Spending my retirement in a game

chapter16

She shook her head and looked down on the ground as the two of them began crossing the bridge over to the street where the Inn was located, "No... I don't think so, at least. I told you about being the Carrier for an adventuring party, right? Well, they wanted to cross the mountain range. And on the first day, they found a cave not too far from here. There was a lot of treasure there... a LOT of treasure... They told me to grab as much of it as I can carry, but my strength wasn't enough to carry as much as they wanted me to, so they stole my bag and carried it themselves... They threw me out of the cave and I found my way here.. I don't know what happened to them, though. But well, I was here without any money or food or anything, but then I met the nice Owner of the Inn and he told me he would let me stay there for free if I helped out a little bit."

"Well, that's really nice of him. He did seem like quite a good guy" Eisen nodded and began scratching his beard with his eyes closed.

After another few minutes that they spent walking without talking, they reached the Inn.

Eisen and Bree walked to the restaurant together to eat, and a waitress came up. "Hey, Bree! How are you? Haven't seen you around all day!" She said with a smile, one that most might see as genuine. But Eisen could tell from his expansive life experience that this kind of smile was anything else but genuine, and held deep hatred and spite behind it.

Bree looked down at the table and avoided eye-contact, only further supporting what Eisen thought.

"Y-Yeah, I was staying with Eisen all day..."

"Ooh~? So you've finally done it and sold yourself to some lonely old man~? But I thought you'd be like that, so-" The Waitress laughed with her hand in front of her mouth, looking down onto Bree who was still keeping her head low, when Eisen stood up looked at the young Human Woman.

"Listen here, young woman. You should probably leave. Right now." He said, looking down at her with a calm face, the same one he had back when he was talking to Hendrick.

The waitress stumbled back a little bit, but then only began to laugh more, "Oh? What's this? Did you go senile~? This girl isn't a person, old man, so there's no need to get angry because of her."

"I warned you. And I don't give second chances." Eisen grumbled and leaned forward. Before the woman could even react, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

"H-Hey, what's this supposed to mean?! Th-This is assault!" She yelled out and began punching Eisen in the back to make him let go. Without any words, he walked to the front desk of the Inn and looked at the Innkeeper, who simply sighed and frowned when she saw the whole scene.

"Tanya, what'd I tell ya 'bout insultin' Bree?"

"Wh-What? That's all you have to say about this?!" She yelled while Eisen slowly put her back down, her face completely flushed red. The Innkeeper crossed his arms and nodded. "Aye, it sure is, Tanya. Get in the back and change into yer normal clothes. Ye don't work 'ere anymore."

"W-Wait, what do you mean?! Because of that bitch? She isn't even a person, so why-"

"Fine, I changed my mind." The Innkeeper interrupted her, and the girl grew a smug smile as if she was about to say something even more insulting toward Bree, but before she could open her mouth he continued talking. "Get the fuck outta here, and don't ever come back. Right this second, ya 'ear?"

The Innkeeper said angrily, and seeing that he's serious, the girl, Tanya, angrily stomped out the front door, her face as red as a tomato.

Eisen smiled and looked back at the Innkeeper. "Sorry if I caused trouble. Right now and this morning as well, of course."

With a smile on his face, showing his straight white teeth, the Innkeeper shook his head. "Dontcha worry 'bout it! Wanted to fire 'er anyway, Tanya's a bitch. Ye just gave me a good opportunity ta fire 'er right now. She was super stuck-up and kept insultin' non-human customers. Which is 90% of our customers, considering this is a Dwarven Town."

"If that's so, then I guess you're welcome haha. But I will get back to Bree now." Eisen laughed lowly and turned back around to head to the Restaurant while the Innkeeper began to smile.

After that, Eisen and Bree had a lot of fun talking while they were eating, and Eisen found out some more things about Bree.

She grew up with her father, a simple human, who fell in love with a nature Fey, a Pixie, Bree's mother. Eisen didn't care to ask how the whole ordeal worked, due to the obvious size difference, and instead smiled at the thought of two people giving up their cultural differences to be with each other. Truly, it did remind him a little bit of his late wife, who he had met during his time in Japan.

But Bree's father died while she was barely 10 years old, leaving her to fend on her own in a world filled with people that hated her very existence. She struggled hard and did small jobs here and there to pay for food while living on the streets of her hometown until she found that she was good at support magic and had an extraordinary mana pool, which is when she became an Adventurer who would do small tasks. With the help of her support magic, she was able to learn spells such as 'lighten', which, how the name implied, lightened the weight of her gathered items to a certain amount.

And by completing more and more simple gathering requests, she ranked up and got the attention of some higher ranked parties that were famous in the area, and was scouted as their carrier, to basically bring the heaps of loot they would gather at times back to the guild to sell. But she was really only seen as a packing mule, and not for her support magic. For that, most parties had clerics or shamans, and Bree was always left behind once the party gathered enough money to buy spatial-storage items, because that meant they didn't have to share the money from quests with one more person.

After this whole cycle continued for years on end, she decided to only be a temporary higher for parties that went out to quests where they expected a high amount of loot. More and more she got to know the area around her hometown, and then she was hired by the party that simply left her behind.

And now she spent all her time talking to people she could meet in the Inn, hoping an adventurer would come along that could help her at least get back to a larger town.

He heard her story, and Eisen leaned into his chair, scratching his beard and closing his eyes with a smile. "Then how about I help you out? Well, it would need to wait for a month, because I have some business to attend to near here then, but after that, I do want to go on a journey. Well, we can help each other out, I guess. Having support like yours when fighting definitely seems useful. Not to speak of the help you were with my mana while smithing."

"Y-You really want my help?"

"Of course I do!" He laughs out loud and looks at the girl that is nearly in tears in front of him.

"Th-then, only in a month? Could I maybe help you before then? It's really fun watching you work!"

"Sure! Then I'll see you tomorrow?" Eisen asked and smiled, and when Bree nodded furiously, he waved for the waitress so that he could pay, and then stood up, walking to his room to practice his Mana Manipulation a bit more.