Poppi Town

After another few minutes of walking, he managed to get out of the forest.

The town was just ahead of him.

When he arrived at the gate, the guard noticed him.

"Ah! Good morning, Nayari."

"Good morning, Mr.Rotgard. How's your son?"

Mr. Rotgard was one of his patient, or more correctly, his son was.

"He's been doing better thanks to your instruction and medicine! We can't thank you enough!"

He bowed down to Nayari.

A few months ago, when Nayari took a trip back to this town for restocking his ingredients, he came by a sickly child.

And with his help, the child step by step regained his health.

And his father, Mr.Rotgard, was very happy.

"It's nothing. How can I leave alone someone who's in pain?"

"But is it ok, not taking any fee? Your skills could have surpassed any pharmasists in our town!"

"It's fine! Don't worry about me! Ah, here's the next week doses of medicine. After this, if my calculation is correct, your son would be completely cured."

He let out a forced smile, before entering the town.

"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart." He could here the guard behind him as he continued walking.

During his two-year journey, he had helped and cured many patients. But not once did he charge them. He mostly made a living by selling the cores and parts of monsters he killed on the way.

The reason why he never charge anyone for his treatment was of his guilt.

He had done something terrible to his own village, and ran away.

He thought he did not deserve the people's trust.

He felt that he could atone for his sins by helping out people, but he knew the lives he had taken could never return.

After walking for a few miles, he stopped in front of a building.

The sign was imprinted a single word with a symbol of a sword and shield below it.

"Guild."

He opened the door to enter and was first greeted with the smell of booze.

Adventurers.

A bunch of loudsy selfish humans that only drink, fight and sleep.

Nayari didn't have a good impression on them due to the fact that he had met many problems regarding them in the past, like almost got his potions and moneys stolen many times if not for his combat experience.

But he had also met a few that were genuienely good people, so it wasn't too bad.

He pinched his nose so as not to inhale anymore of the booze's smell, and dashed his way toward the receptionist's table.

There were already an adventurer who was standing at the table, seemingly trying to hit on the woman behind the table.

"...After this, would you like to join me for a tea?"

"If you don't have anymore business, please leave as there are more people waiting in line."

"Tch..."

He turned around and left.

The silver-hair boy quickly stood at the table, placing his bag of cores onto the table.

The woman noticed and greeted him,

"Ah! Nayari, you're back!"

"...Good morning, big sister Iris."

The person who was called Iris by Nayari was the receptionist of this Guild post.

Everyday, she took care of organizing quests based on their Rank, then gave them out to appropriate adventurers.

She also bought the monster cores or parts from the adventurers with the money provided by the Guild.

"This is last week's harvest of monster cores."

"Last week...then you've already been back for a week already?"

"...Yes."

"Why didn't you say anything?! I was really worried about you, you know? Leaving suddenly one day without saying anything like that..."

The woman pouted.

"Sorry, sorry. I come here today to notify you my return, and to sell these."

He pointed at the bag.

She took ahold of the bag, before being taken by surprise by its weight.

"...It's still as much as before, huh...?"

"I'm sorry to bother you. Ah, to make it quick for you, there's a total of 134 cores, in which there are 79 slime cores, 38 wolf cores and 17 goblin cores."

"...Did you count every single one of them after every fight?"

"..."

"Let's see here, seventy-nine, plus thirty-eight multiply by two..."

"Ah, the total price of all of these cores are exactly two hundred and forty Fro."

"...Oi, are you letting me do my job as a receptionist?"

"...hahaha...I'm sorry."

He let out a wry smile.

"You really are a handful sometimes, you know?"

While preparing his money, her eyes landed on his clothes.

"Speaking of which, did you have new clothes or something?"

"Ah, these? They are the new set of uniform I just recently got from the school located in the capital. How do I look?"

"Eh? Uniform? You're finally going to school?! I'm so glad for you!"

"Thank you. That's leave me one more thing to say."

"Hmm?"

She handed him his bag of coins.

"I'm...retiring. From this day onward, I'm no longer an alchemist, but a normal student who attends school."

"Eh...EHH?!"