Top-Class Adventurer
“I can already guess without looking. Another request to seize some village and take hostages, right?”
“Ugh. Don’t those bastards ever get tired of it? I still can’t figure out where they get the nerve to keep dumping jobs like that on us.”
The blonde woman picked the scroll back up. In an instant, blue flames bloomed from her fingertips and swallowed the paper whole. The scroll crumbled into black ash that scattered across the floor.
Watching her, the man with deep blue hair—Ren—frowned.
“Why burn it here?”
“Just holding it gives me the creeps. The god those guys worship is an evil god. What if some curse rubs off?”
“That’s ridiculous…”
Ren started to say more, then closed his mouth and slowly shook his head. Believing an evil god even existed was heresy in the first place. And burning the scroll like that was more likely to provoke a curse than anything else, wasn’t it?
…Still, he didn’t feel like explaining until his mouth went dry.
Ren let out a resigned sigh and lifted the letter in his hand. It was from his younger sister, Estelle.
Letters from her were rare enough to count on one hand. She was the type who didn’t even want people knowing they were family, both of them being adventurers.
Ren hadn’t particularly cared either way, yet here a letter from her had arrived all the same.
He couldn’t help being curious.
Tuning out the party member who looked like she’d completely lost her mind, Ren quietly unfolded the letter.
The contents were extremely short and concise.
Dear Brother,
I recently attempted the Taboo-class dungeon known as the Ruins of the Cliff. The dungeon was on the verge of a Dungeon Break and close to evolving; far from clearing it, we nearly lost our lives.
There is an adventurer who conquered that dungeon alone. He wishes to meet you.
— Estelle
“….”
Wondering if he had misread, Ren went back to the beginning and carefully reread every line.
No matter how many times his eyes scanned the page, the contents did not change.
Ren quietly spoke.
“…Pria. That rumor you mentioned earlier… what exactly was it?”
Pria, her long golden hair tied back with a ribbon, blinked and turned her head.
“You mean the fun rumor? The one I just told you about? You said it was nonsense.”
“…Just tell me again.”
“One adventurer cleared a Taboo-class dungeon. Every time he threw a punch, giant golems exploded left and right. And that adventurer was only an apprentice—”
“Stop.”
“What the hell, man.”
Looking thoroughly annoyed, Pria sprang up from her seat and strode over to Ren’s side. Her gaze naturally drifted to the open letter in his hand.
A moment later, having finished reading, Pria straightened up and let out a small sound of admiration.
“Ooh…”
She rested a hand under her chin, the corner of her mouth twitching.
“So the ones spreading rumors to cook up some conspiracy… are your little sister?”
“….”
Ren said nothing.
Pria continued, interest written all over her face.
“He wants to meet the clan leader, right? Isn’t that perfect? If the rumor’s true, a powerhouse like that has a reason for seeking you out. If it’s not, we just figure out who’s plotting what.”
“….”
“Let’s meet him! If the rumor’s real, I want to see how your face changes. I’m coming too.”
Ignoring Pria’s reaction, Ren folded the letter and slipped it into the belt pouch at his waist.
Separate from his sister’s request, Ren decided he needed to meet that adventurer himself.
The contents left him no choice. His sister had no reason to lie just to send a letter, and even if it were false, as Pria said, they would at least learn what someone was scheming.
Pria’s irritating face kept chattering away beside him, but that alone wasn’t enough reason to refuse the meeting.
About two weeks had passed since we returned from the Ruins of the Cliff.
I was still staying at the same inn as Arnen.
A few days earlier, Estelle had contacted me after sorting out the mana stones and golem fragments. Most of the gold—enough that five high-rank parties could have split it and still had leftovers—had ended up in my hands, so I wouldn’t have to worry about money for a while.
According to Estelle, if we’d had the boss’s mana stone we could have earned far more gold; she sounded genuinely disappointed we hadn’t.
On top of that, Estelle had handed me a book detailing a mana refinement method—the very technique she herself had used since childhood.
Eldirian Grand Refinement Art.
High-level refinement arts usually carried the name of a noble house that had passed them down through long ages. The name itself stood for tradition, depth, and practical combat value.
Moreover, only techniques capable of guiding a user all the way to the realm of Sword Master—far beyond mere refinement—were permitted to bear the prefix “Grand.”
The Eldirian Grand Refinement Art possessed both qualifications; it was a high-level method in every sense of the word.
The Eldirian family, once masters of refinement arts, had long since vanished into history, yet the technique they left behind still commanded respect.
It boasted outstanding versatility and, above all, excelled at stably accumulating pure mana.
Once a user reached a certain level, its true worth became even clearer: the Aura Blade formed from pure, unadulterated mana was far sharper and more powerful than ordinary ones, while the speed of mana accumulation still rivaled any other method.
Its fame had spread so widely that noble houses without their own unique arts, or the simply wealthy, commonly purchased and practiced the Eldirian Grand Refinement Art. The disappearance of any family that might have kept it secret only accelerated the trend.
In truth, this single refinement manual was worth more than every reward from a Taboo-class dungeon combined.
Estelle giving me something like that went beyond simple goodwill. At the very least, it meant she wanted to maintain a good relationship with me.
That was probably why she had explained so enthusiastically just how excellent the method was.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t properly use this magnificent mana refinement art.
The very first page was already a wall.
Feel the mana.
Sink your mind into stillness, heighten your senses, and feel the pure mana that fills this world. Then awaken to it.
……What the hell did “feel the mana” even mean?
How was I supposed to feel it?
Sinking the mind and heightening the senses—those were things I had repeated countless times while training martial arts. But I had never once tried to sense mana during any of it. I hadn’t even known mana existed.
So the sudden attempt to feel mana felt awkward beyond words.
The only consolation was that the book itself anticipated such confusion. If you hadn’t trained this sense since childhood, it said, of course it would take a long time.
A stubborn competitive streak flared up in me anyway, so every dawn I rose and sat in the inn’s rear courtyard, meditating and trying to feel mana.
It felt exactly like going back to my childhood self—heading into the mountains knowing nothing and just throwing punches like an idiot.
Today, after finishing that training, I went back up to my room.
I washed roughly with cold water, shook out my wet hair, and headed downstairs again for breakfast.
“Hey, hey. He’s here. That’s the guy who…”
“That guy? I knew his aura felt different.”
“Think he could make the Five Stars?”
“If he soloed a Taboo-class dungeon, isn’t he stronger than Zest?”
As I descended the stairs, countless gazes locked onto me.
I had grown somewhat numb to stares like these by now.
This inn sat close to Adventurer Guild headquarters, so most of the long-term guests were adventurers.
After the Ruins of the Cliff, rumors had spread as if they had grown wings, and ever since then it had been like this.
Most adventurers seemed to recognize my face and whispered among themselves whenever they saw me.
Ever since I started mana training my senses had become uselessly sharp, so I overheard most of it. Usually it was talk about the “Five Stars.”
The absolute powerhouses ranked among the top five even among top-class adventurers. Whether I could stand alongside them… that was the main topic.
I accidentally locked eyes with one of the whispering adventurers.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Hah—it’s an honor!”
“Ah… yeah.”
I awkwardly passed the man and took a seat at an empty table.
Just then Arnen and Elia came down the stairs; I raised a hand and called them over.
And so breakfast began.
I told Arnen about everything that had happened in the Taboo-class dungeon and the various things I had learned. She shared the information she had gathered in return.
I had learned what the Five Stars even were thanks to Arnen.
Besides that, I had recently been practicing the mana refinement method together with her. The reason I dragged her into it was simple.
The refinement manual Estelle gave me was written in a heavily academic style; there were so many passages I couldn’t make sense of that I absolutely needed Arnen’s help.
The funny part was that only a few days after we started training together, Arnen already seemed to have grasped something.
Well… I’d better step it up too.
Just as we finished eating and were about to head to the rear courtyard together—
Estelle arrived.
She said the older brother she had written to had come in person, and she led me to the hideout where her party was staying: Hillside Sunset.
Fewer people filled the inn than last time—casualties from the Ruins of the Cliff—but those who remained still occupied the seats in solid numbers.
Back then, thanks to Chainber’s scheme, every face had been stiff with wariness.
After what happened at the Ruins of the Cliff, the way they looked at me had completely changed. Dramatically so.
The wariness was gone. In its place were gazes mixed with anticipation, curiosity, and… respect, all directed at me.
……To be honest, it was a little burdensome.
It wasn’t any different from the stares of the unfamiliar adventurers I ran into at the inn where I was staying.
As I slipped between familiar faces, avoiding their eyes, two unfamiliar figures caught my attention.
A man with deep blue hair swept back, and a woman whose golden hair fell straight to her waist, glittering in the sunlight.
The man’s expression looked indifferent; the woman’s was… peculiar.
Especially the deep smile that bloomed at the corner of her mouth the moment our eyes met—that felt off in a way I couldn’t quite place.