Forgotten But Not Lost

9

It had been five days since the incident with the goblins, and things were going rough.

The goblin's attempts to raid the city lasted for no more than two hours, though the city gates remained closed for another day following it as the normal army wanted to be sure that the goblins weren't just waiting for the gates to open back up. They only allowing people back inside by using a rope ladder tossed down from the wall. Leaving the party to lick their wounds for a day, as they had no money to shop nor avenue to work. Over those first two days they realized just how much money they would need to make in order to take care of themselves.
While all of them could receive housing for just 30 copper coins a night, food was a bit more pricey. It was around 25 coppers a piece for a days' worth of food. Translating into 3 silver each day for the entire group just to eat. If one was willing to sacrifice substance and get by on just the bare minimum amount of nourishment, then you could scrap by with only 12 coppers, but that had been the one spot where Shirou had put his foot down.
He and Rin had argued about it, but Shirou was not going to let up on the topic of food. An army matched on its stomach. If they were exhausted from hunger and it caused mistakes in the field, then that could cost lives. The food was an absolute most, more important than even having a roof over their heads. In the end, Shirou had just went and bought the food himself with his own money. Rin had not been pleased… not about his actions anyway, she had found the food itself to be satisfactory.
Tsuga's predictions about how the battle would go down between the goblins and the humans proved accurate, as more than five hundred of the creatures died before they wised up and left, having not killed a single human.
But even once the city did open back up and the new rookies went back out into the open world, things didn't get much better. They had been disappointed to find that the goblins had looted their own dead, leaving nothing behind but the bodies. This included Shirou's discarded bow, and the arrows that he had shot. It was actually something that really ate at him. The idea that a goblin was using HIS bow and HIS arrows. Odd to form an attachment to the items so quickly, but Shirou just supposed that he was a hoarder of weapons by nature. He vowed to one day track down the bow and every single one of those arrows and kill the goblins that took them.
The revisiting of the location of the battle did however give the party a look into what Shirou had done to the goblins. Two hundred goblins lay dead in that clearing. A testament to just how scary Shirou could be. Too bad the goblins didn't seem to register just how many of them were dying. Either anger for their prince's death had blinded them, or they simple think about anything besides that they still outnumbered Shirou.
Being so badly burned had left most of them paranoid. Or in Rin and Shirou's cases, even more paranoid than before. Rather than going straight into the forest and towards likely hunting spots, they wasted time and energy going to places were the goblins would be unlikely to look for them if they were the ones being hunted. When they came across a group or even single individuals, they were more careful to scout things out properly.
Not only that, but the pickings were slim as well. All of the normal goblins had returned to the city after the disaster that was their attempt to kill Shirou, leaving only the mudgoblins behind. Mudgoblins were the bottom rung of goblin society and were forced by their culture to own nothing more than a necklace talisman containing symbols of some sort of accomplishment that they had achieved. The thing was that most of them hadn't ever 'achieved' anything. Meaning the party sometimes would kill a goblin only to end up with nothing for it.
In four days, they had killed thirty goblins and had hardly made a single silver to split among the entire party. They needed to go and hunt further into the goblin's territory, but a majority of the party was too scared to, and while Shirou could probably have gone alone, Rin didn't want him to fight all by himself again. Money was becoming a problem, but it wasn't that bad yet.
This was mostly because Shirou had taken a bow off of a dead goblin and used it to do some hunting to subsidize their food expenses. He had also shown his knowledge when it came to what in the forest was edible. Because of that, they hadn't needed to spend much on food since they had returned to work.
It had taken this for Rin to confess that Shirou becoming a hunter was not an absolutely terrible idea. It was just a bad idea.
That day, Shirou had tracked down a three-hundred-pound flat faced boar. He had literally brought home the bacon. Cooking it was proving to be a bit of a challenge, with so many different types of meat available. But Shirou enjoyed the challenge. At least no one was crying about him killing the rather ugly looking boar like when he had shot the feral mane horned dog. The tearful eyes from Megumin had been enough for him to agree to never do it again… though the girl still slept using its skin as a blanket.
Honestly, Shirou didn't understand kids.
Shirou had separated out all of the meats and placed what he had planned on saving for later in a large chest filled with ice that Rin had made using magic. The look she had given him when he had requested it of her had been pure venom, but she did eventually agree that it did make the most sense.
That night, Shirou would be mostly working with the meat from the arms, shoulders, legs and hips, cooking it in a sort of crock pot made from two pans, one large one filled with the boiling water, around a smaller one that housed the meat. He had added some wild garlic and clove he had managed to gather on the day's hunt to add flavor.
For a side dish he was preparing some wild beans and some grains that he found into a dish that resembled beans and rice. He would have liked to have made enough of the stuff to act as a main course, but he hadn't gathered enough for people to have more than a good taste. Same went for the jam he had made from crape berries.
In order to get most of the grains they would need in their diet, they had to buy them. Still, hunting had cut their food costs from 3 silver a day down to just 50 coppers. He wasn't able to buy things like cheese or butter, and his ingredients were limited to the things he could find as they walked through the forest, but it was better than going on nothing but stale bread.
He had already set everything up and would only need to make sure that the water didn't boil away while he waited for it to cook over the next hour, so he just leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the smell and sounds of cooking as he worked at tanning the boar's skin. The fur was too rough and prickly to act as a blanket, but he thought that if he could make some dyes out of wild flowers then maybe Megumin might like to use it as a sort of canvas to paint on.
He just had to make sure he boiled down the boar brains before anyone noticed what exactly he was using for oils.
"Well, something smells nice in here. Can't remember that ever happening back when I lived in these barracks." Kuro said as he entered into the room with his usual shitfaced grin.
"Kuro-senpai, I wasn't expecting you." Shirou said, giving the man a smile of his own. While Kuro was odd he was at the very least friendly and sympathetic, and he had grown on Shirou a lot. "Would you like to join us for dinner? My hunt went well, so I think we could manage another mouth just fine."
"You shouldn't make people offers like that, otherwise they might accept!" Kuro laughed and held up a large bottle of some kind of alcohol. "Sure boy, I'll join you, but only because you asked with food. Luckily I decided to bring some drinks of my own." He pulled up a chair and sat across from Shirou. "So, how has this world been treating you guys?"
Shirou's smile turned apologetic. "Well, I suppose we have had our troubles. We can't seem to make ends meet on just mud goblins and my party is still too shaken to go in any deeper. I would go myself, but Rin doesn't want me to go it alone."
"Yeah, kind of figured. About this time, you kids should be running into some serious financial problems, am I right?" Kuro said scratching his chin and giving Shirou a huge smile. "Well, be glad that you got a senpai like me looking out for you. How would you like to join in a raid?"
Shirou cocked an eyebrow and waited for Kuro to continue.
"A raid huh." Rin said as they all sat down around the dinner table.
"That's right. The Orion clan has managed to get intel on a large supply shipment the Orcs are making to their observation outputs, the Dead Head Fortress. The estimated value of the shipment has been placed at just over a thousand gold." Kuro said, smirking as he ate. "The thing is that these shipments are usually guarded by around two hundred Orcs. The Orion clan wants the stuff, but they know that with just their own people, they would be running a bit risk. So, they have reached out to other teams in hopes of boosting their numbers up until they could take it without any risk. My team is one of those that was called on. They are offering us fifty gold to participate, plus we get to keep the loot from any Orcs we kill during the raid."
"Fif…fifty gold! Fifty gold in just one day." Riku squawked in surprise. "Just how dangerous a job is this?"
"It's dangerous I guess, but not all that dangerous. It's more that the payoff is really high, and they want to do it without involving the regular army. If Orion can manage to pull this off while only using just us reserve boys, then they get to keep the money all from the supplies all to themselves, while they could go and report this to the regular army, they would probably not see any more than a gold coin for the info." Kuro said with a shrug. "The thing is, one of our party members, Sakanami, has disappeared off of the face of the Earth again. This happens all the time, so we're all sure that he's fine, but we had already promised Orion that we would provide six warm bodies, and we can't go back on our word."
"So, you want to bring Archer along with you. Is that what you're saying?" Rin said her posture and expression remained unreadable as she both ate and talked to the man.
"He'll be paid ten percent of our team's stake in this. Five gold, plus whatever he manages to kill himself he gets to keep. I'll also provide him was a bow that is worth a piss, since that one you got from the goblins ain't worth shit." Kuro said with a toothy grin.
"The money isn't worth much if he's dead." Rin said, trying to act dismissive about the amount. The five gold would be able to last them months. They could start buying basic necessities like clothes, without worrying about if it could mean that they are going to become homeless because of it.
Many of the others were probably thinking along the same lines. Though none of them said anything. Their eyes were wide and hopeful.
"Tell me more about Orion. You said that they are going up against two hundred Orcs. What are the Orion clan's chances against that?" Rin asked the man.
"Pretty good. Orion is a clan of thirty experienced individuals, almost all of them Warriors. They are also requesting assistance from four other teams, bringing the total number of people involved up to around forty-nine. With forty-nine experienced fighters ambushing a group of a hundred Orcs, I'm pretty sure we can handle it without many casualties. We will have traps and blessing prepared before the battle starts, so it should be a piece of cake." Kuro said with a wink. "As for Shirou, he may be a rookie, but he held his own in a scrap with the commander. No one would question it if we brought him along."
"Without many casualties, huh." Rin said with a sigh. "I suppose in this business, nothing comes without a risk. So Archer, are you planning on accepting his offer?"
Shirou didn't answer immediately. He thought about it for a few seconds before nodding. "It's a lot of money for us. Enough so that we won't need to do anything risky for a while afterwards. Kuro-senpai agreed to pay our party up front. Even if something does happen to me, it will buy you all time to figure something out."
"Won't have to do anything risky afterwards, huh?" Rin said, not sounding too happy about it. "It seems to me that when ever anything actually risky is to be done, you are the one doing it."
"And when someone has to take the lead, its usually you, isn't it?" Shirou said, giving her a smile. "Everyone has their role in life. This one is mine."
"I see, fine then." Rin said before looking back to Kuro. "You said that Orion is a clan of mostly Warriors. They wouldn't be opposed to having another Mage supporting them, would they?"
"Rin, you can't be serious!" Shirou said, realizing exactly what she was implying.
"You are the last person I want to hear that line from, Archer." Rin snapped back at him. "I might not have the right to stop you from doing whatever you want, but you can't stop me either."
"The party needs you too much for you to risk yourself like that." Shirou said, trying to talk her out of it.
"And they don't need you? I might be the best mage the party has, but you are their best fighter, and the only cook." Rin pointed out. "I'm going."
Niko shot up at the mention of cooks being in trouble. "No more good food?" The girl haired Priests mumbled aloud. "Maybe I need to go too… in case food needs healing."
"No Niko, I'm sure there will be plenty of Priests there." Shirou said, his eyebrow twitching a little. The girl had strange priorities. According to Yui, she only scrapped by basic training because the High Priest kept threatening to not feed her if she didn't produce results.
"Anyone else notice how Shirou and Rin always talk about the party as if they aren't in it?" Riku pointed out, seeming rather unhappy about the fact that all of this was basically going to decide their future, but that they had no right to have a say in the matter.
"They'd probably be wanting more Mages, but can you even fill the part? No offense girly, but you've only been around for about two weeks. Can't imagine you know anything beyond that crappy first-stage [Mystic Missile] spell." Kuro said looking Rin up and down. Shirou throw the man a glare.
"I'm able to cast [Freezing Blood], [Lightning], [Scorch], [Shadow Echo], and [Earth Needle], and I have enough reserves to cast each of them multiple times in a day." Rin informed the older soldier. "I should be able to provide assistance."
Kuro's eyes widened, and he gave a whistle. "Damn, all of that in two weeks? Guess Shirou ain't the only one that's strange."
"No, Archer is the only strange one around here. I'm just a genius." Rin said throwing back her hair and giving a confident smile.
Kuro began to laugh. "Shirou-kun, your girl's a piece of work." He said giving Shirou a hard slap on the shoulder.
"Not my girl. More like my boss." He said with a sigh. "Rin, it is going to be dangerous."
"That's fine. After all, if I am in the danger zone, then you'll just have to stay in the backline with me in order to protect me. Meaning you will remain where an Archer belongs instead of diving into the thick of it. And if you do try to run in, then I can just freeze your feet to the ground." Rin said, openly admitting her plan. She wanted Shirou not to participate on the frontline, and she was planning on making sure he didn't. "So, will I be allowed to join in?"
"I think we can swing it. I'll have to talk to Rock though." Kuro said taking a drink of his… drink? Honestly, Shirou didn't know what was in the bottle. Rum maybe? "Have to worn you though, some of the boys are kind of perverts. Hope you don't take offense."
"It will be fine. I know how to let people know that I'm not interested." Rin said coolie.
"That will only make things worse." Kuro laughed before getting up from the table. "I'll be heading out now, got some prep work to do myself. Everyone is gonna be gathering up at Sherry's tomorrow at sundown. We'll be heading off at night and setting up traps for the ambush. The real battle will be tomorrow around high noon if the tuskfaces ain't too late or early. Food and drink are usually provided, but it tends to not be so great… not that there is really much to complain about when it's free."
Kuro said his goodbyes and headed out the door, ruffling Megumin's hair on the way out.
Rin's magic crest still exists, and is still part of her body, but she doesn't know how to access it properly yet. She will eventually realize its existence and start fiddling with it outside of combat situations, but it will be a while before she is throwing around Gandrs. Not that I'm sure she would want to at that point, since Elemental magic is more cost effective than relying purely on your own prana reserves to cast your mysteries. The only reason Gandr is so useful for her is because she encoded it into the magic crest in order to remove the need for a chant. If she does the same with say, the basic fireball spell, then that would already be more direct damage than Gandr, which was supposed to be a spell which influences the targets health and needs to be overcharged in order to do physical damage.
I'm not calling out any single person here when I say this, because honestly people say it a lot, but everyone who has never wrote anything before, shut up about spell check. It really doesn't help as much as you seem to think, and the fact that you all seem to be under the impression that I don't realize it exists is insulting.
I am, as my name suggests, a DYSLEXIC writer. I will not be able to do proper proof reads, because for me 'left' and 'felt' look exactly the same. And guess what, if you make that mistake, spelling and grammar checks don't catch it, because they are both past tense verbs. Every time you point this out, all it does is make me wonder why I publish my writings in the first place when people who have never wrote anything before can clearly do a better job than me.