An Adventurer Named Karl
Even after the day Edwin showed me those applications, more and more of them flooded into the royal palace.
Fearing that my former party members might try to apply again, Edwin carefully screened them himself before handing over a curated pile. Still, I didn't even spare them a glance.
There was no guarantee that a new hero party wouldn't use me and throw me away just like the last one did. More than anything, I simply couldn't bring myself to trust anyone.
Edwin kept trying to persuade me, arguing that not everyone was so wicked, but the issue didn't lie solely with my trust issues. There was a fundamental problem with the people trying to join the hero's party.
Looking at the applications, the vast majority were children of noble houses or royalty.
Their motives were clear: honor, fame, and career advancement.
Once you became a member of the hero's party, you were officially hailed as a hero, regardless of your actual deeds. To any kingdom, empire, or race, the hero's party was a legendary group destined to save the world. For nobles who prized honor and sought to leverage achievements into higher titles, it was an opportunity worth risking their lives for.
Saintess Emilia had used the fame she gained from defeating the Demon King to secure her place as the Crown Prince's wife and the future Empress.
Princess Lydia, the mage, had an emperor for a father but a commoner for a mother; for someone of such low birth, the hero's party was a golden ticket. Defeating the Demon King granted her enough prestige to wash away her lineage, allowing her to marry the king of the neighboring Jeremiah Kingdom.
And finally, the elf Illuen...
Since the elves traditionally only crowned queens, she, as a princess, desperately needed the prestige of the hero's party. Despite her subpar skills for an elf, she had offered fake love and her body just to survive in the party. Yet, it seemed she still hadn't managed to ascend to the throne.
The defining trait of my former party members was remarkably consistent.
To compensate for their lack of skill and secure their status, they had offered fake love and sold their bodies like common courtesans, reaping the benefits. Since the very structure of a hero's party invited such parasites, I had absolutely no confidence in running one again.
"What? You want to become an adventurer?"
"Yeah."
When I explained my reasoning to Edwin, he stared at me with an utterly dumbfounded expression.
"No, I'm telling you to recruit party members, and you suddenly want to be an adventurer? You're not seriously planning to go slay the Demon King with a ragtag band of adventurers, are you?"
"You know as well as I do that the credentials written on those applications are mostly lies anyway."
"Even so, that's..."
Edwin started to argue, but the memory of my former party must have crossed his mind. He fell silent, unable to finish his sentence, and quietly sat back down.
After all, the women of my previous party had possessed skills that fell laughably short of what was written on their resumes.
"I'm not saying I'll stay an adventurer forever. I just want to personally verify the character and skills of my future companions before I recruit them. So, for the time being, I'll be operating under the radar."
"Hmm..."
This was likely a difficult request for Edwin to accept.
With the Demon King's army throwing the world into chaos, Arzen needed to project strength to its neighbors. More importantly, announcing the hero's return was crucial to keeping the domestic population calm.
"Fine... Do whatever makes you comfortable."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. I'm just glad you've agreed to look for party members at all."
Just last night, I had been planning to fight alone without a party.
But Edwin's relentless, borderline-threatening badgering had finally worn me down.
Of course, deep down, I knew better than anyone that I couldn't do this without a party.
"But do you really think there are adventurers strong enough to join a hero's party?"
Edwin had a point.
Adventurers who hunted monsters just to scrape by were highly unlikely to have received the structured, elite training that noble children enjoyed.
However, because the applications for the hero's party were dominated by nobles and royals, there were bound to be hidden masters who couldn't apply due to their low status or family circumstances. Furthermore, even if their raw power was the same, the real combat experience accumulated by a veteran adventurer was something that could never be ignored.
The prime example of this was the elf Illuen from my former party. When she first joined and entered a dungeon, she foolishly drank stagnant water and got such a bad stomach ache that the entire party had to wait around in the dungeon for three days.
And that wasn't all.
When we went to retrieve an artifact in the snowy mountains, Princess Lydia had panicked at the sight of a yeti and fired off spells blindly, triggering an avalanche that nearly buried us alive.
A knock rattled the door.
It happened just as Edwin and I were deep in discussion about the new party.
"Your Majesty! It's an emergency!"
"What is it?"
"The Demon King's army has invaded the Horon Kingdom!"
"What?!"
Horon was a neighboring kingdom to the south of Arzen, situated dangerously close to the center of the continent where the Demon King's forces had emerged.
"They have officially requested military aid from our kingdom, and emergency quests have been issued to all adventurer guilds in the neighboring territories."
They called it a request for aid, but in truth, they were begging for the Hero.
"The Hero has officially begun operating in secret as of today. Inform them that we will dispatch our national reinforcement troops instead," Edwin ordered.
"Understood, Your Majesty!"
The Demon King's army undoubtedly knew I was here. Invading the Horon Kingdom under these circumstances was a direct provocation.
"Carlos, what are you going to do?"
"I'll join the fight as an adventurer. Once this is over, I'll make sure to smooth things over with the Horon Kingdom so it doesn't cause any diplomatic issues for you."
It had to be an awkward situation for Edwin.
Just yesterday, he had loudly proclaimed to the world that the Hero was in Arzen. If he now claimed the Hero couldn't help because of "secret operations," it would make him look terrible.
"Don't worry about politics or diplomacy. Just focus on staying safe," Edwin said.
He clapped me on the shoulder a few times as if it were nothing, then walked out of the drawing room. I, too, headed back to my room to pack my bags for the Horon Kingdom.
"Whoa..."
The Lexen Fief, located in the southern part of the Horon Kingdom, was flooded with adventurers from both Horon and the surrounding nations. The local adventurer guild was so packed that there was barely room to stand.
"Um... I'd like to see if there are any open spots in a party..."
The reception desk was a chaotic mess of adventurers looking for groups. Because the monsters sent by the Demon King's army moved and attacked in hordes, the adventurers had decided to band together in parties to stand a chance.
"Your name?"
"Lucia."
"Are you an elf, by any chance?"
"Ah... no. I'm a half-elf."
"An archer, then. Let's see..."
"N-No! I'm a spiritist!"
"Pardon?"
The receptionist blinked, asking her to repeat herself. Lucia nervously reiterated.
"I'm a spiritist."
"Hmm... Let's see..."
The receptionist scratched her head with the end of her pen, letting out a troubled sigh. The truth was, no party wanted a spiritist.
Their role overlapped too much with mages. But while mages could cast a wide variety of spells across different elements to support a party, spiritists were bound to a single element. They couldn't even cast basic healing spells like mages could. Naturally, everyone preferred a mage over a spiritist.
"There are barely any parties looking for a spiritist. Would you mind waiting a bit?"
"Okay..."
The receptionist walked off with a ledger containing the party listings. She spoke with a man who appeared to be a swordsman, and after a moment, she returned to the counter with him.
"Here you go. Please introduce yourselves. This is the leader of the party you'll be joining."
"H-Hello!"
Lucia bowed deeply to the swordsman who had agreed to take in a spiritist. He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly and greeted her in return.
"Hello. I'm the leader, Karl."
"I'm Lucia!"
"The rest of the party is gathered at the tavern across the street. Shall we head over?"
"Yes!"
Although he wore ordinary clothes and worn leather armor like any other adventurer, Karl walked with a dignified, upright posture that resembled a royal knight. Lucia found herself staring at him, captivated.
"Is something wrong? Do I have something on my face?"
"Ah... no!"
Though she struggled to find parties, she had worked as an adventurer for a long time and met all kinds of people. Yet, she had never met anyone like Karl.
Unlike the crude, rough speech of typical adventurers, his tone was refined and elegant. A strange feeling began to bud in Lucia's heart toward him, though she couldn't tell if it was mere curiosity or a sudden attachment.
"Ah, there they are."
Karl waved to a man and a woman who seemed to be his other party members, guiding Lucia toward them. The warm, pleasant feelings she had felt while looking at Karl instantly vanished, replaced by tension as she braced herself for the party's reaction to her being a spiritist.
"Everyone, meet Lucia. She's joining our party starting today."
"Hello."
The two offered polite greetings, but their eyes were intensely scanning the new recruit. They were trying to guess her class, making all sorts of assumptions based on her attire.
"H-Hello... I'm Lucia. My class is... a spiritist."
"..."
"..."
The two party members fell dead silent. Karl didn't seem to understand their reaction, but Lucia knew exactly what it meant.
"Hey... Karl? Can we talk for a second?"
"Sure."
Ignoring Lucia, the two approached Karl and pulled him away to speak in private. Having experienced this countless times before, Lucia didn't even panic. She simply sat down with a resigned expression, waiting for them to return.