3rd' POV
The next morning, there was a commotion outside the northern gates of Rijeka Town.
Originally, there were only a few town guards who went to the entrance of the gate to see the sudden hubbub.
Realized something interesting. The children who happened to be around the vicinity, also immediately went closer to it, followed by the elderly and the women, who previously watched the children playing.
Finding a large crowd gathered at the gate, the travelers, the adventurers, and the merchants, who wanted to leave the town, stopped for a while to find out what crowd this is. It was possible that they would obtain valuable information that could be traded when they arrived in other towns or cities later.
Not long after, they all made up the crowd we see right now.
They then discovered that there was a group of adventurers out there who seemed to be carrying… more accurately, dragging a large number of people who were entangled with their hands and feet with ropes.
They came from both cardinal directions.
One from the Odesa Serfdom in the north and Sindara Serfdom in the east.
One of the adventurers then recognized some of the adventures that came, then he remembered something that they were the adventures who were ordered by the Lord of the town to take care of the bandits. They had already returned!
Shortly after, they also received news that the other adventure party in charge of overcoming the bandits on the road to Balease Serfdom and Livold Serfdom had also just arrived at the southern gate.
But at the northern gate, it's more lively right now because everyone was in an uproar since there’s a scene-stealer here.
Many people didn't believe they could bring a full of tied-up bandits alive into the town with just their few members.
Just look at the comparison of those bandits with the adventure party who captured them. Their numbers are unequal even though all the members of the two adventure groups were combined.
When those adventurers walked into the gate, the townspeople who were in front of the entrance gate then greeted the two adventure party arrival like soldiers coming from a battlefield bringing victory.
And in the midst of the festivities, there's a man wearing an expression of displeasure at the arrival of those adventurers.
He looked at the adventure party which only consisted of three people but they brought more catches than the catches of other parties, even though their party members were almost three times more than them.
Not long after, the man then left the crowd.
***
The three and other adventurers then handed their haul to the Rijeka Town authorities in a good mood because they didn't realize that they could receive cheers and acknowledgment from the townspeople just for catching those bandits.
But the joy of the three of them was slightly scratched because they got into trouble regarding the distribution of rewards since they taking someone's job without being asked by the owner, without an appointment from the guild master, without instruction from the Lord of the town, without a mandate from the Kingdom, without getting the trust of the townspeople, just suddenly appointed themselves, by acclamation, as the party who replaced the task of other parties in taking care of those shoddy bandits.
Of course, they find it difficult to get rewards since they carry out the task that originally belonged to others.
However, Unknown has a magical and diplomatic answer to solve that problem and in addition, this is the result of the work of the three of them and their work is very satisfying and very efficient, so they held the upper hand and had an influence in decision making for the reward for capturing the bandits.
Not to forget, Unknown also asked them to mediate their problems with Ega's Party.
Realizing what Unknown is trying to convey to them and what he expects of them, they understand and try to do what they can.
They were also promised to get the full rewards, as well as facilities for reconciliation with Ega's party.
How are they going to make that happen? Unknown doesn't care.
They had already earned half the money from the reward of catching the bandits alive from them which they said was a sign they were serious about paying the rest of the rewards later. Yet the three of them didn't really mind whether they would keep their promise or not. They already got the spoil of war from their results of looting the bandits.
They thought it was more than enough.
Unknown's POV
Me, Elf, and Beastkin then arrived in front of our room at Ami's Inn. But the three of us were surprised to find our room is empty, very quiet, with no sign of life.
Fem and Princess are not inside. Their stuff isn't in here either.
Even strangely, our belongings also suffered the same fate.
We looked at each other.
Inside our heads, we thought of all kinds of things.
Did Princess fail to solve Fem's problem?
Or are they going out for a walk?
Have they departed on Noah's ship?
We asked anxiously.
Because this room looks new like the room we met when we first spent the night here and indeed this room looks like that.
We are getting worried.
When we went down to the first floor to order breakfast while looking for information, we were surprised (I found Elf more surprised than the two of us) because the three of us were suddenly visited by the owner of this inn. Miss Rumi if I'm not mistaken?
Before we had time to greet her, she immediately pointed towards the exit/entrance of the inn and told us to leave her inn out of the blue and without any explanation.
I mean, wtf.
What was our fault?
Beastkin tried to gently ask Miss Rumi about why we were suddenly kicked out and where our friends might be.
Miss Rumi however seems very annoyed and showing slight anger on three of us and replied Beastkin question with irritated tone. "I don't know, I don't know." over and over.
We were also hindered when we wanted to ask the guests of the inn who were having breakfast here. Miss Rumi said we were disturbing her guests (even though she was the one who spoke louder than us).
Because Miss Rumi keeps getting angry with us, and Elf also looks embarrassed about this. We then did what Miss Rumi ordered.
We walked to the exit of the inn.
We are getting more and more confused.
We cannot answer this strange phenomenon that we cannot solve alone.
The three of us then glanced around the inn, trying to ask the audience for the solution.
Many guests watched us who was trying to be chased by Miss Rumi out of her inn, but their gazes were too difficult to decipher it to seek an answer from them for the current puzzling phenomenon.
I looked at them again one by one, and there was one guest who seemed to want to tell us what was really going on right now. Our eyes met.
He is someone that the regular guests staying at this inn said was Miss Rumi's number one worshiper.
I then gave him a gesture with my hand, telling him we wanted to talk to him outside.
That guest nodded.
We then exited the inn, and then we waited for that guest to come out.
However, after waiting more than ten minutes outside, he didn't come out.
The heck?
He just gave me false hope.
And Elf & Beastkin who wanted to go to find out where Princess and Fem disappeared, but I told them both to wait for that guest to come out first, started to get restless.
It's common knowledge if someone you know is missing. Time is of the essence and efficiency is crucial.
I also can't force my will because I lost the number of votes now, so I gave in.
Actually, I wanted to wait a little longer and let the two of them go on their search, but I was afraid of losing them like what happened to Fem and Princess, so I was forced to follow them to reduce the work that might add up in the future if they disappeared without me knowing.
“Wait!”
Unexpectedly, someone called us.
To Be Continued
