The Reincarnated Vampire Just Wants to Enjoy Her New Life

Chapter 60: Labyrinth City Knossos

"Welcome to the great Labyrinth City Knossos!"

Mint dramatically spread his arms wide as the six of us spread out in front of him.

His wagon was parked on the side of the road a bit inside of the city and we were roughly lined up beside it, receiving his little speech.

Well, most likely it was only intended for me, being the only one that was visible to him that hadn't come here before. That said, I felt embarrassed for him, the way he was trying to make it bigger than it really was.

The city was big for sure. Even from outside it was hardly comparable to Linsington City we started at. The walls were higher, and took up more of the horizon. Even the gates were much larger, with wider doors and layered defences and the guards stationed there were more heavily armed and armoured than any I had seen before. The brightly painted plates were especially nice looking, with their vibrant blues and yellows.

The inside of the city wasn't too much different from Linsington, but the buildings that I could see from the main street looked like they were in better condition. That was nothing to say about the streets themselves. They bustled with thrice the number of people in comparison, as well as the shopkeepers and street vendors who were yelling loudly to attract last minute sales as the sun was going down.

"Umm, anyways, let's go get the confirmation for the completion of the job."

It looked like Mint had realized how embarrassing his little act was, and moved on, getting back onto the driver's seat on the wagon. The rest of us followed his wagon to the adventurers' guild.

Like the city walls, the adventurers' guild building was larger than the one in Linsington City, along with the front being more well taken care of. Or maybe it was just that it was repaired more recently? I could see some cracks on the walls near the front entrance that suddenly stopped at the door frame, which had its own share of scratches and minor cracks.

The wagon was parked in a dedicated parking lot beside the building with it's own guard watching it, this time his uniform had the same blue and black that all the guild employees I've seen wore. Though this time his top was puffier and had button-like rivets punched all over the front of it in neat rows. It was probably some sort of armour, but I hadn't seen that style before.

We all entered the building together, and was greeted by the noise of eating and drinking on one side and people talking loudly enough to be heard on the other. Doing our best to ignore it all, I followed Mint to one of the five lines to the receptions counter. It seemed like it was bigger there as well.

"While there were a bit of a hiccup, I have to say I was quite satisfied with your work Miss Scarlet."

As we waited and I half listened to another of Claret's stories, Mint suddenly piped up.

"Huh? Oh, thanks."

"If we managed to get through the Brokecleft Mountain Range without letting any imps notice us, then I would've given you a perfect mark."

"Oh, sorry."

While that bit wasn't directly my fault, it was still a part of the chain of events that I had started. Those things were probably a big deal to normal adventurers, even though Claret dealt with the entire group like they were a side show it seemed.

"It's fine Miss Scarlet! Not every run through those mountains go smoothly, and the fact that you managed to beat all the imps that came after you on your own is really amazing!"

The human boy adventurer responded frantically beside me.

But looking at him, the figures of the other two adventurers he was partied up with weren't around. Turning my head to the side, I saw them sitting at a table with drinks in hand as they were arguing about something again.

(When did they get over there?)

"Well, it's true, but I'd rather not face them at all. It's not worth the added danger, and sometimes you can get really unlucky and a whole lot of them might show up."

Thinking back, I did see a lot of imp corpses around that small lake where I killed that hydra. A group that large might've been a serious threat to these guys. Then again, I wasn't the one who fought them, so I had no idea how strong they were.

"I suppose that's true."

The boy gave Mint a wry smile.

"So what are you plans from here Miss Scarlet? I suppose you'd want to try your hand at the dungeon in the city?"

"Ah, umm, probably, yea."

I was looking forward to seeing how different it was here. And now that I didn't have to worry about Alicia getting hurt on top of having no real priorities anymore, it was finally time to brush off the accumulated rust since the last time I had a serious go at dungeon diving.

If things went well, I'd even be able to refill the ingredients I've been using up the last few weeks.

"I see. I suppose that it'll take you a while. I was going to head south to Praeliator City next before slowly looping back around then back, but you'll probably be diving into the dungeon for more than a few days, won't you?"

"Ah, probably."

"Yes, well, I hope it will go well for you. But in about a month over in Praeliator City, the Championship of Arms is going to be held. It'll be your chance, as the tournament only runs every five years, so many of the region's best will be attending. If you're interested in testing your skill, I recommend it wholeheartedly."

"Ah, maybe."

(No way. I don't wanna do something as troublesome as that. It's not like I actually care about how strong I am compared to others.)

"Haha, well, if you do decide to enter, it's unfortunate, but my schedule won't allow me to watch. I'll have moved on before then. Oops, it's our turn."

Mint arrived at the counter with the two of us behind him. He talked to the receptionist and handed him a wooden tag along with a metal card. The card looked a lot like the ID card I had from the adventurers' guild, but his had a different logo on it, with the words [Charwood Company] written under it.

After giving it a quick glance, Mint motioned towards the counter while looking at me. On his other side, the boy placed three guild cards on the counter, all with the adventurers' guild logo on them. I quickly pulled off my bag and got my card from it before placing it on the table with the four others.

The guild worker took the cards and the tablet before operating the usual device underneath the counter. After a few moments, he placed our cards back on the counter along with some coins in four separate, equal piles.

I grabbed my card and one of the piles before throwing it all into my bag haphazardly. The amount I received was a bit paltry for how long I was working for. In those two weeks, I could've made more than ten times that much by hunting, and that didn't take into consideration the reward for selling off the materials.

That said, it was a request for a lower ranked adventurer, and it was an easy job, even taking that into consideration. Since this sort of work was pretty reliable as well, I could understand how people liked it, but to me it was just boring as all hell with practically no perks that I could recognize.

From then on, I would refuse all escort jobs unless if I had a really good reason for it.

With the request finished and the paperwork done on our side, we headed towards the table the others were sitting at. The party leader handed the other two their guild cards and we all headed outside.

"Oh right. The materials from the monsters we killed."

It was such a minor thing, I had forgotten all about it.

"Oh those things?"

"Yea, do you want them in the back of the wagon?"

"Hmm...how about you keep them? The reward money was probably a bit low for someone of your strength, right? You did most of the work and even provided all the meals on top of that."

"No, it's fine. If anything, just put that much effort into the orphanage or something instead then."

"Is, is that so? Then I'll graciously accept them then."

I dug out all the remaining parts of the monsters I had hunted the last two weeks. There was still a significant amount of meat left, along with everything else that wasn't edible. All of it was piled up on the back of the wagon and the tarp was lain over it all before its ends were tied down to secure everything.

The adventurer kids helped out as well as gave their own thanks.

It was a bit embarrassing how they tried to make it a big deal, but to me, it was more like throwing away trash. I really didn't want to have anything to do with the leftovers of such monsters, and I didn't have much use for the money they could be sold with. My own living expenses were paltry after all.

"Now then, do you want us to show you a good inn to stay at Miss Scarlet?"

The cat boi and the girl looked towards me with sparkling eyes as their party leader asked me. To the side, Mint was glancing my way with the corner of his eye.

"No, it's fine. I want to look around for a bit. I'll find somewhere after."

"Is that so? It's getting pretty dark, so don't wander around for too long, or all the inns will close up. It won't be good for such a pretty woman to be stuck outside overnight."

The other two looked disappointed while Mint nodded to himself for some reason.

<Oh yea! There was that time when that exact thing happened to you before! Let me see...>

Somehow this prompted another one of Claret's stories. I was long tired of hearing them, but Alicia enjoyed listening to them and Claret telling them so much, I didn't have the heart to complain.

Half ignoring the two, I gave my goodbyes before I started to make my way down the street.

The overall layout wasn't particularly different from the previous city, though I wasn't sure about the location of each district in particular.

As the three of us travelled through the main street, I looked on at the various stores. There were quite a few stores that dealt with various types of weapons and armour, and even more that specialized in travelling goods and supplies. The street vendors interspersed here and there were mostly selling fresh food. The scent wafted over, but didn't do a thing to stimulate my appetite. I knew in my head that they probably smelt good to normal people, but to me it was difficult to get past the burnt smell.

<I was wondering before as well, but does food always smell this bad to you Scarlet?>

<Ah, well...yea. It does.>

There was no way to hide it, since she was sharing my senses.

<I'm sorry.>

<Huh? How come?>

<Because of me, not only did you have to gather and make food for me all the time, you were forced to endure the smell of food that you didn't even like the scent of.>

I flicked my own forehead with a finger, letting out a loud smack. People surrounding us stopped to look around for the source of the sound, but I ignored them, and they all continued with their way after a little bit.

<Wah!>

<Alicia, I made you that food because I wanted you to eat it. I wasn't enduring anything at all. You got it?>

<...okay. Thanks Scarlet.>

I sighed. Despite being so young, this girl had such a sense of responsibility and excessive awareness of the care people gave her. For me, I did what I wanted. I was a selfish person who worked hard for the things I wanted and ignored the things I didn't care about. It was just incidental that the things that I wanted to do tended to benefit those who needed my help.

While it was true that people probably saw me as a philanthropist for it, that was just the result. If that's what philanthropy was defined as, then the definition was probably wrong. It was best such a word applied only to those who really did those sort of things for selfless motives, not selfish ones like myself.

Well, taking care of the little girl you adopted was hardly philanthropy no matter how you stretched the word anyways.

As we continued our way, we found ourselves at the central square. But unlike in Linsington, where the central square was a large open plaza with wide roads circling around it, this city had another set of tall walls along with a large guard house built into it.

Despite it getting late and the sun almost setting, there were several guards standing around monitoring people walking out of the gate. There was a sign on the opposing side of the gate from the guard house. It read [Knossos Labyrinth: Entrance].

It looked like I had conveniently found my destination.

I made my way across to one of the guards.

"Excuse me, is that the entrance to the city's dungeon?"

"Ah, miss? It is. Entry is allowed from morning to mid afternoon. The price of entry is one silver coin per person as well. Also, only people registered to the adventurers' guild or have a special pass issued by the city can enter."

"..."

(That's pretty annoying.)

While the price I could understand, and thanks to just being paid I had no problems affording it, the fact that I'd have to wait until the next morning sucked.

"I'm an adventurer, but you really can't let me enter right now?"

"I cannot. There's been issues regarding that in the past, so now we only allow people to enter during the day."

"What sort of issues?"

"It was before my time when the rule was established, but I've heard that there were quite a few suspected murders that had happened in the dungeon. It's to prevent that."

"Ah..."

Thinking about it, it made sense. Everything disappears in the dungeon aside from the fountain rooms, so if someone was murdered, there wouldn't be any body left to use as evidence. On top of that, dungeons were dangerous places inherently, so it could easily be excused as the person being killed by a monster rather than being murdered.

"Alright. I'll come by tomorrow then."

"Very good. I wish you good luck in your hunts then!"

After giving me a salute, I turned and headed away from the dungeon. It was unfortunate, but that was how things were. I could just sneak inside on my own, but it wasn't like I was in a hurry, so there wasn't much reason to rush things and do something illegal.

<Scarlet, I'm feeling hungry.>

As we passed through a few more blocks and went deeper into the side streets, Alicia reminded me that we hadn't eaten for a while. When I turned to look at Claret, her eyes were sparkling and there was some drool that started to leak from her lips.

<Umm, gimme a sec.>

We continued until I was certain that there weren't any people who could see us in any direction before activating [Spirit Form].

<Alright then.>

With that, I made a bunch of regular mana treats in one hand as well as one big one in the other, and tossed the normal ones into the air before handing the big one to the dark spirit.

<Thank you Master!>

All the spirits around me munched on the mana treats happily while I opened my bag to retrieve a jar of blood. It was from several rush rabbits. I still had quite a lot of hydra blood, but I wanted to save that for a special occasion.

<I still can't get used to how blood tastes good now.>

<You're telling me? When I was first reincarnated, I couldn't control myself over how good blood tasted. At least this rabbit blood tastes pretty weak now, so you don't have to go through that same feeling.>

<Rush rabbit blood used to taste a lot better to you?>

<Yea. Maybe it's because I was at level one, but rabbit blood was so tasty that I couldn't stop myself from drinking it once I smelt it. It was the same with goblin and loam wolves as well.>

<...even goblins?>

<Yea. I'm not proud of that fact.>

Thinking back, there were also some incidents that I didn't even want to mention regarding the difficulty I used to have when it came to suppressing my urge to drink blood.

As I thought about that, my eyes went to the one floating beside me ignoring everything around her while happily munching on an apple sized mana treat.

<If I find some really good blood, I still have trouble not getting absorbed into drinking it though.>

<I see. That first one was incredibly tasty after all.>

<They're hard to find, so I want to save it.>

<Since it's still new, even this rabbit blood is tasty enough to me though.>

It seemed like there was more than just levels when it came to enjoying the taste of weak blood. Maybe she'd get over it once she's gotten used to it though.

After we all finished eating, Claret started to tell another story about Scarlet.

I'd lost count of how many stories she had told, and as tired as I was when it came to hearing them, I still payed at least a little attention to them just in case, since they were first hand accounts of events that had happened in this world, a world I had far too little knowledge about.

<So after we ran away from that city, we ended up in the middle of some forest. Neither of us knew were we were, only that we should have been far enough that nobody from that city could find us. I started to tell you that you should've at least castrated that man in the fancy outfit, not just kick him between the legs. Even if he did fly into the air and you did smell blood afterwards, I still think that you went way too easy on him.>

<What does castrated mean Claret?>

<Ahh! It's fine! It's just a type of punishment. You don't need to know the details beyond that Alicia!>

Considering Claret, she would've definitely told the little girl what it meant without leaving any details. As smart as she was, Alicia didn't need to know such a thing so early.

<Well, if you insist Master. Anyways, so after that, we wandered around for a few days, only to hear the sound of some screaming. Like always, you bolted out so fast I could hardly keep up. By the time I caught up, you were holding a man in rags on the ground, and there was some woman thanking you.>

<Oh, so maybe that man attacked that woman?>

<That's right! It seemed like the man was some sort of thief and attacked the woman! And you didn't even hurt him to stop him! As expected of Master!>

<What were they doing in the middle of a forest though?>

<Well, they were on a path that went through the forest. It seemed like the woman was going through to escape some trouble with her family, and was trying to get to the next town. She just got unlucky that the thief happened to make that part of the forest his base.>

When I thought about it, Scarlet's encounter rate was pretty insane. It reminded me of all those stories where wherever the protagonist went, trouble seemed to just follow. I was glad that my first two years was relatively quiet.

I hoped that the last few weeks were more of an outlier for myself than anything. I'd welcome a return to a slow, quiet life, even if it was filled with hunting monsters.

<So after you made sure to disarm the thief, you sat down with both him and the woman to hear both of their stories. Apparently the thief was originally an adventurer, working as a scout for his party. But due to a mistake, he missed a trap in a dungeon which lead to everyone else in the party being killed after it was triggered and a group of monsters discovered them while injured due to the sound. He'd been scared of entering dungeons ever since, but couldn't feed himself any other way, so he ended up resorting to becoming a thief to survive.>

<But wait, if he was an adventurer, then couldn't he have just started hunting monsters in the area instead of the dungeon then?>

<Master asked that as well. Apparently where he lived, there were so many adventurers that it was too hard to survive on just hunting monsters outside, so most of them relied on the dungeon to make enough money. While the thief first tried to move to a different place, he couldn't find enough work, which was why he ended up relying on stealing from travellers.>

<That's pretty frustrating. So he wasn't really a bad guy, but was forced to do bad things?>

<It sounded like it, though Master didn't think it was enough to forgive him. Instead, she tied the thief up and brought him with us while escorting the woman he tried steal from. They ended up at the next town, but Master, you went and talked to the guards there and begged them for leniency. You even suggested that he had the skills to work as a guard, and that if they did that, they could pay him only enough for food and shelter for a few years as his punishment. When you asked the thief for his opinion, he agreed to it so quickly I thought his head would pop off from all the nodding!>

<That's so amazing.>

It was. I didn't think I'd go that far for a thief, but I had a suspicion as to why she did that.

<It was! We left the town, but when we visited it again a few years later, it seemed like the thief was still working as a guard, and even got married! On top of that, he became friends with the woman you saved Master! And it seemed like his skills as a scout had saved several people when they went missing in the forest, or when people caused trouble in the town.>

<Wow, so everything worked out then!>

<It did! Master's always so amazing, she almost always finds the good in people!>

<By the way, was she drooling or at least looked hungry when you two ran from that city in the beginning?>

It was the bit I was wondering about that story.

<Oh yea, you were. You looked really hungry, I tried to refuse the mana treat you gave me at the time because of it, but you kept insisting that I eat when I could. It was already two days since you last ate I think.>

Bingo.

I didn't want to say anything bad about someone who was dead, but most likely she originally avoided killing the man because she was afraid of losing to her hunger if she smelt blood, then by the time everyone got to the next village, she felt like all her efforts in holding back and keeping the man alive would've been wasted if he ended up being executed as a bandit.

If I was in her shoes, that would've definitely been something I would've had on my mind.