A Very Easy Mission
One week.
In the span of a single week, Rainia finally understood why the Guild Master had entrusted Evan to her.
This kid… does he have any common sense at all?
Evan was a creature devoid of anything that could reasonably be called common sense. More precisely, he knew nothing of how the world worked. He was a country bumpkin who might as well have spent his entire life in some mountain village or rural backwater.
Social knowledge and worldly awareness that lagged absurdly far behind his raw power — that was the one thing she, a beastman who had survived a lifetime of discrimination, could actually teach him.
"I shouldn't take jobs like this?"
"That's right."
"Why not? Looks to me like good money and an easy payday."
"The difficulty doesn't match the reward. A request like this normally pays about this much."
"Wha—? There are people who actually pay that kind of money for a job?"
While Evan reeled at the figure Rainia had named, she simply nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"People who truly need it commission them. Nobles, or anyone who requires the materials themselves."
"Wow… so there are that many rich people out there…"
"You'll be one of them soon enough."
"Huh? Oh—right, I guess so."
Evan hadn't fully grasped what she meant, but it didn't take long for him to realize he could casually complete missions of that caliber. If he took jobs every day at the rates Rainia had just quoted, becoming filthy rich would be a matter of moments.
He pictured himself swimming through a sea of gold coins, snickering at the fantasy — then his expression shifted.
But… what would I even do with all that money?
Buy a massive mansion. Hire maids and butlers and live a life where he never lifted a finger. Shower people with coin and bask in their praise. Never work a day again and never starve. If he wanted, he could buy countless beauties and bury himself in soft flesh without any trouble at all.
And yet none of it made his heart race.
I don't… really want to live like that.
What he wanted most right now was a girlfriend — and that was something money couldn't buy. What money could buy wasn't a lover. It was a prostitute.
Evan had no desire to spend his life on prostitutes. What he longed for was the kind of fated, miraculous meeting of eyes the heroes in stories always found. And love.
"Ah."
"What is it?"
"I, uh… I just figured out something I want to do."
"And that is?"
"It's a secret."
The desire to have a girlfriend was something he couldn't even tell Rainia. Confessing it to the Guild Master had already been mortifying enough to kill him.
But in that moment, Evan understood the path he needed to walk. It was still a secret he couldn't share with anyone — yet a faint, fragile yearning had begun to bloom inside his chest.
Ten days had passed since he'd met Rainia. That meant her party members, who had been on leave for the Sabbath, were finally back.
The returning party members took one look at me standing beside Rainia and erupted in shock.
"Rainia, who is this? Why is he so cute!?"
"I-I'm not cute."
"Kyaaa—! Look at him answering! He's adorable!"
The elf archer of the White Wolf party said as much and yanked me into a fierce hug, rubbing my face against her chest. Compared to Rainia or the Guild Master, her bust was pitifully modest — but she still had something worth calling a chest. My face sank into it with a soft thud, and I mumbled against her.
"P-please don't do this…"
"He says don't do it! What do I do, what do I do!"
"That's enough…"
The important thing here was never to look like I was enjoying it or getting excited. Act embarrassed. Play the clueless, inexperienced boy who knew nothing about women.
Every time I put on that act, women only got more delighted and piled on the skinship. That was the single most important lesson I'd learned from Rainia.
"That's enough, Anes."
"Ehh—but—"
"That kid is acting."
"Huh? Really?"
Hearing Rainia's words, the elf archer carefully set me down and studied my face. I rolled my eyes slightly and avoided her gaze.
That was enough for her to realize Rainia was telling the truth. Her interest evaporated, and she hopped away from me. I shot Rainia a look full of pure resentment.
"What is it?"
"No, nothing."
Rainia weathered that resentful stare, let out a single sigh, and spoke.
"I believe I've taught you everything I can. From here on, you'll have to manage on your own."
"…Can't we go together?"
"Together? I'm sorry, but the gap in level between you and us is…"
The gap in level meant they couldn't take me. It wasn't easy to accept — but since I'd never once seen Rainia swing a sword, I somehow managed to nod and go along with it.
Right. Maybe I really was worse than her. Maybe from her perspective I was so far beneath her that she didn't even want to show me how she fought.
How am I supposed to get stronger from here?
The fundamental question rose in my mind, but even Rainia — who had taught me so much — had no answer for that.
And so I ended up parting ways with the first female adventurer senior I'd ever met.
"Ahh… what am I supposed to do now?"
"—Do you not have anything planned?"
"Huh? Who…"
I turned toward the woman's voice and found the face of the guild staffer who had once escorted me to the Guild Master's office. I started rummaging through my memory. Her name wouldn't come.
When I just stood there mumbling, unable to say her name, she let out a soft laugh and introduced herself.
"I'm Rebecca, Evan."
"Evan…?"
"Yes. Our Adventurer Guild exists to support our adventurers, after all. Addressing you with the proper respect is only natural."
"The person I met when I first arrived wasn't very friendly."
"Thaaat… person was probably a contractor, not one of our actual guild staff!"
Rebecca laughed it off with a breezy ahaha and casually took my hand. Soft fingers — a city girl's hands — covered the back of mine.
"You said you didn't know what to do, right? I'll handle your management. Shall we go?"
"W-wh-where…?"
"Our Adventurer Guild has consultation rooms prepared specifically for meetings with adventurers, you know?"
"A p-private room…?"
"Yes. A private room with just you and me, Evan."
"J-just the two of us?"
A man and a woman, alone together in a single room.
Wasn't that… basically what girlfriends and boyfriends did?
Thinking that, I followed Rebecca with a flushed face. Thoughts of the senior who'd just left me were wiped clean in an instant.
The Upper Class adventurer party White Wolf was a four-person team — a classic composition of warrior, mage, archer, and priest.
But the deeper they pushed into dangerous territory, the more their structural weakness began to show. If a monster simply took Rainia out of the fight, the entire back line behind her would be left exposed.
They needed a new party member. Anes, the elf archer, had assumed Evan would be that new member. After all, she'd never seen Rainia act so familiar with a man before.
"That little guy — Evan, was it? What's he like?"
"Where is this coming from all of a sudden?"
"I'm asking about his skill. His skill."
"…I wouldn't dare evaluate him."
Anes let out a sigh thick with disappointment at Rainia's vague answer. When she answered like that, it usually meant the person wasn't particularly good.
No matter how much Rainia might have taken a liking to him, they couldn't bring someone lacking in skill into the party. They were Upper Class adventurers who had no choice but to judge by ability, not affection.
"Too bad. If his skill had been solid, he might've joined our party."
"What are you talking about?"
"Huh? You said it yourself earlier. The level gap meant he couldn't join the party. And just now you said you couldn't evaluate him. Doesn't that mean the kid's skill is lacking?"
"It's the opposite, Anes."
"…The opposite?"
Anes's ears perked up in confusion. Rainia carefully delivered her assessment, recalling the swordsmanship she had witnessed from Evan.
"When I said there was a level gap, I meant our party couldn't even come close to matching his skill — not by a claw's breadth."
"What does that even— a fifteen-year-old kid?"
"I can't believe it."
Nau, who had been quietly listening from behind, stepped forward at the claim that Evan's skill far surpassed the entire party. As the mage of an Upper Class adventurer party, that was an intensely pride-wounding statement. Some random swordsman outclassing an Upper Class party that included a mage? And this was one of the few Upper Class parties even the guild had to its name.
There was no reason they should fall short of some ordinary adventurer — a complete beginner who'd only just registered, no less.
"You're saying we're worse than some novice?"
"Hrmm… let me put it simply. Nau, can you hit a bird flying through the sky with magic?"
"I can."
"Without using magic?"
"I'd shoot it with a bow."
"And if you couldn't use a bow or magic either?"
"…Does this have anything to do with what we're talking about?"
"That kid can cut down a flying bird with a sword."
Nau stared blankly, turning Rainia's words over and over as if they made no sense. Rainia nodded, as if she understood the reaction perfectly. Even she, who had witnessed the scene firsthand, still couldn't fully process what had happened.
After a long silence spent trying to interpret Rainia's claim, Nau looked at her with disbelief.
"…You mean a bird that had already fallen to the ground, right?"
"No. A bird that was flying through the sky."
"That's impossible. There's no way. He's not even a mage…"
"I'd rather believe it was magic myself. But it wasn't."
"No, what even is that supposed to—"
"That little kid was that strong?"
"If someone like that exists, I'm interested as well."
As all three party members reeled in shock at Rainia's words, Anes — recalling Rainia's stated preferences — broke into a wide grin and needled her with a thoroughly mischievous tone.
"Rainia, didn't you used to say your type was a man stronger than you?"
"…Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?"
"Wellll— from the sound of it, this Evan kid is stronger than you and younger too… isn't that exactly the ideal type you described?"
Anes clasped her hands behind her back and kept teasing — then flinched when she saw Rainia clamp her mouth shut and turn her head away.
Rainia's face had gone bright red.
"Y-youuu… no way, for real?"
"…This conversation ends here."
"It's true!? Really!? Whoa— that's amazing, that's incredible."
Having finally found ammunition to torment Rainia with for the rest of their long adventure, Anes stretched her mouth into a full grin and sidled up beside her.
Until the expedition was over, Rainia was relentlessly roasted by her companions.
Managing an adventurer.
I hadn't understood what that meant when I first heard it, but once we entered the consultation room and Rebecca explained, it started to make sense.
"This mission is to subjugate a wounded monster that fled. It's time-sensitive, so the reward is set at…"
Blatantly easy missions. Rewards that far outstripped the difficulty. Anyone who looked at this and still failed to realize the Adventurer Guild was deliberately pushing favorable jobs my way would have to be a few cards short of a full deck.
And I was not that far gone. Uneducated, maybe — but I'd never once thought of myself as naturally stupid.
The guild was openly feeding me easy, lucrative missions. And that didn't appeal to me in the slightest.
"—Rebecca."
"Yes, Evan. Will you take this one?"
"I don't need jobs like these."
"Pardon? You don't need them— was there something about the mission you didn't like?"
"No, that's not what I mean."
The guild's goodwill was fine. If I just accepted the missions they offered, I could make easy money and climb to Highest Class in no time.
But that wasn't what I wanted.
When has a hero ever chosen a mission based on the pay?
The protagonists in fairy tales never did. They were people who chose work for penniless commoners over the gold sitting right in front of them. People who eliminated threats facing ordinary folk rather than soothe some minor inconvenience for a noble.
I wanted to become someone like that.
"—I want difficult missions."
"Difficult…?"
"Hard ones. Ones that don't pay well. Ones nobody else will take."
Work that could make me a hero.
And if I become one… then maybe I'll get a girlfriend, too…