A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

Lizel was walking alone through the city today.

He passed by the usual stalls and entered a street lined with slightly better shops. Using a small sign that read, rather unconvincingly, “Confident in Appraisal” as his landmark, he went into that shop.

Inside, as always, the lone shopkeeper was busily rearranging the goods, never once letting himself sit and relax.

Finding it endearing that the boy was working so hard he hadn’t even noticed him, Lizel quietly closed the door.

“Judge-kun.”

“L–Lord Rizel…!”

“Not that.”

“Mr Gill… no… Lizel… san…”

Judge groaned as he corrected the way he addressed him, and Lizel smiled, as if praising a job well done.

He came here every time he dived into the labyrinth and brought back dungeon items; it was about time Judge got used to him.

Lizel looked up at the boy’s tall, slender figure. He was still a cute junior, so Lizel was willing to give him as many chances as needed.

If it were someone he didn’t care about, he’d hate even having his name called.

“Ah, congratulations on forming your party…!”

“Mm, that rumor’s even reached your ears?”

“Yes… You’re not together today, I see.”

“It’s not like we’re always glued together. We’re adults, you know.”

Even though this was a shop aimed at adventurers, if the staff here knew as well, the rumor had spread more than he thought.

It was all because of Gill’s notoriety, no doubt. When Lizel walked around alone, no one realized he was the person at the center of those talks.

Partly because one glance at him didn’t scream “adventurer.”

Thanks to that, adventurers who didn’t know Lizel personally were completely convinced that the party member Gill had finally taken on was some terrifying master.

“…Are you okay?”

“Hm?”

“There are… quite a lot of adventurers who admire Mr Gill. If any of them bother you in a weird way…”

Just as Judge said, since forming the party, the number of adventurers approaching Gill had increased.

Most of them were requests to let them join the party, which Gill ignored with daily exasperation.

Lizel was often standing beside him at those times, but almost every one of them lost their nerve the instant their eyes met his.

Low-rank adventurers all said the same thing—that just standing alongside him somehow felt too awe-inspiring—but Lizel didn’t know that.

He simply thought they were anxious about Gill teaming up with someone weak like him.

“Well, I can defend myself to some extent, so it’s fine.”

“…Is it?”

Judge answered as if accepting that, but the slight upward lilt at the end of his sentence showed he wasn’t entirely convinced.

Lizel didn’t look particularly strong, so it wasn’t strange Judge thought that way.

From Judge’s perspective, it was unbelievable enough that Lizel was an adventurer at all, and he couldn’t even picture him fighting.

Telling him not to worry about a regular customer who treated him so kindly would be stranger still.

Yet the dungeon items Lizel brought in were always impressive.

They’d only occasionally met since long ago, but Judge knew Gill wasn’t the type to team up with someone completely useless.

Thinking that Gill himself had changed a little lately, Judge accepted the dungeon item Lizel held out.

After bringing in two teddy bears in a row at first, Lizel had since brought in all sorts of different dungeon items.

This time it was a palm-sized hourglass with beautiful decoration.

“…‘Unerring Hourglass,’ it seems.”

“Does it have any special effect?”

“No matter how many times you use it, it measures exactly three minutes.”

Lizel stared at the hourglass with a conflicted expression, unsure whether that was amazing or not.

Lately he’d often dived into the middle and even deep layers, but he still hadn’t encountered dungeon items with the sort of flashy, labyrinth-like special effects he imagined.

Starting with the teddy bears, then monster figurines from the labyrinth, a tea set that never got dirty, a wallet that came back even if stolen—everything stayed within the realm of daily necessities.