I Became a 6★ Gacha Character 358 - Sudden PatC.Notes 2

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

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The carriage finally came to a stop after passing through the city gates.

"It was an honor to escort you!" the soldier exclaimed.

He said it was an honor, but he didn't seem to actually recognize me. Judging by how he treated me like some high-ranking official, I guessed the knights at the checkpoint must have said something.

As he saluted smartly and drove away the carriage, despite me being neither an imperial soldier nor a kingdom adventurer, people's gazes flew towards me. I wondered if I should've been grateful for decorating my first step into the Empire this way.

And so I faced the first city of the Empire. Since it was the closest city to the border checkpoint, I supposed it should've been called the southernmost city of the Empire.

'...Nothing special.'

The cityscape looked quite familiar. Thankfully, the suddenly appeared Empire didn't seem to have some advanced magitech civilization with superconducting rails or anything like that.

There were paved roads for carriages, dirty dirt paths branching off, neatly dressed city folk and poor people hiding in the alleys - a familiar scene. I'd never been there, but I imagined this was what it'd be like if you showed a Korean person the alleys of Paris and London and asked them to compare.

Well, thinking about Heroines Chronicle, it made sense.

Heroines Chronicle was a waifu-collecting game for perverts. It was full of characters that made you wonder what kind of world this was supposed to be - garter belt clerics, high-leg female knights, cat-eared ninjas, sling bikini female pharaohs, and mini-skirted nurse officers.

Thanks to that, various characters that seemed to have a fantasy background like female knights, witches, noble ladies, and princess knights had "from the Kingdom" or "from the Empire" randomly slapped on. In other words, there didn't seem to be much difference between the Kingdom and Empire except for the size of their territories.

"Even so, even the guild emblems are exactly the same. Are there no borders for guilds...?"

Passing through streets filled with the savory scent of bread and entering an area reeking of horse sh*t, the familiar sign of the Coachman's Guild proved it.

In the end, the Empire's cities, like the Kingdom's, were neighborhoods intertwined with guilds and guilds. It felt similar to how someone from Incheon wouldn't feel like they were in a foreign country when visiting Seoul. Of course, the Empire looked a bit neater and more sophisticated than the Kingdom, but this might've been due to the trade buff this border city was receiving.

F*ck, my head hurt just thinking about it. Not just one city, but a whole Empire popping up out of nowhere.

"Is this the Coachman's Guild?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, are you here to find someone? Or are you trying to cross over to the Kingdom?" the man replied.

"The opposite. I came from the Kingdom and I'm planning to go to the Grand Temple."

Stacked coins and the emblem of a carriage wheel behind them. Opening the wooden door without a shred of doubt that this was the Coachman's Guild, a middle-aged man with greasy hair slowly rose to greet me.

Though the building itself was clean, the man couldn't hide the smell of horses emanating from his body. It wasn't a coachman-phobic term, but rather something that had naturally seeped into his body after decades of working as a coachman. After all, commoners who weren't nobles couldn't afford to scrub themselves squeaky clean.

As I was thinking this, the Coachman's Guild manager who had gently risen from his seat gave me a once-over. Coming to my senses, I realized I was a heavily armed adventurer in full armor with shield and warhammer, not in casual clothes, having ridden an Empire-bound carriage.

"There are two types of carriages going to the Grand Temple. Would you like to hear an explanation?" he asked.

"Two types of carriages?"

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"Yes."

His tone immediately became even more polite, apparently not wanting to act cocky towards someone armed with weapons, be they an adventurer or knight.

I leaned my warhammer and shield against the wall and sat at the table. The man plopped down in front of me, bringing two grimy documents and placing them in front of me like menus.

One was an ordinary coachman contract I'd seen in the Kingdom before.

And the other was... merchant convoy escort?

"Why does the Coachman's Guild have this?" I asked, puzzled.

"Well, you know how it is in this neighborhood. We scratch each other's backs. The Coachman's Guild finds convoy escorts, the Merchant's Guild finds coachmen, that sort of thing."

As expected of the southernmost city of the Empire, they seemed to be operating like small businesses, without clear boundaries between "my domain" and "your domain". No distinction between Coachman's Guild, Merchant's Guild, and Mercenary Guild - just a haphazard operation of "aren't we all in this together?" where finding people was all that mattered.

In short, it was asking me to decide whether to hire a coachman and pay a hefty sum to travel alone to the far-off Grand Temple, or to squeeze in with a merchant convoy, deal with monsters if they appeared, and actually get paid for it.

Normally, I would've chosen to pay and ride alone in a carriage while enjoying some web surfing without a moment's hesitation. But this wasn't the Kingdom, it was the Empire. Moreover, I didn't have any basic knowledge about the Empire, which was supposed to be my homeland.

...It had been years since I last took on a convoy escort request.

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Raei Translations

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It might've been a bit silly to say this when I'd barely set foot in the Empire for half a day, but life seemed to be the same whether it was the Empire or the Kingdom.

It was only natural that I was looking for transportation to leave right away as soon as I arrived. I wasn't here to enjoy sightseeing in the Empire, nor was I going to take a day of rest from adventuring. My destination was the Empire's Grand Temple, as it seemed the Goddess had prepared something there.

Just like how I could only access the fragments of memory in a temple last time, it seemed I needed to go to a specific place with a statue of the Goddess, probably to save her energy.

"Those participating as escorts this time, come this way!" someone shouted.

"Hey! I told you to set that aside separately, why are you stacking it again?" another voice complained.

"Did you feed the horses enough? If they collapse midway like last time, you'll collapse too, you hear?" a third voice warned.

So after spending a night web surfing in a relatively clean inn, the next day I joined a merchant convoy heading to the Grand Temple as an escort.

It seemed that being an adventurer had become a pan-Kingdom, or rather pan-Empire, identification. When I pulled out my senior adventurer's badge from my pocket, I was able to receive the employment contract without any fuss.

There were no toxic clauses in the contract either. It was filled with common-sense content like providing food and lodging, standing guard, escorting convoy members if monsters appeared, not damaging goods, potential contract penalties for intentional losses or negligence, and so on.

"Where are you from, brother? At first, I thought we had some knight lord here," one of the men asked.

"Wow, look at the quality of that armor. Adventuring must pay well in the Kingdom, eh?" another chimed in.

Thanks to that, I was able to join the convoy procession without any trouble. The Grand Temple, just from its name, sounded like a huge temple where the main figures of the faith gathered.

As a result, the convoy heading there had dozens of carriages and escort forces numbering in the hundreds.

And it was an absolute truth, as certain as the rising and setting of the sun, that if you slipped a few silver coins - not even gold coins - to these hundreds of mercenaries and adventurers, their lips would loosen.

My shiny full plate mail stood in stark contrast to their shabby leather armor or cheap, scarred chain mail. Seeing this, some guys slyly approached, happy to pick up the crumbs I was offering as they wished.

Well, how could they not be in a good mood when there was a sucker from the Kingdom who'd hand over silver coins just for explaining common knowledge that even a low-ranking adventurer in the Empire would know?

"Damn, you're generous. If I could live like you, brother, I'd have no regrets," one of them said.

"With looks like that, whores would spread their legs on their own," another commented.

"Idiot, if he looked like that, would he need whores? Village girls would spread their legs wherever he goes," a third chimed in.

"F*ck off, are you being a dick just because you've never been good-looking?" the second one retorted.

The low-ranking mercenaries who received silver coins from me to fetch firewood or set up tents in my stead snickered lewdly.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship - I was happy not to do annoying chores for pocket change, and the low-ranking mercenaries were happy to double their contract money by doing a bit more work.

Some suspicious bastards tried to question why such a wealthy gentleman would participate in an escort request, but I was throwing around too much pocket money for them to argue.

Apart from the occasional annoying lewd glances towards the convoy's female staff, and the stew served as meals being closer to pigswill making me miss Irene's cooking, the days passed without much incident-

Thwack-!

"A-attack! It's an ambush!" someone yelled.

"Sven? f*ck!" another cursed.

"Turn the carriages around! Build the barricade as planned!" a third commanded.

Just as I was thinking that, a long skewer pierced the head of a hairy mercenary who had been leering at a female staff member's shapely ass in a long skirt before slinking off into the bushes.

Simultaneously, a rain of arrows showered down.

With escort personnel numbering in the hundreds and dozens of carriages, who would be brave enough to charge in while firing a rain of arrows? As I slowly stood up, dumbfounded by this completely unexpected situation, a twang sound was followed by a surge of displeasure.

Who the f*ck shoots an arrow at someone's head when I'm already pissed off because the food tastes like sh*t?

"Hold your positions! You'll die if you try to run anyway!" someone shouted.

"You guys do the holding. I'll be right back," I replied.

"W-what are you saying, brother? Have you lost your mind?" one of them asked, bewildered.

We'd only been away from the city for a day, even if it was the southernmost rural city of the Empire. Why the hell was a hundred-strong ambush happening on a main road where countless merchants came and went?

Faced with this absurd situation that would be unimaginable in the Kingdom, I silently drew upon my mana.

What kind of f*cking neighborhood was the Empire, for bandits to...