I Want to Be an Adventurer Again
The Variant Mandragora that appeared once the barrier came down was a sight so grotesque it defied description.
"Excuse me. You're telling me that's a medicinal herb? One that you grew?"
"That's correct."
Not a Guild Master—a mad scientist. What the hell has this guy been up to?
The mandragora that had appeared was, in a word, a giant, unmistakably living, musclebound ginseng—and a flame of mana blazed atop its head.
"For your information, magic doesn't work on that mandragora. That's why dealing with it became rather troublesome, so I confined it for the time being. Convenient timing, really."
Anyone could see that thing was a dangerous monster. Was it really all right for a Guild Master to be creating something like that?
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The mandragora began to move its massive body. Every time the creature's foot struck the earth, a tremor ran through the ground.
"Uwaaah! It's so creepy, so it is!"
"Go, Yunoa-sunbae!"
Meruru and Silphy were cheering me on from a safe distance. Philstone was watching me as well, keeping a bit of space between us.
All right. Get a good look with both eyes as I take down that giant ginseng.
It looked a bit strong, but I'd faced worse. And I had that alien mana I'd obtained in Einblad.
I filled my sword with mana at once and charged the mandragora. My control was still clumsy—I couldn't regulate the output—so I wouldn't use any techniques. Just cut it down, simple and clean.
As I rushed in, the mandragora's thick arm came crashing down toward me.
Thud!
I slipped the blow with ease, circled to the side, and took its back. The Guild Master was watching, so I would finish this quickly and cleanly—leave a strong impression.
I kicked off the ground, leaped up, and brought my mana-charged sword down on the mandragora from crown to root, splitting it vertically. The descending blade sliced through its head and torso as easily as cheese.
I hadn't used any special technique, but the quality of the mana in the sword amplified the destructive power. The Variant Mandragora was cleaved in two in a single stroke, becoming two large lumps of medicinal herb.
The fight had ended so easily it was almost anticlimactic.
"Well? That should do it, right?"
I looked at Philstone with a triumphant air, standing before the halved mandragora. He approached, felt the now-motionless pieces, and nodded.
Philstone became the guarantor of my career and abilities, as promised. Silphy and Meruru also submitted documents to the guild certifying that I had slain the mandragora.
I was truly grateful to the two of them. I felt not the slightest gratitude toward Philstone. If it hadn't been for his bizarre stubbornness in the first place, I wouldn't have had to do any of this.
"Yes, all done. Your final rank is Silver Rank. Well done."
Tina processed my registration documents and offered her congratulations. It was an initial rank I couldn't have received without the Guild Master's guarantee.
With this, I'd somehow restored my adventurer rank to what it had been. Even if I wanted to operate at guilds in other regions, unless I was one of the rare few at Gold Rank exempt from the process, I'd have to file a transfer report at least once. It was a simple procedure, but it still required a provisional document that I had to pick up from Kubel.
Now that I'd recovered my rank, there were no more restrictions on moving between guilds. And yet a lingering unease still wouldn't go away.
"Tina, I have a question. So according to the records the guild is keeping, I died once, and a new Yunoa has now become an adventurer?"
"That's... right."
It's not like I'm some kind of undead. The fact that a record like that even exists is unsettling.
"You've been through a lot, Tina."
After going through all this, the way I looked at the receptionists working at the guild had changed considerably. They weren't just overworked because there was too much to do—they were suffering because they'd gotten stuck with the wrong Guild Master. Documents, documents, documents, all day long. I could see why Tina's dark circles grew deeper every day.
The wide space behind the guild counter was packed full of paperwork. Documenting work is fine in moderation, but at this volume it seemed like it would actually tank efficiency.
A question suddenly occurred to me.
"Tina, does the guild keep every document it produces?"
"That's right. The volume that comes out every day is enormous, so there's even a separate warehouse for storing documents. You know that building behind the guild with no sign? That's where we store documents after a certain period."
Tina answered me while her hands continued processing other papers.
"What would happen to the guild if all the stored documents were lost in an accident?"
"That would probably be... a huge problem."
Well, yeah.
Anyway, I'd recovered my adventurer rank. I didn't like Philstone's methods, but there was nothing I could do about it. I finally felt like I'd returned to the everyday life I'd missed.
Starting tomorrow, I'd go back to being an ordinary adventurer—taking requests and making money.
That's what I thought, when suddenly the Narration rang out in my head.
At last, having restored his adventurer rank, Yunoa looked forward to returning to an ordinary adventurer's life starting tomorrow.
But he did not know. What consequences the Variant Mandragora he had slain at Philstone's request would bring.
Somehow the content felt a little ominous.
I'd split the Variant Mandragora in half and finished it off for certain. The idea of a medicinal herb being alive and moving had been creepy from the start, though.
Don't tell me it didn't die? It's still alive?
The mandragora I'd slain had been collected by Philstone, who hauled every last piece of it off to the refinery. If it had been split in half and still wasn't dead?
No. That couldn't be. It wasn't a starfish.
I decided not to worry about it and just rest for today.
Late in the small hours of the night, Philstone was attempting to refine the Variant Mandragora at his own refinery.
Mandragora was a rare medicinal herb, widely believed impossible to cultivate. He, however, had independently researched a method of growing it long ago, and that research had borne fruit.
Every day he had injected mana into the mandragora as fertilizer, raising it with painstaking care. It grew larger and larger, and Philstone, determined to maximize its size, pumped in still more mana.
Perhaps that had been the seed of disaster. One day, Philstone's mandragora mutated, transforming into something indistinguishable from a monster. A mandragora of enormous size pulled itself from the earth and began attacking everything around it.
A panicked Philstone tried to subdue it, but magical attacks had no effect whatsoever. Left with no other option, he had confined the Variant Mandragora inside a barrier while he pondered how to deal with it.
It was then that a man named Yunoa had come asking him to restore his adventurer records. Philstone hadn't particularly wanted to be bothered, so he'd sent the man away—but he came back. And this time, he proposed a method of restoring his rank while still upholding the guild's rules.
The mandragora problem was an awkward one to post as an official guild request. Above all, since Philstone had grown the thing with his own hands, he wanted to resolve it quietly without making a bigger fuss than necessary. In that respect, Yunoa had looked like a reasonably useful man.
His records had been erased, but he was a Silver Rank adventurer, and the sword at his waist suggested he wasn't a mage. If it didn't work out, Philstone could always just lock the thing back in the barrier. So he decided to use this man to solve the mandragora problem.
The result was the present situation. Philstone was satisfied.
The Variant Mandragora might possess different medicinal properties from an ordinary one. He had brought the halved specimen to the refinery, cut it into eight large pieces, and packed them into a box. His plan was to feed the mandragora's essence into the refiner and carefully experiment to see what effects would manifest.
But then—
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
The box containing the mandragora pieces made a strange sound. Philstone, absorbed in the refining, ignored it.
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. Crack!
Then came the sound of the rattling box breaking apart. When he turned around, the Variant Mandragora he had divided into eight pieces had each revived as separate individuals. They had shrunk to one-eighth the size, but the mana flames on their heads still blazed, and they were every bit as burly as before.
"Wh... what..."
Philstone hurriedly tried to confine them with a magic barrier. But it would have been better when it was still one large specimen. Eight child-sized Variant Mandragoras burst from the box in an instant and scattered in every direction, making containment impossible.
"W-waaaaah!"
In the deep hours of the night, a scream rang out from Philstone's refinery. And the Variant Mandragoras that had escaped from there began a moonlit dash toward the heart of Kubel.
I was sleeping at the inn when somehow it got noisy outside. Looking through the window, it was still dark—what was going on?
"Fire! Fire!"
"It's a monster! A walking monster root!"
"Aaaaaaagh!"
A walking monster... root?
The burly, bulging image of the Variant Mandragora flashed through my mind. I sprang up and hurried outside.
Outside had become a scene of utter chaos. Mandragoras about the size of grade-schoolers were running through the streets, setting fires everywhere. The mana flames attached to their heads were scattering embers in every direction.
Some people who looked like adventurers were already fighting the mandragoras. Buildings burning here and there, people screaming and fleeing, adventurers locked in combat with walking roots.
The Variant Mandragora had been divided into eight pieces by Philstone's hand.
But this Variant Mandragora, having consumed an excessive amount of mana, would not die so easily.
Unless it was crushed beyond all recognition, each fragment would split off and revive as a separate individual.
Thud! Thud!
One burly mandragora had grabbed an adventurer who'd pointed a sword at it by the hair and was punching him in the stomach. Another was climbing a building. Yet another was running around like mad, wildly shaking the fire on its head.
"I can't believe it's come to this..."
Other adventurers who'd rushed out at the commotion joined in to help slay the mandragoras. But whether those things were unexpectedly strong, or the nearby adventurers happened to be weak, they were struggling.
"Listen up! If you just cut these things, their numbers will increase! You have to crush them completely until there's no shape left! I'll help too!"
I drew my sword and leaped into the chaotic street, shouting. According to the Narration, if I handled them sloppily, their numbers would only grow.
I brought my sword down on one of them countless times, reducing it to something like minced garlic, then stomped on it with my foot. Even in that moment, the musclebound mandragoras were grabbing people by the hair and pounding their stomachs.
It looked incredibly painful. These things like hitting people in the gut, huh.
What the hell did that bastard Philstone raise.
I kept helping people, taking the lead in slaying the Variant Mandragoras rampaging through the streets.