Yuuraia stands there holding a candlestick while looking in my cell.
The candle must be scented as a fragrant smell is coming from it. I wonder if it"s his own personal smell?
It reminded me of some type of sweet medicine.
Perhaps its used for questioning people.
“Nice to meet you Ippei-kun. No……..perhaps I should say it"s been a while Moriarty Oolongtea.”
Guess I"ve been completely exposed.
Well, in hindsight, I"m the only one that uses a really rare weapon like a gun so it probably wasn"t too hard.
“You seem well. This dirty prison suits you. Not that I care what happens to you mind. I"m only here for one thing.”
I haven"t said a word yet.
At such times the wisest thing a person can do is remain quiet. No need to volunteer information.
“Where is the sword you stole? The holy sword.”
Are you that attached to that sword you came all the way here?
It"s no use anyway as it doesn"t exist anymore. I broke it.
“I"ve already sold it to a foreign n.o.ble. I sent you 9 million rims along with a letter. Didn"t you get it?”
“Oh, I got it. Are you trying to provoke me! You really sold it? s.h.i.t!”
Well, that was easy. Good.
“…..Oh well, whatever. That was all I wanted. After this, you will be sent to the mines as forced labour. In all honesty, I wanted to kill you but half of the people sent to the mines die within the first 6 months anyway. Another half die within the 1st year and only 2% make it into their 3rd year. You look really weak so I don"t give you long to live.”
Yes! I"m not getting the death penalty!
I was anxious that I was going to be tortured or given the death penalty.
I must have smiled from relief as Yuuraia looked at me suspiciously.
“What"s with that? Did you crack from the fear? Hmph, suffer greatly and die.”
Yuuraia started walking off and called back to me over his shoulder
“I"ve made some arrangements so you don"t need to worry about a trial. You won"t get one. You should be grateful.”
Finishing his piece he left without looking back.
With Yuuraia gone I start looking around again. It"s a really c.r.a.ppy environment.
I knew there must be other prisoners on this floor as I could hear groaning coming from outside my cell.
Even though I"m not going to be here long as I"m off to the mines I think I"ll try and improve my environment a bit.
I cleaned the whole cell using washing magic. It hadn"t been cleaned in a long time. Probably decades. Prisoners blood, sweat, urine and faeces were deeply ingrained. Once clean the cell almost cried out in joy.
I repeated the magic again and again.
Thanks to my repeated cleaning I gained a skill after a long time.
Medical skill [Sterilisation].
I used the skill to thoroughly disinfect the inside of the cell.
I used it that much [Sterilisation] became level 2.
I sat down on my now shiny floor to rest.
The cold from the floor soon settled in my bones forcing my reality upon me so I had to stand up.
I see. n.o.bles are nasty indeed.
My stomach growls. I"m hungry. I was arrested before I had breakfast.
I wonder when they"ll feed me?
I looked through the bars of my cell but there were no guards to be seen.
A guard finally appeared in the evening.
“New guy huh. Dig in, I"ve bought food.”
Cloudy water in a dirty cup and stale bread with no plate or anything.
“Guard-san, where am I?”
It was the 1 question I"d had all this time.
“You don"t even know where you are? It"s the adventurers guild jail.”
My crime was supposedly smuggling out an F rank demon stone. Yuuraia must have purchased it from someone in the guild.
“Can I ask a favour guard-san?”
“Depends on how much money you"ve got.”
What a straightforward answer.
I guess this type of conversation is a daily occurrence.
“I have money but not on me.”
“Haahaa. Then it"s useless. If you"re broke I"ve got no time to waste on you.”
The prison guard moved on to the next cell.
Pushing my face to the bars I called out again.
“Please wait. I"ll pay you 10,000 rims. 10,000 rims to just pa.s.s a message on to an acquaintance of mine.”
I can"t see his figure but his voice comes back.
“I"ve been a guard here for 2 years now and I"m tired of hearing that story. I fell for it a number of times when I was new.”
His footsteps are fading. d.a.m.n, did I fail?
I want to make contact with Bonnie-san somehow. She can negotiate on my behalf. Best case scenario she can help me escape. Worst case scenario I might be able to have some better food.
I gave all my money to Gobu and sent him to Bonnie-san.
I have about 17 million rims.
That should be more than enough to use as a bribe, however, if I can"t contact Bonnie-san it"s worth nothing.
The footsteps that I thought had gone came back.
The cells form a line along both walls down the hallway.
The guard must have reached the end and is coming back up the other way.
What can I do?
How can I get his attention?
I use appraisal on the guard.
“Hey, guard-san!”
“If you don"t shut up I won"t bring you any breakfast.”
“Now now. Don"t you have lice on your head?”
The guard gives me a suspicious look and I lower my voice.
“I"ll heal it and also….”
Yes! I"ve got his attention.
“Do you have any medicine on you?”
As he gets to the gate I wash his head with life magic and heal the inflammation with recovery magic.
“Th, This is…..”
“Actually I"m a healer. You"ve got a bad disease as well.”
My voice is now a whisper so only the guard can hear.
“Does it hurt every time you urinate in that place?”
He"s suffering from gonorrhoea. It seems STD"s are in this world as well. Scary.
“Ca, can it be cured?”
“Of course, but that depends on you.”
STD"s are treated by the church or healers and both are very expensive.
Most common people cannot afford to go.
I dangled recovery magic in front of the guard and succeeded in bribing him.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I"d like you to contact a 6th rank adventurer named Bonnie.”
“All right. You"d better cure me after this.”
“Aah. As soon as I speak to Bonnie I"ll cure you. I need to speak to her before I get shipped off to the mines.”
After talking to the guard I took a bite out of my bread.
No. Actually, I couldn"t.
I didn"t know such a hard break existed.
I thought the bread roll I left in my desk at school for 5 days once was hard but this wins.
I toast it using my fire starting spell to make it somewhat edible.
I use appraisal to check it for poison before eating it though.