Something's Off About This Secondhand Newbie

Two days later.

"A pleasure to meet you. I am Administrator Tasili. We will now begin the beginner adventurer orientation, so please give me your full attention."

"Yeaah..."

"Our world, Elysium, is home to three great human powers. Have you heard of them?"

"Nope..."

People streamed endlessly through the Adventurers' Association branch. At a table shoved into one corner, Lupin's eyes hovered on the edge of closing.

She had only come to look at the wanted list. The moment she walked in, they caught her as an unregistered adventurer and hauled her into basic training.

If he'd been some nagging old fossil, she would have chopped him across the nape and run for it. Of all people, he had to be a kind old man. And of all things, twelve years of school—elementary straight through high school—had branded a very powerful binding into her body.

Whether Lupin made a show of not wanting to listen or not, the administrator began his explanation, starting with the two great powers that split the continent between them.

In the east, the Empire Alliance and the Round Table, gradually swelling in strength. In the north, rooted in barren land, the North Country and the Seven Stars, forever locked in territorial disputes with the Empire. Set beside Earth, it was much the same standoff as the Cold War.

"There are also powers that keep their neutrality between those two. That would be our Adventurers' Association."

It might have looked like nothing but a pack of nobodies, but a body that held its neutrality and kept its place in the world always had a reason. Next to the two giant powers—ponderous in the flesh and tangled in procedure—the Adventurers' Association would set out anywhere, so long as money and fame were waiting. They were, in a word, an on-call force you could buy with coin. Mercenaries.

"We accept commissions from both the Empire Alliance and the North Country, of course. We also take on requests from ordinary people the great powers never spare a glance for."

The administrator pinched his thumb and forefinger into a circle and winked. It might look like a guild for everyone, but the meaning was plain enough: without money, the thing didn't turn.

"For the record, we do not accept commissions from the Church. Help those bastards, and the Empire and the North Country will smash this Association to pieces."

The Church denied both great powers, cropped up all over the world, and got up to every filthy thing imaginable. A story she actually knew put a little life back into Lupin's eyes. The tutorial she had been forced to choke down had included a stretch where she beat the tar out of monsters the Church had summoned.

"Well then. Did the explanation make sense?"

"I-is it over?"

"It is."

"Woo-hoo..."

Even in the face of that thoroughly insincere attendance, the administrator never once showed irritation. Set beside the other hot-blooded adventurers, Lupin—who had at least heard him out to the end—was practically a model student.

"In that case, please write your personal information here. If the two of you are a party, fill this out as well. When you are finished, bring them to the receptionist. That will be all."

The administrator offered a crisp bow and left his seat. She couldn't just sit there while ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a kind old man bowed, so Lupin stood and bent at the waist in return. Only after she confirmed that he had gone back into the office area behind the receptionists did she shove the paper and pen off onto Vatslava.

"Fill mine out too. I'm gonna look around a bit."

"Huh? N-no, I— I don't really know much about you, Miss Lupin..."

"Just wing it. It's not that important anyway."

She wandered the Association, peering at the commissions and bounty posters hung along the walls. Maybe it was the unusual color of her hair, or maybe that it was long besides—either way, every time she moved, the other adventurers' eyes were dragged after her.

"Then I'll do mine first..."

Her own registration was finished in a flash. The problem was Lupin. She didn't know a thing.

On the way here, when Vatslava had asked how old she was, the answer that came back was an absurd five. She definitely hadn't seemed twenty-five. Fifteen, then? The way she walked and the things she did were pure swaggering man, but her sex, of course, had to be female. Whether she possessed aura—Vatslava didn't know, but there had to be something. Dropping the Vladimir brothers with no aura at all was impossible.

She had been unconscious while the pigeons were in the air, so imagination was all she had left to work with.

The way she handled that kitchen knife back then was anything but ordinary.

There. Now each of them had an adventurer registration ready. Her eyes slid, just for a moment, toward the party registration papers—but Lupin still hadn't acknowledged her as a true companion.

"I'll think about that later..."

Survive. That was what Lupin had told her, and it meant the same thing as prove you're useful. But getting stronger took time. She couldn't even be sure she truly would get stronger. Over the two days of physical training on the road to the branch, she had felt it plainly: if she didn't keep at this, steadily and for a long time, it was never going to work. So for now she had to focus on making cocktails and gathering information.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Get information on the treasure chests. Prove her usefulness with that.

"Time to move."

The foundation of gathering information was asking around. Poke your nose in here and there, and you were bound to learn something new. As it happened, voices from the next table reached her.

"That witch is dead?"

"So they say. Word came in yesterday."

"Who caught her?"

"A name I'd never heard before. Kair, they said. You know—the one with the mohawk."

Kair? That was a name Vatslava knew. And if it was a mohawk, there was only one person it could be. Hadn't that man died at the safehouse?

Just then the entrance grew noisy.

"Now, now, everyone calm down. If it's the story you want, I'll tell it as much as you like."

The people at the next table shot to their feet.

"Oh. That's him! The fellow who rolled in with the truck yesterday!"

"Guess I ought to go see what sort of man he is."

"Come on, let's go!"

Whatever kind of hunter had just closed a rather large job, the adventurers inside the Association began to murmur and swarm toward the table near the entrance. Vatslava followed after them, then stopped. It was him—the mohawk lieutenant who had taken an attack he never saw coming from Lupin, passed out, and afterward been judged sturdy for it. With exaggerated gestures, he was painting his valiant (?) ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠battle.

"And right then—I stepped in, and with this fist, bam!"

"Ooh!"

"I blew the faces clean off the Vladimir brothers and Boss Milwi. The bastards went down in a disgraceful heap, bleeding, and they never got up again! From here on out, every wanted criminal out there—one punch from me!"

Vatslava glanced around. It was a small thing, but it seemed better to tell Lupin. ...But Kair's voice was simply too loud. Before she could call, the person she meant to call arrived.

With a tremendous crash, Kair was kicked clean over the crowd's heads and came down at the Association entrance. At the attack from nowhere, people turned. Pink hair streaming, Lupin alighted lightly atop a wobbling table.

"What are you doing here?"

Lupin's first impression was close to that of a naive girl who didn't know the world. The weight of her chest and hips didn't suit that youthful face in the slightest. Even so, the face did all the talking.

I don't get any of this. What am I supposed to do first. Why are there so many people. I'm sleepy.

Tasili, who had quit more than thirty years of life as an adventurer to take the post of branch administrator, could hardly look at that and walk on by. His instinct had been right on the mark. She had never registered. She had no prior knowledge. She didn't even have a weapon.

This... is she going to be all right?

He had seen plenty of rookies who got cocky on the strength of their skill, but an adventurer who turned up this utterly unprepared was a first. On top of that, complete indifference to how the world worked. She at least needed to know that the moment she fell for the Church's temptations, she became an enemy of the entire world—otherwise there would be no avoiding a mistake.

He toyed with the idea of keeping her under him and teaching her this and that about being an adventurer, but aside from the times he taught the sword, Tasili had never been what anyone would call entertaining. His own disciples complained, whenever they got the chance, that they were bored to death. His worries were deepening when it happened.

Crash!

A racket broke out near the entrance.

"What's going on!"

"Disturbance!"

Clang, clang, clang. The receptionists rang the bells and slipped out the back door according to evacuation procedure. Administrator Tasili set the iron staff he had been leaning nearby to use as a third leg and nimbly crossed the counter. A voice carried from the entrance side. It was Lupin, the novice adventurer girl he had seen earlier.

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you came to turn yourself in."

"You just haul off and beat somebody down, and now what are you saying, huh?! Talk so a person can understand you!"

The one on the other side, fuming as he pulled himself together, was Kair. The superstar who had appeared at this branch like a comet—the very man who, just yesterday, had wiped out Milwi's human-trafficking ring and claimed the enormous bounty all to himself.

"Why is she fighting that man..."

An administrator was, in practice, the branch's chief officer. He could not simply stand and watch. When Tasili cut swiftly across the branch, people opened a path at once. And so, when he reached the little arena the crowd had formed—

Lupin flew. Literally. She sprang high enough to touch the ceiling. Heads snapped up after her, and a gasp spilled from every mouth. Then she set a foot to the wall as lightly as a step, and acceleration detonated through her. The toes of her fully extended leg aimed dead at Kair's solar plexus. It was the thing people in the modern world commonly called a Rider Kick.

The motion and the intent to attack were perfectly clear, the very opposite of that innocent face. It was a killing intent only someone who had already killed people, more than once, could show.

Startled, Tasili did the only thing he could in a hurry and hurled the staff in his hand like a boomerang. Spinning at high speed, the staff struck Kair in the abdomen a hair ahead of her.

"Ghk."

Kair folded in half and went down. Lupin's flying foot scraped past his back by a razor's margin.

"Eh?"

In the space it took the sliding Lupin to land and turn, Tasili recovered the staff and planted himself between the two of them.

"Physical altercations inside the branch are not permitted. Should a fight cause injury to persons or damage to property belonging to the branch, you may be registered as a wanted criminal."

"What. Why's the guy who gave the basic lecture here."

But Lupin was not feeling the least bit satisfied. If anything, she wanted to pound that mohawk into paste, one way or another.

"No, but—that bastard's a bad bastard! He's not worth protecting!"

It wasn't a sense of justice. She was genuinely, profoundly done with him. Cut the head off the boss he served, offer it up, and play the hero on the strength of that? Even a mimic would gag and spit this trash back out. There was no way to recycle him. He was a man whose only value ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was coughing up treasure-chest information before he died.

Tasili, however, could not yield either. When he shook his head, Lupin ground her teeth, at a loss for what to do. But the fury boiling over in her blew a little life into her wits, and soon she caught a hint in what Tasili had said and clapped her hands.

"Oh. So if we fight outside, it's fine?"

The administrator was both the branch's highest authority and a great senior among adventurers. Precisely because of that, even Tasili had never met anyone who drove into a hole in the logic quite like this. In that split second of bewilderment Lupin moved, seized Kair by the hair in a flash, and kicked the branch door open on her way out.

Tasili turned a moment too late and murmured. It had only been an instant, but he had lost track of Lupin's movement.

"Just now. That speed... what in the world was that?"

The instinct of Tasili—an aura Master who had raised a host of disciples—spoke.