Forgotten But Not Lost

16

Kuro looked down at the bag of coins they had gotten from their latest extermination run with a mixed expression. "Fifty-one gold and fifteen silver… a good haul for one day… a ridiculously good haul, but still." The man mumbled before sighing and putting the bag away.
"

It isn't enough to keep up with the spendings." Shirou said, finishing the man's thought. They exclusion was a good one. The Orcs occupied a fortress just two miles away from the city, but the fortress itself wasn't all that large. May of the Orcs lived in camps around the outside of the fortress whenever there weren't any sort of raids happening on them. This was divided into eight separate camps each housing around a hundred individuals, with still more Orcs inside the fort… or it had been eight camps. Shirou supposed there were only seven now.
It had taken all afternoon, but between Shirou, Kuro and Sakanami, they had managed to wipe out an entire camp without sounding the alarm, after which Sakanami snuck into the Fortress and poison their food stores before the three made away like thieves, taking everything that they could carry and set fire to what they couldn't. For a one-day long assault performed by a team of just three people, it was a lot of money, but it still wasn't enough.
"While normal Elemental Magic is pretty cheap, the stuff the girly keeps asking for is anything but. Celestial and Dwarven magic. Prime Arcanas. Base Runic. It's all damn rare or well-guarded shit." Kuro said as they started towards the deeper part of the city slums and towards the Thief's Guild, where they were to meet up with Barbara and receive that week's update on requested tasks… and the required payment.
"Our goal is to understand and use mysteries that extends past the boundaries between worlds. Even magics capable of detecting it are going to be rare and expensive, and also by nature 'unnatural'." Shirou said, repeating what Rin had said to him. "Elemental Magic is by its own nature bound by the normal restrictions of reality and can't preform any task that nature could not."
"Yeah yeah, I know." Kuro said, picking up in his step as he adjusted his bow. "If it was easy, then someone else would have done it already… Still, if we die trying, at least we died trying to do something worth doing."
"I'd rather just do it, rather than die trying." Shirou said, giving Kuro a smirk. "Come on, you are so old as to be thinking about rolling over, are you?"
"Lots of people won't be liking the idea of an actually volunteer 'Volunteer Army'. The locals of this world see us as a valuable resource and symbols of this and that. Nearly all the great human heroes were pulled out of that damned tower. Lots of us have also fallen into that same mindset… just look at Shinohara." Kuro said, giving Shirou a sidelong look. "You and girly were smart to count the Typhoon in, since we haven't bought into that bullshit for a long time, but I don't know what would happen if word got out about what you are trying to do."
"I could make an educated guess." Shirou admitted. "Beyond being brick walled by the government, someone would probably try to kill us. Then I would kill them, and the world would become very, very complicated."
"…Yeah, that sounds about right."
"I have two things for you today. First would be the reports on our information gathering on the subject of World Passages, the other is an old tome of old Dwarven magics." Barbara said as she sat on the edge of a table with her legs crossed in a seductive manner.
Barbara was a woman Thief who had managed to live into hear late thirties. She had retired from the soldier life early and had spent her years mentoring newcomers in the ways of the Thief and taking part in the management of a wide spread information network and a pseudo black market which could be used to buy and sell tabooed goods. Tabooed goods usually meaning items that were produced outside of the Tradesmen's Guilds.
While she was getting on in years, she honestly didn't look it. She had kept up a strict regimen for herself and her students, keeping her body in perfect shape.
Barbara was a very well-endowed woman with reddish brown hair that came down to her shoulders and brown eyes behind a fashionable pair of spectacles. While many thieves didn't wear much in terms of armor, Barbara didn't wear much in terms of clothing either. A majority of her breasts, stomach, shoulders and thighs were all exposed to whoever wished to look at them.
She had a happy smile on her face, probably because she was about to make a lot of money off of them.
"Alright, so what's the price?" Kuro said with a sigh, wanting to get it over with.
"Oh we will get to that, but first tell me where Sakanami-kun is? Wasn't he supposed to be with you?" Barbara asked, tilting her head and looking around them as if the man would just appear out of thin air if she looked hard enough.
"Sakanami ran away. Same way he always does whenever it involves you." Kuro deadpanned. Neither one of them new why, but Sakanami was absolutely terrified of his mentor. Based upon his seemingly random spluttering whenever the subject of his mentor came up, Kuro suspected that she raped him, but really didn't want to ask for confirmation. He just couldn't imagine what else 'She held me down and stripped me of all my purities. Ravaging me with brutal sin until my soul turned hard and I merely longed for release… but release never came…' could mean.
"Oh, not that isn't nice. He could have at least come to visit his Sensei. I suppose I will just have to punish him later." Barbara said with a short lick of her lips before lifting up a stack of papers and holding them out towards Shirou. "The reports. They aren't anything finalized since you said that you wanted discretion on my part and I haven't had time to check things out myself, but the sources are reliable enough."
"How much?" Kuro repeated.
"Seventy-seven silver, after my ten percent fee." Barbara said.
"Really?" Kuro said, more than a little surprised. Seventy-seven silver was a nearly eight months pay for most common jobs, but usually using an information network was hell of expensive.
"What can I say, we got lucky with the turn out. Someone else has also been asking for similar information and we managed to get by on their tailcoat." Barbara said with a shrug.
"Someone else is looking into the World Passages?" Shirou said, only slightly surprised.
The World Passages were considered to be little more than a rumor by most. They were areas within the Frontier that were supposedly connected to other worlds and could be used to travel to them. Information about them was really that hard to find, so much as it was hard to tell what was real and what was made up, same as with any rumor that spread far over many tellings.
There were several inherent problems with the usual information. If someone was to slip through into one of these other worlds, it was unlikely that they were ever going to make it out alive. Rin theorized that the reason for why all of the World Passages were so deep in enemy territory was because some of the monsters were fundamentally not native to Grimgar and that they came into this world through those World Passages. This argument was supported by historical records from the original appearance of the Undying King, which claimed that the Orcs species seemed to just appear after the Undying King showed up, with no sign of where their species had come from.
The problem was how to prove it? If a group of adventures goes out to one of these Word Passages, they will probably not come back alive, and no one would find it suspicious that a group of people disappeared in the middle of enemy territory. And if a few of them somehow did manage to comeback, the story would be so out there that no one would believe them.
The stories ranged from giants the size of mountains, cultists wielding spears made of lightning, settlements of 'friendly' undead, and even more unbelievable tales. Shirou himself would have dismissed them completely, if it wasn't for the fact that the 'Dusk Realm', a World where Divine Magic couldn't be used, was one of these rumors, and he new for a fact that it existed.
"Don't bother asking me who is looking around. They have been even more discreet than I have. All I can really tell you about them is that they are a strong group and seem to have ties to some pretty serious people, including the Elves." Barbara told them as Shirou fished out the money and made the exchanged, letting her watch him count it out.
"Alright… and how much for the tome?" Kuro asked, feeling his dread slowly raising as he had been waiting for the bad news since they entered the city from their hunt.
This wicked smile on the woman's face grew even larger. "Three hundred seventy four gold."
The two snipes could only sigh. "I'll have to get the money to you tomorrow." Shirou said reaching out for the large leather book, only for the woman to pull it back out of his reach.
"Then you'll be getting the tome tomorrow too." Barbara said a little cheekily. "It isn't that I don't trust you kid, just practicing best practices. I am a thief after all."
"Yeah, we know." Shirou and Kuro said together.
They really needed to Rin about all these expenses.
Riku stumbled back into the barracks alone, just a short while before the sun would set. He had left earlier in that afternoon with Richard and Touma and gone drinking in a small pub on the far side of town. But when the two of them started to try to drag girls into the mix and buy them drinks, Riku decided he had enough, paid for his shit and left.
He had gone out drinking to forget all his problems with the so-called fairer sex, not make more.
Their drinking expedition had been meant as a rebellion against that tyrant Rin, who always bossed them around in that level tone that one would used to talk to children. She would use logic like a whip and make then all feel and look stupid in order to get them to do what she said. So when she said that the group as whole was being paid for as far as food and housing went and that each individual should spend the money they made as best as they saw fit in order to help in the future, the three boys all went out drinking. Only Itsuki actually went back to his Guild Hall in an attempt to gain more power.
They laughed as they imagined how they were pulling a fast one on the smug girl and throwing a monkey wrench in whatever plans she had for them… only they all knew that in her eyes, they were nothing and all their antics were barely equivocal to a dog shitting on the carpet. Even when they did go out of their way to disobey her out of spite, and shit went wrong, just like she said it would, she didn't get angry at them or rub it in their faces. They were so low that they were beneath her contempt.
*sigh*
Maybe a bath would help him clear his head. Get the smell of alcohol off of him too. He hadn't drunk that much considering his size, but he wasn't exactly an experienced drinker, and in an attempt to show off he had made a bit of a mess on himself.
It wasn't until he walked into the public bathes that he recognized that someone else was already in there. "Riku, you're back already?" Shirou said, his tone pleasant enough though his face and eyes were as sharp as ever.
Riku nearly stumbled when he saw Shirou. His eyes not really prepared for what he was seeing.
Riku actually hadn't interacted with Shirou much at all. They slept in different rooms, had different duties in the field, didn't talk or hang out, or anything together. Because Shirou had always started to prepare meals whenever they returned for the day, rather than immediately trying to wash up, Riku had never even seen him in the bath. None of the guys had.
That was why looking at the man's body was such a shock. Beyond simply being very well muscled for a rookie, he had a giant scar right over his heart. "Shirou, what in the world happened to you?"
The other boy looked confused by the statement. "Huh? Nothing. Why do you ask?"
"That… that scar." Riku said pointing at it.
"What, you mean this? It's just from the cut I got from the Commander's knife on the first say. Its not that big." Shirou said looking at a thin line on his arm that showed where he had deflected a throwing knife with his own body.
"No, the one on your chest!" Riku said, half shouting with surprise.
"My chest?" Shirou looked straight down and then blinked, touching the scar over his heart. "Huh, where did that come from?" The boy sounded disinterested, as if it was just a small bruise. Then he frowned. "Considering how I seem to just be ignoring it, it must be something I got back in the old world. Funny how I could have just never noticed it at all." Then he looked back at Riku who was still staring in shock. "Sorry, does it make you uncomfortable? I'm pretty much done here already if you want me to leave."
Riku bit the inside of his lip and forcibly pulled his eyes away. "No. It's no big deal." He said as he went to strip off his clothes and wash himself off before entering the bath. Even in this world, a world with healing magic, that looked like a wound that would have killed you. They must have had something even more potent back in their home world.
It just another thing that Riku filed away in his attempt to figure out just what kind of person Shirou really was.
Everyone in the entire party had a different view of Shirou. Itsuki viewed him as a measuring stick, the crazy Dread Knight wanting to surpass him in power. Richard and Touma mostly saw him as a dangerous weirdo who still seemed to have more luck with the girls than them. Yue thought he was a monster in discuss as a human. Megumin and Niko thought he was a genuinely good person who also happened to kickass and knew how to cook.
He was an off-putting and hardly sociable individual. He rarely ever emoted at all and his voice was usually pretty constant. He was almost always working, wither out in the field, cooking, exercising, or doing repairs. He didn't act without careful thought save for when immediate action was demanded. He was such a hard guy to read, but there was one thing for certain, he had been different from the rest of them from the day they had all woken up.
It made him scary. While the rest of them still squirmed a bit as they drove their swords into goblin flesh, Shirou never so much as flinched. He didn't gag, no matter how much blood splashed all over him. At times, he seemed more like a machine than a man.
"You know, I don't think we've ever really talked." Riku said as he settled himself down in the water.
"Is there something you need to talk about?" Shirou asked.
"Well… no. I meant like small talk. You know. Get to know each other better." Riku clarified for the other boy.
"Ah. Small talk." Shirou said, the corning of his lips twitching downwards for a brief apologetic look. "I'm not good with small talk."
"How can you not be good with small talk? It's easy. Here, how about you tell me about how Hunter's training was like?" Riku said, trying his hardest to get an actual conversation going.
"All I really did was go camping for a week and hunt things. Not really much to talk about." Shirou admitted with a small shrug. "How about you? What was becoming a Warrior like?"
"Well, the Knight I was squired under worked me pretty hard from dawn till dusk. He had me lifting and moving things about all the time as he explained what each piece of equipment was and what it was for. He explained to me the Warrior's code, and of course taught me sword play." Riku said, deciding that maybe if he opened up then Shirou would too. "He told me that I was a natural talent. I progressed in training a lot faster than the others and had time to even pick up another skill after I was done with the basics. Got to admit, at the time I felt like pretty hot shit."
"You are a bit more skilled than the others." Shirou agreed, though it only made Riku bitter, because he knew damn while that Rin and Shirou himself weren't counting among 'the others'. He had seen the two training, and Rin's swordsmanship was just as good as his own. Maybe even better, and she rarely trained with it, compared to the amount of time she spent on her magic.
In a close-quarters fight with the girl with no magic, he might be able to beat her. A close-quarters fight with magic allowed, he wouldn't stand a chance.
"To tell you the truth, when we all started this party, I thought that you would become our leader, and that I would have been a sort of second in command." Riku said, checking to see how the other boy would react. He didn't. "You were the strongest of us and were the quickest to action. Rin might have been good at talking, but you were the one who earned the Commander of the whole damn Reserves respect with just a single fight. I thought that you would lead us. Instead the girl just kept talking, and we all just kept doing what she said. I really hate it. I hate how she is always talking down to us and telling us what to do."
"What, like she's some kind of leader." Shirou said, his voice approaching something joking, but having a bit of an edge to it. Riku was too wrapped up in himself to notice.
"Yeah, like a leader. Like she is above us and we are beneath her notices. She treats us all like damn children." Riku said angrily before the steam started to leave him. "At least, all of us but you. You're the only one who she sees as an equal. She acts differently towards you than the rest of us. She actually listens to you and gets angry with you. She sees you as more than just a warm body. I'm pretty sure I could run around the barracks butt naked and she wouldn't bat an eye. She's a cold bitch and doesn't give a damn about the rest of us. She doesn't even see us as human."
"You're drunk." Shirou said, getting up out of the water and going to dry himself off. "You're drunk and your wrong about her. She may separate herself from the rest of you, but that doesn't mean she doesn't care. She cares far more than you will ever understand."
Riku couldn't respond. A sort of silent [War Cry] was radiating from Shirou, informing the boy that he was on thin ice, and that if he knew what was good for him, he'd keep his damn mouth shut. The boy just watched as Shirou walked away from him, showing that there was a matching scar on his back to go with the one on the front.
Shirou was in such a rush to leave, that he only pulled on his pants and left the baths with his shirt off. It was only by chance that he walked straight out of the bath house and right into Rin.
"Archer, I need you to run a few errands for me in town before tonight and before the market closes. I don't have time to explain right now, but you are just going to have to trust me that this is really impor…" Rin started as she walked towards Shirou but stopped as soon as she got close. Her mouth halted mid-sentence and she just stared at Shirou's chest, or more precisely, the scar on it.
She just stood there with a lost expression on her face, long enough to make it awkward for Shirou. "Rin… you okay?" Shirou said, jarring the girl out of whatever kind of trance she had been in.
Shocked out of her brain-dead state, Rin blushed and began to shout at Shirou. "P…put your shirt on, you idiot!" She shouted, turning away from Shirou so that she couldn't see his half naked form.
Shirou laughed a bit to himself at how funny her reaction was, but ultimately, he did put his top back on. "Alright, I'm dressed. Now what about these errands."
Rin held a piece of paper back towards him, not looking at him as she spoke. "I'm going to need all the materials on this list by tonight."
Shirou winced as he took the sheet of paper, wondering what the damage was, but was surprised when what she was asking for weren't things that would be hard for him to get and would be cheap, if not free. Some paint, iron, copper and lead shavings, a bucket of fresh blood that has mostly not started to clot yet… what in the world was she planning on doing? The only thing on the list that made him grown was the very last entry. "Crystal coins? Why couldn't you have told me you needed them this morning. We already pawned off all the ones we got today from the Orcs."
Crystal coins were the currency that the Orcs used in place of copper, silver and gold. A large crystal coin was worth around the same as five silver at the human market.
"I didn't know that I was going to be needing them this morning." Rin snapped at him. "I've been working all day after I found… I don't have time to explain, just get too it, alright! Just gather all those things and get them to the tower. I'll explain everything when you get there."
Shirou sighed as he pocketed the list. "Well, I suppose we needed fresh blood anyways."
I asked for a bucket of fresh blood and you brought me an empty bucket and an entire live Orc? Works.