Chapter 4
#4 New Adventurer Bern (2) - The Capable Newcomer
There is a fact you naturally come to learn while working at the adventurer guild.
That there are an awful lot of incredibly stupid fools in this world, and they often spout lies that will be exposed immediately without ever considering what comes after.
So when Bern first claimed that he had completed the quest, Blanca had intended to laugh it off.
After all, he looked perfectly fine on the outside, but in reality he was nothing special at all.
But the moment she saw the proof in his hand, Blanca realized this was no longer something she could just brush off with a laugh.
‘He stole it.’
Paul, the warehouse manager, was an extremely stubborn man.
He was not the sort who would ever accept threats from a rookie adventurer or some ridiculous deal offered in exchange for the proof.
The fact that Bern had the proof in his hand could only mean that, in one way or another, he had obtained it through illegal means.
No, it would almost be better if he had simply stolen it.
What if he had used force to take it?
Although it was hard to imagine that muscle-bound giant being defeated by a mere newbie adventurer, who knew what might happen if he had been caught off guard and ambushed.
For a moment, Blanca’s gaze turned cold.
But she quickly erased that look and spoke to Bern with an air of complete nonchalance.
“Hmm. It’ll take a little time to process, so please sit over there and wait. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“Understood.”
Bern did not protest and simply went to the waiting seats, and Blanca exchanged a glance with another receptionist.
After confirming the other receptionist’s nod, Blanca quickly slipped out through the guild’s back door and headed to the warehouse where the client was waiting.
She figured that would be faster than calling someone else over and ordering them to investigate.
When she arrived at the warehouse, she shouted at the sight of Paul slumped on the ground in front of it.
“Mister! Are you okay? What happened!?”
“Uh….”
Paul looked completely out of it.
Remembering Paul’s usual fierce glare as he drilled discipline into half-baked adventurers, Blanca worried that he might have been drugged.
“Is this because of the adventurer the guild just sent? What on earth did he do…!!”
Paul blinked a few times, then blurted it out.
“That adventurer... the job...”
“The job?”
“...was done exceptionally well.”
“…….”
Blanca blinked.
Had he been hit in the head?
“You should go to a temple right away.”
“No, no, that’s not it! Look for yourself! Look at the warehouse!”
Paul was marveling, saying he had never seen anyone work that well in his life.
Although relieved that he seemed to have no visible injuries on the surface, Blanca still couldn’t help feeling puzzled.
No, how good could someone possibly be at working—
“—When did you expand this place?”
“As if. It hasn’t grown even a finger’s width beyond its original size.”
“No, but still.”
Among the quests entrusted to the adventurer guild were quite a few of the type that asked, “Please procure ~~ of an item called ~~.”
That included meat, hides, fruit, plants, and minerals from specific creatures, and in the worst cases even special materials like monster cores.
Of course, storing and managing all of those quest items inside the guild building would be little more than a waste of space.
Rare or dangerous items were kept under direct management, since simply leaving them outside could become the source of trouble, but everything else was usually entrusted to warehouses contracted with the guild and taken out whenever needed.
Paul’s warehouse was one of those guild-contracted warehouses, and in this case it was also often used to check the character of rookie adventurers, so it mainly stored cheap goods in large quantities.
It was infamous for being a place that stayed messy no matter how much you cleaned it.
And yet it had been cleaned up.
So perfectly that it even felt as though the warehouse had physically grown larger.
Paul scratched the back of his head and said,
“At first, all I had to do was move things around the way I was told. But before long, he started moving things on his own, and later he even explained how he had sorted each item and by what criteria. It felt like being possessed by a ghost.”
“Does that even make sense? Organizing things isn’t something you can do just because you’re physically strong.”
“It’s not just a matter of being ‘strong.’ He lifted a box full of metal swords as if it were a paper bag. And he was good at organizing too. You don’t think I’d make up something you weren’t there to see, do you?”
Once he put it that way, there was nothing she could say.
“Send that guy over again sometime. If you call him once a week, I think work here will get a lot easier.”
Unaccustomed to seeing Paul’s normally stern face soften into such a pleased expression as he looked over the warehouse, Blanca shook her head and returned to the guild.
At the back door of the guild, the guild guards and other staff were waiting, and they asked Blanca about the situation with serious expressions.
“It’s nothing much. He said he was just pleased with how the work was done, so he handed it over quickly.”
“Huh, seriously? What got into that crusty old man?”
“Phew. I got worried for nothing.”
The staff all looked relieved.
Subduing a single newbie adventurer was no trouble at all, but depending on the accident that newbie caused, it could have ended with everyone having to work overtime.
When Blanca returned to the reception desk, Bern, the culprit behind this incident, was sitting quietly in the waiting area with his arms crossed and his eyes closed.
Feeling inexplicably irritated by his carefree attitude, Blanca called Bern over.
“Yes, completion confirmed. Here’s your reward.”
Blanca laid out the coins on the reception desk.
The reward for quests given to a Grade 1 adventurer wasn’t very much.
Bread as hard as a rock, and soup so thin it was practically just water with a faint scent added.
If you slept in the shared lodging after eating the cheapest meal, that amount would disappear right there.
It takes about 30 completed quests to move up to Grade 2.
If you assume you complete one quest per day, you’d have to endure for about a month, living and eating in the worst possible conditions and not even dreaming of saving money.
And if you do a sloppy job or cause trouble in the middle of it, the number of quests needed for promotion increases even more.
There was a reason experienced adventurers called this period a “sieve.”
Those with foolish fantasies about the profession of adventurer, or those lacking either physical stamina or mental resilience, mostly failed to even make it to Grade 2 and dropped out.
So the words Blanca gave Bern were, in a sense, close to an act of kindness.
“Guild quests have a commission taken out in the middle, so simple labor actually pays less than being hired directly on site. The client seemed incredibly satisfied, so why not try working for them instead?”
At Blanca’s words, Bern blinked, then smiled.
“Thank you for the advice. But becoming an adventurer is one of my dreams.”
“Oh, I see.”
Blanca did not push the matter any further.
Experience for oneself is faster than hearing about it a hundred times.
The warehouse cleanup seemed to have gone smoothly somehow, but if this young man kept going through the bottom-rung life of an adventurer, he would come to understand reality sooner or later.
“So, are you going to take on another quest? There’s still time, so you should be able to handle one more.”
“Then I’ll take the sewer-cleaning quest. I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never actually gone inside.”
“If you go in and come back out, you’ll probably say it would have been better to go your whole life without knowing.”
Blanca watched Bern’s departing back as he left after hearing the explanation of the quest, her gaze somewhat indifferent.
“My dream is to become an adventurer, huh.”
There were probably few jobs in the world that suited that word less than adventurer, she thought.
Swallowing down the words she could not bring herself to say.
***
Even after that, Bern steadily completed quests as a Grade 1 adventurer.
He hunted rats in the sewers, delivered small items around the city as petty errands, and sometimes pulled weeds or cleaned the streets.
[That’s ridiculous.]
From within Bern’s shadow, Lucidra clicked her tongue in disbelief.
Bern replied to her in thought without speaking aloud.
‘What are you dissatisfied with now?’
[Why are you talking like that again?]
‘I’ve always spoken like this.’
[What are you talking about? You were obviously using that old-fashioned “I’m clearly someone important” kind of speech.]
‘That’s the Crown Prince over in the Empire, and I’m different.’
[…….]
Lucidra stared at Bern with a look that seemed to say, what the hell is this guy?
She already knew that if she moved over to the shadow cast by his real body and spoke to him there, he would naturally use that lofty manner of speech.
But repeated arguments with this shameless man would only exhaust her, as past experience had already proven, so she immediately changed the subject.
[Why are you bothering with such a roundabout method? Is pulling weeds fun or something?]
‘It’s not especially fun, but it’s a task needed for promotion, so I can’t help it.’
[No, I mean, why bother going to all that trouble? Just storm the guild or whatever and show them your aura once. Give them a display of force and they’ll surely treat you properly.]
From everything Lucidra had observed so far, the adventurers here were usually of pretty lousy caliber.
At best, Grade 2 was just a somewhat trained ordinary person, and by Grade 3 they had only reached the level where they could more or less let mana flow through their body to strengthen it.
If he displayed sword aura, infusing mana into the weapon itself to greatly increase its power, then with pure force alone he would already be effectively at Grade 4.
However, Bern was unconvinced.
‘An adventurer isn’t a back-alley thug. Strength does matter, but more important than that is diligence and responsibility in properly completing quests. I don’t think they’d recognize someone as a high-rank adventurer just because he showed off his strength.’
[Still, you’d at least get some bonus points, wouldn’t you?]
‘That much, I suppose.’
This time, Bern nodded obediently as well.
However, he then continued,
‘But is there any need to rush like that? In any case, I don’t know much about the adventurer industry, so starting from the bottom and steadily working my way up is probably better for learning all sorts of things.’
[Haa. I really can’t understand why you’d insist on such a frustrating method.]
‘Oh dear, you’re addicted to instant gratification, are you? What a pity. People ought to live with a little more breathing room.’
[…….]
Lucidra didn’t know exactly what “instant gratification” was supposed to mean.
But she could tell, somehow, that he was treating her like an idiot.
Just as she was about to get irritated,
Thud!
Bern’s shoulder collided with someone as he was walking.
To describe it a little more precisely, even though Bern had sidestepped out of the way, the other person had deliberately followed and rammed into him; that would be more accurate.
“Oh? Hey, you bumped into me first and don’t even say sorry? Huh?”
The man who had bumped shoulders with Bern barked at him in a rough voice with a harsh expression.
“Hey, hey, easy. He’s the kind of guy who’d cry if you made him hunt rabbits so he could become an adventurer.”
“Oi, newbie! Hurry up and say you’re sorry! If that guy gets mad, it’s no joke!”
Behind him, a group that looked like his companions jeered with smirks on their faces.
Lucidra asked in a puzzled tone,
[Did you pick a fight with these guys when I wasn’t looking?]
‘No. I haven’t really even had a conversation with them.’
[Ah, then it’s just jealousy.]
Bern’s pace at clearing quests was quite fast, and client satisfaction was high as well.
It wasn’t as if he had some tremendous secret technique; he was simply strong, had good instincts, and worked diligently, but that alone was enough to earn high praise within the adventurer guild and even joking compliments about being the guild’s next ace and the like.
There are always people in the world who resent nothing more than someone else doing well and being recognized by others.
“Hey, say something. Say something.”
“Looks like the bastard’s scared.”
“Exactly, who told him to act up for no reason?”
In front of the crowd snickering and mocking him, Bern blinked once.
Then he gave the shoulder of the punk who had bumped into him first a light shove.
It was such a light touch that it didn’t seem like he had even put any force into it, but the result was dramatic.
Wham!
After flying through the air as if he had been hit by a carriage, the punk rolled across the ground.
He gagged and convulsed, then soon went limp as though he had lost consciousness.
Not only the punks who had been mocking Bern, but even the passersby watching to see how things would unfold were frozen in place.
Then Bern said,
“Ah, I’m sorry for bumping into you.”
“…….”
An awkward silence, hard to describe, drifted through the air.
From within the shadow, Lucidra said in a daze,
[No, wait, didn’t you just say something about leisure and rules a moment ago?]
‘You just learned another rule of adventurer life, didn’t you? 「If someone acts like trash for no reason, give them a reason.」 As expected, there’s so much to learn in this world.’
That wasn’t an adventurer’s rule; it just sounded like Bern’s personality was a little nasty.
Lucidra thought that to herself, but didn’t bother saying it.
After that, there was no need to watch the punks belatedly come to their senses and start shouting as they attacked.
It would be one thing if he had not shown his skill at all, but if they chose to attack instead of flee after clearly seeing such abnormal strength, then if left alone they’d just die off on their own anyway.
[Hm?]
Suddenly, Lucidra felt a strange gaze.
A woman with bright sky-blue hair and eyes.
The receptionist—probably Blanca—was staring straight at Bern as he effortlessly subdued the punks.
With a bizarre gleam flashing in her eyes.