I Want to Be an Adventurer Again

After the Variant Mandragora disaster that had swept through Kubel was finally brought under control, the atmosphere in the city center was unsettled, to say the least.

Several buildings had burned to the ground. There had been no fatalities, but the injured were many — every last one of them people who'd been punched in the gut, over and over, by mandragoras.

Most shocking of all was that the guild building itself had taken fire damage. The mountain of documents stored there had naturally gone up with it, and the thing everyone had feared had come to pass. Guild operations were completely paralyzed, and adventurers who used Kubel as their base found themselves unable to work.

How bitter.

I decided to wait and watch the situation for now. Kubel was like a second hometown to me, and every close acquaintance I had was here.

Philstone was discovered at the Koubel Refinery, unconscious, his face planted in a pool of his own vomit. He'd apparently been worked over by those Variant Mandragoras — the ones that grabbed you by the hair and concentrated exclusively on punching your stomach. I pictured him caught by creatures immune to magic, taking mandragora punches until he blacked out.

Well. He had it coming. He'd raised them himself, after all.

Word of the Koubel Guild's situation reached the capital immediately afterward, and Philstone was arrested and transported to answer for the incident. Whatever his intentions, the result was that he'd raised monsters and unleashed them on a town, so the crime was hardly a light one. His position as Guild Master was stripped along with his arrest, and word came that a new Guild Master dispatched from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠capital was on her way to Kubel.

A few days later, when I heard the new Guild Master had finally arrived, I decided to pay the guild a visit myself.

The building still hadn't been fully restored. One wall was nothing but boards slapped up to keep the wind out, and soot stains marked the place everywhere. The guild's document warehouse, packed to bursting with every kind of paperwork on Philstone's orders, remained a total loss — burned to nothing. With documents stuffed into the building like a mountain, of course it had gone up beautifully.

I could only hope the new Guild Master was a reasonably normal person.

Besides me, a handful of other adventurers had come to see the new Master. Some were there to pick up temporary transfer documents; others hadn't received their commission rewards because the guild had burned down. Most of them had actual business at the guild.

"A pleasure to meet you all. Starting today, I'll be taking over the Koubel Adventurers Guild. My name is Algot."

The new Guild Master who briefly introduced herself before the receptionists and adventurers was, to my surprise, a woman. She was short, and looked quite young — but her face had a certain steel to it that belied her appearance. Curly blonde hair held by a red hairpin, adventurer's attire, and two small swords at her hips.

So she was a working adventurer, after all. Small as she was, her eyes held a charisma that pulled people's gazes toward her. She was someone I found myself looking forward to, in more ways than one.

"I've fully assessed the situation in Kubel. There were far too many problems with the previous guild's operational processes, so I'll be focusing on restoring the guild to normal function as quickly as possible. First, starting today, we'll issue guild transfer documents through the reception desk. And we'll be omitting the various complicated procedures and required paperwork that existed before. Ah — please be sure to bring your adventurer badges."

Algot addressed the adventurers.

"Until operations are normalized, existing business will be temporarily suspended. We'll divide the reception into three stations: this one will issue simplified documents, this one will settle unpaid commission rewards, and at this reception desk, I'll be handling consultations personally. For reward settlements, just give us the commission forms you have and we'll take care of it."

Algot promptly assigned Tina and the other receptionists to each of the temporary stations. Adventurers with business to attend to lined up at the desks as if they'd been waiting for this.

Wow. A Guild Master who actually does the work.

Philstone had never even shown up — Tina, a receptionist, had never once seen his face. I sat in the waiting area and watched the transformed guild with genuine interest.

"The processing got so much faster..."

Tina stamped the transfer declaration an adventurer had requested and sent them on their way in no time. It was called a transfer declaration, but in practice it was just slamming the Koubel Guild's stamp onto a piece of paper. None of the old ritual of signing complicated documents, verifying them, and signing again. She'd always been a master of paperwork, so with the work simplified, she moved like a machine.

The desk handling unpaid rewards looked just as fast. Previously, trying to do anything at the guild meant two or three documents popping out and having to sign them multiple times. Looking at the streamlined procedures now, all of that had simply vanished.

I lined up at Guild Master Algot's station for a personal consultation. The records had burned, of course, but there was something I wanted to confirm.

"Hello. First, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠congratulations on your appointment as Master. I'm Yunoa, Silver Rank, currently active in Kubel."

"Yes. What seems to be the problem?"

Algot asked me point-blank the moment I stood in front of her. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠explained the previous events to her in detail — how I'd participated in the monster subjugation force led by Mireia. How I'd fallen into a hole at Horn Canyon, only to be processed as deceased rather than missing, my adventurer records erased. How I'd used the new adventurer registration system to restore my rank.

Algot listened carefully, then had an answer immediately.

"The guild's previous records all burned anyway. There's no reason to re-document any of it. You have your badge, I assume?"

"Ah, yes. I do."

I pulled out the Silver Rank adventurer badge I was carrying. I even had two of them — one the original I'd always held, and one I'd received when I newly registered. Under Philstone's operating policies, there'd been no way to return the badge of someone declared dead on paper, so I'd simply kept it.

"We'll be doing simple transfer registrations soon enough for adventurers who plan to keep operating out of Kubel, so you can come by then, show it, and register. Ah — please return one of those two badges now. They could be misused."

"No paperwork or anything?"

"The badge is sufficient."

"And the previous record of being processed as deceased?"

"You don't need to worry about that. The guild manages adventurer ranks, commission contracts, and transfers between regional guilds. It doesn't manage adventurers' personal identities."

Those words filled me with gratitude. The era of receptionists filling out complicated documents they didn't even understand, right in front of your face, just because you wanted to do anything at all — it was over.

As I listened further, it seemed Philstone had routinely demanded even unnecessary information from adventurers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and documented every scrap of it. Each region's guild operated a bit differently, like local governments, but Kubel had been extreme. There'd never been a reason for the guild to manage adventurers' personal details as strictly as Philstone had in the first place.

An adventurer guild's primary business is contracting commissions, paying rewards, and evaluating adventurer ranks. Of course there were parts that inevitably required administrative procedures, but most of it could be resolved just by showing a badge. When something special came up, the Guild Master could handle it personally.

The reason you filed a transfer declaration when changing your operating guild was to keep track of adventurers' whereabouts in case of things like a royal summons. It was not a system for the guild to record everything about an adventurer, including their personal identity, the way Philstone had used it. In short, he had been exploiting the autonomous authority unique to each regional guild to commit unnecessary overreach — all so he could run the place through documents and rules alone without ever showing up to work.

I asked Algot about one more thing that had been bothering me: the matter of ownership of Belle Epoque Mansion, which I'd consigned to the guild for proxy sale.

"One more thing. I previously left a mansion with the guild for proxy sale. What happens with that? I wasn't processed as deceased and the guild didn't take ownership or anything, did it?"

"If the original owner is you, Yunoa, then it's still your mansion. The arrangement with the guild is as if it never happened. If you want to document the ownership, rather than going through the guild, you'd want to ask the previous owner to put it in writing."

"Then the previous paper death processing is definitely as if it never happened?"

Algot smiled slightly at my question.

"You've never died, so wouldn't it be stranger to have two of the same person on paper? You seem to have had quite a time of it. As long as I'm managing this guild, that sort of thing won't happen again."

She answered without the slightest hesitation.

Because the Koubel Adventurers Guild had burned down, every problem had actually been resolved cleanly. The bizarre Guild Master obsessed with paperwork had been replaced, and all my unsavory records bound to the guild had vanished.

I'd worried that the loss of the enormous volume of documents accumulated at the guild would cause massive chaos, but that wasn't the case either. Every adventurer held a badge of the appropriate rank, and that was more than enough to prove their qualifications. Most of all, it made a huge difference that the Guild Master — the person with the most powerful authority in the guild — was personally stationed here. Even situations the receptionists couldn't handle among themselves could be dealt with flexibly when the Guild Master was present. A situation like the current one, where the transfer records of adventurers affiliated with Kubel had been left hanging in midair, had been resolved without any real trouble.

Sometimes, one Guild Master actually present at the guild was far more efficient than millions of complicated documents.

And so the Koubel Adventurers Guild rapidly recovered its function under its new Guild Master.