The Girl with Animal Ears
When you reincarnate in another world, one profession springs to mind before all others: the adventurer. In a world of swords and magic, it is the number-one promising career—the very embodiment of every isekai dreamer's fantasy. You take commissions of every size from the guild, stacking fame and fortune, a job that catches both the thrill and the paycheck in a single net.
There was a time when I, too, vaguely pictured only the good parts. But being an adventurer was not something just anyone could do. Every line of work has a minimum of things you need. Want to run a restaurant? You need cooking skills, a building or the rent for one, ingredients, kitchen tools. Likewise, if you wanted to be an adventurer, you needed swordsmanship, magic, basic equipment, a baseline of physical fitness.
An adventurer? It was absolutely not a job some otherworlder with jack shit to his name could just announce he was taking up as of today. What, were my ancestors going to buy me a sword and a suit of armor?
After crawling off the street into a church in a single scrap of rags and suffering through it for a while, I had become a ruthless realist. If I went back in time and ran into myself, I could say it without a shred of hesitation—the same thing Narration would.
You. With a mindset like that, you'd come to another world, get nothing done, and die in a ditch.
Yunoa had, at last, through a process of ruthless self-objectification, acquired the peculiar skill of hurling venom at his past self.
By doing so, he was enjoying the feeling that his present self was a definite improvement over the old one.
But as everyone well knew, all he was doing at the moment was glossy self-reflection. He still hadn't actually done a thing.
She's not wrong. That's why I'm going to start working my ass off from here on out.
Anyway, becoming an adventurer isn't easy. Even an F-rank newbie the guild treats like dirt is stronger than I am and has more money—that's how they can do it. But I wanted to become an adventurer, one way or another.
The only money I had was the thirty Silver Tina had given me back when she was still a Saintess. It wasn't even enough to buy an ordinary sword. I decided to start by finding out how much it would actually cost to become an adventurer.
Kubel was called a free city, but it was equally famous as a trading hub. That was because it sat on the coast, with a harbor where ships came and went.
I spent nearly half a day walking the streets, getting a feel for the layout of this new city. Then I made the rounds of the weapon shops, general stores, and armorers, tallying up what it would cost to become an adventurer.
"Let's see... three Gold plus five Gold... one, two..."
Even a rough estimate put it at ten Gold. In this world, it took a hundred Silver to make a single Gold, so that was a thousand Silver. And my current funds? Twenty-five Silver.
If you're wondering where the other five Silver went: I'd walked so much I got hungry and bought a skewer. Mystery beast meat alternated with green onions, brushed with a salty-savory sauce and grilled. It was ridiculously good. The moment I ate it, Narration had fired off a barb—that I did nothing, and yet all I did was stuff my face. I was hungry. I couldn't just starve.
"Ten Gold, huh..."
Honestly, even I—still not fully adjusted to this world's sense of money—could tell that was a staggering amount. And that was just to put together basic gear, without getting greedy. Even if I sank that much into starting as an adventurer, there was no guarantee I'd ever recoup it.
I was dirt-poor, started adventuring with nothing, and got rich! Success stories like that felt like nothing more than fairy tales. Still, I wasn't giving up. I'd scrape every coin I could and become an adventurer, no matter what. Before that damn Narration could call me pathetic, I picked up my pace.
"We don't really need any extra help. Try somewhere else."
A kindly, round-faced woman shook her head, ladle still in one hand. I'd lost count of how many times I'd been turned down.
Finding work was not easy. Even in my original world, where you could neatly sort job listings online, I hadn't exactly been employed. Job hunting in another world? Of course it wasn't going well. I'd checked the help-wanted posters, but without skills or experience, there was nowhere I could even apply. So I'd started walking into random shops, asking if they needed any extra hands—even for odd jobs. Restaurants turned me down. The blacksmith turned me down. General stores, weapon shops, clothing shops, even a farm—nothing but shaking heads.
There was nowhere that would take in Yunoa, a man who had never held a proper job in his entire life.
With neither knowledge nor skill nor experience, he was a blank page in every sense of the word.
Narration was laying into me, but I felt a little wronged. Sure, maybe in my original world—but in this one, what was I supposed to do? No. I didn't have the luxury of complaining. I barely had any money left. If I didn't find work soon, I'd be a beggar all over again.
God, who knew becoming an adventurer would be this hard. Come to think of it, where was Tina, and what was she doing? She'd said she was looking for work here too. We'd probably run into each other again eventually. And if, when we did, she was doing just fine and I was a beggar again—that would be the worst. I couldn't let something that humiliating happen. Come on. Just a little more. Keep looking.
Unable to find decent work and on the verge of going broke, Yunoa was in no position to become an adventurer. He needed to worry about putting food in his mouth first.
Meanwhile, at the harbor of the trading city of Kubel, a merchant vessel laden with cargo was preparing to dock. After a full week at sea, the ship carried a hold packed with expensive, precious goods rarely seen in this country.
A merchant ship, huh. At Narration's words, I turned toward the sea. Sure enough, a massive ship was approaching in the distance.
"...Is she trying to give me a hint?"
I muttered it under my breath, watching the huge vessel draw closer to the dock. Without Narration, I wouldn't even have known a ship like that was coming in. Which made it all the more interesting. This electronic noona living in my head didn't just dish out insults. Every so often, she'd slip something useful in between the snark.
"Well, I'll know once I get there."
Thinking it over wouldn't give me an answer anyway. I headed straight for the harbor, where the merchant ship was about to dock.
Kubel's harbor was already packed with ships of every size. True to its reputation as a trading city, maritime commerce was thriving. The merchant vessel Narration had mentioned stood out even among them—it was enormous.
I found a good vantage point near the dock and watched the ship come in. Apparently that hold was loaded with expensive cargo. I wondered how much just one of those wooden crates would be worth.
"Drop the anchor line!"
"Drop the anchor line!"
A rough-looking man on the merchant ship bellowed at the top of his lungs, and the sailors echoed the order as they scrambled into motion. Seafarers had a reputation for being rough. Didn't seem any different here.
Once the ship had docked, I moved closer to the pier to get a better look.
"Hurry it up! Don't dawdle! And don't drop anything!"
A muscular man with a cloth wrapped around his head had come down onto the dock, shouting. Sailors began hauling heavy-looking cargo down from the ship.
I scanned the area, looking for someone who looked like the captain. Honestly, the testosterone hanging in the air was a little intimidating—but I needed a job. I spotted a man wearing a captain's hat, dressed in something like a uniform, unlike the rest of the crew. I gathered my courage and approached him.
"Excuse me... are you the captain of that ship?"
"Hm? I am."
The merchant ship's captain turned to look at me, the whites of his eyes flashing. From his demeanor, he was just looking at me without thinking much of it—but it was enough to send a chill down my spine.
"The thing is, I need work. If you'll just give me something to do, I'll work as hard as I can."
But I'd grown a thick skin by now. When you had nothing and no talent, I'd learned, you had to plate your face in iron just to survive. No matter how terrifyingly the captain glared at me, the worst I'd get was some cursing and a rejection.
The captain listened, then rolled those unnervingly white-heavy eyes over my body.
"Wahahahaha! You want to work on our ship with that scrawny body? You're joking, right?"
Yeah, I'd figured as much. But his reaction wasn't as hostile as I'd expected. Might as well push a little more.
"I'm short on money for food and lodging, that's all. If I can't work as a sailor, I'll clean. I'll work hard at it. I may not look like much, but I used to clean an entire church by myself—work that used to take eight people."
"Hmph."
At my earnest plea, the captain's brow furrowed slightly. Yeah. This guy was scary. He had the kind of face that, if a kraken showed up at sea, the kraken would take one look and swim the other way. But they say you shouldn't judge a person by appearances alone.
A moment later, the merchant ship's captain spoke.
"A matter of livelihood, is it. Fine. Then by the day after tomorrow, I want every cabin, the entire deck, and the mast of our ship cleaned spotless. The cleaning crew could use a break anyway. Do a job I like, and I'll give you one Gold."
Yes.
I'd landed a job. Thank you, Captain.
Wait. I had to clean a ship of that insane size... by myself?
...I'm fucked.