Adaptation Period 5
Adventurers live and die by their reputations, so they tend to be rather sensitive about justifications. If you asked what really separates them from mercenaries when the actual work is nearly identical, that would be the answer.
Mercenaries are blades-for-hire who'll do anything for coin. Adventurers are blades-for-hire who carefully manage their image. From a civilian's perspective, adventurers feel like the muscle of a private security firm, while mercenaries feel like the muscle of some back-alley outfit.
Looking for a bodyguard for some young master? You'd want someone like an adventurer. Looking to settle a score after your son got bullied at school? You'd want someone like a mercenary. Of course, there's no clean classification system—it's just the general impression people carry.
"And who the fuck are you?!"
"……."
On one side, the mercenary Balbes, worked into a frenzy and leveling his axe at me. On the other, the adventurer Alex, silently catching his breath as he sized me up. Balbes was the picture of a hot-tempered simpleton; Alex looked like he was turning the situation over in his head, trying to figure out what was going on.
If I'd just barged in out of nowhere, I'd have been the unwelcome interloper eating insults for it. Fortunately, I had more than enough justification to step into this duel. All I had to do was take one long stride toward Han Se-ah.
"I like the energy, but what exactly are you doing with someone else's party leader? The moon's that bright—how about we go grab a drink instead, friends?"
"Huh? Roland…?"
I hadn't shoved my way through the crowd. I'd dropped in with a casual leap from overhead, and Han Se-ah's eyes went round as saucers—she clearly hadn't seen that coming. The moment she recognized me, the surrounding adventurers started murmuring.
A blond warrior vaulting over people's heads, and a rare black-haired woman mage. The description of Mage Hanna's party—the ones who'd hunted the Full Moon Wolf on the tenth floor and smashed the Orc Altar on the twentieth. Exactly.
People who lived on reputation and cared about justifications weren't about to miss the protagonists of the latest big incident. Drunk or not, when two of them showed up together, there wasn't much room left for doubt.
"Hanna! Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere?"
"Grace unnie too? …Unnie, I told you to take Roland and go drinking."
"Oh, come on—how am I supposed to do that in a situation like this? The second someone picked a fight with you, Roland noticed."
Grace pushed through the crowd as well—another striking beauty with distinctive grey hair. Being beautiful meant standing out from the crowd, which made impersonation nearly impossible. With three of us gathered, the adventurers' muttering shifted tone entirely.
As the two of them pressed close and whispered back and forth, every gaze in the area snapped toward them like iron filings to a magnet. I could hear their ridiculous little exchange, but to everyone else it just looked like they were showing off their closeness and explaining the situation.
What had been a duel between a mercenary and an adventurer was now the story of a rapidly rising rookie party. Han Se-ah was no longer the pretty face who'd sparked a fight—she'd claimed the role of the story's protagonist.
"Drinks, huh. Sounds good. Mind if I run my mouth about tonight's story over some snacks?"
"As long as you chew gently and don't hurt anyone—be my guest."
Unlike the mercenary huffing and snorting with rage, the adventurer with the buckler put on a sly smile and tried to open a conversation. He'd lost his shot at being the hero who took down a leering mercenary, so he was asking permission to sell the story over drinks instead.
Apparently that didn't sit well with the mercenary. Still snorting jets of breath through his nose, he swung his massive axe straight at me. Looked like a bearded bandit, and acted exactly like one too—appearance matching personality to a tee.
"Hm? Does our mercenary friend have something to say as well?"
"Y-you son of a—?!"
Of course a double-headed axe with no real mana behind it wasn't going to pierce my skin. A ferocious strike that could have taken a man's head clean off—or bisected an orc-class monster—slammed into my palm with a solid thud.
More precisely, I caught the axe blade between my fingers the way you'd snatch a child's fist out of the air. Better to end things on a warm note if people were going to talk about it. If I let my passive trigger and the mercenary's arm shattered into pieces, turning the whole evening into a blood-fountain show mid-drink, nobody would be bragging about it proudly to the townsfolk.
I'd caught the axe with my fingers specifically so the passive wouldn't fire, but from the outside it still looked like I'd stopped a vicious axe blade barehanded. The murmuring erupted into cheers. The mercenary's face flushed scarlet as he strained and grunted at the haft, trying to wrench free the way you'd yank an axe stuck wrong in a tree trunk.
"Y-you bastard! Let go!"
"If I let go, you'd better be careful."
"Wha—huh—?!"
The moment he threw his full weight backward, I released the axe with a shove, as if tossing it. Mercenary and axe went tumbling together across the ground. The sight was ridiculous enough that the gathered crowd laughed—and so did Hanna and Grace, still whispering off to the side.
Rare beauties smiling softly, a cookie-cutter villain thoroughly humiliated. Whether you lived in the modern world or a medieval fantasy, people were hardwired to enjoy this kind of thing.
Even with fingers pointing and laughter raining down from every direction, the mercenary—face filthy with dust and flushed red—said nothing. He shoved through the crowd in a frantic scramble and bolted for the alley. Living by the sword apparently hadn't made him stupid enough to pick a fight with someone who'd stopped his best swing barehanded.
"Hanna. I'm giving you some gold. Hold it up and shout that you're treating everyone at the Lucky Scoundrel Tavern."
"Huh? Me? For real?"
"Yeah. Isn't this exactly what we earned the money for?"
With the barehanded axe-catching stunt having quieted even the adventurer named Alex, I gave Han Se-ah a gentle push between the shoulder blades, sending her forward into the crowd. If she was going to play the clown, she might as well be the best clown around and get her name out there.
Han Se-ah hoisted the pouch I'd given her high and stepped into the center of the clearing. Eyes locked onto her. Thanks to her streaming experience, a mere few dozen people didn't make her nervous in the slightest.
"The noisy one's gone, the moon's gorgeous just like Roland said—let's go drink! I'm buying—!"
"As fiery as you are beautiful, big sis!"
"With a face like yours, you think you get to call a lady like that 'big sis'?!"
"If she's buying the drinks, everyone's big bro and big sis!"
Embarrassed or not—and her face had gone thoroughly red—the adventurers were already too deep in drink and atmosphere to care about something so trivial. At least one among the dozens clearly knew our party, because they started bellowing names at the top of their lungs.
"W-why me too…?"
"Because you're in the same party."
As Han Se-ah started walking, Grace hurried after her. Behind us, the adventurers followed in a noisy procession, enthusiastically shouting names. Grace, who'd ended up having her name called out right alongside Han Se-ah's through no choice of her own, kept her eyes down just like her—but the adventurers only got louder.
Two beautiful young women boldly declaring they'd pick up the tab, then ducking their heads in sudden shyness? Who wouldn't want to tease them a little, riding the borrowed courage of alcohol and a good mood? Even I, the party's designated guardian, was grinning from ear to ear.
Apparently she didn't have the nerve to record even this part. At some point, the translucent camera drone had quietly vanished without a trace.
"Everyone take care of your own business and rest today. Starting tomorrow, we train on the twenty-first floor again. We have to wait for the gate to form anyway, and we still need to collect our reward from the Magic Tower."
"…I'm sor— mmph —ryyy."
"I-I'm sorry…."
The two of them were draped bonelessly over the guild table, drawing startled looks from Kayden and Irene. Swept up in last night's atmosphere, the two women hadn't merely overindulged—they'd gone straight into full-blown binge drinking.
Grace seemed to be suffering a normal hangover, groaning with her brow furrowed tight. Han Se-ah, as a player, appeared to have picked up an actual hangover debuff—the view through her stream window was warped in a distinctly unnatural way.
"Can holy power not cure something like that?"
"It's possible, but I wouldn't recommend it. They're not injured or ill, so using it for something so trivial feels a bit…."
Irene answered Kayden's question with clear reluctance about deploying healing rites for this. Fair enough—in a world where the Goddess actually existed, casually abusing sacred arts for a hangover was probably poor form. Irene was a Candidate Saint, no less.
That said, she still couldn't bear to watch the two of them suffer. Her palms, filled with holy power, worked gently over them in a soft massage.
"No, my head's fine, but my vision's all warped right now, so playing is kind of rough? I'll switch off the camera and go first-person—wanna see?"
"I actually filmed something to talk about that, but—ugh, damn, I didn't know the hangover debuff would hit this hard. Can't even see the icons, so I can't tell the story like this."
"Okay, yeah… even if I take the heat for this, I've got nothing to say back. I had a drinking session with Grace unnie to strengthen our bond and overdid it a bit. Not real-world drinking—at the Lucky Scoundrel. Still, Irene unnie's massage is actually helping a little, I think."
With only her vision distorted, Han Se-ah had her face planted fully on the table as she chatted with her viewers. Irene, apparently deciding the posture was from hangover dizziness, stood up entirely and started kneading the back of her neck.
The gate would open in a few days anyway. Learning new magic, ordering premium arrows—we needed a short maintenance period regardless. Nothing wrong with that.
And I still had those overdue posts to write as Jjanhae-jwa.