214. You Can't Be the Knight from the Fairy Tale
214. You Can't Be the Knight from the Fairy Tale
He thought he must have been mistaken.
What Atlas handed to the receptionist was a small identification tag.
He must have done some adventuring work before.
But the color was strange.
It sparkled with a white light, but it wasn't platinum.
It was an even whiter... yes, a color like mithril.
Generally, the identification tags issued to adventurers came in four grades: copper, silver, gold, and platinum, in that order.
Even just being at the mid-tier Expert level, if your skills were good, anyone could wear a gold plate, and for platinum...
And above that... the mithril grade could only be received by accomplishing a great feat that transcended mere skill.
A great feat meant... doing something generally considered impossible.
You had to be an adventurer who did something absurd, like conquering a dungeon deemed absolutely unbreakable or single-handedly hunting down an adult dragon.
"Right this way, please."
"Then I'll be back soon, so just wait a little."
When another receptionist appeared and guided Atlas to the upper floor, Atlas left those words behind and disappeared.
After he left, as they stared at the empty space, it was Perda who spoke first.
"Did you see that?"
"You mean the identification tag he just put on the table?"
"It seemed white... it'll be platinum, right?"
"Platinum... it'll be that."
"It seemed a little whiter than platinum."
It was the men who directly brought up the topic.
With doubtful eyes, they took turns mulling over what they had seen.
"...If it's whiter, is that a bad thing...?"
"It's not bad, it's absurd."
When Lucia pointed out that their attitude was strange, Lemnos frowned.
"A white color means it was mithril... and that's something a bit special. Having a mithril plate means you're the main character of a fairy tale."
"What do you mean, the main character of a fairy tale?"
"Haven't you seen it at least once when you were young? The story of the knight who rushed into the tower alone to save the princess and defeated the evil dragon. They say that was actually the historical feat of a mithril plate from decades ago. Receiving an identification tag made of mithril from the Adventurer's Guild means that. It means you've accomplished a feat worthy of being praised as a story for future generations...."
"W-What...? Then you're saying that human really is a dragon slayer?"
Gemma had understood it differently.
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The branch manager's office was located on the second floor.
As soon as he entered, a middle-aged man who looked like he had lived a hard life bolted upright from his seat and bowed his head.
"I greet the Mithril."
"Cut the useless formalities and get to the point."
A branch manager was, at best, a platinum rank.
Since branch managers were selected more for administrative ability, he showed at least a minimum of courtesy to a Mithril who had achieved great feats.
After all, not wanting to be looked down on was one reason he'd earned the Mithril rank in the first place.
He hadn't come to share an amazing story.
He had only come because there were many benefits available at the Adventurer's Guild once you possessed a mithril plate.
"I want to rent a drake carriage. I have business that requires me to get to the capital quickly."
"When you say a drake carriage... do you mean that one?"
"Is there any other kind?"
What was called a drake carriage was a carriage that adventurers of platinum rank or higher could rent from the guild when in a hurry.
With at least one kept at every branch, you could rightly call it a 'drake carriage' because, despite being called a horse-drawn carriage, it used drakes—land-dragons—instead of horses.
The only downsides were their filthy temperament and how much they ate, but they had the advantage of being sturdy and fast.
"I shall prepare it properly. By when should it be ready?"
"We're departing today. We'll be able to reach the capital by tomorrow, won't we?"
"If we depart on a tight schedule, it should be sufficient."
He also had to escort Gemma to the imperial capital, and he couldn't drag out the time because he had many appointments set during the vacation.
"It seems it's been a while since I last met a Mithril."
"They're all holed up in remote mountain areas, so they must be quite hard to see."
In this era, not even five people possessed a mithril plate.
If you judged by skill alone, there were many more who could receive the Mithril rank, but those with such skills had no reason to bother with the unstable, freelance work of an adventurer.
"This is a different matter, but... didn't you single-handedly hunt an evil dragon and recently achieve the feat of conquering the Snow Country? When the relics from the Snow Country were released in the capital, even I was as excited as a child. Haha."
"That's right."
He had never gone out of his way to bring it up, but it seemed a person like the branch manager had already figured out the identities of every single one of the few Mithrils of the same era.
"Would you perhaps be interested in a request like this?"
What the branch manager held out was a single sheet of parchment.
The rank of the request written on it wasn't high.
It was a message requesting an investigation into the truth of a certain location, citing concerns over the appearance of an evil dragon.
"'It seems an evil dragon has appeared again?' What's this about it 'seems' to have appeared, not that it has?"
"There is damage that appears to be the work of an evil dragon, but we couldn't actually find the evil dragon that did it."
Dragons that ignored the accord and mercilessly attacked humans were called evil dragons.
It wasn't that there was a separate species called evil dragons; if any of them went astray, they became an evil dragon.
Regarding the damage and all that, Gemma was the first thing that came to mind.
She had said she committed two raids before meeting him, and the thought crossed his mind that perhaps this was Gemma's doing.
"An entire village located near the capital was completely burned down and gone, and all the animals and people inside disappeared."
If she had burned down the entire village instead of just stealing, then it couldn't have been Gemma's doing.
If it had been her, instead of burning the village, she would have rampaged and demanded they hand over all their gold, silver, and treasures.
But the location bothered him immensely.
Did they pull a stunt like that near the capital?
"If it's near the capital... then the imperial family must have launched their own investigation."
The Emperor resided in the capital.
If an incident where an entire village disappeared occurred nearby, the imperial family would be the first to worry.
"Yes. However, even though the imperial family launched an investigation, they couldn't properly figure out who did it. They are also still investigating how the people and livestock disappeared."
"If the imperial family is investigating... was this request made from somewhere else?"
"Yes. It was a request personally filed by the lord of Eriden, which is close to that village. He seems quite frightened because such an event occurred so close by."
It was understandable.
If such an event occurred right under his nose and he had no idea why, he would naturally think that the same things could happen in his own territory at any time.
"Is there a reason you're so certain it's the work of an evil dragon? If it's simply burning a village down, a mage could do that too."
"There were eyewitness accounts from a nearby village about the sound of a dragon crying, or a giant shadow flying across the sky in the dead of night. So we are making the speculation that it might be the work of an evil dragon."
Hearing that testimony, he began to think it wasn't an evil dragon.
The sound of a dragon howling—that was a sound ordinary people would likely never have heard even once in their entire lives.
And something about a giant shadow flying across the sky... there was a high possibility it was just an airship or some other magical beast.
Still, the assumption that an evil dragon might be hiding near the capital was quite interesting.
But even if that were the case, his immediate priorities were the things he had to do right now.
.
.
.
.
"The talk's over, and I'll be leaving here in two hours."
"...."
When he finished talking with the branch manager and came out, everyone was looking at him as if he was highly suspicious.
"What? Did I do something wrong?"
"Can I see your identification tag?"
"This? As much as you want."
He unfastened the adventurer's identification tag from his neck and handed it to Liber.
"Wow... it's real mithril."
"A dr... a dragon slayer... you were..."
Looking at his identification tag made of mithril, they remarked one by one.
Since it was an identification tag rarely seen, they seemed to find it fascinating.
"Why are you looking at it again? If you've learned I'm a great person, then treat me with respect."
"There's no way... that you're a Mithril..."
Among the Five Pillars, who still didn't know he was a Master, the mithril plate seemed like a novelty.
Especially Edgar, who showed a reaction like a child whose fantasy had been shattered.
"Edgar admired mithril-grade adventurers when he was young~ You know that fairy tale, right? The One About the Chosen One and the Dragon."
"Don't run your mouth about useless stuff, got it?"
What's with him acting like that just because I'm a Mithril?
.
.
.
.
.
While preparations were being made, everyone contacted their families to let them know something had come up.
Originally the plan was to drop them off one by one via airship, but now they had to tell them their schedules were messed up because they'd have to use a teleport from the capital or take separate carriages.
Since they all went off to contact their families, only Gemma and I remained in the Adventurer's Guild building.
For a while now, Gemma had been trembling non-stop while looking at me.
"...If you have something to say, say it with words."
"Eep?!"
Wondering what on earth she was doing, he spoke up, and she made a terrified face again.
"D-Dear Dragon Slayer... p-please don't eat me... I still have things... lots of things I want to do..."
"I would eat you?"
Dumbfounded, he crooked his finger, and Gemma approached, trembling.
"Eek??"
He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her close, and growled in her ear.
"Who's going to eat you? You don't have any meat to eat, so don't spout nonsense. And who's calling me a dragon slayer?"
"I heard... that if you have a plate made of mithril... you're a dragon slayer..."
Thinking about it, since he had killed an evil dragon, it was true he was a dragon slayer.
But calling him a 'slayer' made him sound like some insane scholar.