Water Magician

Chapter 262: To Rune

Editor: Tseirp

Grand Master’s office, Adventurers’ Guild in the royal capital.

“Please!”

“I hear you, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Ryo was pleading.

And Hugh was frowning as he refused.

“Ugh…I am hailed as the premier duke, yet I can’t even borrow a single carriage, what a harsh reality check…”

Ryo lamented as he hung his head.

“Please don’t put it in such a misleading way. Even if I wanted to lend you one, all the guild carriages are currently unavailable.”

Ryo opted to use the guild carriage as a means of getting to his house in Rune in the shortest time possible.

It would take seven days to travel from the royal capital to Rune using an ordinary carriage.

However, with guild carriages, which could travel nonstop by changing horses prepared at each town, the journey from the royal capital to Rune could be completed in two days one way.

Ryo remembered that he and Abel had once traveled from Rune to the royal capital in that guild carriage.

Of course, ordinary adventurers were not allowed to use them.

They’re only available to those who have received special permission from the guild master and need to travel extra fast for a special request.

But he was requesting permission, relying on his position as a premier duke.

Abusing his position and power…not quite, he was asking Hugh McGrath, the Grand Master, to let him use it as a favor …

But he was turned down.

“I believe the Adventurers’ Guild in the royal capital is central to the Kingdom, with more than twenty guild carriages. But it’s also true that the Grand Master’s authority allows for a great deal of flexibility. An example would be how your predecessor, Sir Forsythe, used it to help his daughter escape.”

During the fall of the royal capital, the Grand Master at the time, Finlay Forsythe, used the guild carriage for his personal use to get his daughter out of the royal capital to Rune.

Although it was an emergency evacuation, private use of the carriage wasn’t intolerable….

Rather, from a practical standpoint, in the Kingdom where royalty and nobility hold considerable power, requests from nobles to the Adventurers’ Guild are diverse, and the guild is quite flexible in accommodating them.

From that perspective, it is actually quite common for them to meet requests like that of Ryo, the premier duke.

But….

“Seeing as all the carriages are out, I can’t lend you any even if I wanted to.”

“Ugh…”

Hugh frowned as he said that, and Ryo bit his lip in frustration.

By some stroke of luck, Hugh looked out the window at that moment.

And as soon as it dawned on him, he ran to the window, opened it vigorously, and raised his voice down the courtyard.

“Stop the third carriage! Grand Master’s orders!”

An instant decision.

Within roughly two seconds.

It happened so fast that even Ryo, who was in the same room, couldn’t keep up with the development.

Looking out the window, a person who looked like a guild official was running from the courtyard toward the carriage depot.

Having heard Hugh’s yelling, he seemed to have moved quickly.

Seeing this.

(I guess this happens often.)

Ryo thought to himself, as if it were someone else’s problem.

“You’re in luck, Ryo. I can’t lend you a carriage, but I’ll let you ride the guild carriage heading to Rune.”

Hugh grinned as he said that.

His face, even to Ryo, who was used to seeing it, was really scary….

The two arrived at the carriage depot and Hugh opened the door of the third carriage.

Then came a voice from inside.

“Grand Master, why did you make us stop? I believe we’re already pressed for time.”

“Yeah, my bad. I need you to let him join you guys to Rune, please.”

Hugh said, stepping aside, and Ryo put his head through the carriage door.

“Excuse me, I will be imposing on you guys till we get to Rune city…”

Having said that, Ryo tilted his head strenuously.

The three people in the carriage tilted their heads sharply in response.

Then, a swordsman who seemed to be the leader of the group opened his mouth nervously.

“Is that you…Ryo?”

Ryo also opened his mouth timidly.

“Could you guys be…Niels? Etho? Amon?”

The three people in the carriage were the three members of the party ‘Room 10’.

“It’s been like, how long…?”

“Yeah, it’s been quite a while.”

“I think about a year and a half.”

Niels, Etho, and Amon were all astonished and commemorating the reunion.

“Wow~ I never thought I’d come across you guys here!”

Ryo was grinding coffee beans in an ice mill as he said so.

After all, it’s only right that they drink to their reunion with some coffee!

“Still you guys are something, a party of three roommates is now a well-established B-rank party in the kingdom?”

When Ryo said this in admiration, all three of them blushed and felt embarrassed.

That’s right, ‘Room 10’ is currently a B-rank party, with all three members being B-rank adventurers.

“Now that you’re a B-rank party, you can be dispatched to the royal capital. Well, it turned out to be in my favor this time though.”

“Actually, not quite, Ryo.”

Niels, the leader of the party, said solemnly.

“We’ve moved to the royal capital, and we’re a party belonging to the royal capital.”

“Whoa…”

That came as a surprise to Ryo.

Each adventurer is certainly free to decide where to set up his or her base of operations, and some parties frequently move from one place to another.

Changing one’s base of operations across countries isn’t without its difficulties, but it seems to be a common practice within the Kingdom.

“But why the royal capital?”

Ryo asked the obvious question.

“It’s only natural for me to go where I could be close to King Abel!”

“Queen Rihya is such an angel!”

“…Well, there you have it.”

He didn’t even bother to think of anything to say to any of them….

Niels has always respected Abel.

To Etho, Rihya is an angel.

And Amon is…nineteen years old and the youngest, but somehow finds himself being the one watching after them.

“Oh, yup…I understand perfectly well.”

Ryo deduced as saw Amon’s wry smile and the other two’s unusual state of excitement.

It would appear that the three members of ‘Room 10’ haven’t grown up in that regard.

“So are you heading to Rune on a quest or something?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s an urgent quest, and one that requires a lot of manpower, so they came all the way to the royal capital to make the request.”

Niels replied, puffing out his chest a little, feeling proud.

“I wonder if Niels is capable of carrying out such a quest…”

“Hey, Ryo, I’m not how I used to be! Though I admit that this quest is quite a tough one.”

Niels refuted Ryo’s not-so-subtle statement.

“It’s a request for reinforcements to subjugate wyverns.”

“Two of them to boot!”

Etho divulged the quest objective, and Amon supplemented it with staggering information.

“Subjugation of two wyverns…wow.”

“Right?”

“So that means Amon will be flying twice this time…”

“Not a chance, I’m never doing that again…”

Ryo tried stirring up some old memories, and Amon chuckled as he scratched his cheek.

In the past, the members of Room 10 were forced to take down a wyvern…and they accomplished the feat by sending Amon flying into the sky in cooperation with a party called ‘Six Petals’.

The tale of the wyvern subjugation with only nine people was still told among adventurers to this day.

“This time, two wyverns appeared near a village about a day south of Rune city, and the adventurers currently in the south are a little lacking to take them on, so we decided to lend a hand.”

“The adventurers being dispatched to subjugate the wyverns are of C-rank and above. Apparently, even with Rune, Acre and Kyradea combined, they are quite scarce in numbers these days…. Although I heard that there isn’t even a single adventurer above C-rank in Kyradea, to begin with.”

Etho explained at length, and Niels pointed out the unchanged status quo of Kyradea.

Kyradea… they serve fairly decent curry over there.

Ryo was thinking about such a thing while the conversation carried on.

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