Take on Another World with My Best Friend Vol. I Ch. 3

There is a knocking sound from the door and a heavy voice is coming from behind the door. "Sirs, We are preparing breakfast. If you are ready, please come down to the dining hall." Akira, already awake, opens the curtain. The morning sun shines barely, as the morning is still young. "Rise and shine, sleepyfuck. We're going to eat" Shin slowly opens his eyes, reaches for his phone on the end table, unlocks his phone and the clock is showing 6.15. His battery is showing 23%. Shin groans. "5 minutes" "No minutes. C'mon. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since yesterday" Shin reluctantly gets up with a groan. He puts on his suit, his socks, and his shoes. "Is there any sink I could wash my face off?" "No. There's a bowl of water there" Akira points at his bedside end table. "I'll get it for you" Akira picks up the bowl and a clean cloth. He hands the cloth and holds the bowl for Shin to wash his face. He wipes his face with the clean cloth and sets it aside. Akira opens the door and walks out of the room. Shin follows suit and brings the keycard with him. Down the stairs, the voices coming from the dining hall are quite rowdy despite being early in the morning. "The inn must have been full. Look at all these people" "I know. What do you think is on the menu?" "I wouldn't know. I hope they have a steak or a hamburger. "I hope they have a beer in this inn" "Shin. It's 6 in the morning." "Relax. I didn't say I am going to drink it now. Besides, we have so much to do today" Shin picks the cornermost table. They sit down and call the waiter. "Hello. My name is Agatha. For today's menu, we have grilled venison, Wilhelmshire Stew, Baked Sweetfish with salt, and pork cutlet." "What's a Wilhelmshire Stew?" "Ah, a newcomer eh?. It's a chicken stew with white soup. Onion, Carota, Solanus and Cabbage. "That's...awfully familiar. Akira, what do you think?" "I think I'm hungry. Let me have the pork cutlets." Shin sighed. "I'll have the stew." Agatha notes down the order. "What will you have for drink?" Akira looks expectantly. "What do you have in the menu?" Agatha reads her notebook and describe the beverages available today "We have Ale, Wine, and Water" "That's it?" Agatha sighed and nods solemnly "I am very sorry. The shipment tax has been raised. We cannot afford them anything else" Shin's eyes squint but decide. "Water. For both of us." Agatha moved back to the kitchen to place the orders for both men. "What's with you with the corner table, man?" "Out of sight, out of mind" "We stick out like a sore thumb in this outfit" "I'm not changing my outfit to other clothing. Look around you. These people looks ridiculous" "WE look ridiculous." The dining hall occupant looks at the corner table after Akira's little outburst. Akira apologizes to the others before sitting down again. "We are not in our world anymore." "Well. I'm not changing anything." "I'm not telling you to change into anything. I'm telling you two have spare clothes. We sure as hell need them" "Alright. Fine" After a few minutes, Agatha came back to the table and placed food and drinks down. She excuses herself after the food has been served. "Hey, isn't this Cream soup, like, back home?" "It does look familiar. Ittadakimasu" Akira chows down the food like there's no tomorrow. Shin sips the soup a little bit. tasting the creamy white liquid. "Hmm. Taste also the same." After they finished their food, Agatha cleans up the table and return back to the kitchen. "What are our plans today Shin?" "We better visit the Merchant's guild. I promised Hull we'll swing by." "After that?" "I'm planning to visit the Adventurer's Guild, sign up as one." "I'll catch up with you later." "No, no. You're coming with me" "What? Why?" "We need to sell these wolves' carcasses." "Can't you go by yourself?" "Whose idea is it to buy spare clothing? We'll ask them where to buy spare clothing" "I'm planning to go to the blacksmith. Find ourselves a weapon." "You have craftmanship, don't you? you could craft them?" "I still need a material, a forge, an anvil, and a hammer" "How about you follow me to the Merchant's guild first, and ask them if they have a forge" "That is... a good idea." From across the room, Huber voice can be heard. Calling across the dining hall. "Excuse me. Is anyone here called Nosk?" Shin looks at Huber and gets up. He walks toward Huber. "That would be me. What's wrong?" Huber points at the gentlemen in uniform. "This gentleman is looking for you" It's Andre. Coming to pick up the duo. "Good morning. I'm Andre. I'm from Wilhelmshire Merchant Guild." Andre extend his hand. Shin shakes his hand "Nice to meet you, Andre. This is my associate, Kira" "Good Morning Mr. Akira. Gentlemen, We are here on behalf of Guildmaster Hull to escort you to the Guild, and around town." Akira smiles. Excited to see the city in all its glory "Hull must be waiting. Let's go Shi- uhh Master Nosk" Andre leads the duo out of the Inn and walks down the main street into the guild's building. All the guild's customers' eyes directed toward the weird clothing they wore. They went into the counter attended by Melissa "Welcome to the Merchant's Guild. I'm Melissa, You must be the guests Grandpapa told us about. What are you wearing?" There are not a single smile on Melissa's face. Her tone of voice is hostile, and her attitude is unpleasant. Shin does understand what happened. She is suspicious, though do not know why. "You treat all your customer like this?" Akira protest. Shin does not stop him. He listens back to observe what is going on "What do you want? We don't have time for you." Shin steps in. He keeps persuasion and intimidation on just in case. "We are here since Hull asked us to sell something" "Follow me" Akira and Shin follows Melissa, while Andre stays behind at the counter. They arrived at the guild, unloading dock. The unloading dock is packed with employees moving crates from carriages to the warehouse. "Put the thing here." Both Akira and Shin pulls out all the carcass on the floor and it keeps piling and piling, until every carcass on their item boxes, except for the direwolf, empty. "I'll give you 5 gold for everything" Akira is not having this. "What?! Hull told us the price. We have calculated the price per carcass." "You should be grateful. We do not deal with stolen items." "You think they were stolen?" "I know for a fact you did not kill this many" Shin puts all his share of wolves' carcasses. He looks at Akira to signal him to do the same. "What are you doing?" Shin steps in. "If we are not welcomed here. Maybe we should do our business somewhere else. Hull said that Antarte wolf fur is valuable. As expected for B rank monster. Maybe Adventurer's guild will take them" "You can't do that! You have agreed to sell them here" "Oh? Do we? When?" Shin approaches Melissa. With intimidation, Melissa is at a loss for words. She stood there while Akira puts back the remaining wolf carcasses back into the item box "Y-y-you told Grandpapa that you will sell them at the Merchant's guild" "I told Hull I will swing by the guild and sell them at the agreed price. We are free to walk away if the terms are not beneficial to both parties." "B-but.." "We have calculated the price per carcasses. We have 42 carcasses each person. That's 1953 Gold Per Person". If you would like to buy them, We'll settle for 3900 gold. That's 6 gold less. You could use them to go to a manner school" Melissa is red with anger and embarrassment. Before she could get a word out, Hull shouts from the second floor of the unloading dock. "That's enough!" Hull goes down the stairs to approach where they are. Melissa is shocked. She has never heard his grandfather shout like that "Melissa. Go home" "But, Grandpa-" "Enough. I invited them here for a business dealing. Not to treat them as a criminal. Go home" Melissa, feeling angry and embarrassed, storms off the building. "I apologize, boys. I should have took this dealing myself. I slept only for a few hours last night." Akira, concerned after seeing his bagged eye, asked further. "You okay, Mr. Hull?" "I'm fine. an old friend visited me and we drank the night away. He asked me for a favor." "What's the deal with her anyway?" "I spoiled her rotten. I used to have a son from my first family. I wanted to spoil him too back then, but I was too poor. I took on debt and it keeps piling up." "What happened to them?" "We kinda...drifted apart. "I hoped you meet your son again, Mr. Hull" "Heh, I doubt it. He probably hate me so much for letting her mother died." "I don't know about that. I bet he missed you too" "I can only hoped. Now, let's get to business shall we?" Akira and Shin nods. Putting the carcasses back on the floor. "I can't believe someone would kill this many wolves. Let me calculate the price first." Hull calculates all the total amount for the fur, meat and fang and called an employee and hand her a piece of paper. Some other employees starting to carry the meat, fur and fang to their designated area "Please do follow me, boys" Hull directs them to a room. Upon entering, the chandelier lights up, powered by magic. He ask them to sits down while an employee is placing a small chest full of gold coins. All 4000 gold coins "I added a little extra as an apology for earlier." Akira is gleaming. But thinking that this amount is not something a Merchant Guild should have "You know, for a Merchant Guild, I have to ask. How do you get so much money?" Shin cannot make sense of it either. If a manor is somewhere around 500 gold, this could buy 8 manors. "I haven't properly introduced myself. My name is Hulligan de Wilhelm. The kingdom's former minister of finance. Former Lord and head of Wilhelm family, and current Merchant's Guild guildmaster." They are absolutely dumbfounded. Not even Shin's current level of Worldly Eyes can see who is this frail, yet powerful old man. "I'm sorry to address you so casually, Lord Hulligan" Shin bows his head, and Akira is having a heart attack. Shin prepares is makeshift defibrillator with his both hand "We've done this skit already. Wake up" Shin, with his hand electrified, give Akira 1, 2, 3 chest compression. Akira wakes up. Shin continues where he left off. "We're sorry for this inconvenience, Lord Hulligan" "You are also a noble, there is no need to bow your head to an old retired lord" Shin lift his head up. Akira sits politely. "Here is the money. Now you boys are rich, what are you going to spend them?" Shin thinks for a second before speaking up. "For me. I am thinking to register as a merchant. Or a travelling merchant." "I could help you with that" "As for Kira here, he wanted to register at the Adventurer's guild." Akira speaks up. "I was thinking if i could ask a blacksmith to let me use their forge. I wanted to weapons for us" Hull calls for an employee to helps Shin register and told Andre to have a day off for today. "You could use a forge in the guild. Feel free to use them whenever you like" Shin is delighted with the offer, but have something in his mind "Thank you for everything Lord Hulligan" "Just Hull. I insist" "Alright. Hull. But we cannot accept all this money." "The way i see it, you are at a loss. You gave me 4 wolves last night. I have deducted them from what you owe me" Shin, while reluctant, gave in an take the money. "One more thing, If you ever want to settle down and purchase a home here, please come see me." "Can I ask something?" "Sure, Kira. What's on your mind?" "While we are heading here, we saw a bunch of Dwarves living in a slum. Is there any reason for it?" "Ah yes. While it was unfortunate, it was inevitable. They make a livelihood from mining and smithing. Since the mine is closed due to monster investation, a lot of them lost their jobs and the ore supply are depleting. We wanted to provide them a job, but they said they only able to mine or craft a weapon. Pretty stubborn, those dwarves." "Then, how can you let me use the forge if the ore is depleting?" "I was carrying mostly ore on my carriage last night. Those crates you guys see on my carriage? Ores." "So most of the smith lost their stores?" "That is correct" "Then, I would like to make a proposal. I will clear up the mine from the monsters, so the miners can get back to work, in exchange, I would be able to buy a plot of land near the mine so I could build my smithy there. How does that sound?" Shin interrupts "You mean, we, right?" "No. I need to do this alone. You specialized in fire magic. Fire produces smoke and will be trapped inside since there is no ventilation." "That makes sense, but I also can use wind magic" "I will need you to do something else." "What is that?" "Reconnaissance" "Okay. Do you have a plan?" "Yes. Use your worldly eyes to scan my surrounding area. Can you do that?" "Can't do that. Even if I can see far, I can't speak to you far enough." "Alright. If so, please inform the dwarves to get ready to work Hull protest. This plan is not thoroughly thought out "Wait, you're going to do it now? You would still need a weapon." Shin, realizes that without a weapon, it will be suicide. He offers a suggestion. "How about you forge a weapon here?" Akira ponders, what weapon will he make to exterminate the monsters? "Hmm, there's this guy who is an expert on exterminating goblins. His best advice is to use a short sword. What kind of short sword I wanted to make?" Then one thing would come to his mind. Not a sword, not even a weapon. A pickaxe. He thought to himself. "If it is enough to be used inside, I should use it as a weapon" Akira makes up his mind. He asked Hull for an unused pickaxe "A pickaxe? You are going to use a pickaxe?" "Yes. If those miners can swing freely inside the mine, I should be able to use it." "Yeah but they're dwarves. You're a human" "I'll figure something out." "If you are sure, let me lead you to our smithy" Hull stands up and redirect Akira outside and went to a separate building, but very near the main building. He opens the door to be greeted by an old dwarf, sweaty from head to toe and his beard slightly singed. "Oi Grandmaster. Good o' ya to visit this 'shop. Who's the wee lad?" "Hello, Grimgunn. This is our guest. Kira. He would like to use your forge for a bit." "Nae bloody way. This my forge, grandmaster. "He'll be using it for mining" "Are ye forgetting sumthing?" "I do not. That's why he's here" "Wot that's hafta do with anything?" "Come now, let him craft his weapon" "Fine, but dinnae forgot this is my forge. Come lad. Make yer own weapon" Akira steps inside the forge, unsurprisingly, due to no air circulation, it was hot as a scorching hot desert. He takes off his jacket, tie and shirt, wearing only his pants and shoes. He puts on an apron bare-chested. While not exactly muscular, there are several muscles on his abs and arms. He started by picking several pieces of iron ore, melting them down, and shaping them into an ingot. From there, he shaped the iron into a pickaxe. He tempers again, and again, and again until the pickaxe is packed solid. "Not bad, lad. But not exactly great either. It's only a passing grade. Now to create a handle, use the one that has been made" Grimgunn tosses Akira the handle, he fitted the pickaxe with a wood made from oak "Right, now that's done. Get out of me shop. I got work to do" Akira wipes all his sweat and wears his clothing back. Before going to the mine, Shin approaches. "Hey. I got some intel." "What is it?" "I used worldly eyes, there are about 40 goblins, 5 goblin mages, one orc, and one other thing I cannot identify. Must be dangerous. Be careful there" "Thanks. I'll be sure to bring them back." "No. Don't. just kill them and be done with it. Let the miners have the spoils, We have more than enough." "Alright. Hey, link up as a party. You'll need the exp" Shin screen popped up and accept the party request. Before departing, Akira looks at his status one more time. "If we're maxing out our Exp Multiplier, how much do you think we'll get?" "Don't know. Stay alive, okay? You're all i got in this world" "Right. I'll be at the inn once I'm done." Akira depart. On a hike trail to the mine, Akira tried swinging the pickaxe on a rock. He crushed the stone, but it's not a stone. It's a Geode. He puts all the pieces of the geode inside his item box. Upon arriving on the mine, there is a strong stench coming from the mine. Akira retches on the first whiff of the stench, but he stood there for a moment to get his nose adjusted to the odor. Akira walks inside the mine. He traveled deep into the mine until there is a big cavern inside the mine. Akira gets down in a crouching position to count the enemies he's about to face. Shin intel is slightly off. There are 15 goblin mages instead of 5. He scanned through for one unknown enemy, but there is nothing. He walks calmly until a goblin sees him. He gets ready for his attack, but the goblin gets ahead of him. He nimbly dodges the goblins one by one until he is in the distance within the goblin mages. He slaughters the goblin mages one by one until there is none. There is something strange with the goblins. They are simple creatures with not much intelligence so most of them they would charge recklessly. But they started to back away slowly. As if they are fighting a great beast. But they are facing a man with a pickaxe, and that man is grinning as if he lost his mind. He started to slaughter the goblins one by one in fast, but powerful blows. But before he finishes the goblins, an orc and an elder lich came out of the tunnel to his north. He saw the dead goblin bodies and spoke. "Who are you to dare to slay my servants?" "LESS talk, MORE KILL!" Akira charges at the remaining goblins and throws the last one at the lich, only to be blocked by the orc "You go. I'll support you. PHYSICAL BOOST!" The orc's body is glowing red, then in an instant, the orc leaps toward Akira. Akira is shocked by this but manages to barely dodges. But he barely has time to react, the orc is already jumping to Akira's position. Akira took a punch in the stomach. It was a heavy blow, so heavy, some of the mine roofs started to crumble. Akira desperately jumps to gain some distance to catch his breath. He thought of an idea, but it was also borderline suicidal. He would run to the lich position, and while the orc is leaping to his location, he would dodge at the last second. He ran as fast as he can to the lich. When the lich is about to cast a dark spell from a lich and a punch from the orc behind him, he jumped to his left, to let the momentum of the orc and the dark magic from the lich hit each other. Success!. The orcs took damage from the magic, while the Lich core is weakened due to overconsumption of dark magic and barrier spell. Nearly dead, The orc is laying down and the lich cannot move. Akira seizes this momentum to crush the core of the lich. The bones crumble, but as soon as the bones touch the ground, it disintegrates. Turning to the orc, his earlier smile appears again. He started to gather all his strength in his pickaxe and start slamming down the pickaxe with all his might. The orcs are dead along with Akira's pickaxe. The pickaxe is in pieces. It was broken beyond repair. Akira's smile fades and started walking down toward the exit. "Ouch..." Akira cannot walk down anymore. He rests at the mine entrance, all bloodied up. His consciousness is starting to fade away "...ra!" Akira wanted to open his eyes, but it feels really heavy. "...Kira!" He does not respond this time. "Stay with me, dammit!" "Heal!, Heal! HEAL!!!" Shin uses his worldly eyes to see if there is anything that could be used as medicine. There was nothing, and if there were, he lacks the skill to do it. He tried using his defibrillator hand, but it was in vain. "SHITSHITSHIT" He quickly looks at the menu bar. On the party screen, Akira has a sliver of hair width of health. There's is no time to waste. He carries Akira on his shoulder and starts running in the direction of the guild. Shin, panicked, shouts. "Help! Help! We need a healer." One employee is running to the guild master, informing him what has happened. "Nosk! get him to my room. You two! get me a healer from the church and the clinic. Hurry! Shin carries Akira to Hull's office and lay him down on his couch. "Nosk, cast a healing on him." "It does not work. I tried" "It would slow down his injury rate. Keep him stabilize" "Got it." Shin's hands glow green and direct them at Akira. "C'mon, c'mon. Hurry up" A few seconds later, both priest and a doctor walks into the office and Hull directs them beside Akira "High priest Dominicos, Doctor Jekyll. Thank you for coming. Doctor, please check on him." Dr. Jekyll puts in his stethoscope and checks his heartbeat. "It's unstable. Dom, use High Heal first to stabilize. I'll administer his wounds." Dominicos nods acknowledging the doctor's request. His hands are glowing green brighter than Shin's Heal, and place them on his chest, above his heart. Jekyll puts his stethoscope back and places it on his heart "Thanks, Dom. We have stabilized his heartbeat. I'll take it from here." Jekyll uses his X-ray vision magic on Akira's head, body and legs before checking his eyes. "Hm..Concussion, 4 broken ribs, fractured shin, and muscle damage. Dom, Use Bone Heal on the chest and right legs. Dominicos cast bone healed on both his chest and right leg. "Thanks. For now, let him rest. I'll prescribe a potion for him." Shin is on the verge of tears, he almost lost the only friend he had in this new world. Although not to the extent of Akira's, Shin is starting to feel what Akira feels all this time. Almost losing a family member or a friend sends Shin into intense grief. But Dominicos put his hand on Shin's shoulder. Dominicos give him a smile before speaking. "Don't worry. Aniki says he's stabilized. Now he needs some rest" Shin. Feeling reassured, he composes himself and thanks both the doctor and the high priest "How much do I owe you guys?" Both Jekyll and Dominicos shake their head, refusing any payment from Shin. "Please. Do not worry yourself in such a trivial manner. We are just paying our debts to Lord Hulligan" Shin looks at Nosk, before asking what they mean by 'repaying their debts' "Back when I was governing this town, these two were street urchins, scouring the streets, stealing food to survive, pickpocketing citizens, to earn money, and they would trespass to fend off the cold of the night." Jekyll smiles while Dominicos felt embarrassed. He could feel the red on his cheeks "So how did you guys met each other? "One day, they broke into my mansion. Looking for food and valuables. This goes on for several days. By the time I caught them in the pantry, they jumped out of the windows. I was concerned, so I followed them. After a while, they went under the aqueduct, meeting a merchant name Iacopo. Well, He's more like a fence. He buys stolen items for cheap and sells them for profit. These kids were selling my stuff to Iacopo. When I captured these 2, they said they need money for their father's medicine, who's been infected with Brain Rot. When they get home to their father, his condition worsens. It turns out Iacopo was selling watered-down horse urine. He died shortly after, and these kids do not have anywhere to live. So I arrested Iacopo, but since these 2 were also stealing, they will be branded as criminals. So I gave them 2 options; Spend their time in Jail, work elsewhere other than Wilhelmshire, or work for the city. They wanted to be a healer, so I paid them to enroll in the magic academy. But Jekyll does not have much aptitude with magic like Dominicos, so he works under the tutelage of Royal Capital's Physician, Dr. Lanyon." Both Jekyll and Dominicos are smiling as if in gratitude or proud to be working under Hull. After the long reminiscent, Hull speaks to Shin "Let Kira rest here. You could go back to the Inn. I'll let Jekyll here takes care of him." "But..." He'll be fine. Go on." Shin walks back to his room, takes off his clothes, and lay down on his bed. "Why was he smiling back then? He was outnumbered and overwhelmed. He was this close to death. Battle junkie? No, it's not that. Suicidal tendencies?" Shin thinks for a moment, but suddenly his eyes opened wide, shocked "Don't tell me..... Pent up anger?" Shin does not believe that this would be Akira's reason. "If that is his reason, how much pent-up anger he's holding back? Why is he showing it now? is that one of the reasons he doesn't want me to come?" Shin is restless. But there is nothing he could do for now. While laying, he checks his Menu to check the notification. "N-n-no way..."