Ch 65 -- Over Two Thousand Gold Coins In My Pocket

The next day when we entered the adventurer guild, we were immediately guided to the Guild Master"s office by a receptionist. Of course Fer and Sui (inside her bag as usual) were with me.

"First of all, let me give you the C-ranked Guild card I mentioned yesterday." The Guild Master handed me a silver-coloured card which looked different to the G-ranked Guild card I had previously. I thought they"d look the same.

"Well," the Guild Master explained, "the colour changes when there"s a big step in rankings, from probationary rank G to rank F for example." The card is this silver colour for all ranks from F to B, but for A and S rank Adventurers the card is a golden colour. A gold card is proof the Adventurer who carries it is an elite. I didn"t even know that the color of the card changed at all before it was explained to me.

"Next is the accounting for the items we"re purchasing from your good self." the Guild Master went on. "These are high-grade monsters in excellent condition. The Guild will easily find buyers and make a good profit for their parts after dismantling, so we won"t charge you for that service." Ah, that"s an nice bonus for us.

"I"ll start with what you brought to us the day before yesterday." Oh, that would be the Red Serpent and other monsters.

"There are 5 Orc Generals worth 12 gold coins." Other than the meat which we were keeping the Orc General"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es were the big earners, being one of the ingredients for a strong aphrodisiac.

"Next is three Rock Birds for 24 gold coins." The Rock Bird"s materials were the beak and the feathers.

"Next is the Giant Dodo. It had a mana stone, so including that it"s worth 33 gold coins." It seems there was a mana stone though it was a B rank monster. Lucky.

"Then there"s the Giant Deer. It didn"t have a mana stone so it"s worth 16 gold coins." No mana stone this time. Ah well, you win some and lose some. The horns and leather skin are the valuable materials this time.

" The A rank Murder Grizzly is worth 87 gold coins." he continued. The fur was in excellent condition as were the liver and the claws. As an A-ranked monster it definitely had a magic stone, larger than usual in fact which boosted the price.

"The A-ranked Black Serpent is worth 88 gold coins." It had been a while since the Guild had a chance to buy Black Serpent so the price was a bit higher than usual. The main materials were the poison sacs, liver, fangs and eyeb.a.l.l.s. As an A-rank monster again there was obviously a mana stone and again it was quite big and good quality.

"Lastly the Red Serpent." the Guild Master said. "This is worth 201 gold coins." The Red Serpent is a special variety of Black Serpent. Although it"s considered an rank A monster like its counterpart it"s stronger than the Black Serpent and it"s noticeably more aggressive so it is very difficult to subjugate. It"s a monster that only turns up for sale once every few years at the Adventurers Guild.

Like the Black Serpent, the main materials it provided were the poison sacs, liver, fangs and eyeb.a.l.l.s plus the skin and its magic stone. The reason it was worth more than than the Black Serpent is that leather goods made with Red Serpent skin are regarded as high-cla.s.s merchandise and very much in demand. The mana stone was also very large which again raised its value considerably.

"So, the sum of the purchases you brought in earlier is 461 gold coins." The Guild Master looked up from the accounting sheet. "All the meat is in the warehouse, you can collect it when you"re ready to leave."

........................ Ah, did you say 461 gold coins? That"s a lot more than the last time we sold monsters to the Guild back in Fariel. Fer is the real breadwinner in our little family. Oh well, I"m glad he"s working hard because I get to eat well too. The meat he catches is top-quality. Fer can"t resist delicious meat after all.

Sui"s getting to eat good food too, not just the other-world garbage from my Net Super purchases. I can"t say "no" to cute little Sui after all. I"m helpless. I made a mental note to myself to remember to collect the meat for Fer and Sui from the Guild"s warehouse. That"s important. I turned my attention back to the Guild Master.

"The rest of the account is payment for the monsters that you brought us yesterday. Happily we found buyers quickly for nearly everything you"re selling." The Guild Master had a broad smile on his face. It seemed it was working out to be a very lucrative deal for the Guild.

As Johan-ojisan had said yesterday, nearly every monster in the second batch was A rank or S rank. It seems that few high-ranked monsters are available on the markets so there is a pent-up demand for them when they do turn up.

"Let"s go over the explanation of the breakdown of what we brought in addition. First of all, 4 Ogres worth 160 gold coins." Ogre meat is inedible (or so Fer says) but the valuable materials are the horns and skin. The horns are used for various medicines and they sell for a high price. Ogre skin is popular as a basis for leather armor because of its high defensive properties. Unfortunately there were not any mana stones in these four monsters since they were all B ranked.

"The S-ranked Blue Ogre is worth 432 gold coins." A Blue Ogre is a special variant of Ogre as Johan explained yesterday. Again the horns are prized as ingredients for a secret medicine but I don"t know the details. The skin will become super-high-cla.s.s leather armor with both physical and magical defensive power. There was also a mana stone and as expected of an S-rank monster it was very large and of high quality. I was kinda surprised that an ugly brute like this was worth so much even if it was S-ranked.

"Continuing, the Orc King is worth 168 gold coins." Orc King is an A-ranked monster. The meat is apparently super high-cla.s.s. The Guild Master tried to persuade me to sell them the whole carca.s.s for a good price but I refused politely. Sorry, I can"t sell the meat. The important materials other than meat seems to be the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, the skin and a magic stone.

It seems that a pregnancy is guaranteed by aphrodisiacs which use an Orc King"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e as an ingredient. For royalty and aristocrats troubled because of a lack of offspring to succeed them they will pay anything for such items. The skin makes leather armor providing strong physical defense and also sells well. The mana stone was also very big and high quality.

"Next is the Metal Lizard, worth 169 gold coins." the meat of an A-ranked Metal Lizard is poisonous and can"t be eaten. The material it provided was its skin, its teeth and a mana stone since it"s A-ranked. Its mana stone was again large and high-quality. Although the skin looks like steel, it is actually light and flexible and reputedly it"s the best material available for protection against physical attacks. It"s especially popular with elite Adventurers, those of A rank and S rank. Metal Lizard teeth will be used to make arrowheads for archers. It seems that such arrowheads have increased penetrating power.

"Next is the S-ranked Lake Shark. This is worth 468 gold coins." The meat smells terrible and can"t be eaten, like the Metal Lizard"s. The materials it provides are skin, teeth and a mana stone. In this case Johan had only retrieved the mana stone without further disa.s.sembling it. The Guild Master smiled. He explained there has already been a lot of offers by various n.o.bles who wanted to buy the complete Lake Shark carca.s.s to preserve it as a trophy.

I suppose if most times a Lake Shark is available to buy it"s because of a drought and its lake has dried up, it"s got to be quite rare hasn"t it? The mana stone is again very large, typical of an S-ranked monster.

"The rest are goblins and since there was a small mana stone in the Goblin King that"s 18 gold coins. There"s no other materials to be purchased from them though. We will add a separate subjugation fee though." Even the higher-ranked goblins aren"t worth much -- a Goblin King is B-rank, a Goblin General is C-rank, a Goblin Mage is D-rank, a Goblin Soldier is F-rank and lesser goblins are, as I was told earlier when I took the original subjugation request ranked G. It seems there are some other higher-ranked goblins like Goblin Knights and Goblin a.s.sa.s.sins, both ranked E.

"So," the Guild Master shuffled the papers on his desk, "this second group of monsters is worth a total of 1415 gold coins. Add to that a subjugation fee of 70 gold coins for dealing with the goblin village and the 461 gold coins for the first group of monsters, that makes a total of 1946 gold coins." He bent down and lifted seven heavy sacks from the floor beside his chair and deposited them on his desk with seven heavy thuds.

"Since large gold coins and platinum coins aren"t convenient for everyday use, we issue gold coins to Adventurers when we make payments. Is that all right in your case?"

I was stunned. Those bags I was staring at couldn"t all be full of gold coins, could they?

"Are you all right?" The Guild Master asked concernedly.

"Is that-- is that really 1946 g-gold coins?"

"Yes. There are 300 gold coins in each sack except for the last one, that"s half full with 146 gold coins. Do you want to count them?"

I shook my head violently. "I don"t need to, I trust you, Guild Master. I"m just surprised at the amount..." I never thought there would be so much.

"You should know," the Guild master continued, "that amount, 1946 gold coins, is the most we"ve ever paid out for purchases since the founding of this Guild."

Oh, is that so? Then again, how many guys like me turn up on your doorstep with such a big lot of monsters to sell? I felt sorry for having done so somehow but they had just acc.u.mulated in my Item Box almost by accident. I wasn"t really hard up for money either, I just needed the meat. I already had a lot of gold coins from my first sale of monsters back in Fariel and I got a good reward for capturing the bandits. Adding it all up I"ve got well over 2000 gold coins now. Over 2000 gold coins in my pocket. That"s like carrying 200 million yen around in cash. I"ve never had that sort of money before.

And it"s not even my money, not really. I didn"t do anything to earn most of it, Fer did nearly all of the monster-hunting while I sat back. Well OK, a lot of the monsters were the result of me feeding Fer food from the Net Super and revving him up so he rushed off to hunt and burn off some excess energy. The Lake Shark was beaten by Fer"s magic too. Heck, most of the lower-ranked goblins at the village were killed by Sui, not me while we were totally safe behind a Barrier Fer had created for us.

Ah well, it only goes to show that Fer is really amazing. It seems that I"m stuck with a certain gluttonous character for a long time to come.