CHAPTER 54: THE ADVENTURER’S GUILD

The next day, we visited the Adventurer Guild after returning to the Luminous capital.

The reason being—

“How should we look for villages troubled by monsters?”

When I asked Laura that question, she answered like so:

“It’d be best to go to the Adventurer’s Guild.”

“The Adventurer’s Guild?”

“It’s a place where jack-of-all-trades-type people gather and take on goblin extermination quests and stuff. If people are really troubled with something, then they’ll put out a request there.”

The first floor of the Adventurer’s Guild was a bar.

People were sitting here and there at the tables arranged around the room. The clothes they wore were quite varied—at one glance you’d see a magician-looking man, then the next you’d see a woman with a longsword by her side. The one thing that they all had in common was that they all gave off a different aura from a commoner.

They were most likely adventurers.

We headed towards the counter and talked to the young woman standing there.

“Excuse me. Is this the Adventurer’s Guild?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

The woman glanced at me, then at Laura.

“Do you want to submit a request?”

“…No, not quite. I want to take on a request. Something like, goblin extermination, or stuff like that.”

I told her what I wanted to do extremely awkwardly.

…It’s hard to have a conversation when I hardly know how any of this stuff works…

“You want to take on a request…? I can tell you don’t seem to know much about adventurers from what you’re saying, but are you registered as an adventurer?”

“I need to register?”

“Yeah. That’s because the work you can take on changes based on your rank. If you register, do your work, and raise your rank, then the work you’ll be able to do will gradually increase. After all, we can’t entrust a huge job to a person we can’t trust.”

“That’s true.”

“Are you gonna register? If that’s all you’ll be doing, it’s free.”

“Hm…”

I fell into deep thought. It’s not like I really want to be an adventurer.

“Am I able to check what kind of requests are available before I register?”

“Look no further than there.”

The woman directed her gaze at a large bulletin board. Countless pieces of paper were affixed onto it.

“If you’re feeling up to registering, then call out to me. Your reward won’t be paid if you don’t register, even if you finish the request.”

“Thank you.”

I moved over to the bulletin board after giving my thanks to the female receptionist.

There were a wide variety of request papers spread across the board.

The request summary, details, location, reward, and so on were packed together compactly on each paper. 

They were all written in the same format, so the guild is most likely summarizing all of the details from the requestors, rather than the requestors writing it themselves.

Each request had multiple papers with identical contents affixed onto the board in a set.

There were a wide variety of requests entailing different things, but⁠—

“Laura, how about we only collect the request papers related to extermination?”

“Alright, got it.”

“Can you tell if the monsters in the request are inflicting harm on the villages? I want to exclude the villages that put out requests just because monsters live nearby and think it’s dangerous.”

If there’s actual harm being dealt to the villagers, then it goes without saying that the monsters needed to be dealt with. However, I didn’t plan on going as far as defeating the monsters that are quietly coexisting with villages. At the very least, I didn’t see myself doing that.

I only planned on defeating the monsters that are bothering people.

Laura looked over several papers.

“Hmm… It looks to me like they didn’t include that much detail, so it’s hard to tell… We might need to go to the village to make sure.”

“I see…”

“But I believe practically all of them are being harmed.”

“Why?”

In response to my question, Laura lowered her voice and answered.

“It costs money to send requests to adventurers. No village has that kind of financial leeway, so as long as they aren’t truly in a pinch, they won’t send a request to the guild.”

“Aah… that’s true.”

I knew it—Laura being here was a huge help.

If it were me, I wouldn’t have ever known about their circumstances.

“Well then, let’s take the requests from top to bottom.”

We moved to a nearby table.

I intently scanned over the request papers.

There lay the cries of the requestors—the cries of the Luminous people. To think there were so many people being terrorized by the menace of monsters.

“…We gotta help them…”

“Yes! That’s right!”

Laura shook my right hand up and down, and I matched her.

It was at that moment.

“The hell? What requests are you guys lookin’ at?”

All of a sudden, I smelled a breath stinking of alcohol.

It was still broad daylight, yet someone was drinking?

Someone presumptuously extended their arm to our table and snatched one of the scattered requests.

When I shifted my gaze to the voice, I saw a middle-aged man with a red face standing beside our table. His body was well-built, and he gave off the exact image of a warrior.

“…Hey hey, these are extermination requests… What, you guys tryna complete these? That won’t do. You gotta let these lie for a little while longer!”

After saying that, he took a gulp of the beer that he held in his other hand in high spirits.

I faced him and asked a question.

“…Let it lie?”

“Yeah, yeah. Y’see, we’re ignoring the requests.”

I didn’t get what he meant.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Extermination requests are submitted cuz the requestors are seriously in trouble! After all, their lives are on the line! Which means if you ignore ‘em, the reward will increase!”

He spoke as if he were announcing an amazing breakthrough and roared with laughter.

Laura, who seldom got angry at anything, scowled.

“W-W-What a horrible thing to do! You’re casting aside the voices crying for help!”

“The fuck? You serious? We’re putting our lives on the line protecting them over here. Is it wrong to try and sell our services at a high price? We’re no different than merchants.”

At a loss for words, Laura let out a small groan.

The man pointed at a few of the papers on the table.

“I got an eye on that and that, so don’t take ‘em. Actually, some of the other requests have already been reserved by some other guys. Isn’t that right!?”

He looked over his shoulder and looked at the other adventurers.

The people who were looking at our exchange let out a small chuckle.

“Everyone’s waiting for the reward to increase. Just by drinking alcohol here, the money we can earn goes up! Isn’t that great! We gotta put them in a bit of a tighter pinch!”

My mood was worsening just by listening to him…

“…The thing is, merchants aren’t dealing with lives.”

“Hah?”

“Don’t mind me asking, but is this what all adventurers do?”

“No? Normally, what we’re doing isn’t feasible. What usually happens is a bunch of idiots eager to finish requests go on and take ‘em all.”

“Is what we’re doing any different?”

“A little while ago, the inheritor of this territory departed to battle as a commander. When that happened, a bunch of the skilled guys were hired and went off with him. I’m not sure if they died or transferred to another territory, but right now, there’s a shortage of labor goin’ on.”

I see… so the people here are unskilled and have terrible personalities…

The man continued with a gleeful-looking expression.

“To us adventurers who’ve been made to toil away at boring, low-paying jobs, this is the golden age I say, the golden age! That’s why we’re making those requestors worry just a bit more. If you guys join our group as well, then we’ll allot you some requests, you know? HAHAHAHAHA!”

The man burst with laughter as he returned to his seat.

“Albert…”

Laura looked at me with a sad-looking face.

I told her that it’d be fine.

“…You can sit here and drink alcohol as long as you want. You’ll have lost your chance by the time you feel like cashing out.”

I gathered the request papers scattered on the table.

“Let’s go, Laura. We’ll take care of all of the requests.”