Chapter 26
After a short stay at our home in the «Empty Wilderness», we began our journey to the seashore as we had decided and started our sightseeing while dropping by the towns with adventure guilds along the way.
We accepted the stockpiled unpopular requests there and slowly but surely traveled to the sea.
Most of the requests revolved around menial tasks like dealing with the outbreaks of harmful animals that appeared in the nearby farm fields or picking up particular medicine herbs. Our days in the towns usually passed by either by enjoying the specialties of the town or listening to its history.
Like this, our slow-paced journey finally brought us in front of the harbor town down the river.
Though, it was just that we were now facing the suspicious gazes of the soldiers since we arrived at the gate while riding on the «Flying Carpet» we usually do.
“You guys! Who are you!?”
“We’re just adventurers. We've come to enjoy the seafood of this town.”
“Yes! We’re here to eat prawn, crab, grilled fish, and other delicious seafood!”
“F-For the seafood? Adventurers? Alright…… show us your guild card.”
The soldiers of the harbor town looked at us with quizzical looks.
I knew that saying that we became A-rank adventurers some tens of years ago wouldn't work in this situation since Teto and I still look like a pair of young female adventurers barely in our teens.
Needless to say, showing our guild cards and seeing our party name mostly settled their suspicions.
“A-rank!? And «Flying Carpet»!? That famous party?!”
The soldiers immediately straightened their postures from the previous suspicious attitudes they had the first time they looked at us and the carpet we rode on to move around.
“Thank you very much to the Esteemed Famous Adventurers for gracing our town with your presence!”
“Oh? Do you know Majou-sama and Teto?”
“Of course! The tales of the famous party «Flying Carpet» from the Gard Beastkin Nation have also reached our town! Just the other day, we also heard that you captured a famous bandit with a bounty on his head in this kingdom!”
I smiled wryly at the soldiers straightening their postures as if saluting us.
Nevertheless, it seemed like our achievements had traveled before us while we took our time with our journey sorting out the requests in small towns and villages.
But this once again confirmed just how disconnected from important information relay routes the abandoned mine's town where Arim-chan and the others lived was when every town so far has come to know about us.
"If you may, please let us guide you!"
"You don't have to, it's not like we're here for an emergency or anything. We'll just line up here and slowly wait for our turn."
"Teto is going to wait in line with Majou-sama!"
A-rank Adventurers received the same treatment as an aristocrat.
However, such status has been given so that we could use the routes aristocrats use in times of emergency. So we wanted to just wait in line normally as an adventurer since it was just a tour visit.
"I, I see."
After saying that, the soldiers reluctantly returned to their posts now that the suspicions against us had been cleared. I just smiled bitterly at them and waited in line.
The people who came out of the town looked to be in good shape. The inland area was plagued with bad harvest since Mother was sucking the mana of the earth vein but the coastal area has the sea products that they fished for so they were barely affected by the poor harvest.
Our turn came soon after, and, after entering the town, we headed for the Adventurer Guild.
"Welcome to our guild, «Flying Carpet» party. I'm Doulgu the guild master of this guild."
A macho man over two meters tall greeted us as if he was just waiting for us to show up.
His arms were covered with ashen-brown scales, he had a tail long enough to slither on the ground, his skin was brown to the point that it was taking a dark shade from suntan, and he had two horns growing on his head.
Possessing both the characteristics of a dragon and a human 一一 he was from the Dragonewt species.
"Nice to meet you, «Flying Carpet» Chise. And your partner一一"
"I'm swordsman Teto-nanodesu!"
After Teto cheerfully raised her hand in introduction, the Dragonewt guild master led us to the reception room.
Some requests that A-rank Adventurers received required confidentiality so he was probably leading us away for the same reason.
"There's no one here, so for what reason has the «Flying Carpet» party come to this town? If it's necessary, I'm ready to give you my help."
So asked Doulgu, causing Teto and me to cock our heads in confusion.
"The soldiers haven't notified you? We're just here for the seafood. After which we plan to visit the royal capital for sightseeing."
"If you wanna help out, Teto hopes you can tell which store sells tasty fish!"
Teto and I said respectively, incurring a dumbfounded "haa?" reaction from the guild master.
"No, wait, the famous party of the Gard Beastkin Nation came so far to the neighboring kingdom, there of course should be some reason, right?"
"If it counts, we came to the Lovile Kingdom since an acquaintance asked us to help her out with something. We're already done with it, so we're now just following our original schedule of trying out various sea delicacies while enjoying our vacation."
"We don't have any goal but we plan to have a 'wham' trip!'
The Guild Master made a deep sigh after hearing that. It seemed like our intention had been finally conveyed to him.
"Good grief. Well, considering that the Gard Beastkin Nation is inland, taking a trip to enjoy new things like seafood may hold value for you......"
The tall man looked above and plopped down on his seat after saying that. I guess that's how unexpected our trip must have been for him.
"We'll be staying in town for a while so if you have some unpopular requests piled up, we'll process them when we have free time. I'm an expert in herb collection."
"Menial tasks are fun. We also get snacks for helping out the grandma in her shopping!"
"An A-rank Adventurer who specializes in herb collection and another who likes helping out on shopping, and other menial tasks...... You guys are really amazing in a sense."
The guild master smiled wryly after hearing our words.
The quality of requests goes up as the rank of an adventurer rises so they disdain requests like these which they used to accept in the beginning.
Also, a high-ranking adventurer accepting a low-rank request appeared as demeaning the honor of their rank and wasn't kindly looked upon.
As a result, they were usually said to be haughty and so on but for us一一
"We're not short of money, we live as we please and, most of all, there's hardly any suitable A-rank request for us."
"That's why both Majou-sama and Teto are only choosing the leftover requests taking into account both the guild and the adventurers! It's called social service!"
"I see...... alright, I understand. I'll arrange the leftover requests from here so please take care of them when you have the time. I'll also look for any escort request for a ship if you're heading to the royal capital side."
The guild master then asked a receptionist to take over and assist us and they then recommended we either stay in an inn or rent a house.
The price of an inn was steep so we decided to just rent a house since we can install the «Transfer Gate» there and then use our home in the «Empty Wilderness» for rest and other things which would be more beneficial for us.
