BXBX NOVEL Chapter 164 Paladin Of Thunder
Keimen Kingdom, Shandel City.
“Old man Khan! I brought something in!”
A loud voice rang out in the usually quiet Adventurer Guild of Shandel City. The adventurers present all looked at the bloodied woman with scared expressions.
She dragged large bodies behind her like it barely weighed anything. It was a pile of orcs in armor. They were all dead and tied up.
Khan from the reception desk looked at the woman expressionlessly and sighed.
“I hate it whenever you come to town.”
He took out a piece of paper from his desk. It was a request to the guild for a monster that was terrorizing one of the villages on the outskirts of the kingdom. No one wanted to take on the quest even though it was labeled a C rank quest, due to the village’s close proximity to Larm. They believed the guild was severely underestimating the Quest’s danger level, and it turns out they actually were.
The woman stopped at the receptionist and slammed down on the desk with a grin.
“I was passing by when I found a group of orcs pillaging a village. I killed them, but I ended up giving all my coins to the villagers to help them pay for the damages they caused. Then I remembered that this city was close by and with this city came my dearest friend, Old Man Khan.”
“Yes, yes. I could do without the backstory. Here.”
Khan dropped a bag of silver on her hands.
“So how much is in it?”
“Fifty silver coins.”
“Fifty? B-But I gave them 10 gold coins to help them.”
She complained.
“It’s a poor village, dear. What did you expect?”
She pouted then closed the bag and walked away.
“Give you me your license plate.”
She took out a small plate from her bag. The plate was platinum in colour with her name spelt out in it. Fubuki Hanma.
The other adventurer’s eyes widened the moment they saw it.
“S-She’s got a platinum plate?”
Some whispered.
“T-There’s no way, right?”
Old man Khan looked at the other adventurers from the corner of his eye before returning to Fubuki then sighed. Putting his gloved hand to his head, he said,
“You see what you’ve done?”
“Eh? Me?”
Fubuki asked, pointing to herself and looking around to see if he was talking about something.
Old Man Khan did not like it when high ranking adventurers showed up at his door step. That made the lower ranked adventurers get a pair from gods know where and take on jobs that were clearly beyond their capabilities. This equaled more deaths at his doorstep and more families he had to apologise to, if they had any in the city.
Slowly, he took her plate and stamped it.
“Huh. You need five more A rank quests to perform to rank up, it seems. You’ve been busy.”
“Eh? Five more? But the year’s up.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“My guardians gave me only one year to go out on adventures so I wanted to get to Orichalum before the end of the year!”
She yelled and everyone in the room turned their attentions to her, but she didn’t even notice them. Khan on the other hand was sweating.
“Ms. Tempest, when you came here 3 months ago, you were at the beginning of the Platinum rank. What rank were you at the beginning of the year?”
He called her Tempest, a title that she had come to be popular known as due to the nature of her attacks.
“I started out from copper. That’s the lowest rank, right?”
“Surely you jest.”
“No. I started out from copper, then got moved up to Silver in the next month, then gold the next 2 months. Spent the next five months to get to Platinum. I realized it’d taken me quite a while so I sped things up as best as I could. It seems I couldn’t become the highest-ranking adventurer in one year after all. Guess geniuses don’t exist in this world, like I thought.”
“M-Miss Tempest…?”
“Yes? Oh, I wreak. I’ll need a bath. Know any fancy inns close by?”
“Rancher’s Inn. Get to the center of town, some of its’ workers will be standing there looking for customers.”
She was about to thank him, but noticed that he was acting strange. He tapped twice on his nose and after two seconds of thinking, Fubuki grasped the situation.
“Ok, thank you.”
She waved and left the adventurer guild.
All those present in the room heard what she said and they all carried the exact same thoughts.
‘What a monster.’
Khan looked at the orc bodies Fubuki left in the center of the all. He snapped his fingers and the workers went to clean it up.
***
Fubuki took out one of the coins to buy an apple from one of the stands. The seller nervously laughed when she saw Fubuki covered in blood.
“I-It’s five coins actually.”
“Five silver? For an apple? That’s outrageous!”
“S-Sorry, I assumed you were bringing copper coins.”
The woman’s hands were raised and she was shivering.
“Huh? Five coins? It’s still too much isn’t it? In the last town, an apple was at most two coppers.”
The woman sighed after hearing this. She put her hand to her head as if she were getting a migraine.
“Sorry about that, but the new lord demanded more tax so the market’s inflated.”
“Hmm? New lord?”
She asked curiously. It had been months since she arrived and the lord she remembered was the useless duke with no care for the people. All he did was take little tax and avoid interacting with the people in almost any form.
“Y-Yes. He usurped the old Duke and took his throne, with the promise of helping us. He grouped us up and we charged on the Duke’s mansion and cut off his head. But…”
The woman’s hands trembled with rage.
“?”
“When we did… he took over like a tyrant. He had a private army waiting at the city’s outskirts. They waited for us to take over the duke and swoop in to rule us. Ever since, there’s been a curfew for children and non-workers. He set up an absurd tax and severed the city’s Adventurer’s Guild connections with the Mercenary Guild. He set up some rules claiming that if we followed them, we would see a turn around in our state within a year. What a load of crap from him!”
She shut her mouth the moment she realized she spoke too much. Contrary to what she believed would happen, she heard the sound of a coin twisting on her counter. When she looked, the bloody woman was walking away with five apples in hand. Down on the counter, the silver coin flipped to a stop and the light from the street lamps bounced off it.
The center of the town had a dead tree surrounded by brown grass. Surrounding it, a fence had been built with several white flags hanged up around it. At the bottom, gargoyle statues had been placed with a note written on it. Fubuki paid no attention to it and looked around to see if she could find anyone advertising an inn.
All she could identify were kids playing about on the dirty streets and a few men in uniforms passed by her. When the men came, the children started to run away, as did the beggars and drunkards. Fubuki took out another apple and simply ignored the men’s presence, searching for the workers around.
One of the men stopped in front of her.
“Good evening, Madam.”
The man politely greeted her.
“Yo! Evening.”
She responded energetically.
“Are you a worker?”
“Worker?”
Curious, she inquired further. The man grabbed his chin and sighed.
“You look new to town.”
“Hmm, I was actually here three months ago. I found the new developments odd.”
“Is that so? In that case, please find an inn quickly. Tourists aren’t allowed to leave indoors past twilight.”
He informed her and cleared his throat.
“But… I’m not a tourist. I’m an adventurer, you see.”
She took out her plate and handed it over to him. The man looked at it before returning it to her.
“I see, but you are still not originally of this city, so you will have to stay indoors till sunrise.”
“That so? Hmm, in that case got any recommendations? I’m kind of lost at the moment.”
The man started to think about her question, quickly scrolling through his memory of places. He let out a sigh.
“All the cheap places are honestly below subpar. Only good place I know of is in the noble district. And it’s kind of expensive.”
“Really? How much?”
“Currently 1 gold.”
The man mentioned an outrageous price and Fubuki pouted, on the verge of tears. She remembered how she carelessly gave away her bag of coins and almost fell to the ground. The man noticed this and sighed.
“Anyway, better find a place before the Night Watch shows up. Those guys are ruthless, even for us.”
He said and walked away back to the group that had been patiently waiting for him. When he got there, they muttered amongst themselves for a while before one of them hit him on the back of his head.
“You didn’t even get her name?!”
One of the soldiers cried out.
Fubuki sighed and started walking away. Maybe she could go camping in the forest for the night. If it was the edge, there probably wasn’t anything that would disturb her while she slept.
“Hey, hey, ma’am. Wanna stay a night at our inn?”
A little girl walked up to Fubuki. The girl wore as little clothing as possible, only covering her chest and private parts. She had bat-like wings sticking out of her back with two silver horns on her head. Her hair was light purple in colour and her pitch-black eyes shone with false excitement at the woman.
“Aww, aren’t you cute?”
Fubuki patted the girl on the head. She was probably between the ages of 8 and 10. Her clothing was too inappropriate, but Fubuki paid no attention to such minor details.
“Your inn? What’s it called?”
“R-Rancher’s… Inn!”
She stuttered out, trembling uncontrollably. Fubuki smiled at the girl and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Are you going to take me to it?”
She tightened her grip on the girl’s shoulder. The girl winced in pain.
“U-Um, your girp’s kinda strong there.”
She pointed out.
“Is that so? I didn’t realise. Let me fix that.”
Fubuki applied more force.
“Ow!”
She yelped, trying to get the attention of the men behind Fubuki.
“Scream, and I will exorcise you right here and now.”
After receiving that threat, the little girl shut up. The men noticed that Fubuki was still crouching next to girl and approached.
“Is everything all right here?”
Fubuki stood up.
“Yep. It’s all good here. This girl was just about to take me to her inn.
“Is that so? Hurry up then.”
“Sorry about that.”
She grabbed the girl and started walking away.
“Oh-um… wait.”
One of the men called out to her. When she looked back, it was the man from before.
“C-Can I get your name?”
“My name? What would you want that for?”
“Oh… um, just so I can tell the Night Watch to not harass you if they see you.”
“I guess that would be helpful then. I’m called Tempest. Alright, I’ll be heading off then.”
With that, she ran off. Tears were slowly forming in the girl’s eyes as she was zoomed down the streets.
“W-What do you mean by you’ll exorcise me?!”
She roared.
“Don’t play dumb, devil. I’ve been hunting you guys for over a year now and I’ve heard word that there’s a clue about your ring leader in Keimen kingdom.”
“W-Wait. You’re the one who took out the Big sisters?”
“If that’s what you call them. Now, tell me about this Tyvnn succubus.”
<A/N: Please leave a comment or review to help in getting more readers! Also join the discord here: https://discord.gg/Ew44jhbVym or message me on discord here: Rados47#5271 to get invited>