CH 105

Chapter 105 – Glasses boy judges the useless adults

“Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, good morning, hello, good afternoon, I know you’re there, good afternoon, I’m absolutely sure you’re there, good afternoon, good afternoon.” I said as I knocked.

I knocked hard.

I knocked patiently.

I knocked persistently.

I knocked while emptying my mind of everything.

Anyways, as a result of my continuous knocking, the owner of the room finally came out, quietly and sluggishly.

“It’s early… Too early to come…” He muttered.

That was Glock. The old man of Black Swan of Dawn with a beard stubble. His complexion was as healthy as burnt earth. He smelled like alcohol and his eyes were dull. He looked like a living corpse.

“It’s not early. It’s already noon.” I told him.

One night has passed since the Obsidian Wolf has been subjugated.

The city is still quite festive, but that has nothing to do with me.

Or rather, that only concerns useless adults.

Serious adults are still doing their jobs, and ordinary adults are either cleaning up after useless adults or doing business with useless adults.

And it looks like the useless adults are still useless today.

The old man in front of me too. He looks like a somewhat useless adult, at the very minimum.

******

As I had promised, I came to greet the Black Swan of Dawn.

I had asked Ainliese where the inn was, so it was easy to find it.

It’s an expensive and very functional inn.

It’s quite different from the cramped inn that I stayed at in the royal capital, which was there only for sleeping… Well, for that, and for the bath.

I asked the receptionist about the room that Glock was staying at and came to visit.

I heard that there was a lot of drinking yesterday, so I expected him to have a hangover from it. Due to that, I decided to visit early in the afternoon instead of in the morning.

For those who live a normal life, it was a little past lunch right now.

However, it seems like my prediction was too naïve.

“Noon…? It’s already noon? Seriously…” Glock groaned.

It was hard to understand what he was saying, but what I picked up from his deathly drunk whispers, was that he had been drinking until morning, and before he realized it, he was sleeping at the inn room that he rented, which was here.

Yesterday, the adventurers returned to the city at about noon, and they apparently have been drinking since then until today’s morning.

Glock and the knights both seem to be very strong with alcohol.

But the amount of alcohol, and the time they spent drinking, have far exceeded my expectations.

Specifically, they exceeded it by more than half a day.

At the worst-case scenario, I expected that the drinking would have ended by night, so I figured that it would be fine if I visited in the afternoon.

But no, my worst-case scenario was horribly naïve. They drank all the way from yesterday noon until today morning.

If one drinks this much, no matter how strong they are with alcohol, they’ll surely be knocked unconscious and get a hangover.

Well, I have never tasted alcohol myself, so there are many things that I don’t understand.

Still, for people to go out of their way to pay large sums of money to drink liquids, only to wake up on the next day by saying they drank too much, then start throwing it up as if they were about to die? Come on… Don’t go drink if you’re gonna throw it up later. It’s a waste.

Which is why I don’t drink.

“I just came to say hello, like I promised, so I’ll be going now. Take care of yourself.” I told Glock and started walking away.

It would be a problem if he threw up in front of me.

If I saw it, I would have to clean it.

There is no choice but to immediately run away.

“Wait. Come tonight.” Glock told me.

Eh?

I turned around to look at him once more… “You look pretty sick… Are you sure about that? Wouldn’t it better for you to sleep than to see me?” I asked.

“Ah, I’ll be fine. If I rest until the evening, I’ll recover. Let’s have dinner together.” Glock replied.

… Well, his eyes seem to have regained their vitality, and he seems to be conscious and aware of his actions right now… I think he might be able to remember a promise made in this state?

“Ah, well then, shall we meet at the bath in the evening then? We can go eat dinner after feeling refreshed from soaking into the bath.” I suggested.

“Oh? Is there a bath nearby?” He asked.

I then told him about Goertz’s bath house.

“That old man… He has a bath in this city too…” Glock muttered.

That old man? Does he know him? From what I heard, Goertz is the owner of the Goertz merchant group and he loves baths, so he purchases large pieces of land and builds baths there.

Well, the Black Swan of Dawn is the best adventurer team of the royal capital. They have probably worked with rich merchants a fair number of times already.

“Alright. Let’s meet up in the bathroom then, from evening to night.” Glock agreed to my idea.

After making this promise, I was about to leave, but then I remembered something, “By the way, what about Ainliese and my sister?”

“They were also eating and drinking loudly, but… I’m sure they returned late at night. They’re probably still sleeping, I think? They should both be in the room next to mine.” Glock replied.

Both in the next room? In this double room?

… I can sense two presences of people sleeping there, so Glock should be right.

I just came to say hello though, so if they’re sleeping, it’s fine to leave it at that. Let’s go back.

Anyways, my sister seems to have started drinking too, huh?

I’m an adult now, so I should be able to drink, but… I don’t think I want to. I don’t want to end up like those useless adults that commit a bunch of blunders while drunk. I really don’t want to be like that.

******

In the afternoon, I practiced like usual. And since my training with Sorichika is already over, I had no teacher looking over me, so I just ran along the road for a while, until I decided to wrap things up a bit earlier than normal.

The dirty old man Zant was as dirty as usual, and he was here to train with Lisse.

On the other hand, Roda didn’t even show his face.

Perhaps he drank as hard as Glock, so he is basically dead too.

In any case, I left the underground training room and headed to the bath.

Once inside, I heard a man laugh loudly, “This is how I, a heavy drinker, drink!” He exclaimed.

“Whaat!? I won’t lose to you!” Another man shouted.

… There were plenty of useless adults being noisy outside, but there are some of those in the bath too?

Two of them were competing on drinks, while two others had already passed out.

The way one of them was standing up, drinking a whole bottle of liquor, while letting it freely hang around was just… Unbearable.

… If it was someone I didn’t know, I would have surely pretended to not see him. I would ignore the situation in its entirety.

“Glock, what are you doing?” I asked him.

His strong body, which must have been hardened over many years of training, now had nothing covering it. He was boldly exposing it all.

The number of scars made one feel like his life has never been easy. It’s proof that his work has always required the utmost of him.

The blond hair that he usually has on a ponytail was now freely flowing down his back, so the impression that he is giving is quite different from his usual.

The beard stubble is still the same as always though. Ruining the cleanliness that he could otherwise have.

This was the man that I promised to meet.

And he was letting it hang around, because he is naked.

He was letting it hang around. He was not hiding it with anything.

He was letting this thing I never wanted to see freely hang around.

The majestic figure of someone clutching a bottle of sake and pouring it down their throat without any hesitation would be… Well, manly, probably.

But right now, I can’t think of him as anything other than a useless adult.

Because he scolded me yesterday, I thought he was a very firm person, but it seems like he is actually a really useless adult.

“If you ask me like that, then the only answer I can give you is, welcome sake!” Glock replied and winked to me.

Yeah, no. Please don’t wink. It’s not cute, it’s gross.

What a mess…

I’ve decided it. He is manly and useless. Not one or the other, he is both.

“Sorry to bother you to come all the way here, but if you want to drink, I’m going home.” I told him, then turned around and started walking away.

But then I felt something soggy on my back… Old man Glock’s wet body was touching my back, sharing his humidity with me.

The temperature of his body was high, whether it was because of the bath or because of the alcohol didn’t really matter. It just felt incredibly uncomfortable and it disgusted me to be touched like that.

“Wait, wait. It’s a coincidence that we met, but there are two things that I want to talk to you about.” Glock whispered on my ear as he put a hand on my shoulder.

Ugh, I can smell the alcohol. This is absolutely disgusting. To think I’d be in this kind of close contact with an old man whose skin is completely bare…

“And one of them is about your Glasses, which is something you’d like to hear about, right?” Glock whispered.

… Oh, right.

It seems like I can’t leave yet.

I haven’t taken a bath, after all. I ran plenty at the road today, so I can’t go back without a bath at least.