Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: That's a Really Foolish Thought
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"We have to get out? What the hell are you talking about!"
"Let's go confront the Captain!"
"No, the Captain never said it directly himself…."
In front of the two who were reacting so intensely, Rin shook her head in panic.
She hadn't told her friends because it might just be her overreacting on her own….
But now that things had come this far, she had no choice.
In the end, Rin began spilling everything she'd been agonizing over by herself.
"See, the Captain didn't say it outright, of course. But looking at the situation, isn't it obvious?"
Rin figured the Captain was thinking she was useless now and it was time to fire her.
…Naturally, Ian would never say something like that.
But even if it was still too short a time to call it proper experience…
After doing mercenary work for a while, Rin had developed a bit of intuition to sense when something felt off about how things were going.
"Now that we have such a strong frontliner, I'm useless up front anymore…. Doesn't it make sense efficiency-wise?"
"No way that's…."
Mika started to refute Rin's words immediately but hesitated for a moment.
There was no way, right? But honestly….
"W-Well, if you compare her to Lia, it's a bit…."
"See? You think so too, don't you?"
"No, I don't!"
No matter how much they tried to comfort her even if it was just lip service, comparing Rin to Lia on the front lines felt a little off in good conscience….
Still, Mika and Tanya stuck by the disheartened Rin, trying their best to cheer her up.
"Even if it's the front lines, Rin has her own specialties!"
"Yeah. She guards the center and does scouting too…."
"What if someone better at scouting joins?"
"Huh?"
"We have a big base like this now, so if we rank up to C-grade, more people like Lia might come in."
When the group had few members, worries like this never even crossed her mind.
She was the only one who could handle the front lines.
She was a bit clumsy, but in a low-grade mercenary corps, everyone was clumsy, so it was only natural.
But now, they said you had to reach C-grade to truly count as a full-fledged mercenary.
Seeing the C-grade mercenary Lia, Rin finally felt like she understood what that meant.
A real frontliner who could fill one person's role completely. No matter which mercenary corps Lia joined or who she fought alongside, she could unwaveringly fulfill her role as the front line.
As the corps prepared for C-grade promotion, Rin—who had never once worried about such things before—suddenly felt a sense of crisis.
Up until now, she'd been able to get by doing a mishmash of miscellaneous roles at a mediocre level. But not anymore.
"If someone who can scout joins, I'll get bumped from scouting…. If a real guard joins, I'll get bumped from the center too…. Then I'll end up stuck at the base doing cleaning…."
Coldly speaking… it wasn't impossible.
Mika and Tanya fell deep into thought for a moment too.
Unlike Rin, the two of them had clear roles from the start, so this was an unfamiliar worry.
From their experience so far, Ian wasn't the type to suddenly fire someone out of the blue—that much was certain.
But they all understood that running a mercenary corps couldn't rely on sentiment alone.
If a member didn't meet Ian's standards, they might inevitably end up in the reserves or shifted to support roles.
At first, they thought Rin was just spouting some weird nonsense again, but after hearing her out, it wasn't entirely unreasonable.
Mika and Tanya, having listened seriously to Rin's concerns, sank into deep thought themselves, and the mood grew heavy in an instant.
Especially Mika, who had gone through something similar with Rin not long ago.
Understanding exactly how Rin felt, Mika suddenly jumped to her feet.
"Alright, then we'll help you!"
"H-Huh? How?"
"You just need to get stronger!"
Rin's worry would be solved if she became strong enough to claim her spot with confidence.
If they found a way for Rin to get stronger somehow, there'd be no more need to worry.
"I'll look through my books for ways Rin can get stronger too!"
"Y-Yeah…. Thanks. I'll practice every day!"
As Mika pumped herself up and grabbed Rin's hand, and Rin nodded gratefully in….
Tanya cautiously raised her hand with her opinion.
"Um…. Why not just ask Lia to teach you how to fight?"
"……."
"……."
Tanya endured the stares from the two looking at her, then quietly lowered her hand.
"Lia's a rival."
"Would she really help make you stronger?"
She probably would….
Tanya quietly buried that thought in her heart.
In the end, she promised to help with Rin's special training and grabbed her hand too.
＊ ＊ ＊
"Rin. Get up."
"Ugh…."
"Get up. Morning training time."
"Ughhh…."
Tanya kept shaking Rin's sleeping body.
Rin, who had been hiding under the blankets, groaned miserably as she opened her eyes from the bed.
It was still predawn, before the sun had risen.
Time for Tanya to head down and prepare breakfast.
Woken by Tanya, Rin opened her eyes in bed and sat up with a soulless expression, like her spirit had fled her body.
It had been a week since Rin resolved to train.
Even Rin's spirited soul was starting to reach its limit from the early-morning sword training.
"…How much did I need to retire and open a bakery again? What I've saved so far…."
"Rin, snap out of it…."
Tanya forcibly pulled Rin to her feet and dragged her downstairs to the first floor.
"Haa…."
That afternoon, after barely finishing her morning training, Rin slumped over the table in the break room while reading a combat manual.
Mika, who had been reading a magic potion guide next to her, poked Rin's side with her finger and held out her book.
"Rin, check this out. It's the Expert's Elixir. They say even a beginner becomes a sword expert after drinking it."
"How much?"
"…It hasn't been available since 50 years ago, so no market price."
Mika, who had promised to find ways to get stronger, introduced various magic items from her spellbooks.
The problem was, those convenient and powerful items naturally cost prices beyond imagination.
"Sigh…. Even if an elixir like that appeared, we couldn't afford it with our money."
Rin let out a small sigh after hearing Mika's stories.
Elixirs sounded great, but there was no way something that expensive and effective would just pop up out of nowhere.
"Elixirs don't just sprout for free, after all…."
"……Ah."
Mika flinched in realization at Rin's musing and let out a sound.
Rin and Tanya looked at Mika curiously at her sudden reaction.
"What's up?"
"Come to think of it…."
Mika trailed off and blushed.
It was a sudden thought, but saying it out loud was incredibly embarrassing.
But she'd already brought it up, and Rin was staring at her with sparkling eyes.
An idea that might actually work after days of searching. Brushing it off now would disappoint Rin hugely.
Understanding Rin's struggles, Mika couldn't bring herself to dodge with her face right there.
Mika overcame her embarrassment and shared the thought that had popped into her head with the two.
"It was when the Captain lifted my curse…."
As they listened to Mika, Rin and Tanya recalled the incident and their faces flushed bright red.
"W-Why bring that up suddenly?"
"No, just listen! After that, my body felt kinda weird for a while?"
This was a story she hadn't told the two.
After the curse was lifted.
Mika had felt her body was somehow different from usual.
"My magic power felt… stronger than normal."
Was it because her condition was off?
At first, she thought it was just her imagination, but after a few days, Mika realized her magic power had definitely increased.
But magic power dropping would be one thing—getting stronger despite poor condition didn't make sense by Mika's common knowledge.
After agonizing, Mika quietly went back to Ian and asked.
"I told the Captain maybe the curse wasn't fully lifted, and he said it was because my magic power had temporarily increased."
"Magic power increased?"
Mika nodded slowly at their puzzled question.
"The Captain has that… unique constitution, right?"
"Yeah…."
Since he couldn't explain potential directly to the mercenaries, Ian's excuse back then was simply his unique constitution.
No one could disprove it, and it had real effects, so it was a convenient setup.
Having heard that, they all believed Ian's stuff had special effects as fact.
"He said since it could lift curses, it had that kind of effect too."
What Mika felt was the effect of Ian's [Fulfillment] trait, which temporarily boosted stats during sex.
It was a minor stat buff in a skill tree she passed through to pick curse treatment traits.
Like in most games, it was one of those pointless prerequisite traits stuck in the middle to waste points, so Ian hadn't paid it much mind.
But for low-level Mika, the effect was noticeable enough to pick up on right away.
The two listened quietly to Mika's explanation, mulling over the story that was hard to grasp at first.
They'd heard directly from Mika that night what happened in Ian's room.
She'd done it orally with the Captain and swallowed his, and the curse lifted.
Just from that, her magic power increased temporarily….
It sounded absurd, but the constitution that lifted curses was absurd to begin with.
Tanya, who had listened quietly, cautiously drew a conclusion.
"So, basically. The Captain's, um, that…. It's an elixir?"
"……."
"……."
The three glanced at each other.