Judging from his annoyance, I could guess he had already been turned down. Most likely, the members of the previous party weren’t sure Albert’s group could actually beat the owlbear, or perhaps they feared that whoever acted as their guide might get caught in the crossfire.

It was rare for a B rank to be so distrusted in the face of something like an owlbear, but Albert was an adventurer who had come to Zoltan because he couldn’t make it in Central. It was an open secret that the Zoltan Guild bent the rules a bit to recognize him as B rank because they needed one.

“Sorry, but I refuse, too.”

“Why?! If you make it to C rank, you can take more jobs! And everyone else will respect you at least a little more! Even you don’t enjoy being ridiculed, right?!”

“I’ve got no interest in being C rank. My dream is to open an apothecary and have a totally ordinary life.”

“Kh, fine, then!” Albert shouted, glaring at me as he left in a huff. The rest of his party hurried after him. Left behind, Megria hung her head, embarrassed.

“It would be a relief if you were willing to accept this job. I can even guarantee the promotion to C rank, if you want.”

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t have any interest in that.”

“Then there’s no helping it, I guess. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Okay. Good luck.” She bowed her head slightly and left to follow Albert’s group. After watching her leave, I headed back into my house.

* * *

There was a thudding knock on the thin door as the sun was starting to set.

“Red! It’s me! Gonz!”

“Oh, Gonz the carpenter? I’ll be right out. Don’t knock so hard. You’ll break the door.”

Judging from the sound of his voice, it was clear the woodworker was perturbed over something. I took just a second to slip my sword into my belt before opening the door.

“What is it?”

Standing on the other side was Gonz, the long-eared, half-elf carpenter. Despite still having the distinct, trademark elven good looks, he exemplified the hearty spirit and skill of a Zoltan carpenter. In a way, that unbalanced sort of appearance was fitting for a half-elf man.

“Sorry to bother you while you’re resting, but my little sister’s kiddo caught something. According to the doctor, it’s apparently white-eye.”

“Tanta got white-eye?! How far has it progressed?!”

“Ummm, as of now, he’s collapsed with fever.”

“The second stage of the sickness, then. Okay, I’ll be right over!”

Since I was aiming to open an apothecary someday, I had been studying injuries, diseases, poisons, and various related topics. It had afforded me some familiarity with the afflictions. White-eye, as its name implied, was a disease where the corneas turned a cloudy white. It was a bird-borne disease. The pathogen attached to the eggs of birds, and eating an infected egg spread the disease to people. The disease could be killed off by heating the eggs, but it had some resistance to heat, so if the eggs weren’t cooked enough, it would still be contagious. The reason the ailment was feared was because a few days after the initial symptoms emerged, the patient would go irreversibly blind. The first symptom was a high fever, at which point treatment had to be rendered within thirty-six hours.

Sight could be restored by Priest or Healer magic available to someone with a high enough level blessing, but…in Zoltan, on the frontier, there was only one person who fit that description. The previous mayor, Master Mistorm. She had retired in her old age, though, and was currently off somewhere enjoying her remaining years in peace. No one knew where she was now.

Gonz’s little sister and her husband lived next door to the woodworker. Tanta was their son. The home was not particularly spacious but had a nice feel. It was furnished with a red roof and a weathervane on top and a green lawn with a small garden gnome out front. The whole design gave the building a rather cozy feel. It was a lovely home, built by Gonz and imbued with the love he held for his younger sister.

“Nao!”

“Gonz!”

His little sister, Nao, was also a half-elf, with fair white skin and a beautiful face. However, just like with Gonz, she had another aspect to her as well, the apron-wearing, child-rearing mother, born and raised on the blue-collar side of town.

Her husband, Mido, was human. He was a former adventurer who’d retired and now worked with his brother-in-law. Apparently, he was less adept at the work than Gonz, which led to a fair amount of scolding from the half-elf man, but Mido was quick at calculating and often covered for the rougher patches of Gonz’s personality. When Mido wasn’t around, Gonz would praise him for being a bright guy. If you asked me, it would probably be good to tell him that to his face once in a while, but evidently, Gonz couldn’t bring himself to do that.

With their son developing white-eye, the couple’s usual cheerful expressions had grown haggard.

“What do we do, Brother? There’s no medicine…”

“It will be fine. We can trust Red. He’s the adventurer who’s gathered the most herbs in all of Zoltan.”

That was where a normal adventurer would probably have lit into the man for saying such a thing, but to me, it was genuine praise. However, this was hardly the time to think about things like that.

“What’s Tanta’s condition?”

“The doctor’s taking a look, but he said there wasn’t anything else he could do without the medicine.”

“Got it. Could you let me in?”

In the bedroom, there was the boy—Tanta—lying in bed, suffering from what looked like a particularly bad fever. The doctor, Newman, was at his side, observing his condition. He wore a serious expression.

“Doctor.”

“Oh, so you’re the adventurer Red? Thank you for coming.”

“I heard it was white-eye.”

“Yes, there’s no mistaking it.”

After that quick exchange, I examined Tanta’s eyes, lymph nodes, and inside his mouth.

“Yes, his irises are paling, there are ulcers in his mouth, and the lymph nodes in his neck and underarms are swollen. He’s got every initial symptom of white-eye, all right.”

“I wouldn’t have expected an adventurer to have such detailed knowledge,” Newman said as he wiped the sweat from his brow and thinning hair with a towel.

“About how long has it been since he developed a fever?” I asked.

“Seems he was struck by a feeling of fatigue around noon, and he collapsed around three PM.”

“It will be bad if we can’t get him some medicine before tomorrow evening.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t have any.”

The medicine to treat white-eye was based on a preparation of koku leaves and a spiny mushroom called a blood needle. Excepting winter, koku leaves could be found basically anytime, but blood needles could only be gathered from spring into the middle of summer. Thankfully, it was spring, so they were in season.

“Last month, there was an outbreak of goblin fever and white-eye. None of the three clinics in town have enough medicine.”

“I’m sure they have the koku leaves, though the blood needles… They’re probably just starting to sprout, but…”

The Adventurers Guild managed the repository of medicinal herbs. Normally, they would be putting out job requests with a priority on gathering blood needles since the stock of those was running low, but…

“It takes time for that guild to approve anything.”

Someone first had to point out that the reserves were low; the person in charge of those reserves then needed to report to their boss; the boss then double-checked the reserve; next, the person in charge had to write a report that their boss took to the higher-ups to get approval; and once that was all done, the person in charge had to fill out the forms to send out the job requests, which their boss had to double-check, and…

“Zoltan’s Adventurers Guild is all about the red tape,” Newman said with a grimace.

Anyway, right now, the fact of the matter was that there was no stock left of one of the fundamental ingredients for the medicine. Based on Tanta’s symptoms, he needed treatment sometime before nightfall tomorrow. Considering that preparing the medicine from the ingredients took time, Newman probably needed to get the blood needles no later than noon tomorrow.

“I’m begging you, Red! I know the mountains are bad right now, but I’ve got no one else to turn to! Can you please get the ingredients? Name your price, and I’ll pay! No matter how long it might take, I swear I’ll pay it all back!” Gonz knelt, his head bowed to the floor as he pleaded.

“I mean it! The boy’s a genius when it comes to carpentry! I can’t accept his dream dying here like this!”

Gonz did not have any children. He lost his wife to sickness before I came to this town and continued to live alone, never showing any inclination of trying to find another wife. Because of that, he cherished his sister’s son. So much so that he declared that the boy, who was not even ten yet, would succeed him in everything. Tanta was quite fond of Gonz, too. The boy was raised playing at Gonz’s shop and was always saying that he wanted to be like his uncle when he grew up.

But…

“It’s true that it’s dangerous, but also the mountain is currently entirely off-limits. I might be an adventurer, but I can’t go there until the owlbear is taken care of. If I ignore that order, I could get kicked out of the guild.”

“Th-that’s true, but there’s nowhere else to get the medicine.”

Nao and Mido both lined up beside Gonz, lowering their foreheads to the floor as they pressed their request.

…Albert and his party should’ve been searching the mountains for the owlbear by now. If they hadn’t found it yet, they’d be camping out. It was also possible the party had found it and was busy tracking it across the mountain, even through the night. It was a big mountain, but they were experts when it came to hunting. Even the smallest trace could have given me away to Albert’s group.

Should I negotiate with the guild? No, that’d be hopeless. I haven’t earned that much trust from them.

“Big Bro, is that you?” Tanta’s eyes had opened as he called out weakly.

The pointed ears proving his elven lineage were red to their tips from his fever. Yet the boy still smiled at me.

“Sorry, I caught a little cold. But once I’m better, let’s talk through the plans some more,” Tanta murmured. Gonz and the others glanced at me.

…It’s not like the kid was saying anything of importance, though.