Strange Grief Wants to Retire ~ The Weakest Hunter Dreams of a Hero ~ - Volume 6 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Returning Home

It was a beautiful day. Our vacation in Suls was over and we had spent the past few days uneventfully rumbling along in the carriage. A refreshing breeze passed through. Then for the first time in a month, I was at the gates of the Zebrudian imperial capital.

Overall, I’d say it was a wonderful vacation. There was the matter of Arnold chasing us and the attack by the Cave People, but that was all just a memory now. Turning all of my memories into good ones might have been my only way of responding to all the trouble I kept finding myself at the center of.

At the very end of it all, I was reunited with Luke, Ansem, and Lucia. Asking for anything more would just be greedy.

The carriage was filled to the brim with souvenirs I had bought in Suls. All purchases were made to aid me when I bragged to Eva and the rest of the clan about what a great time I had. It was mostly hot spring dragon manju, hot spring dragon eggs, and hot spring dragon bath products.

There was also a souvenir from the princess of the Cave People (according to Sitri, her name was Ryuulan). It was a pendant inlaid with a strange stone. I didn’t know if it was worth anything, but there was still so much unknown about Cave People, maybe someone could tell me if it was a rare item or something.

Even though our party used carriages, most of us never rode in them. It was usually only Sitri, Lucia, and myself riding, and even then those two sometimes would choose to run along outside. I had been reminded of the old days when I watched Luke, Liz, and Ansem (and Tino) run along the carriage as a way of getting some training in.

The gates of the imperial capital were damaged and being repaired. An imposing line of knights was outside the gates, quite unlike how it was back in Suls. Lucia had mentioned that there had been a commotion going on in the imperial capital and it seemed it hadn’t entirely settled down just yet.

There’s danger here, danger there. What a dangerous place this is. Well, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem like there’s any chaos at the moment.

“I’m gonna take it easy and nap once I get home,” I said with a yawn as I stretched my back.

“I haven’t seen you do anything besides taking it easy,” Lucia commented.

Of course I had been taking it easy, we had been on vacation. However, no matter how much you try to relax, when you’re on a trip, you can’t help but be a little bit on edge. Taking it easy on a trip is a different species(?) than that done in one’s own home.

Lucia pressed her temples and sighed. “After my absence, I’ll have to charge all those Relics...”

“Hm? Ah, I had most of them charged, so I don’t think it should be that bad.”

“It shouldn’t?”

Lucia looked at me like I had gone crazy. I’m sure what I said had come as a shock to her; I usually relied on her for all my charging needs. But I could manage when I needed to.

“Per...Sitri’s request, Kris and the others charged my Relics.”

“They did?!”

Lucia let out an enormous sigh. Judging by the look in her eyes, it seemed she wasn’t too thrilled by this.

“What were you thinking having other people charge so many Relics?! You shouldn’t place that burden on others!”

“Th-They were all happy to do it. They thought of it as practice.”

I was pretty sure I understood what a burden it was. I hadn’t planned to get all those Relics charged, but Sitri was a fearsome dealmaker.

The glare in my sister’s eyes wasn’t going anywhere.

“A-And it’s fine,” I said, making another attempt to placate her. “There’s still plenty of Relics left for you to charge.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

It wasn’t just the front gate. Most of the imperial capital wasn’t as I remembered it. It was almost like the city had been bombed. Roofs were half destroyed, streets had been ripped apart, and knights were desperately controlling traffic. Even the trees in the streets and a favorite café of mine hadn’t gotten out unscathed. Anyone who didn’t know better might have thought we were at war.

I had heard a bit about Akashic Tower and Hidden Curse butting heads, but it seemed the Hidden Curse clan master, the pyromaniac lady, had gone on a rampage. Akashic Tower was a fearsome magic syndicate, but Hidden Curse was a force to match. If that clan of Magi had been using wide-area magic spells throughout town, then I was hard-pressed to say which one was supposed to be the criminal organization.

But, looking around, I didn’t see any corpses. It was possible they had just been turned to ash, but I knew the citizens of the imperial capital were all used to handling these situations. Not to mention the war did seem to be over.

This is something no hunter should say, but I couldn’t handle the sight of dead bodies. All the more reason to be glad I had been out of the imperial capital at the time. Not that I could have done anything even if I had been present.

I left Sitri to take care of the carriage, as I always did, and bounded up the stairs to the clan house, a box of manju in my hands. I had tried a few on the road and found that hot spring dragon manju weren’t half bad.

They weren’t actually made with dragon, but their blend of sweet and sour flavors did mean that they could be enjoyed even by people who didn’t usually care for sweets. I never did learn what they had to do with hot spring dragons, but I did recall seeing the hot spring dragon gleefully partaking in them.

“I’m baaack!” I yelled as I entered the lounge. “Huh?”

I stood frozen, smile and all. The usually tidy lounge looked like a tornado had passed through. A number of tables had dead-eyed hunters resting their heads against the surface and beer bottles were scattered across the floor.

I felt like I had seen something like this just recently. Lucia looked at the lounge with wide eyes and Luke scowled, (probably) thinking nothing good. To make things worse, at one table was Obsidian Cross, undeniably one of our foremost parties. Their leader, Sven, froze when he saw me, his eyes like those of a zombie.

Oh yeah, I think I heard something about our clan members getting dragged into the commotion.

Smiling, I approached their table and placed a box of souvenir hot spring dragon manju in front of Sven. Sven’s shoulders shook and his cheek twitched when he looked at the box and the cutesified dragon drawn on it. I patted him on the shoulder, turned on my heel, and made a break for it. Behind me, I heard a clatter as he stood up.

“Ah! Hold it! Stop, damnit...”

“Luke, I’m busy, you can take care of the rest!” I told my friend.

“All right, let’s go! The training hall awaits, Sven. I’ll show you my new techniques!” Luke said, eyes shining brightly.

We just got back and he’s got that much energy. My apologies, Sven. I don’t have time for your grumblings, I’ve gotta give a souvenir to Eva.

“Shit! Hey, you bums, don’t let Krai get away!”

Sven’s screams almost made me feel sorry for him. Like corpses rising from their graves, the other hunters all looked up with predatory glints in their eyes. I patted Lucia on the shoulder as I passed by her, eliciting a series of curses from her.

I heard a scream from the lounge as I eagerly dashed up the staircase.

While the blood drained from Sven’s face when he saw me, the vice clan master, Eva Renfied, greeted me as she always did.

“Welcome back, Krai. How did you enjoy your vacation? I’ve heard...rumors.”

“We had our ups and downs, but it was fun. Here, a souvenir,” I said with a grin.

Eva accepted the manju with a look of exasperation. This was what I was looking for. I felt my wounds being healed. What was Sven’s deal anyway? The man had looked at me like I had killed his parents or something. He’d had his opportunity to come on a vacation and he’d turned it down! Well, if he had come, that would’ve created trouble in its own right.

“I understand you had your hands full with Bandit Squad Barrel, but with you gone, we’ve had our fair share of troubles here. A few words of thanks to the clan members would be greatly appreciated.”

I already gave them a box of manju.

“Now that you mention it, you do seem a bit worn down.”

She didn’t have bedhead or anything, there wasn’t a thread out of place on her uniform, and her glasses were spotless. Yet something about Eva was different than how I remembered her. She wasn’t a hunter, but Eva was the effective top dog of our clan. If the other members were that exhausted, then it wasn’t strange she would also feel the strain.

I was just an ornament, so it didn’t really matter whether I was or wasn’t around, but I supposed it was stressful not having someone to take responsibility if something went wrong.

“I’m sure my absence created plenty of headaches for you,” I said. “If there’s anything that needs to be done, I’ll take care of it. Go get some rest.”

Managing a clan was a big job and I didn’t have a clue how to do any of it, but I was sure I’d be fine as long as Lucia and Sitri were around to help out. The two of them had respect among Eva’s subordinates; Sitri, because she could do anything, and Lucia, because she was always helping out. She probably just couldn’t stand to see her brother make a fool of himself.

Eva eased up a bit and sighed as she shook her head.

“It’s quite all right. The trouble here has already settled down. There’s a report on your desk, but a battle between Hidden Curse and the remnants of Akashic Tower wreaked havoc throughout the capital. I called them remnants, but it seemed Akashic Tower still had quite a number still in hiding. As such, emergency assistance was requested from First Steps and we had to mobilize quite a number of members.”

“That, uh, that sounds like quite the ordeal.”

Now I was really glad I had gone on that vacation. The leader of Hidden Curse, the Abyssal Inferno, was a terrifying Magus. How terrifying? So terrifying that the mere mention of her name would bring a look of displeasure to Lucia’s face. In my head, I referred to her as the pyromaniac lady because she burned everything in sight. If anyone could be described as a witch, it was her.

Not to mention she had a bone to pick with me. The matter had already been solved at this point, but when Grieving Souls was first founded, we reached out to a party that Hidden Curse already had their sights set on. Then, for some reason, said party chose to join up with us. That party ended up being our second most troublesome one—Starlight. After that, I was never again able to walk confidently through the streets of the imperial capital.

If that scary old hag was involved, then it was perfectly natural that Sven Anger came out looking like a corpse. There was no way I could handle a person who treated even Ark like a mere child and took joy in immolating people. It was a genuine mystery how she was still allowed to walk the streets as a free woman.

“To make matters worse, the other Magus was a real monster,” Eva said, layers of fatigue coloring her voice. “Can you believe it? I hear they tried to summon a lightning elemental. A lightning elemental in a crowded space!”

Sounds like hell.

Elemental summoning was one of the most challenging feats of magic possible. We just made Lucia summon a water elemental so she could create waterfalls, but some were powerful enough to be classified as a strategic offensive arm. Even I knew that those weren’t something you should use in a place packed with bystanders. That’s a magic syndicate for you.

What a disaster. I remembered that Arnold had apparently defeated a lightning elemental, but an elemental following the directions of a skilled Magus was magnitudes stronger than a wild one.

“And what do you think the Abyssal Inferno did when she heard about it?!” Eva asked. “She summoned the fire elemental she’s contracted with! She responded to force with more force! In the middle of the imperial capital! Completely unbelievable. This is the issue with Level 8s...”

I feel like I should apologize.

“Good thing the imperial capital’s still standing,” I offered.

Eva looked quite aggrieved.

When I first saw the damage to the imperial capital, I wondered if a war had broken out or something. But that all changed when I heard that the Abyssal Inferno summoned an elemental. Instead, I thought it was a miracle that the damage was this limited. There were rumors that that old lady had torched entire treasure vaults and it wasn’t too hard to believe.

“I’m not up to date on the specifics, but I heard that summoning elementals was quite taxing for both sides,” Eva said.

“Hmm, that’s fortunate.”

“They say the lightning elemental was especially draining on its summoner and the duel was resolved quite swiftly. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky.”

Elemental summoning involved summoning an existing elemental and then commanding it. The resulting force was dependent on both the capabilities of the caster as well as the condition of the elemental.

Naturally, the elemental was free to do as it pleased when it wasn’t being commanded by its Magus. Plus there was a delay between when it was summoned and when it actually showed up, making it a very finicky sort of magic. There were even tales of elementals being wiped out and not showing up when their Magus summoned them.

Lucia, by the way, used hers for making waterfalls, so she kept her elemental in a bottle that she carried on her. That was no easy accomplishment, but she had always had a knack for training animals. She was the one who’d taught my Hounding Chain how to shake.

But now that it was all over, this conflict was none of my business. I brushed aside the report on my desk and opened up my personal box of hot spring dragon manju (it was a twenty-piece box). I had purchased as many boxes as I could so I still had around thirteen left.

As I stuffed my cheeks with a strawberry-flavored manju, Eva said something quite strange to me.

“Oh, Krai, about the Gathering of the White Blade...”

“Hm? Mmgh. Ack, ack. Ah, that. Sorry that I missed it. But it’s not like I was playing arou—”

Eva looked at me and blinked, puzzled.

“Hm? Oh, no, it was put on hold. It’s in three days. I was worried about whether or not to notify them of your absence, but now I don’t have to worry about that. I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”