Kays Translations

Intermission The back seen by the boy ①

This is the story of the time when Gray had just drifted to the town of Bastok.

Bastok has a big festival once a year. The festival lasts for three days, and during the festival period, many people from neighboring villages come to Bastok to enjoy the stalls and parades.

In this world where entertainment is scarce, festivals like these are a good way to vent.

However, as the number of people coming and going increases, so does the number of criminals who target them.

Robberies, fraud, kidnappings… These criminals also find the festive season a good time to make money. Rural people who do not usually leave their villages are good dupes for them.

Therefore, during this time of year, security is strengthened not only by the town guards, but also by the private army of the lords, as well as by requesting adventurers to patrol the streets through the Adventurers’ Guild.

But it’s not perfect either, and the further away you get from the city, the more places you can’t reach.

Inside the Adventurer’s Guild in Bastok, the guild staff were perplexed as they surrounded the crying boy.

In the boy’s hand were several copper coins and a beautifully shaped stone, the boy’s treasure, which he was about to hand over to a guild staff.

The boy lives in a nearby village and today he came with his family to participate in a festival in Bastok. The boy had been looking forward to the festival for quite some time, and he and his sister helped out at home and worked in the fields to earn pocket money, which they saved up little by little.

That’s the money in the boy’s hand.

Although they could not afford to live in the village, the parents wanted their children to have fun, so they checked out a cheap and tasty restaurant for the occasion and also prepared new clothes for the children.

The day of the festival was sure to be a fun day… The boy and his family had no doubt that it would be.

However, while traveling in a horse-drawn carriage, they are attacked by bandits. While the bandits are fighting with the adventurers who are escorting the boy and his parents, the parents let the boy and his sister go, but the bandits come after them and capture the sister.

The fate of a person who is kidnapped by bandits is tragic.

As the boy walks while crying, he is picked up by a horse-drawn carriage of the merchant corps that happens to be passing by and is brought to Bastok.

I asked the merchants to help my family, but none of them agreed.

Such things are not unusual in this world. The only reason they brought the boy to the city was because he would be preyed upon by monsters… that’s all. Even so… someone in the caravan murmured in front of the boy who was clinging to him.

“If you request it at the Adventurer’s Guild, maybe someone will accept it…”

I’m sure they will help you if you ask. But it’s also a matter of price.

The person who muttered this knows that the boy cannot pay such a price. He just wanted to get rid of this troublesome situation quickly…in other words, he just wanted to get rid of the trouble.

“Welcome to the Adventurer’s Guild, Bastok branch… oh, what’s going on… eh, eh?”

The boy was brought to the Adventurer’s Guild, and when he went to the unusually empty counter, he was so emotional that he started to cry.

When Sasha, the new receptionist, looks at him with a troubled face and asks him about the situation, the boy begins to cry and tells her what happened little by little. In the middle of this, other guild employees gather to see what is going on.

After I finished talking about the situation, the boy presented me with several copper coins and a beautiful round stone, and asked me to help his family.

“…Do you want me to take it as a request?”

One of the guild officials said so, but even adventurers put their lives on the line. Who would accept a mere few copper coins to rescue people captured by a band of thieves?

Moreover, if we don’t help him as soon as possible, it will be “too late”… No, it’s possible that it may already be too late.

Sasha bit her lip. If I shouldered the reward, someone else would……or so she thought.

A man opens the guild door and enters.

With a large muscular body and sharp eyes like a thug, it was an adventurer named Gray who had recently started frequenting the adventurers’ guild here in Bastok.

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