Luge found it amusing and was about to chat a few more words with the little guy, but who'd have thought that the moment the little guy finished speaking, he turned and ran off.
He stood in the courtyard, lost in thought for a moment, then looked again at Kaliu's tightly shut door. Even though Kaliu had just told him not to disturb him, Luge suddenly remembered that he seemed to have no money on him. The few storage pouches taken from that wild wizard ought to have some, but those pouches were either damaged or had been flicked off by Baonte with his sword to somewhere under a dancer's skirt in the great hall, and Kaliu hadn't given him the time to go looking for them.
He thought it over and, with no other choice, knocked on the door again.
It wouldn't feel right to just take the money for free—better to trade a few magic stones for it! Luge thought.
Back in Mystery City, he'd actually already realized one thing: he was a genuine wild wizard himself, and by one of the several common ways wild wizards come to be—picking up someone else's things and stumbling into the supernatural. If it weren't for the Half-Man, the present Kaliu, then he'd probably be just as Kaliu had said at the dinner table, scraping by as a low-rank apprentice spellcaster in some third-rate mercenary band or adventurer group, his whole life perhaps depending on a single Fire Bolt to get by.
But even that wouldn't have been so bad—getting by with a belly full of food and drink was a life as well, Luge thought with a chuckle.
Bang, bang, bang!
After a long while with no answer, he put more force into it and knocked three more times.
With the force of his blows, the door slowly opened a crack.
He gave it a light push, and the gap widened bit by bit. A decent-enough room came into view—the so-called sturdiness here just meant the heavy use of a certain kind of stone. He looked all around the stone room, slowly stepped inside, and then walked over to the inner chamber.
He scratched his head; things had turned out a little beyond his expectations.
Kaliu was gone!
He thought back to the scene of their first meeting and began to probe with his mental power, but after all that effort he came up with nothing.
Could he have died? Crumbled into ash?
Luge let his imagination run wild.
To think that his true wild-wizard life would suddenly begin in such a fashion—he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He shook his head. Best not to dwell on it for now.
He turned and shut the door, went back to his own room, and lay down on the long-missed bed. The lower half of the bed was made of stone blocks too; it seemed those burrowing worms had well and truly frightened the Abyss Den people. After his usual meditation, he drifted off to sleep.
Alongside his surprise and disappointment, he actually felt a kind of relief as well. After all, the Half-Man was far too mysterious, utterly impossible to read. Whatever happened, Luge still had to keep moving forward, so it was worth taking it easy—this was a day worth relaxing. What's more, Kaliu had brought him into the human world, where he could come into contact with supernatural power, and that alone was already enough. And he was probably stronger than an ordinary wild wizard, and he even had a curio in hand.
A scream of agony jolted him awake.
He strode out into the courtyard and saw an unfamiliar figure lying in a pool of blood, one leg already gone, and for no apparent reason a hole had opened up in his courtyard.
A burrowing worm?
The man had already passed out from the pain.
Looking at him, Luge was at a momentary loss. How was this sort of thing handled in the Abyss Den? Just toss him out?
"Hey, big guy!"
At the sound, the street kid came running over, stopping at that same spot as last time.
"You two have definitely been marked. Anyone can tell at a glance you're not from the Abyss Den, and word of you must have already been sold off. He probably came to steal something. Give me a bit of food and I can help you deal with him," the kid declared earnestly.
"I don't think so. I can handle it myself."
Even as he spoke, he finished casting Bull's Strength, hoisted the man out of the pool of blood with one hand, and struck a pose as if to hurl him.
Since becoming a dragonborn kobold, he had yet to use his full strength.
This courtyard was near the edge of the town to begin with, and he was confident he could throw the man clean out of the town in a single toss. The man was much lighter in his grip than expected, too—had to be a scrawny fellow.
He swung the man around twice in his grip, and just as he was about to let go and throw—
"Stop, stop! Stop, stop, stop!" the man hanging in his grip suddenly spoke up. "I was wrong, my big, mighty sir, I was wrong. I only wanted to get something to eat. It was him—he's the one who said you'd be easy to fool."
The fellow in his grip suddenly pointed at the kid behind the wall.
Smiling, Luge carried him over.
"And where's your leg? Tucked behind your back?" he said as he walked.
"Uh—begging your pardon, my lord, a burrowing worm bit it off by the roadside when I was small," the man said with a dry laugh.
Luge put on a bit of force and tossed the man down beside the kid behind the wall.
The kid looked thoroughly nervous. This was the first time he'd gotten a clear look at the kid's face—a grubby little face covered all over in scars, looking to be perhaps not yet ten, and right now a pair of wide eyes were fixed intently on his every move.
"This is all I've got." A fat grub appeared in his hand, and he took a big, vicious bite right in front of the kid, then went on. "If you want to eat, it's yours. Just don't come disturbing my sleep again."
He tossed more than half the grub over the wall.
The kid fumbled to catch it, then pulled the one-legged man up beside him, and the two of them bowed to him together.
Luge paid them no further mind. He turned, went to Kaliu's room, and searched once more—still no figure, and still no clue to be found.
He simply gave up on sleeping any more. He straightened his robe, pulled his hood on properly, and sauntered off toward the town.
"Mister! Mister!"
The kid came chasing up from behind.
"You're really strong, and you look fierce, too. I can put in a good word and get you into a great mercenary band," the kid said hurriedly at his back.
Luge didn't break stride; he only waved a hand back over his shoulder a couple of times and paid him no more attention.
He began to wander the town with purpose.
Blend in here, solve the money problem, try to make contact with other transcendents—spellcasters if possible, wild wizards ideally—and then get into that circle. Wild wizards were bound to have their own private ways of exchanging news and trading.
The more he thought about it, the more this really did seem a fine way to make contact with some mercenaries and adventurers.
The two groups actually overlapped a great deal. Adventurers mostly explored ruins and dangerous places in search of treasure, but now and then they moonlighted as mercenaries; mercenary bands were much the same, and sometimes even took up more promising professions like banditry on the side.
Wave after wave of clamor caught Luge's attention.
A great many people were crowded together there.
Luge shoved his way through as well. A group was preparing for an expedition and recruiting some temporary members—and they were sparing no expense.
Not only had they hired a whole party of adventurers, they'd brought on a mercenary band as well, and in recruiting members now they made it plain that a mysterious spellcaster was welcome, a wizard preferably. Of course, here that was just an ignorant honorific—what they meant was still an apprentice wizard, not a formal wizard.
A crowd of onlookers whispered among themselves.
Luge, meanwhile, rubbed his chin, rather tempted.
He was thinking that if he were to join in, what identity he ought to appear under—whether he should say he was an apprentice wizard—and then there was his looks: he didn't know whether they'd frighten these people into not daring to take him.
Chapter 81