Chapter 34
After Ruche and I safely collected our reward from the Adventurers Guild, we held a small celebration at a tavern.
“Becoming D-rank adventurers here... and getting ten million Gordo, too. Those were both pleasant surprises.”
Becoming a D-rank adventurer should have earned me enough Fame Points to raise the maximum number of Skill Points I could invest in a single Skill Tree from 【30】 to 【45】.
That should let me stop worrying about the Skill Point cap for a while.
I was also getting closer to obtaining 〈Frenzied Smoldering Fang〉.
...Still, while I felt lucky, I’d also caught another glimpse of how warped this world was.
In 〈Magic World〉, the Adventurers Guild didn’t offer rewards for defeating 〈Dream Lords〉.
This measure existed because human life was valued more highly in this world.
Even if high-Level adventurers cleared a low-Level 〈Dungeon〉, they wouldn’t receive a reward commensurate with their own Level.
The official explanation was that the bounty made up for that... but there had to be another reason, too.
It was meant to give cash-strapped adventurers a stronger incentive to risk their lives and challenge a 〈Dream Lord〉.
To put it cynically, it was like putting a price on people’s lives.
Perhaps it couldn’t be helped in this world, but the bounty system was almost certainly what drove adventurers who were in over their heads to challenge Embryo and trigger 〈King’s Wandering〉.
If more of the world’s rules were common knowledge, fewer people might get hurt... But even in that regard, this world seemed strangely inconsistent.
“I-Is something wrong, Elymas-san? You seem lost in thought...”
“Oh, sorry. I was thinking over a problem—or maybe just worrying about something. But this is a celebration, after all. I should enjoy the moment.”
I raised my glass of cider.
Ruche smiled, raised her own glass, and clinked it against mine.
“That’s right! Let’s stay positive! You said we could order as much of whatever we wanted today! It’s always been my dream to order anything I liked at the 〈Alchemist King’s Hearth〉! I told myself that once I achieved something as an adventurer, I’d come here with my party!”
After saying that happily, Ruche gave an awkward smile and scratched her cheek with her index finger.
“...Though back then, I was planning to come here with Klein-san and Reese-san.”
The image of Klein approaching us at the Adventurers Guild came to mind.
He’d kept following us even after we left the Guild.
At first, he’d been humble, but in the end he’d gotten rather aggressive, shouting, ‘I gave you a hand so you wouldn’t be completely helpless when you left. Have you forgotten your debt to me?!’ But when Ruche replied, ‘...I never accepted anything,’ he slumped in dismay and trudged away.
“Whoa! This 〈Royal Crab Pie with Black Mushroom Sauce〉 costs eight thousand Gordo! I almost ordered it, but I had no idea it was that expensive... Elymas-san, nothing on this page! Let’s look for things that cost no more than fourteen hundred Gordo per dish!”
Ruche was making a fuss as she looked over the menu.
It seemed her resolve to order whatever she wanted had already been shattered.
“Excuse me, I’ll have the 〈Royal Crab Pie with Black Mushroom Sauce〉.”
When I called out to a passing server, Ruche’s shoulders jumped. She anxiously looked back and forth between the server and me.
“I-Is that okay? If you keep ordering at that rate, won’t you run out of money?”
...Despite everything we’d earned in the 〈Angel’s Toy Box〉, she still didn’t seem to have grasped the reality of it.
She’d been unfazed when she heard about the ten-million-Gordo bounty, but apparently that was only because the amount coming in had numbed her sense of money. Spending it herself was another matter.
“We should talk briefly about what to do with this haul and how to split it. First, that 〈Skill Book〉 we found... do you want to use it, Ruche?”
The 〈Skill Book〉 for 〈Intermediate Wind Magic〉 that Embryo dropped...
It was worth twenty million Gordo on the market, but it could also be quite valuable for Ruche to use.
It would let her deal reliable damage to monsters from a safe distance and give her powerful, easy-to-use magic right away. That would also make it harder for future party members to look down on her.
“Aren’t you going to use it, Elymas-san?”
“No. 〈Intermediate Wind Magic〉 is a decent Skill Tree, but I’m aiming higher. I’ve mostly decided how I’m going to spend my Skill Points.”
I needed to develop 〈Oath of Heavy Armor〉 and 〈Frenzied Smoldering Fang〉.
There was no room for 〈Intermediate Wind Magic〉.
But Ruche was different.
She didn’t have to aim higher. If she learned 〈Intermediate Wind Magic〉, she’d have everything she needed to make a living as an adventurer for the rest of her life.
〈Fool’s Acrobatics〉 and 〈Great Luck〉 didn’t give her any obvious combat strengths, but 〈Intermediate Wind Magic〉 would make up for that.
She wouldn’t have any trouble finding party members, either.
And people wouldn’t look down on her like Klein had.
“If that’s what you’ve decided, Elymas-san... then I won’t use it, either! That would mean changing what I’m aiming for, wouldn’t it? You showed me that I can keep trying harder, too! I want to see how far I can go... Besides, it’d be lonely if we had to say goodbye so soon!”
Ruche clenched her fist as she declared that.
To be honest, I’d be happier if Ruche aimed for a build that could eventually make her strong, too.
I probably wouldn’t get another chance to party up with a Jester who had 〈Great Luck〉. More than that, I couldn’t imagine finding another companion as trustworthy and brave as Ruche.
“In that case... we’ll sell it. To be honest, I was in a hurry to raise some money, so I’m glad we can put it up for sale.”
“Raise money...? Were you short on cash?”
Ruche tilted her head.
“The bounty was ten million Gordo... the magic stones are worth a total of 4.6 million... and the items are worth 59 million. The Guild will buy the magic stones at market value to support adventurers, and we’ll try to sell the items for 70% of their market value. That should bring us to around 57 million Gordo in total.”
“...Just hearing that amount is making me dizzy. I still can’t believe it.”
“Since we agreed to split it eighty-twenty, that comes to about 46 million Gordo for you and eleven million for me.”
We’d ended up with more than I’d expected.
Now that my Level had gone up, I should be able to make money by hunting monsters at a higher Level, too.
We couldn’t use the 〈Angel’s Toy Box〉 anymore, since Moneybags Larna had been there, but it might be worth going after another 〈Dream Lord〉.
“That deal was still in effect?!”
Ruche slapped the table and stood up.
“What’s wrong, Ruche? The other customers are looking at us. Are you unhappy with the eighty-twenty split?”
“N-No, I’m sorry... No, that’s not it! There’s no way I can accept that much! You came up with the plan, and you were the one putting your life on the line! Where did that eighty-twenty split even come from?!”
“But those are fairly common terms...”
I didn’t know how it worked in this world, but in 〈Magic World〉, the person in charge of Luck often received about three times as much as the other party members.
That was the split even for so-called compromise Luck builds: characters with the 〈Strong Luck〉 Skill Tree, which raised other stats but gave a smaller boost to Luck itself, or Magicians, who learned useful magic but started with less Luck than Jesters.
Ruche was a Jester, and her base Luck was probably very high.
Four times the share was almost certainly the going rate.
A fourfold share might sound excessive.
But even though Luck specialists were practically essential to top-tier parties, they were often forced into inconspicuous roles in combat.
There were also endgame challenges they simply couldn’t participate in, and they often contributed less than other classes during events overall.
So although the build was powerful, there were reasons not to make a character focused on Luck.
Taking all of those things into account, the split seemed reasonable...
“What kind of people even agreed to those terms?! If you were in my place, Elymas-san, could you accept forty million Gordo? I’m already more grateful than I can say just for you inviting me into your party... and helping me get my Level this high!”
U-Uhhh...
Even if that kind of arrangement wasn’t widespread in this world, given how much Luck affected item drop rates, I still thought this was about the right amount.