Chapter 618: The Suffering of the "True" Culprits

Sitting atop the pile of supplies as the two of them moved out of the city, the two of them ended up drawing quite a bit of attention from passing adventurers...

"Look! What is that!?"

"A dwarf being dragged along atop a pile of supplies by a- Huh!? Who treats a lady like this!?"

"This... To think the world has degraded to this point..."

"How shameless! Has he no honor as a man!?"

The attention in question not exactly being positive, as he ended up becoming the center of attention for the different adventurers passing by below.

Female and male adventurers alike throwing disdainful glances harsh enough to pierce the thickest of skin his way, causing the dwarf in question to shrink his upright body to the point where he partly merged with the supplies below. Making it harder for those passing adventurers below to spot him-

"What is that dwarf doing now...?"

"Trying to shrink away? Huh?"

"As expected, shameless from start to finish. Not even going down and walking on his own two feet. Instead, concluding the air was a bit too cold up there? Deciding to snuggle together with the different supplies for warmth?"

Not that this worked...

"Hmph! Shameless dwarf!"

"Young lady, you don’t have to follow along with that rude dwarf and carry him like this!"

"Yeah! Young lady, you should scold this shameless dwarf properly! Let this big sister teach you how to teach an incompetent companion like this!"

On the contrary, it only drew more attention to the sled, as a few kind-looking older female adventurers stepped forward and began giving kind suggestion to Valerie on how she should handle an incompetent companion.

"N-n-no need, I-I-I’m f-fine!" During which, the person being kindly encouraged to speak up against the rude behavior of her companion was doing her best to not laugh at the current unfortunate situation Verdell had ended up finding himself in because he couldn’t wait to crawl up the supply pile on the sled to check out how things looked up there.

To make the situation even more entertaining because she enjoyed seeing the helpless look on Verdell’s face as he had no idea how to get out of his current situation, Valerie decided to deliberately slow down a bit. Dragging out the situation for just a few minutes more.

Even worse, Verdell was fully aware of what was happening and how much his beloved friend was enjoying his current predicament but couldn’t do anything about it.

Should he descend down from the pile of supplies, he could almost guarantee that the group of female adventurers pitying Valerie would jump him and personally teach him a lesson, while remaining on top the supply pile did provide him with some safety, it left him with no way to remedy the situation.

Sure, he was a certified S Rank Adventurer- and not a weak one at that.

But...

Those older female adventurers eyeing him were no less terrifying, as most of them were senior adventurers ranging between the A and S Rank, there was even two SS Rank Adventurers mixed in among them!

This kind of lineup... Even if he gave it everything he had, he would have no way to fight back against so many powerful adventurers on his own.

In the end, the embarrassing endeavor lasted a mortifying thirty minutes before the sled cleared the official path and began heading off in a randomly picked direction that wouldn’t lead to some already known death trap within the northern frontier.

Half an hour of people cursing him with whatever meager reputation he might have built up as an S Rank Adventurer being torn down in the process.

The silver lining to the embarrassing turn of event, being the fact that none of the adventurers that had seen the two of them would be able to associate either of them with the adventurers that had managed to successfully sell off the crystal bunny.

If anything, their unique exit out of the city served as a protective barrier against anyone who might originally have suspected them of being the ones that had managed to get their hands on the crystal bunny. In a way, it might even make the people who heard about it think someone was trying to mislead them.

After all, outside of the ones who had the crystal bunny stolen from them, no one else had seen Verdell and Valerie free the crystal bunny and later kill it off. To the different adventurers that had been present at the scene, it looked like the escaping adventurers that had originally trapped the crystal bunny had managed to successfully kill and grab the corpse of the crystal bunny.

Anything these adventurers said trying to defend themselves was not worth anything in the eyes of the other adventurers, as even if the crystal bunny wasn’t on their person any longer, they believed it might have already been taken by someone working together with them discreetly before being sold off to the guild.

Even if this wasn’t the best use of something like a crystal bunny, it could be seen as a way for the adventurers that had managed to get their hands on the crystal bunny to prevent anyone else from trying to seize it from them in the future.

Not that this kind of elaborate selling of the crystal bunny ended up being needed in the first place, as the group of adventurers had long since been prepared for the response they would get, once they had managed to get away with the crystal bunny safely.

Problem was that there was no crystal bunny around to make the sacrifices they were forced to make along the way worth it.

Even worse, they had essentially become public enemy number one for no reason, while the true enemy of the people had already sold off the crystal bunny and snuck away amidst the chaos with the people none the wiser as they were intent on punishing who they viewed as the true culprit.