Prologue: Adding to Debts

Prologue:
Adding to Debts

 

THE RUMOR was spreading—a whole village, wiped out.

Haven’t I heard this one before? Loren thought as he tipped back his glass, once more all on his own. The rumor just confirmed what he had already known. It was nothing new, nothing uncommon, just the sort of idle banter that wandered into his ear whenever he loitered around the adventurers’ guild.

The desire to secure new farmland was like a chronic disease that plagued every noble in every country. More farms meant more produce, more produce meant more taxes, and more taxes meant heavier wallets for the taxman. The decimation of a village or two meant nothing to the kings and nobles who considered peasants an expendable resource. They might click their tongue, then in their next breath, they would propose the foundation of a new village and give it their immediate stamp of approval. They had to regain the money they had just lost on this failed venture, after all.

Yes, ultimately, it always came down to money. Money was an inescapable chain that bound every living soul. Naturally, Loren was no exception. As he sighed to lament his fate, a cheerful voice brushed past his ears as if to blow away these dark thoughts.

“Oh? Mr. Loren? Drinking so early in the morning?”

A girl had pushed open the bar’s double doors and swiftly homed in on Loren in the corner. A black ponytail bounced behind her, and she wore the white vestments of one who served a god. Her looks could turn heads on any street she walked down. Her name was Lapis, and she was a priest to the god of knowledge.

“Pardon me, Mr. Loren, but did you have the money to drink away?” Lapis’s query was so pure and genuine that Loren for a moment forgot he was penniless—and just as soon remembered. He scowled.

Loren had once made a living as a mercenary, until the day his company met its end on the battlefield. The lone survivor, and narrowly at that, Loren had been left with no choice but to become an adventurer in whatever backwater town he found himself next. However, the very first job he took in his new line of work had cost him dearly. Most pressingly, he had lost the sword that had served him so well all these years. He had also used up what little money he had left before he even got to pay his hospital bills.

There was a power within Loren. It only rose within him when he was in dire need of it—and it didn’t always do so. But it had saved him, this time around, and it had once more landed him in need of professional medical care.

It wasn’t as if he had actually been injured, so Loren had been certain he would be released soon enough. However, he had apparently placed a considerable strain on his body. The doctor ordered an additional two days of rest after he regained consciousness.

As of this morning, his days of bed rest were at an end; he was finally a free man. That said, Lapis had shouldered all his hospital fees, and in exchange, he had promised to accompany her until he repaid his debt.

For starters, his treatment and hospitalization had cost five silver. Added to this was the ten copper he had borrowed for transportation fees during their first job, which put him at five silver, five copper. However, the doctor’s extension of mandatory bed rest had inflated the number even further, and he presently owed closer to ten silver and change.

“Well, you did just get released, so I understand that you’d want to drink.” Without waiting for his answer, Lapis placed her own order with a passing waitress and handed over four copper. “I’m footing his bill too.”

The cheap swill in Loren’s glass was, in fact, the cheapest booze the bar offered. It still cost two copper. He had ordered it out of pure habit.

As he held his head at this blunder, Lapis sat across from him. She accepted a cup of fruit juice the waitress brought over, picked it up with both hands, and sipped the contents. “Drinking on an empty stomach isn’t good for you, you know,” she said. “Even more so, given that you’re still recuperating. How about you order something to fill you up too?”

“No money, remember?” he said. Then you shouldn’t’ve ordered cheap swill either, he thought irritably at himself.

Before the thought finished, Lapis had plucked a few copper from her pocket and presented them with a beaming smile. “It’s on me, of course.”

“My debt just keeps going up.”

“What does it really matter? I’m not forcing you to pay it back. Why, it would be a lot easier if you just stuck around with me, so problem solved. Ah, Ms. Waitress, an egg sandwich for me, no mustard. A ham sandwich for this gentleman here.” As the waitress passed again, Lapis placed an order and stuck ten copper in her hand.

As a matter of course, the bar run by the adventurers’ guild only took payment in advance. Adventurers were a rough crowd, and if the guild served food before money exchanged hands, a number of their clientele might dine and dash or flat-out refuse to pay. Most people couldn’t dream of getting away with that sort of behavior scot-free. But the adventurer set included those who fought for a living as well as those who shared a skill set with common thieves. A considerable percentage of them could pull it off. Thus, pay before play.

In that case, why had Loren been given that first drink? He glanced at the waitress, who gave him a sympathetic smile that said she knew what he was going through.

Knowing she had been showing concern only made him itch. It forced him to ask the question he feared. “How much is a ham sandwich?”

“Five copper. It’s the same price as my egg sandwich,” said Lapis. Would you have preferred the egg? her inquisitive expression seemed to say.

Loren let out a deep sigh. “Again with the debt.”

“We really must pick up some work then. But you’ve lost your weapon, Mr. Loren. What are we going to do?”

The sort of massive sword Loren preferred to wield wouldn’t be sold in an ordinary shop. Counting the hilt, it stood about as tall as he did, and its blade was thicker than Lapis’s waist. It was so heavy that one had to wonder who in their right mind would even think to use it, and it wouldn’t be easy to replace. Loren couldn’t even imagine how much it would cost to have one custom-made.

From time to time he regretted having lost it, but he wouldn’t get anywhere crying over spilled milk. For now, I need to make money, he thought as he glanced at the guild gathering hall beside the bar—where the board layered with quests was posted.

“A quest I can take without a weapon…” he muttered.

“No ditch cleaning, okay?” said Lapis. “The smell will linger something awful. Oh, but I do know a good deodorant; would you like me to buy one for you? In that case, go ahead.”

Loren cast a dubious eye toward Lapis, but she took the look head-on and declared, “I mean, I said you would have to accompany me. Why must I hang around someone who smells of sewage?”

He understood where she was coming from and reluctantly ejected the option from his head. Sure, he could always take the job on top of borrowing funds for the deodorant, but for some reason, he got the haunting feeling she would buy one that cost just as much as the quest paid.

“So what else can I take without a weapon?” he asked.

“Well, let’s see…”

As Lapis placed a hand to her cheek and thought, the waitress gracefully delivered a plate of sliced egg sandwiches. Once Lapis took it, Loren got his ham.

“How about we put all these difficult matters aside for the moment and eat?” said Lapis.

“It doesn’t feel that difficult to me…” said Loren, at this point rather tired.

Though he said that, the smell of the sandwiches enticed him. He picked up a slice and shoved it in his mouth whole. Who could blame him? He had spent the entirety of the time since his previous quest in a hospital. Naturally, the food they offered there was for sick patients, and while nutritious, it severely lacked in flavor. After enduring four days of that pallid fare, a simple sandwich of ham and mustard on toast was unreasonably delicious.

At the same time, Loren picked up the whispers of two adventuring men who, like him, had been drinking in broad daylight. The tags hanging at their necks were black—iron-rank, a step above his own copper.

“Ha, get a load of that guy,” one jeered. “He’s a gigolo, a moocher.”

“Hmph, he’s just a copper, and he’s being treated by a woman. We hardly got leftovers here.”

Loren chewed the ham, licked the mustard off his fingers, and thought for a moment. Indeed, his current standing practically invited heckling from everyone around him. That said, just because he understood the motive didn’t mean he would overlook this.

“You shouldn’t worry about them, Mr. Loren.” Lapis held a slice of egg sandwich with two hands, biting from a corner. She glanced at the adventurers laughing and mocking from their corner but quickly lost interest.

“Let ’em look down on you once, and they’ll look down on you forever,” said Loren.

“Is that mercenary code? I don’t really get it, but it’s foolish to take them seriously,” she declared as if already bored. Conversely, she seemed to relish her sandwich, which was no more than thin slices of boiled egg sprinkled with salt and pepper. “I mean, they’re only like that because they don’t even have a girl to mooch off of.”

The two men leapt up at Lapis’s barb.

“Oh, it’s on!”

“The hell’d you just say?!”

So excitable, thought Loren as he stood to meet them. But Lapis placed a hand on his shoulder before he could get too far—though she remained expressionless.

“Nice provocation,” he said. “I’m gonna go kill ’em up a bit.”

“No ‘killing ’em up,’” she said. “That would be a crime, for what it’s worth. A proper adventurer knows how to retaliate ninety percent of the way—and only when their opponent picks the fight, of course. And no going through their pockets. That would be theft.”

“Got it.”

“Also, break any furniture and you’ll have to repay the guild. Oh, but I’ll be the one paying, so please, go wild.”

“Kinda bringing me down here…”

The iron-rank adventurers sneered. On top of their two-to-one advantage, they knew the color of the tag on Loren’s neck was copper.

“What an idiot. We’re iron, you got that?”

“Rub your head on the floor and beg, and we’ll just take the woman and let you off. She’s a priest, right? That’s gonna be useful.”

“I’ll bet you’ve enjoyed her enough to be sick of her already, damn gigolo. Why don’t you just let us—”

Loren knew he would likely end up actually killing these men if he let them finish their spiel. Thus, he cut the man off with a punch to the face. A light one; he held back ever so slightly.

Had Loren been a normal adventurer, this would have kicked off an all-out brawl. However, though weaponless now, Loren normally wielded a sword too heavy for any average warrior to use. As one might expect, he therefore required the strength to swing this sword, and even if he held back a bit, his strength couldn’t, practically speaking, be contained. Especially when he had caught his foe off guard.

The adventurer’s body flew in a tailspin, dragging tables and chairs behind him as he crashed into the bar wall with a pronounced smashing sound. Loren dropped his shoulders with a wince. That one was on him—he had underestimated himself again.

“Ah, a wall and a table set. That will cost quite a bit,” said Lapis, who was up on her feet before he realized it.

Wait, wasn’t there another guy? When Loren looked down, he saw the other iron collapsed, eyes rolled back in his head, splinters strewn all around him.

“Good grief, what do these people think they’re doing, talking that way to a maiden?” Lapis muttered indignantly as she tossed a half-broken chair back onto the man’s unconscious body.

All right, but a maiden wouldn’t normally beat back an iron-rank adventurer with a chair, Loren thought, though he held his tongue. He watched Lapis push more money on the waitress, insisting it was compensation for repairs, and let out another sigh.