That Time a Shut-in for 300 Years Continued to Make Antiques , but All of It Turned out to Be Cheat-Level Magic Tools - Chapter 29

I am an employee of the Guild. When people hear “Guild employee,” they often think of office work, but I am a foreman. I oversee all the staff.

Being in charge of everyone, including the receptionists, is a significant role. I don’t want to be lumped together with the common masses.

That aside, yesterday I was annoyed by a cheeky brat, but today I must check the results of the magic herb collection later.

Moreover, this time there are issues other than the magic herb collection that need to be addressed. There were some concerns about this as well.

This time, I told those people about a thriving area of Aloy herbs. It wasn’t out of kindness, but rather a scheme to discredit them.

The area is overrun with Plant Dogs, and a large-scale hunt was planned.

So, I advised other adventurers to stay out until the hunt was over because of the danger. It’s not entirely forbidden to enter, but doing so recklessly could disrupt the upcoming hunt and result in penalties. If the area is damaged by Plant Dogs as a result, penalties will also be imposed.

By leveraging this, I planned to send those people to the area, complain about the impact on the Guild’s activities, and demand compensation. If the area is damaged, they would also have to pay for that.

The compensation would be no mere silver coins per Aloy herb but at least a hundred gold coins.

However, it seems the adventurers I had watching them managed to repel the first group of Plant Dogs they encountered.

Such irritating people. Eventually, the adventurers I sent to watch them stopped pursuing further.

But it’s not entirely surprising. The untouched area I told them about becomes even more dangerous the deeper you go. It wouldn’t be strange if they decided it was too risky and turned back.

However, I see this as an opportunity. No matter how skilled they are, it’s impossible for them to handle all the Plant Dogs deeper in, especially since they are just three people, one of whom is just a cheeky brat. There was also a maid, but a maid can’t handle combat.

The magician Alecto mainly supports with magic and doesn’t have offensive spells. It’s curious how they managed to defeat the first group, but they mentioned using some strange wand, claiming it was a magical tool.

How true that is, I don’t know, but they must have brought some magical tool capable of getting them through the situation. But such things won’t last long.

Surely, they’ll encounter more Plant Dogs deeper in and slink back defeated. That’s still good enough for me. Even a brief human encounter can lead to Plant Dogs ravaging the Aloy herbs down to the roots.

Thus, the moment they stepped into that area, it was inevitable that the Aloy herb habitat suffered some damage.

That’s somewhat of a blow to the Guild, but if it means imposing more debt on them to meet the demands of the Doyl Commerce Guild, it’s a small price to pay.

The only concern is whether they were taken out there, but well, if they could repel the first group, they should be able to escape.

Just to be sure, I’ve sent scouts with good ability to check on them from tomorrow morning.

If their report comes in and there are no problems, I’ll head to the Guild to manage the recovery—

“Frog Foreman, it seems we have a visitor.”

While I was absorbed in my office work, a receptionist came to inform me of a visitor. A visitor for me? I didn’t recall any appointments.

“There shouldn’t be any appointments today. Who is it?”

“It’s from the Magic Guild, and they’ve brought the Aloy herbs they were tasked with.”

“What?”

That woman. It seems she made it back safely, but what is she thinking coming all the way to the Guild?

“Understood, I’ll be right there.”

With that, I paused my work and went to the Guild’s reception. There indeed were Alecto and that cheeky brat from yesterday, along with the lewd maid.

Such utterly disrespectful people. I always make the effort to visit them, and yet—

“I’m surprised. I didn’t expect you to come to the Guild.”

“We accepted the request, so it’s not strange to come to the Guild to report, right?”

That brat responded to me. Alecto seemed unusually nervous.

“Alecto, you’re supposed to be in charge now, right? Why let this kid do whatever he wants?”

“Uh, um, it just didn’t seem right to always have you come to us.”

“Was there a problem with us coming to you?”

“Both of them are right. There’s no reason we can’t come here.”

“Tch.”

The involuntary clicking of my tongue slipped out. The matter of assigning tasks to the Magic Guild isn’t something we make public. Though not all jobs are assigned properly, there could be adventurers who feel slighted by being overlooked, especially considering that incident. I didn’t want them coming here.

However, it’s past the morning peak, so there aren’t many adventurers in the Guild.

In a way, this might be perfect. If I bring up yesterday’s incident and press them, the remaining adventurers might bear witness. If they knew it would affect a later subjugation request, they might side with me and condemn these three.

“Well, no problem then.”

“Let’s see what you have.”

“Hold on a minute. There’s something I need to ask first.”

“What do you want to ask?”

Smirking inwardly, I placed a sheet of paper on the counter.

“What is this?”

“This is information and precautions regarding the upcoming large-scale hunt in the forest. As it states here, the western part of the forest is overrun with Plant Dogs and is dangerous. Provoking them can affect the Aloy herb habitat, so entry is basically prohibited. Yet, I have reports that you entered there. What’s the meaning of this?”

“Eh? But yesterday you mentioned there was an untouched habitat there…”

“Ah, did I not say? The place is untouched but dangerous, and you should not enter. You splendidly ignored that, didn’t you?”

I explained it to them. Of course, this was completely different from what I told these people yesterday, but no one else was listening at the time. Plus, this notice is posted inside the Guild.

In essence, they could have known this information if they had checked with the Guild. Of course, if they had come to the Guild, I would have hidden it immediately. In any case, even if these guys make a fuss about this issue, it’s manageable.

Heh, let’s see how much I can pressure them on this matter.

“Before we look at the results of your request, we need to address this. Your unnecessary actions have jeopardized the Aloy herb habitat. Thanks to your reckless stimulation, it’s become harder to subdue the Plant Dogs. Naturally, a penalty is necessary. Actually, compensation might be required…”

“What are you talking about, you fool? Save your sleep-talking for when you’re in bed.”

“…Hmm? My ears must be mistaken. Did I just hear a rather defiant voice?”

Hmph, still the same cheeky brat. The only possibility here is that they’ll insist the story is different from yesterday.

But that doesn’t matter. I can deny any different words I supposedly said, as proving otherwise is impossible.

“This paper here states that if one enters the western forest and stimulates the Plant Dogs, causing damage to the habitat of the magic herbs, or if it’s determined that the subjugation was adversely affected, the offenders will be punished.”

…Hmm, contrary to expectations, they didn’t touch on the discrepancy in stories. But why would they check such things?

“That’s right. Even if humans manage to escape from the monsters, Plant Dogs become more wary and ravage the Aloy herbs. The irresponsible actions you took have caused considerable damage…”

“Then there’s no problem at all. In fact, you should be thanking us. We eradicated all those Plant Dogs.”

“That’s not the point—what? Eradicated?”

What are they saying? Eradicated?

“Don’t say such foolish things. We aren’t talking about 10 or 20 animals here!”

My tone became involuntarily harsher. They’re probably referring to the Plant Dogs reported earlier. If the report is correct, they might have defeated around 20, but preliminary surveys confirmed over 200 on the west side of the forest.

It’s impossible to have eradicated them.

“Then let’s prove it. To avoid baseless accusations, we kept the bodies intact. Shall we bring them out here?”

“What? Bring them out. Ha, funny, go ahead and try if you can.”

Hmph, it’s a bluff. Did they think I would panic over such a thing? The sheer number, even transported by carriage, would be noticeable. Over 200 Plant Dogs couldn’t fit in one without being disassembled.

“Well then, here it is. Look closely.”

“What kind of nonsense is—whaaaaaa!?”

Wh-what, what, what is this! What has happened! There was nothing there before! And now a mountain, a mountain of Plant Dog corpses on the Guild’s floor?!

“Hey, what’s going on here! How did this happen?”

“Eh? Am I seeing things? Did a mountain just appear out of nowhere?”

“It didn’t just seem to appear. It did appear! And these aren’t just any Plant Dogs!”

Though fewer than during the busy morning, there were still adventurers inside the Guild. They too were astonished by the sight.

I rubbed my eyes several times, but the scene remained unchanged. A mountain of Plant Dogs had formed in the open space of the Guild.

“Another big one is there, should I bring it out too?”

“A big one? Don’t be ridiculous! There should only be Plant Dogs there!”

“Maybe seeing it directly will be faster.”

Then, next to the mountain of monster corpses, a particularly large monster’s body was laid out. What in the world are these!

“This is an Udolf. Well, for adventurers to understand, it’s a mutant variety of Plant Dog.”

A mutant? True, monsters sometimes produce mutant varieties through sudden mutations. But I hadn’t heard of any Plant Dog mutants recently.

No, but… it wasn’t entirely unheard of. There were records, and now that it was mentioned, I remembered the name Udolf.

But impossible! Mutants are naturally much more ferocious and stronger than their original forms! These three defeated them? An unassuming female magician, a cheeky brat, and just a maid?

“Impossible! I won’t accept this!”

“That’s why we brought the bodies, to prove it.”

“This! You must have bought them somewhere with money! Right! You’ve got a maid like that! You couldn’t possibly have done this!”

“Are you serious? A shop that keeps this amount of monsters, unbutchered and unmutilized, just lying around?”

“Then, yes! You stole the credit! You must have secretly taken these from other adventurers who defeated them!”

“All this amount? And those adventurers just watched their trophies being stolen?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

That brat is infuriating! I hate this kind of cheeky kid the most!

“Listen! No matter what you say, our adventurers have been in the forest since morning! Lies like yours will soon be…”

“It’s a disaster! The large number of Plant Dogs that were supposed to be in Aloy’s forest, well, they’re completely gone!”

“I went for a morning survey, and it’s like they’ve disappeared—what in the world is this!?”