The Secret of Youth

Thanks to Guild Master Aisia's consideration, I'd managed to open a massage business inside the Adventurer's Guild — but it wasn't as though customers came flooding in the moment I put up the sign.

Well, even in a place as diverse as an adventurer's guild, every adventurer had their own daily routine.

After about a week of working the reception desk, I'd gotten a decent handle on the average adventurer's schedule. Most of them lived day to day, so mornings typically meant a stop by the guild to check a few things — whether any high-efficiency quests had gone up on the board since ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yesterday, or whether supply-and-demand shifts had driven up the buyback price on certain monster materials. Even if you were putting in the same amount of work, you'd rather earn more for it. Any adventurer with half a brain would do the same.

Once they locked in a target, most of them spent the rest of the day out at a hunting ground until the job was done — or, if they'd taken a caravan escort contract, camping near the merchant wagons for days at a stretch. Outside of those multi-day commissions, the typical adventurer set their daily goal around whatever they could wrap up by evening. Which meant the busiest time at the guild was evening, hands down. Once they'd collected their quest fees or material payouts and their purses were temporarily fat, their spending got a little looser around then, too.

In other words: sure, plenty of people visited the guild in the morning — but no woman was going to come charging in at dawn demanding a massage. I had the price board up already, but real business wouldn't start until this evening at the earliest.

"This massage service written here… is that something Receptionist Oppa does himself?"

"Yes. Anything related to massage, I handle personally."

"Hmm, I see… I'll keep that in mind."

A couple of adventurers who'd stopped by that morning asked about the service on their way out. They were heading out on jobs while the sun was still up, but I had a feeling they'd be back as massage clients come evening.

For the record, I'd deliberately left lower-body massage off the menu — a judgment call based on the libido of women in this world. If their sex drive ran anywhere close to the average man's back in my old world, putting both upper- and lower-body options on the board would mean nobody ordered anything but the lower-body one. So lower-body massage would stay an off-menu suggestion, reserved for female adventurers whose libido was running high — like Coco's had been — and only for those I judged trustworthy enough. Besides, openly advertising something like a lower-body massage inside the Adventurer's Guild just wasn't feasible. Even setting aside the Erogenous Massage and Internal Vaginal Massage functions, the whole picture would look pretty wrong.

"So you ended up running it officially after all? Beor's massage."

"Yes. It was unofficial, but I did charge Coco for it. Guild Master Aisia said she thought formalizing the operation would be a good idea."

"I think so too. There's something about Beor's massage — this strange, inescapable charm. Mm-hmm."

"Hearing Senior say that puts me at ease."

"By the way… that means I've been getting a one-gold-coin massage from Beor this whole time, free of charge. Thinking about it like that, I suddenly feel like some filthy-rich noble young lady…"

Fair enough. Elin had come back for more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of my massages in the staff break room several times since the first one. In terms of "depth," Coco had received the most intimate treatment — but in terms of "frequency," Elin, who'd had her shoulders and back kneaded almost every single day, was the runaway winner.

"Ah — Senior, yours will keep being free, so don't worry about it."

"R-Really…? Even so, it's a service other people have to pay a gold coin for. Shouldn't I at least pay something…?"

"Senior, you took better care of me than anyone when I was reeling from amnesia. And even without that, we're guild family. I'm not taking money from you, so if you want one every single day, just ask."

"But then I'd feel too guilty…"

"Then how about this — going forward, whenever something in my memory is fuzzy, Elin fills me in. That way it's not free, so you should be fine with it, right?"

"W-Would that work~? If it's like that, then maybe it's not free…"

The offer seemed to ease her burden at least a little; Elin smiled with visible relief. Honestly, I preferred her not feeling guilty about it. By my standards, getting to touch Elin's body was something I should be paying for. She was my first massage client, and the person who'd looked after me best from the moment I dropped into this world — of course personal affection kept attaching itself to her. That was only natural.

At any rate, the morning rush of adventurers had dispersed on their various expeditions, and the guild settled into a quieter late morning. With a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to check the profile of Guild Master Aisia — newly registered as my third client.

Reading Guild Master Aisia's profile from the top — a full name that somehow felt aristocratic — the first thing that shocked me was her age.

I'd figured she was older than me, sure, but forties? Not even her thirties? My estimate of early thirties at the absolute oldest had been completely off the mark.

And just looking at her face, you'd believe mid-twenties without a second thought.

The early-thirties guess had only come from assuming you needed a certain amount of age and experience to climb as high as Guild Master. Purely on looks, Guild Master Aisia had the face of a college student by my old world's standards.

Come to think of it, every other female adventurer in this world looked like she was in her twenties too. There was no way that many adventurers were all fresh-faced twenty-somethings. Some of them had to be around Aisia's age — or older.

…Do the women in this world just stop aging past a certain point?

Or maybe there was some youth-preserving secret circulating among this world's adventurers. I'd just finished agreeing with Elin that I could ask her anything I was curious about, so I carefully posed a question about this strange phenomenon that had caught my eye.

"Elin, something just occurred to me — mind if I ask?"

"Mm-hmm. What is it, Beor?"

"Guild Master Aisia — do you happen to know how old she is?"

"The Guild Master? Probably early forties, I think?"

"…No matter how I look at her, she only looks like she's in her twenties. Is my sense of how to judge people's ages completely broken because of the amnesia?"

"……"

Elin's face scrunched slightly, as if she found my question hard to parse. That reaction alone told me my common sense and this world's common sense were out of alignment.

"Hold on. I get the feeling Beor's common sense is off somewhere again. Let me try to figure out where — give me a second?"

"…Yes, Elin."

With that, she closed her eyes and started tapping her fingertips against her palm like she was working an abacus. She'd done the same thing on day one when she demonstrated Thought Acceleration right in front of me — probably a habit that came out whenever she used her Unique Ability.

After running Thought Acceleration to reverse-engineer the source of my nonsensical assumptions, Elin carefully launched into an explanation meant to clear up my confusion.

"Hmm…. First of all — you know that frequently using a Unique Ability slows down physical aging, right, Beor?"

"……"

"Ah. So I need to start from there…"

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

"…Sorry."

"No, no! Not knowing something isn't a crime. Okay, so — about the relationship between Unique Abilities and physical aging…"

Combining what I already knew with Elin's explanation, the reason adventurers in this world didn't age went roughly like this:

Every woman in this world possessed a Unique Ability, and using that ability triggered several changes in the body. One of those changes was the expulsion of aging compounds that accumulated inside. The more frequently you used your Unique Ability, the slower your body aged — and since adventurers inevitably used theirs every single day, they simply didn't get old. For an adventurer, a Unique Ability was their livelihood. They had no choice but to live with it constantly active.

"The kind of forties appearance Beor is thinking of is probably based on people who live out in remote countryside villages. Folks out there often go their whole lives without ever figuring out what their Unique Ability even is. People like that age relatively fast, so maybe that's what Beor was picturing."

"Ah, I see…"

"Still — the fact that you even made that association about age makes me wonder if Beor himself was from somewhere really rural. That would explain why his common sense is so different from everyone else's."

"…Yeah, that could be it."

The real reason was that I was from another world, not the countryside — but still. Just imagining what would've happened without Elin was terrifying. Without her patient explanations, I still wouldn't have understood why ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this world only had female adventurers, or what the hell a Unique Ability even was.

I'd have to repay today's kindness with another "massage" after lunch, I decided, and offered her my deepest thanks.

"Thank you, Elin. Without your explanation, I probably never would have figured it out."

"No, no. Until Beor gets all his memories and common sense back, I'll teach him everything — so keep asking whenever you want!"

Ahh. An angel. An actual angel, no exaggeration.

In that moment, I was genuinely grateful that the first person I'd met in this world had been Elin.