CHAPTER 3

The Meat Festival

01

“Whoa, you serious?”

Back at the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion, Mariela and Sieg told Lynx the entire story of the giant slime.

They kept Lightning Empress Elsee’s identity under wraps since neither of them wanted to have their memories erased.

Elmera had claimed to make a zap sound whenever she touched something, which was the same sound she used to describe everything from static electricity to lightning attacks. That made it all the more terrifying. Plus, it was really more of a crackle.

If I got hit by that, I’d lose other important things besides my memory!

Mariela’s lips were properly sealed, and she would let nothing slip from them.

According to Elmera, Construction Division Chairman Kindel abused his authority for personal gain. And it all culminated in Kindel letting a giant slime that had been living in the underground waterway into the slums. The man had been swallowed and killed by the slime, but all the assets he’d left behind were seized and set aside to help with the disaster recovery.

“I feel bad for Chairman Kindel’s family,” said Mariela, to which Merle of Merle’s Spices, who was listening to the story, told her the following while acting it out with Elmera.

“His wife said, ‘Oh, poor me. Please come with me to my parents’ home in the imperial capitaaal,’ while nestling up to a young servant all happy. Like this.”

Elmera squealed “Madam” in delight as she grabbed Merle’s corpulent, orc-like body.

Just as one would expect from an A-Rank adventurer. Not even Merle daunted her.

More importantly, how did Merle know something like that? That network of wives was truly something else.

Elmera told Mariela with a wink that Kindel’s seized assets would be used to repair houses in the slums so they would be more comfortable to live in.

As for Colonel Teluther, he was in charge of the City Defense Squad and caused the inadequate management of their medicinal herbs, which were necessary materials for strategy, and he bore heavy responsibility for Kindel’s crimes. However, taking into consideration how he’d put his life on the line to protect the slum residents after the appearance of the giant slime, he was stripped of his position but remained with the City Defense Squad as an adviser.

His successor apparently originated from the administrative side of things, but Elmera hadn’t heard details. He was completely inconspicuous and had unflaggingly worked in Teluther’s shadow. He apparently said he would continue to work hard from here on out.

A commoner soldier named Kyte, who had worked hard to bring the situation under control, was promoted to captain. According to Elmera, he was “a serious but very interesting person.” Adviser Teluther’s job was not to offer advice to the new colonel or Captain Kyte, but rather to have a “discussion” with troops who abused their social standing and wouldn’t listen to orders.

They all had dinner as they talked about these things.

The Black Iron Freight Corps returned to the Labyrinth City today, and since the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion had held a celebration of their safe return, the food was extravagant. Every member of the Corps gathered there, and as always, Captain Dick made a pass at Amber and was skillfully rebuffed, then resorted to snuggling a pillow while calling her name over and over.

The three newly recruited slaves also ate in a corner of the restaurant, and when Mariela greeted them, they bobbed their heads to her.

“Mariela, isn’t it about time for the kids to go to bed?” Lynx butted in before she could even ask the newcomers’ names.

“Geez, I’m not a kid! Besides, aren’t you basically the same age as me?” Mariela grumbled.

“I think it’s about time to feed Slaken,” Sieg whispered to her.

Oh, so it was. Mariela’s mood lightened in an instant, and she left the restaurant with Sieg.

“Anyway, the newcomers sure are quiet, huh?” Mariela asked Lynx, who’d come with them to the front of the shop to see them off.

“Yeah,” Lynx answered simply, then said, “Well, see ya,” and waved. “It’s ’cause their vocal cords were crushed,” he continued, but Mariela was too far away to hear him.

The Black Iron Freight Corps had many secrets regarding their work of handling potions. They couldn’t treat the slaves they’d bought the same as the comrades they’d risked their lives with over a long period of time. They were also concerned that the slaves’ Orders would be forced out of them and their secrets exposed. To protect Mariela and Sieg’s secrets, the slaves’ vocal cords had been crushed so they couldn’t talk.

Even such an act could be carried out on lifelong slaves and penal laborers.

(Our next shipment will be more slaves…?)

Lieutenant Malraux was speaking with Captain Dick telepathically. Ostensibly, Malraux was quietly throwing back his drink, while Dick had buried his face in a pillow, moaning Amber’s name over and over as he rubbed it.

Their previous two cargos had been slaves requested by the slave trader, Reymond.

The Labyrinth subjugation expedition and the sowing of wheat were over. Winter would soon arrive. Seasons made no difference within the Labyrinth, but subjugations would become smaller in scale for a while. No one needed the extra hands during the winter. In the first place, it was common for yagu merchant caravans to carry people and goods into the Labyrinth City. The Black Iron Freight Corps’s job was to carry expensive goods that were too much for the periodic yagu services to transport. What had happened to cause a shortage of only slaves?

(Lynx, how are things looking near Mariela?)

Having finished his communication with Dick, Malraux exchanged information with Lynx. Even after his conversation was over, Dick continued to massage the cushion, which meant he just wanted to squish it, rather than use it as a cover as they exchanged messages. It was a pitiful sight.

(Everything’s normal. And the Aguinas girl’s in the clear. The Aguinas family and the other nobles don’t seem to know about Mariela. Come to think of it, I actually saw Reymond coming and going from the Aguinas house.)

Were the slaves headed toward the Aguinas house? What would a family of alchemists who managed and researched potions use slaves for?

(Suspicious.)

Malraux emptied his glass and disappeared into the night.

“Right, Newie, Nick, Jay, once you’re done eating, return to the base,” Lynx said to the three slaves.

Upon hearing Lynx’s voice, Newie gulped down his remaining food and rushed over in a mad hurry. His full name was Newel.

The hunchback man following him was Nicolai, called Nick.

Quietly following at a reasonable distance, only his eyes restlessly glancing around at his surroundings, was Jacob. Jay for short.

Although the Black Iron Freight Corps had transported slaves last time, when they went to buy some several days after delivering them to Reymond, all the good ones had already been sold. These three seemed like they’d just barely manage to be drivers; only Jay was in his mid-twenties, while the other two were past thirty. These penal laborers with little magic and no decent combat skills were small, dishonest cowards who had repeatedly targeted the weak in robberies and other crimes.

The three of them followed Lynx as they headed to the base of the Black Iron Freight Corps.

Self-important whelp. The name’s Jacob. Don’t go around givin’ me nicknames.

Without letting his thoughts show on his face, Jay, the last in line, mentally cursed Lynx.

All he does is chase floozies. I bet he’ll have plenty of fun after he returns us to the base. Sonuva bitch, why him? And also, where’ve I seen that girl before? Ohhh, maybe the destitute girl who bought that old guy? This one had a real buff fella with her, but… Nah. No way that slave’s still alive. He was about to keel over. You know what? I bet he’s an adventurer in the Labyrinth City who fell for her. She must come from some reaaal good stock, that girl. And the guy with her had a nice weapon on him. Man, if I had that kinda loot, I could kill people a lot easier.

Jay had first seen Mariela inside the animal enclosures provided for guests at Reymond’s place of business. It was after she’d woken up and gone with the Black Iron Freight Corps to the slave trader. Jay was a shrewd man, and he’d introduced himself as the caretaker of the animals there. He felt it shameful to eat for free before he was bought.

He didn’t necessarily like animals or have a knack for taking care of them, nor did he possess an admirable attitude. A lot of the customers who came to the slave trading company came by carriage. Normally, those who did wanted slaves for dangerous heavy labor such as working in the mines, carrying luggage for the Labyrinth Suppression Forces during their usual serfs’ off period, or fighting in the army.

There’s no way I was gonna do that stuff. Even though I was gettin’ fed up with the easy work doin’ odd jobs, I’d rather stay unsold at the slave trader’s.

If he took care of the animals, he’d make the customers think he belonged to the slave trading company, and he’d be able to stay out of the merchant room during business discussions. If the customers didn’t think he was merchandise, he could cleverly remain unsold.

That was how Jay had been able to stay at Reymond’s business for an exceptionally long time.

The Black Iron Freight Corps bought him because there was nobody else who seemed capable of driving. As Nick and Newie weren’t enough, it took the Corps asking Reymond the slave trader whether there was really nobody else for him to remember at last. “Now that you mention it, there is one other.”

The fact he was bought by the Black Iron Freight Corps, who made trips through the Fell Forest, was bad enough, but then they immediately crushed his vocal cords after buying him. He never thought healing magic could be used like that.

It’s that healer, Franz, I hate the most.

The loss of his vocal cords had been painless, but now Jay could no longer even make sounds like ah or uh.

From a penal laborer’s point of view, by no means did the Black Iron Freight Corps treat him poorly. He had enough clothing, food, and shelter, and sometimes he even got to have delicious food and a little alcohol, like today. He could say with certainty that he was much safer than the members of the Corps who traveled through the Fell Forest and confronted monsters. He could even say his circumstances were too good for someone who’d attacked the vulnerable like girls and the elderly, stolen money, violated women, and sometimes killed people.

However, Jay’s heart was filled with discontent.

Those assholes get to have their fill of booze, meat, and women, while I lie in bed under a thin blanket.

Jay seethed with envy.

But having no voice, that discontent never reached his mouth.

02

“Do you carry this salve?”

“I’d like to buy smoke bombs in bulk.”

“Is this the apothecary of the girl and the pretty girl?”

The shop’s been kinda busy lately, Mariela thought while attending to customers.

“And, as for you, didn’t you leave off another ‘pretty’?” she grumbled, to which Lynx, who was helping himself to some lunch in the kitchen, replied, “Huh? Itty-bitty?”

Hey, hey! Lynx, Sieg, wanna tell me why your eyes went straight to my chest?

The customer who’d said “girl and pretty girl” mumbled, “Itty-bitty girl and pretty girl… That’s deep.” The increase in weirdo regulars troubled Mariela.

Speaking of regulars.

The dwarven trio came as they did every day, took a break with some tea, and bought salves. As long as they bought the stuff occasionally, it would have been fine if they came just to drink tea, too, but apparently, they gave the salves to adventurers who’d been injured and were squatting in the slums.

The three slum inhabitants who’d helped with the renovation of Sunlight’s Canopy seemed to have completely recovered from their injuries and returned to being adventurers. Recently, they’d come to the shop to buy salves. They said it was because they were able to afford it with the money they’d earned as adventurers. Mariela had been so happy that she’d thrown in smoke balls created from monster-warding and sleeping herbs as freebies. Their efficacy spread widely via word of mouth, causing her to receive a large number of orders. They weren’t even potions, yet somehow the effects of these normal items changed with a little fine-tuning.

Merle’s influence was quite astounding, too.

Mariela’s shop offered several types of soap. These, too, were regular items, but Essential Alchemic Products to Make Your Life Easier registered in Mariela’s Library had recipes for powdered soap for laundry, liquid soap for dishwashing, soap for personal hygiene such as a liquid for hair, a solid for the body, and a creamy soap for the face. They had two effects: softening and cleansing. She also offered all kinds of scented soap.

In truth, there were many more recipes with names like “Refreshing” and “The Works,” but she only sold the types she could make by combining lifestyle magic like Dehydrate and Pulverize without using alchemic skills at all. Considering the average in other shops, her soap cost a little more than the market price in the Labyrinth City, but the pack of housewives came in turns to buy it from her.

Amber, in typical Amber fashion, told her while laughing, “Ela, your medicine works so well! I recommended it to other ladies in the business. Oh, and I also recommended your salves to my customers. It does wonders and heals scratch marks in one night, so I think some of the customers were disappointed. Hee-hee-hee.” Mariela wasn’t sure she should ask for more details about the scratch marks.

She was certainly grateful she’d been getting more customers, thanks to word of mouth from her regulars, but…

“Hey, hey, hey, you quack chemist! Lookit how much my arm swelled up when I used your medicine! What’re you gonna do about it, eh?!”

“Yeah, that’s right! We’re adventurers, ya know! What if we can’t go into the Labyrinth no more?!”

Recently, she’d also been experiencing an influx in customers with ridiculous complaints about her goods: customers who said there were bugs in their medicine so big she wanted to ask them how they’d gotten them in there in the first place; customers who said their stomach hurt after taking the medicine even though they were shouting energetically at the top of their lungs; customers who pasted a Sunlight’s Canopy label on a tin of ointment from another shop and then said the stuff inside was different than advertised.

They were all people who’d never been to her shop before and who really looked like thugs. Today’s bunch, too, were obvious delinquents who cowed at first under the sharp stare of the regulars whose refined teatime was being disturbed before flying into a rage. Just as they were about to get violent, Sieg held them down and wrapped them up with rope he had ready on the corner of the counter. He could have taken them to the City Defense Squad’s office, but just in case, Mariela and Carol examined the supposedly swollen area on one of the perpetrators.

“Ahh, this is daidara snail mucus,” observed Mariela as she looked at the red rash on the restrained man’s arm. He’d probably smeared it on himself just a short while ago, as some of the shiny stuff remained on his irritated skin.

A daidara snail was a huge snail that lived in the clammy strata of the Labyrinth, and its shell alone was about the size of two adult fists. It was not a monster, so if you killed one, you could recover its entire body. It was covered with sticky mucus that left a red, itchy rash if you touched it with your bare hands, but if you rinsed the rash with clean water and didn’t scratch it, it would completely heal by the following morning.

Incidentally, the creature was edible. A large quantity had made the rounds at the wholesale market yesterday, so he’d probably used those to inflict this on himself.

Mariela had bought some, too, and put the leftovers in her magical tool for food storage.

“I said this happened ’cause of your medicine, twerp!”

Ignoring the delinquent’s repeated false accusations, Mariela abruptly took out the daidara snail.

As if it were the first time Carol had seen it, she said “Oh my” with an expression of both surprise and great interest. Because it was cheap, gross looking, and only somewhat tasty, it was more of a commoner’s food, so it had probably never crossed the dining table of the aristocratic Aguinas family. Too bad—daidara snails made a great soup stock, and the flesh was firm and mild. Because it went well with vegetables, it had a wide range of uses as an ingredient in stir-fries or soup.

“And here we have a daidara snail. The surface mucus poses no danger if immediately soaked and rinsed with water. However…”

With a clunk, Mariela used a hammer to split the daidara snail’s shell.

She removed a pea-green sack from the intestines that spilled out, put it on a plate, cut it open, and removed the yellow fluid inside it. She then scooped the fluid with a spoon and held it up for all to see.

“…you seeee, if you add this venom to the daidara snail’s mucus like this…”

Without any regard for the delinquent shouting, “Hey, what’re you doing?! Cut it out!” Mariela smeared the yellow liquid onto the rash on his arm.

Then a tightly packed cluster of tiny, round spots swelled up on the affected area, a colorful variety of green, yellow, white, and blue from the roots to the tips. From above, it looked like fish eyes had sprouted from the man’s skin.

“Eek!” The faces of the two delinquents turned white in an instant, and they were speechless.

Although Carol uttered “How revolting…,” she stared fixedly at the spots without blinking.

Yeah. It’s super-gross, but you just can’t help but stare, right? I totally get it.

This unladylike side to Carol was probably why the two got along so well.

“So it was a daidara snail after all. Gee, if you’d only said so from the start, then I wouldn’t have done something this risky. Now look what happened. It’s really bad. It’s turned all sorts of funky colors…… Would you like me to heal it?” Mariela threatened. Her little speech had been in a monotone. She wouldn’t win an award for best actress, but it seemed to be enough for the delinquent who was overwhelmed by the sheer impact of the boils.

He nodded his head up and down in response.

The rest was simple. Looking like he might cry at any moment, the man truthfully answered Sieg’s questions.

By the way, the fluid from a daidara snail’s intestines isn’t poisonous. Mariela had simply said so as a threat. It was surprisingly not well-known, but a daidara snail secreted this fluid in the mucus on the surface of its body to produce colorful spots for luring prey. Since they were just bubbles with nothing inside them, they weren’t harmful at all and quickly came off if you rinsed them with water.

If you applied the fluid to the itchy rash, it would be cured faster than just rinsing it with water.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen spots like these.

Mariela remembered a long time ago, when she could just about make mid-grade cure potions, her master’s face and neck had been covered in these spots. Her master had put on a convincing performance, crying, “M-Marielaaa, help meee, hurry and make a cure potion—not a low-grade one, mid-grade!” Completely taken in, Mariela thought her master was going to die, and she cried as she desperately concocted a cure potion.

Incidentally, mid-grade cure potions didn’t get rid of the spots. The spots were neither poison nor a disease but rather simply stuck to the skin, so there was no reason a potion would do anything.

“Th-they’re not going awaaay!” Mariela sobbed as she made countless cure potions. Thanks to this, she’d mastered how to make them, but she would never forget her master’s face or laughter as she was told “Just kidding!”

For the next three days, she’d only made food with daidara snails for her master as punishment.

The memory had gotten a rise out of Mariela, who used a needle to pop the delinquent’s spots one by one to take out her anger. They were just bubbles, so they shouldn’t have hurt. However, the two delinquents believed they were boils and apologized profusely through their tears: “I’m shorry, thank you sho mutch.”

They were completely convinced it was a dangerous poison. Their tears inspired a bit of mischief in Mariela, who put water in a porcelain pitcher and colored it slightly with yagu milk, then used the lifestyle magic Light to illuminate the contents.

“Since you told me the truth, I’ll use my special medicine to treat you,” she said, pouring the water from up high so they wouldn’t notice the light inside. Because Light illuminated the pitcher’s interior, the cloudy white water looked like it was shining. Neither potions nor Drops of Life shone like that, but this was an amusing little trick.

The ordinary shining water rinsed away the colorful spots, which came off in large chunks. The two delinquents, who believed it was an incredible medicine, prostrated themselves in front of Mariela and apologized, and then the guards Merle had summoned took them away.

“Another rival apothecary?” Mariela sighed. Her medicine had a reputation of being very effective, and she’d been getting more and more customers through word of mouth. What’s more, even the most popular maker of medicine sold at the Adventurers Guild shop, Carol, came to her shop, and now the two girls made medicine together. It hadn’t been long since the shop opened, but sales were through the roof to the point where any mention of medicine immediately brought Sunlight’s Canopy to mind.

But the more their medicine sold, the worse the harassment became from other chemists whose own sales had taken a hit. At first, it had only been reputation damage, but Merle’s network of housewives stamped that out…or rather, they beat the harassers at their own game.

Housewives are scary. What are they, masters of intelligence wars? Some sorta spy organization?!

If the harassers had given up there, Mariela would have simply shuddered at the might of the housewife intelligence agency, but her competitors seemed to have resorted to violence by hiring thugs. Mariela and Sieg’s polite little “explanations” managed to coax the thugs into spilling whom they worked for, but things just couldn’t go on like this forever.

What a fix.

When she turned toward Carol to discuss countermeasures, she found her absorbed in playing around with the daidara snail’s mucus and yellow secretion, mixing them together to produce colorful bubbles. She was way too curious.

Upon noticing Mariela’s gaze, Carol looked at her with sparkling eyes. “Mariela, how did you make that shiny water from before?”

She was in such high spirits that any further discussion would be pointless.

After Mariela explained the trick, Carol gleefully began pouring shining liquid into pitchers and teapots. One by one, she poured sparkly water or tea for the regular customers and the shoppers who’d been watching the whole thing.

Incidentally, this made its rounds as an extremely popular parlor trick—where the pourer struck a cool pose while pouring the shiny magic water. In fact, many children and fathers received a good scolding from their mothers and wives for making a big mess as they tried it for themselves. These stories dominated the conversation for weeks.

Even at Sunlight’s Canopy, a self-service tea station was set up in one corner in response to zealous demand from the regulars. It offered several kinds of tea leaves, a tea set, and a magical tabletop burner you could put a kettle on. Because cleaning tools had been placed nearby, people tended to mop up their own spills.

Perhaps as a consequence, people posed with their shiny tea every day, making it harder and harder to determine exactly what kind of shop Mariela was running.

It wasn’t until a few days later that Mariela could finally talk with Carol about the harassment from owners of other apothecaries.

Carol didn’t seem aware of it at all. Befuddled, she simply replied, “My… If only the other chemists could make medicine as good as yours, Mariela.”

“Well, yeah, exactly. The way they make it, for instance… Ooh, that’s it! I’ve got it!”

She’d hit on a bit of an idea. She closed the shop earlier than usual that day, then went with Sieg to see Elmera.

03

“You would be willing to teach how to make medicine?” parroted Elmera, chairwoman of the Merchants Guild’s Medicinal Herbs Division. Her vice chair, Leandro, looked just as stunned as she did.

“Yes. Not every kind, of course, but my best sellers, like salves, painkillers, and smoke bombs. Oh, and Lady Carol’s on board, too.”

Mariela and Sieg had visited Elmera at the Merchants Guild for advice about the harassment from owners of other apothecaries.

“But all of them are your smash hits.”

“That’s right, but they’re all simple to make. Isn’t it a bad look to have a huge discrepancy in sales for something as basic as salves?”

Mariela’s question about the pharmaceutical situation in the Labyrinth City was on point. The standards for chemists in this place were low, and many people didn’t even have the basics down to a satisfactory degree. Thanks to the high quality of materials from the Labyrinth, medicines managed to have passable effects only. In truth, medicinal problems had cropped up here and there, and trying to raise the chemists’ skill levels was quite the headache for Elmera.

The Medicinal Herbs Division published all kinds of books on how to make basic medicine, including the enormous Encyclopedia of Medicinal Herbs and Their Effects that consolidated information on herb effects and processing methods. They were also steadily working on a certification system by way of seminars. But Chairwoman Elmera’s expectations and the reality of these chemists were way too different, which was why she hadn’t been able to get the results she wanted.

Not every chemist made medicine in a half-baked way. Information in The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Herbs and Their Effects and other publications related to medicine was proof of their research. That meant the reason the pharmaceutical situation in the Labyrinth City hadn’t improved was because of how low their alchemic skills were.

Not only could Mariela make high-grade potions, she had a firm grasp on the basics, such as processing materials. That’s why she could identify and discern the condition of materials and partially processed goods just by looking at them. As a skilled chef can tell just by tasting a dish how the ingredients were processed and what spices were used, alchemic skills can easily tell a person information beyond the five senses.

Although alchemists from the imperial capital employed by the Aguinas family could probably do the same thing, they didn’t show up in town. It would be nice if alchemists from the Empire and its neighboring countries paid them a visit, but people with that sort of knowledge and skill could make a living in the region where they’d formed a pact with the ley line. They would never go out of their way to a place like the Labyrinth City where alchemy couldn’t be used.

Ghark, who ran a medicinal herbs shop, possessed the Material Appraisal skill from a young age. Now his skill level was high. Even in a batch of combined materials like medicine, he could use specialized magical tools along with Appraisal to glean information.

But those who had increased their Appraisal skill, which was excruciatingly difficult to master, were few and far between, and skill users generally concealed it to avoid nuisances. Few people knew Ghark possessed it, and the degraded, second-rate products lined up at the front of his shop served to disguise the place as an ordinary medicinal herbs shop.

In other words, hardly anyone in the Labyrinth City could accurately grasp the condition of medicinal herbs and the workmanship of medicine.

Chemists didn’t clearly understand the quality of the materials they used or the medicine they made. Even in the case of new products, they had to perform several tests to understand their effects. This whole thing might have been different with the support of the public, but compared to magic that could heal wounds instantly even in battle and potions that could make up for its shortcomings, medicine was seen as inferior, and people were forced to study it on an individual basis.

It was when Elmera became chairwoman that the Merchants Guild’s Medicinal Herbs Division began to focus on medicine quality improvement. The division, originally in charge of the regulation of medicinal herb shipments from the Labyrinth City, was responsible for the optimization of processing expensive medicinal herbs to preserve their value. In the Labyrinth City, where efforts had to be focused on subjugating the Labyrinth and there was no spare energy for other things, the advancement of medicine was inevitably slow.

These were the circumstances Mariela was under when she suggested she could teach others how to make medicine—which combined techniques left in the Library by senior apprentices with material processing techniques. It was way higher than the quality of medicine in the city. Although salves were basic medicine, it would be incorrect to say the know-how of making them was also not advanced. Teaching your competitors on how you make your livelihood wasn’t something that was usually done.

It was understandable for Elmera to be perplexed by Mariela proposing to disclose this information.

However, neither Mariela nor Carol had any reason to be worried about teaching how to make medicine. Orders had been on the up-and-up by large quantities, and Mariela couldn’t make them all in time. Besides, even if she stopped selling salves, painkillers, and smoke bombs, Carol could focus her efforts on medicine that alleviated the aftereffects of a disease while Mariela made a variety of other medicines.

Incidentally, Mariela had been working hard with the desire to make medicine that was sweet tasting and easy to take, but it hadn’t been going well at all.

Although neither of them put it in words, they weren’t really making their living from medicine sales. And their problems would increase if they hired people. Mariela and Carol knew it would be too much for anyone to wrangle in the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls who had too much knowledge in one field and knew nothing else.

Not to mention Mariela had her secret of being an alchemist. She couldn’t afford to be hassled by her unskilled adversaries. It would be better to provide some amount of information and be hidden in a sea of chemists than to scale up and monopolize.

“Mm, you could get a onetime payment as an informational fee at the time of contract, and then receive a portion of the sales while maintaining the rights to the manufacturing process. What do you think?”

“The patent system used in the imperial capital? A ‘medicine’ category does not exist.”

Leandro’s suggestion baffled Elmera. Of course she knew the system. The Labyrinth City was part of the Empire, so the system applied here, too.

Although the Empire’s patent system protected new technology, the categories were limited. The most popular one was “magical tools.” On the other hand, categories for alchemic goods like potions didn’t exist. Alchemists had the Library, and only those permitted by their masters could learn the information, so protecting it with a patent would actually be a hindrance.

Smithing techniques weren’t covered, either. The production of ordinary iron increased in scale with advancements in technology, but magical metals such as mythril and adamantite couldn’t be manufactured unless the blacksmith’s skill level was sufficient, whether for smelting or forging. Conservative theory remained steadfast regarding the acquisition of rights for products that only skilled people could create.

On the other hand, magical tools technology, which was growing rapidly due to development in the Labyrinth City, didn’t require a particular skill, and disclosing information about it would be very likely to harm the interests of its developers. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the Empire’s patent system developed due to the advancement of magical tools.

The only area within the Empire where potions couldn’t be made was the Labyrinth City’s region, so even though the city had medicine, it was the only location without a “medicine” category in the patent system. Therefore, if you wanted to apply for a medicine patent, you would have to request the creation of a category for it, but considering the market scale for medicines, Elmera felt it wasn’t likely to work.

“A category application, hmm…?” she mumbled, to which Leandro offered a suggestion.

“Ms. Elmeraaa, I bet you’re thinking it won’t go through even if we apply for a ‘medicine’ category, yes? You’re right; we’d be lucky if it did go through! It could take years to see results. So for now, why not accept a ‘seminar fee’ and draw up a contract for royalty payments as well?”

Ever the adaptable one, that Leandro.

“Aha. A fine idea. We shall make participation compulsory for the chemists who have been causing trouble at Mariela’s apothecary.”

“In that case, I’ll locate some staff with extra time on their hands and have them draw up a plan based on the patent system. Ms. Elmera, if you would, please speak to the guildmaster. Mariela, we’d be happy to have you as a lecturer.” Leandro gave a wave of his hand, then went to find available subordinates to delegate the entire job. Although it had been his proposal, it didn’t appear he would be writing it himself.

“I’ve got some reeeally fun work for you all. How about you collaborate? Fear not, I’ll supervise, only for a little while,” they heard him say, skillfully manipulating his subordinates.

“Mariela, I’ll serve on the staff as well. Any insubordinate chemists will be getting a zap from me, don’t you worry. Ah, with this, the Labyrinth City’s chemists will improve by leaps and bounds!” Elmera gushed. Wasn’t her identity as the Lightning Empress a secret?

And what good would it do to give them a zap? Mariela felt like it might make them forget whatever she taught them, which would just defeat the entire purpose.

After Leandro delegated every last task, the staff worked on a plan all night, and Elmera got permission from the guildmaster of the Merchants Guild the following day. The chemists received an explanation of the contract and usage fees, and a seminar was held after the roughly two-week-long notification period.

Incidentally, the contract and usage fees differed depending on the information provided. For the first installment, the planned contract fee for salves, painkillers, and smoke bombs was one large silver coin each. This would be the seminar fee. The usage fee would be 2 percent of sales, paid yearly. These terms were signed in a magical contract before the seminar, so no one could provide a false report at the time of payment. If someone made a significant improvement to a product based on the methods they learned and obtained clearly superior or different effects, it would be considered a different product and thus outside the scope of the contract.

Once Mariela held the seminar, the harassment at her shop immediately ceased.

That was because other chemists in the apothecary trade were improving their skills instead of wasting their time giving Mariela grief. Those individuals attended the seminar to beat the rest at their own game. That was why the seminar was a great success, and Mariela wound up holding it at the same time every week.

The chemists who’d been caught pestering Mariela listened silently in a corner. They even participated the following week, too. The seminar fee served as the contract fee, meaning they were paying double to attend twice. They looked uncomfortable when she asked them why.

“I tried to make it like you said, but it just never turned out well.”

Apparently, they’d used the entirety of the dried curique—even the veins and stems.

It hadn’t occurred to Mariela and Elmera that there were people who didn’t know which components of medicinal herbs to use. It seemed so obvious to the two of them that they never thought to mention which parts. Once they realized this this, they tried incorporating practical exercises into the seminars and held regular study groups for the participants.

As she continued to interact with the chemists, Mariela was able to learn things from them, such as how to choose medicine based on a patient’s condition, shops that stocked quality herbs, and little-known spots that were easy to gather herbs from, even for chemists.

Through this seminar, Mariela finally managed to fit in with the Labyrinth City chemists.

04

It was time for the annual Orc Festival.

When the sugar turnip–harvesting season arrived, orcs would come out of the Fell Forest in droves to loot the crops. A large amount of meat from the slaughtered orcs would appear on the market at low prices, which benefitted the winter food situation in the Labyrinth City. Thus, people in the City didn’t call it a “raid” or a “subjugation,” but rather a “festival,” and they looked forward to it.

Orcs, minotaurs, sahuagins, and other bipedal monsters weren’t considered food at the imperial capital, but they were important sources of meat in the Labyrinth City, where the food security was a real problem. Most of the farmland was located outside the City walls, and monsters constantly went after crops other than sugar turnips, including wheat, potatoes, and other vegetables. Some of the city’s produce was even brought in by yagu caravans, so there were very few spare resources for raising livestock. Only aristocrats ate such meat.

This year, the stock of monster-warding incense and daigis rope ran out under then-Colonel Teluther, causing the slime uproar in the slums. However, the needed materials were somehow collected, thanks to the medicinal herbs provided by Mariela and some kind members of the Merchants Guild following her lead, as well as those scraped together during the uproar.

A huge number of adventurers participated in the Orc Festival. If you submitted tails from orcs you’d defeated, you’d receive a share of orc meat in proportion to the number of tails. Even if you couldn’t obtain these, submitting a certificate of participation would let you join the orc-roasting party at the end of the weeklong subjugation period.

Although the Orc Festival was a yearly custom, it was not without its dangers. They were subjugating monsters, after all. However, orc hunting was much more efficient in a group than alone. In the unlikely event a mid-grade monster like an orc king appeared, the participating senior adventurers would defeat it, so even young adventurers and older people who’d already retired from adventuring participated in these events.

Orcs were a highly fertile race consisting of only males who violated females of other species in order to bear children. Although they birthed males and females in equal number, some scholars said the race was male because they killed young females before they reached adulthood, but it wasn’t known for certain.

In any case, since women were at high risk of being targeted, they could only participate if they were C-Rank adventurers or higher. Instead, they were free to join the orc meat–roasting party after the subjugation period. Because it was also a place for young men and women to meet, single women would doll themselves up and put all their energy into cheering for others from quite a distance away, rather than participate in the subjugation itself.

Unless they had the Eagle Eye skill, these cheerleaders wouldn’t be able to really see the single male adventurers and members of the City Defense Squad, who still tried their utmost to show off their strong suits. And few female adventurers eligible to participate actually did, since it was much more fun to spectate from a distance and chat with the other girls than to hunt repulsive orcs.

In other words, the Orc Festival was the most masculine celebration of all in the Labyrinth City.

The curtain now opened on the festival of meat, where muscles and orcs meet.

“Sieg! Lynx! You can do it!” Mariela cheered them on while watching with unprecedented passion.

This wasn’t a harem situation developing here. The only “meat” that caught her eye was the kind just beyond her scope of vision. Oh, maybe it was “king meat.” It was said that orc kings were very likely to appear during the festival.

Mariela and Elmera observed together. Elmera’s husband wasn’t participating, but several young employees from the Medicinal Herbs Division had joined the event. Although it was a guild for merchants, there were times when they had needed to gather herbs to bolster their scanty supply, which meant a suitable amount of fighting power was necessary. Elmera had been saying things like, “I wonder what sort of battles will unfold this year?” in excitement for a while now, so maybe the young employees had been compelled to participate for her to observe.

Since Mariela would be safe next to the A-Rank adventurer Elmera, Sieg and Lynx had given into her pressuring—“I wanna eat orc king meat!”—and were participating in the Orc Festival.

The festival this year spotlighted the City Defense Squad’s newly appointed commander, Captain Kyte. People believed he was eager to do something exemplary.

He began to address the crowd: “Adventurers gathered here today, my name is Kyte and I will be leading the charge in this year’s event. I met my wife at the Orc Festival, but it wasn’t until my fifth time participating that things started going well for me. I suffered minor injuries during my first two festivals, so my comrades hauled me away to the clinic for treatment, and I couldn’t join in the festivities. I ended up covered in blood during my third festival and had to change clothes, which made me late to the celebrations afterward. The fourth time, I was determined; however, I managed to lose all my tails, the proof of my participation, to a certain lovely lady. The competition during my fifth festival remained fierce, but I was able to win over my wife’s heart. Do you understand what I’m saying here? The orcs are merely a preliminary encounter. A warm-up. The orc tails are like the flowers you offer to a woman. The true battle will begin after this. Pace yourselves, and don’t take things too far—let’s get to hunting orcs as planned and earn ourselves the most magnificent bundles of their tails!” he concluded.

It didn’t at all sound like a pre-battle speech, but hearing it from someone with the experience to back it up made it weightier. Everyone nodded in agreement when Kyte finished speaking. Some shouted “Idiot, this is my seventh time!” but they listened earnestly to the strategy. As this was the festival with the highest number of foolish injuries in the Labyrinth City, he seemed to have skillfully controlled the enthusiasm of the bachelors who were already inattentively daydreaming about the meat-roasting party.

The strategy was simple. Boil sugar turnip skins and other scraps at the border of the Fell Forest near the turnip fields. After the sweet smell wafted toward the forest with wind magic, the orcs who came near the Labyrinth City in search of food before the winter would snort and sniff as they emerged from the forest.

To prevent the fields from being damaged, rope mixed with daigis zigzagged across palisades to make a simple fence at the border of the Fell Forest, save for the place where they planned to stage the battle. Since they burned monster-warding incense and blew the scent toward the forest with wind magic, they could make the orcs appear in the approximate area of the planned battlefield.

If an orc king was leading them, the orcs moved in a controlled fashion, but in most cases, they appeared as several groups, in which case adventurers lined up to fell them in order.

The strategy was the same every year, but it was a wonder they could catch so many orcs without a problem. Did the monsters never learn? Having said that, even Kyte had been unsuccessful in the Orc Festival his first four times, so maybe the monsters were no different.

Lured by the smell of sugar turnips, three orcs immediately appeared. A team of young adventurers who had lined up early in the morning with their first lances in hand charged forward with a mighty battle cry. They were overdoing it. The adventurers following the youths heckled them.

“Lure them farther. It’s a huge pain to carry ’em!”

“No lady wants a man who can’t keep his cool!”

“Shut yer trap! Jealousy ain’t a look good on an old fart like you!”

As they returned the taunts with their own, the youths cut off the tails that were proof of the orcs’ subjugation. Then they rounded up serfs and escorted them as they carried the orcs to the back of the ranks before lining up again.

“The back of the line is this waaay. Don’t be impatient, now, the orcs will keep coming out.”

Because some of the people holding these placards and controlling the crowd were members of the City Defense Squad, the adventurers obeyed—foulmouthed but well mannered.

Incidentally, a line had been drawn at the midway point between the forest border and the ranks of fighters, so that when an orc crossed it, the next adventurer in line could bring it down. This strategy enabled adventurers fighting near the line who had no confidence in winning to retreat and ask for help.

The adventurers defeated the orcs in order as they appeared in a string of ceaseless clusters. The felled orcs were placed in wagons prepared in advance near the ranks and transported to the Labyrinth City, where they were drained, dismantled, and frozen with ice magic by Adventurers Guild dismantlers and butchers from the wholesale market.

The yagus hauling the wagons were all male, and they raised their splendid horns high while triumphantly pulling the wagons as if affected by the battle atmosphere. Among the yagus was the one that had helped Mariela and Sieg in the past. Their hooves clacked on the ground as they transported the bloody orcs.

Yagus are herbivores, right? They’re way too into this…, Mariela thought as she absentmindedly observed the spectacle. Then it was Sieg and Lynx’s turn.

The pair assumed natural poses near the centerline.

“Hey, hey, heeey, ya plan to run away from the very beginning?”

“Without a tail, you won’t be popular at the party!”

Right as the adventurers were ridiculing them, four orcs approached.

Sieg rushed out just before the orcs reached the centerline, and Lynx took a step forward and threw knives with a whoosh. Lynx’s knives pierced the eye sockets of two orcs all the way to their brains, and they came crashing down to the ground. Sieg was faster than the clubs the orcs swung at him. He slit the first one’s throat, dodged the second one’s blow by a hairsbreadth, then closed in and pierced it through the heart. He settled his side of the fight in the blink of an eye, too.

Along with the commotion, the adventurers’ booing reached a head.

“We don’t need your kind here! You’re high-ranking adventurers who can attract ladies just by existing!”

“I pray you guys get eaten alive by malicious women!”

The only person who squealed in a high-pitched voice was Teluther.

“That’s the guy from back then! Who are those guys?! What’s their rank? They must have aliases!”

He was extremely giddy. Released from the heavy responsibility of being colonel, Teluther freely enjoyed the adventurers’ activities and now shined the brightest. He ignored the gaze of the soldiers who seemed to be telling him to get to work.

Incidentally, since it isn’t required to register your name or anything when participating, there was no reason for Teluther to ever know Sieg’s or Lynx’s name. Please rest assured this isn’t the start of another kind of story.

Sieg and Lynx raised a hand to ward off the adventurers’ booing in style as they returned to the back of the line like they were hot stuff. Their gallant figures, including when they were battling, were too far away for Mariela to see.

At the support corner set up far away in front of the Labyrinth City, Elmera seemed to be enjoying covering the events as they happened.

“Goodness, Mariela, those friends of yours are doing quite well. They got two orcs each. You’ll have no shortage of meat come winter. You ought to take some as sausages. They are delicious in a pot-au-feu.” She was definitely using magic to sharpen her eyesight. For a while now, every time her hands were about to touch, static electricity went flying with a zap, and it hurt.

Mariela, who’d seen the pair off, was honestly a bit tired of it.

The battlefield was so far away that she couldn’t see what they were doing, but she could hear the carnivorous conversations of the young ladies in the vicinity.

“No real standouts among this year’s newbies, huh?”

“Say, would it be bothersome to get just a tail from someone you don’t care for?”

“That guy? I think she broke up with him. But I hear he still follows her around.”

Mariela was also a carnivorous girl acting on animal instincts in her food preferences alone, and her prey today was orc king meat, so she had no interest in any of the conversations she overheard.

As Mariela absentmindedly wished from the bottom of her heart she’d brought along The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Herbs and Their Effects, one of the women called out to her.

“Hey, you run an apothecary, right?”

“Yes, I do,” Mariela answered as she looked in her direction. The woman was around twenty years old and wearing town girl–style clothes, but she had a toned figure packed with muscles and little in the way of flab. Probably an adventurer.

“I was wondering if you had something that might heal this burn mark.” She rolled up a sleeve to show Mariela the terrible burn scar underneath it. “My healer took care of the burn itself, but there’s still a scar. It doesn’t really bother me, but my companion looks so upset whenever he sees it.”

Apparently, she’d received the injury from protecting one of her party members—the companion she spoke of. Maybe he was her boyfriend; she was gazing at the Orc Festival grounds with a gentle look on her face.

Mariela’s words caught in her throat at the woman’s question.

“I’m so sorry. It might fade a bit with some whitening cream, but…”

Mariela didn’t sell any medicine that could cure a burn scar. This wound could have been easily cured by a high-grade potion.

Mariela looked down, but the female adventurer smiled happily at her.

“I see. Whitening cream, right? Do you sell any at your shop?”

When Mariela replied she’d make it for her, the female adventurer promised she’d definitely come to buy it and then departed.

By the way, Elmera heard the skin-brightening cream conversation and placed her own order, too. The other women in the vicinity also apparently overheard, and Mariela ended up with a whole slew of orders.

Being busy was a good thing. As she was thinking this, an air of chaos suddenly came from the direction of the Orc Festival grounds.

It seemed they’d suddenly gotten busy over there, too.

“Here come the orc kiiiings!”

The men at the Orc Festival grounds were fired up.

Orc kings come with several orc generals and hundreds of orcs. Back when General Leonhardt had participated in the subjugation, not only did he not have adventurers assigned to him, but seven orc kings had attacked at once. This time, though, there were only two, accompanied by five generals and around five hundred orcs. Since this was right after the start of the Orc Festival, one could say it was a reasonable appearance rate.

The strength of a single orc king was below C Rank, and a C-Rank adventurer could beat it in a one-on-one fight. If you converted the level of a soldier in the City Defense Squad to an adventurer’s level, a D Rank became an E Rank. Those with C Rank and higher military strength were assigned to the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, which meant the City Defense Squad only had mid- to low-grade fighting power. However, as long as there was a chain of command, it was possible for them to subjugate a group of orcs led by one or two orc kings. Not only that, adventurers had gathered now, too.

This might be off-topic, but the deployment of adventurers had been a plan devised by Teluther’s successor, the current colonel, and pushed forward by Teluther. Well, this was before Teluther had been promoted to colonel.

“We can observe the adventurers’ activity from nearby and mingle with them at the party after the subjugation,” Teluther had suggested, and demonstrated tenacity like never before to push the plan through a number of obstacles. In fact, this might have been the first and last time he used his skill Synchronize so effectively.

The result was a big hit. Besides guaranteeing inexpensive fighting power and the coinciding increase in safety, it produced a variety of secondary effects: providing entertainment to the public, promoting interactions between the public and private sectors, and improving the reputation of the City Defense Squad. This series of events had promoted Teluther to colonel. If you gave him the benefit of the doubt, you might say his interest in adventurers had saved him. Or you could say he’s been just plain lucky.

As with the City Defense Squad, many of the adventurers participating in the Orc Festival were below D Rank, but among them were some senior adventurers who had been badgered by their wives to participate for the meat.

If you were a senior adventurer, you had enough money to buy orc king meat at the market, but more than a few husbands had been forced to participate in the Orc Festival, which did not go undetected under their wives’ radars, signaling things like “bargain,” “cheap,” and “the husband next door is participating, too.”

Thus the curtain opened on the great struggle for orc king meat.

“Sieg, the B-Rankers are after that king over there. Let’s get this one!”

“Got it!”

Lynx and Sieg shot off, running at the speed of a gale. Naturally, the adventurers around them broke from formation all at once and began to sprint, too.

The appearance of the orc kings was a cue for the melee to start.

They mowed down the approaching orcs as they ran for their target, an orc king. Hordes of adventurers seemed to be targeting the other one. One moment, several ice lances floated in midair, and the next, they aimed to pierce the monster. A blade of wind swept them away.

“Hey, asshole! Get outta my way!”

“Shaddap! This one’s mine! You stay out of it!”

The B-Rankers began an ugly squabble among themselves to mass produce “foolish injuries.” A long sword user rushed out, thinking this was his chance, but an earth magic user lurking somewhere literally swept him off his feet, causing him to somersault and fall flat. He collided with several orcs and sent them to the next world.

It was a free-for-all. At the distant cheering grounds, Elmera provided live updates with great excitement. Every time she gestured as she talked, static electricity came flying out with a zap, which was super-painful. Did she really care about hiding her Lightning Empress identity? When Mariela asked her, she responded with a smile, “I’m just a lightning magic user.” When she winked, sparks scattered with a zap from the tips of her eyelashes, so all Mariela could say in reply was “I guess so.”

Sieg and Lynx made a dash for the orc king while dodging the spells flying toward their feet in an attempt to butt in.

At that moment, a man from the crowd covered head to toe in a cloak leaped high into the sky with inhuman jumping power and landed in front of the pair.

His presence overpowered the battlefield. The orcs near his landing spot became frightened and shrank back.

The top of the cloak fluttered in the breeze like the wings of a magical bird and revealed the face hidden within.

“I’ll be taking that king!” the mystery man declared snappily, looking as dazzling as always.

Why are you here, Haage? Aren’t you obviously way too powerful for this…?

Before the adventurers could express their thoughts aloud as they got ready to give up, an invisible net lightly spread out from his landing spot and caught him.

“Whoa there, that’s not enough to bring me down!” Haage swung his arms, trying to tear off the net. But before he could get away, several shadows appeared from who knows where and surrounded him in the blink of an eye.

“Guildmaster, we’re leaving. You’re bothering everyone.”

“Please go back to work. You’ve been goofing off too much lately.”

“You’re too predictable, so it was easy to set a trap.”

“L-let go of me! Can’t we talk this over?! If I don’t get the king and bring it home, my wife, my wife will…!”

In their office clothes, the top brass of the Adventurers Guild wrapped the struggling Haage in a bamboo mat and lifted him high as they hauled him off. Although no one could see their attacks, one could understand their strength by the way they cut through the orcs blocking their path. However, Haage’s rank was higher than theirs. One could say he showed all the young adventurers that even a higher-ranked opponent could be brought down with strategy and teamwork.

“Wh-whooooooaaaaa! That’s Team Haage, isn’t it?! Incredible, absolutely incredible!” Teluther cried in great excitement. The soldiers around him watched over him halfheartedly with facial expressions that could only be described as saying “Good for you.”

By the way, “Team Haage” was not the official name. It was a popular nickname. The leaders that Haage personally trained substituted for one another according to the situation. It wasn’t like they said “I hate being on the guildmaster’s team” and refused to introduce themselves as team members. Maybe, just maybe, they liked him.

Now that the greatest threat, Haage, had been eliminated, Sieg and several adventurers seized the opportunity to close in on an orc king.

“GROOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

The orc king let out a war cry. It was taller than a large man and probably heavier than several put together. From a body worthy of the title “king,” the incredibly intimidating roar echoed like tremors to terrorize the adventurers. However, it couldn’t stop the warriors who’d made it this far.

The orc king swung a gigantic club the size of an adult human’s torso that generated enough wind pressure to launch the surrounding orcs into the air. However, one person absorbed it into their sword and sent it flying back at the king’s throat, and another used the club as a foothold to spring at the king’s head. Sieg, too, ducked under the club and used his Achilles tendon to fly like a bullet and pierced the king’s heart with his mythril sword.

With its head, throat, and heart attacked at the same time, the orc king was helpless as it fell.

They’d done it. They’d defeated the orc king. But who? Who attacked at the same time? Who would get the meat?

“Nice work, Sieg. Okay, let’s get goin’! Party at the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion!” Lynx had appeared unnoticed next to Sieg and addressed him. Sieg silently made a fist and bumped it against his comrade’s.

Lynx held a splendid tail in his fist, one that was clearly different from a normal orc’s.

“Maaan, I never woulda thought Haage would show up.”

At the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion, Lynx recounted the entire story of the battle in an amusing way as he sunk his teeth into the meat of a king orc. He talked of a scene that few people would ever experience: how he circled behind the orc king to cut off its tail while Sieg drew the attention of the adventurers as he challenged the monster. However, Mariela and the beautiful girl who worked at the inn, Emily, were both engrossed with the orc king meat and not really listening.

Thirty pounds of the orc king meat were distributed to Lynx, who’d brought back the tail, and twenty pounds to each of the three people who finished off the king, including Sieg. Meat from the orc kings, orc generals, and other high-grade monsters was divided among those who had contributed to killing the monster even if they didn’t bring back the tail. Because of this, members of the City Defense Squad in charge of high-grade meat painstakingly kept track of the battle situation. In any case, senior adventurers had gathered with the goal of obtaining this kind of meat. The Squad could not allow mistakes in the distribution no matter what. Food grudges were a scary thing.

Ten of the fifty pounds of orc king meat were brought to the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion and cooked for the after-party. Twenty pounds went to Mariela, and the inn kept the other twenty for the Black Iron Freight Corps.

Although they called it an after-party, the only participants were Lynx, Sieg, Mariela, and Emily of the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion. Aside from them, the owner and Amber took turns sitting in an empty seat to snack on meat in between serving customers.

Elmera had been invited as well, but she’d turned them down, saying she was going to have dinner with her family. Always one for a big party, Captain Dick was currently visiting the imperial capital, and Lieutenant Malraux, who was stationed in the Labyrinth City, had work to do and couldn’t make it to the inn right after sunset.

“I’ll bet Captain Dick would’ve joined in the festival if he were around!” said Mariela.

“Yeah, for sure. That’s why I didn’t tell him about it,” Lynx replied. This time, the clueless guildmaster had intruded, but if Captain Dick had been there, he would have participated to get orc king meat for Amber, no question. Amber sat next to Mariela, stuffing her face with orc king meat with delight.

“So gooood…”

“It just melts in your mouth!”

“Ish really good. Daddy should hurry up and eat shome. Nom, nom.”

“Mmm…”

Although it looked like Sieg and Lynx were surrounded by a harem and could have their pick from a young girl, an older girl, and a beautiful woman, it was painfully obvious that the two younger girls were ruining the whole thing. They blissfully stuffed their faces with orc king meat and their full cheeks jiggled as they chewed.

Sieg and Lynx exchanged glances, laughed, and chomped into their own helpings.

About half of the meat obtained in the Orc Festival was distributed to the participants, and if they didn’t need it, they could get money instead. Any remaining edible potions were sold to civilians at a cheap price through the wholesale market. All the butchers who received orc king and orc general meat had booming businesses, and there, too, fierce battles among the housewives unfolded. It was fortunate to be able to get orc and orc king meat at the start of the winter season, because it would have been impossible for Mariela to make it through an intense battlefield for discounted meat.

When adding in the dissection costs, the costs for setting up the battlefield and the party venue, and all kinds of other fees, there was a slight deficit, but the original purpose for this event was the subjugation of the orcs who went after the sugar turnips. And this was more cost-effective than the City Defense Squad going after the orcs on their own.

The Orc Festival lasted until the sugar turnip harvest was over, so about a week.

At night, monster-warding incense was burned and the City Defense Squad patrolled around the battlefield, making adjustments so the orcs would smoothly converge in the daytime. Lynx and Sieg’s battle ended when they’d obtained the orc king meat, but the battle of the remaining sad men wouldn’t be over until the meat-roasting party on the final day.

No one knew for sure if the day ever came when orc king meat graced the dining table of the Adventurers Guild guildmaster, Haage.