Mr. Nobu’s Otherworld Chronicles Chapter 89

on Thursday, November 14, 2019 zweindrei

Chapter 89 Reconciliation

CRACK!

"OUUUUUUUUUCH."

"Ow ow ow, hey, be gentler will ya, these old bones ain't gonna get any younger."

A black-skinned man and an old man cried out as their dislocated shoulders were getting reattached.
Please don't ask the impossible. This is the only way Master taught me to do it, y'see.
I'll cast heal on them just in case anyway.

"Sorry, you're a lifesaver."

Jerindo bowed as he said that. He's the leader of this party [Foolhardy Giants]. The same party who was attempting to capture me under Jami's order back then. Well, I made them fall asleep and confine before they could even come across me though, so it's prety much our first meeting. I don't really care about the past anyway.
I would have never imagined that Clay-san would join this party though.

"Don't worry about it. I was just unwilling to abandon an acquaintance."

"n.o.busadsama, I'm truly grateful for saving this life of mine not just once, but twice."

Wait a minute Clay-san. Why are you adding sama suffix. Look, even Mitama is staring at me now. I beg of you, please stop that.

"Well anyway, is anyone else hurt? Looks like they did a number on you. Never seen those monsters before myself, they were armed and all."

"Oh are you not familiar with them? Those are Cinnamonkeys. They're crafty greedy barbaric monsters. We wouldn't dream of even fighting them if not for a quest ourselves."

Apparently, these Cinnamonkey monsters would attack adventurers and plunder their weapons and armor to make them their own. Oh right, their equipment remained even after they were defeated. That's dirty, Cinnamonkeys, way dirty.
As it turned out, they accepted the quest I saw before and was smoothly beating those monsters one by one while collecting drop items when two of their members got pushed into a bottomless marsh by the monsters, immediately putting them in a precarious situation.

"So what are you planning to do now? I don't think you can fight in your conditions."

That's right, Naina's and Buraran's weapons have been lost in the depths of marsh. The two who almost drowned themselves are full of mud and can barely move. Jerindo is wounded badly due to him holding out the frontline. I wouldn't be surprised if he got teta.n.u.s if it's left unattended. That said, turning around and getting out of the dungeon won't be so simple either. And even if their wounds are treated, they must be exhausted.

"I'm sorry, I'm aware how shameless this sounds but could you share some food to us? Those monkeys s.n.a.t.c.hed our belongings which included our food supply during the scuffle earlier."

Ah, I see now. Food might have been those Cinnamonkeys' goal all along.

"Young'un. We've got plenty of food ourselves anyway, how 'bout you go helpin' 'em here eh?"

The moment Wakamoto-san on my back spoke, [Foolhardy Giants] members froze all at once. Yeah of course they're surprised. Even the girls at our house still get spooked by him sometimes.

"Naturally of course, that's always been the plan. Anyway, you probably shouldn't walk far with your conditions. Wanna head to our base and rest your bodies there?"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Clay-san even prostrated herself. Stop that, I don't derive pleasures from making ladies prostrate themselves.
Hence, we got ourselves new companions as we headed back to our base. They were left dumbstruck when they saw me and Wakamoto-san shooting down bird, monsters and stuff left and right along the way, but I paid no heed. It would weigh on my mind if I did. Didn't think our magic pouch would be full before we could put all the drop items in though. We somehow managed to collect everything by making everybody carry some.

The members of [Foolhardy Giants] were completely stunned when we arrived at our base. Oh yeah, I've no clue how an average adventurer party spends their night in a dungeon. Apparently it's usually done by a party of 4-6 with alternating night s.h.i.+ft. As such, fatigue acc.u.mulates quickly, and a week stay is very straining on the body even for the experienced. You can get around that to a degree by having more members, but that also means more food expense and less income, a dilemma.

The ladies washed their bodies in the indoor bath tub while the men dived into drum-styled outdoor bath. The two who were covered in mud were especially thankful to tears.

Meals for adventurers are usually flavorless preserved food to decrease luggage. By the way, our dinner this time is a boar meat hot pot using ingredient we got earlier. The seasoning is of course, miso! I made it without any problem since I've been making it forever. The soy sauce is still a spiral of failure however. I can't get the brewing process right even now, it's full on trial and error.

This was the fourth day for Clay-san and her party, they had been starving for warm food. I ended up having to grill some meat on a bedrock for those who couldn't wait for the hot pot a second longer.

They immediately fell asleep like logs once they had their fill.

That night, I'm preparing for tomorrow by myself. Making smoked food including for Clay-san's group's shares. I made a stone hut with a tall chimney to smoke the boar meat and stuff inside. May it turn good.

Rustle

Hm? Someone came by while I was chuckling at myself to the smoking stone hut.

"Could I have a moment of your time?"

It was Jerindo. His bare face under his full iron armor (not of the plate mail type, but plates put over leather armor) looks younger than I thought. He's got tsurime eyes, and blond slightly-pompadour-styled hair. But wow, it's incredible how he retains his hair style under that iron helmet of his. A profound mystery.

"What's the matter? Don't worry about lookout, go ahead and get some rest."

"Well, uh, you see. I wanted to apologize."

Jerindo bowed.

"Huh, what did you do to me again?"

"Please, you can drop the act. While vague, I still had my conscious when you put us to sleep in an attempt to escape our pursuit back then."

Whoops, he's talking about that one time huh. But really, so they were still awake then. I've still got a way to go.

"Even though were were going to gang up on you, not only did you not finish us off, you even made magical walls for us instead. I thought you were just naive, but once we realized how fishy that quest was, we regretted ever trying to mess with you. Feel free to beat me up until you're satisfied. That's the only thing I can offer you."

I'm not some vigorous young man who corrects att.i.tude by punching them down or anything, so no I won't. It would be another story if they did something to the girls, but since it was just me, and an attempt at that, I don't really care.

"Since you probably won't take it if I tell you to not mind about it, I'll just ask you to take care of Clay-san. She's an important friend of our Mitama."

Jerindo had a foolish anticlimatic look on his face when he realized that his resolve to get beaten had gone to waste.

"Are you... really fine with that?"

"Yeah, that's that. So long as you don't try to harm our girls, I'll bear what I can bear. In hindsight, that experience was a sort of wake up call to me as well. Just think of it as a tutelage fee."

"Got it. I can accept that if you're fine with it. But this debt we owe you is a different matter. Earlier, we would have lost our lives for sure if not for you guys. From here one, we [Foolhardy Giants] will come running to help you guys in time of need. We all agreed on this. Sorry for taking your time. I'll take up on your offer earlier and get some sleep."

After saying that, Jerindo went back to base. I thought he was the idiotic rascal type, turned out his core was pretty decent. I've got a better opinion of him now. Jeez, these guys gonna be my favorite.

The morning after, I put some food including the smoked food I finished that night along with potions into a magic rucksack and handed it over to Clay-san. I also gave spare weapons and armor such as daggers, a rarely used short bow and arrows to Buraran-s.h.i.+ and an iron spear to Nains.h.i.+. Since their equipment was sunk in the marsh when I saved them. We saw them off after I told them that they could gave it all back inside the magic rucksack to Eleanor-san once they're done with it.
Apparently, they're going to have another go at it since they haven't got the required quest items yet. I gave them lots of Cinnamon from Cinnamonkeys drop though.

Well, since they're with Clay-san and all, I wish them best of luck. And since I gave them a stone carving with a Tamchan mark that would afford them potion discount at [Shut-in Lamia], things should be a bit easier for them from now on.