LEGEND

Chapter 322

「Ahh……what can I do.」

Rei took off his Dragon Robe and Shoes of Sleipnir as he collapsed onto his bed.

It had already been 5 days since he had arrived at Emoshion. He had flown out to sea several times, but each time he was attacked by water spears without being able to find the Lemrace anywhere.

Yesterday, he had gotten some help from the adventurer party with the magic ship he had worked with previously. While Rei and Set were attacked, they searched the sea in great detail, but even then they were unable to find any signs of the Lemrace.

「In the first place, how does the Lemrace know where I am? If Set and I fly over, it attacks me right away……」

Yes, Rei and Set were attacked by the Lemrace whenever they went out to sea without any exceptions. Although there had never been any exceptions, Rei wasn’t sure exactly how the Lemrace had been able to find them.

「If I think about it, it can probably sense my magic power……but there’s no conclusive evidence to say that. Well, I don’t care that much since it means I can attract its attention.」

Glancing at the floor of his room, there was a bag full of silver and copper coins casually lying there. There were even some gold coins mixed in.

All that money was what Rei had earned in the past few days and would likely continue to increase until the Lemrace was defeated.

As for how they made that much money, it was because the Lemrace would always focus its attacks on Rei and Set if they flew out to sea. In other words, if a ship sailed out at the same time, there was hardly any danger that they would be attacked. Rei took advantage of that to make some money.

That said, safety wasn’t guaranteed. The Lemrace seemed to attack Rei and Set based on its own whims and while it did attack them, it would stop attacking them at any time, as if it got bored. If that happened, it might choose to go after the ships, and in fact, the Lemrace had done that several times.

Still, there was a relatively high probability of being able to leave the port without being attacked, so the more and more ship owners had started to ask Rei to assist them.

In that sense, if he continued to do that, he would probably be able to make more money than what the bounty for killing the Lemrace was. Even so, Rei’s goal was magic stones and materials, which were more important that money, so he wasn’t satisfied with the current situation.

That was also another reason why many adventurers had been looking at him with looks of jealousy. To other adventurers, Rei was making a lot of money by simply flying around in the sky, so it was only natural in some sense. Many adventurers, especially the ones who had bought ships to hunt the Lemrace, hated Rei greatly. Still, the fact that they hadn’t tried to do anything to Rei was because of Set’s power as a Griffon as well as the fact that Rei himself was a well known adventurer. If Rei had just been an ordinary C rank adventurer, he might have already met with an unfortunate accident by now.

So instead, some adventurers who knew they couldn’t touch Rei started to spread rumours like 『Rei released a monster he tamed off the coast of Emoshion in order to extort money from ship owners or to win the Lemrace’s bounty』.

Of course, most of the jealous adventurers didn’t believe the rumours, but there were a few that did. They mostly consisted of adventurers who had come to Emoshion to earn a fortune but had ended not making any money instead.

When asked whether it was even possible for Rei to tame such a large monster, they would say that since Rei had tamed an A rank monster, a Griffon, it wasn’t impossible. When told that Rei had only found about the Lemrace after being told by Gilm’s guild master, those who believed the rumours would say that he must have heard about it before then since the Lemrace had been such big news, despite Gilm being so far from Emoshion.

Some of the people who believed the rumours went up to Rei indignantly. However, Rei just simply dealt with them by knocking them out and throwing onto the streets.

Since they were knocked out and thrown out to the streets, there was a chance that they might get robbed, but Rei decided that if that happened, they only had their own bad luck to blame.

In addition, if any of the people who believed the rumours demanded he pay them, Rei would knock them out, and take their money and then throw them out onto the streets. Because of that, some of the money Rei had earned had come from those people.

「Anyhow, there’s nothing I can do if I can’t find the Lemrace. Even though I can’t see it, it’s completely aware of where I am. ……Damn it, if only it wasn’t in the sea.」

As he gave a sigh, Rei fell asleep, healing himself of the fatigue he had accumulated over the day.

The next day, with little real hope, Rei and Set headed for the guild in order to see if there was any new information……but as he arrived at the guild and was about to part ways with Set, someone suddenly called out to him.

「Um, e-excuse me! The one in the robe!」

Turning around to face the voice behind him while thinking if it was something troublesome again, he immediately realised why the person had called out to him.

The person that entered his eyes was wearing leather armour and had a long sword at his waist, a typical warrior. He had a somewhat timid smile on his face, but looking at him, he was likely in his late teens, older than Rei. But that wasn’t what drew Rei’s attention. It was the huge bird about 1m in height standing beside him. It was the Icebird, a D rank monster, that had been next to Set the last time they had come to the guild.

(Since that monster is following him……that means.)

As Rei thought to himelf, the young man’s asked what Rei expected.

「Um, were you the one who tamed the Griffon?」

Rei nodded at the strangely forced question.

「Oh, Set……I’m certainly the one who tamed the Griffon. You’re the one who tamed the Icebird right? No, is it a summoned monster?」

「No, you were right, this one is tamed. ……Uh, may I speak with you for a moment?」

「Ah……let me see.」

Rei glanced towards the guild for a moment, but considering that there wasn’t a high chance that he would find out any new information about the Lemrace, he didn’t need to stick with his original plan.

「Well, it’s the first time I’ve met another tamer, so it’s fine if it’s just 30 minutes or so.」

He had to fly out to sea to try to bait the Lemrace out again at the request of a certain ship owner, but he still had time to spare for now.

「Thank you. Well, um……that’s right. There is a stall selling juice nearby, why don’t we go there to talk?」

「Ah, I’m fine with that. Then, lead the way.」

「Yes! Um, this way!」

The young man had such a wide smile that it made Rei wonder where his timid smile from earlier had disappeared to.

「Shen, let’s go.」

「Kiki-!」

At the young man’s words, the Icebird called Shen gave a short cry in response.

(Oh, they did sound like that.)

Rei recalled his memories of fighting them during winter in Gilm when Shen suddenly jumped up and landed on Set’s back.

「Guru~?」

「Kiki-!」

「I-I’m very sorry. Come on, Shen!」

「Gururu~」

Seeing Shen jump onto Set’s back, the young man shouted in a hurry, but Set gave a cry as if to tell him it was fine.

「Set is saying he doesn’t mind, so don’t worry about it. Oh, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Rei, a C rank adventurer from Gilm.」

「Yes, I know. It’s because Rei-san has become a famous adventurer in Emoshion in various ways recently.」

「……I guess so.」

Rei nodded, guessing he was talking about the rumors that had swept around the city.

「Ah, I’m Hendeka. I’m a D rank adventure from a village called Cuenca.」

「Cuenca?」

Rei asked back at the unexpected name. However, Hendeka shook his head with a smile.

「It’s a small village in the countryside, so you probably haven’t heard of it.」

「Well, that’s true. So why did you want to talk with me? As you said, I’ve become quite well know here in various ways.」

「I wanted to talk with you after the Griffon, Set, in the guild. However, you seemed to be having a serious conversation at the time, so I didn’t want to call out to you……」

At Hendeka’s words, Rei remembered the last time he had seen the Icebird, Shen, at the guild. It was the time several adventurers had gotten into an argument with a female fisherman and had somehow gotten dragged into it to arbitrate. After completing his role and leaving the guild, Rei had seen Shen next to Set.

「In the village of Cuenca, there aren’t any other tamers aside from me. Even when I went out to the city, there were mostly only summoners.」

「I can understand that.」

To be exact, taming and summoning might have the same effect of having an animal or monster follow you, but they were quite different. Tamers always had the animal or monster by their side while summoners only called on them when they were needed, like in battle. Since they were always by their side, tamers, of course, had to prepare everything for their tamed creature, including food. Compared to that, it was almost unnecessary for summoners, who only summoned their creatures when needed and sent them back after their job was done. Because of that, although taming and summoning were quite similar in some ways, an overwhelming number of people were more likely to choose the latter.

「But even so, Rei-san was able to tame a Griffon.」

「It’s not like I tamed Set after he grew up though. We’ve been together since we were kids.」

「……I see. That would definitely make it easier than taming a wild monster……but I still think that’s amazing.」

「Isn’t it also unusual for you to be able to tame an Icebird? It’s not hard to tame one, but it’s a monster that only shows up in winter, right?」

「Yes. Actually, about five years ago, I found Shen when he was injured and treated his injuries. He became attached to me after that. There were some lucky coincidences and I was fortunate enough to have an alchemist I knew make a magic item that allows Shen to survive outside of winter.」

「You were definitely lucky.」

They continued walking as they talked about taming, eventually reaching a street lined with stalls.

Hendeka proceeded to a store decorated with numerous fruits from the south and bought two mixed fruit juices as well as some fruit. Handing the juice to Rei, he gave the fruit to Set and Shen.

Receiving the juice, Rei was surprised by the unexpected coldness of the cup. It was as if it had been refrigerated.

「This is……」

「Ah, were you surprised? This stall uses a magic item to provide cold juice. It’s not so hot right now, so it isn’t too crowded, but in the summer there are people lining up for it every day.」

「Hahaha. That’s right. I went all out and magic item custom made for this. It wasn’t cheap, so it would have been a problem if it didn’t become popular.」

The shopkeeper replied with a laugh. As a bonus, he tossed a small piece of fruit over to Rei and Hendeka.

「Ah, thank you very much.」

「Thank you.」

Receiving the fruit, the two of them went over to some shade.

「……So, why did you call out to me? You didn’t want to just talk about taming, did you?」

Rei asked Hendeka as they drank the mixed fruit juice.

Hendeka’s body stiffened up for a moment before he responded with a small nod and a timid smile.

「I heard that Rei-san and Set have been going out every day to look for the Lemrace. You also got some ships to help out. So, actually, I wanted to work together with you. If it’s Shen, he can fly together with Set and he also has good eyesight as a bird. What do you think?」

「I see.」

Thinking about it, Rei nodded at Hendeka’s proposal.

(The fact is that Set and I have been unable to find the Lemrace in the past 5 days. Since that is the case, I’ll try anything that can raise my chances even a little bit……I guess?)

Rei looked at Hendeka’s desperate expression and at Shen, who was poking at some fruit.

「On that note, how much do you want for your work?」

「That is……for now, how about 1 silver coin for a trial today?」

「……Is that enough? Well, if you are okay with it, I’m fine as well. I don’t know if I will continue to ask for your help tomorrow, but I guess you can fly out with me today.」

「Ah, y-yes! Thank you!」

Thus, the two of then went over to the port.