Entering the guardroom, Ranga prompted Rei to take a seat. Since Set wasn’t with him, Rei leaned the Death Scythe against his chair so it could be grabbed at a moment’s notice.

With a wry smile, Ranga poured a cup of water from a jug, taking a sip himself to prove it wasn’t poisoned before sliding it over to Rei.

「Sorry for the trouble.」

Having not eaten or drunk anything during his flight on Set’s back, Rei gulped the water down in one go.

It was cold……though not icy, it still felt incredibly refreshing because of his thirst.

「How about another cup?」
「Yes, thanks.」

Pouring another cup, Ranga finally sat down opposite Rei.

「Well, where should we start? Actually, let’s get self-introductions out of the way first. As I mentioned earlier, my name is Ranga, and I serve as a guard captain here in the city of Gilm.」
「My name is Rei. The Griffon out front is Set.」

With the brief introductions over, Ranga moved to the main subject.

「I see. First of all, we’ll start with this. What is your purpose in coming to the city of Gilm?」
「I’d like to ask something before answering that. You mentioned the city of Gilm. Is there an Adventurers Guild branch here?」

According to Zephyr’s ancient knowledge, any major city would have a branch of the Adventurers Guild. However, Rei had already relegated Zephyr’s knowledge to being a loose reference at best. And……

「Naturally. It’s common to find branch offices of the Adventurers Guild even in small villages. Is there any reason why there wouldn’t be one in a city like Gilm?」

Ranga nodded.

(I thought so. This confirms it. Zephyr’s knowledge is……severely outdated. I’ll need to check just how many discrepancies there are later.)

Letting out a mental sigh, he spoke up.

「That’s a relief. You see, I’ve lived in seclusion with my master since I was born, so I’m quite ignorant about how society works. As for my purpose, that’s simple. I came here to become an adventurer.」
「……Judging from your question just now, you didn’t even know if this city had an Adventurers Guild branch?」

Although his tone was soft, Ranga didn’t miss the scent of a lie and probed further. In response, Rei simply gave a light shrug.

「Like I said, I’ve lived with my master since birth. Because my master was completely obsessed with sorcery, I’m pretty lacking in common sense.」
「……Sorcery? Wait, you mean magic?」

Ranga asked curiously. Once again, the unreliability of Zephyr’s ancient knowledge reared its head.

「Magic? My master always called it sorcery……is it known as magic around here?」
「……I see. You truly don’t know much about the world, do you? It was known as sorcery several hundred years ago. Nowadays, that term is rarely used, as everyone just calls it magic.」

Several hundred years. Rei furrowed his brow but quickly continued his story.

「If that’s true, then my master was even more out of touch than I thought. ……Well, he told me to go out and train, and then suddenly sent me away with space sorcery……or rather, space magic. To put it simply, I was forcibly teleported to a strange place I didn’t recognise. It wasn’t very funny.」
「Training?」
「Ah. After I mastered the basics of magic, my master told me I needed to travel and train to improve my power.」
「I see. So that’s why you want to become an adventurer. By the way, is the Griffon outside a product of your magic?」

Rei shook his head after taking another sip of water.

「Set isn’t following me because of a spell. Have you ever heard of a skill called tamer?」
「It’s a skill used to tame monsters. Are you saying……?」
「That’s right.」
「Hmm, so it’s not summoning magic. ……In that case……」

Ranga trailed off, deep in thought after hearing Rei’s explanation. Rei had a bad feeling about the heavy silence. Finally, Ranga spoke up again.

「There are a few adventurers in the city who have tamed monsters. However, the strongest I’ve seen were D rank monsters, I believe. As for someone taming an A rank monster like a Griffon……there are no such adventurers.」

Although Ranga said that, Rei still didn’t have a solid grasp of how the world worked, so the exact gap between A rank and D rank wasn’t entirely clear to him. However, he easily deduced that the ranks were based on combat power and danger levels.

「Moving on from that, I should mention that you are required to pay a tax to enter the city.」

In the world of Elgin, one silver coin equals ten copper coins. One gold coin is ten silver coins. One platinum coin is ten gold coins, and ten platinum coins equal one light gold coin.

To translate it into simpler terms for Rei, one copper coin was roughly equivalent to 100 yen, one silver coin was 1,000 yen, one gold coin was 10,000 yen, one platinum coin was 100,000 yen, and one light gold coin was 1,000,000 yen.

「With the exception of adventurers, all merchants and travellers must pay an entry tax of one silver coin every time they come through the gates.」

The reason adventurers were exempt from this tax was quite simple, as adventurers rarely settled in one city permanently. Naturally, they had to constantly travel in and out of the gates to complete requests. Paying a silver coin every single time would quickly become a massive financial burden. Therefore, the ruling nobles granted a tax exemption to any adventurer who presented a valid Adventurers Guild card. They understood that the overall economic benefit brought in by adventurers completing requests far outweighed the revenue from a single silver coin entry fee.

On a side note, this policy originally became widespread after a particularly greedy lord refused to exempt adventurers from taxes in his territory. In response, every adventurer packed up and left, and no new ones ever arrived to replace them. As a result, there was no one left to take on monster subjugation requests. In a vicious cycle, merchants caught wind of the danger and stopped visiting the territory as well. The foolish lord, shocked by the plummeting tax revenues, tried to forcibly extract even more taxes from the remaining citizens. This sparked a massive revolt that ultimately ended with the lord’s death. After that cautionary tale spread across the continent, exempting adventurers from entry taxes became an unwritten law.

When Rei heard Ranga’s explanation, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

「In other words, since I’m not officially an adventurer yet, I still have to pay the tax?」
「That is correct. Didn’t your master give you any parting funds?」

Rei shook his head slightly. He obviously couldn’t have received a parting gift from a master who didn’t exist in the first place.

「Hmm, what to do. If I could, I’d just lend you the money myself, but that’s strictly prohibited by the guard regulations……」

Ranga muttered, gazing thoughtfully at Rei.

In Ranga’s position, he couldn’t afford to let a genuinely suspicious person into the city. However, the boy sitting in front of him didn’t seem to be malicious. If he had tamed an A rank Griffon and wielded such a massive scythe, he had to be incredibly skilled. Gilm was a frontier city, meaning it constantly dealt with a high volume of monster subjugation requests. Capable adventurers were vital for protecting the city, and Ranga didn’t want to turn away such a potentially valuable asset over a minor administrative hurdle.

After all, the city of Gilm served as the primary frontier shield for the Mireana Kingdom, a major powerhouse located in the central part of the Elgin continent.

「I have an idea. Do you have anything on you that you could sell? I could take it to a store in the city and sell it on your behalf.」
「Things I can sell……hmm.」

Hearing Ranga’s suggestion, Rei immediately thought of the countless items Zephyr’s organisation had left stored inside the Misty Ring. Aside from powerful magic items, it also held a vast hoard of rare materials, such as dragon bones and scales. However, he hesitated to sell any of it. Right now, Rei was posing as an ignorant commoner who simply wanted to become an adventurer. He was only 165cm tall with a slender build, and it would look incredibly suspicious if he casually pulled out legendary-class materials. Plus, he wanted to save those rare resources to craft custom equipment for himself and Set later on.

(……No, wait a second.)

A sudden idea struck him. While he couldn’t safely sell the ancient treasures he inherited from Zephyr, there was no issue with selling the spoils he had earned himself.

「How about this?」

Accessing the inventory list in his mind, he retrieved the corpses of twenty Flying Blade Squirrels and the pelt of the Water Bear.

「Th-this is……you have an item box!? And these are Djarum, the monsters that nest near the edge of the Forest of Monsters! Not to mention, isn’t this the fur of a Water Bear that lives deep inside it!?」

Ranga’s eyes went wide with shock as the Flying Blade Squirrels, which the locals apparently called Djarum, and the Water Bear pelt materialised out of thin air.

Although Rei didn’t fully grasp it yet, spatial magic items like an item box were incredibly rare. Ones with a massive storage capacity like his Misty Ring were so scarce they could be counted on a single hand.

「These……did you kill them yourself?」
「Ah. I ran into it right after being teleported into the forest……did you call it a Water Bear? It attacked us, but working together with Set, I managed to take it down somehow. It still took a bit more time than I expected since it was my first real fight.」

Rei nodded with a wry smile, amused that the local name for the Water Bear perfectly matched the provisional name he had given it in his head.

「Then the place you were sent to must have been the Forest of Monsters. There are a few different forests in this region, but the Forest of Monsters is the only one with confirmed sightings of Djarum and Water Bears.」
「The Forest of Monsters?」
「Ah. While it has plenty of low-ranking monsters, it’s widely regarded as a highly dangerous area because a number of high-ranking beasts inhabit its depths. Since the monsters rarely leave the treeline, most adventurers are completely unwilling to set foot inside. The only time people venture in is if they specifically need to harvest rare monster materials. Even knowing that, it’s absolutely unbelievable that you managed to defeat a C rank Water Bear in your very first fight.」
「Well, I’ll leave the details to your imagination. So, can this pelt and the Djarum be sold?」
「Ah, yes. I can arrange it immediately.」

Snapping back to his senses at Rei’s prompt, Ranga called several subordinates over and dispatched them into the city with the fur and the Djarum corpses. Once they were gone, he turned back and bowed politely to Rei.

「I apologise. Assessing and selling monster materials takes a bit of time, so I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to wait here in the guardroom for a while.」
「Don’t worry about it. I showed up with a Griffon and couldn’t even pay the entry tax, yet you still treated me fairly. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.」
「Thank you. I feel much better hearing you say that.」

Ranga offered a wry smile. In truth, he had initially acted so politely because he knew that if he tried to intimidate a boy who controlled an A rank Griffon, the guards wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, though it was also true that Ranga personally despised using heavy-handed methods anyway. Ultimately, his diplomatic approach had paid off perfectly.

Rei and Ranga passed the time making small talk in the guardroom. An hour soon passed since the questioning began. Just as the lunch break ended and the afternoon shift took over, the soldiers who had been sent to sell the materials finally returned.

「Captain, we’ve returned. Here is the money we received from the sale.」

Ranga took the small leather pouch from his subordinate and handed it directly to Rei.

「Normally, a pristine Water Bear pelt goes for 7 gold coins, but since this one was slightly damaged, they only offered 5 gold coins for it. Because the Djarum hadn’t been dismantled yet, they offered a combined total of 7 gold coins and 1 silver coin after deducting the dismantling fees.」

Just as the soldier reported, Rei found exactly 7 gold coins and 1 silver coin inside the pouch.

(7 gold coins……in other words, 70,000 yen. That’s a bit less than I was hoping for.)

Though Rei mentally clicked his tongue in annoyance, he knew he only had his own amateur dismantling mistakes to blame. He pulled one gold coin from the pouch and handed it to Ranga.

「Yes, this is more than enough for the tax. Here are your 9 silver coins in change. Also, make sure to put this necklace on your Griffon where it can be clearly seen while you walk through the streets. It acts as proof that the monster has been legally tamed or summoned. Keep in mind that if a tamed beast acts violently or damages property, the master will be held fully responsible for the punishment. In addition, if you’re looking for a place to stay, I recommend the Dusk Wheat Pavilion. It’s located in the eastern part of the city and can easily accommodate animals as large as a Griffon. In fact, it’s the only inn in the city that can house them.」
「Understood. By the way, where exactly is the Adventurers Guild?」
「Once you enter the city, just head straight down the main street. You can’t miss it.」
「Thanks for everything.」
「Don’t mention it. Welcome to the city of Gilm. I hope you enjoy your time here.」

With that, Ranga warmly saw Rei out of the guardroom.

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