Chapter 32
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Neglect of Duty - 2
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I watched Rien pass through the gate to the second floor.
Only the village head and I remained in the village hall.
"All the new adventurers who set foot in the tower have now left."
"Was Rien the last one?"
"The number of badges we prepared matches exactly. Unlike someone else."
She really holds a grudge.
Still giving me side-eye.
"There were adventurers who came for badges starting two days ago. Excluding just now, the latest was this morning."
Considering the slime extermination request on the first day, even then Rien's pace wasn't particularly fast.
It slowed down even more while forging a sword at Harman's smithy.
If she's trying to catch the eye of the guild personnel team, it's a pretty disadvantageous situation, but when looking at the overall climbing process, a two-day difference is laughable.
Once they start getting stuck due to lack of ability, they can't conquer floors for months.
In fact, Rien might be the adventurer who gained the most from the first floor.
"The village will be quiet for a while again. I didn't hate the bustling streets, though."
"I prefer it quiet, personally. Too many people make it chaotic."
"That wasn't information I was curious about."
"......Are you still in a bad mood?"
The peak season in the tutorial village had come to an end like that.
What counts as the off-season?
The start of peak season is clear: the day when new adventurers pour into the first floor in droves.
For off-season, if I set my own standard, it's the period when I'm the only adventurer left on the first floor.
The newcomers head to the second floor and beyond.
Even adventurers who came down briefly for guild promotion return to their own floors.
Truly, the only ones left on the first floor are the original residents and me, the sole adventurer.
Today is the day that standard needs revising.
"Hey."
"......Why are you still here?"
A figure from a world that no longer exists. A former colleague from the past.
Ranking 1 guild, leader of the Crimson Flame Guild.
Park Sua, self-proclaimed Amelia.
She waved lazily, her long red hair cascading down.
I ignored the greeting.
"If you're just here to repeat the same thing, don't waste time. Just go."
She should be back with her guild members, preparing to conquer the 61st floor, but she's still lingering here.
The reason is obvious.
Just before the start of peak season, she did the same: every time she comes down to the first floor, Sua tries to recruit me.
Among those investigating my routines on the first floor, Crimson Flame Guild members were naturally included.
Other guilds realized after long investigations that there was no gain and lost interest in me, but Sua hasn't given up and is still at it.
My answer to her repeated invitations to climb together is always no.
"That's not it. I know you've gotten a lot of love calls, but isn't this a bit too much self-consciousness?"
"It's because of someone that I developed these delusions."
Sua put on a coy act.
Her pose was overly contrived, like something out of a comic.
"It's a vacation. Vacation. I wanted to rest a bit too. As soon as I go up, it's straight back to work."
"You've been resting fine on the first floor for days."
"Does this look like resting to you? Do you know how exhausting it is to strike cool poses in front of newbie adventurers for guild promotion? And how tiring it is to hold inter-guild sparring matches just to draw attention?"
Sua's words were somewhat convincing.
Coming down to the first floor was just an extension of guild operations.
If only we could overlook the fact that 'work' killing time at the company is quite distant from the concept of tower climbing.
"You must have a reason for quitting tower climbing and just lounging and sleeping here every day. It's perfect as a rest spot."
Curiously, my relationship with Sua maintains a familiarity similar to when I was climbing the tower.
On my end, I have countless memories of adventuring with them, but they never had a chance to remember me.
Because I've repeated countless cycles and ultimately decided not to climb, people who were long-time connections in the past became strangers.
The 'me' remembered by the Adventurer Alliance members is just a fleeting glimpse on the first floor.
Even Ryu Jae-hyun doesn't know about the time we climbed together.
I never stood out, so he probably doesn't even remember my face now.
"I told you to follow! Do you know how shocked I was that you didn't come up? Why didn't you go to the second floor?"
"Sua, you're getting too worked up. He probably had his reasons."
After they conquered the second floor, some members including Sua came back down to the first floor looking for me.
At that time, I had no intention of climbing and didn't even show any attitude toward conversing with them, so they didn't bother trying to persuade me either.
They had been united in calling for me to climb the tower up to the first floor, but when I didn't follow to the second and suddenly turned uncooperative, from their perspective, even trying to understand my situation would have felt like a waste of time.
When the alliance succeeded in conquering and got some rest time along with free time, Sua occasionally visiting the first floor to share news was our only connection.
Though the time spent with her on the first floor was brief, we had many conversations, so among the adventurers, she seemed to consider me one of the closer ones.
It was a result of the synergy between her playful personality in the early climbing days and my bottom-tier combat ability.
"Look at this? I can use magic now. Learned it on the sixth floor. There's a village there too, even bigger than here—bigger than here, even."
Thanks to that, even without belonging to the alliance or a guild or climbing together, we've built a familiarity where I talk to Sua without honorifics.
At the same time, it's a trap that Sua is the one who spread rumors of my strength to the adventurers after seeing me spar with Tiana.
"What are you?"
"What do you mean."
"I saw that spar with the instructor just now. That's not the kind of movement someone who's only been on the first floor would show!"
"Then rest well and leave."
Sua calls it self-consciousness on my part, but I can't help but be suspicious.
Considering what she's done so far, not suspecting would be abnormal.
I don't know what wind is blowing now, but it doesn't make sense that she's staying on the first floor purely for 'rest.'
She's the guild master who even assigned people to secretly investigate how I got strong and why.
Realizing her previous clingy tantrum strategy had no hope, she might be trying a different approach.
Even now, she was grabbing my arm as I tried to leave.
"Wh-what's the rush? You're not busy, right?"
"I have things to do."
"Like what?"
"Slime extermination."
I hadn't even started yet.
I had just run into Sua on my way to Ellie to pick up the request.
"Slimes? Why...... are you doing that?"
"Is it weird for an adventurer to do quests? I do them every day."
"Normal people don't repeat the same one every day."
No, a mage worrying about arm strength......?
My arm wouldn't come free from her grip.
"Th-that doesn't need to be done right now, does it?"
"If it's too late, the receptionist can't leave the request office."
"I'm not trying to hold you that long! I just have stuff to talk about......"
I didn't want to delay, so I asked directly what her business was.
"Remember that fight between the beginners?"
"Of course. I went to the scene myself."
"Right. It would have been a bigger problem without you. Impressive."
Thanks to the rules of the tutorial zone, even the strongest rankers can't touch first-floor beginners.
It's true that I sorted out the situation and resolved the issue as she said, but why bring up this topic now?
And what's with this awkward praise.
"Actually...... our guild decided to recruit her."
"Which one? Not the guy, I hope."
"No, Friya."
Was the girl's name Friya?
Like Rien or Amelia, she seems to be using a pseudonym.
"An unexpected decision. Don't you hate troublemakers?"
"How'd you know that?"
"......"
"Anyway, she's a bit of a concern for causing trouble, but I think her abilities are worth the risk."
Friya killed an adventurer.
Of course, on the first floor, they revive even if they die.
Friya was attacked first.
But her response afterward was so shocking that, given Sua's personality that values cooperation, she'd hesitate to recruit an adventurer who could cause rifts.
If she's ignoring even that standard, it means Friya is that appealing as a talent.
"She's got a unique trait, no less. It's been a while since we've seen high-class talent like this."
"Was the trouble caused by the trait's influence too?"
"Exactly. She hasn't fully manifested her ability yet, but it seems to strengthen combat power through emotions. It reacts strongly to things like anger and vengeance."
It was a case where the trait made her succumb to emotions instead.
With the risk comes guaranteed returns.
A rare unique grade is certainly worth looking forward to.
"Recruitment went smoothly too. In exchange for covering the incident, she came to the guild easily."
"Even for a major guild, with so many adventurers already at the scene, how'd you cover it up?"
"Ah, you don't know either."
The 'covering up' she mentioned wasn't the incident I resolved.
"After the guards took them away, another incident broke out, and Friya killed that guy again."
"The victim wouldn't have stayed quiet."
"Since we were taking Friya, we paid a settlement big enough to cover the issue. They were probably grateful."
Whatever, it has nothing to do with me.
I rushed to resolve the trouble because they caused it on the first floor.
What guild they join afterward, how far they climb, or even if they die, is none of my business.
Sua knows that too.
"Is that all you wanted to say?"
"Ah, no! There's more than that. Ah, when we conquered the 60th floor......"
It's not particularly important information to me.
Sua clearly has something to say to me, but she's just dragging out time with other topics.