140. The Night Before Our Departure

Author’s note: Someone suggested that it would be better to have Bluke and Waint listed as the incident’s casualties as opposed to people who died from illness shortly after, so I’ll touch up on that a bit. NOT A TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

We happened to spot someone standing in front of the inn as we made our way back towards it.

「Colbert?」

「Oh, there you are. Hey.」

「Doing what?」

「I happened to catch wind of the fact that you would soon be leaving the city, so I was thinking of maybe treating you to meal. I’ve got a fairly good restaurant in mind.」

「Nn. Looking forward to it.」

「Please do. I’ve invited the Scarlet Maidens as well. Let’s have ourselves a blast.」

「Nn. Sounds Good.」

「Right, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. How fares the master? Was he adversely affected by the incident? Did he happen to incur any sort of injury?」

「No problem. Already healed.」

All my injuries pretty much regenerated right way, so I was perfectly fine.

「W-w-w-what?! Is he really alright!? D-Did his injuries have any adverse after effects!? W-w-we need to get him a potion! As high quality a potion as possible!」

Colbert, apparently seemed to think it to be a big deal though, as he grabbed Fran by the shoulders and immediately started shouting. It was an action she probably would’ve hit him for had he not been one of her acquaintances.

「…Nn.」

But since he was, she instead ended up being completely taken aback by his sudden action, and only barely managed to squeeze out a reply.

Right, Colbert was one of my fans for some odd reason.

And, now that I think about it, he’s actually helped us out a tonne. He played a huge role in both fighting off magic beasts and helping us with the cooking contest. I’d like to thank him if possible… Hmmm…

（Master?）

『Tell him I’ll be joining you guys for two odd hours. I’m planning to tag along with a doppelganger.』

The only problem was that my doppelgangers would always sp.a.w.n in wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt, a jersey, and a pair of sandals. That said, the aforementioned appearance only something that my doppelgangers had started adopting recently, mostly because I’d finally gotten used to the skill. In the past, I used to sp.a.w.n in with Fran’s cloak, so chances were, the doppelgangers’ appearances probably had to do with the skill level and my ability to picture stuff. I do recall the System Announcer sp.a.w.ning in all the clones she summoned with cool looking armour and whatnot, so I should be able to do all that too if I b.u.mp the skill level up a bit more.

But either way, I feel like I’d end up disappointing Colbert if I dressed like that. In fact, I kind of doubted that the store would even actually let me in. It’d probably do better for me to stick to the dress code. Wait, would wearing an overcoat work instead? Yeah, I’ll probably go with that.

（Got it. Colbert be pleased.）

Colbert’s excitement shot through the roof the moment Fran conveyed my intentions to him.

「W-What!? The Master will finally make his advent, you say!?」

「Nn.」

「Then I simply cannot settle for taking him to a dining hall in the city’s outskirts!」

「Okay to take me there though?」

「I’ve no choice but to use every single connection I have and reserve only the finest restaurant!」

「Doesn’t matter, as long as tasty.」

「I must seek an appropriate restaurant immediately… Wait, no… It would be extremely rude of me to take the world’s greatest chef to a mere restaurant… I must immediately hunt the prey to be used myself… I do recall there being rumours of a dragon nesting in the Cage of the Crystal Tree…」

Holy s.h.i.+t.

The three girls approached as we tried to figure out how to calm him down.

「What’s the matter, Colbert?」

「That’s kinda creepy and gross…」

「The fact that I look up to him as an adventurer makes me kind of want to cry.」

It seemed that throwing them into the mix did the trick, as hearing them all criticize him brought Colbert back to his senses.

「Oh, hey. When did you ladies get here?」

「We’re more interested in what you were up to.」

「Gross.」

「Did something good happen?」

「Yeah! You see…」

Aw c.r.a.p. Lydia’s question ended up sending Colbert back over the edge.

Luckily, the four girls did ultimately manage to drag him off to the place he’d initially booked.

And so, thirty minutes pa.s.sed.

「Nom nom nom nom」

「Well? How is it? Good, right?」

「Mmphnom」

The food appeared incredibly delicious. Fran had shoved ten whole plates down her throat, and had yet to stop.

「Have you heard about the Alchemist’s Guild? It seems that they’re planning to send some staff over from the capital in order to reorganize Barbra’s branch.」

「They used to have priority in the purchase of magic stones, but apparently they’re going to be losing that now. In fact, they’re now going to have restrictions and purchase limits too.」

Yeah, I figured they wouldn’t completely get rid of the Alchemist’s Guild. Barbra was a city in which a vast number of resources were made available. The benefit of having people do research here far outweighed any potential costs.

Besides, the newly placed restrictions should hopefully prevent an any similar incidents from ever happening again. Hopefully.

「I’ve also heard that both the lord’s second and third sons died as a result of the incident’s events.」

「Oh, the two idiots, right?」

「I a.s.sume they were killed by the monstrosities?」

Huh, I thought Phillip said that they were going to claim that they died from illness? Saying they died in the incident would probably bring pity to the household and kind of rally the people to give the Krysten family their support. Phillip didn’t seem all that willing to do anything like that, so I figure that they probably ended up getting ordered to lie or something.

「It seems like there’s been a lot of rumours flying around even though the whole thing just happened last night.」

「Oh yeah, I heard a few people talking about how they were worried that this was a sign of the Evil G.o.d’s revival.」

「I’ve also heard rumours of how another country had been pulling the strings from behind the scenes.」

「There was even a group saying that a demon was responsible for killing all the monstrosities and saving the city.」

「Oh come on, that one’s just flat out impossible. Why would there even be a demon in the city to begin with?」

「That’s kind of just how rumours are.」

The three Scarlet Maidens were trying to kick the conversation into gear through the use of rumours, but Fran was too busy eating to actually pay attention to them. They naturally noticed, but, didn’t really pay it much mind. Instead, they ultimately ended up just awkwardly laughing it off before joining her in gluttony.

And so, the rest of the night pretty much ended up becoming a fatfest.

「This place is fairly famous for its low prices and good food.」

「The meat they sell here is delicious too.」

「I could just keep eating this forever.」

「Oh d.a.m.n it you three, at least hold back a bit!」

「Free food is always the most delicious food you can get.」

It really did look quite good. The atmosphere was all lively and stuff too, so I kinda wanted to join in. It was about time anyways.

『Fran, it’s time.』

「Getting master. Will be back soon.」

「Please allow me to join you! I simply have to greet him upon his arrival!」

That’s a bit troubling. I’d been planning on using Doppleganger Synthesis just outside the store.

（Teleport.）

『Yeah, I guess I don’t really have any other choice, do I?』

「Bit far away. Will need a minute.」

I teleported a bit away and made a doppelganger. Normally, Fran would be able to teleport us both back, but that didn’t seem to be working. It normally worked because I counted as a piece of equipment, but a humanized doppelganger was uh, kind of not a piece of equipment. Luckily, it didn’t actually really matter because my doppelganger could still use s.p.a.ce/time magic anyways.

And so, we teleported back to the restaurant.

I was wearing a large overcoat on top of my jersey and t-s.h.i.+rt. I would’ve immediately been labeled as suspicious back in j.a.pan, but whatever, it was what it was.

「Brought him.」

「Y-Yeah. So he’s…」

「Nice to meet you. I’m Fran’s master.」

「I-It-It’s very nice to meet you too! I’m Colbert, and a huge fan of your cooking. The food you made was exquisite, be it the curry, sus.h.i.+, or dishes served during the compet.i.tion. Please allow me to enroll as one of your disciples!」

「Sorry.」

「He was refused immediately!」

Errrr, I was not expecting him to ask that, especially not right off the bat. c.r.a.p, did that mess up the mood?

「d.a.m.n… I guess it can’t be helped seeing as how I’m not nearly as talented as Miss Fran over there is.」

Fortunately, he ended up randomly accepting his rejection, which honestly made me feel a bit unsettled. I’d been intending on thanking him, but I ended up doing something rude instead.

I quickly handed him something to make up for it. I’d been planning on giving it to him later as a form of thanks regardless, but the timing seemed to work out perfectly.

「I can’t make you one of my apprentices, but I can give you this.」

「This…? Wait! W-Wh-what!? You have to be kidding me! Is it really okay for me to have this!? Am I dreaming!?」

「What did you receive, Colbert?」

「Groooossss」

「Is that supposed to be like a treasure map or something?」

「Shut up Lydia, you’re being rude! A-Ahh, right, so as I was saying, thank you very much for giving me something of such value!」

The thing I gave him was my curry rice recipe. I’m glad he was that happy to receive it, really made it worth giving.

The Luciel Conglomerate had asked to buy the curry bread recipe back when we went looking for magic stones, so I figured it might be a good idea to hand copies my curry recipe over to everyone that had helped us.

Naturally, I knew that the conglomerate wouldn’t be all that happy about us giving the curry rice recipe away for free if they ended up buying the curry bread one, even if the two were technically different dishes. That said, we still did need money in order to buy magic stones. Hence, we ended up giving them several other recipes for cheap as well in order to appease them. As a result, they did ultimately end up agreeing to letting us give away the recipe for the curry’s roux.

The other people we’d been planning to give the recipe to were Io, the old guy at the Chef’s Guild, and the cook at the inn we were staying at.

I’d really love for it to end up developing into Barbra’s speciality or something like that. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the variations that’d sp.a.w.n from the recipe.

But yeah, the party went by pretty smoothly. We somehow managed to calm Colbert down and enjoy ourselves.

It actually turned out to be the first party I actually was really a part of ever since reincarnating. I mean, I was totally okay with being a sword, but this wasn’t bad at all either. I honestly really enjoyed the two hours I spent just doing whatever.

It looked like Fran had herself a pretty good night too. She’d actually ended up humming in the shower after getting back to the inn.

「Woof…」

『Here’s a super spicy hamburger. Eat it and cheer up a bit.』

「Woof…」

Urus.h.i.+ was really disappointed by the fact that he couldn’t join us, and hence, ended up missing out on a bunch of delicious food.

『Don’t worry, they’ll be more good stuff to eat in the future, so cheer up, okay?』

「Woof…」

And so, morning came.

The first thing we did was make our way to front Barbra’s gate with a clear blue sky up above us.

『Looks like a good day to set out on a journey.』

I quickly went over our plans in order to confirm them.

We were going to set off for Ulmutt; it’d take us about five days for us to get there.

We’d then dive into the city’s two dungeons and level up before finally taking part in the city’s martial arts compet.i.tion. This pretty much went without saying, but our goal would be to win it.

『Ulmutt, huh? I’m really looking forward to it.』

「To dungeon diving.」

「Woof!」

『We’ve bought everything we needed to buy, learned everything we needed to learn, and even bid all our farewells to everyone that mattered.』

Amanda had cried in response to our departure. She wasn’t going to leave till the orphanage was back on its feet, but it seemed like she was planning to meet us in Ulmutt once it was.

『Hopefully we’ll have gotten a lot stronger by the next time we meet her.』

「Nn. Will for sure.」

『Yup. Anyways, I think it’s about time for us to go.』

「Nn.」

「Woof!」