The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 6 - Chapter 279

Chapter 279:

A Very Loose Conversation

“I’M SO SORRY I keep doing this,” Vice-Captain Pith apologized, calmly bowing his head. He told us that he’d been a rare monster specialist when he was in his twenties. I didn’t know what that was, so he explained that he used to be an adventurer who was hired by tamers to find and catch rare monsters in the forest. I was surprised to hear that adventurers even had areas of specialization.

“But is it even possible to catch rare monsters, sir?”

“It’s easy as long as they’re weaker than you, but legendary monsters like adandaras are completely out of the question. They’ll kill you. And I said I was a specialist, but most of us caught simple creatures like common slimes and small monsters. Those who could catch rare monsters were rewarded handsomely, but you don’t come by those so easily.”

“Wow, that sounds like quite a career.”

“Um, I’m not sure how I feel hearing that from you, Ivy. You’re taking care of three rare creatures… But to be honest, I sort of stumbled into the job because I was just so obsessed with rare monsters to begin with.”

Vice-Captain Pith stole a glance at the creatures in my lap. They were all creeped out…er, I mean scared by Pith’s outburst, and they huddled up by Druid and me.

“Pith, can we get back to business now?” Captain Tableau asked.

“Yes, sir.” Pith’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. He really must love rare monsters.

“So, where were we?” Tableau asked.

The conversation had gone so far off the rails that everyone fell silent.

I finally answered, “I think we left off with Guild Master Priya…when he asked us where we found the cave?”

Everyone nodded slowly in agreement. Why was this conversation going slow as molasses? What happened to all that tension in the air from earlier?

“Right, that’s where we left off,” Captain Tableau said. “Okay, well, there are quite a few details I’d like to double-check. First, that giant serpent. Are you sure it’s the guardian deity of this village?”

I pictured Snakey in my mind…but I still couldn’t give him a confident answer because both Druid and I had only heard rumors about the guardian deity. We had no way to confirm if what we’d found was the real thing.

“Since we have no way of telling whether it’s real or not, we can’t say for sure that it was your guardian deity. But we’ve met that serpent several times already, and I’m quite certain that’s what it is,” Druid said.

It was especially likely because the serpent could understand us.

“Several times?! You’ve met it more than once?” Captain Tableau lifted his bottom off his chair and leaned forward.

“Yes,” Druid answered. “The first time we met was on our way to this village.”

Right, that’s where we met Snakey’s babies, too. Oh, that’s right! There must have been lots of those little black orb creatures in the cave as well. Yeah, I’m sure they were there.

“Not many adventurers here have met our guardian deity even once, let alone multiple times…” Vice-Captain Pith looked at us with envy.

Er, c’mon, get those sparkles out of your eyes… Wait, he said the adventurers at the guild have never met the guardian deity. Huh? But if hardly anyone has ever seen it, how can they figure out whether it’s the real thing?

“I guess we’ll have to go to the cave and see from the tracks it left behind if it was the actual deity or not.”

“Yes, I suppose so. The tracks will stay visible inside the cave, but they’ll still be gone in a few days. We’d better hurry.”

From what Tableau and Pith were saying, I understood that they did have a way to identify the real deity. But could they really tell? If there were two big serpents, I didn’t think they’d be able to distinguish between the two. Unless the real serpent deity left behind a special sort of trail?

“I also need to ask what you can and can’t remember. Just how much of your memory is missing?” Tableau asked, full of worry.

“We don’t know for sure. Also, some patches of our memory feel strange, as if they’ve been warped.”

“In what way?” Pith asked.

Druid thought for a moment. “That’s a good question… Well, take the distance to the cave. Now, I remember it as being thirty minutes away, but Ivy says it’s an hour and a half. We were traveling together, so our memories shouldn’t be this different. That leads me to believe they were tampered with somehow.”

He’s right. An hour’s discrepancy is quite extreme, especially since we were with each other the whole time.

“It might cause problems in your day-to-day life, too,” Priya said.

Druid gave him a strange look. “Oh, no, I don’t think our memories are that bad. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

Yeah, I don’t know just how badly our memories were messed up, but I do feel like we’ll be okay. Ciel got rid of that weird gray magic in a flash, after all.

“Got it. Since we can’t do anything about your warped memories from the summoning circle, we’ll contact the innkeepers where you’re staying. We’ll explain the basics to them and have them get in touch with us if anything happens to you.”

“Thank you very much for that.” Druid bowed to Captain Tableau, so I did the same. Now we would be okay if we forgot anything about our inn.

“And what about the gray magic energy?” Priya asked.

“We know absolutely nothing about it,” Druid answered.

The three men nodded. “I guess we’ll just have to go to the cave and examine that summoning circle ourselves. What do you think, Pith?”

“Yes, seeing it with our own eyes would be best. And that’ll mean going to the cave with as small a party as possible.”

It sounded like Tableau and Pith were going to go to the cave right away.

“I’m so sorry to pressure you, but could you please come with us?” Pith asked.

Druid nodded. He understood that we needed to work quickly, seeing as there was a memory-tampering summoning circle on the loose.

“Would you be willing to join us as well, Miss Ivy?”

I nodded.

Captain Tableau smiled and said, “It’s an honor to work with you, Miss Ivy.”

Hm? What’s going on? That sounded really strange to me.

“Also, you mentioned that you made a magic stone… Could you please tell us more?” Pith asked.

Captain Tableau looked uncomfortable. Since he knew that Flame could regenerate magic stones, he’d probably figured out that it had made this one. He looked like he was struggling for a way to explain it to Pith. But I was the one who leaked the information, so Tableau didn’t need to worry about it.

“Um, it was my tamed slime, Flame. It made the magic stone.”

“You mean to say your slime does more than digest things?” Priya looked at Flame in surprise. And no wonder, seeing as most slimes were used only for daily waste disposal. Even among rare slimes, there hasn’t been a single report of one having created anything. So Priya looked a bit perturbed by my explanation.

“Priya, Pith, you know all those red magic stones I’ve been giving you lately? Well, they came from these two.”

“What?!” Both men gasped, shooting doubtful stares at Flame. Pith even made a weird motion with his hands. Perhaps because it noticed this, Flame slinked behind Druid to hide.

“Pith, stop flailing your hands around! You’re scaring them!” Captain Tableau gave his assistant’s hands a slap. He looked down at his own fists and grimaced. Had he done it unconsciously? That made it even scarier…

“Sorry about that. Anyway, could you at least take us to the cave?” Captain Tableau asked, bowing deeply again.

“Yes, sir. Ivy, can you walk?”

“I can.”

When I knew we’d have to talk about the summoning circle and our lost memories, I’d been afraid we were in for a tense conversation…but with Pith’s jumpy antics, the discussion had felt quite loose from start to finish. Maybe the vice-captain had acted like that on purpose to relieve the tension in the air?

“Te! Ryu!”

I looked over to see that Pith was staring at Flame’s face at point-blank range. The slime looked anything but comfortable.

“Pith! We’re going!” Captain Tableau marched out of the room, dragging the vice-captain behind him.

I guess he really was just a jumpy guy after all.