Chapter 84: Starting the Reference Room Organisation

Victor decided to hear the explanation of the request together with the Young Branch Squad, and called the party members over as well. When the party members heard what the request involved, though, their faces clouded over.

“I can’t read the hard characters.”

“Me, the only thing I can read is my own name.”

“…It’s dusty in here… and how long is this going to take…”

Seeing that his companions weren’t very keen, Victor looked a little troubled. But after hearing what Colette said, he turned back to face Jade.

“By when does it have to be done?”

At Victor’s question, Jade stroked his chin whiskers and glanced over at Mikaila. Jade had fetched her a short while before. Mikaila was beaming, the request form in her hand.

“…For now, three days. You don’t have to try to finish it in three days. I’ll look at where things stand after three days and think about whether to put the request out to other adventurers as well. The beginners’ shelf was organised by Ren-kun, wasn’t it? I’d like you to go about it the same way Ren-kun did that shelf. Of course, if you come up with a better method, another way is fine too.”

“Eh?”

“Ren organised that shelf?”

“That’s amazing.”

All eyes turned on him at once, and Ren felt his cheeks go hot.

“Ren-kun, I’ll pay you separately for the work you did organising the beginners’ shelf. I’m sorry we left it as it was, when Jade seems to have noticed.”

“Ah… no…”

Not knowing how to react, Ren dropped his head. Victor thumped him on the back.

“That’s amazing! She says you’re getting paid. Good for you!”

“Mm…”

At Victor’s words, the corner of Ren’s mouth lifted just slightly. Being praised made him feel ticklish.

The plan, they were told, was to classify things the same way as the shelves in the beginners’ corner, and if any tools were needed they would be lent out.

Ren worried that if he couldn’t go hunting during the three days of the request he might not get any meat, but the schedule was apparently only a few quarters of the day, ending for the day once the sun began to slant.

Judging that a few quarters of the day would be no particular problem, Ren decided to take the request on along with Victor and the others. Given that the work was to proceed by the method Ren himself had used, it would have been hard to refuse in any case.

After the talk was over, Ren received the payment for having organised the beginners’ corner.

(I never took a request for it. Is this all right?)

He had cleared it with Jade beforehand, asking whether it was all right to rearrange things, but he had done it of his own accord. He hadn’t expected to be paid for it, and Ren was at a loss.

Mikaila came back from the guild counter and handed him a leather pouch with the payment in it.

The clink of it sounded somehow different from usual, and when he opened the mouth of the pouch and peered inside, he saw coins glinting.

“Eh?”

“…With the shelf organised, the material is easier to find, and it’s helping the other adventurers too. And the method was so groundbreaking that there’s a fee for the idea as well.”

Mikaila said it softly, almost in a whisper, then smiled and held out a board with the amount written on it.

5,000 G. Five small gold coins were inside.

Ren looked back and forth between the contents of the pouch, the board with the amount on it, and Mikaila’s face.

After he got home, in his room, Ren put the five small gold coins into a small box and looked at them quietly.

They seemed a little different from the payment he got when he sold magical beasts at the buying counter—something special.

The next day, when he went straight to the guild reference room, the members of the Young Branch Squad were gathered in the beginners’ corner. Victor was holding a board with a red cord attached to it and explaining something to the others.

“Look. Over here they’re sorted by the number of diagonal lines—medicinal herbs, magical beasts, and other.”

“Ohh. You can tell even if you can’t read.”

“Huh, that’s impressive.”

“So we just cut diagonal lines in the same way?”

They seemed to be discussing how to organise the material already.

Victor noticed Ren standing there and raised a hand.

“Hey! We were thinking of doing it the same as this—what do you reckon?”

“Hmm… if the categories were colour-coded, wouldn’t that make it easy to tell at a glance?”

“Colour-code the categories?”

Victor tilted his head.

Ren explained the method he had been turning over a little. He took out a small burlap sack stuffed with short, downy feathers from bird-type magical beasts. He had filled it with feathers that were no use either for quill pens or for the fletching of simple arrows.

“For instance, the parts of a bird-type magical beast’s feathers you don’t really use. Or scraps of coloured cloth. If they were colour-coded, wouldn’t they be easy to make out even from a little way off?”

“Ohh! That’s brilliant!”

Victor leaned in, impressed, to peer at the feathers in Ren’s hands. Ren spoke again, a little hesitantly.

“I think redder, showier feathers would stand out more, though…”

The Moss-Red Cockatol’s tail feathers were red, but if sparks came out by accident there was a chance of a fire, so he had steered clear of them.

“Let’s go and ask if we can have some scraps and feathers. Colette, can I leave that to you?”

“Got it.”

Victor gave Colette her instructions on the spot. Did that mean his colour-coding idea had been adopted? Ren wondered, watching Colette’s back as she left the reference room.

“But… how are we supposed to colour-code these boards? Stick them on?”

Fred said it while holding a feather pinched between his fingertips and looking at it. Ren took out a small board he had tried attaching a feather to as a test. He had cut a small notch in the upper part of the board’s side and pushed the feather into the notch with a knife.

“You just cut the feather short and push it in with a knife. I think if you paint glue over the top it’ll hold on better.”

“Huh. That looks easier than cutting diagonal lines.”

Colette came back with a great clatter of footsteps, a largish burlap sack held in one arm.

“They said we can take the worn-out feathers. I got them. And they said there are rags too.”

“Ah, I’ll go and get those, then.”

“Right, Fred, thanks. Thanks, Colette.”

Looking inside the burlap sack Colette had brought, it was stuffed with brightly coloured feathers. Short feathers, feathers with parts missing—all jumbled in together.

Still, feathers in colourful shades stood out, and they looked as though they would be useful.