Each One's Circumstances
Each One's Circumstances
The profession of adventurer was brutally realistic.
It wasn't that low-risk, high-return situations never existed, but those were literally just the domain of luck. A realistic profession where low risk meant meager gains, but high risk didn't necessarily guarantee large rewards either. It wasn't some seasonal trade chasing blue oceans or red oceans—adventuring was a historically venerable form of manual labor that had persisted alongside human civilization itself.
Just as humanity in my previous life had failed to exterminate mosquitoes and cockroaches, the monsters of this other world were equally endless. And because the byproducts left by powerful monsters were resources that practically created an economy of their own for humanity, that was only natural.
But ultimately, technology and civilization were bound to advance, and though humans hadn't succeeded in completely driving monsters out of their settlements, they had achieved some success in pushing the threatening ones outward. Consequently, dangerous monster sightings near the capital had become very rare, which in turn led to declining profits for adventurers. So adventurers with a certain degree of skill, unless they retired, spread outward in search of new dangers.
Of course, not all adventurers could do that. Just as many people study to join a major corporation or become a judge, prosecutor, or doctor, but only a few actually end up in those professions—some, due to lack of ability, and others by finding new livelihoods, settled down and made their own lives.
This incident had been caused by people who had settled down because they lacked the ability to go farther, yet still wanted to protect their own livelihoods.
The full story of the incident, as I heard it from the bastards who were all groveling with their heads pressed to the ground right now, was as follows.
One blue-rank adventurer who usually passed for a mad dog separated from the red-rank bitch he often hung around with, and at some point, he started tagging along with the Gaendal party, who were beginning to stand out. The Gaendal party itself, being full of exceptional talents, could be overlooked, but the fact that all kinds of weird rumors and talk of him being a lunatic—rumors that outnumbered those related to his skill—had attached themselves to this petty bastard made him look anything but favorable in their eyes.
Still, up to that point, it was the kind of thing you'd commonly see in life. But the problem started from there onward.
To be precise, some trouble arose when adventurers who implicitly considered themselves on equal footing with the Gaendal crew proposed joining the party, and in the process of working that out, a bit of a problem occurred.
Yekaterina—with her boldness, exceptional skill, fine figure, and rare beauty—was the object of admiration and sexual desire for many warriors, while Rellie was both a mage and quite pretty. Since the two had originally worked only as a pair, there had been few opportunities for anyone to approach them, so apparently quite a few people took their joining Gaendal's party as a new chance.
So those who took pride in being red-rank and had confidence in their skills proceeded to apply for party membership with all the pretentious posturing they could muster... and well, they were all flatly rejected.
The reason given was lack of ability and proven achievements. In truth, since all four of them were clearly not the type to remain only in the capital, there wasn't a single person among those rejected who could argue with that reason. However, for them, it wasn't just a scratch on their pride—there was a reason they could only feel as though shit had been smeared on their faces.
Namely, me.
They started demanding to know why the hell they partnered with a mere blue-rank adventurer brat but wouldn't accept them.
To some of the backlash asking why they'd form a party with a half-assed, skill-ambiguous blue-rank mad dog but not even glance at red-ranks like themselves, Yekaterina gave the objective assessment that they were less skilled than me. But naturally, not a single one of them accepted that evaluation graciously. Some jumped to wild conclusions about my relationship with Yekaterina and hurled extremely lewd insults, only to have their entire set of teeth knocked out by her iron fist, so things clearly weren't wrapped up neatly.
Having their teeth knocked out was one thing, but the pieces of shit who felt their very reason for existing had been denied became bitter and had their pride wounded. Feeling as though the Three Bonds and Five Relationships were collapsing, society was crumbling, and families were being destroyed, these motherfuckers responded by deciding to 'enforce discipline.'
Whether they were bastards who'd gotten the shit beaten out of them for making lewd jokes at Yekaterina or men furious because their skills had been dismissed, they gathered together, invented excuses to preserve their egos, and formed an association. United behind the absurd logic that if this continued, people would start treating the Adventurers' Guild's rank standards like complete bullshit, the losers still lacked the nerve to challenge the genuinely skilled Gaendal party. Instead, they strutted around bullying adventurers below red-rank while preaching their self-made logic as if it were official Guild law.
Still, they apparently weren't completely brainless. They played politics hard and tried to distinguish themselves by looking after those who supported their position. That was how the new clique I hadn't known about came into being.
Amazingly, all of this had apparently happened before I left for my vacation in Ogwen.
"So, while they were collectively shitting and pissing themselves with mental victory and masturbation at the same time, I suddenly popped up again and joined the Gaendal party, lighting the fuse?"
"...Wh-what's a fuse?"
"Goddammit. I'm asking if I pulled the trigger on those shitbirds' tantrum."
"Ah, y-yes. Yes. That's correct."
A blue-rank adventurer was cooperating with the Gaendal party again. And not just joining them—he was going around using an epithet that wasn't Mad Dog or Mad Sword, but Guillotine.
From their perspective, no matter how they looked at it, this was a petty attempt to ride the coattails of the recently famous 'Guillotine of Levien.' Blessed with galaxy-brained intellect, those losers saw through the cowardly trick attempted by some blue-rank adventurer and flew into an indignant rage. They resolved to show the insolent little shit the strength of a real adventurer: in their minds, he had no real skill, lived as Yekaterina's kept man, and committed fraud by leeching off someone else's fame.
Because if a bastard like that set a bad precedent and similar trash multiplied, the foothold they had in the capital—where the things to leech off of were already dwindling—might vanish entirely.
And so time passed, which brought us to the present, or so the story went.
"Huh. Huh-huh-huh-huh."
Fuck, it was so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh. I clutched my dizzy head, then stroked Laika to soothe my mind as I casually tossed out a question.
"Fuck, I really want a smoke. You guys know the Guillotine of Levien, but you don't know his name?"
I hadn't directed the question at anyone in particular, but the answer shot right back.
"O-of course we don't."
Amazingly, the bastard was right. Of course they might not know.
In a capital large enough to be divided into separate districts for adventurers, dwarves, and nobles, rumors were extremely vague. Even in the modern world with its developed internet and communication devices, you don't know every rumor in your neighborhood, so how would these guys know? If they knew that, they'd be working as information brokers.
Rather, the fact that a rumor from noble circles, largely unrelated to adventurers, had spread this quickly made it more appropriate to suspect that someone had intentionally leaked the information.
So the conclusion reached by the thick-skulled idiots in this new clique could actually be called a perfectly ordinary piece of reasoning. It was like asking whether a Kim Cheol-su living in the basement apartment behind your house and a major-company chairman named Kim Cheol-su might be the same person just because they shared a name. Their starting point was petty and narrow-minded, but based only on the incidents and information available, the excuse they offered sounded fairly plausible.
But no matter how valid a conclusion it was, it couldn't serve as an excuse for making my life a goddamn misery.
If you didn't know, you should've been more careful.
"Haah... Alright, I've got the general outline. So, did you come here just to beat the shit out of me, or to drag me away?"
"......"
Again, probably because I hadn't singled anyone out, an atmosphere of reluctance to answer settled over them. I considered picking one bastard and kicking him in the shin until he talked, but then I suddenly felt like I understood what their silence meant, so I asked again.
"You came to beat me up and drag me away?"
"...Yes."
Right on. My intuition was improving day by day. Feeling somewhat satisfied with my own growth, I grabbed a random bastard by the scruff of his neck and forced him to his feet. Never mind the fact that he was trembling like an aspen leaf—like the others, the man, whose front teeth had been knocked out and who hadn't been able to wipe off the blood that had now somewhat congealed into a hideous mess, couldn't even scream and just started rolling his eyes frantically.
"Let's go."
"Huh?"
"You said you were going to drag me away, right? There's probably a place you're going. Let's go."
Even though I was offering to help him achieve his objective, the bastard wore a despairing expression and kept glancing back at the others who were still groveling with their heads pressed to the ground.
"Why? Do I look like I'm giving the rest of these guys an easy time?"
"Ah, n-no, that's not..."
"Laika, toy with them a little."
Laika, who until now had only stared at me with bright, clear eyes, seized the pants of the nearest bastard without a moment's hesitation and began swinging him around.
"Aaaagh! S-save me! Please save me!"
At the sight of that human windmill, the bastards who had been pressing their heads to the ground started to rise awkwardly, only to bow right back down the instant our eyes met. Once the man in Laika's jaws was exhausted, Laika bit another and repeated the same thing. By the time they were watching a dog bite a person and swing him around, the rest had understood how serious things were and did nothing but tremble, not daring to resist.
When I tapped the shoulder of the bastard staring at them with a fed-up look, he finally seemed to come to his senses, flinching sharply before showing a proper reaction.
"L-let's go!"
"Laika, let's move."
Whether it was out of loyalty to his suffering comrades or fear that he'd suffer the same fate if he didn't move, the bastard walked with genuine diligence.