yeah, Ryo’s stamina is bottomless anyway so you can just keep walking. The wagons are naturally full of goods, so there is no place for the escorting adventurers to ride on. The escort arrangement I mentioned earlier may change depending on the member composition. Usually, it would change according to the number of Priests, the number of long-range attackers such as Magicians and Archers, and so on. This time you guys are teaming up with Delong, right? They have a lot of experience in escort requests so it’s okay to leave everything including the placement to them.”

As for the luggage to bring, all of them learned about that during the beginner’s course so there were no particular problems in that aspect.

“The beginner’s course is really brilliant …”

No one heard Abel’s mutter.

After breakfast, the four of them headed to the meeting place for the escort requests, although it was a little early.

“Let me ask again … are the three of you sure that you want to name your party 『Room 10』?”

Ryo had been asking the same question several times since yesterday.

Since Niles and Etho were promoted to E-rank, they could establish a party name but the party name they chose was 『Room 10』.

“Oh, of course. That represents us the best.”

Niles said confidently.

It was possible to tell who came up with the idea by that … well, it was also possible to draw that conclusion even if he didn’t say anything.

Etho had a forced smile as he looked at him.

Amon had a troubled look but he didn’t reject it.

Well, at the end of the day, 『Room 10』was organized centered on Niles.

There were no particular rules regarding party names.

It seemed that only names that slander someone or something would be rejected.

For example, a party name like 『Abel’s an idiot』 would probably not pass.

Also, when words of royalty such as 『King’s』 and 『Royal’s』 were included in the party name, the guild would force them to change it.

It was similar to how the word 『Royal』 could not be used freely in England on modern Earth.

In that sense, the rules were relatively loose so it seemed that the adventurers based in the City of Rune had quite a wide variety of party names.

Putting aside 『Crimson Sword』 and 『White Brigade』.

『Red Dragon and Blue Wolf』

『Kreis-sama and friends』

『Armor Brigade』

『Let’s become Blacksmiths together』

『Coffee Maker』

『Switchback』

『Devil』 and so on …

For the last entry, after the dungeon teleport incident, the guild staff apparently had a few words with them …

Of course, they had nothing to do with the incident, the party name was chosen because it sounded strong, and it seemed that none of the members were worshippers of the Devils.

In the first place, it wasn’t certain if there was something like a Devil religion.

And this time, the party that Room 10 + Ryo would collaborate with was 『Coffee Maker』 led by the D-rank adventurer Delong.

It was still more than 30 minutes until the gathering time, but six wagons were already lined up at the meeting place near the south gate.

As the four approached, a man who looked like a merchant approached them.

“You all are the adventurers who took up the escort request this time, right? I’m Ugo, the person who put together this trading company. Nice to meet you.”

Only Ryo, who was next to Amon, heard him take a sigh of relief as he was a little worried about encountering a high-handed merchant.

“I’m Niles from Room 10. And these are Etho, Amon, and Ryo.”

The introduction was done without any problems.

Then, they heard a voice from behind.

“Oh, you guys are early.”

Looking back, they saw six adventurers approaching.

“They are the members of 『Coffee Maker』 who will be escorting us too.”

The merchant Ugo was acquainted with 『Coffee Maker』 because they had escorted his company several times.

“Good morning, Delong, I’ll be in your care once again.”

“Ugo-san, it’s been some time. We’ll be in your care too. So, you guys are Room 10? I’ve heard about you guys from Abel-san. Pleasure working with you.”

It seemed that Abel laid some groundwork after he met them last night.

Abel was good at that kind of attentiveness or behind-the-scenes groundwork despite how he looked.

The four people from Room 10 greeted them politely.

“We’ll be in your care.”

A pleasant greeting was important.

Greetings were the supreme and versatile communication tool because you could establish a friendly relationship with the other party just by greeting them.

The destination of this trading company was Whitnash, the best port city in the Kingdom of Knightley.

It would take two days by wagon in the southwest direction for a one-way trip from the City of Rune.

The escort request was for a round trip, two days to reach the port, nine days stay, and two days for the return trip, for a total of 13 days.

The nine days of stay was considerably longer than that of a normal caravan, and because the total duration of the request was long, the reward became five gold coins per person.

However, during their stay in Whitnash, they were exempted from their escort duties and they could spend their time freely, so it was not so difficult.

It could be said to be fairly good conditions for an escort request for D-rank and E-rank adventurers.

The three people from 『Room 10』 were able to take up this request because they were lucky, but Ryo slipped into the last vacant slot because it had been a long time since he had fish and he was craving for it.

In the first place, when he was in the Rondo Forest, it was extremely difficult to get saltwater fish.

He almost died in a battle with the Bait Ball … he was shot by a giant snapping shrimp and fainted … he was almost killed by something that looked like a Kraken … those were Ryo’s memories of the sea.

(Huh? Does that mean the last time I ate saltwater fish … was when I was on Earth …?)

Ryo turned pale from realization.

While Ryo was in shock, 『Coffee Maker』’s Delong voice was heard.

“Ryo, along with Gan and John from my party, will follow behind the last wagon.”

Before he knew it, the escort arrangement was over.

“Well then, let’s set off.”

The first wagon started moving and all the other wagons followed soon after.

That said, the adventurers escorting the wagons were walking and wagons that carry goods were very slow in the first place.

“Hey, Ryo, you’re a Magician, right? What attribute do you have?”

“It’s water.”

Before long, Gan from 『Coffee Maker』spoke to Ryo who was situated at the rear.

“Water? That’s rare, I don’t think there are many Water-Attribute Magicians in the guild either …. John, among the adventurers of Rune, who else uses Water?”

“Hm … there’s no one else? Fire, Wind, Earth … Well, recovery is Light, but … there aren’t any Water or Darkness.”

“No wonder I didn’t meet any other Water-Attribute Magicians…”

When Ryo said so, Gan and John burst into laughter.

“But Ryo is amazing, and we’re looking forward to seeing you in action because of what Abel-san said yesterday.”

“Yeah, you should be deserving of it if that person says so.”

It seemed that he wasn’t being ridiculed thanks to Abel.

(Abel is a good guy. I’ll treat you to a meal next time … Ah … I wonder if he has forgotten his promise to treat me to dinner for a week …)

“By the way, the request this time has us staying for nine days in the city over there, isn’t it? Isn’t that very long?”

“What, haven’t you heard? This trading company is going to the City of Whitnash to take part in the port opening festival that is held once every five years. If I recall correctly, the port opening festival will last for seven days, so we’ll be staying there for that duration.”

“A festival! That sounds fun!”

“Yeah. Since it is only held once every five years, it’s quite a huge festival and there will be many programs so onlookers come from all over the world. This request gives us free time while we’re there and our lodgings would be paid for by the trading company so it’s a perfect request.”

Gan and John were in a good mood.

“After all, there is a highway between Rune and Whitnash, and there are guard patrols, so bandits rarely appear. That’s why this request is open for D-rank and E-ranks.”

“We were able to snag such a good request …”

“Oh … the 13 days duration is the issue. Almost half a month … many adventurers live in the City of Rune and they rent a place? Paying for half a month without staying there … would be a waste. So, requests that have a long duration aren’t popular. Whereas, Ryo and others live in the dormitory so …”

“Even if we leave the City of Rune for a long time, we would not lose money on accommodation.”

“That’s right.”

The six members of 『Coffee Maker』 owned a house so they had no problem picking up an escort request with a long duration.

(That’s smart, Coffee Maker … oh yeah.)

“Oh right, your party name, Coffee Maker … why did you name it so?”

Yes, coffee maker would refer to those machines that automatically brew coffee on modern Earth.

What’s more, the party leader’s name was 『Delong』 … similar to the name of a famous coffee maker in Ryo’s company …

That maker, always brewing delicious coffee, was loved by all the employees, so of course Ryo knew it too.

“Oh, leader was insistent on it.”

“Yeah. If I’m not mistaken, leader’s grandfather was a famous adventurer and his party name at that time was 『Coffee Maker』 …”

“His grandfather’s name was …”

“Delonga, wasn’t it?”

Ryo nodded deeply.

Incidentally, Ryo had not drunk coffee since reincarnating on 『Phi』 …

Two days later, the party arrived in the port town of Whitnash without any problems.

The first leg of the first escort mission for 『Room 10』 was successfully completed.