The Hero and the Saintess
The Adventurers' Guild officially divides its badges into three ranks: Gold, Silver, and Bronze. An unofficial fourth—Novice—has wedged itself in among them, and the guilds operate on all four.
Adventurer Guilds could be found in nearly every city of any real size across the continent, and a rank earned in one city was recognized at every other guild on the map. The Novice rank, however, wasn't even implemented in many cities, which meant it counted for nothing the moment you left town. In other words, if you actually wanted to travel from city to city calling yourself an adventurer, you needed at least a Bronze rank.
"Yes, we've received your paperwork. As of today, you'll be operating officially as a Bronze-rank adventurer."
"What should I do with the Novice badge?"
"Please return it here."
I got my Bronze promotion confirmed by Tina, who was hard at work at the reception desk as usual. At first she'd at least been the one to greet me when she saw me coming. Now her manner was purely, perfectly professional. Was it my imagination, or were the dark circles under her eyes getting worse by the day? Guild receptionist work really wasn't as easy as it looked.
Meanwhile, a full-blown commotion was erupting at the window next door.
"GYAAAAAAH! Didn't you say the request was to bring back a Thunderhawk egg?!"
"Sssss—this is that Thunderhawk egg…"
"Don't you dare look down on Meruru! Does this look like a Thunderhawk egg to you?! Anyone can see it's a reptile egg, so it is!"
Meruru, now fully in charge of the demi-human specialist window, was locked in a shouting match with some kind of lizardman. On the counter sat a long, white, mucus-smeared egg nestled in a nest of straw.
"Sssss—I'm telling you—I went to the Thunderhawk nest myself—sssss—and brought it back—"
"You must not underestimate Meruru! This egg is unfertilized, so it iiiis! Did you lay this yourself?!"
At Meruru's shout, the scales covering the lizardman's face flushed a deep, mortified red. Oh, good gods. What am I even looking at.
"The request is cancelled, so it is! And you have to pay the penalty fee, so it is!"
Meruru swept the so-called egg off the counter with her arm and flung it. The lizardman gathered it up with a thoroughly deflated look, then retreated from the counter with his head hanging.
"Um… is the demi-human window always like that?"
I couldn't contain my curiosity about the atmosphere at Meruru's counter—so completely different from the regular reception desk—and asked Tina.
"Among the demi-human adventurers who come in from time to time, there are some like that lizardman who try to cheat their way into a request payout."
"But is it all right to treat a customer like that?"
"She may look like that, but Meruru is actually quite popular. Sometimes people even put on fake ears just so they can process their business at her window."
I stared at Meruru, who was still huffing and puffing, in astonishment. So even if she went that hard, as long as the adventurers liked her, it wasn't a problem? Well, the guild was a business too. If it helped the business, I supposed it didn't matter.
Anyway, I had successfully become a Bronze-rank adventurer. From now on, I could proudly call myself an adventurer even in other cities. I no longer could—or needed to—take the odd jobs that only Novice-rank adventurers were allowed to accept every morning.
There was something I'd wanted to try once I made Bronze. Standing in front of the request board with a serious expression, browsing it alongside the other adventurers.
I immediately planted myself among them, putting on a what request should I take today face as I looked at the board.
All kinds of requests were plastered across the board in a messy jumble. It was in complete tatters from how many times papers had been stuck on and peeled off. The lowest payout, as a baseline, was five gold. It was a completely different kind of money from cleaning or hauling crates. Even as a Bronze adventurer, if you diligently completed requests, you could live quite comfortably.
"Alright. As of today, living hand to mouth is over."
I started picking out the requests I thought I could handle from the board.
The Seven Dioceses convened in regular assembly to choose a Saintess, and the Saintess, through divine revelation, would find the one who possessed the qualities of a Hero.
After Saintess Sistina of the Freya Diocese had fled the Church, a new Saintess was at last elected. This time, she had come from the Castia Diocese, the most powerful of the Seven. The Freya Diocese, which had failed to adequately support its Saintess in fulfilling her duties, was forcibly excluded from the selection.
"The Castia Diocese, is it…"
Bishop Xavier, who had been shut out of the election, attended the ceremony all the same. From a seat well apart from the others, he watched the remaining bishops carry out the selection with a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face.
"Castia's Selena. She is the one who will find the Hero—our new Saintess."
"Spread this joyous news to every church at once."
"This time, may we truly find the Hero."
Three days later, the newly chosen Saintess Selena was summoned to the Central Church to be formally invested with her office. She was a slight young woman with neat brown hair, so small and delicate she looked as though a strong wind might knock her over. With the bishops watching, she rolled her eyes about anxiously, as if none of it had quite sunk in yet.
Selena bowed her head, and the bishops of the Seven Dioceses poured holy water from a chalice over her hair, one after another. With that, she was recognized as the new Saintess.
A moment later, her hair and clothes still dripping, Saintess Selena lifted her head and opened her mouth.
"I have something important to say to the bishops gathered here."
"Please, speak."
A peculiar tension rippled through the bishops at the new Saintess's request to be heard. The anxious look that had been on Selena's face only moments before had vanished without a trace. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and spoke.
"I'll take everything on the menu."
A high-end restaurant in Kubel specializing in meat dishes. I looked at the menu and spoke to the waiter without a second's hesitation.
"Waaaaaah! Is this okay?! This is incredible, so it is!"
Meruru's foxlike ears shot straight up as she nearly bounced out of her chair. It had been a week since I'd made Bronze, and I'd timed it to Tina and Meruru getting off work so I could treat them to a meal.
"There are things here I've never tried either. I'm looking forward to it."
Tina said it with a happy little smile. Adventuring was, it turned out, a remarkably lucrative profession. A week of knocking out two or three requests a day without a single day off had left my purse fatter than it had ever been—and Bronze-rank requests tended to be the kind you could finish quickly and easily, which only helped. For someone who'd grown used to earning just enough to eat that same day, it was a whole new world. If I passed something I wanted to eat, I bought it on the spot. If I saw something I wanted, I bought that too—things that would have been pure fantasy not long ago.
"You two helped me when I was in a bad spot. Once I started making money, the first thing I wanted to do was repay that kindness."
Without Tina, I might still have been wandering the streets. Without Meruru, I would have run out of money in Kubel and starved. Both of them were my benefactors. And though he wasn't here—if Oren had still been alive, I would have wanted to buy him a meal like this too.
"By the way, I was so surprised. When I first walked into the guild and found you working the reception desk, Tina."
I said it lightly, just to fill the time while we waited for the food. The smile that had been on Tina's face at the thought of the meal suddenly clouded over.
"Ahaha… it was the only place I could find work."
She rubbed at the skin beneath her eyes as she said it. The dark circles, far deeper than when I'd first met her, seemed to be bothering her.
"The receptionist work must be pretty rough, then…"
"The difficult customers I can live with. It's the paperwork. There's just so much of it. Lately even my eyes have been getting tired…"
"Ahaha…"
Work talk was probably not the way to go. I turned instead to Meruru, whose ears wouldn't stay still while she waited for the food.
"How about you, Meruru? You doing alright?"
"Doing well, so it is! But Meruru still hasn't found her sister…"
"Still no leads? Have you been looking?"
"Whenever any news about beastkin comes in, Tina always tells Meruru, so it is…"
At the mention of her sister, Meruru's ears drooped and folded flat. No, why was the mood doing this. Everything I said kept sliding sideways into something vaguely depressing. In the end, I dropped the small talk and quietly waited for the food to arrive.
At the next table, a party who looked like adventurers had placed their order and were talking among themselves.
"Did you hear? They picked a new Saintess."
"Sounds like this one has incredible Divine Power."
The topic was interesting enough that I found myself listening in without meaning to. Tina, a former Saintess herself, seemed to take an interest as well; her brow furrowed slightly, and she sat perfectly still.
"Why, is there something else?"
"They say the moment she was chosen as Saintess, she named the Hero."
"What? For real? Is that even possible?"
"It must be, if she did it."
I caught Tina letting out the tiniest gasp of surprise.
"Here are the dishes you ordered."
At that same moment, the food I'd ordered came rolling out on an enormous cart. The Hero and the Saintess, huh. Nothing to do with me. The same went for Tina.
Time to eat.