The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

Chapter 138: Masaki and Randolph

Chapter 138: Masaki and Randolph

“Eh-hem! 132! Hundred and thirty-two, Master!”

“…Yeah, good for you.”

“And what’s your level, hmm~~?”

I feel I must do something about this grinning Familiar at my side, but I have so many other things I must think about right now.

Having asked the receptionist guy for a detailed explanation of over-leveling, it seemed that one’s accumulated EXP won’t be released until one hovers their hand over the Craft Circle.

What that meant for us was that, unless we somehow acquired that Circle’s formula for ourselves, there would yet be no point in returning to our present time.

With that said, I’m not seeing any way for us to reveal that secret right now, nor do I think the people of this Adventurers’ Guild would be willing to teach us.

All this new information also brought me to another mystery.

Namely, the whole deal with T?s.

His level was 274, or so he claimed.

That’s a bit too low for someone who’s 5,000 years old, but then again, he’s a total hermit… Well, not that I’m one to talk. He seemed to be at that wasteland the whole time, too, so he probably wasn’t in that much of a hurry to level up.

From our discovery here, it’s entirely possible that the Limit Breakthrough he was talking about and the Limit Breakthrough magecraft of this era were versions of the same idea.

I’d like to uncover the secrets behind both of them, if possible.

“One-o-one, One-o-one!”

“Who are you calling One-o-one?!”

“One-three-two has been wondering, One-o-one… What are we even doing around here?”

So here we were, suddenly in an unfamiliar place, suddenly with new identities.

Sitting in front of the Adventurers’ Guild, me with my knees in my arms, we were facing a roadblock of the greatest difficulty.

And that was-

“Hey, I would’ve gone somewhere else if I could. But we don’t have any gold, so yeah…”

“Can’t we just go earn some?”

“If only. From what I’ve heard, this town is in the Front-Front Lines of the war against the Devil King’s army. And if we’re gonna head to another town, we’ll need to hire us some bodyguards.”

“That’s true, but…”

“Yeah, no money. Be it love or friendship or anything else, they all need money to go around! Damn it, at least I’ll write that down in the Principles of a Philosopher…”

As I took out my pen and the book from my purse, I felt a light knock on the back of my head.

“Ow – Hey, what gives?!”

“Take a seat.”

“What?”

“Take a seat over there, Master.”

Well then, it seems that Pochi is angry about something. It’d be wise not to oppose her at times like this. If things get too far, then she might even stop talking to me for a whole year, like that one time in my past.

So I did as I’d been told, sitting down on my knees… on the ground.

“My knees are kinda hurting here, Shiro.”

“Bear with it.”

“Okay… so, what is it?”

“Listen up, Master. We may be adventurers, but when there isn’t a quest that we can take, we must do something! Anything!”

“But-“

“No buts! This is not the time to worry about appearances! We need to find ourselves a job as soon as possible!”

…Oh, I see.

Pochi did have a point there… I guess.

??????????

(Xemul: And so the difficult life of gastarbeiter begins…)

“Welcome, welcome!”

“Oh, you’re new here, boy? Hang in there – lots of waiters come and go ’round this place… Oh, I’ll have one pumpkin and two plates of onions.”

“Coming right up, ma’am! Ah, how would you like some lettuce to go with them? Freshly picked, real juicy! Good for your skin, too! They’ll make you even more healthy and beautiful, I’m sure! Well? Would you like some?”

“Oh, my… you’re good at this! Tell you what, I’ll take two plates.”

“Hehe, thank you very much!”

“Hey, look over there! Glutton Masaki just lost the eating contest! Man, dude could’ve used that money, too!”

“For real?! THE Masaki?! Who the hell did that?!”

“Dunno, but apparently it’s some random bloke’s Familiar!”

“D-damn… I gotta see this!”

“Let’s go!”

??????????

“…Welcome.”

“Pretty young for a shopkeeper, ain’t ya? Sure you can lift the gear ’round here?”

“…The Boss Man handles everything himself, so…”

“Hmm, ‘least you act like a decent adult. C’mon, let’s see what the place’s got for sale.”

“…Do you have any exchange tickets, sir?”

“Sure do. Here.”

“…Thank you.”

“Hey, it’s the dog that beat Masaki! Now she’s gone and beat Glutton King Randolph in another contest!”

“For real?! THE Randolph?! Well, he’s the weakest of the four Glutton Kings, though… No way she’s gonna beat Cammy, Fudo, and Jumbo, I’m sure.”

“See, I heard she’s gonna be up against Jumbo next! You know, the strongest Glutton King!”

“D-damn… I gotta see this!”

“Let’s go!”

??????????

“Hey there, mister!”

“The hell, kid? You’re givin’ me the creeps…”

“Haven’t things been so hectic lately? With the Devil King’s army advancing and all that, you must’ve been soooo tired from your job, am I right?!”

“Aha~~ you from that shop?! Must be hard work, coming out advertisin’ your place. Hardly anyone’s wanna do that.”

“Our place is popular with big, strong guys like you, y’know!”

“HAHAHA! I like the way you talk, kid!”

“And you know how we’ve got some real nice girls with us? C’mon, why not come wind down and have some fun? We’ve got some time slots open now, so you can even get yourself two at once!”

“Well well, can’t say no to that! I’ll stop by for a bit. Yeah.”

“Aye-yup, you can count on us!”

“Hey, now that supernova Familiar Shiro is up against the Devourer Queen Lylia!”

“For real! THE Lylia?! Can’t she, like, eat twice as much as Jumbo?! The hell is up with that Shiro

dog?!”

“Looks like they’re starting soon, so let’s go see them!”

“Hell yeah! Sorry, kid. I’ll come again, so save a seat for me then!”

“Hehehe, of course! We’ll be waiting!”

??????????

“Damn it, Pochi! You took away my customer!”

Now back at the Inn, I swing the door open, voicing my complaint at Pochi as she drummed her inflated belly.

I feel like I’ve been getting used to calling her different names in different places, too. I’m sure I won’t be having a problem with that.

“Urp… now that’s what I call a meal! Besides, it’s not like I could help it, sir! The spectator crowd just got bigger and bigger… oof-“

“So, how’d the match against Lylia go?”

“I won it big time!”

If her win was so ‘big time,’ she probably would have plenty of room left in her stomach, though…

“To be honest, sir, I never expected my reunion with a Holy Warrior Candidate to be like – oof…”

From how her belly looked, if I were to push it, she might get even more junk out than the volume of her whole body.

“And here I am, working literally nonstop… I didn’t invent the Pochi Bitande’d for this, damn it…”

“But you did make good money with it, right?”

“All the prizes you won added up to quite a lot, too. The total number between us must be around 30,000 – in this era’s value, anyway. We should be able to hire some bodyguards to bring us to a relatively peaceful region now.”

“Ohh, that’s good to hear, sir! Now then… let us be off after I’m done with this last gig!”

“Huh… you’ll be out eating again?”

“The ultimate enemy awaits!”

For some reason, Pochi’s silhouette looked so imposing and huge… and so was her inflated belly, naturally.

How in the world did she never get fat?

And more importantly, who’s that ultimate enemy she referred to?

??????????

Pochi claimed that she had emerged victorious from a fierce battle, but never spoke of her opponent. Wonder who that was.

Thanks to her additional winnings, we were able to save up more gold than we’d needed, so we recruited us better bodyguards, one rank higher than we’d initially planned to. We’ve got to be as safe as possible, after all.

I had almost no attachment to Sodom, but I couldn’t deny feeling that I’d learned so much this past week.

And now, we were in front of Sodom’s north gate, waiting for the bodyguards that the Adventurers’ Guild had arranged for us.

“They’re pretty late, aren’t they?”

“Did we get scammed?”

“I don’t think the Adventurers’ Guild is one to run scams, sir, no matter what ancient era this is…

hmm?”

Pochi reacted to something coming from the sky above; I looked up as well, and saw two people leaping over the wall, then over our heads, landing behind us.

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

“…It’s these two?”

Why them?

Oh, God… Why THEM?

The people who had appeared before us… were the same bodyguards we’d had a week ago.