Chapter 10

Chapter 10. The Damned Hell of Monthly Rent

After finishing his business at the Mercenary Guild, Balun returned to the inn.

He wanted to wash his filthy body clean.

It would certainly be convenient if he kept walking around like this, since no one would dare bother him, but he could not go on like that forever.

When he returned to the inn, the first thing he noticed was the wary gaze of the people avoiding him.

The only ones who welcomed him were Barel’s group, who were sipping alcohol on the first floor.

“Oh, Balun. You are back.”

“I will wash. Bring water.”

“Understood. I will tell the serving girl. But, were there no problems at the Mercenary Guild?”

“There were none.”

“That is a relief. The Mercenary Guild is practically a den of demons, so the fact that you went there and nothing happened is remarkable.”

“Mercenaries were kind.”

“K-Kind?”

“That is right.”

Barel was dumbfounded.

Kind mercenaries? What kind of nonsense was that? If the people of the world heard such a thing, they would all laugh.

But perhaps it was different when the person saying it was Balun.

‘Then again, Balun might well see it that way. No one short of a fool with nerves of steel would dare bother a man built like that.’

Barel stared at him.

At well over 190 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders, a body without a trace of excess fat, and firm muscle all over, he truly looked like the very embodiment of a powerful warrior.

And now that entire body was drenched in blood…

Barel quietly lowered his gaze.

If he kept looking, Balun seemed less like a man and more like some tiger that had leaped straight out of hell.

Just then, the serving girl approached.

The moment she saw Balun, she flinched. Apparently frightened of him, she did not come any closer and instead moved toward Barel to whisper to him that the bathwater was ready.

“Balun, let us go wash. They say the bathwater is ready.”

“All right.”

“You are lucky. They say this place offers hot baths. A real windfall. Inns with hot baths are rare.”

At that, Balun nodded, then tilted his head.

It struck him as strange that warm water had already been prepared.

To heat bathwater, they would have to start a fire and feed it with wood, which ought to take a fair amount of time, but it had not even been three minutes since they had asked the serving girl to prepare it.

Physically, that made no sense.

“Barel. Does this place have a boiler?”

“A boiler? What is that?”

“Never mind. I will go wash it.”

Balun washed himself for the first time in a long while.

The moment he sank into the wooden tub filled with hot water, tears of emotion welled up on their own. His whole body seemed ready to melt from the sheer comfort.

‘Huuuh, this is wonderful. This is heaven. Heh.’

Balun thought back on the days behind him.

How hard had it been to wash himself with freezing water every winter?

But now he no longer had to do that.

He could enjoy the civilizing luxury of a hot bath.

Balun, warrior of the Red Fang Tribe, age sixteen.

This year, he took the first hot bath of his life.

***

After washing, he finally set out in earnest to go shopping.

Barel had agreed to help him.

It seemed he was truly worried about the barbarian, considering he had personally volunteered to act as his shopping guide.

There were many things Balun wanted.

Clean, soft clothes. Armor to protect his body. New weapons. Good food. A cozy home of his own…

He decided to take care of them one by one.

The first thing he bought was clothes.

He stopped by the city’s one and only clothing shop, bought several things, and put them on, and once again tears of emotion sprang to his eyes.

Balun looked himself over in his new appearance.

Cotton trousers, a linen tunic, sturdy leather boots, and a leather belt hung with plenty of loops…

Looking at himself dressed that way, he thought,

‘I look like some gym rat walking down the street.’

A memory from his previous life came to him.

That was exactly what a tall bodybuilder he had once seen on television had looked like.

“Oh! Balun! Dressed like that, you look splendid! You seem like a completely different person! Ha ha!”

“Is that praise?”

“What? Ah, o-of course it is!”

“You are lying.”

“What? N-No, I am not. How could I ever lie to you, Balun…?”

Barel seemed to be sweating a little for some reason, but Balun decided not to press the matter.

A gym rat was still far better than a barbarian. A hundred times better.

‘Now then, should I go buy armor?’

He already knew where to go.

He had noticed a weapons and armor shop near the Mercenary Guild while on his way there earlier.

And it was obvious why it was there.

If you wanted to sell weapons, you had to do business next to the kind of men who lived by the blade.

On the way to the shop, Barel asked,

“By the way, Balun, what are your plans from here?”

“My plans?”

“Yes. As I mentioned this morning, we intend to leave Milford tomorrow afternoon, but it does not seem likely that you will be coming with us.”

At that, Balun stroked his chin.

That was something he had also been considering.

Should he follow Barel, or part ways here?

For now, he decided to ask.

“Where are you going?”

“Ah, we are headed to Roendel, the capital of the Kingdom of Corinth. That is where the headquarters of the Barrel Merchant Company is. Ah, and the Kingdom of Corinth lies directly south of this Kingdom of Grandia.”

“Is that city big?”

“What? Ah, yes. Our base is the capital of the Kingdom of Corinth, so of course it is large.”

“How large? How many people live there?”

“Well… I have never counted them, but surely more than one hundred thousand.”

“I see.”

Balun crossed his arms and nodded.

If it was that large, then it truly was a major city.

And since it was the capital of a kingdom, public order would probably not be too bad.

“How many houses are there?”

“What? Houses?”

“That is right. I am asking how much houses cost.”

“Ah, well…”

Barel was flustered.

He still could not understand this barbarian.

He was asking about housing prices? What kind of barbarian asked something like that?

“Can I buy one?”

Balun pulled out his money pouch and showed it to Barel.

And as expected of a merchant, Barel reflexively counted it.

Thirteen gold coins, and perhaps forty or fifty silver coins.

Barel soon shook his head.

“That would not be enough to buy a house in Roendel.”

“I cannot buy one?”

“No. You would need more money. Much more than this.”

“I see.”

Balun nodded in silence.

For some reason, his face looked rather dejected, and Barel found himself offering advice without meaning to.

“If you intend to live in Roendel, you do not necessarily have to buy a house. You could always rent one. That is to say, renting means paying money to borrow a room…”

“No renting.”

Balun shook his head firmly.

“With monthly rent, money keeps leaving. I cannot save. Monthly-rent hell! Horrible life!”

“What?”

At that moment, memories from his previous life flashed through Balun’s mind, and he shuddered.

The horrible memory of bleeding money every month to pay the rent on his tiny, expensive one-room apartment in Seoul.

“Do you have anything like a lump-sum deposit lease?”

“A lump-sum deposit lease? What is that?”

“So, you do not.”

Balun closed his eyes.

A world without anything like a lump-sum deposit lease.

That meant monthly rent might be horrifyingly expensive here too.

“Then I am not going to Roendel.”

“Ah, in that case…”

“We part tomorrow.”

“That is unfortunate. Opportunities to meet someone as capable as you are not common.”

Barel smacked his lips in regret.

But there was nothing to be done. He could not force along someone who did not want to come.

“It cannot be helped! Then let us part ways tomorrow. If fate wills it, perhaps we will meet again someday.”

As Barel said that, Balun grabbed him by the shoulder, looked him straight in the eye, and shook his head.

“You are wrong.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Do not forget. You owe me your life.”

“Ah, right.”

Balun had not forgotten how Barel had even bowed and sworn that he would repay this debt of gratitude.

“Do not cheat me out of it. If you do, your head splits open.”

Balun glared at Barel while miming a chop to the head with the edge of his hand.

Barel went pale and nodded frantically.

“O-Of course. How could I ever forget?”

“Write a contract.”

“What? A c-contract?”

“A contract saying you repay kindness. Balun will collect for sure.”

At this point, Barel truly wanted to ask.

‘How in the world does this man even know what a contract is?’

“If you commit fraud, you die. I tear out your tongue and split your head open.”

“Eek! A-All right!”

Once even the contract had been settled, the shopping proceeded at a rapid pace.

At the weapons and armor shop, Balun bought sturdy leather armor and gloves.

The reason he did not choose metal armor was simple: it felt far too uncomfortable to move in.

It might be durable, but he did not think he could fight properly while wearing metal armor.

It could not be helped.

Balun had spent his whole life learning the fighting style of barbarian warriors. That style of combat did not suit metal armor. It would only make him sluggish.

‘With armor like this, I could probably take a hit from a troll and still survive.’

Looking at himself in the armor, Balun smiled in satisfaction.

He had nearly died after being struck by a Rock-Cleft Troll during his coming-of-age ceremony. Now he would be much safer.

Of course, ideally, he would never meet a troll at all.

As for weapons, he did not feel any need to replace them, so he simply stopped by a blacksmith and had the edges sharpened.

Seeing his dulled axe blades turned sharp again left him feeling deeply satisfied.

“It seems all your business is finished now. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No. There is not.”

“Excellent. I happen to be getting hungry as well, so let us go have a meal. We can drink too. It is on me.”

“Good!”

Once everything was taken care of, he headed back to the inn together with Barel.

By then, the sky was already darkening, and on the way back Balun thought ahead to what he would do tomorrow.

‘After breakfast, I should go around looking for work.’

According to Barel, this much money would not be enough even to buy a house here in Milford.

In the first place, a house was not something just anyone could purchase.

The reality of city life, whether on modern Earth or here, was that most commoners without money lived in rented places rather than homes of their own.

Balun felt that anew.

‘Yes. This is the feeling. The bitterness of society.’

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, but it was still a hundred times, a thousand times better than barbarian life.

Was earning money not far better than going hunting every day and fighting a war once a week?

‘Should I become a mercenary too?’

He thought about what kind of work he could do, but no matter how he considered it, physical labor was all that came to mind.

They said mercenaries earned good money.

He could probably save up house-buying money faster that way.

‘But it is dangerous.’

That was the problem.

It was dangerous. He could die at any time. It was the life of a mayfly.

Had not all of the mercenaries hired by Barel, except for three, died after running into those mounted bandits?

So what should he do? Not do it because it was dangerous? Or do it because it paid well?

He did not know.

His thoughts grew tangled, so he decided to leave it until tomorrow.

For now, he would just go around tomorrow looking for work and then think it over.

***

Balun had an excellent dinner with Barel’s group, accompanied by alcohol.

Well-cooked steak, warm milk, bread, and even meat stew.

He ate heartily, then washed it down with beer until he was stuffed.

It was a very cheerful gathering.

How long had it been since he had shared drinks in the civilized world?

Because of his clumsy grasp of the language, Balun did not talk very much. Instead, he mostly listened to the stories told by Barel’s group.

The little, everyday stories of their lives.

The struggles of a merchant company master. The struggles of merchant company employees. The struggles of the mercenaries hired by the merchant company.

They were merely ordinary stories of daily life, yet he found them quite interesting.

As he listened to the lives of others in this unfamiliar world, time slipped away before he realized it.

“Balun, you should sleep.”

“All right. You should sleep too. The night is dark.”

“Yes. We should. Hic!”

Completely drunk, Barel staggered upstairs to the second floor.

Balun, however, was not drunk at all.

He had always been a heavy drinker.

The men of the Red Fang Tribe drank from the age of twelve, and even among them there had been no one who could match Balun in drink.

After seeing them off, Balun entered his room, lay down on the bed, and looked out the window.

Bright stars embroidered the sky.

‘No matter when I see it, the night sky is absurdly bright.’

Perhaps because the first day of city life was coming to an end, many thoughts came to him.

From tomorrow onward, he would truly be alone.

Now his own life would truly begin.

He would find a home, find work, earn enough to live, make a lot of money, and someday get married.

That was life.

It might seem special, but it really was not.

Everyone lived through the same repeating routines.

Balun did not dislike that.

Life was simply like that.

‘I should live well.’

With that resolve, Balun closed his eyes.

Perhaps because so much had happened in just one day, drowsiness came quickly.

His thoughts grew hazy little by little as sleep crept over him.

Just as Balun was about to sink completely into sleep, his mind snapped awake in an instant.

He had felt a vibration against his neck.

BUZZZZ!

The sudden vibration rang out.

Balun stirred on the edge of sleep and thought with his eyes still closed,

‘Did I forget to put my phone on silent?’

That was strange.

He usually sets it to silent before going to bed.

Then it hit him.

Ah, right. I died and was reborn in another world. There are no phones here.

Then what was it?

The vibration was coming from his neck.

Still drowsy, Balun kept his eyes closed and touched his throat.

He felt the familiar texture of a necklace.

The Saber Tiger Fang Necklace given to him by Priest Ulan.

He had been told to wear it at all times, so he even slept with it on.

The moment he realized that it was vibrating violently, the last traces of sleep vanished from Balun’s body.

‘It is ringing? The necklace?’

Then a sharp sensation flared above his head.

Balun immediately threw his strength into a roll to the left.

For an instant, the ceiling of the room, dark as night, flashed, and then something like a blade stabbed downward into the empty bed.

THRUST!

“Tch.”

At the same time, he heard someone click her tongue.

The sound came from the ceiling.

Balun sprang up at once and shot his hand upward, grabbing hard.

His fingers sank into living flesh, and from the pitch-black ceiling came a woman’s cry.

“Kh-ghk!”

The instant he heard that scream, Balun’s mind shifted fully into a combat state.

‘An ambush.’

For fuck’s sake.

Balun cursed viciously.

What sort of rotten bastard attacked a man in his sleep?