Chapter 31 - Backyard of a Stray Priest (1)
This is a prequel to the main story.
There are some minor spoilers, but they are unrelated to the story development.
"Now then, everyone's gathered, so let's begin."
When Beatrix spoke up, those who were lying on the bed also sat up.
Tonight is a meeting of the Class of 175.
A room in the orphanage. It's Beowulf's room.
It's also Will's shared room.
One bunk bed, two desks and chairs. Two large boxes used for storage.
A south-facing window.
Orphanage rooms are just this much.
A luxurious canopy bed like in a princess's room in a fairy tale, a chest where dresses can be stored without folding, a sofa and table for chatting with friends—such things are not to be hoped for.
Though, for the person sleeping on the bottom bunk, you could say it has a canopy.
However, you have to be careful, or you'll hit your head the moment you jump up.
When we moved in, there were two bunk beds on the east wall and two desks and chairs on the west wall. But nobody uses them like that.
The beds were moved to the window, and the middle of the room is divided in two by a sheet.
To be honest, it's cramped, but privacy is important.
There's still an hour until lights out.
Tonight, eight people gathered in this small room again.
What we're talking about is my life plan.
The eight of us always decide to meet in Beowulf and Will's room.
When we gather, we take down the dividing sheet, and everyone except the room's owners sits on the beds or on chairs they brought from their own rooms.
Beowulf is a guard apprentice, so her room is well-organized.
There's nothing on the desk. The drawers are also neatly arranged.
Her change of clothes is folded and stored in the storage box, and there's nothing left lying around.
After all, in the guards, if you leave a tool lying around after using it, you'll get yelled at and apparently have to do a hundred push-ups.
Her roommate Will is also a warrior who practices with a spear, so she's equally tidy.
I wish Beatrix and the other friends would follow their example.
Because of that, the room we gather in is always the same.
The orphanage is three stories high; the first floor has common areas like the workshop, classrooms, dining hall, and baths, as well as the teachers' rooms.
The second floor is for boys.
The third floor is for girls.
The third floor is off-limits to boys, and right after going up the stairs, the orphanage's strongest duo, Beowulf and Will, are waiting.
Any wicked boys trying to come up are immediately sanctioned.
Of course, both of them welcome such brave souls. It serves as practical training.
So, the room door is basically left open.
"Okay, Beowulf. Please explain."
The facilitator is Beatrix.
Because she's the oldest member of the Class of 175.
That said, everyone is the same age, so it only differs by months. When we talked about not fighting over who would be the facilitator, it somehow became Beatrix. She just happened to be the oldest. In short, it was an afterthought, but it's working out well, so it's fine.
With a nod, Beowulf, who is in charge of tonight's explanation, began to speak.
"The guards' duties include monster extermination near the town, and there are two types: regular duties and emergency call-out duties. Regular duties involve exterminating monsters that often appear near the town, and emergency call-out duties are based on emergency reports from regular people—so to speak, high-risk duties."
Monsters usually stay in the forests or mountains, but depending on the weather, they run out of food and come near human settlements. Being monsters, they are large, strong, and unafraid of humans. There seems to be damage every year, and I've occasionally heard the adults talking about various things.
"Emergency call-out duties have an allowance, but regular duties are within the salary for the guards. However, if a regular person exterminates a monster, a special reward is paid. The amount of the reward is determined by the strength of the monster."
So that means a regular person can earn more by exterminating them.
"The ones that appear around this town are the lowest, F-rank, so you get ten copper coins for exterminating one. This doesn't change no matter how many people go. Usually, a monster extermination squad is formed by the guards, and they patrol places where monsters often appear about three times a week and exterminate them as soon as they find them."
If you do rat extermination in the underground sewers, you can encounter ten of them in one patrol. Saying that, Beowulf finished her explanation.
Rat extermination, huh. [Holy] works on monsters, so if I hit them right, I can defeat them.
Ten of them would be a hundred copper coins, which means five silver coins. Three times a week, twelve times a month—sixty silver coins would be plenty.
"What do you think, Jeanne?"
Beowulf turned to me, and everyone looked at my face.
"Ten copper coins per rat isn't bad earnings. If rat monsters can be defeated with [Holy], I might be able to do it. But I can't use magic ten times a day."
"Are you planning to do it alone? I think that would be quite difficult."
"Eh, how many people do it?"
"The guards usually have five people."
Five? Then the earnings are also one-fifth? Twelve silver coins a month...
"Why do they do it with five people?"
"Because the rats are strong."
Everyone looked at each other at once.
"They're rats, right?"
"They're rats. But they're monsters. They're about the size of a dog walking around there."
"Eeeeeeh! That's impossible, they're too big!"
Matilda suddenly raised her voice and dropped out.
She is extremely bad with rats. Apparently, she had experiences of being bitten by normal rats many times before coming to the orphanage.
She had been throwing a tantrum, saying she didn't even want to hear this talk.
Beatrix had coaxed her into attending by saying it was a talk about exterminating the rat monsters she hated.
"Can you defeat them? Those things?"
It was a problem before the earnings. I only have [Holy] as a means to fight back. If I get counterattacked, it'll all be for nothing.
"What do you think a rat's weakness is?"
Beatrix looked at everyone's faces.
"Cats!"
"Poison!"
"Snakes!"
"Tails!"
Everyone said various things like a word association game, but Beatrix just shook her head.
"Is it not us, humans?"
Will... if you say that, it solves everything.
"I know!"
"What? Lyudmila, tell us?"
"Fire!"
"Fire?"
Everyone looked puzzled.
"I see. Even if they're monsters, they're beasts, so they're bad with fire."
It was Bonnie. This girl has been enthusiastic from the start.
"Who among us can use fire magic?"
Beatrix and Lyudmila raised their hands.
"In other words, if there's Jeanne who uses [Holy], and someone who can use fire magic—for example, me—and one more person, we might be able to manage somehow, right?"
Combining two people's worth, we could use magic ten times. We might be able to defeat ten of them.
But Beowulf was tilting her head.
"I wonder. When there are many, four or five of them stick together. It's a question of whether you can counter them with just magic when they come at you."
"They come at you! Sorry, it's absolutely impossible for me. Please give up on me participating."
Mary collapsed face-down on the bed. She just closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.
"What do you think we should do?"
If there are six people, the talk can continue. Having judged that, Beatrix proceeded with the conversation, leaving the two who had declared their withdrawal alone.
"We need a tank. If we can stop the rats from jumping at us, we can probably defeat them with magic."
A tank... there's only Beowulf.
"Based on Beowulf's story, with three people, we can expect to earn one gold coin a month from rat extermination. And if we handle rat extermination well, won't we be able to exterminate other monsters?"
"That's right. The guards are also in charge of foxes and boars living around the town. And besides the extermination rewards, if we collect medicinal herbs or hunt forest beasts while we're at it, our income will increase by that much."
"Hunting, huh. That's nice. I want to do it."
With that, the fifth person was confirmed.
"If it's not rats, I can help."
"Then I'll do the herb collecting."
The two who had withdrawn from the front lines returned.
"Umu. Our opinions are starting to align."
Will... well, anything is probably fine for her.
A monster exterminator, huh.
Defeating monsters is one of a priest's duties. I'm not good at fighting, but there will be times when my comrades get injured. It might be perfect for me, as I can use [Holy] and [Heal].
This meeting, which started with the condition that everyone would bring one idea, finally had an answer.
Shop clerk, guard, farmer, hunter—various stories had come up, but all of them were out of consideration for me, a priest, so that I could be independent. Unfortunately, no job that could be balanced with being a priest was found.
Of course, if I belong to the church, I won't have trouble living. But I'll be stuck in the church.
Then I won't be able to fulfill my promise to everyone. We're going to earn money together.
"It seems we've reached a conclusion. Then, I'll go to the town hall tomorrow and ask for details."
Beatrix wrapped it up, and the meeting ended.
In the end, as a result of the talk that night starting to roll along well, I decided not to belong to the church.