Chapter 93 – Royal Order Completion Part 1

Translator: SFBaka

Editor: Thor’s Stone

“Hey Ritz, the Sister from the orphanage is looking for us for somethin’. You wanna go see what’s up?”

“Hmm, I wonder what she wants us for? Perfect timing though. We can buy a small bag of wheat with the money we got yesterday, right? Let’s buy one and give it to her as a present like usual.”

“But once we use all that money up……”

“Don’t worry so much. We’ll manage somehow. Alright. C’mon then.”

After buying some flour at the usual joint, I headed to the orphanage in the city’s western district and found lots of people crowding around the entrance.

I spotted Sara, Bonz, and Nikki among them. Everyone seems to be all excited about something and was making quite a racket. I wonder what’s got them all worked up?

I found the Sister we were familiar with before long and handed her the flour bag we bought.

“Hi there, Sister. Here you go. A souvenir for the kids. What’s going on here anyway?”

“Oh my. Thank you as always, Ritz! And Raster too, of course. Oh, and I have some really great news for you both. You two were selected. Congratulations!”

“Selected for what?”

“You’re both familiar with the news regarding Baron Corinth preparing to develop his own fiefdom, right? You have both been selected as citizens of his new fief!”

“Eh…… You’re kidding, right? ……I mean, wasn’t he not recruiting any pioneers?”

“It appears that Bishop, no, Archbishop Gertner managed to persuade him otherwise and appealed for you all to be prioritized.”

“……Why me and Raster though?”

“The two of you didn’t commit any crimes after leaving the orphanage and only did honest work, right? The director and I discussed the matter and chose to send you both in the end.”

I can’t believe it! We’re going to be citizens under that famous Baron Corinth!?

“This is amazin’ Ritz! We’re gonna be joinin’ up with Shining Star, man! Thank you very much, Sister!”

Even if we’re considered as official adventurers, we’re at the very bottom of the barrel; lowly F-ranks. I’m sure we won’t be able to become members of Shining Star just like Raster said. But even so, we’re still gonna experience challenging the depths of that Great Demon Forest. That’s amazing!

“Go join up with the rest and talk to Harold about the details. I bet you’re going to like what you hear.”

Harold? He’s also from an orphanage like us. He’s four years older than me though and is now working as a D-rank adventurer. Will Harold go there as well?

I see. Now I get why everyone’s kicking up a fuss. The people gathered here were all chosen to join the expedition just like us. I and Raster hurriedly joined the boisterous crowd.

More and more people came until there were about fifty of us gathered within the orphanage’s front yard. There were thirty men and about twenty women I suppose. Everyone was a familiar face. We were all once members of this orphanage. When Harold went up to the platform set up in front of the orphanage building, everyone quieted down.

“It looks like you’re all here. As you’ve heard, we’ve all been selected as citizens of Baron Corinth’s new fiefdom. I’ll go and ask this first though. Is there anyone among you all who doesn’t want to go?”

As expected, no one raised any objection.

“We’re going to be departing soon. Us folks from the Western District Orphanage will join up and head together with Baron Corinth’s men to his new fief. I’ll be your leader during this expedition. Is there anyone who’s not convinced I’m fit for the job?”

Harold is like our caring and dependable big brother. Again, no one raised any objections.

“Alright then. Let’s all work together to get ourselves ready until the day of departure.”

I didn’t really need to make any preparations though. I can actually leave as is. Wait? What about our food during the expedition? I guess I better ask.

“Leader, are we gonna be procuring food along the way during the expedition?”

“No. This might sound unbelievable, but it looks like the Baron is gonna be shouldering all three meals for us until we arrive at his territory.”

“”All three meals!?””

“That’s not all guys. Baron Corinth and Archbishop Gertner provided all of us with an allowance of a thousand Guineas per person.”

“”A thousand Guineas!””

That’s a lot of money! It’s an amount that I and Raster won’t be able to earn even if we worked ourselves half to death for a month.

“But I’ll tell you this now, guys. You absolutely can’t spend that money frivolously. Let’s all discuss together and decide what we’ll purchase with it.”

That sounds good. I wouldn’t really know what to buy myself even if I suddenly got a thousand Guineas.

“It seems Archbishop Gertner convinced Baron Corinth to take us in. We absolutely can’t disgrace the name of our benefactor.”

To think we’ll be able to join hands with that legendary Dragon Slayer. Our archbishop sure is amazing! Just like Harold said, we can’t disgrace his good name.

“Gertner-sama said that if we do well in this expedition Baron Corinth might consider taking in more orphans. Listen up, you lot. We’re gonna be the representatives of the Western District Orphanage. We’re absolutely gonna make this expedition a success!”

“”Ou!””

I’m really not sure about what exactly I’m supposed to do, but anyway, let’s just do our best!

Today’s the day we’ll be taking away all the books I purchased from the adventurer Hans. I mobilized all members of Shining Star to get the job done quickly. After all, we’ll be handling more than a thousand books.

I, Selena, and Sharon checked out the books that were being brought out from the store in a relay format one after another.

There were all kinds of books, including personal biographies, spell books, and practical guide books.

The title of the latest book handed to me was ‘The History of Cerise’. I quickly scanned the contents and found that it was a history book with a detailed chronological table.

『I’ll be keeping this one.』

Iris seems to have taken an interest in the book. I placed the book inside a separate wooden box.

I’m doing this at the request of Iris. She wanted to read the most notable ones first, but Iris was making me keep more books for her than I first expected. I felt down when I thought about how she’d probably make me scan all these books once we get back to the inn.

The next book looked old but had some pretty fancy binding. Its title read ‘A Summary of Artifacts’. Its contents were quite interesting. It was a book with detailed diagrams and explanations of various Artifacts.

Artifact is the general term for magic tools that are mainly excavated from ancient archeological sites. But it’s not really clear if all of them actually were magic tools or something entirely different instead. I asked everyone some time ago and didn’t get any detailed information. This is one of the books I really wanted.

『That’s certainly a great find. Please keep it for me as well.』

And of course, I was told to keep the book for Iris as well.

In the end, it took us about two hours to take out all the books from the shop. I ended up keeping more than 150 books and the remaining ones were taken to the warehouse we rented for ourselves to store our supplies.

When we returned to the inn, I found Katolle waiting at the entrance. There were also several men who appeared quite merchant-like with him. It looks like we have some guests again.

I met up with each of the merchants one by one inside a room we converted as a makeshift reception office and had discussions with them. Well, I didn’t really have anything serious to discuss with them since that’s all been handled by Katolle beforehand, so we only exchanged some pleasantries and chatted for a bit.

I talked with the merchants one by one until I finally finished meeting with all of them.

“Phew, it’s finally over. It’s pretty tiring to talk about the same topics over and over again.”

“Thank you for your hard work, Alan. We’ve managed to make a profit of 150,000 Guineas in the past hour you know.”

“I personally don’t think having discussions with me is worth that much though.”

Those merchants were the ones who will handle the services and supplies we’ll need for our big project, and they agreed to give us pretty sizeable discounts under the condition that they’ll be allowed to meet with me at least once.

“They were only after the fact that they managed to have a conversation with you personally, Alan-sama. After all, having personal business dealings with Alan-sama is treated as something major in the royal capital right now. It will also lead to raising the credibility of their businesses.”

“Is that so? Well, if that’s how it is, then I’ll take on as many as possible then.”

After all, making a profit of 150,000 Guineas per hour is nothing to scoff at. It’s certainly a hassle, but it’s also not something we can just pass up.