The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 10 Read online

  Chapter 1: The Royal Capital and the Church of the Eastern Sky

  “It really does make Maalt look puny by comparison,” I said as I peeked out of our carriage at the scenery of Vistelya, Yaaran’s royal capital. Night was just falling upon the city.

  Yaaran was a backwater kingdom, but even so, the capital was larger and more prosperous than the other regional cities. Or maybe it felt particularly glamorous because I was comparing it to a city like Maalt. I mean, sure, Maalt was trying its best despite being on the outskirts. It had its own dungeon now and a fairly large population. All in all, it was a nice place to live, but when compared to the capital...

  “That goes without saying,” Lorraine remarked. “But I prefer Maalt over Vistelya. Vistelya is prosperous, but it reminds me too much of the imperial capital.”

  “You said before that a lot happened to you there. Still, Yaaran isn’t as stuffy as the empire, right?”

  Lorraine once mentioned that when she was in the empire, she’d found the constant politics that came with being an elite member of the scholarly community exhausting. Research and scholarship, in general, were valued much more in the empire, but in Yaaran, you didn’t hear much in the way of glamorous tales of the scholarly class. At most, the Tower and the Academy squabbled now and again. It was plenty stressful for people in the Tower and the Academy, but it wasn’t even comparable to the empire’s scholarly politics.

  Lorraine nodded. “True enough. Maalt is a good example of the more relaxed atmosphere in Yaaran. Seems it’s the same in the capital.”

  Yaaran’s capital felt like a giant metropolis to me, but to Lorraine, it was still on the quaint side. But if that made it easier on her, then it was probably a good thing. I silently gave thanks to Yaaran for being a backwater country.

  “We’ve arrived,” our driver announced. “Please feel free to enter your lodgings. I’ll be staying in a separate location, so contact me when you’re ready to return to Maalt,” he added as we disembarked from the carriage.

  It bears mentioning that the driver brought us straight to our inn, but he and the carriage would be staying elsewhere. The place we were at didn’t have space to store a carriage, and because the draft animal was special, it needed to be kept in a specialized holding pen.

  All things considered, this was an expensive ride, but Wolf—or rather, Maalt’s guild—was footing the bill, so it was no skin off my back. Given that we’d use the same carriage to return to Maalt, it must have cost the guild quite a bit in additional lodging fees. Wolf had gone out of his way to treat us well.

  “Come on, Rentt,” Lorraine prompted, and we entered the inn.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “Lodgings for two, then. Please, follow me,” the receptionist said.

  After the receptionist left, Lorraine murmured, “They didn’t bother to ask and just gave us a single room.”

  It was just the two of us now. As for Edel, I’d left him back in Maalt. It wasn’t that I wanted to exclude him, but security was a lot tighter in Vistelya. Since we were going to the palace itself, I thought it might be a problem if an actual monster like Edel was with us. I could’ve claimed I was a monster tamer, but Vistelya was a proper city, unlike Maalt. There were plenty of actual monster tamers in the capital, and if they’d bothered to take a closer look, I might have slipped up.

  If I’d known I’d be in Vistelya, I would’ve asked my father in Hathara more about monster taming, but I could always do that next time. Besides, he had some weird monsters in his menagerie, and I wasn’t really sure if his knowledge would make me seem like a normal tamer. So, all things considered, I was pretty sure I’d made the right decision in leaving Edel at home.

  “We must have looked like siblings or a married couple,” I replied.

  Lorraine laughed. “Married couple, perhaps, but siblings? We don’t look anything alike.”

  “Fair.”

  Back when I was alive, our faces didn’t look similar at all, but the differences were even more pronounced now that I wore a skull mask. In fact, I’d be more concerned if an inn worker said we looked alike. Chances were that they thought we were married.

  “Were we acting like a married couple?” I asked.

  Lorraine paused, then calmly answered, “I don’t think we were, but it’s hard to say. You can’t really tell unless you’re looking at it from the outside.”

  “Do you want me to get separate rooms for us?” I offered.

  Lorraine furrowed her brow in exasperation. “We live in the same house. Staying in the same room isn’t that much of a change, is it?”

  Part of me wanted to ask if she wasn’t worried that I’d try something, but Lorraine was a powerful mage. She only needed a wand to deal with the vast majority of men in this kingdom, including me. I could probably survive a couple of blows now, but I still couldn’t beat her. And as she’d pointed out, we already lived in the same house. I agreed with her that sharing an inn room wasn’t all that different.

  “Fair enough. I thought I’d ask anyway. So which bed do you want?”

  Thankfully, there were two beds in the room. Lorraine chose the one closer to the window, so I ended up having to stare at the wall when I went to bed.

  Anyway, it was time to rest for the day and prepare for tomorrow. First, we had to go to the guild, but... Maybe we should go buy souvenirs first? I figured I would hammer out the details with Lorraine in the morning.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  It’d been a while since I’d visited Vistelya’s guild, but just as I remembered, it couldn’t even compare to Maalt’s guild. The building itself had a more solid construction and was large enough to house the huge number of adventurers who called the capital home. Last time I was here, I wasn’t able to get a good look at the interior, but this time I spotted some elevator doors.

  That made sense. The building was five stories tall, and it’d be quite the task to use the stairs every time. It would be one thing if the upper floors were rarely used, but I was pretty sure the guildmaster’s office was on the top floor, which would make a daily commute up five flights of stairs a bit of a chore.

  “I’m told the Grand Guildmaster of Yaaran is fairly old,” Lorraine said. “While he was once an adventurer, surely he’s no longer active at this age.”

  Lorraine was right. I’d heard that the current grand guildmaster was already in that position when Wolf was recruited into the guild. I’d also heard the story about the grand guildmaster being a former adventurer, but I was sure I’d also heard that was over fifty years ago. Even if he’d retired in his thirties, he’d be over eighty years old at this point. Adventurers were substantially tougher than normal people because of their physiques and mana supply, but still being an active adventurer in your eighties was stretching it.

  “But there are exceptions to that rule, like Gharb. So it’s not impossible,” I noted.

  I thought about Gharb, the medicine lady and head mage of my hometown. She was getting up there in years, but she was still going strong. If she decided to become an adventurer now, they’d start her off at Silver-class, in which case, she’d instantly surpass me. Well, she was my mentor, so that was okay.

  “Now that you mention it, I guess that’s true,” Lorraine said. “My mentor is similar. I’m sure they’re enjoying themselves in the empire.”

  “The person you threw your wand at?”

  Lorraine furrowed her brow. “I was young back then. I wouldn’t do that now. I couldn’t do that now. I still can’t forget how angry they were...”

  “Heh, I’d like to meet them.”

  They’d be a great source of fun stories about Lorraine, and it’d be nice to turn the tables
on her for once. After all, the people of Hathara had told her all the embarrassing stories about me when we went there.

  “Really? I’d like to go see them, but you can’t just walk in and meet them. I’m sure we’ll eventually head to the empire, so we can plan for it when that time comes.”

  Surprisingly, Lorraine was more receptive to the idea than I expected. I assumed she wouldn’t want me to meet her teacher, but it seemed Lorraine felt a lot of gratitude toward them. Lorraine had lived in Maalt for a long time, and even though she sometimes returned to the empire, she’d never stayed long. She might not have seen them for ten or so years now, so I could understand why she’d want to go.

  “I’ll look forward to that,” I quipped. “Ah, the receptionist is open. I’ll go deal with that.”

  “Then I’ll wait over there,” Lorraine said as she pointed at the bar built into the guild hall.

  Technically, it was a cafeteria that offered light snacks and all manner of drinks. While not all guild halls had one, they were a common sight in most of them. The menu selection and the portion sizes were a bit too limited for a proper meal, so it was mostly a place to take a short break between jobs or to wait for party members—meaning that Lorraine was using it exactly for its intended purpose.

  “All right. I’ll see you in a bit,” I said and headed toward the reception desk.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “They’re out?” I asked as I tilted my head quizzically at the receptionist.

  The woman behind the desk calmly answered, “Yes. I’m afraid that Jean Seebeck is currently unavailable. I believe he’ll be back in a few days.”

  “If I wait until he returns, will he see me?”

  “Of course. If I neglect a guild employee who Master Wolf Hermann of Maalt sent directly, I’d be in trouble myself. Nevertheless, I can’t do anything about the grand guildmaster’s absence. I truly am sorry. Is there any way you can try again in five days or so?”

  I felt she was being a little too polite to a fellow guild employee, but it made sense. The adventurer’s guild was a single organization, but each regional branch was mostly independent. To a Vistelya guild employee, someone from the Maalt branch was basically a stranger.

  That aside, she’d been respectful toward Wolf, even calling him “Master Wolf.” Was he really worthy of that much respect? Really? But, on second thought, there weren’t that many people who were as good a guildmaster as he was, and combined with his eye for detail and his abilities as an adventurer, he might be the epitome of what a guildmaster should be. That would explain the respect. That said, Maalt was in the middle of nowhere, so it was still surprising that they recognized Wolf’s value. It felt kind of good, actually, to know someone who was treated with such respect.

  At any rate, the only thing I could do now was wait. That might not be such a bad thing, though, because I still had a long list of errands to run. I had planned to just give up on them if I didn’t have enough time, but now a pile of free time just got tossed into my lap.

  I nodded to the receptionist and replied, “That’s fine. Five days from now, then?”

  “Yes. As for the documentation, we’ll sort through and organize it on our end, so your report should go relatively smoothly.”

  The documentation in question was the huge pile of paperwork Wolf had given me to hand to Vistelya’s guild. Most of it detailed the current state of Maalt, and you’d think that would be enough, but it was better to have someone who knew the situation give a direct report to the higher-ups. That was the reason Wolf sent me here, which was what had prompted the receptionist’s remark.

  “Thanks. I’ll leave it in your hands. See you in five days.”

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “You’re done already? What happened at the meeting?” Lorraine asked as I approached.

  “It seems the grand guildmaster’s out of town. Evidently, he’ll be back in about five days.”

  “Out... Well, I suppose he can’t stay in one place for too long. Although, I’d heard he wasn’t able to leave the capital for long...” Lorraine said with a puzzled expression.

  I nodded in agreement as I remembered what I had heard back in Maalt. “Wolf mentioned that, but he probably meant that the grand guildmaster couldn’t come out to someplace in the middle of nowhere like Maalt.”

  The journey from Vistelya to Maalt took about a week using normal methods. Given that the grand guildmaster would have to go there and then come back, a visit would take at least two weeks. He couldn’t just abandon the capital for that long. The regional cities closer to the capital, however, were only a few days round trip, so it wouldn’t be particularly strange if he made frequent trips to those cities.

  “Ah, you make a good point,” Lorraine muttered. “Either way, there’s nothing you can do about his absence. Plus, it’s fortuitous in a way. We now have time to take care of our various errands beforehand.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

  “Our to-do list includes delivering the letter from Sister Lillian to the Church of the Eastern Sky, visiting the palace for an audience with Her Highness, and buying souvenirs for Alize and Rina. Now, the first thing we ought to do...”

  Lorraine looked at me and asked what we should tackle first.

  “The letter, I think. I have no idea how long we’ll be at the palace, but with the letter, all we have to do is deliver it,” I suggested, thinking it best to get the simpler task out of the way first.

  “That’s true. Since Sister Lillian gave me the letter, I could deliver it on my own, but I imagine I’ll be wanted at the palace as well.”

  “Yup. Besides, there’s someone else we need to drag to the palace with us. We need to get in touch with him, but about the only way I can think of is to leave him a message here at the guild. Aside from that, we could try his regular haunt.”

  I was referring to the bar we met Augurey at the last time we were here. We might run into him there if we just went, but a message left at the guild would reach Augurey the moment he came in. Conversely, while he might get the message tomorrow, he could be on a long-term assignment right now and wouldn’t get it until he came back. In that case, Lorraine and I would have to go to the palace without him, but we’d cross that bridge when we got there.

  “It might be easier to find him by asking around if anyone has seen an adventurer wearing strange clothing.”

  Lorraine had said it jokingly, but she had a point. Augurey’s fashion sense made him stand out. Still, I’d rather leave that as a last resort.

  “We can do that if we can’t find him,” I said, “but for now, why don’t we head to the Church of the Eastern Sky. It’s on the eastern side of the capital, right?”

  “Yes, that should be right,” Lorraine answered.

  Lorraine and I left the guild and made our way toward the church.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “This makes the church in Maalt look like a ramshackle hut,” I murmured in front of the building in question.

  Lorraine nodded. “As expected, really. While the Church of the Eastern Sky isn’t a particularly wealthy religious organization, it’s still the main faith in Yaaran. It stands to reason that the main church here in the capital would be much grander than the one in Maalt.”

  The soaring building in front of us with its large towers shimmered overhead as though to corroborate Lorraine’s statement. I also saw a large number of worshippers busily yet quietly making their way in and out of the building. It was a lively place. Not to say that the Church of the Eastern Sky in Maalt wasn’t lively, but it was often overshadowed by the Church of Lobelia there.

  Even here in the capital, the Church of Lobelia was starting to spread its influence. I could see their church not too far away. We’d had to pass by it on the way here, but they’d been so aggressive in their evangelizing that it’d been a tad overwhelming.

  “If you join the Church of Lobelia, you’ll be guaranteed salvation.”

  “We have a great many saint
s in our ranks, so you’ll be set for blessings in this life as well.”

  “Our holy water is more affordable than other faiths’!”

  Every ten feet or so, we’d get a pitch along those lines. I’d wanted to ask if they were trying to convert people to a faith or to seal a business deal, but I knew that if I said that aloud, it’d just set off another flood of words. I’d just ignored them instead.

  Despite the fact that Lorraine had been standing next to me, no one had tried to sell her on the Church of Lobelia. This seemed odd to me, so I decided to ask her why that might be.

  “Maybe you just looked more gullible than I did,” Lorraine replied. “They kept glancing toward me, but after a few seconds, they all tended to scatter.”

  Did I really look that gullible? Maybe back before I’d gotten eaten by a dragon that might have been the case. When I’d been human, people had often told me I looked trustworthy and nice. I was sure I looked pretty shady these days, though. If anything, I looked like the sort that would prey on earnest followers of a faith. Either way, no one really bothered me that much when I was in Maalt. That sort of random recruiting on the street was rare there anyway.

  By contrast, the Church of Lobelia here in the capital just happened to be particularly hungry for converts. The Church of the Eastern Sky wasn’t doing much to spread their faith, so it might have been that the Church of Lobelia’s eagerness to evangelize had created the situation where it was steadily encroaching on the Church of the Eastern Sky’s turf in Yaaran. In that sense, as a citizen of Yaaran, I wished the Church of the Eastern Sky would step up its game a bit, but it wasn’t like I was a devout follower, so I wasn’t all that invested in the outcome either way.

  Just as I’d reached that point in my musings, Lorraine said, “All right, let’s keep moving, Rentt. We look suspicious just standing here.”

  She began walking toward the church, so I followed behind her. We then ducked into the building through the open doors of the giant entrance.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  The interior of the Church of the Eastern Sky, like the exterior, was an impressive piece of architecture, but perhaps because of the church’s teachings, it wasn’t garishly or richly decorated. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t beautiful—it was—but its beauty was sober and understated, and the statues and murals eschewed ostentatiousness in favor of piety.