Cabal, Ellen and Gido tottered down the road.
Their faces looked exhausted as they stopped in front of the building they had passed by often. Then they weakly pushed the door open and entered.
It was a cheap inn and bar. As all three were rather poor, they came here often.
After securing their rooms, they met up at the bar.
Once they had let out a series of deep sighs, they opened their mouths in order to let out all of the anger that they had built up inside.
“That’s why I argued against it!”
“Exactly. I remember saying that I had a bad feeling about it!”
“It can’t be helped now! I never would have thought that a Twin Serpent would appear when we were just supposed to hunt some great snakes!”
“But, but we had already hunted four of them…”
“And there was only one left to hunt…”
“We should be thankful that we were at least able to negotiate it so that the quest wasn’t a failure.”
Cabal spat, as if to say there was no point in arguing. Cabal understood why the others wanted to complain. But being the leader meant you had to listen to the complaints of others.
Just then, their beer was brought over to their table. It was the perfect timing.
As if wanting to forget all those bad memories, the three of them immediately tipped the cups into their mouths. While they hadn’t failed the quest, their reward money had been halved and the acidic saliva that the twin serpent had unleashed on them as they ran away, had made it necessary for them to have their equipment repaired. The more they thought about it, the worse their loss seemed. They could not go on without having a drink.
They didn’t have enough money to buy new equipment, and so they had to make do with having it repaired…
“Ahhh. I want dwarf-made armor too. But they cost several pieces of gold even at the lower end…”
“That’s too expensive, Cabal. I would like to buy new robes myself, but I know that I can’t.”
“We’re way too poor… We should just be happy that we’re even alive after what happened.”
“True. We got away from the Twin Serpent. And they sent out a hunting party because of our report. We should just be glad that no civilians were hurt!”
“Yes, yes. Having our savings disappear due to repairs. That’s no big deal!”
Cabal tried to be optimistic like Gido, but Ellen’s words were enough to remind him of how depressing their reality was. Ellen also looked gloomy, and an oppressive air fell over them. Cabal was just about to suggest that they should drown their troubles in drink, go to bed, and start again tomorrow! When-
“Hey, did you hear about it?”
“Ah. You mean the mansion deep in the mountains passed Giena village? They say there is a quest that is offering ten gold pieces as a reward.”
He heard the conversation of two men from the table next to theirs. They were quite drunk, and unable to tell that their voices were loud. The trio became sober at the mention of ten gold pieces, and they perked up their ears with serious expressions.
“So you get paid ten pieces of gold for killing the monster…”
“Hey, hey. That’s ridiculous. Why would they pay you so much?”
