The Blacksmithing Town of Corky (1)

We decided to just sell the thieves off in the following inn town on our way.

It gave us some spending money, so our wallets were warm and happy. Well, they weren’t cold to start with since we brought some anyway.

… Still though, it feels like we sold them at way too cheap a price, but it beat bringing them along with us longer. I also didn’t want us to keep having slow down for them since they were walking.

“So, Gozoh. What’s this Corky place like?”

“Oh, it’s called the blacksmithin’ town. It’s where my and Kantra’s family’s from, so we be stayin’ a bit longer.”

“Hohoh… so there’s a lot of dwarves in the blacksmithing town?”

“It’s also called [Dwarf Village], after all. Our actual origin is further into the mountains, though.1”

Really now? So it’s where Gozoh and Kantra are from, huh. I guess I wouldn’t mind staying there for a week or so to catch up on sleep?

“There’s a ton o’ taverns too. Nothin’ but beans and potatoes fer sides though… I’m gonna eat potatoes and fried karaage.”

“Are there cooks who can deep fry there?”

“Ye probably wouldn’t find one in the whole town… eh, if there was one, it’d be the talk of the town. I dunno fer sure but bein’ able to deep fry would be imperial cookin’ class…”

It sounded like Gozoh and them were planning on spending the one-off income we got from the thieves entirely at the bar.

And as for the deep frying thing, well, Food God Ishidaka’s teachings were licensed.

You wouldn’t be issued a license for it if you couldn’t freely use an open-air fire to deep fry food. Since it was just easier to use a tool for the fire, he probably didn’t want it to spread around too much.

You’d need an environment where you could practice with plenty of oil, which was rather expensive, so that would inevitably lower the number of people capable of acquiring the license. You couldn’t just teach yourself either, so that lowered it even further. As a result, it had turned into a sort of secret teaching of the food god.

As for our village, Kinue and Wozuma had already acquired licenses for it. An examiner came from Pavuera and tested them before giving them licenses.

“Did you bring some souvenir for your home?”

“I brought a bottle of sake, that’ll be plenty.”

“Oooh! I drank it, Roppu.”

“Really? And I was wanting to bring them something nice.”

Seeing Roppu shrug her shoulders and sigh, Rokuko jumped into the conversation.

“… Roppu, you’re unexpectedly diligent even though you look rather boorish, huh. So this is that [I’ll become a good bride] thing?”

“Hey!? Th-That’s not funny, Rokuko!”

“I wasn’t intending it to be a joke though? I just wanted to follow your example.”

Roppu and Rokuko were pretty frank with each other, huh. Wait… is Rokuko actually good at talking with people? Who’d have thought.

She did manage to befriend Shikina at some point… really though, when? When I was sleeping, maybe?

*

And that’s how we made our way all the way to Corky’s gates.

It looked closer to what I was expecting as a big city in the empire. It was surrounded with large stone walls. Whether it was due to the Raverio Empire’s architectural style or due to this era’s technology was a mystery, though.

Or maybe it being so uniform was due to being made through magic?

As for the gate, we had an escort commission ticket so we were able to go through without any issues. The merchant had to go through some baggage inspection and it turned into us completing the commission right there at the gate.

After having the commission completion signed and receiving the reward, Wataru came back.

“It’s been a while, welcome back.”

“No it hasn’t, Kehma-san! Leaving me to stick with that merchant the whole time, c’mon! That was horrible!”

“Hey, I cooperated by letting you do the commission you accepted however you wanted. Think of it as me letting my comrade do his own thing.”

“Hmph, whatever. I’ll just have to exaggerate your role in that fight and be all [The adventurer Kehma is the strongest, not even a hero would win against him!].”

Could you not?

“I was just kidding. I know you don’t like that kind of stuff, Kehma-san. I wouldn’t want to spoil our friendship.”

“Alright, good then… alright, shall we head to the guild now?”

And so we had the coach head to the adventurer guild.

We kept hearing the sound of hammers striking metal as we passed through town, it really did feel like a dwarven village.

By the way, female dwarves look like lolis from a human’s point of view. Personally, I was just happy they weren’t the type that had beards… but well, it seemed like dwarves could tell the difference between them and young humans.

As we made our way down the street, I saw a ton of dwarves and adventurer parties standing at food stalls and drinking even though it was barely midday. Most were dwarves, but there were a few humans, elves, and beastkin. Either way, they were all being boisterous.

Looking around, I saw someone larger than the other people. A giant? Heeeh, I thought it was just a normal human. And there was another with some feathers sprouting from them… so there were winged people too? It looked different from a bird beastkin, first time I’d ever seen one. There weren’t any in our village… oh, there were more of them to the south? Heeeh. I wonder how many races there are?

“Hey Ichika. Is there anything tasty here?”

Rokuko turned to Ichika.

“Mmm, basically just alcohol. There’s meat, potatoes and beans, but it’s all just to go with the alcohol… Rokuko-sama, do you drink alcohol?”

“I don’t like it much. It’s bitter.”

Rokuko was starting to get more curious about food, was Ichika rubbing off on her?

Rather, even though she’s gotten to look older, it’s only to the point of looking around fifteen. Isn’t drinking alcohol at that age a bit bad? Come to think of it, didn’t she drink at the Dungeon Battle closing party? I can’t recall.

“In that case, you could drink a fruit cocktail? With that, you should be able to drink it, Rokuko-dono.”

“Shikina. I thought about that, but then wouldn’t it just be more tasty to drink fruit juice by itself?”

“… Well, you don’t have to force yourself to drink if you don’t want to.”

By the time Rokuko and Shikina finished, we arrived at the adventurer guild.

“Okay, I’ll be gettin’ luggage and leavin’ the coach to ye, Wataru.”

“Huh? You’re going, Gozoh…? Guess you’re going to say hi to some acquaintances then?”

“Aye, somethin’ like that.”

We entered the guild with the delivery commission’s luggage.

I thought there’d be adventurers drinking inside, but unexpectedly, there wasn’t even a bar in this guild.

“It doesn’t have a bar despite being the dwarf village’s “adventurer guild?”

“It’s not like there’s nowhere else to drink at, yeah? No reason fer ’em to have one. People’d just get more rowdy.”

I guess that’s true? Forcing themselves to add a bar would just give them more work.

We took the luggage to the counter. There was a plump young girl there… probably a female dwarf. Yep. She’s wearing makeup and has the feeling of a receptionist about her.

“Yo, Anita! I got a delivery commission, could ye confirm it?”

“Oh, long time no see, Gozoh! Around a year, yeah?”

“Been gone fer a few reasons, but now I’m becomin’ a B-rank.”

“B!? Hey—Gilmouth! C’mere, Gozoh’s a B-Rank!”

“Whaaat!? Gozoh? Really!? That’s great! This calls fer a celebration!”

The receptionist dwarf called out another dwarf from inside the guild. But.. Gilmouth. Wasn’t that the name of the guild master? Is it alright for him to go about calling for drinks this early in the day? Or maybe there’s some kind of clause that allows him to do that?

“Oh, Kehma, Anita’s Gilmouth’s wife, so don’t be makin’ no moves on her, ye hear?”

“Like I would. Who do you think I am?”

“The loli killer… oooh. I hear dwarf women look like young girls to humans, but maybe ye can tell the difference, Kehma? Ye truly are the loli killer, bein’ able te tell the difference ‘n all.”

“No, er, yeah. Umm, it’s been going on for a while now, but could you stop talking about me like I’m some kind of pervert? Though while we’re on the topic, how old is she?”

“Hm? Right, I think she’s—”

The receptionist, Anita, tapped on my shoulder as Gozoh was mid-sentence.

“Hey there! Are ye Gozoh’s party member? Ye look pretty weak~”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m—”

“Anita. This guy’s Kehma. He’s Golen’s Village Chief, not my party member. He’s more like our commandin’ officer. He looks weak, but Kehma’s actually the reason I’m gonna be a B-Rank.”

“Oh hoh! So yer Kehma-kun! That makes ye Gozoh’s benefactors then! Well, well, my Gozoh’s in yer debt. Ye wanna drink too, Kehma-kun?”

“No, I’m not much for drinking. I’ll have a side dish though.”

“Ye don’t drink!? Are ye sufferin’ some horrid illness? For ye to not even have a beard bein’ so young, how pitiful…”

“Oh, yeah, it’s alright…”

Oh, so she’s old. She looks like a loli, but she’s definitely old on the inside. I decided to just let the old loli think what she wanted to.

I never found out how old she was… is it taboo to ask a woman’s age here too? Let’s give that up for now.

1. Village also = hometown here

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