The Nostalgic Adventurer's Guild
She was the sort who hated the idea of heading out together.
After leaving ordinary society behind and spending that stretch with the Hero Party, I had decided I much preferred traveling alone.
"Anyway, I am absolutely not letting you go by yourself. You already died once fighting the Demon King, did you not?"
"Well, that is true."
But why did she have to bring that up again? It wounded my pride.
When I fixed her with a silent glare of protest, Celia let out a long sigh.
"I am simply telling you to be careful. In any case, let us head to Crad Castle first."
"Right. Let's go, then."
"Pardon?"
Teleport
In the blink of an eye we were standing inside Crad Castle.
There was none of that walking around we had done back in the Hero Party days.
Yeah. I liked this kind of blitz.
"Just how did you get us here? Has your teleport magic gotten even faster?"
Celia's eyes sparkled as she asked.
"Mm. To be precise, it's a little different."
"Well, you are the one who casually rains meteors that can obliterate an entire castle."
True enough, but this teleport was something else entirely.
I tapped the floor lightly with my foot.
A magic circle only I could inscribe and only I could see.
By embedding the teleport formula with the bare minimum of mana, I could jump to any point where the formula had been set.
"I just planted the formula here in Crad Castle."
"A formula... one of your unique formulas, Noah-nim."
Exactly. She was quick on the uptake, as expected of the next Magic Tower Master.
"It's a magic circle I set up so I can come whenever I want. This way I can also cut down on the chance—however remote—of running into Ashtar's Second Brother."
"Do people not usually take these things at a leisurely stroll?"
Leisurely? I had no time for that sort of leisurely hardship.
"I've only got seven days of leave. Who has time to waste walking?"
"Mmm, that is a fair point."
Absolutely not. Minimize travel time and maximize enjoyment—that was the entire purpose of this vacation.
"Then would you like to visit the Adventurer's Guild?"
Celia's suggestion brought the past flooding back.
The Adventurer's Guild. A place I had frequented often during the Hero Party days. Requests tied to the Demon King, village-scale monster subjugations, that sort of thing.
I had dropped by far more than the Hero ever did.
While I was busy with the guild, that bastard had been busy with women.
"Welcome to the Adventurer's Guild."
It looked as though nothing much had changed here either.
Adventurers packed every corner. I had expected fewer of them this close to the Demon Realm, but no.
"Hmm. So that's how it is. Long time no see, Adventurer's Guild. Not a single thing different."
"Well, this is a newly established branch."
"Still, most of the requests are demon subjugations. And the client is the castle lord."
Ashtar's Second Brother was the primary client.
An impressive man, really. Between recovering from the last campaign's losses and sorting out the military, he was using adventurers instead of soldiers to thin out the demons of the Demon Realm.
Strategically, I approved wholeheartedly.
Adventurers were a separate class of people. They were not an army, so there was no worry about consuming military supplies or provisions, and if something went wrong you did not even have to track down their families for compensation.
After all, risk came with the job for those types.
Then a thought struck me. If I dropped meteors on the Demon Realm, would that not kill adventurers too?
On the flip side, I could end up labeled a criminal for wiping out adventurers.
"Hmm. Shall we take one?"
I walked over to the request board.
Among the subjugation jobs I looked for ones we could finish quickly. Celia browsed the postings alongside me.
"This one looks good. Gargoyle subjugation."
I thought we had wiped out all the monster birds and such last time, yet gargoyles remained? No—gargoyles had originally been stone statues.
According to the request, it was about clearing gargoyles from a temple discovered in the Demon Realm.
Probably quite an old place.
"Before that, do we need to make new adventurer registration cards? Do you have one?"
The process was not complicated, but I did not feel like going through the trouble of making a fresh one under Olivia when I would barely use it.
If Celia put her mind to it, maybe we could just use hers and call it good?
"I have a mage registration certificate. That should work. An adventurer card is still a registration, but as long as you have something that proves your skill it seems to be fine."
"A mage registration? Oh."
Come to think of it, I had an Imperial Court Mage certificate. Imperial Court Mages were widely known to rank among the highest of mages.
Nothing wrong with that, then.
"Excuse me. To accept a request you need an adventurer registration card, or a certificate proving equivalent skill."
The receptionist asked for identification.
I carefully showed her my Court Mage certificate.
"Will this do?"
"H-Huk. This is—"
"Shh. How is it? Acceptable?"
I wanted only the receptionist to confirm it, in case anyone nearby overheard.
"Y-Yes. Y-Yes. With this level of qualification we can entrust the request to you without worry. And the party size?"
"Just the two of us is plenty."
Celia had already revealed her identity to the guild, it seemed.
A mage registration could not be faked. It would clearly state she was the next Magic Tower Master. No wonder the receptionist kept her head bowed.
"Y-Yes. Th-Then we are counting on you."
No friction at all. The first time I had walked into an Adventurer's Guild, some idiot had picked a fight over my skills.
A nostalgic Adventurer's Guild request after so long.
"Still, this is strange."
"What is?"
I casually scanned the room.
It was not packed to the brim, but there were enough adventurers for conversation and the guild to run smoothly.
"Well. I do not usually say this myself, but we are a two-woman party. And not exactly hard on the eyes."
Honestly, looks like mine were flawless. Celia too. On the surface we looked like the sort of female party that needed escorts—yet not a single man among us. There ought to have been pests trying to attach themselves, yet none had.
Was everything going a little too smoothly?
"Ah. You mean no one is picking a fight?"
"Yeah. Honestly, those two bitches from the Hero Party—they looked decent enough that we got challenged all the time."
Divine Archer Ella and Saint Siria. I knew perfectly well both of them were trash, but they were pretty enough that nine out of ten men would turn their heads.
Hero Party work naturally brought us to Adventurer's Guilds now and then.
"Well, this is a high-level district. Being near the Demon Realm means the thug types who would pull that sort of thing are too busy scrambling to survive to come here. Besides, we are wearing hoods."
"Ah. Right."
True. We had the hoods on. I had put them on so we would not be recognized, but I never expected them to prove useful like this.
Anyway, anyone operating in a place of this caliber had to have a functioning brain. No beasts whose lower halves reacted first.
That was a relief.
—Hey, ladies. Why stick with those scrawny-looking guys? Come with us instead.
—Our big bro once cleaned out an entire orc village, you know? Those guys couldn't manage that.
—Gloomy mage. Handle them.
—You handle them! Fucking hell.
There had been times like that. The thought of me becoming the target now was nauseating.
We would look around Crad a little, then head north, so we decided to move at once.
Rest meant nothing to us. It was pure time-wasting. I took the map the receptionist had given us and started to leave when three men and women raised their voices at the request board.
"Didn't you say there was a gargoyle hunt here?"
"Yeah. It's really gone."
"See? If Hans had gotten ready a little faster this wouldn't have happened."
"Ah-ahaha. I was preparing. How about looking for something else easy for now?"
They looked like fresh-made adventurers.
Making that much noise over a mere gargoyle subjugation?
"They probably think gargoyles look easy."
"Gargoyles are easy, sure."
"That is not the problem. They are easy by our standards. But gargoyles are the classic thing people get careless with and die to."
"Is that so?"
People got careless with gargoyles and died? A single magic bullet and they were dead anyway.
Most things died to a magic bullet, so by my standards a gargoyle ranked as little more than Easy Monster Tier 1.
"Yes. Gargoyles camouflage themselves as stone, so the common idea is that you just have to strike first."
"Ah, so because they are rocks you can hit them once before they wake up?"
"Yes."
"That is true enough."
Honestly it was. If you shot a magic bullet while they were still, they died so pathetically you could not even tell whether they had been statues or monsters.
"Which is exactly why we cannot judge by our standards. Just look at them—complete fledglings. The mana and skill I can sense make them look like they have only just shed their novice status."
You could always spot beginners at a glance.
Watching them brought back memories of people who took requests beyond their station at Adventurer's Guilds and died.
You often saw requests from bereaved families asking for help recovering the corpses of those dead adventurers.
"Why are types like that even here?"
This was the Demon Realm. No place for fledglings.
"They want to rise quickly. There are adventurer ranks, after all."
"Ah. Right."
The higher the rank, the more people's gazes changed.
In short, those three had no sense of their own limits, believed they could handle gargoyles, and were chasing only gargoyle requests to climb the ranks.
"Ordinary gargoyles are already fairly strong. Talking like that about Demon Realm gargoyles... I doubt that party will last long."
They would probably keep hunting for easier prey and die somewhere.
"Hmmmm."
"Are you going to yield it?"
"Are you insane? What if they take it and die?"
I hated that kind of sticky feeling. Re-accepting the request would be a hassle too. The map showed the most distant temple, so there was no reason for word to spread.
We set off toward the temple.
West of Crad Castle, near the mountain range the expedition force had once marched through.
If I had paid a little more attention back then, I might have secured this side rather easily as well.
"Doesn't it feel like someone is following us?"
"It does."
I had a good idea who. Those idiots from a moment ago—the naïve kids who had been blathering in front of the request board about how easy gargoyles would be.
"Hey. Whoever you are, come out."
"H-How did you know?"
"How? You were hiding that openly and you thought we wouldn't notice?"
Their attempt to trail us while crouching near the trees looked pitiful.
As if we could miss that.
"What? What do you want?"
"Th-That gargoyle request... please give it to us."
I had half-expected it, and sure enough. That was why they had been trailing us like rats.
In their little adventurer minds they had planned to negotiate—or force—the request out of us.
What to do with these ones?