A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

“The only things stolen were dungeon items. Each one was worth about a gold coin, pretty nice stuff.”

Items worth a full gold coin—indeed, that was no small thing. Even so, with Lizel’s slightly skewed sense for money, he needed to stop and consciously remind himself of that fact.

For a normal labyrinth boss, a single dragon scale went for a gold coin. From a hidden boss of a rare variant—an enormous subterranean dragon—one scale fetched ten gold coins.

The materials from bosses Gill dove down to “test his strength” on and then casually slaughtered were all bought at premium prices. Not that he sold them often.

That was because almost no parties existed that could even defeat the boss on the lowest floor, and even those few parties risked their lives every single run.

Lizel had recently come to understand where the “average line” for an adventurer lay, and now he was starting to doubt whether Gill was really human.

He’d actually felt relieved when he saw Gill take a few hits for the first time in their fight against the subterranean dragon. Though even then, they’d landed on his armor, and with the quality of his gear he came out unscathed.

In the Capital City, ten gold coins would generally let you rent a whole house for several years. Out in the countryside, you could build one. With a single gold coin, a family could probably live modestly for a month.

But even after coming here and once falling into total pennilessness, Lizel’s sense of money—formed as a noble—hadn’t really changed.

He understood market prices and what ordinary living expenses looked like, but understanding them didn’t mean he hesitated to spend large sums.

In a way, that could be taken as a sign that Gill had truly “made it” as an adventurer—and his sense of money was just as wild. To put it bluntly, their spending habits were bad enough that it would be no wonder if people resented them for it.

Re‑evaluating the value of a single gold coin, Lizel nodded in belated realization. Gill watched him with exasperated eyes.

“Judge‑kun’s shop deals in much more expensive things. Them not taking those… I guess they were afraid it’d be traced?”

“And if they tried to sell ’em, it’d definitely leave a trailッスね。 I’ve already got my guys poking around the black market, but I haven’t heard of a bunch of dungeon items suddenly showin’ up anywhereッスよ。”

“I thought so.”

“んぁ？ That mean what I think it—”

“And why the hell are you here.”

The low voice cut off Eleven’s question just as he was about to press Lizel, who had nodded like he’d seen straight through everything.

It had only been yesterday that he’d come to formally ask to join their party again, and yet he showed up today, the very next day, acting like nothing had happened, right at their table as the two of them were about to have dinner.

Lizel and Gill had been acting separately all day and just happened to run into each other outside, so Lizel had suggested they might as well have dinner together. Then, right on cue, Eleven walked in. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence, but Gill had noticed that the surveillance that had been shadowing him up until yesterday was now gone.

He narrowed his eyes, wondering if they’d switched to tailing Lizel instead, and Eleven, in an exaggerated gesture, threw both hands up and grinned.

“Total coincidence, total coincidence! I just finished gatherin’ the info I wanted, so I figured I’d wander over with another souvenir gift and beg you guys to let me in your party again, and then I just happened to spot you two, that’s allッスよ。”

“You’re being awfully helpful.”

“I always am! Anyway, how ’bout that sparring match sometime?”

“If you can last five minutes, I’ll humor you.”

Gill’s offhand answer made Eleven bare his teeth in a sharp grin.

There was no way he could win—but precisely because of that, it was exciting.

Gill himself enjoyed fighting strong opponents; if he ever found someone who could stand toe to toe with him, he’d happily challenge them. Eleven knew perfectly well he wasn’t on that level, but he was, at least, a rare opponent who might make for some decent practice.