Chapter 112: Supply Transport
As I was scanning the bulletin board for a new request, the same female adventuring party from earlier approached.
“Looks like your Hydra hunt went well!”
The cheerful voice of their leader, Lua, rang out, bright and unmistakable.
She didn’t seem the slightest bit resentful that we had effectively taken the request she might have been interested in. That thought alone brought me a quiet sense of relief.
“So, how was it? The inn I recommended—did you stay there?”
Her question made us exchange uneasy glances.
Of course, we hadn’t stayed at the inn she’d suggested. In fact, we hadn’t needed an inn at all. Explaining that would be complicated, and admitting it outright would make it look like we had ignored her thoughtful recommendation.
(Maybe we could just lie and say it was full?)
(She wouldn’t bother checking, right?)
As Anii and I silently exchanged these thoughts, Shifa spoke up.
“We didn’t stay there.”
She said it outright—just like that.
“…Oh… well, don’t worry about it at all! You’re free to stay wherever you want! Looks like I was just being nosy!”
Yet Lua didn’t even hint at being upset. She smiled warmly, brushing it off. For a brief moment, it almost seemed as if a small crease formed between her brows, but perhaps that was just my imagination.
“Anyway, it looks like you’re searching for a new request, right? In that case, how about this one?”
Lua pulled a request scroll out of nowhere and held it out for us. Shifa took it, her eyes scanning the details, tilting her head in mild confusion.
“Transporting supplies?”
“Yes. It’s a rare, temporary job,” Lua explained, pointing at the map.
“This is Randall, the city we’re in right now. And over here is a village called Mera. There’s a river along the way, but a bridge crosses it. You’d go over the bridge and travel… roughly a dozen or so kilometers?”
It was a request to deliver essential supplies to a village located just over ten kilometers from the city.
“Because of a disaster that happened a while back, the village is short on all sorts of supplies. But the roads are rough, and ordinary people can’t make the journey safely. That’s why adventurers were called in for this. It’s a bit of a tough job, but the reward is generous.”
Even though it was just transporting goods, the reward was nearly equivalent to slaying a Hydra. Clearly, the village’s shortage was serious.
“Not bad.”
“Yeah.”
Traveling back and forth over a rough road with a loaded cart would be exhausting. Most ordinary adventurers might avoid such a job, no matter the reward.
But in our case, we weren’t doing the walking ourselves. In that sense, this mission was practically made for us.
Of course, Lua had no way of knowing that.
“We were originally going to take it, but it ended up being too difficult. Then we happened to see you and thought we’d ask if you wanted it instead.”
“We’ll take it.”
“Really? Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it! We had trouble finding another party willing to step in!”
And so, we accepted the supply transport request.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Hahaha! That worked perfectly! On the map, it’s only a dozen kilometers, but the nearest bridge is broken, so they’ll have to take a huge detour! It’ll probably take more than twice as long!”
Lua’s triumphant laugh was full of malice toward the party she disliked. The dark circles under her eyes stood out sharply, a mark of her relentless energy.
“It’s already a full-day, tedious task, and now the round trip will take them two or three days! All the effort I put into finding a request to ruin them has finally paid off!”
The rest of her party exchanged silent glances, thinking the same thing: maybe Lua’s intensity would be better directed toward their own adventures.
◇ ◇ ◇
With the small home garden in tow, we set off toward the village in need.
All the supplies were loaded onto the cart. Despite the obvious weight, it felt like nothing—so smooth that it could probably carry even a Gigagolem without difficulty. How much it could actually bear was beyond imagination.
“Neigh!”
Caro, free from pulling the cart, contented herself by munching on carrots with pure delight.
“The river’s coming into view.”
“The map shows a bridge around here.”
Halfway through the journey, we spotted the river marked on the map.
“Wait, what’s going on?”
“What is it, Anii?”
“The bridge… it’s broken.”
“Huh?”
Following Anii’s gaze, we saw it—the bridge spanning the river had collapsed. Crossing it was impossible.
And with the river’s strong current and deep waters, wading through was out of the question.
“What should we do?”
“Take a detour?”
“But where’s the nearest bridge?”
Snore… snore…
The discussion began, though Senna had apparently decided it was nap time.
“No need to detour,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll just go straight over. Remember what we did when we fought the Red Dragon?”
“Oh, right…”
Apparently, that jogged her memory. Of course—thanks to our home garden’s three-dimensional travel skill, we could even fly.