A Big Score
Ever since returning to the city, I had taken on commissions without missing a single day. I worked and worked and worked some more. With a Swordmaster's skill, and with the new weapon and armor I'd acquired, I was certain I could handle anything that came my way.
And I did. I cleared every request without a hitch, and in less than a month I'd pocketed a small fortune of a hundred thousand Elso.
The problem, if you could call it one…
There are no more jobs.
Commissions didn't appear every day. People didn't suddenly need rare materials that often, and monsters that blocked the roads weren't exactly a daily occurrence either.
After clearing three or four requests in a single morning and racking up nearly a hundred commissions over the course of a month, nobody urgently needed anything anymore, and no one was being inconvenienced by monsters.
Hunting for money wasn't much better. Materials used in everyday life were always in demand, but they sold for next to nothing. The expensive materials—worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of Elso—came from monsters so rare that even I couldn't just stumble across them overnight.
Running the numbers, I realized it would take at least two years to pay off the entire debt at this rate. I clutched my head and slumped face-first onto the table with a dull thud.
This won't work. I need something that can make a real killing…
"Oh, well look who it is! Evan!"
I was still cradling my head, racking my brain for a way to pay off the debt, when someone plopped down in the seat beside me. I glanced over and found a long-eared elf sitting there. I couldn't remember her name, but she was definitely one of Senior Rainia's…
"Ah—! You forgot my name, didn't you?"
"…No."
"Then say it!"
"…Iris?"
"And who is that supposed to be?"
She snorted a laugh, then announced her name herself.
"It's Anes. Anes. Forget it again and I won't forgive you!"
"Ah, yes. Miss Anes."
"Anyway—what's our little Evan doing here all by himself?"
As she spoke, Anes began scrutinizing my face from every angle. The lively elf's gaze felt like it was boring straight through my eyes and peeking inside.
"You've got a worried look on your face—."
"Yeah… well, I've got a bit of a problem."
"What is it?"
"I need money…"
"What? That's it? That's way more ordinary than I expected! Ahaha!"
Hearing my troubles, Anes burst into peals of laughter, slapping her knees. I considered informing her that even a "light" problem could get pretty heavy once it hit the two-and-a-half-million-Elso mark.
But she opened her mouth before I could.
"Once you become an Upper Class adventurer, the money just rolls in!"
"Ah, right…"
"Judging by that reaction—wait, is our Evan still a Lower Class adventurer?"
"No, I did get promoted."
"Already? Fast— Middle Class? Or Upper Class?"
As if she already knew something, Anes pressed me about my rank. The gloom that had been weighing on me a moment ago gave way to a slightly petty thrill, and I reached into my coat.
I pulled out the badge the Guildmaster had given me—my Special Class adventurer's plate.
Anes took one look at it and tilted her head.
"What is this?"
"My adventurer's plate."
"Did they give you the wrong one? Why's the color like this…"
She took the plate, which glowed with a somewhat muted sheen, and read the letters stamped into it. Then she went rigid, her eyes flicking back and forth between my face and the badge.
Watching her pupils dart around, I chuckled and retrieved the plate from her hand.
"S-Special Class? What's that? There's a rank like that?"
"They said they were making it just for me."
"No, what do you mean— Evan, who even are you?"
"Ah, well, I also received this."
I casually handed over my Swordmaster title plate as well. The nationally certified proof of a swordsmanship master—a title reserved, for all practical purposes, for the greatest swordsman of all.
The moment Anes saw that plate, she was even more stunned than she'd been by the Special Class badge. The Special Class plate was something that had never existed before, but the title of Swordmaster was one that had been passed down for generations.
"Even so, a Swordmaster…"
"Hmm— is it really that surprising?"
"That surprising?! Of course it's more than that! Do you have any idea what the previous Swordmaster was like…!"
"Eh, you've met the previous Swordmaster? The Guildmaster said one hadn't appeared in over a hundred years."
"Of course I haven't— how old do you think I am?"
While I reeled from the revelation that the young beauty sitting in front of me was a grandmother over a hundred years old, Anes—now fully aware that I was both a Swordmaster and a Special Class adventurer—fell silent for a moment, clearly mulling something over.
After a brief pause, she finished her thoughts, pointed a finger at me, and spoke.
"Earlier, you said you needed money, right?"
"Huh? Yeah. I do need it."
"There's a job that could make us a real killing. Want in?"
"…What is it?"
"Dungeon exploration."
My interest surged.
Dungeons.
Unlike labyrinths—supernatural spaces that formed naturally—dungeons were artificial constructs created by the emperors of fallen empires, by dragons, by archmages, and the like.
They could be tombs, lairs, or secret laboratories. Because of that, an untouched dungeon was often called a treasure chest of instant fortune.
Most were hidden away or located in extraordinarily dangerous places, making them difficult not only to reach but even to discover in the first place.
"I was out on a commission recently and found one. Our party's mage said it was probably built by a pretty skilled magician."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. We poked our heads in a little, and it looked a bit too dangerous for our level. So we sealed it up where no one else would notice and came back."
"You need more party members, and that just happens to be me?"
"A reliable vanguard isn't easy to come by."
Anes—or more precisely, Rainia's party, White Wolf—was a four-person team of Upper Class adventurers. Their composition was warrior, mage, archer, and priest: a golden ratio of a party, but only in theory, only when everyone performed flawlessly without a single mistake.
"Right now, our front line is thin. It's not that Rainia's skills are lacking, but… relying on Rainia alone is still nerve-wracking."
What if another monster showed up while they were hunting one? What if they got ambushed from behind? With only a single vanguard, their party could fall into danger in an instant.
To prevent that kind of risk, the opinion that they needed one more person up front had been gaining traction—and Evan had appeared at just the right moment, a prodigy of the vanguard role.
"But why trust me? I could be a bad person, you know."
"People who say things like that are usually less likely to be bad, and… more than anything, you can just tell by looking."
"Tell by looking? What does that mean…"
Anes didn't finish the thought. She simply smiled. She carefully swallowed the rest—that this Evan, who reeked of pure-hearted sympathy, didn't seem like the kind of person wicked enough to deceive others.
Evan felt a vague unease at her smile, but the offer she'd extended was far too tempting to refuse.
"…I'll do it."
"Great—. I'll let the others know. By the way— what did you even do to end up in debt when you're a Special Class adventurer who still needs money?"
"I was having a weapon made…"
"Yeah? How much did you spend?"
"Two and a half million Elso."
"Right, two and a half million… how much?"
"Two and a half million Elso."
Two and a half million Elso. Hearing that figure, Anes's jaw dropped.
Considering that a month's living expenses for an ordinary commoner family of four ran about a thousand Elso, the amount Evan owed was more than a commoner household could spend in a lifetime—enough to feed ten thousand people for a month.
It wasn't a sum a private individual should be able to borrow. They said debt was a kind of ability, too: racking up that much meant someone had judged that Evan was capable of paying it back.
I only made about ten thousand Elso last month myself…
It was an amount an Upper Class adventurer like her would need decades of work and every last coin of savings to accumulate. Even for an elf, for whom decades weren't quite so short, it was a truly absurd figure.
"To go into debt for that much… and how did you even get the Swordmaster title? I'm more curious about that."
"Ah, that was from killing a dragon…"
"A dragon!? You killed a dragon… wait. Hold on."
Hearing Evan's words, Anes realized something was off. A dragon. Even she, who had lived for centuries, had only seen a handful of them slain. They were extraordinarily powerful creatures.
And for that reason, dragon materials traded at outrageous prices. Comparing the most recent dragon auction she knew of to current market rates—
It'd be at least fifteen million Elso, wouldn't it…?
Even a quarter of that would have wiped out the debt and left plenty to spare. Anes tilted her head in confusion and asked Evan how he'd ended up a debtor.
"What about the corpse?"
"Well… right here."
With a slightly awkward expression, Evan pointed to the items he was carrying: a key pendant, a sword, and a leather set of armor.
They looked brand new, but to think they were all made from a dragon's remains? Even Anes had never seen anything like it.
She let out a small gasp of admiration, but plenty of questions still remained.
"You spent it all making just those?"
"…The craftsman who made them is a bit of an eccentric."
"What does being eccentric have to do with it?"
"If he finished a weapon and didn't like it, he'd smash it."
"What?"
Evan recalled the way Yumir worked. He'd used thirty percent of the bones just figuring out how to refine them, another fifty percent honing his technique, and the remaining twenty percent forging Evan's actual sword.
Throughout the process, whenever a finished piece failed to satisfy him, Yumir would scrap the weapon and start over—and Evan had watched every step of it, full of praise for the man's craftsmanship.
He hadn't known that every time a weapon was discarded and remade, the materials were being bought with his own money. If he had, he would have stopped him.
"…And the hide?"
"The hide was about the same…"
"What about the meat, the heart, the other organs?"
"I sold the muscle and organs, but they only went for a few tens of thousands of Elso. I traded the heart for the key, and the meat… well, I tried some and it was so good I ate all of it…"
"You're insane."
Trading things away, she could almost accept. But eating an entire dragon because the meat tasted good? Did he have any idea what that was worth?
Only then did Anes once again remember that the Evan sitting in front of her was a kid who knew nothing about how the world worked.
…Making him our vanguard. That'll be fine, right?
It would probably be fine. After all—he had the skill to back it up.
…She had no choice but to believe it would be fine.
The next day.
Evan found himself face-to-face with the members of White Wolf once again.
"Miss Rainia!"
"Evan. It's been a while."
Rainia smiled softly at Evan, who had agreed to take the vanguard role. There was no room to doubt his ability.
After introducing Evan to her companions, Rainia in turn introduced the rest of the party for this expedition.
"This is Anes, the elf archer you already know."
"Yay—!"
"This is our party's mage. Nau."
"…Nice to meet you."
"And our party's healer, the priestess."
"Please call me Sister."
Having introduced every member of White Wolf, Rainia pointed to a temporary hire brought on just for this adventure.
"And finally, our guide and trap disarmer—the thief, Rogue."
"You can call me Big Sis Rogue."
Dressed in the brazen, revealing outfit typical of a thief, Rogue fixed her glittering eyes on Evan. Watching her lick her lips, Evan felt a chill run down his spine.
He had the distinct feeling that something precious was about to be stolen from him.