Where Did I Gather All These Idiots From?
Where did I gather all these idiots from? We always got along surprisingly well.
“Laverre. I keep telling you, don’t you? Put the heals in on time.”
Jian, the swordsman, had been with the party the longest, so he possessed at least the leadership skills of a first-squad sergeant in an ant colony.
“Do you think I’m not healing because I don’t want to? Karena suddenly charged forward, so I had no choice!”
Laverre, the priest, had joined the latest but complained the most.
“Henry couldn’t buy enough time to hide, so I had no choice but to jump out first. It was the best decision.”
Karena was a thief like a storm. Her personality was just as shitty as a storm, too.
“Do you people think using magic is as easy as it sounds?”
And finally, the mage—me, Henry Morrison. I couldn’t exactly claim to be normal anywhere else, but here I was the closest thing to it. Just looking at this told you exactly how many idiots our party had collected. Since we were all idiots, no one ever got singled out for blame, which was nice… Yeah. Well. It wasn’t like we only ever fought, either.
“I really hope none of you go to another party.”
“Why?”
“It’s because this party quietly puts up with it. Anywhere else, you’d get beaten to death on the spot.”
As long as a party maintained a decent level of harmony, everyone’s rhythm would eventually sync up, and skills naturally improved over time. After that, the remaining problems were, one way or another, ultimately trivial.
“Um, Jian? About that support fund the church sent this time…”
“Oh. I need that right now.”
“Sorry. I spent it all.”
Of course, there were exceptions. There was a proper line when it came to party harmony, and sometimes that line got crossed and things escalated all the way to affection. Once that happened, the party was finished. The bonds and trust between members usually shattered immediately.
“Henry, aren’t you getting married? Since you’re from Chiyev, I thought you’d be right at the age for it.”
“No plans. And I won’t in the future, either.”
“Why? It’d be better to do it while you can. You get anxious like a puppy when you’re alone.”
“Watching you two makes me lose all desire to try.”
Fortunately, we were free from those kinds of problems. Thanks to that, our party was able to grow without any serious breakdowns, only experiencing small and large disturbances. Because of that, we gradually grew stronger, and before we knew it, we had even accomplished the historic feat of subduing the Demon King.
But that also meant one of the reasons to keep the party together had disappeared.
“Since I’m the owner of the holy sword, I can officially receive the hero title. So from now on, I plan to work for the kingdom. What about you, Laverre?”
“They say my achievements have been recognized and I’m being elevated to the rank of saint candidate in the church! Huh? Karena? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“…It’s nothing.”
“Right! What are you going to do now, Karena?”
“I’m thinking of going back to the guild I was originally in. I was so busy with adventurer work that I couldn’t properly wrap things up there.”
The three of them suddenly fell quiet, and all eyes turned to me at once.
“What about you, Henry?”
“Well. I don’t have any plans yet, but with the spirits around, I’ll figure something out.”
“You’ll manage somehow too.”
The spark of conversation was faint. Even small talk refused to continue. Were they all slowly sinking into the sentiment of this final moment? Without meaning to, I found myself reminiscing about the past.
The time I first met Jian and joined the party. The time Karena came looking for us from the thieves’ guild. The time we recruited Laverre because we needed the church’s support funds. Back then they had been nothing more than fleeting moments, but looking back, those were the ones that remained most clearly in my memory.
I tried to say something, anything, but the words caught in my throat and I couldn’t get them out. Then Jian suddenly spoke up with a refreshed expression.
“Everyone worked hard.”
But that wasn’t the end of our party.