Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter SS4

Heirloom Management 

“Sorry, Rentt. You’re a pretty strong adventurer, right? You should be above this,” a middle-aged woman said as she restlessly moved her hands. Her name was Rota, and she was from an ordinary household in Maalt. Her grandfather was an adventurer, but I never knew him. 

“Oh, I don’t mind. That’s just the kind of job this is. I saw it was about cleaning a house and took it anyway, so it’s on me.” 

I was here for a house cleaning job. Not Rota’s house, but that of her grandfather. He passed away the other day and Rota inherited the house and all his assets, so she needed to sort it all out. Her family could have done it on their own, but the fact that Rota’s grandfather was an adventurer presented a problem. 

Most adventurers did some dungeon diving, and dungeons were full of special magic items. Finding and selling them was the quickest way for an adventurer to make money. That seemed to be what Rota’s grandfather was doing. But while some magic items sold just fine, others didn’t because their uses were unclear. Unsure of what to do with those items, many adventurers would leave them lying around the house. 

That was fine as long as the adventurer kept track of them, but it became an issue when their family inherited their assets. They wouldn’t be able to tell which items were dangerous and which weren’t. Sometimes a magic item could injure them or cause a huge disaster. To avoid that, most families sought help from other adventurers when sorting out these belongings. That was the purpose of this job. 

“I appreciate your attitude. I wish I could have sorted these out on my own, but his will said that some of the magic items might be dangerous. At least it kept my relatives from hounding me about the inheritance, though.” 

“They belonged to an adventurer, after all. I guess they thought some of these things could be fairly valuable. But they valued their lives more. That was probably smart of them.” 

“And very calculating, but yes. It doesn’t seem like anything has been dangerous so far, though.” 

I finished going through most of the heirlooms, but they all seemed to be safe. It was possible that her grandfather’s will only said what it did to keep her relatives away. 

When I told that to Rota, she thought for a bit and then nodded. “He was certainly wise,” she said. “Maybe he did have that in mind. If so, I may have wasted money paying for this job.” 

I almost agreed to that, but then I noticed something strange between two shelves. “Maybe you didn’t waste your money after all.” 

“Oh, did you find something?” 

“Yeah, look at this.” I’d found a cube about the size of my palm. 

“What’s that?” 

“Probably a magic item. I can feel mana flowing through it. It doesn’t seem active, though, and it’ll take some research to figure out the effects. I think Lorraine could appraise it, if you’re interested.” 

Rota knew a lot of people around Maalt, including Lorraine. She knew what Lorraine was like and knew her occupation as well. “Sounds good. Would you mind asking her? I’ll pay her for it, of course.” 

“Sure, then I’ll be taking this.” 

“Thanks.” 

I finished cleaning the house by that night and then headed off to see Lorraine. 

“I see, this belonged to Rota’s grandfather? It’s certainly a magic item,” Lorraine said after taking a close look at the cube. 

“Well, I don’t think it’s anything too dangerous, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. You don’t see a lot of magic items that look like this, so I decided against filling it with mana while I was there.” 

“These types are rare, yes, but I’ve seen one before.” 

“Oh, you know something about this already?” 

“Yes. I’ll pour mana into it now.” 

Lorraine let a little mana flow into the cube. It was sitting on the dinner table, so I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but Lorraine wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Well, maybe she would, but she at least must have thought this would be safe. 

The cube didn’t appear to do anything dangerous, but glowing particles began to float from it. Then they condensed into an image in the air. Now I knew what this cube was too. 

“This magic item is used to create projections, right? These are pretty rare, but they’re not impossible to get ahold of. I’ve never seen one that’s cube-shaped, though. Or this size, either. They usually look like crystals.” 

“Yes, that’s how they tend to look in Maalt. In the Empire, they’re often cube-shaped. Ones this small are only found fairly deep in a dungeon, though. Rota’s grandfather must have been a decent adventurer.” 

“I see. This image is unexpected, though.” 

Lorraine paused before saying, “I think this magic item would go for a fair bit, but I don’t expect Rota to sell it.” 

“Probably not. Maybe her grandfather wanted to keep his relatives away so it wouldn’t be sold.” 

“That would make sense. Well, bring it to her tomorrow,” Lorraine said. I nodded. 

“I see, so that’s what this magic item does. This is a very clean image of the past.” 

I delivered the magic item to Rota the next day, and when I showed her how it worked, she gazed at it with a nostalgic look on her face. The image depicted Rota’s grandfather, his son and daughter-in-law, and their baby, Rota. 

“I can tell you about a place where this’d sell for a decent price,” I said, but I didn’t expect her to take me up on the offer. 

She smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m keeping this. It’s not like I’m hurting for money anyway. And even if I were, I could never sell this. Thanks, Rentt. I’m glad I asked for your help. If not, maybe I never would’ve learned what this was.” 

I doubted that, but if her relatives did the cleaning, maybe that could have happened. 

“No problem,” I said.