「I really have to say though, you sure do seem to attract trouble. You’ve already hooked in two different big shots in a single day. To be fair, it should be something you saw coming. You’ve garnered a lot of attention, and caught a lot of eyes. We as the guild are rather thankful that you’re ultimately helping us out, but I’m guessing you don’t feel the same.」
『Yeah, we kinda would’ve prefered not to get involved with any of those people at all.』
「Hahahaha, yeah, that’s what I thought. Too bad for you, I can guarantee that it’s going to keep happening.」
「How to make stop?」
「I’m glad you’re willing to ask for my advice instead of beating around the bush or thinking you’ll just somehow find your way out of every situation. You remember how I told you to go to the Beastkin’s Country? My personal advice would be to hurry on your way. Our country’s idiots won’t be able to do anything to you if you’re gone.」
『That sounds great and all, but I’m not really sure it’ll be that easy for us to just hop over to another continent.』
We probably needed both a ship and a visa if we wanted to make our way over.
「Don’t worry about the visa, the guild has you covered on that front. Anyone that has a designated request can use their card as both an entry and exit permit.」
Wow, guild cards are a lot more convenient than I thought.
「There’ll be a office at the border. The inspector there will have a magic item, and should let you pass so long as you show him your guild card.」
「Thanks.」
『I guess that means that finding ourselves a ship is all we’ll have to worry about.』
「That part will be a bit more difficult. Barbra will probably be your best bet, but I don’t think they have any ocean liners in service.」
『Huh, that’s weird. How do people normally get over to the Beastkin’s country then?』
「Most adventurers tend to have merchants hire them as escorts.」
『Sounds about right.』
The problem with that was Fran’s appearance. I highly doubted anyone would be all that willing to hire her as a guard given that she looked the way she did. If I had to hire an escort, and my options were a kid and a big burly man, I’d definitely choose the latter.
We’d managed to get ourselves an escort mission when going from Dharz to Barbra, but that was only because we’d known Prince Flut, Princess Satia, and Salrut. In other words, we had only managed to hitch ourselves a ride because we had the power of nepotism at hand. We no longer had the connections nec—oh wait.
『We could try asking the guys at the Luciel Conglomerate.』
「…Who?」
『Yeah, I’m not really surprised you’ve already forgotten them.』
I myself had almost forgotten about them as well. Fran was no good at remembering names, so her having forgotten them was honestly a given.
『You remember how we had to ride a ship in order to get from Dharz to Barbra? The conglomerate is the company that owned the ship, remember? We even got a coin from the captain, one with some sort sort of crest on it.』
「Nn…? Got coin?」
『Yeah, we totally did.』
The conglomerate was one of Barbra’s biggest corporations, so there was a pretty good chance they’d have a ship or two heading for Chrom.
「I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding yourself an escort job. Merchants are known for their vast information networks, their many connections let them spread and catch wind of information faster than anyone and everyone else. I’m sure Barbra’s merchants have already caught wind of your accomplishments.」
「Then will have easy time finding ship to escort?」
「I think it’ll even be safe to say that they’ll be fighting for your attention. That said, it’d probably be best for you to take advantage of *that* connection, than go out of your way to find a ship to the Beastkin’s Country that may or may not actually exist.」
「Nn?」
『Yeah, good point.』
Fran hadn’t seemed to have realized it, but me, I’d already long thought about what Dias was currently suggesting. The connection he was referring to was the one we shared with the Beast Lord.
I hadn’t immediately suggested asking him for help because I wasn’t sure if it was the best idea.
There were several reasons I thought that to be the case, with the first being that it kind of felt like we were relying on him more than we should’ve been. I didn’t want to be any more in his debt than we already were.
The second was that the Beast Lord probably wasn’t planning on heading back to his country immediately. He was a king, one that would probably be met with a warm reception regardless of where he went. Dealing with the people that welcomed him was effectively a part of his job. His personality kinda made it so he wasn’t really all that receptive, but Royce and his other companions always seemed to be working to prevent him from acting entirely on his selfish whims. In other words, he probably wouldn’t be heading back to his own country for quite some time.
I felt we’d be able to reach our destination much more quickly if we found a ship that’d take us straight there.
Dias, however, was inclined to disagree.
「Your first reason may as well be moot. You’re going to need to ask him a favour anyway, seeing as how you’ll need to pay Kiara a visit.」
『True.』
「The same goes for your other point, I doubt he’d make many stops on his way back.」
『Why’s that?』
「The Beast Lord’s party barely made any stops on the way here. They always made a big show of having the Beast Lord move around in his carriage whenever they entered a town, but they spent the rest of their time as would a normal party of adventurers.」
Their actions made a fair bit of sense to me, as functioning the way they did definitely allowed them to move at a rapid pace. The only issue was that I wasn’t really sure we would be able to keep up with an S ranked party.
That wasn’t the only concern it raised either. There was a chance they’d find out about me if we travelled with them. Beastkin had good intuition, and high ranking adventurers were sharp. The combination of the two traits made me feel like they would definitely catch on if we stayed with them for an extended period of time.
「Well uh… good luck. I don’t really know what else to say to you about that.」
『Yeah, I figured as much.』
That said, I wasn’t really sure whether the Beast Lord would even be willing to let us travel with him in the first place. There was a chance he would just show us to a ship and have us head out without him if we were lucky.
「Will go ask Beast Lord.」
『Yeah, no harm in just asking, I guess.』
「Tell him and his buddies I said hi.」
「Nn.」
