Chapter 3
#3 New Adventurer Bern - The Red-Haired Adventurer
The strength of public power and the prosperity of the adventurer trade are inversely proportional.
If the country is functioning properly and the soldiers can keep public order stable, adventurers can't really make much of a mark in the first place.
Dangerous monsters are regularly subjugated by the army, and criminals who disturb the peace are beaten down by the guards, so there is no need for adventurers.
No, it goes beyond unnecessary—they're actually a nuisance.
They'd be an armed group that the country can barely control, or in the worst case can't control at all, running wild inside the nation's borders according to their own rules and discipline.
In that sense, the Kingdom of Virka was a very good country for adventurers to operate in.
In short, it meant the royal family was such a mess they couldn't even do the job of being royal.
The king and court nobles were steeped in pleasure and greed, and they didn't really govern the country, and most of the provincial lords were much the same, with only a few exceptions.
Stability over progress. Conservatism over reform.
Rather than struggling against others and competing with skill and ambition, they just banded together among themselves and colluded.
Security gaps became a given, and to fill those gaps, adventurers and the guild system developed.
Minstrels sang of it as 'the country of adventurers.'
Challengers dreaming of instant riches and great fame came from within the country and even from overseas to knock on the adventurer guild's doors, and unfortunately for the guild, a great many of them were complete dead weight.
“What? Clean out sewer rats? Hey, do I look like I came all this way just to catch rats? Give me a proper request!”
A whiner with no achievements, crying about wanting a high-paying elite request.
“Hey! The reward was supposed to be two silver coins! Why are you only giving me five copper coins!! You say I broke a village boy's leg because I was drunk? No, that bastard got cocky, that's why!”
A thug who caused trouble himself, got penalized for it, and instead of reflecting on it just got angry and started shouting abuse.
“This body of mine, you know, is on familiar terms with the heir of the Zenster barony over there. If you knew that, then—”
A braggart who thought he could tell everyone to treat him well because he was close to some high-ranking person.
“Tch! I've been talking nicely and you think I'm a joke? How dare you act so cocky in front of me!! Huh? Let go! You won't let go? Gah! Aagh!”
An amateur who didn't know his own ability or place, spitting all over the guild floor and making pathetic threats until the guild guards beat him down.
Day by day, the parade of ever-new and increasingly disgusting human specimens kept driving the receptionists' stress levels to the ceiling, and among them there were quite a few who started seeing adventurers as if they were criminals.
In fact, a large number of adventurers were former criminals or future criminals, so that wasn't exactly the wrong way to see them.
The face of the Adventurer Guild. For flowers blooming in a bleak, rough trade, hardships like that came with the territory.
“…So you're saying I should work as a receptionist now?”
But even so, wasn't this a bit much?
Blanca, a seasoned adventurer nearing the end of her third year, did not hide her dumbfounded expression as she looked at the woman in front of her.
She thought that would be enough to show the dissatisfaction and resistance she was feeling, but the office manager overseeing the Adventurer Guild's eastern branch receptionists didn't even blink and went on.
“Right. Just one month, nothing more and nothing less. By then Bellona, who fell ill, should have recovered and come back too.”
“No, if that's the case, can't you just hire a new receptionist? Why are you dumping this on an adventurer like me?”
“Five.”
“Huh?”
“Five of them—the ones who ran away after getting fed up with those damn adventurer bastards.”
The office manager sucked in a long drag on the pipe and blew it out, looking exasperated.
“Adventurers look down on receptionists who sit at desks doing paperwork. Do you have any idea how precious it is to find someone who can read and write, has no trouble communicating, has enough credibility not to tarnish the guild's name, and can still respond properly to adventurers' reckless demands without shrinking back?”
“I'm one of those adventurers too, you know.”
“Exactly. Which makes you even better. You won't be crying that you can't do it anymore because you're scared of adventurers like those guys who ran away earlier. On top of that, you can read and write, you have a rare sense of decorum even among those crude adventurer brutes, and you're easy on the eyes too. You're the perfect receptionist candidate, aren't you?”
Tap, the office manager tapped the end of the pipe against the ashtray.
“Anyway, Blanca, things probably aren't going too well for you lately either. The staff you usually use broke, so you need a new one, and you still owe money to the guild. You've built up enough results here over the years that I haven't been hounding you for it like I do with the others, but even that has its limit.”
“Ugh.”
Blanca swallowed a groan.
The office manager's words could at first sound like 'We're taking care of you that much,' but the intent behind bringing them up at this point was too obvious.
If she refused, there would be no more consideration. In other words, it meant they'd start recovering the principal just like they did with the other adventurers.
Realizing there had never really been a choice, Blanca let out a long sigh.
“…All right. One month is fine, then?”
“Yes, yes. The pay won't be bad.”
-At least, more than what you're making now.
The part the office manager hadn't said out loud seemed to ring in Blanca's ears, and she couldn't help making a face as if she'd chewed on a bug.
***
For Blanca herself, it was extremely irritating, but as the office manager had said, she did have a talent for receptionist work.
“Yes. Rejected. We can't take this, so please gather them again.”
“Why!? We brought back ten Cleargrass roots properly!”
“Look, this one broke in the middle, this one had all the side shoots torn off, and this one has completely dried out. I told you to dig them up with the surrounding soil instead of yanking them out by force, didn't I?”
“No, I never heard that!”
“If that's what you think, then that's how it is—for you. Anyway, five out of the ten are defective, so we can't accept them. Bring back the rest and come again after you fill the quota.”
“I spent a whole day gathering these, and now you want me to spend half a day doing the exact same thing again? Then at least give me half the reward!”
“This isn't a shop, and we don't do haggling here. Go on before I call the guild guards. Besides, you probably gathered other things too, not just the roots, so it's not like you came away with no income, right?”
“…Tch.”
Adventurer ranks were divided into seven grades, from 1 at the bottom to 7 at the top, and Blanca was a veteran who had climbed from the bottom to Grade 3.
Considering that more than half of the challengers who stepped into the guild dreaming of becoming adventurers never even made it to Grade 2, that was a position with plenty of weight.
Her firsthand experience of exactly how adventurers behaved, what tricks they used on what requests, what they hated, and how far they could be pushed was something other receptionists, who learned about adventurers only through books, would have a hard time catching up to.
She also had the guts not to blink at most threats or mockery, and if need be, the force to subdue someone on her own without calling the guild guards.
The office manager was very satisfied with how she handled her work, and the other receptionists also subtly showed that they wanted Blanca to remain a receptionist.
Jingle-jingle, as the coins piled up in her pocket at the end of each week, Blanca felt very conflicted.
Her income wasn't higher than what she made when she was thriving as a Grade 3 adventurer.
But unlike adventurers, whose earnings were irregular, the receptionist side was stable, and in Blanca's case, her main equipment had been broken in some incident and she'd even gone into debt, leaving her unable to properly take requests. The difference felt painfully real.
Living on as a receptionist like this wouldn't be so bad, would it?
No, that might actually be the wiser choice.
Adventurers gain very little real benefit even if their years stack up—they just get older—but once you become a guild employee, you might someday rise to a high position from the inside.
Wasn't the office manager who had hired her just such a case?
Even knowing that, Blanca still couldn't easily make a decision.
Unlike the reason in her head, which told her to face reality and be done with it, the goal left deep inside her heart clung to her like something sticky and wouldn't let her go.
“Oh...”
Then, one day.
It was when Blanca spotted a certain young man that there were exactly ten days left on her temporary contract.
He looked to be in his late teens at first glance.
He had a mop of red hair and sparkling eyes that were looking around the guild interior here and there with fascination.
Seeing the unmistakable look of an aspiring adventurer, snickers broke out from all around.
Whether he hadn't noticed the surrounding looks, which were kind if you put it nicely and mocking if you didn't, or simply didn't care, the red-haired youth strode boldly up to the reception desk—Blanca's station—and said,
“I want to become an adventurer. What do I need to do?”
“Hmm.”
Blanca looked over the young man again.
Simple leather armor that made movement easy. A plain iron sword with no special decorations.
Compared to the cheapest equipment you could buy in a shop—layered cloth armor and a roughly carved wooden club—his gear was somewhat more respectable.
In other words, he hadn't come to the guild with nothing, clinging on at the very end with desperate resolve, but had come with some degree of preparation.
And if you added in that rather handsome face...
'...Some noble's third son, or maybe the son of a wealthy merchant family?'
After quickly sizing him up, Blanca asked the young man,
“To register as an adventurer, you need to pay five copper coins. Do you have that?”
The young man silently took out the coins and held them out, and Blanca picked up her pen and paper.
That was because only a handful of adventurers could read and write, so the system was set up for receptionists to fill out the paperwork for them.
“Name?”
“Bern”
“Place of origin?”
“A village on the southern frontier of the Izeurn Empire.”
“Does the village have a separate name?”
“There wasn't a separate name used within the village, and I don't know what people around there called it.”
It's not common, but it's not that rare either.
In the first place, there were plenty of cases where people lied about their place of origin anyway, so the guild didn't bother managing those details that closely.
“Specialty?”
“I know how to use a sword.”
“Hunting experience?”
“I caught a rabbit on the way here. Does that count?”
Laughter burst out from several mischievous adventurers in the corner of the guild.
“Oh, a rabbit! Truly a terrifying foe! Once you make it into stew and eat your fill, it'll make any expert nod right off!”
“Don't be so harsh. It's better than some guy bragging that he hunted a wolf bigger than a horse, only to piss himself and run away once he actually went out hunting.”
“That's true. Honesty is a virtue!”
Even with their teasing mockery, the young man didn't get angry.
Rather, he just looked at them with eyes as if he were seeing something interesting.
Blanca let out a sigh.
“Don't mind them. If you react to every little thing like that, you won't be able to do adventurer work.”
“Ah, yes. Honestly, it's kind of amusing.”
“……?”
Even as she wondered at the strangely odd answer, Blanca said to the young man,
“You've been registered as a Grade 1 adventurer. From now on you can officially take requests from the guild, and once we've judged that you've built up enough results, you'll be promoted to Grade 2. From then on, you'll also be given an adventurer's badge. Anything else you want to ask?”
“Is there a request I can take right away?”
“Sewer cleaning, weed pulling, warehouse cargo sorting. Pick one of the three.”
Even as she said it, Blanca inwardly felt fed up.
This was the point where rookie adventurers usually pushed back the most.
Dirty, hard, and unglamorous work. And on top of that, the pay was stingy.
New adventurers who had come to the guild after hearing adventure tales polished up by minstrels all over the place usually had a hard time accepting that those were the kinds of jobs they were given.
Especially the sort who were fairly proud of their own abilities.
So Blanca had been thinking about how to coax the young man, but...
“Then I'll start with the warehouse sorting.”
“…Huh?”
“Warehouse sorting.”
“Oh, ah, yes. Go out of the guild and head straight west; you'll see a building with gray walls. There'll be an old man with a burn scar on his cheek, so just do whatever he tells you to do. Don't forget to bring back the token after you're done.”
“Yes.”
The young man, Bern, simply walked away and disappeared outside the guild.
Those who had been expecting a tussle between a reckless adventurer and the receptionists grumbled that this rookie lacked guts, but soon forgot about Bern and started talking about another topic. They'd keep doing that until a new request that suited their tastes came in.
Blanca felt a strange sensation, but soon shrugged it off.
Anyway, if he listened, that was a good thing from her perspective.
And then, about thirty minutes later.
“Hello.”
“Huh? What is it? Don't tell me you gave up and came back?”
“No, I finished everything. Here is the token.”
“?????”
Seeing Bern hold out a token after finishing a job that would normally take at least two hours and could easily go past six when there was a lot to do, all in just thirty minutes, Blanca's head was full of question marks.