Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash vol. 1

9. Heavy Resolve

There were a number of pawn shops in Alterna's marketplace, but none of them would pay more than thirty copper for a silver coin with a hole in it. It was hard to accept that one hole should reduce it to a third of its original value, but, in a happy surprise, the fang was worth one silver.

It turned out that there were three kinds of wolves in the frontier of Grimgar: forest wolves, also known as grey wolves; white wolves, which were servants of the White God Elhit; and finally black wolves, which served Elhit's enemy, the Black God Rigel. That fang had come from a black wolf, apparently. Black wolf fangs were believed to hold magical power, and they were often used as an ingredient in talismans.

With that, their earnings for the day came to one silver, thirty copper. Twenty copper went to rooms for the night, and then they split the remaining one silver and ten copper evenly amongst themselves. There was two copper left at the end, so Manato held onto it to be added to the pile next time they divvied up their earnings.

Each of them got food at the stalls in the market, and when they reached the dilapidated lodging house for volunteer soldiers in the west of town, they finally felt like they'd made it home.

Even though anyone with a Corps Badge could use it, the lodging house was largely empty. The four guys washed themselves off in a bathing room that looked like someone had just laid down some stone on a dirt floor. Afterward, they dropped by the girls' room to tell Yume and Shihoru the bath was ready before going back to their own room. At the time, Haruhiro was pretty sleepy. He lay down on his hay bed and closed his eyes right away.

The volunteer soldier lodging house had four-person and six-person rooms, but no matter which you chose, it was ten copper a night for trainees. As for why the four and six-person rooms cost the same, it was probably because the rooms themselves were the same size, and, while the six-person room had two more beds, it was all the more cramped for it.

The six-person rooms' beds were small, too. The beds in the four-person rooms were compact already, so even if 170-cm-tall Haruhiro might fit in one of the six-person room beds, 186-cm-tall Moguzo probably wouldn't.

There were two bunk beds stuffed with hay. Other than that, there were two wall-mounted lamps. That was the grand total of all the amenities in the lodging house's four-person rooms. They couldn't do anything but sleep here, and they had no intention of trying to. They had an early morning tomorrow, so Haruhiro figured it was time to get some shut-eye.

The bed beside him creaked loudly. Apparently Moguzo had just lain down. Moguzo had the lower bunk of the bed next to Haruhiro, while Ranta had the top. Haruhiro was in the top bunk of his bed, while Manato would be sleeping in the one beneath him.

"Manato...? You still up?"

"Yeah, I'm awake. Something up?"

"Nah, nothing really—" It wasn't true that he had nothing he wanted to talk about. Like what Manato thought about making eighteen copper in a day.

Of the ten silver Bri-chan had given him, he had spent four copper on skewers the first day, then eight silver to join the thieves' guild, which had left him with one silver, 96 copper at that point. Once training ended, he had spent four copper on lodgings yesterday and ten on food, with an income of zero. Today he had spent twelve copper on food, while making eighteen copper. His cash on hand at the moment was one silver, 88 copper. As a side note, he had left 60 copper with the Yorozu Deposit Company because it was cumbersome to carry it all around. That was going to cost him a deposit fee.

Haruhiro wasn't too bad off, but Moguzo was another story.

They had split his share of the room fee between them yesterday, but Moguzo must have borrowed money from Manato for food. He had eaten a lot today. He had a big body to keep fed, after all. Moguzo probably had less than nothing. He was living in debt.