บท 78: Don't ruin the spring festival, please! part 1
People on the streets of Ironwood started shoveling the snow early in the morning, during the freeze people were forced to use chamber pots and they threw the waste to the streets to avoid the odors, but that raised a problem. During winter the waste remains frozen and snow piles on top of it, but if they don't shovel everything before it melts it could be the beginning of a plague.
Fortunately, people in town were more than aware of the dangers of a plague in a town where people lived crowded, so they work diligently to avoid it.
People from the silver goddess tavern, now located in what used to be madame Bianca's brothel, opened their business early thanks to Dylan, who woke up even earlier than the rest to shovel the snow. At first he was reluctant to perform such menial labor, but once Rina told him it was considered a secret form of training he took the job seriously.
The first customers to arrive were greeted by Eiri and Kairi who took them to their table and took their order. Miners and hunters came from every part of town to grab a decent breakfast at a fair price, or at least that was the excuse they said when they were asked by their families.
There were actually two huge reasons that drew everyone to the tavern, and it had nothing to do with Rina for a change. The first reason was the new billboard filled with all kinds of quests, that were available for anyone who paid for the membership of the newly founded hunters guild, all they had to do was to reach out to Rina and ask for it and if she saw them fit for the job she would hand them a blank sheet of paper where they were supposed to write the events that happened during the job. If they were to complete it, they would get paid depending on the result.
To avoid people from cheating on their quest logs, they put in place certain rules for the guild members but it was a work in progress. The important thing is that Rina would receive the quest logs and archive them in order to get new information about possible quests.
There were also repeatable quests, like beast exterminations, were they would bring back the corpses or parts of a beast as proof of defeating them. Of course this was just one of Ryu's strategies to get their hands on as many valuable materials as they could, so they could pass them on to Hiraku who would sell them to another town as soon as the roads open.
The other reason for so many hunters and miners to go to the tavern was the new waitress, Sera. She had been a skinny young woman known only as Claire sickly sister, but after eating Ryu's food and Helena's treatment, she regained her feminine figure drawing the attention of every single man. She had become, if not the most beautiful, at least one of the prettiest girls in town. As if that wasn't enough, everyone at the tavern was so used to seeing her daily that they failed to notice that the dress that used to fit her like a glove, now was on the verge of exploding. Helena had to fix it many times after she kept gaining weight in all the right places, but it was clear for everyone that she needed a new one made to fit her new curves.
Even tough it wasn't on purpose, at least that kept the miners from making trouble, since they were too distracted staring blatantly at her chest.
"Mister Ryu, are you going out with miss Anne today too?"
"There's not helping it, we need to find the damned dog"
"I understand, have fun"
Sera said with a frisky smile, everyone at the silver goddess tavern thought Ryu and Anne had been having an affair but they felt too indebted to Ryu or too polite to say it to his face. It's been almost a week since they've been hunting the amarok, going out early in the morning and coming back at dusk all dirty and sweaty.
But the truth was far from that, somehow Ryu managed to convince Anne to help him hunt the beast. At first she was against it and just wanted to let the dog go, but when Ryu told her his theory that the amarok could, in fact, be related to the famine she agreed and went with him. After all, she had been curious for the reason why after the freeze when she was supposed to find all kinds of animals she couldn't find any.
Ryu grabbed his coat and went after Anne who was already waiting for him outside.
"Let's do our best today too!"
He said energetically.
"Shut up, if it wasn't for you I could've caught him already"
"Pfff, nonsense. I did everything right, it was you who couldn't land the shot"
"Have you even tried to shoot an arrow farther than 100 meters?"
Anne exclaimed offended but Ryu just shrugged in response. They headed north and as soon as they were out of town they started jogging.
"Even if we don't catch him, at least this is good exercise"
"Save your breath or I'll leave you behind"
"You don't have to be a buzzkill you know"
"I don't know what's got into you that you're all smiles now, but stop, it just creeps me out"
Anne stopped suddenly and knelt down in front of a paw print on the snow, then she stood up and looked at her surroundings.
"Why do you think this amarok thing is still lurking around town?"
"Why else, it wants revenge... from me... for beating it"
"Maybe you shouldn't have pissed off a wolf capable of breaking a stone wall. I mean, we've fought wolves before but I don't think the ones me or Bob killed can destroy walls like that"
Anne's expression stiffened up at the mention of Bob, but managed to finish speaking normally. It was painful for everyone to speak about their missing comrades, especially for Ryu since if it wasn't because of him Anne and Helena would already be on the lookout for them.
"I think it's close, stay behind me wimp"
Anne said crouching and looking ahead, while moving her hand in a position to stop Ryu from waling.
"Watch your hands pervert!? that's meant for Rina only"
Anne's heart skipped a beat when she realized where did she place her hand and lost her composure completely and shrieked to the top of her lungs.
Usually, whenever they managed to find the amarok they would get as close as they could in a stealthy manner. But now, due to her loud shriek, the amarok found them before they saw it and turned over to give them chase.
"You always ruin it Ryu!"
"What was I expected to do, you grabbed my package so suddenly I thought it was on purpose!"
"Why are we running? we have him right where we wanted him don't we?"
"Did you hit your head, that thing broke through a stone wall!"
"So, what's the new plan, leader?"
"Now I'm the leader? after you screwed up so badly... I... I don't know but I'm starting to run out of breath, I need to stop"
Ryu said panting.
"In that case tell the Amarok I said hi"
She giggled as she left Ryu behind. The wolf sprinted towards Ryu, his brownish fur waving in the air.
"I'll try to do the same thing I did to the jackal pack leader!"
Ryu managed to yell before heading in front of a tree, he stopped in front of it showing his back to the famished wolf. But instead of pouncing at him blindly, the wolf stopped at some distance and started walking slowly lowering its snout with a low growl.
"It didn't work, It didn't work, Anne help!"
But Ryu got no response as the wolf came closer step by step. Ryu desperately tried to unsheathe his sword but, once again it was jammed. Even worse, as he grabbed the hilt he felt his stamina draining rapidly, faster than when he was running.
"Anne, I..."
When the amarok got close enough to land a bite and get himself a piece of Ryu, instead it got an arrow to the side. Both Ryu and the amarok laid on the soft snow barely conscious.
"Are you ok Ryu?"
Anne came running and got on her knees. But Ryu couldn't speak, his stamina was depleted almost completely. Anne ran her hands through Ryu's body, for the sole reason of checking for bites, but she found none.
She sat next to Ryu waiting for him to recover, but it seemed that the amarok was regaining his stamina faster than him. Both of them fought with everything they had to get back on their feet, but in the end the amarok was just a cub and couldn't do much against the strong mix of poison and healing potion that was soaked into Anne's carcaj.
It's effect caused damage at the same time it healed it, consuming the victim's stamina so fast that it was even more effective than a sleep potion.
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