14 – Rumors and an old debt

“Aw, my shoulders are so stiff~”

The one rolling his shoulders exhausted was one of the Heroes, Yamaguchi Ichiro. Next to him stood the other three Heroes, looking just as exhausted. Commander Arthur , stood in front of them while watching these four.

“Good job. The current quest was quite rewarding again.”

The quest had been to hunt Sonic Bats in the Gasper Cave. It was put up because their population was too big and they lately started to attack the town.

Moreover, since poisonous demons were living there too and footing was bad in the dark, it was given a rather high rank, namely C.

However, the four of them had a high level and a superb teamwork, so they managed to hunt over a hundred Bats. That should take care of the quest, so they returned to the castle.

“The EXP from all the demons sure was worth it.”

When Ichiro said that, everyone nodded in response.

“Yes and we discovered some flaws in our teamwork, so we can work on that now.”

Watanabe Amane wiped her sweat with a towel. All of them managed to reach level 23 in a rather short amount of time.

“We have to continue like this~”

“Yes, you are all right.”

Arthur also brightened up his expression happily.

“Still, I’m really pooped today~”

“Geez, Ichiro, you’re so sloppy.”

Amane cautioned Ichiro, who lay down on the ground.

“Let me rest for today~ Ah, that reminds me, Arthur, did anything strange happen lately?”

“Anything strange? Let me think…”

Arthur put his hand against his chin and started thinking.

“Now that you mention it, some wanted men were caught in Cossus a few days ago.”

“Hmm? Isn't Cossus a village west of here?”

Arthur affirmed Misaki's question with a nod.

“Yes.

And the caught men were rather famous. The party Flying Camels. They are notorious adventurers that murdered and steal from people. Though they were stripped off their adventurer title when their crimes became known. So it is more correct to call them former adventurers.”

“Mhm, these guys were caught?”

“Indeed and the testimony of the villagers is rather weird.”

“What do you mean?”

Everyone, not just Misaki, curiously paid attention to Arthur.

“Every villager is saying that an ice cold hero came to their rescue when the Flying Camels preyed on the village.”

“A hero? What the?”

“All I know is that this mysterious person wore some fancy clothes, a well built physique and used powerful ice attribute magic. Even I couldn't figure out if it's a man or a woman they were talking about. The rumors are not accurate.”

“Ice?… then it couldn‘t be…”

“Th- The report also mentioned that the person had a self-important attitude.”

“Self-important?”

Misaki looked at everyone’s faces and apparently everyone was reminded of the same person. But they all believed it to be some kind of mistake. They still wanted to believe he was alive, but they recalled he had no magic attribute.

“Nah… not him. He was just an average person after all.”

“And he would never help anyone with that twisted personality of his.”

“That's kinda harsh, Amane. Shouldn't we be happy that a small spark of hope is ignited with this?”

“Mh~ But, I wonder what’s true. Actually, it's most likely not the guy we're thinking of, right?”

Commander Arthur didn't interrupt their conversation as he seemed to not understand what they were talking about.

“Well, thinking won’t get us anywhere. Maybe one day we'll meet him. In the meantime, let's just do what we can."

Amane declared encouraging to everyone. Everyone responded with a nod.

------

There's a lot of stuff that happened. So let's get it out of the way. Apparently Yuki is indeed the spirit of a woman that died in a snowstorm and her spirit got attached to the katana. You can say that she and the sword are one now.

And apparently I have something known as Ether. Ether is highly pure concentrated mana. When mana reaches a certain amount and purity it "levels up" into Ether. And because of that she was able to take humanoid form. For some weird reason she's bound to me now. I can force back in sword form whenever I want. And I hate to admit this, but she has a really tight hole.

That aside, her background is shady. She can't remember that much about her past life. That's suspicious but at this point she really isn't a threat to me at all. I can suppress her even in my sleep if I have to and if she tries some silly thing like what she did a while back. I can't ask for a better blade. So I have to make do with this weirdo woman.

We reached another village and currently she's passed out because last night I was too rough on her. Honestly, that tentacle Goddess made the stamina of this body too strong. It's hard for Yuki to keep up with me. So now she's quietly sitting on my back. A katana is normally meant to be attached next to the hip, but I keep my adventurer travel bag there so it's easier to keep the sword at my back.

Speaking of adventuring, due to slaying a few other beasts on my way here, my rank went up from blue to violet. And I got a pretty penny from it too, so now I was sitting at an open air restaurant and eating my fill. This place reminds me of a street food ramen cart back from Japan.

And while trying to enjoy myself…

"Please… can I have some soup? Even leftovers are fine… this is all I have."

I shifted my gaze. A little girl in rags with small tears at the corner of her eyes was extending her hands forward with a single small bronze coin. What's more, this girl had a pair of fluffy tiger ears and a striped tail as well. A kemonomimi loli with an iron collar around her neck. As for her coin, if converted to wurna, that wouldn't be enough to buy even a loaf of bread. She's probably hungry and judging by the fact that she's keeping her eyes closed… she's most likely blind.

"Get lost, brat! I don't want your kind here."

The owner gave the girl a push.

"Aaah!?"

She fell on the ground and her coin dropped. It tumbled for a bit before stopping at a muscular guy's feet.

"Hou? Lucky me."

"Aa! Please… give that back."

"Huh? You probably have no use for this anyway, so finders keepers."

Harsh. The girl was a step away from bursting into crying. This matter doesn't concern me. I would turn a blind eye to something like this. However… I had a debt from my previous life that I swore I would repay. So I got up from my seat and stepped closer.

"Hey, muscle head. You're making my food taste bad."

"Huh? The hell you want? You want to get smashed by my fists and… *achoo!*

What the… why is it suddenly getting cold?"