CH 163

Chapter 163 – Breakfast

We left Roses before dawn and continued running for three hours. The sun was finally rising. I could only vaguely tell, living without a watch, but I guessed it was just before 7:00 a.m.

“No sign of them.”

“And neither did the ambush. The view from here is much better.”

Louis and McCain are relieved.

We are thankful for the good visibility, but it also means that if the wind picks up, there will be nothing to block the blizzard.

We find a sheltered hollow and decide to take a break for breakfast.

I assembled some scrap wood to build a fire for warmth, where I hung a large pot of vegetable soup and roasted some bread and meat. The food in storage is still warm, but I think it tastes better over a little fire. Literally, though, it’s all in my mind.

Soup, flatbread, and skewered meat. The meat is, I think, a horned rabbit.

A rabbit about the size of a medium-sized dog with a unicorn-like horn on its forehead. I have never seen one around Casemaian, but I heard that they live in the forest, so someone must have hunted one in the dark forest. The meat is like “lean chicken meat,” a little tough but with a strong flavor.

The snow-wolf Moff wagged his tail in a good mood as he watched us eat the meat. I offered him some rabbit meat, assuming he wanted some, but he wagged his nose as if to say, “Don’t mind me.”

It has been about a week since I met Moff, but he doesn’t eat anything.

And yet, he doesn’t seem to be complaining of fatigue or hunger. He is in good health and has stamina. It is hard to tell.

“What do you usually eat?”

“Woof.”

“I’ve heard that monsters eat magic stones from the mines and the cores that come out of monsters. I don’t think that’s something you’ll find in the Sarz or the Roses…?”

I saw Moff rubbing his nose against my side, and Myrril tilted her head.

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure, but I think he’s consuming Yoshua’s magic.”

“Wha!”

“Correct!” He barked at me with a face as if to say that! This guy…

Well, it’s okay. I don’t feel like I’m being affected in any way. I’m not saying that I like it, but I’m indebted to him in various ways, and I don’t mind sharing my magic power with him.

“Hmm? Hey, wait a minute.”

Louis, who was chewing on a piece of rabbit meat, looked at Moff with a suddenly aware face.

Moff looks away. That’s suspicious.

“Moff, you’ve been sucking my magic too, haven’t you?”

“W-woof.”

“You can’t just say, ‘I don’t know!’ Whenever I see you, you’re licking me like crazy, and I can tell you’ve been sucking on my magic! Then I thought I was sleeping better after you licked me…”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Isn’t that because you’re so tired!”

“No… in the case of Louis, it’s as if Moff is circulating and draining the surplus magic power you’ve got for physical enhancement. From Moff’s point of view, you’re like walking food.”

“Shut up, that means you too! Hey, Moff, don’t just absorb mine. Absorb Tig’s too!”

Moff glanced at Tig, then looked at us and said, “Hey?”

That’s easy to understand. It looks as if he said, “If it’s going to be the same, I’d rather have a macho sister than a strong tiger-beastman.”

Tig laughed and shook his head.

“I get it.”

“Woof!”

“Damn, you guys are on the same page!”

I never paid attention to it, but apparently, Moff was a boy. Good, good.

No, I don’t know what was good about it, though.

◇ ◇

While drinking tea after dinner, I decided to sort and distribute the treasures I had taken. However, gold and silver coins are heavy, so I decided to distribute them after returning to Sarz. I started with jewelry and precious metals.

Surprisingly, they were not very popular.

“It’s a hassle. We might drop or break them, and it’s hard to sell them for cash.”

“They’re not hard to sell, but if we had them, they’d be stolen, no matter which way you look at it.”

“The merchants would look down their noses at us, too.”

“We’d be grateful for a few silver coins.”

After receiving criticism from all of the Battlecry, they politely declined the offer.

I thought about giving it to the Calmon family, but Rufia-san declined, saying, “We can’t exchange more precious metals than we got before, and I don’t feel comfortable because I’m afraid they might be stolen.”

I had no choice. I guess I’ll just have to pass it on to Simon.

Since ordinary citizens don’t seem to use gold coins for everyday purposes, they are happy to receive silver coins.

“…But the problem with silver coins is the quantity.

Tig laughed when he saw me in trouble.

“Takifu, you don’t have to go overboard if there aren’t enough. We’re only lending a hand to Calmon because we like it…”

“On the contrary, you’ll get about 2,000.”

“Ew! That means how much we got per head… Colon?”

“Four hundred.”

“That many? I’ve never seen that much money before…”

“No, no. No, it’s 2,000 each. If you include the coppers, it’s more than that.”

Louis, who had been happy, froze with a smile on her face. Behind her, Colon and Eino were also stiffening.

In Japan, it would be one million yen… Even with the monetary value over here, it would be two million yen or so at the most. Is it really that surprising?

“I can’t hold that many silver coins. At least I can’t carry that much around.”

McCain, who was relatively calm, shook his head with a stiff smile.

“Is there any place you can deposit them? Maybe at the Adventurers’ Guild?”

“Well, you can, but they’ll ask you where you got it, and it’s not the kind of money a second-tier party would have.”

“Then… why don’t you just buy a house? Merchants don’t care where the money comes from, do they?”

“Of course they do, five of us together with 10,000 silver coins or something like that. A proper merchant would think it strange. Are you really a merchant, Takifu?”

Yes. When asked once again, I am not really aware of being a merchant. When it comes to common sense, I have even less.

While we were fussing about this and that, Calmon, who had been thinking about it for a long time, looked up as if he had come up with something.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. I have a good idea.”

“A way to keep people from suspecting that you’ve got a lot of money?”

Calmon nodded and looked at us.

“Why don’t we go to Lafan and fight off the pirates?”