The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 4 - Chapter 192

Chapter 192:

Two Days from Now

“Be careful, Ciel. There’s a bunch of berserk monsters hanging around the outskirts of town, so don’t do anything reckless, you hear?”

Adandaras loved to hunt, right? If I put my foot down and forbade Ciel to hunt, would that hinder the creature too much?

“Um, if you know you can win, it’s okay to fight them a little, okay? But if you’re at all unsure, just say no.”

Mrrrow.

There was one other thing I needed to make clear. “Oh, right! Also, a team of adventurers from town are coming out here to find out where the berserk monsters are coming from, so try to stay hidden, okay? Some of the people in the party know about you, so they probably won’t mistake you for one of the monsters and kill you. But there’s going to be a lot of adventurers out there, so just be on your guard.”

Mrrrow.

“One more thing. Since the forest has gotten so dangerous, they might not let us leave town for a while, so if I don’t show up for a few days, I’m really sorry.”

Mew!

“I know, I wish things would just go back to normal, too.”

Mrrrow.

“Seeing this gets more surreal every time.”

Huh? Ciel and I gave Druid confused looks. What surreal sight was he talking about?

“Never mind. Don’t mind me.”

Okay, I guess it doesn’t matter. I gave Ciel’s head several long, leisurely pats. “Do you think Ciel could come to town with us if it were smaller?”

“Sure, as long as nobody found out it was an adandara. But I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Yeah, too bad. Well, Ciel, we have to go. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Mrrrow.

I was a little worried about Ciel, but I had to let it go. We said goodbye and headed back to town.

“You know, I just realized our little welcome party didn’t come out today,” Druid said.

Come to think of it, we had been in the forest for a while, but they hadn’t come looking for us, had they? Well, they probably had too much on their plate today to bother checking in on us.

When we saw the gatekeeper, we gave him a little wave and he waved eagerly back at us. It seemed like he was worried. Did something happen while we were gone?

“We’re back.”

“And thank goodness you are! I was about to go looking for you since you’ve been out so long, but Druid’s old master wouldn’t let me!” the gatekeeper grumbled.

Aha, so Druid’s old mentor stopped him. Maybe he did that so we could have more time to catch up with Ciel undisturbed?

“When I told him I was worried about you two, he said he’d given you some special shock bags, so there was nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks for your concern, sir. But as you can see, we didn’t run into any problems.”

“Yeah, sure, but please be careful out there. Last night, they got so close they were right in front of our noses.”

“Really, sir?”

“Yeah, so we decided to increase the size of the night patrol. I’ve just got a bad feeling about all this.”

The gatekeeper looked quite tense. And I didn’t blame him, what with the giant gurbar tracks that had been left so close to the gate. It really made me worry about Ciel again.

We parted ways with the gatekeeper and headed to the guild lodge to get an appraisal of our magic stones and potion. My heart was racing a little. I knew they looked extravagant, but maybe the appraiser would still say they were “normal”… Yeah, no, that won’t happen. I’d better not get my hopes up.

We entered the guild lodge to find it packed with adventurers. I remembered then that they were going to meet up there to get ready for the quest.

“Mr. Druid, won’t we get in the way?”

“Hm? Oh, we’ll be fine. C’mon, this way.”

We dodged the adventurers as we climbed up the stairs to the second floor, which was so quiet I wondered if anyone was even in there.

“They said they’d be getting ready for the quest, so they’re probably in this room.” Druid knocked on a marked door.

“It’s open!” somebody called out from inside.

We opened the door. On the other side, we found a huge stockpile of shock bags and…some other unidentified thing they were making.

“Hello there, Druid. What’s up?”

“I have a request for you and Tombas, Master.”

“Hm? And Ivy’s part of this, too, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Understood. Well, you lot, finish up this job. I want twice as much as we’ve got now.”

The adventurers signaled to the old mentor that they’d do it. Maybe I should join them and do what I can to help?

“So, what’s up?” the old mentor asked. He’d taken us out of the crafting space and into another nearby room. He’d also taken out his magic item so nobody else could hear what we were talking about.

“We’ve got a couple of items we want Tombas to appraise. Ivy?”

“Yes, sir.”

I pulled the twenty-seven magic stones and the sparkling potion out of my bag. Oh, good, it didn’t spill. I actually didn’t have a stopper for the bottle, so I was nervous that it might have spilled inside the bag.

“I see you’ve brought me yet another collection of marvels… Wow, what’s with these magic stones? Those look awfully clear…and this sparkling potion…does it cure wounds?”

“Yes, sir. Sora made the potion, and Flame made the magic stones.”

“Ahh, yes, I see… Potion…Ivy’s slime, Sora…ah, yes, I see…”

The old mentor looked a little puzzled. Er, I’m supposed to just wait until he settles down, right? That’s what I had to do last time.

“Phew… Well, I’ll go get Tombas and we’ll see. Ivy, you can leave. It’s probably best for you not to know.”

Huh? Well, I don’t really mind leaving…but why?

“Ivy… D’ya remember what I told ya earlier?”

What he told me earlier? What did he say again? Umm…oh, right! The thing about not being so quick to trust people?

“But isn’t he an old friend of yours, sir?”

“He’s no exception to the rule. I doubt he’s changed, but I haven’t seen him in many years, so ya can ne’er be too careful.”

“Well, um…” 

If he says so, I guess we should be wary of him just in case? 

“Understood. I request an appraisal, please.” I bowed my head.

“Sure. Oh, wait a minute! I’ll write it down.” Druid quickly produced a document saying that I’d given his mentor twenty-seven magic stones and a potion for an appraisal. “Master, we’ll be waiting in the plaza. Thanks for helping us.”

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

We both bowed to him.

“Not a problem, guys.”

Druid and I left the room.

“Do you think it was okay to shove the task on him like that?”

“Well, once he gets an idea, he won’t take no for an answer,” Druid said with a shrug of his shoulders. And it certainly did seem like his old mentor would be a difficult man to convince of anything.

We returned to the plaza and started preparing dinner to be ready by the time the old mentor arrived. Since I had plenty of time to spare, I decided to stew all the rest of my meat. I wanted to make something hearty that would give Druid and his old master strength.

I’d heard at the guild lodge that the quest was scheduled to start in two days and that Druid’s old mentor would lead the party. Druid would join the town’s patrol, which would be significantly thinned down during the quest, so they needed all the strength they could get.

“Sorry I’m late. Something smells good.”

“Good evening, sir. It’s almost ready! I hope you’ll join us.”

“Thanks. I’ve actually got another little request for ya.”

A request? I want to know what it is, but maybe we should wait until after dinner? We need to fill our bellies first!

We had meat that I’d braised for several hours with some flavored onigiri. The town was almost out of wheat and barley, and the merchant guild master had come into town to thank us personally for popularizing rice just in time.

We sat down and ate. When I slid my spoon into my soup bowl, the meat just fell apart. The texture was perfect, and it tasted good, too.

“Ivy, ya sure are a good cook. I’ve never eaten most of the stuff ya serve before, but it’s all good.”

The old mentor’s praise flattered me. “Thank you very much, sir.”

“Ha ha ha, no, thank you, Ivy. You’re the one who did all the cooking.”

Aside from a few moments where the old mentor brought up some stories of young Druid that embarrassed him greatly, we had a nice, relaxing meal. Strangely enough, gurbars didn’t enter our conversation once.

Once we had finished eating and started drinking our ­after-dinner tea, the old mentor took out a little bag and a stack of documents, setting them on the table. I gave him a curious look.

“I couldn’t exactly bring the items in question out in the open,” the old mentor explained. “So please look inside the bag without taking anything out of it.”

Oh, that makes sense. I can’t take out the magic stones or the sparkling potion in public like this. I peeked inside the tiny bag. The magic stones are definitely in there. Huh? There’s a stopper in the potion bottle.

“Looks good, sir. Thanks for the stopper, too. So, what’s this?”

“Your appraisals. There should be twenty-eight sheets in all.”

I guess that’s for the twenty-seven magic stones and the one ­potion. I looked over the documents. The first several were appraisals of 

the magic stones with impurities, listing the impurity levels and how much magic each stone contained. The magic stones were Level 5.

“What does their level mean?”

“It shows how rare a magic stone is. The lower the number, the rarer it is. The most common level is Level 10.”

If the least-rare level is Level 10, then… I flipped through the appraisals and saw that all twenty-seven of the magic stones were Level 5 or better. Twenty of them were Level 5, three of them were Level 4, two of them were Level 2, and two of them were Level SSS… “What’s SSS?”

“Those more powerful than Level 1 are expressed with an S. The highest level is SSS.”

Er, so that means…the pretty red magic stones are the highest level possible. Yikes! The highest level…that’s terrifying!

Okay, and the last piece of paper must be for the potion. I kind of don’t want to look at it…but I also kind of do.

I took a deep breath and looked at the potion’s appraisal.

Potion appraisal: impossible.

Impossible…? Um, does this mean…it’s not a potion after all?