Coin Finder

“We have two silver pieces to our names,” Alan noted, dropping the two coins onto the inn’s beer stained oak table.

“Our net worth,” Mina grumbled. “Oh, three silver pieces,” she remembered, pulling a spare coin from her pocket. “Found it this morning.”

“Useful skill you have there,” Will sighed.

Unlike Will, Alan and Mina did have skills. For Mina, it was the skill of Coin Finding. Every day, she has a very high chance of finding a coin. The value was random. Usually it was a cooper or silver coin, but one time they did find a gold coin. It paid for most of the equipment they were wearing now. Alan had the skill of Rain Checking. Basically, he had a high chance of predicting if it would rain on a given day.

“Compared to that Blade Princess yesterday, though,” Mina sighed. “Why couldn’t I have been born with such an amazing skill?”

“What even is her skill anyway?” Will asked, sipping on some salty water, their only food for the day.

“Blessing of the Blade Goddess. Most of what is does is a secret, but basically it makes you really powerful with a sword. S rank skills tend to do that,” Alan explained. “They’re all like that.”

“Not,” Will began.

“Yes, with the sole exception being Ricard. Who lived like a hundred years ago,” Alan interrupted. “But that’s not important. This will be enough for lodging tonight and one meal. We need to start thinking about tomorrow’s finances. Plus, we still owe…”

“Yes, you do,” A voice joined in.

The beast man took the fourth seat, scooping up the silver coins.

“Oh come on, Leo, at least give us that for tonight!” Will protested.

“You’re already late paying us back as is,” Leo growled.

The beast man looked mostly human, save for the cat ears and the sharper canine teeth in his mouth, plus some tiger stripes streaking down his exposed biceps.

“Kagan is a patient man, but you three are pushing it,” Leo growled. “You still owe us about a hundred gold, and the interest is ticking up.”

“We’ll get you your money, Leo,” Will grunted.

“The way I see it, this was a bad investment, and I’m going to tell the boss that. But, you do technically have time. For now,” Leo said. “Of course, you could take our counteroffer. It pays well. You work for us as enforcers, while Missy here, well,” he laughed.

Mina shivered.

“I think we’re good, thanks,” Will countered, putting himself between Mina and Leo.

“Suit yourselves,” he leaned back, cat ears twitching. “But the time will come when I won’t be so nice. You better have our money then.” Leo got up, knocking the chair over as he did so.

“What a jerk,” Mina said under her breath.

“Great, now we have to sleep outside tonight,” Alan rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“We can go back into the dungeon today,” Will suggested.

“No, we won’t. We didn’t make anything yesterday. Or anything for the past week for that matter. We’ve been living on part-time jobs and Mina’s coins,” Alan explained.

“We just need to make D rank. Once we do, we start getting the adventurer’s stipend. That will be enough money for food and lodging so that we can focus on...” Will reasoned.

“You don’t get it! We’re screwed!” Alan stood up, causing the other patrons to turn and stare. “Being an adventurer’s been nothing but trouble for us! We were stupid enough to take that starter adventurer loan from Leo, not knowing it would get us in this mess!”

“Alan, sit down,” Mina chided gently, grabbing his arm and lowering him back into his seat. “We'll think of something. I mean, look at us, little village kids, and we somehow made all the way to the big city. We’ll make it through.”

“I’m sorry,” Alan apologized.

“No, I'm sorry,” Will spoke up. “We shouldn’t have taken that loan, I pushed us into it. Maybe we double our part-time shifts this week.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good plan,” Alan looked at Will, who had a smirk on his face. “Oh no. What’s that look mean?”

“Just for this week.” Will’s smirk widened. “But next week.”

“We’re going back into the dungeon, aren’t we?” Mina sighed.

“I heard a rumor, that the guild is getting ready for a deep delve,” Will whispered.

“A deep delve?! You know for a fact that you need to be at least C rank to go on a deep delve!” Alan pointed out.

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be in the dungeon at the same time,” Will said.

Mina and Alan just looked at each other.

“Think about. Nearly every high ranking party is going to be in the dungeon, right? And they’re all going pretty deep. That means they’ll be clearing out all the dangerous monsters along the way,“ Will explained. 

“Uh huh,” Mina and Alan nodded in unison.

“That means it’ll be safe. That also means that they’ll be so focused on the big treasures, that all the slightly less valuable treasure will not be missed,” Will puffed his chest.

“So basically, we're going to steal from them,” Alan said.

“Although I’m only a part-time priestess, that feels like a sin,” Mina responded.

“We’re not stealing!” Will corrected. “We’re just grabbing whatever is leftover. Should be enough to keep us going for a while. And, if we’re really, really lucky, that we might find something that’ll pay off our debts entirely.”

“Still, we’d have to go pretty deep to find anything super valuable,” Mina pointed out.

“And as F ranks, we’re only allowed to hover around the upper floors anyway,” Alan reminded.

“Come on guys. You said it yourself, Alan, we’re screwed. This is the only way we’ll get out of this mess,” Will smiled.

Alan and Mina looked at each other again.

“I'm fine with it,” Mina said.

Alan sighed.

“Fine, I guess. But the moment we get in trouble, we’re running. I don’t want what happened yesterday to happen again,” Alan agreed.

“Great!” Will beamed. “Plus, if we have enough left over, we can pay the D-rank exam entrance fee.”

“There it is,” Alan sighed again.

“What? It’ll come after we pay our debts off. Promise,” Will assured.

“Sure,” Alan nodded. “Now, then, enough about the future. Where are we going to sleep tonight? It’s going to rain, by the way.”

“Oh!” Mina leaned down under the table, emerging a moment later. “Found a cooper coin!”