The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 9 - Chapter 436

Chapter 436:

Terrible and Tragic

“I’M BACK… OOH, SOMETHING SMELLS GOOD.”

My father and I were sitting down to a dinner of improvised gyuu-don when the guild master returned, lines of fatigue in his face. Juggy was with him, eyeing what was in my hands with curiosity.

“Would you like some, sir? I can make you a bowl in no time.”

“Oh, really? That stuff you’re eating looks…very peculiar.” The guild master meandered over to us and stared skeptically at the gyuu-don on the plate. I gave him a curious look back. He seemed more than tired—I sensed a sort of desperation and hopelessness in his eyes. Had something happened to him?

“That really does smell good. Can I have some? What about you, Juggy?”

“Do you have enough for me as well?”

“Of course, sir. Will anyone else be joining us?” If Nalgath and the others would be coming, I might not have quite enough to go around.

“No, it’s just us.”

“Got it. Wait just a moment.”

“It’s okay, go ahead and finish eating yours first.”

“All right.” I hurried through the rest of my own gyuu-don before heading off to the kitchen to cook more for the guild master and Juggy. I had made enough for there to be leftovers, so the pot still had plenty. While I transferred it to smaller bowls to reheat, I took some hot rice out of the magic box I kept in the kitchen.

“Lemme help,” Juggy said, popping his head into the kitchen.

“Oh, but there’s actually nothing to do, sir.”

“Really?”

“Yes. All I need to do is pour the stuff on this rice and it’s done.”

“Dang, that’s fast. By the way, what kind of meat are you using?”

“A few different types. This time, I’ve got five or six kinds. I just add all the leftover bits I happen to have.” I really loved how you could make the dish tasty in a whole new way by swapping out the meat. “Oh, also, would you like me to add some hexafruit?” Lately, I’d managed to stop calling them “eggs” instead of hexafruit…though sometimes I still slipped up and would say “eggs.”

“Is it better with or without?” Juggy asked.

With or without? Hmm… It really depends on what you like.

“I like it better with hexafruit,” my father said, entering the room after overhearing our conversation.

“Then I’ll have mine with it, too.”

“Ivy, I’ll take one of those as well.”

Now both Juggy and the guild master were adding hexafruit. Once the stew was warm, I added a lightly warmed hexafruit on top and put it on the flame. Then I set all that on top of the rice. When I set the two portions before the men, they delightedly tucked in.

“Yum! What kind of meat is this?”

“It’s a mystery—I added all the little bits of leftover meat I happened to have.”

“Oh, did you? It tastes awfully good, considering.” The guild master was eating with such vigor that I was a little stunned. He finished his dinner and was staring at his empty plate before I knew it.

“We still have more, sir.”

“Oh… Could I?” The guild master awkwardly handed me his plate.

A smile filled my face. “Yes, sir.” When I took the plate, he smiled back. Oh, good. He looks calmer now. Maybe he’s been able to sort out his feelings a bit. I got him a second helping and set it in front of him. “Here you go.” I looked at Juggy’s plate and saw that he was already finished, too “Would you like some more?”

“No thanks, I’m full. It was delicious.”

The satisfied smile on Juggy’s face made me smile in turn. I really do love it when people say my cooking was delicious and mean it. After everyone had finished eating, I took all the plates back to the kitchen.

“You could have all stayed at the table and relaxed,” I told the guild master and Juggy as they washed plates and pots next to me. I’d suggested they all have some tea, but they insisted on thanking me by helping with the dishes. They tried to do all the work between the two of them, but that didn’t feel right to me, so I was helping, too.

“You could have stayed at the table and relaxed, Ivy,” the guild master sighed. 

Should I have? But wouldn’t it be rude for me to relax when the guild master and Juggy must have had a harder day than me?

My father poked his head into the kitchen. “Tea and dessert are ready. Are you all finishing up in here?”

“Yeah, we’re done.”

“Okay then, let’s all have a nice cup of tea!”

We returned to the room where we’d just eaten dinner and I sat beside my father.

“Guild Master…something happened, didn’t it?”

As the guild master and Juggy sat still, quietly sipping their tea, my father fixed a scrutinizing look on the guild master, who smiled sheepishly. I didn’t detect any of the earlier desperation or helplessness in his eyes, but he looked very sad.

“Damn. What gave it away?”

“Well, those eyes, for a start.”

The guild master took a long sip of tea. “When we got to the church…a lot of memories came back. I remembered the people who shoved me into that summoning circle.”

The guild master had an expression I couldn’t quite place… Was it resentment, or perhaps conflict?

“Chemanta, the former guild master who showed me the mental state and skills I needed for the job—he was the one who pushed me into the summoning circle, right along with Matorry.”

The former guild master?

“That bastard betrayed this village.”

“I’m so sorry…”

The guild master tearfully chuckled under his breath. When I saw the look in his eyes, I could feel the heavy weight pinning down his heart.

“We also found out what exactly they were doing in Hataka… They were conducting summoning circle experiments.”

Experiments? My father and I exchanged quizzical glances, then turned toward the guild master. He looked at my father and sneered bitterly. “We found letters in the bishop’s room with orders on which summoning circles to use. Then they charted out the results of their experiments—we found those papers, too.”

Oh my God!

“We arrested the bishop who had the letters and the priest who was activating the summoning circle. Chemanta wasn’t anywhere to be found, and he hasn’t been around Hataka lately anyway. He probably skipped town long ago.” The guild master tightly clenched his fists.

“We’re going to search the entire village tomorrow afternoon,” Juggy said, keeping an eye on the guild master as he spoke. “We’re looking for the former guild master Chemanta, Matorry the tamer, and Agache, Mitoria, and Sasaela—all mid-level adventurers.”

A search of the entire village? And I wonder how those mid-level adventurers are involved?

“Why are you looking for those mid-level adventurers?”

“Since their names were mentioned in the letters, we’ve concluded that they must have been accomplices, and so we added them on our list. Also, the ringleader probably sent in Sasaela as a mole among the adventurers.”

“Ah.”

A mole among the adventurers? What for?

“Um, why do you think Sasaela was sent in, sir?”

The guild master gave me a quizzical look. “To keep track of the progress, I imagine.”

Keep track of the progress? “But what progress, sir?”

“To see how long it takes…before people are no longer useful.”

To see how long people are useful? Does he mean to see how long they can last before they lose their minds? How terrible!

“Do you know who was sending the orders?” my father asked.

The guild master and Juggy shook their heads. “Whoever sent those letters didn’t say a single thing about themselves. We’re going back to the church tomorrow for another search. I only hope we find something.”

“What about the bishop and priest?”

“We’re figuring out if they’ve been poisoned—and also if they’ve been cursed.”

Poisoned? Cursed? I have heard of crime organizations making their lackeys poison themselves if they’re captured so they can’t leak information, but would the priest and bishop actually do that? And what kind of curse would they be under?

“What kind of curse, sir?”

“From what the captain learned in his last run-in with a summoning circle, there’s a curse that kills the victim if it’s activated by a trigger word.”

How terrifying.

“He said he wanted to check to see if they were cursed. If they are, he wants us to find a way to free them, no matter how long it takes. There’s a lot we’d like to ask them, you know.”

I would think so! But my goodness, it really seems like these people who love summoning circles have no regard for human life whatsoever. They run experiments on them, cast them aside without a care…and it’s just so very tragic.