The Fat Aristocrat Waltz in the Labyrinth - Chapter 33
Chapter 33: The fat aristocrat makes small talk in the bath
Mitrof massaged his chin while pondering why people take baths.
Since having dinner with Grace at the guild and parting ways, he had come straight to the public bathhouse. His feet had unconsciously led him here without any particular thought. It had become a habit for Mitrof to soak in the hot water and drink a glass of milk ale here.
He sat on the edge of the usual large circular tub, watching steam constantly rise.
As he came here almost every day, he began to recognize familiar faces. Mitrof’s visiting time might vary depending on labyrinth exploration, but the city folks seemed to have established habits such as after work, before commencing work, and Mitrof, who comes irregularly, finds them at the same time.
The sun rises at the same time and the moon sets at the same time without fail, and the city folks seem to always be there like an endless cycle.
“Do they come here to enjoy the bath, or do they come here to maintain their habits?—Humans are mysterious,” Mitrof thought, realizing that he too was part of that group and chuckling to himself.
“Hey, aren’t you the one I met in the labyrinth?—What’s so funny?”
He was suddenly approached and saw a young adventurer with a large sword, who had been asked to hunt a troll, join the bath beside him with a splash.
“Wolves Wind…”
“Oh, you remember me well; I am the leader—Mikel.”
Mikel smiled proudly, with a somewhat modest tone. In his laughter, Mitrof could feel Mikel’s humanity. It was the smile of someone who carried the struggles and failures that came with being able to move forward, not just bragging about the good things in life.
“…You’re the party leader—that must be tough.”
“What are you talking about?—It has its difficulties, but it can be fun in the labyrinth.”
He laughed brightly, his shoulders shaking with mirth as he brushed aside his bangs.
“By the way, you should tell me your name too.”
“My apologies—I am Mitrof—our party—we don’t have a name yet.”
“You mean you just formed it.”
“Yeah, it hasn’t even been a month.”
“Wow, you’re just starting out!—Then I’ll be your senpai.”
Mikel pointed at himself and flashed a toothy grin.
“If you ever have any problems or don’t understand something, ask me—I’ll help you out as much as I can!”
Mitrof widened his eyes in surprise.
“…Why would you do that?”
“Huh?”
“Even if you help me, I don’t think it’ll be of much benefit to you…”
That’s just how the nobility operates. Energy is not poured into things that do not benefit oneself. A person who is not worth helping will not be helped. The sweet notion of helping someone in the hopes that they will one day help you is not a valid argument.
Mikel looked back at Mitrof, looking visibly exasperated.
“What’s the point of benefiting?—No thanks. Isn’t helping each other what adventurers do when they’re in trouble? I’m a senior, and you’re a junior, so I’ll help you more—that’s the way it is.”
“…Is that so?”
Suddenly, Mitrof remembered the day he first met Grace. She had also saved the life of the unknown Mitrof, without any benefit to herself.
“I see, that’s how it works.”
Mitrof agreed.
As a nobleman, it was hard for Mitrof to believe, but it seemed that adventurers lived by that kind of reasoning.
‘helping each other.’
“Good words.”
He laughed with a snort.
Mikel looks at Mitrof with a tight-lipped look on his face.
“…You’re a strange one.”
“Not really—I’ve only just become an adventurer—I’m still learning a lot.”
“Even as an adventurer, you’re so serious—you sound like our Yoreka…”
Mikel murmured, then splashed water on his face.
“Well, we’ll be up looking for the troll for a while, so if we run into each other somewhere, let’s say hi.”
“Did you find any clues regarding the troll?”
“Nope. There wasn’t any news about someone defeating it, so it may have returned to the lower floors. We’ll keep searching for it since it could be hiding in the tunnels only used by monsters. However, we probably won’t find it.”
‘I see, they can’t find it.’
Mitrof rubs his chin.
Did it hide to tend to its wounds? Is it really back on the lower floors? It’s hard to predict what the monster is thinking.
He wants it to be back where he was. He feels anxious about not being able to see it. He also harbors the desire for it not to be defeated by someone else.
He lowers his head and stares at the surface of the water.
The image of the troll comes to mind. The terrifying presence that made his spine chill. The sense of impending death and the feeling of being alive were both overwhelming. It was frightening. However, at that moment, at that very instant, he felt like he was burning with life.
“Oh, by the way, if you went to the fifth floor, you should know that the blue deer are missing.”
Mitrof suddenly refocused his attention and turned to Mikel.
“Yeah, I also heard about it at the guild.”
“There’s talk that it might also be the work of the troll.”
“…What do you mean?”
“It’s about why the troll came up to the higher floor—when we were searching for the troll, Yoreka, not me, found out that there were frequent sightings of the troll around the time when the number of blue deer decreased.”
‘Interesting,’ Mitrof nodded.
“It wasn’t considered that important by the guild because it was just sightings, not actual attacks or fights—but when we asked those who claimed to have seen it, the stories were strange—they said that the troll was carrying a blue deer.
“——That’s intriguing.”
“Right? Trolls usually hang around the 8th floor, but they came all the way up to the 5th floor to hunt blue deer. I checked the 8th floor, but the trolls seemed to be acting normally. I wonder what’s going on.”
No one understands what’s happening. All that was clear was that the troll was involved in the blue deer’s disappearance, at least in part.
“I wonder if blue deer are already extinct.”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand the labyrinth very well—there was a time when the killer bees proliferated and the ‘Fire Witch’ wiped them all out, or so the story goes—but now, there are still killer bees around—they returned without us noticing, and their numbers increased.”
“… Do you know how long it was between those times?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but I think it was about six months.”
‘Six months, or maybe even longer.
‘Will Grace make it in time?’
“Hey, Mitrof, what’s wrong?—Mitrof? Mirtof? Lof——?”
——Trolls usually lurk around the eighth floor.
Those words stuck in his head.
‘The eighth floor. The eighth floor, huh.’
“… That’s a long way.”
“Bufoo.”He let out a big sigh.