Stray

Nemo recorded today’s account within five seconds and pressed the folds of the paper roll with the book in his hand. Then he took out the half-sewn stuff in the wooden table lattice and continued sewing— The ball of thread as material seemed to come to life, gently bumping around in the wicker basket.

Seeing that the shopkeeper didn’t mind, the demon worshippers not far away continued the dangerous topic.

“Someone made a wish.”

The old man who raised the two-headed demon crow lowered his voice even lower.

“You all know that statement, right? If you have a dangerous task that no one wants to take, or you can’t afford to pay, you can go to the Mercenary Guild to hang up a task and choose Tumbleweed when you designate a team.”

“I remember that designating a disbanded or non-existent team doesn’t count.”

“The horror is here. Some mission paper rolls were burned on the spot! The tasks were completed well, and the rewards were taken away— Even those employers didn’t know how the prepared rewards disappeared.”

“…I’ve heard of it too, the most recent time was nearby, right? The whole village put together two gold coins and found someone to deal with a large area of out-of-control carnivorous magic vines. Two gold coins! A fool took this job. It’s said that the person entrusted at that time was illiterate, so he copied ten designated teams to be selected, and spelled ‘Poisonous Bell Grass’ into ‘Tumbleweed’*. The next day, the group of carnivorous magic vines disappeared from the village, and the two gold coins they had in their pockets disappeared… My cousin was in that village and told me the story.”

*Chinese for Poisonous Bell Grass (毒铃草) vs Tumbleweed (风滚草) for those wondering how someone could possibly mistake that for Tumbleweed.