NOVEL NEXT 37: The 5th Otherworlder?
Plop. Plop. The pile of filled bags of treasure filled the crater in the center of the room one bag at a time. Putting down their bags, Kaitlyn and Rachel took a second to make sure they didn’t put their now-full bags on the side where the valuable bags were before each getting a new empty bag.
“Well,” Rachel began, reaching into the bag to open it up, “before we were summoned the four of us were sitting in a lecture hall, just hanging out after class had ended. At that moment, the fifth person called Fergus walked over and began harassing us.”
Opening up her bag as well, Kaitlyn froze for a second, staring off into the distance, “Fergus...? That’s an interesting name...”
“Yeahhhh, I’d agree with that,” Rachel muttered, bending over to continue picking up the never-ending piles of treasure, “He was kinda a disgusting person too. Like didn’t know about the concept of hygiene, didn’t realize that he was always shouting, and didn’t know how to talk about any topics outside of grades, sports, and stocks.”
Pausing for a second, Rachel let out a long sigh, “Yeah... also no need for you to know about the sports he talked about or stocks in general. They’re... abstruse topics that honestly I don’t know much about personally.”
“I see,” Kaitlyn trailed off while nodding, helping Rachel shovel in a towering pile of treasure that seemed to gleam and shimmer under the dungeon's lighting.
Filling their bags in silence for a moment, Rachel categorized and recalled all the knowledge she still remembered of Fergus before continuing her explanation.
“To add onto what I was saying earlier, when we first got summoned, rather than being confused he was er... really excited for some reason,” Rachel pondered while narrating out loud, “He thought that he was the destined hero, proclaiming how he’d bang all the ladies in the world. Then, he rushed over to the female priest that summoned us and tried to hit on her, and when she said no to him, he started bawling about how he wasn’t getting fair treatment.”
With an expression similar to having just eaten something as sour as Fergus’s attitude, Kaitlyn asked, “Isn’t... isn’t Oliver the hero? I feel like you’ve mentioned something like that in the past.”
“Yeah... Oliver is, so it was really awkward when the priest then came up to Oliver who was apologizing profusely...” Rachel coughed, the second-hand embarrassment still clear on her face.
“Anyhow, he hit on like... every girl we ever met,” Rachel capped off, nodding before a sudden bolt of knowledge hit her, “Oh wait, I totally forgot to mention. He uses a spear and, like... we don’t know where he went after the Varis Empire collapsed. He kinda just went off on his own... He was about as strong as us to be honest.”
“Good to know,” Kaitlyn chuckled while tying up her full bag of treasure, “Maybe you all should ask Dexter about him? I’m pretty sure Dexter is pretty aware of most S-Ranked Adventurers... They’re all valuable resources after all.”
Walking back towards the pile in the middle of the room, Rachel mumbled, “We actually considered doing that. But, in all honesty, we don’t... uh... we don’t care.”
A little bit of an embarrassed tinge climbing onto her face, Rachel flailed her hands around, backtracking, “No, uhm... to be clear we like... it’s not like we don’t care about him! It’s just...”
Nodding along with an innocent expression, Kaitlyn put down her bag of treasure, surveying the room to see if she needed to pick up another bag while Rachel gathered herself.
Gathering herself, Rachel let out a long sigh of defeat, murmuring under her breath as if wishing that the world wouldn’t remember her comments, “Well... yeah we don’t like him. He made some homophobic comments. Which, sadly, is pretty common when compared to the people in this world.”
Her eyes widening, Kaitlyn reached up and patted Rachel a few times on the shoulder, reassuring, “Yeah... that’s not a bad reason to dislike someone...”
Meanwhile, while Kaitlyn and Rachel got sucked into their own world, Oliver murmured to Damien and Josephine, “Those two are really, quite... lovey-dovey...”
“You just noticed?” Josephine retorted, finishing up the pile of treasure she was loading into her bag, “Rachel disappeared the moment we walked into the room.”
“That’s true,” Oliver agreed with an enlightened nod, tying his own half-filled bag up as the last of the treasure got taken by Damien, “Still though... do you think Kaitlyn is gay? It’d be really sad if after all this time Kaitlyn was ace or straight...”
“I mean my gaydar goes off,” Josephine shrugged, slinging the bag over her shoulder as Dexter waved everyone to the center of the room, “Does yours go off? Also, what about you Damien?”
Nodding in sync with Damien, Oliver opened his mouth to elaborate what set his gaydar off before getting cut off by Dexter’s booming voice.
“Everyone!” Dexter shouted in the half-sitting half-leaning position he was in on top of a bag of treasure, “Good job today! We’ve successfully gathered all the treasure from this inner chamber, so I, representing the Adventurer’s Guild, would like to thank everyone for their efforts in not only helping up with the clean up, but also in conquering the dungeon itself.”
Waiting for the light applause to settle down, Dexter, with a warm smile, continued on, “Although some of this treasure will go to the Adventurer’s Guild and the Royal Palace, I can confirm that a large majority of this treasure will be distributed among you adventurers here today!”
Cheers breaking out, with Alix’s voice like a beacon of energy among the loose group of adventurers that had been gathered, Dexter again waited for everyone to calm down before elaborating, “So, of course, the few of us who went through the dungeon will be getter a larger share of the treasure. However, I want to assure all of you who camped outside of the dungeon as well that there will be plenty of treasure for you all too! I mean... just look at all the treasure we have here!”
