Upon walking back from the forest into the wide gates of the sparkling white city walls, I slowed down to a mere limp as I was exhausted from hauling the large potato sack across what seemed to be miles.
"Haa…Haa…! Can we stop here? My back and arms are killing me right now."
"Really… Can you not even lift a potato bag? Don't see one being a genius if he can't even do basic tasks..."
I fell onto the ground completely drained from the task.
"It's called working smarter not harder. I used to avoid such novice tasks,"
She nudged me to get up.
"Not yet."
"What is this, a intermission break?"
"Yes, I'm tired now. Let me rest. We'll go when I'm ready again."
She sighed. "Okay, I really don't have time for this…"
She picked up the potato bag and walked off casually with our shared quest prize.
"Hold on wait!" I briskly paced after her. Can't let her have it that easy.
She continued to walk down a main avenue and stopped suddenly at an intersection.
I was hunched over panting. "Finally you took the hint and stopped. It's almost like you wanted to run off with my share of the quest?"
"What share? I was the one who defeated the golem alone after all." She said this with a somewhat blank expression.
My eyes narrowed down as I gazed upon this girl. Was she just messing with me or was something else going on.
She looked in her notebook briefly and hastily said with renewed smugness, "Oh yeah the 75-25 deal we had. With the amount of effort you put into helping me in this quest, I just forgot that you actually did something worth even considering."
My patience in standing the ever-increasing sarcastic tone of this strange girl was certainly running out.
"Anyways… do you know which path leads back to the Lodge. We apparently took a different route than my usual one."
She looked in both directions of the road and paused for a moment."How would I know? This is my first day here. I just assumed the distinguished prodigy would be kind enough to assist a girl in need."
"I'm not your typical gullible white knight, Miss Scarlet. Besides, I just haven't been in this area yet, that's all. Might as well ask one of the townsfolk around for directions then." I started to walk towards a shopkeeper to ask for help.
Her face seemed to resent this idea and stopped me by grabbing my hand. "No, I think we should just pick a route. We don't need to ask directions from strangers. That would just be bothersome."
I looked "I can see why you're the smart one between us. Walking around aimlessly when we can just ask someone. What an amazing idea!" I finally had an opportunity to get back at this girl so I planned to take it.
She looked at me with a flaring temper. Her violet eyes with flickers of red appeared to ignite with a renewed vigour as she stomped her way towards me.
"If I recall correctly, I'm not the one who couldn't even activate his own weapon and knocked himself out in the middle of a fight." She began to make a mocking impression of me.
"You were watching the whole time? Way to help out your partner. I see you're just as scummy as you make me to be. What do you say about that?
"You little pompous son of…" She began to bubble with anger as she walked right up to me. Fantastic, I always wanted to deal with girls with temper. When I first was told this was going to be a light novel world, I was looking forward to its splendor and fantastic cliches. So far all I got was part-time jobs, guild members that constantly ridicule me, and now a C-grade waifu who didn't even seem that appealing. What a wonderful world to live in...
She had her hand raised in a fist, but pulled back as she sighed deeply. She then took a step back and crossed her arms. "Look, we can argue all we want and get nowhere. Not like I would prefer to bear another moment with some pretentious guy. Now, I would insist we find something to do other than asking someone around…it would be better that way…"
She avoided looking at my eyes as I stared confusingly at her. Odd, she calmed down. Though she didn't appear to backing down anytime soon. For the sake of getting that reward faster, I'll step down and allow this girl to win for now.
"Fine, we won't ask strangers for directions… there are you happy now?"
She brushed aside her hair. "Hmmm. Trust me, it's better this way. People don't always live up to your expectations." She seemed to tap her foot rapidly as she said that while avoiding eye contact.
I briefly questioned the intent and reason of that statement.
"Let's take the left lane then shall we?"
I tried to put together what exactly made this girl tick as we walked down the lane.
As storm clouds began to form upon the cusp of night, we saw the guild lodge in the distance.
"See. I didn't need anyone to help me after all."
"You mean we didn't need anyone to help us? What's so bad about relying on people?"
She punched me in the gut.
"Yeah, that's what I said. We didn't need anyone's help. Now let's get going. The sooner we get our prize, the sooner we don't have deal with each other."
"Agreed. Next time, you don't have to punch me." I wheezed as I got up from the incredibly strong punch for a girl her size. Sometimes I forget this is a light novel world with all the mundanity of my world at times.
"Where would the fun be in that?"
Inside the adventurers guild room, Helena and Suzy presented us with our reward as we handed them the sack of truffle oil infused potatoes.
"Here's the reward for the quest, 500,000 Eris. Thank you so much for taking that quest."
"Yeah Helena and I have been dying to make some potato wedges and baked potatoes with these. I can already see the satisfied faces of our customers when we use this tomorrow night!"
Helena and Suzy turned their attention to me as I gave half of my portion to Scarlet.
"Wow, that's a first time we have ever seen Koman so generous. By the way, how did he treat you? We know that he can be a handful at times." Helena stated.
"What do you mean? I'm certainly the most generous Crimson Rose you know!"
"Doesn't help that we only know one Crimson Rose guild member. You're certainly the most interesting one. I still remember the time he took off his shirt and almost unzipped his pants the first night he met us." Suzy added.
Scarlet looked at me with a mixture of smugness and anticipation as she awaited my response to this testimony.
"Oh really? And I thought he was enough of a delinquent as is."
"Well just wait a second. The circumstances at the time were different. It's not like I was trying to be a degenerate…"
"Don't have to try when you're already a degenerate right?"
Helena and Suzy burst out giggling as I was completely flustered at Scarlet's comment.
"By the way, do you have any rooms available?"
"Unfortunately, all the rooms are taken and our worker dormitory is filled to the brim. Sorry about that."
"It's alright I will just depart onwards to the next city then."
"Anyways we got to get back to work. Keep an eye on this pesky rogue now, would you?"
"I suppose, though by the way things are looking, he'll certainly keep an eye on me. You probably know this boy's perverted antics better after all."
The two receptionist girls giggled more intensely as they walked away whilst hearing this.
This girl! I have never meet someone so adept in absolutely demolishing another person's ego so fast. It's astonishing just how slick she is able to do it as well.
"Alright, it's been nice meeting you, I guess, but I got to get going."
She abruptly grabbed my shoulder. She looked at the window then at me. This girl just doesn't know when to stop bothering me.
"I know this is much to demand, but… but will you le-le-let me …"
She seemed to almost puke upon saying the words, so it must be hard for her to say what she is about to say. Might as well prolong her suffering.
"What was that? My dumb degenerate ears couldn't catch that."
Her face welled up with a overwhelming coloration of red. I wonder how far I can take this little game.
"Will you le-le-let me stay..?"
"WHAT! I COULDN'T HEAR YOU! PLEASE SPEAK LOUDER!"
Her blazing eyes began to simmer at a low flame as if she was withdrawing all her immense anger and frustration inside as I continued to act the fool she proposed me to be.
She withdrew her hand as I turned my full attention to her slightly quivering self.
"C'mon you can use words right? You know the parts of language you use to speak with. It's a key to socializing with people."
"Oh trust me, if there's anyone who needs to learn to adequately socialize, it would be you." She appeared to want to bang her head into a wall with the amount of indecision she was displaying. "Will you let me stay the night?" She clenched her fist and gritted her teeth as hard as she can as she uttered those words slowly with clearly visual discomfort.
"Wait what."
The drops of the rain rang into my ears and I heard the distant roar of the thunder outside the pub. It was heavily pouring outside with no clear sign of ceasing.
She paused as if she forgot what she was about to say. She then skimmed through her notebook briefly which she put away after finding what she wanted. "I was going to depart onwards to the next town, but there's a thunderstorm outside. Since I have no other place to go, so I thought it would be best to stay with you."
My face turned a massive grin. "Oh how the mighty have fallen. I suppose I can lend my indispensable assistance to you. Of course for a price."
Scarlet broke her reserved state and bluntly said with a renewed coldness. "No, you're not getting a peek at my undies or anything of the sort. I would rather be a fool who gets defeated by cabbages than have some guy have his way with me. Plus I would most likely beat the shit out of you if you tried."
"How dare you. I would never do anything of the sorts. Also, for your information, cabbages are fearsome foes." My face blushed at her direct verbal attack on my self-worth as a human being.
"Sure they are. Anyways, what's your price then?"
Hmm what was my price? Money is nice but I didn't come to this world just to make cash. I was a bit lonely as I only have Circe as a very annoying sister. Honestly, I just wanted to go on the whimsical adventures with a rag-tag group of companions. That way I can eventually make the toilet goddess suffer. Hmm.
I stuck my head upward whilst saying, "Fine, I'll let you stay the night only if you let me tag along on one of your quests. That's all I will ask. Besides, I'm not the type to make a girl uncomfortable or empty her hard earned money when she needs help."
Her face began to shift from the frustration to slight approval.
"Maybe you're not a degenerate after all. Though, I would have preferred anything else than to be with you. Guess I have no choice. Alright then, sure you can tag along I suppose."
"Can you quit the whole degenerate thing? It's starting to annoying me."
As she started to make her way out of the guild hall into the main lobby she smugly said, "Now where would the fun in that be?"
We then walked upstairs the guild lodge and into my room.
"Tada. Welcome to the room of a Crimson Rose. It's not much but hey it's home."
She looked puzzlingly at my somewhat messy room that was filled with japanese light novels, foods, and products scattered across the medium-sized room.
My light novels were cluttered on my table and anime girl posters were on the wall. Shit. I forgot to hide those. Oh well.
"Why do you have 12-years girls in vibrantly bright colored clothing posted all over your walls? Also… why is there so many scantily clothed women on the cover of your books?"
"You want to stay the night or do you prefer to sleep in the rain?
"I would prefer to stay the night as one with a brain would. A bit hard for you to imagine I would assume."
"Then stop judging my life choices. Gosh you sound a lot like my mother with all the constant nagging and subtle insults."
She slightly chuckled at my comment.
"Anyways. You can take a shower in the bathroom first while I clean up the room. I am a gentleman after all." I tossed her a towel.
"You better not try to do anything perverted with me tonight or…" She pulled out her short sword and made a slicing motion at the crotch.
I gulped. "Why would I do that? A man of honor such as myself wouldn't even dare peek at a maiden whilst she is in revealing attire."
"Something about the way you said that makes me think you have done something of the sorts."
Damn what kind of insight does she have to know that? Though the castle scene wasn't intentional, for the most part, so that doesn't count.
"Just hurry up and don't use all the hot water. I especially hate the despicable people that steal all the hot water from their roommates."
She walked in the bathroom as I cleaned up my room.
After we both took a shower, we dressed in our sleeping attire and got ourselves for bed. I wore some fuzzy red cotton pajama set that came nicely with a sleeping cap. Scarlet wore a worn out pair of silver and violet pajamas that matched her adventurer attire. Not as sexy as that one Arch Priestess's one-piece, but still good-looking nevertheless.
I pulled out my spare futon that I sometimes used as extra comfortable padding to sleep on the floor while Scarlet got to sleep in my normal bed. As gentleman would do for a lady.
Scarlet seemed to be writing some notes in her notebook again while she was sitting upright on the bed. What was with this girl and constantly looking at her notebook?
"What do you even write in that notebook anyways?" I said while sitting up from my futon.
She snapped out of what seemed to be a trance and turned to me, realizing after a couple of moments that I was talking to her.
She shifted uncomfortably at the mention of her notebook. "Oh, it's nothing to worry about. I suppose you can call it a little journal of mine. Though I would think you're more familiar with reading more lewd books noting the sheer amount of girls posted on your walls.
"Oi. I told you to stop that if you wanted to stay."
"And just what are you going to do about it? Hit yourself on the head again?"
"FOR YOUR INFORMATION…"
I stopped to notice her face trying to suppress the laughter welling up in laughter. I then furiously ranted on as she began to giggle uncontrollably. Her constant joking was getting on my nerves.
"With all facts about your wholesome habits aside, thank you. I appreciate you letting me stay the night Koman." Her words seemed genuine, a refreshing change from the heaps of sarcasm and condescending remarks she made so far. Her eyes twinkled with a more calm and tranquil violet, as mesmerizing as the spring night sky back at home.
"Don't mention it. Actually mention it a lot. I'm a genius in the making after all. Feel free to lay as much praise as you desire."
"Duly noted Koman. Anyways good night." She tucked herself in and turned to the wall.
"Good night Scarlet."
I tucked myself in and began to stare at the wall in contemplation.
She's not bad, as long as she isn't constantly barraging me with insults.
Additionally, I was about to go on an adventure with this mysterious girl across a fantasy world.
No more part-time at the pub. No more ridicule from the people around me. No more scraping by as a nobody.
I get to now realize my dream for once in my life.
Things are finally looking up. I suppose. Though I have been wrong before...
I closed my eyes in anticipation of the certainly interesting beginning to come.