Chapter 51

Dodol was not a fool.

And yet, he had not noticed at all that someone had gotten behind him.

The fur all over Dodol’s body stood on end, and he froze stiff.

“I had a feeling you people might be looking for an adventurer.”

And on top of that, there were those words.

Everyone stopped breathing.

No way, right?

“Y-you are…?”

When Dodol finally managed to speak, the scar-faced man gave a grin and lightly shoved that huge body.

Dodol, whose back had been taken so easily, was overwhelmed and stepped aside.

Beyond the man who had appeared so suddenly stood yet another man, even more powerfully built than Kengo and clad in rugged armor. And that armor too was covered in an astonishing number of scars.

But it was not even that armor that made everyone gasp.

It was the condition of the beastman that man was supporting.

“Could it be… Tsatsaru?”

Gorgon’s voice came from behind us. Judging from the battered state of the beastman, he might have been one of Gorgon’s patients.

“Well now, old man Gorgon, so you were here.”

The scar-faced middle-aged man spoke in a cheerful voice, but everyone’s gaze was fixed on the beastman who could not walk on his own. He was that strange a sight.

That beastman wore bandages over both eyes, had no right arm, and his right leg barely moved either.

More than anything, the huge scar across his chest drew the eye.

“Heh heh, this smell takes me back.”

And yet, his voice was astonishingly normal. My mind could not keep up with the fact that, while he twitched his nose and spoke through the gap in his smiling fangs, he sounded like someone who had just stepped out for a casual stroll.

“It smells like a battle with everything on the line. And I see… there’s a fine-looking warrior here too.”

The nose of the beastman, who should not have been able to see, turned right, then left, and then toward Dodol.

“Heh.”

The beastman who looked closest to death in this place spoke, absurdly lively, while still leaning on the big man’s shoulder.

“We decided to make this place our final home. Didn’t want to let some lizard do as it pleased.”

What exactly was that supposed to mean?

The scar-faced middle-aged man answered the question in everyone’s eyes.

“This’ll be our final job. The reward is a lifetime pension for three people. Let’s say… a hundred imperial gold coins a month.”

My head could not keep up with the sudden words.

Could these people really be adventurers?

But the ships had sunk… no, they could not have come by ship, so they must already have been on the island.

No, there was no way things could work out that conveniently.

I tried to turn toward Marks, thinking, Aren’t they swindlers?, but ignoring both my shock and my doubts, the scarred beastman coolly said,

“Gerario, isn’t that too cheap?”

“I’m not into taking advantage of people when they’re cornered. Well, what do you say, little lady? You’re the cute young lord here, right?”

Drawn by the gaze of the man called Gerario, everyone’s eyes turned to Iiria.

Iiria, who had been clinging to Kururu with a fervor as though burning her life away, had calmed from the excitement and now looked dazed, like a girl who had just awakened from a nightmare.

That Iiria stared back at Gerario, forgetting even to blink.

“Y-you… you’ll kill the dragon—”

“Yeah, I’ll kill it.”

The middle-aged man spoke with such matter-of-fact certainty, like a self-appointed savior.

And then I noticed.

Gerario was wearing light armor too, and magic stones had been set into various parts of it.

“A lifetime pension of one hundred gold coins a month. I won’t knock off even a single copper.”

I immediately opened my mouth.

“Two hundred!”

Everyone’s eyes turned to me.

“But only if no one dies.”

For an instant, Gerario showed a dangerous look, but then his gaze turned to the ceiling as if considering something, and before long he grinned.

“All right, you’ve got a deal! You cover the expenses too!”

At the realistic word expenses, I almost started calculating costs and benefits, but even if you added up the entire company’s labor expenses, it only came to two thousand gold coins a year. Even if the payment doubled here, it would still unquestionably be worth it.

Because if we relied on Bax Company, they would probably charge enough to take everything from us.

“To think the last job of our adventuring life would be a dragon that appeared in a territory ruled by a little beast-eared lady. It’s laying it on a bit thick, but not bad material for a bard to sing about, eh?”

When Gerario looked back at his companions, the rugged man remained as rugged and sullenly silent as ever. The scar-covered beastman, Tsatsaru, cackled harshly.

“W-who are you people?”

Perhaps her mind had finally caught up with reality, because Kururu at last asked that.

Gerario placed a hand on the hilt of the longsword at his waist, shrugged, and answered.

“We’re the adventurers you were looking for.”

God might really exist after all.