by Funa
Reading the room, they omitted the special visual effects this time. They merely removed the coating that dulled the blade in such a way that none of the humans would notice. The blade appeared unchanged, but…
“True Godspeed Blade!”
Ka-shk!
With no other theatrics, Mavis made a brilliant vertical cut straight through the ogre’s body. Naturally, there was not a scratch upon the floor.
Though the ogre’s mass was still pressed to the floor, the body was cleanly bisected, without even a hairline nick upon the surface of the warehouse. This should have been impossible, no matter how skilled the sword fighter and how honed the blade.
Silence fell in the processing room.
Finally, everyone understood just how it was that these three parties had achieved their consecutive victories.
“Or, well, something like that…” Mavis demurred. She was beginning to turn, and then—“Eek!”—she found herself surrounded by the other hunters.
“Wh-what was that technique you just used?!”
“What’s a ‘Godspeed Blade’? Is it magic? Or is it a sword technique with some ridiculous special secret?”
“That sword is just a normal sword, isn’t it?”
She was surrounded, subject to the scrutiny of a horde of people who were not her enemies… This was not a circumstance that worked in Mavis’s favor. She was frozen, unable to speak.
“Ah, allow me to explain,” Mile volunteered and began to offer up the same explanation that she had given the dwarves…
Some minutes later, Mile finished. The other hunters seemed incredulous, and understandably so. Plus, if what Mile said was true, then this technique was something that they were desperate to get their hands on.
“So, wh-what is the incantation?”
“That is an old family secret,” Mile declared. Though Mavis was casting silently, she was still saying the incantation inside of her head. “Mavis is a member of my party, so I made a special exception to share it with her. However, absolutely no one else must know.”
When Mile put it that way, there was nothing that any hunter—who were all sworn to protect one another’s secrets—could say. Furthermore, having heard that it was a “family” secret, every single one of them no longer believed that Mile hailed from a common lineage.
“Give it up,” the guild master sighed. “Do you really think anyone who’d jealously try to steal a rookie’s secrets could grow any stronger?! Of course, if you could copy her, then you probably would, but…”
“Have you got a single persuasive bone in your body, you dolt?!” Gollathen said scathingly. “Enough outta you already! Lookie here, anyone who wants to try, line up and take yer turn swingin’. You’re only allowed to cut these three, though—don’t touch the other ones!”
As Gollathen took control of the room once more, Mile and the others followed the guild master, who was dragging his feet back to the main guildhall, leaving the processing warehouse behind.
The group returned to the guild master’s office.
“I’d like one of you three parties to accompany the transport wagon to the capital, both to guard it and to offer explanations. It’ll be a lot easier to tell the tale with someone present who was actually on the scene. I’ll be the one going to give the official report, so you’d be with me just in case they ask me something I can’t answer. You’d be signed on as guards, though naturally, we would bump the pay up a bit.”
All of the Devils’ and the Fellowship’s gazes fell immediately to the Crimson Vow. The Crimson Vow were the only ones who had truly fought against these aberrant monsters, and they included in their number one of the aforementioned mages, which made their party the obvious choice. Indeed, there was no one else anyone could think of who would fit the bill.
“Nope.”
“We shall decline.”
“No, thank you.”
“Hard pass!”
They refused.
“H-how…?” Wulf spoke unconsciously, stunned at the Crimson Vow’s refusal, which was delivered immediately, simultaneously, and without even a pause to discuss it.
“We just came from the capital. We’re in the middle of a training journey, so there’s no need for us to double back on a route we already traveled, is there? It’s a waste of time,” said Reina.
“We must always choose the path untraveled. That’s what a hunter’s training is all about, isn’t it?” added Mavis.
The leaders of both other parties had made such journeys when they were young hunters themselves and were in no position to contradict the rookies. The guild master, of course, had similar experiences of his own. Thus, no matter how suitable they thought the Crimson Vow would be for the role, they balked at trying to force them into it.
Truthfully, though the Crimson Vow did not wish to waste time traveling routes they had already taken, or to make a desperate petition to skeptical higher-ups, the real reason they turned the job down was something else.
Why would we ever go back to the origin of all those exaggerated stories from the graduation exam?!?!
The chances of the Crimson Vow ever accepting such a job were less than zero.
***
“Now then, if you’ll excuse us.”
In the end, the Crimson Vow refused the journey to the capital—as did the Devils’ Paradise and the Fellowship of Flame. The other two parties insisted truthfully that they had not participated in the battle against the monsters and were not familiar enough with everything that had happened to explain it to someone else as though they had been there.
Plus, it wasn’t an absolute necessity for the guild master to have someone accompany him on his mission. Mile and the others had already filled him in on all the necessary details, and he had the creatures’ bodies to display. As it happens, the guild master had actually intended to have the Crimson Vow come along so that he could question them thoroughly along the road, and now that the girls had summarily refused him, he wasn’t particularly put out when the other two parties declined as well.
The three parties returned to the first floor to receive payment for their guard duty. The reward for the orcs and ogres they handed over would be determined after a careful inspection, so they would be receiving that in the next day or so. The Crimson Vow requested that this payment be split into three equal parts.
Of course, the Devils and the Fellowship tried to refuse this egalitarian move, saying that they could not possibly accept such a sum, but the Crimson Vow—even Pauline—insisted on it, and so the other hunters eventually gave in. The monsters they had turned in included not only the aberrant specimens but the seven normal ogres they had hunted on the outward journey as well.
“I’m sorry. All we seem to do is steal the glory and the spoils from y’all,” said Wulf, acting as representative of the two other parties. Yet the Crimson Vow gently waved their hands as if to say it was no big deal.
Then, just as everyone moved to disperse…
“Ah,” said Mile.
“What’s up?” asked Reina suspiciously.
Mile ignored her, then turned to Wulf and asked, “Umm, I hope you’ll forgive me, but this has been bothering me for a while, so there’s one thing that I have to ask, if you don’t mind.”
“Um? Sure, go ahead. Ask whatever ya like.”
Mile posed her question: “So um, what exactly was the reason behind you guys naming your party the Devils’ Paradise?”
Hearing this, the Fellowship looked exasperated, though the Devils did not appear to be bothered at all. In fact, it seemed they were almost amused by the question.
Wulf then explained the origin of their name.
“To tell you the truth, we’ve always thought that when we earned enough money as hunters, we wanted to use that as starting capital to open up an orphanage…”
“What?”
Wulf’s unexpected reply left the Crimson Vow frozen in shock—both because they never would have expected such a lofty goal and because they
had no idea what this might have to do with the name “the Devils’ Paradise.”
“So anyway, when we were forming our party, the clerk who was processing our application asked us what the origin of the name ‘Goddess’s Paradise’ was. Of course, this wasn’t necessary for the application, she was just making small talk. And so we told her, honestly, ‘We’re gonna save up and start an orphanage. A Goddess’s Paradise, just like the name says…’”
The members of the Crimson Vow exchanged confused looks.
“And then, we explained the rest. ‘We’re only gonna gather female orphans. We especially want to get some elf and some beastgirl orphans, if we can.’ When we said that, the clerk’s smile twisted. And later, when we double-checked our registration, our party’s name had been recorded as ‘Devils’ Paradise’…”
Silence fell.
These scum…
All of that praise, wasted…
They’d be better off dead…
Officer, these are the men!
Wulf suddenly felt a bit uneasy as four cold gazes settled upon him. He called out to the leader of the Fellowship, moving to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Vegas, let’s go!”
T-Tech Setter!
As usual, the reference that crossed Mile’s mind was one that absolutely no one else would understand.
Chapter 71:
The Elf Escort
After taking two days off, the Crimson Vow decided it was about time that they search for their next job.
“All these jobs look boring,” complained Reina, the tedium plain on her face, but her response by now was the norm. Tedious jobs were a hunter’s bread and butter. A profession where people who were otherwise halfwits could rise in the ranks was by nature not a glamorous one.
The four of them gazed at the job board, their brows knit.
“Oh, this one—”
Pauline’s eyes stopped on one posting, though it was not the contents of the job but the pay that interested her.
Accompaniment wanted for a woodland investigation. Duties include guarding two scholars, as well as transporting luggage and harvested materials.
It was a trip of three days, two nights, and the payment was an exorbitant eight half-gold each. This rivaled what you might expect to earn guarding a small-scale merchant caravan on a route that was teeming with bandits.
Reina took a long, hard look at the posting that Pauline had indicated.
C-rank or higher requested, eight to ten individuals in total. At least three among this number must be female.
“Does the fact that they’re requesting women mean that they’re planning something weird?” asked Mile.
“No, dummy, it’s the opposite!” Reina corrected. “They’re asking for a party with women so that nothing weird does happen. In other words, the clients are probably female.”
“Ah…”
“But there can’t be a lot of parties that fit the bill around here. Most parties with eight or more members are B or A-rank, aren’t they? They wouldn’t be out here in a middle of nowhere town like this.”
“Seriously, just how thick are you?! They wrote, ‘in total,’ didn’t they?! They intend for two parties to take this job together. There’s some leeway in the total number so the parties have more freedom in choosing who to team up with!”
“Ah…”
Mile was normally pretty swift on the uptake when it came to this sort of thing, but she was a bit off her game today.
“If we take this job, then it doesn’t really matter who the other party is. We’ve already got the female portion covered, and if we’re looking for four to six more people, that would include most parties around.”
Of course, Pauline was correct. Parties of three or more women were rare, so if the Crimson Vow did not take the job, the team would have to be composed of something like a party with two women in it, and another with one, which severely limited the pool of suitable candidates. If the first party to sign on had only one female member, then the second would be required to have at least two, and the chances of meeting the minimum requirements for the job were drastically lowered.
“Should we do it?”
“I guess so. There aren’t any other good jobs. I don’t really feel like taking on any more long-term guard duties while we’re here, but if this one wraps up in three days, and it’s not transport but investigation, which is in line with our objective to learn about each place we go to. It doesn’t seem too bad.”
Pauline and Reina both seemed to be on board, and of course, Mavis and Mile had no objections.
Just after the Crimson Vow had accepted the job and left the guildhall behind them…
“Got it!”
“Aah! Damn it, you guys! That was supposed to be us!”
“Early bird gets the worm!”
“No, hand it over! That one’s ours!”
There was a desperate scramble for the job posting, which was still being affixed to the board. It was a safe, easy, and well-paying job that parties of all men could now accept—and they got to spend three days with four beautiful and abundantly talented female hunters on top of that. Since all the hunters remembered only too well the good fortune of the Devils and the Fellowship, a squabble was the natural outcome of the circumstances at hand.
***
“We are your clients, Aetelou and Sharalir. We are researchers at the Academy. On this trip, we plan to explore a region that humans have barely penetrated. You are going to be our guards, and we request that you transport our food, equipment, and anything that we gather.”
Aetelou and Sharalir appeared to be in their early twenties. They had a prim and tidy appearance…and both women’s ears came to slight, tapered points.
“V-Vulcans!”
Reina smacked Mile across the back of the head. “They’re obviously elves! ‘Vulcans’ are those ‘logical people’ that pop up in your weird stories, aren’t they? Stop confusing fantasy with reality!!!”
“We would like for you to help us gather materials, as well. Anything that you find that is not of use to us, you are welcome to keep, if you think it may be of value. Think of this as an incentive to search to the best of your abilities.” Their employers were very frank, but open communication was always welcome. “That said, transporting our findings is part of your job, so we would like you to prioritize the items that we are after. Let’s say that our things should be about eighty percent of what you carry, and yours about twenty? The things you take home with you will probably need to be limited to lightweight, compact, and valuable items, such as rare medicinal herbs.
“Also, should you find anything else that proves valuable to our research, we would like you to hand it over to us—for additional pay, of course. The things that are valuable to us likely would not fetch a high price in town, so we can’t pay you a lot for them, but I believe what we can give you will still exceed the general going rate. Technically speaking, this isn’t something that we should have to pay you for, but, well, please think of it as a special reward.”
These were truly rather favorable conditions. Typically, on expeditions such as these, hired guards were required to hand over everything they collected. The two elves, who lived in the capital and had traveled out to this frontier region for their research, seemed fairly generous. Afterwards, the Crimson Vow and the other party introduced themselves. From the elves’ perspective, Mile and Reina appeared to be about forty or fifty years old, while Mavis and Pauline looked to be a few hundred at least, so the party’s youthful appearance did not worry them. They did appear to be amused at Mile’s self-designation as a “magic knight” but dismissed it as only an affectation.
The other party was a typical all-male team, with three swordsmen, one archer, and one mage. With them, the guard team came to nine in total.
Even though they were in another country, upon hearing of another group of elven researchers living in a human town, when so few elves lived amongst humans to begin with, the Crimson Vow immediately t
hought of a certain name.
“Elven researchers—just like Dr. Clairia?” Mavis muttered to herself.
“Clairia!!!”
Oh, so they’re acquaintances, the Crimson Vow thought, until—
“Clairia! That filthy greenhorn heretic!!!”
The elves flew into a sudden rage.
Apparently, they did indeed know one another…and they were not on good terms.
After a short while, the pair finally calmed down and explained.
“That woman is a total amateur, but she flaunts her knowledge and uses it to obtain patronage. She lures nobles and merchants into the palm of her hand with information that literally anyone could pick up after a few decades of living in the forest. We work honestly and tirelessly at our research, aiming to be lecturers, or even associate professors, but that piece of trash just bypassed the whole process, using her adjunct researcher position to get anything she wants. She already has money and influence, but all she ever does in her ‘research’ is butter up the higher-ups with her infantile behavior!!!”
Since they were operating in an entirely different country, it was not as though Clairia had stolen their success out from under them, but her actions were apparently inexcusable all the same.
And then…
“She’s an adult, but she still clings to her father without an ounce of humility! We would love to be so close with our fathers, but we act our age and hold back from that kind of fawning!! Then there she is, acting like a spoiled little brat, and even getting other elves to permit—nay, praise this behavior, calling her a ‘good sweet girl, who always thinks of her father’! Seriously, what’s with that?! It’s absolutely absurd!!!”
Evidently, they had stepped on a land mine.
***
“We’re the Blue Meteors, C-rank. Nice to meet’cha.”
The other party who had accepted the job alongside them were a perfectly normal party of five men, all in their twenties. After they had finished meeting with their employers, the Blue Meteors invited the Crimson Vow to a meal in order to compare notes before the job. The Crimson Vow dutifully accepted. This was an important part of working alongside a party you were not familiar with, as it was hard to trust a partner whose strengths and skills you did not know.
