TL: Wanted to give a shout out to our Russian friends at:
"Alright, here"s a good place to stop. Let"s take a short break, Your Excellency. Edward-dono, could you park the carriage in that open s.p.a.ce over there?"
As Ashley gave directions to Edward, the butler and coachman, she lead the horses to a meadow on the side of the road.
We finally get a break . . . although my body feels less tired than expected, that does nothing to help my mental exhaustion. Incidentally, I wonder what"s going to become of me after this?
Having entered a safe zone at last, Ray realized that he hadn"t thought about his future plans at all. He didn"t have any money or food on him. Neither could he find the object that served as his personal identification – the magical device that was usually in the form of a bracelet. It was called an Orb and contained one"s personal information.
If you think about it from an outsider"s perspective, don"t I seem like an extremely suspicious person? The baron has somehow accepted me, probably because I saved his life. However, once the immediate danger of being attacked by the thieves is gone, don"t I become the most dangerous person to them? For them, I"m a merely a mysterious stranger who used dubious magic to utterly annihilate twenty-four thieves. Even if I was their lifesaver, typical barons would probably hesitate to let me enter their towns . . .
Ray descended from his horse and sat down on top of a soft gra.s.sy area of the meadow alone. He immersed himself in his thoughts for a while. A short time later, Ashley came over and sat down by his side. She handed him a flask of water and said "You haven"t had any water to drink have you? I forgot, sorry about that." while lowering her head.
"It"s natural to forget. You"ve had a lot your plate, remaining constantly alert by yourself. If only I wasn"t so useless . . ."
As he said that in self-derision, Ashley laid her hands upon his shoulders and made him face her.
"That"s not true. Nothing can change the fact that you were the one who saved our lives. If you weren"t there, I would have surely died. Not only that, those bandits would have probably had their way with me."
Ray realized for the first time that even Ashley, who he thought was always cool headed, was probably under quite a bit of stress.
Even though I thought she was a veteran mercenary, looking at her more carefully I can see that she"s still quite young. We"re probably not even five years apart from each other?
"Ray-dono, no, wait. How about I call you Ray? You too, call me Ashley. Let"s drop the honorifics. So, what are you planning to do after this?"
"I was thinking about that just now. As of now, I still have no idea what I"m going to do. I"ve lost my memories and neither do I have any money or personal identification. What am I supposed to do . . ."
"If it"s about money, then you"ll probably manage somehow or another. In addition to the bandits" bounty, you should also be able to demand quite a bit of consolation money from the Mercenaries Guild. After all, the bandits who attacked baron Atelier were registered by them."
Ray tried to recall the setting he wrote for this world.
If I remember correctly, Magic Stones are souls. They can be used to prove the subjugation of monsters for the Adventurers Guild. They can also be used to determine things like a mercenary"s degree of loyalty. Even though I wrote it myself, I still can"t help but admire how convenient the whole system is . . . Magic Stones can also be sold for quite the pretty amount, since they"re one of the materials used to craft magic tools. A single Magic Stone from a human should be able to fetch you at least ten Crona. Based on the values of Earth, ten Crona should be roughly equivalent to 10,000 yen (TL: $89). Even if we equally split the bandits" stones, that alone to total to around 100,000 yen (TL: $890). For the time being, it really does seem like money won"t be a significant problem.
In the world Ray had thought up, their currency was called the Crona, denoted by the symbol "C". 1 Crona was a small silver coin, equivalent to 1000 yen according to the standards of Ray"s world. A platinum coin was 1000 Crona, a gold coin was 100 Crona, a normal-sized silver coin was 10 Crona, and as stated earlier, a small silver coin was 1 Crona. Even smaller than that was the copper coin which was 1/10 of a Crona or 10 Elle. A small copper coin was 1 Elle. Besides these, there were others, including large gold coins equivalent to 5 normal-sized gold coins and half silver coins worth, wait for it – half the value of a silver coin.
Edward the butler called out to Ray as Ashley was explaining these things to him.
"I apologize for interrupting your conversation. Sir baron wishes to talk to Ray-sama."
Ray followed Edward while wondering what it was the baron wanted to talk about.
When he arrived, he could see Baron Atelier and his daughter, Oliena standing outside of the carriage.
"My daughter wants to express her grat.i.tude to you, Ray-dono. Although I"m sorry for interrupting you, please accept her feelings."
Although Ray"s initial impression of the baron wasn"t very good due to his overly fancy clothes and plump figure, this changed when he saw the girl who was apparently the baron"s daughter.
Although his clothes initially made me think he was some kind of aristocratic baron who indulged in corruption, he"s a surprisingly nice person. He"s never acted stuck up or egoistic towards me either . . .
Ray replied, "It"s fine. I will listen to what she wants to say." and turned to directly face the girl standing beside the baron.