The storage room had taken the full brunt of the earthquake, leaving it in absolute shambles.
Cain-san and I stepped inside, deciding to start by sorting out what was still usable from what was broken beyond repair.
"Are you going to throw this away too?"
"Well, there's not much else I can do. I bought it thinking I'd display it someday, but I just left it sitting around without properly securing it, so it shattered."
The storage room held an astonishing variety of items.
Among them were home ornaments and decorations; it seemed he had bought things he took a liking to, only to leave them sitting neglected in storage.
Now, knocked to the floor by the earthquake and smashed to pieces, they were destined straight for the trash.
It wasn't my place to interfere since it was someone else's home, but I couldn't help feeling it was an awful waste as I cleaned.
I had thought the same thing while tidying up Belinda-san's estate.
Just having plenty of money didn't make the mindset of tossing things out so readily any easier for me to understand.
I followed the client's instructions because that was my job, but if it were up to me, I would repair slightly damaged belongings myself and keep using them.
I kept working as those thoughts turned over in my mind.
"Man, having you here was a lifesaver, Erik-kun."
The cleanup was finally finished.
The storage room had taken quite a while, bringing our total time to about three hours, but we somehow managed to see it through.
"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to keep you helping me for so long."
"Don't worry about it. I'm being paid for my time, after all."
With that, I had Cain-san fill out my completion form.
He considered giving me an extra bonus, but I quickly declined, managing to convince him to stick to just the standard quest fee.
With the job complete, I made my way back to the Adventurer's Guild.
"Please! I'm begging you!"
The moment I stepped inside the guild hall, a desperate, tearful voice rang out across the room.
Recognizing the voice, I turned my gaze toward the speaker.
The view of his back looked just as I remembered.
"Henry-san?"
"—-?!"
When I called out, the man who had been pleading at the reception counter spun around sharply.
His face was identical to the person I knew so well—or rather, it was the man himself.
Exhausted and streaked with tears, Henry-san's expression morphed into pure shock the moment he saw me.
"E-Erik?! What are you doing in the royal capital? Ah, wait... before the ceremony, you mentioned you were heading to the capital to become an adventurer, didn't you?"
"That's right. I'm working as an adventurer here now."
Henry-san was the son of the village chief from my hometown.
At twenty years old, he was ten years my senior.
As the chief's only son and the village's future leader, he was constantly interacting with everyone back home.
He took great pride in how fast he could run, often boasting that on his own two feet, he could reach the royal capital in three days flat.
Henry-san had also been one of my best patrons.
He had probably sensed my difficult family circumstances, which was why he frequently hired me to run errands for him.
"Erik-kun, do you know this person?"
"Ah, yes. He's the successor to the village chief back in my hometown. He always looked out for me."
After explaining the situation to Reina-san, I decided to ask Henry-san what had brought him here.
"A wyvern near the village... So that's why you ran all the way to the royal capital to post a quest, Henry-san."
"Yeah... but the village just doesn't have that kind of money. We pooled together a few dozen silver coins, but they told me that's not nearly enough to post the request..."
Henry-san's voice sank with despair.
A wyvern.
A winged creature resembling a dragon, though smaller in stature.
Even so, certain breeds were exceptionally dangerous, making them monsters that no one should ever approach lightly.
"By the way, what color was it?"
"The hunters said it was red."
"A red wyvern. That's a dangerous monster."
A red-colored wyvern was a distinct breed known as a red wyvern.
True to its scales, it was a monster capable of wielding fire magic.
Its threat level was high, and if provoked, the entire village would likely be reduced to ashes in an instant.
"Reina-san, roughly how much does a wyvern subjugation request cost?"
"Let's see... A wyvern is difficult to take down unless the adventurers are at least Silver Rank. Even then, success isn't guaranteed, so it requires at least one gold coin."
"...Understood. In that case, please post the request for one gold coin and fifty silver coins. With the explicit condition that subjugation is guaranteed."
With that, I decided to fund the request to save my village directly from my own savings.
"E-Erik? Do you really have that kind of money?! A whole gold coin?!"
"A lot has happened recently, and I just received a large sum. Right now, I have more than enough to get by, so please let me use it for the sake of the village."
At my words, tears welled up in Henry-san's eyes once more.
"Erik-kun, just to be sure, are you absolutely certain you want to post the request with that reward amount?"
"Please do. I couldn't care less about my family, but that village is my precious hometown. It's thanks to the people living there that I'm standing here today. Besides, I can always earn more money whenever I need to."
At my final confirmation, Reina-san gave a nod and headed toward the back of the reception counter to process the request.