NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: (1)
Dragon Slayer
Echigoya and Tanaka were seated across from each other in a private room of the guild, having some idle talk.
「Have you heard? There seems to be a rumour saying that a God has appeared here and there around the hot springs resort, healing those who were injured from the dragon attack.」
Echigoya spoke to Tanaka with a smile on his face, as he stared at him with eyes that didn’t seem to be smiling at all.
「Oh, that’s news to me. I spend most of my time outside of the town to hunt monsters from dawn till dusk, after all. I didn’t know there was such a thing going around.」
Tanaka replied to Echigoya’s inquiry in a cool manner, while averting his gaze away from him.
「As we’re currently shorthanded, we’re truly grateful to them for assisting us in treating the injured people there, yes, but… as this rumor began to circulate, it has caused unnecessary problem all over the place, and that’s truly put us in a lot of trouble, you see.」
Echigoya kept his eyes fixed on Tanaka as he continued with the conversation as such. Tanaka felt tremendous pressure from such an Echigoya.
「I bet it has. Geez, I don’t know who this person may be, but how outrageous! Truly outrageous!」
Tanaka casually showed such an indignant expression. However, the pressure from Echigoya didn’t subside in the slightest.
Tanaka was about to give in, thinking that his actions had been exposed, but the pressure coming from Echigoya suddenly subsided, as he closed his eyes.
「There has been a lot of unsavory incidents happening lately, so I prefer not to have anything too conspicuous to happen around here.」
As far as Echigoya was concerned, he wanted to keep Tanaka’s power a secret. He wanted to keep him as a trump card in case a great disaster were to occur in the future, so even as he had to make use of him right at the moment, he wanted to keep it as unnoticeable as possible.
「You’re totally right there. I’ll also be careful here. I’ll be sure to be very careful from now on.」
Tanaka, who sensed that Echigoya seemed to be quite angry with the fact that he had used the people of the hot spring resort to conduct magic experiments, emphatically agreed with him.
Tanaka nodded in his mind that he couldn’t refuse Echigoya-san’s request from now on.
As such, the two somehow managed to continue their little chat without any problems, despite the fact that they didn’t understand each other’s thoughts at all.
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On a certain day, around the time when the reconstruction works in the hot spring resort were beginning to settle down, Tanaka was leisurely having a meal at a diner-cum-tavern in Nishi town.
「Old man, don’t you think that you’ve been getting a little more customers lately?」
Tanaka called out to the tavern old man as he enjoyed his meal. The tavern was a place where one gathered information. Tanaka abided by that theory and decided to try inquiring the tavern old man.
「Yeah, there seems to be a lot of people, who want to make a name for themselves by slaying the dragon, coming to the town, after all.」
The tavern old man replied to Tanaka, turning his gaze to a group of people who were chatting in a corner of the tavern. That was apparently the group of people who were intending to slay the dragon.
「Huh, but I wonder if it’s even possible to defeat a dragon in the first place?」
Tanaka recalled the disastrous state of the hot spring resort. And the dragon was the chief offender which left the resort in such a state. No matter how he thought about it, it was without a doubt not something that could easily be defeated by humans, when such a thought crossed his mind, Tanaka involuntarily expressed it out loud.
「They’re all C-ranked and above, they also seem to possess power befitting that rank, so shouldn’t they be able to defeat it? There’s even someone who is pretty well known among them, after all.」
「Ho, such a person has also come, huh.」
Tanaka was curious about the matter the old man had just mentioned. He recalled about anime and games from his original world, and wondered what kind of person this supposedly famous person would be like. He sipped his milk as he stole a glance at the group at the corner of the tavern.
「It’s that guy who is leaning against the wall, the one with a greatsword on him. Rumor has it that he’s going to promote to B rank very soon. Currypan (curry roll) the great sword, he’s a pretty big deal.」
「Boo! Cough, cough!」
Tanaka couldn’t help but spewed out the milk he was drinking.
「That’s disgusting! What the hell are you doing?」
The old man complained, even as he began wiping off the table with a rag.
「What the hell is that?! Bullying? Somehow I can now only imagine that classy-looking guy, who’s standing while leaning on the wall with his eyes shut, cowering and holding back his tears in the corner of the room!」
Tanaka almost saw a hallucination that there were tears glistening in the corner of the classy man’s eyes. Tanaka couldn’t help but retort to the tavern old man, as he could no longer see the classy guy in a classy light.
「I’m not sure what you’re even talking about. Currypan is, I mean was once the nickname of a master swordsman who was revered throughout the Empire, you know. Some parents would even name their children Currypan after him. I’m sure that was also the case with the great sword guy.」
「What a sinful thing you had done, o master swordsman. At least make it a human name. Nah, that would turn into a joke name then. Typical slapstick character…」
「What are you mumbling about now?」
As they were absorbed in a heated discussion about the great sword man, someone from said group made their way to the counter.
「Old man, give me the recommended strong one of this store.」
The person seemed to be in mid-twenties. A woman with red hair, and a bit bossy appearance, ordered a drink to the tavern old man.
「Aiyo.」
In an accustomed movement, the old man poured the already arranged booze into a cup and then handed it over to the woman. The woman called out to Tanaka as she accepted the cup.
「Are you by any chance also a guild member?」
Swiftly switching to serious mode, Tanaka responded in a safe manner.
「Yeah, I am. The name is Tanaka. I’m currently staying in this town to help out with some jobs here.」
As Tanaka raised his cup of milk in a toast, the woman also introduced herself.
「My name is Homura. We’re currently assembling a team to slay the dragon, so I was wondering if you’d like to join us?」
The opponent was a dragon, so surely they’d like to have every little help they could obtain, no matter how small it might be. Homura casually invited Tanaka to join them.