The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 4 - Chapter 198

Chapter 198:

All Done!

We ate the hodgepodge of meat and vegetables that Druid had cooked. He didn’t seem to be wild about vegetables, though—there were only three kinds and most of the rest of the dish was meat. The meat part was rather flexible, and he had used three types today. At a glance, it looked like a meat stir-fry.

“This is great, Mr. Druid.”

“Good. Hearing that from you, Ivy, is a huge relief.”

Hm? It’s a relief?

“It’s been a while since I’ve eaten this, and it’s just as good as I remember it. How do ya get this flavor out of the town’s sauce?” the old mentor asked, taking a bite and making a face.

By “this town’s sauce,” he must have meant Oll’s very salty mother sauce. Did he really use that sauce to produce this flavor? It was a bit of a mystery how he’d done it. I’d used the sauce myself, but it was too salty for me to change much.

“Oh, I’ve been meanin’ to ask, when’re ya guys leavin’ on your journey?”

Huh?! Did Druid already tell his mentor about it?

“My gut told me,” the old mentor explained.

Druid looked a bit perplexed. “Your gut?”

“Yeah. Guys like you who’re turnin’ over a new leaf are easy to read, Druid.”

“Ah…is that so? Well, we haven’t picked a day yet.”

“Aha. Well, I just got some interesting intel, so could ya wait a bit until I figure out if it’s true or not?”

“Sure. Does it have something to do with us?”

“Nope, it’ll just be a bother if ya guys get caught up in it.”

I didn’t really understand, but maybe it had something to do with the next village over. I definitely wanted to avoid getting involved in any trouble for a while. The gurbar crisis had kind of hit this town like a bolt from the blue, after all. 

I’d like to have some low-key travels for once… Come to think of it, it seems like I’ve done nothing but get knocked around from one problem to the next. Is it just my imagination?

“Well, the guild still owes ya for that potion, Ivy, so you’re stuck here until Gotos gets his wits back.”

“By the way, Ivy, did you get your gratuity from the last time you helped with the gurbars?” Druid asked.

“Er, no, sir. Not yet.”

“Argh…that idiot,” both men sighed.

Huh? Is there some problem I don’t know about? I haven’t had much of a chance yet since things have been so hectic with the gurbar crisis.

“Ivy, you need to be a lot stricter about your money,” Druid said.

“Well, the guild master seemed to have his hands full as it is. Besides, there’s still the medicinal nuts to deal with, too.”

“Medicinal nuts? That’s right, the guild master was going to go through the merchant guild to deal with those nuts you foraged in the forest. So that deal hasn’t been closed yet, either?”

“No, sir.”

Both men fell silent…and I’m not sure why, but there was a rather eerie air around them. I hoped I hadn’t said something out of turn.

“I’m gonna go have a word with Gotos on the way home,” the old mentor growled.

“Good. Please do,” Druid replied.

Guild Master…I’m so sorry. But they’re too scary—I can’t stop them. “But, sir…”

“Don’t ya worry about it, Ivy. Like I said, payments that are ‘prompt and in full’ will give the guild a good reputation. This is especially important right now, when this town’s got no veteran adventurers. We need to attract travelin’ adventurers to the town, and rumors about the guild not paying its debts are bad for business.”

The old mentor’s eyes were harsh. I could tell this was quite important.

“If bad rumors get out, adventurers will stop comin’ here altogether, so we have to be extra careful right now.”

Druid’s old mentor left immediately after we finished our dinner. He was probably headed straight to see the guild master.

“Your old mentor really does care about his apprentices, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. That’s why we’ll always feel indebted to him.”

He must have looked into the surrounding areas when he heard Druid was going to go traveling so he could make the journey as smooth as possible for him. He was going to stop the guild master from doing anything that would cause problems for himself or the town later on, and he was doing it all out of kindness…though I’m sure he wouldn’t admit it.

“All done!” we both cheered.

It had taken three whole days to clean the storage space. Druid and I sat down in the now-tidy, dust-free room furthest in the back of his house. It had been the dustiest of all the rooms we inspected on that first day, and also the first that Druid had started to fill with stuff.

“Thanks for all the help, Ivy.”

“No problem.”

“That sure was an ordeal.”

It really was. When a room was filled with years’ worth of dust, just moving around stirred up clouds. We’d started by slowly and carefully sweeping up all the dust, but the more we swept, the more dust kept coming out of nowhere. I cleaned so hard that I felt like my mind was floating far out of my head.

“Still, we sure found quite a few valuable magic items,” Druid said.

I looked at the pile of items, which included the ones we’d found in all the other rooms as well as this one. I was shocked to realize we’d found over thirty common magic bags. Druid moved five of them into his bedroom for us to use on our journey since we didn’t want to sell all of them by mistake. We’d also found magic stoves, and we decided to take one on our journey as it would come in handy. The rest we would sell. I think we wound up finding almost ten in all.

We also found magic boxes. These were like magic bags, but they were especially useful because they could fit more things inside. However, since the boxes were a bit large, they wouldn’t work well for traveling, so we decided to sell all of them.

We’d also found nearly twenty unknown potions whose colors had changed. In addition, we excavated a supply of magic stones which hadn’t lost their powers, so Druid said we’d be able to use them on our travels, but since there were so many, we would only take the ones that were in the best condition.

“I’ll put in a sales request tomorrow. Now I’m getting excited.”

With a little grunt, Druid stood up. I joined him. Ahhh, I’ve still got dust on me…

“Oh dear,” Druid sighed. “First we got the room all clean, and now we’re all dirty.”

“We sure are. There’s even dust in my hair.”

“Did you bring a change of clothes?”

“Yes.”

This was our third day of cleaning. Every day, I brought a change of clothes and took a bath after our work was done. After years of traveling, baths were practically foreign to me. I hadn’t taken one in four years, so I was a bit confused the first time I used Druid’s bath, but it felt so good.

“I’m going to burn all the papers we used for dusting, so you can go in ahead of me,” Druid said.

“Thanks.” 

I watched Druid walk out of the room with the last of the dusty papers before moving slowly to the bathroom so I wouldn’t get any dust on the floor. I washed my hair with the bar of soap Druid let me borrow. I was worried one attempt wouldn’t be enough, so I washed it twice. I also wiped my body and relaxed in the hot water.

“I feel like royalty…”

Baths are a luxury when you’re on the road. Well, then again, there’s always at least one bathhouse in every village and town, but those things cost money. So, up until now, I hadn’t bothered to use them, but now that I’d been spoiled and knew just how good baths felt, I thought I just might want to start taking them regularly.

Well, since I’ll get some money from selling that potion, it might not be a bad idea to spend it on baths.