Chapter 34
The potion bottle.
It was a basic recovery item provided by default during the game, but by the latter half, it rivaled legendary recovery potions.
The number and quality of the potion bottles improved along with Ellis's recovery, eventually covering everything from simple fatigue recovery to even restoring lost limbs.
It was the only item in the game that remained genuinely helpful from beginning to end, inside and out.
Ellis had made it after hearing news about her older sister, hoping to help in her own way. It had been born from a younger sister's pure goodwill.
It also served as a guide pointing the way toward Ellis's recovery.
"First, I'll commend you for not immediately drinking something someone else gave you. Like what happened to me, you could be gone in an instant if you let your guard down. Whether it's malice or goodwill, never forget to stay wary."
"Yes!"
Ellis's goodwill had been treated with suspicion, but that degree of suspicion was essential for surviving in this line of work.
I was an idiot for getting caught despite knowing better, but even if I defended myself with some nonsense about modern-day sensibilities, no excuse would hold if that carelessness put my life on the line.
'How embarrassing.'
My blood ran cold when I finally woke up in the guildmaster's office.
In the game, there were plenty of men constantly looking for opportunities to prey on Elena.
She was pretty, strong, and innocent. She looked like the sort who might fall for a little coaxing, so men were constantly trying to pick her up.
There were thieves who lured her into back alleys while claiming to sell something cheap, street vendors who offered medicine supposedly effective for her little sister but instead gave her an aphrodisiac, and adventurers who formed parties under the pretense of helping her before forcing her into prostitution, among others.
The list was endless.
It was such a disjointed mess that I couldn't help wondering how this world managed to keep going despite being an adult-game world.
'I can't believe I actually played a game like this.'
It was all because, despite being an adult game, its combat system was exactly to my tastes.
In any case, that was why someone like Elena was important in this world.
Someone who couldn't suspect others, yet still wanted to help them. As far as I knew, Elena was the only person who possessed that goodness along with the necessary ability.
"Tomorrow... no, when I have time later, I'll also teach you how to neutralize poison. That day, send only your party members as a test. They need to learn what a party without you is like, too."
"Yes."
I tucked the potion bottle into my clothes.
"And I'll return this after checking its ingredients."
I needed it as well, so I had planned to take it when the opportunity arose.
"What about the task I gave you? Has anything changed?"
"It was still just open fields. There were hardly any monsters. I found it strange that there wasn't a single tree across such a vast stretch of land."
"Even so, keep going regularly. You never know what might appear."
Elena nodded.
I lifted my cup and took a sip.
Knowing it hadn't been drugged, I gulped it down as freely as usual.
"But walking around all day must get boring."
I drained the rest of my drink and rose from my seat.
"Let's go to the guild headquarters. I'll teach you how to register commissions there. Have you ever used it?"
"Oh, no?"
"Then I suppose I need to teach you how to choose a commission."
I left the guild dining hall. Elena rose after me and fell in beside me.
On the way to the main building.
The main building was busy with workers coming and going.
A hole had been punched through the outer wall where the guildmaster's office was located.
I indicated it with a jerk of my chin.
"You did that?"
"I didn't."
Elena said it matter-of-factly.
But she avoided my gaze.
"Then it was Rebecca. Why would Rebecca do something like that? Tell me what happened between you two."
"Uh..."
Elena opened her mouth reluctantly.
"It was just... I heard she'd kidnapped you, Mister. She said she was going to start by hitting you. She provoked me first."
"Hmm... I think I have a rough idea what that must have looked like."
When we entered the main building, the guild members who spotted us flinched and froze.
The central hall of the guild headquarters.
The noticeboards occupying the broad center of the hall were covered with parchments pinned in place.
The commission boards.
Adventurers earned their income by taking on the commissions posted here.
In principle, the lord's castle put bounties on monsters that plagued the city and paid out for each one captured.
After that, most large commissions from businesses such as the Magic Association and the Apothecaries' Guild were claimed by clans.
The commissions that filtered down after that were almost all garbage.
Many paid decently relative to the work, but the risks imposed by their working conditions made them terrible deals. They were things I'd done lightheartedly because it was a game.
The easy and safe commissions had already been swept up by independent adventurers.
I wouldn't have taken those commissions even if they had been offered to me, but thinking about it, maybe this was connected to the very beginning of the game after all.
'When Elena first visited this place, she teared up because there were no easy commissions.'
She had already been in a gloomy mood after being raped by Eck, too.
Adventurers who spotted her coaxed the innocent girl and gave her a choice.
Whether to form a party or not.
If she accepted, she would be gang-raped, dumped in the forest, and abandoned in its center while still low-level. The days she spent repeatedly running into monsters while trying to return to the city had given me quite a shock during my first playthrough.
If she refused, she would hunt ordinary bounty monsters and return home.
I glanced over.
I looked back at Elena. She was looking at me, and our eyes met.
"Why have you been staring at me so intently?"
"Well..."
Elena hesitated.
"Do you have a wife?"
"...?"
"Or a girlfriend?"
"I don't keep that sort of thing."
I grabbed Elena by the head and turned it toward the commission board.
"More importantly, take a good look. These are the commissions you can choose from."
I forced her to look at the commission notices pinned to the board.
"Anyone can take one posted here. You'd need to check with reception for commissions claimed by clans or restricted by rank, but if there's a commission where you're headed, it can make decent pocket money."
I tore one notice off the board and placed it in Elena's hand.
"There are this many commissions?"
After reading the notice I had given her, Elena looked up at the parchments packed across the board, her eyes widening.
Gathering herbs, subjugating monsters, escorts, transport. A wide variety of commissions were posted.
"More people live in the city than you think."
There were far more producers than adventurers, and each of them wanted help.
"But can you read?"
"I can manage the basics."
The commissions were written using only simple words suited to adventurers.
Their objectives, locations, times, and so on. They mostly listed only the requirements that were absolutely necessary. More detailed information was written at the bottom, but she didn't seem to read that far.
'Do I need to teach her to read, too?'
"Will that commission do?"
"Gathering magical herbs in the northern mountains. One silver coin for twenty leaves. This should do."
Elena turned her eyes to another commission, but held only the one I'd given her.
"Once you've chosen a commission, go to the reception desk and register it. Give it a try."
"Yes."
Elena nodded seriously and headed toward the reception desk.
The employee behind the desk noticed Elena approaching and straightened up.
"I'd like to register this commission."
When Elena held out the notice, the receptionist accepted it with an awkward expression and trembling hands, then processed the commission quickly.
"Shall I assign it to Ms. Elena's party?"
"Yes. Put it under my party."
The receptionist found Elena's party in the ledger.
"May I ask what deadline you'd like to set?"
"Deadline?"
"You need to tell us in advance by when you will complete the commission. That helps us process the paperwork."
"Huh?"
Elena tilted her head.
I explained it for her.
"In simple terms, it refers to your party being wiped out. If you fail, no one tells us, you see. Set a generous deadline. The deposit goes up, but if you succeed, that's all that matters. If you set it too short, your route will interfere with another party's."
"Then one month."
"Rank D herb gathering, with a deadline of one month. The deposit is thirty silver coins."
The receptionist registered the commission under Elena's party and stamped the notice.
Elena took the notice back.
I took the place where Elena had been standing.
I pulled a sheet of parchment from my clothes and placed it on the reception desk.
"Process this too."
"Yes."
The receptionist unfolded the parchment, and her expression grew complicated.
What I had handed her was Jeina's promissory note.
The Adventurer's Guild was an institution that officially vouched for adventurers' creditworthiness.
In addition to brokering commissions, it officially authenticated transaction contracts between adventurers and merchants, agreements between clans, and even promises between individuals.
Since adventurers worked in a profession where they could die or disappear at any moment, there was no reason for anyone not to kill someone with outstanding debts in the lawless forest.
There were plenty of ways to disguise it as the work of a monster, beast, or bandit.
Documents bearing the guild's seal possessed formidable legal force even outside the territory.
But the guild didn't do all this as charity.
"I've confirmed the contents. The parties' signatures and fingerprints have also been verified... The compensation terms and default clause... It meets the requirements for registration."
The receptionist continued, gauging my reaction.
"But this is a promissory note for five thousand gold coins... There's a twenty-percent fee, and the registration fee alone..."
"Have Rebecca pay it. If you tell her I said so, she'll understand."
"Yes. Understood."
Without probing further into whether the receptionist knew about my relationship with the guildmaster, she registered the promissory note.
"Registration is complete."
I turned away after being told that someone would be sent once processing was complete.
Elena had watched the entire process intently from behind me, but she didn't ask what it was about.
After finishing the registration, I left the main building.
"Gathering magical herbs will be harder than you think."
"Any grass that has mana in it should work, shouldn't it?"
"How are you going to sense that mana? Can anyone besides you do it?"
"Ah..."
I placed a hand on Elena's head.
"But it will be good practice for developing your detection ability. Work hard."
"Yes!"
"Now go."
Elena waved energetically and ran to the meeting place with her party members.
I watched until her back disappeared, then turned toward my own destination.
***
The lord's castle.
It was a place I had visited over the matter of procuring red materials, but even Eck had never been there.
In front of the magnificent castle gate, the apprentice knights whose faces I recognized from last time stood at attention.
They recognized me and bowed their heads.
"You must be Mr. Eck. We've been waiting for you."
The senior apprentice knight sent a junior inside to report my arrival.
A short while later, a neatly dressed young maid walked out from the residence.
She spoke politely, though she looked tense.
"I'll escort you inside."
I followed the young maid into the lord's castle.