by Yuu Tanaka
Unique Skill: Beloved of the Spirits
Titles: Protector of Children; Dungeon Raider; Dragon Killer; Wind Mage; Monster Exterminator; A-Rank Adventurer
Equipment: Sky Dragon’s Beard; Hydra Hide Armor; Venom Gecko Mantle; Mad Eye Bull Boots; Armlet of Sacrifice; Thunderbird Feather; Barrier Ring; Shock Owl Throwing Feathers x 24
Amanda possessed a title called Protector of Children. This must be what Nell was talking about. Did she get this title because she liked kids?
She was strong, though. Looking through the Guildmaster’s and Don’s stats had thrown me for a loop, but Amanda was stronger than both of them. I was a little afraid of her, to be honest. If you thought about it, she could hunt down a Daemon with little effort. We had better stay out of her way. I couldn’t imagine any way we could win even if we caught her off guard.
She’s strong. Don’t piss her off.
I know.
Fran nodded; she understood how strong Amanda was.
“The others told me how you were the fastest growing adventurer this guild has ever seen. They also told me how you were a small, cute Beastman who wielded an enchanted sword!”
What? It was nice that people were singing her praises but I felt that they were all based on her appearance. They better not be making light of Fran because of her looks!
“The Guildmaster warned me not to underestimate you, though. He said I’d be in a world of hurt if I did!”
What are you telling this A-Rank, GM? Although I would be grossed out if he swooned over how cute Fran was.
“Oh, that’s right. Now that you’re here, Klimt wanted to see you in his office.”
“Now?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
“Aww, that’s too bad. I was going to take you out to lunch. But I guess if the GM needs you…”
“See you around.”
“Oh my god, she’s so cute! I want a sister just like her!”
“At your age, she’d be your daughter, Amanda.”
“Nell, just because you’re younger than me doesn’t give you the right to say whatever passes your mind. Besides, half elves are slow to age!”
“All right, all right. You’re still young at heart, Amanda.”
Fran left Nell and Amanda to catch up with each other and headed for the GM’s office. She climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.
“You don’t have to knock so loud!”
She walked into the room.
“You called?”
“Oh, Fran. There’s not much point in knocking on the door if you don’t wait for my response, is there?”
“Whoops.”
“Just… be mindful next time.”
Sorry, GM. I’ll teach her proper etiquette some time. I didn’t stop her because I wanted to see how you’d react.
“What do you want?”
“There is a quest that I need you to take.”
Nothing good could come out of that request.
“Some people are doubting your capabilities. I vouched for you of course, but they wouldn’t believe me since they’ve never seen you in action. I need you to take on a certain quest to silence these dissenting voices.”
I was getting annoyed. He was the one who gave her all those promotions. It was a little late for that now.
“The guild was the one who promoted me.”
“I understand… However, it turns out more people are jealous of you than I anticipated. There are those who are in full support of you, of course. The D- and C-Ranks, in particular. Most of them saw you fight firsthand. In fact, you’re so popular among them you’ve become something of a mascot for them.”
The mid-rank adventurers had good judgment to be sure. But a mascot… Well, Fran was incredibly cute so I agree!
“But many of the lower ranks are opposed to your position. Some of them are still E-Rank after many years of adventuring. It’s only natural that they resent you for moving into D-Rank in such a short period of time.”
“Let them say what they want.”
That’s right! This had nothing to do with us! They should just work harder so they could make it to D-Rank!
“As much as I want to, I can’t. Some people are saying you paid your way to D-Rank. Others say that you knew I was into little girls and seduced me. Such baseless rumors…” the GM mumbled to himself. “How could anyone think that I am into little girls?! Honestly! What I like in a woman—”
Did the Guildmaster ask us to go on this mission because he hated the idea of people thinking he was a lolicon?
“I don’t have to accept, right?”
“Now, now, let’s not be rash. I’ve prepared some bonuses for you so just hear me out.”
The Guildmaster was desperate. He really didn’t want people to think he was a lolicon.
“I’ll increase your reward fee, of course. I’ll also give you the permission to enter the dungeon in Ulmutt.”
“… How did you know that?”
“It was obvious enough. All I needed to do was ask the caretaker of the Reference Room.”
We did ask the old man to look things up for us, but the GM sure kept his ears to the ground.
I hadn’t known we needed a permit to enter a dungeon, though.
“Can’t anyone just walk into a dungeon?”
“Of course not. There are several requirements you need to fulfill. One is your Adventurer Rank.”
“Ulmutt’s a D-Rank dungeon.”
“While your Adventurer Rank is sufficient, there are other criteria to fulfill. You might not be allowed in if you haven’t gone through inspection.”
“And I haven’t?”
“It would be hard to believe you had, judging by your appearance.”
If a cute Beastgirl walked up to you and said she wanted to explore a dungeon, you’d be hard-pressed to let her in. Even if we managed to get a permit somehow, it’d take a lot of time.
“I can give you a permit. With it, you won’t need to go through any evaluations. You’ll be able to enter the dungeon whenever you want.”
The shrewd elf grinned as if he already won the argument. We needed this permit.
“… I’ll hear you out.”
“Thank you. Here are the details.”
The Guildmaster took out papers related to the quest. We were to investigate the dungeon near Alessa and gather materials.
“I thought people weren’t allowed in the Alessa dungeon.”
“So you know the circumstances? Good. Normally, people aren’t allowed into this dungeon, but once every couple of months we dispatch a team of adventurers for the purpose of evaluation. You’ll be gathering resources alongside controlling the monster population inside of the dungeon.”
“Control? Not exterminate?”
“Yes. We are able to control a dungeon using its Core, but we can’t manipulate all of its variables. At most, we can tweak the rate of monster and item spawns, and that depends on how much mana the Core has. The Alessa dungeon can only spawn F-Rank monsters and a few items here and there.”
There wasn’t much point to it, was there? We’d be much better off if the dungeon could spawn stronger monsters and produce stronger items.
“What if you injected the Core with mana?”
“If only it were that simple. Even if you took five dozen mages and channeled all their mana into the Core, it wouldn’t amount to much.”
“So how do you charge the Core?”
“The Core can pull mana from the ground and the air. That includes the monsters and adventurers who happen to be in the dungeon. I’m sure a Dungeon Master would have other methods of charging the Core with mana. They wouldn’t be able to maintain the labyrinth otherwise.”
Summoning a Daemon must have required a lot of mana. It was hard for me to believe that the Dungeon Master managed to summon it just using the mana in the atmosphere.
“So it’s important to let monsters live in the dungeon so the core can have mana to feed on. W
ithout the proper mana levels in the air, the core can’t function properly.”
So we should reduce the population of monsters? Wouldn’t it be better if there were more of them?
It wasn’t that simple, however.
“We need monsters, but if there are too many of them, we wouldn’t be able to mine for resources. If we leave them alone too long, they’ll multiply, evolve, and we’ll have another stampede on our hands. We have to trim their population.”
The rewards looked pretty good. However, there was one problem. The document said that we would conduct the investigation with “several parties.” I’d rather not team up with those idiots we ran into on our first day in Alessa.
“Don’t worry about that. The related teams have already signed up.”
“What are they like?”
“This quest is actually a promotion exam to get into D-Rank. There will be two parties of E-Ranks, nine members each, along with one party of three C-Ranks. I can vouch for their competence. As for their personalities… You’ll have to see for yourself.”
The Guildmaster dodged the question. This quest was optional but…
Fran, what do you think?
“Hmm…”
As Fran weighed her options, the Guildmaster hurriedly took out a small pouch and put it on the table.
“Tell you what. I’ll throw you in a personal bonus out of my own pocket.”
Well, this was interesting.
“Have a look.”
The Guildmaster emptied the contents of the pouch and out rolled twenty crystals. They were sizable, too. There was no way of telling how good they were but they were bigger than goblin crystals at least.
“What’s this supposed to be?”
“Call it my secret savings. They’re crystals I got when I still worked the field. All of them came from D-Rank monsters and above.”
One could sell crystals or use them to make equipment. They were much more valuable than cash. But the Guildmaster stared at us like he was looking for something… Was he on to us? Fran wasn’t going to sell these crystals after all.
“Why crystals?”
“Why, indeed? Are you interested?”
We might blow our cover if we weren’t careful with what we said. Best to let him think we wanted the crystals. He wouldn’t know what we were going to do with them, anyway.
“I might be.”
“I knew you would.”
Teacher, what do you think?
Unfortunately, I can’t tell what skills they have. I can barely tell what monsters they came from. Even the mana load is iffy.
I was sure we could take the Guildmaster’s word for it. At D-Rank and above they should be at least as strong as the Doppel Snake and Blast Tortoise.
But something stank about this mission…
“I’ll let you have two. You can pick whichever you want.”
“Hmm… I’ll take the job at ten.”
“What?! That’s too much… Three.”
“Nine.”
“Urgh… Alright, four!”
“I’ll settle for eight.”
“I know where you’re going with this! You’re highballing me so I’ll end up caving at six! Well, it won’t work. Four. That’s my final offer.”
“Then I’ll walk.”
“Ugh…”
“Five. As down payment.”
“Ungh…”
“Goodbye.”
“F-fine…! You can take five as down payment!”
Good job, Fran! You actually beat the Guildmaster! Why was he so desperate to have Fran take on this job? He must really hate being called a lolicon.
“Please take care of the job.”
“Sure.”
Fran nodded and turned to leave when suddenly—
“Hold it right there!”
The door flew open and Amanda charged into the room. The same thing happened with August last time. Did the Guildmaster not have any security guarding his office? Then again, maybe the A-Rank ace just concealed her presence until the last moment.
“Give me that!”
Amanda grabbed the papers that were on the Guildmaster’s table and began reading through them. Rude as she was, the Guildmaster couldn’t really oppose her.
“I knew it! Everyone on this quest list are dudes!”
That couldn’t be helped. There were very few female adventurers around. The ratio must be around twenty to one. It wasn’t surprising that there wasn’t a single girl in a group of twelve.
“I am not letting poor Fran get surrounded by a group of sweaty guys. Count me in.”
“But there is a rank limit, you see—”
“I said, count me in!”
The Guildmaster sighed in defeat. “Fine.” He must’ve known that there was no way of convincing Amanda otherwise. “You don’t mind do you, Fran?”
“Nope. No problem.”
She didn’t seem like a bad person.
We were back at the inn an hour after our meeting with the Guildmaster.
Let’s start absorbing those crystals.
“Yeah.”
Fran laid out the crystals she got from the Guildmaster on the table. I took a closer look at them.
I really can’t tell what skills these things have…
Identify only yielded the monsters’ names. With Bestiary on, I could tell the Threat Level of a monster so long as I had its name, but its skills remained a mystery to me.
“I can’t wait to see what skills we’re gonna get.”
Fran held up the glowing crystals with restless anticipation.
We don’t know what we’ll get until we crack them open. They’re like goodie bags.
“Goodie bags?”
Yeah. It’s a bag filled with dreams, hope, and a little bit of despair.
“Sounds great.”
Warriors would brawl with each other to have a chance at getting one such goodie bag.
“Have you ever seen the inside of one?”
Yep.
“Wow!”
Alright, enough silliness. Let’s see what crystals we got. We started with the D-Rank crystals: Hermit Crab, Sea Lion, and Trident Shark. They weren’t the strangest monsters I’d seen but I had never run into an aquatic monster before. On to C-Rank: Red Colossus and Old Yeti. Unfortunately, we only managed to pick two C-Rank level crystals from the Guildmaster’s collection.
Let’s start with the D Threats.
“Okay.”
Fran stabbed me into the three crystals on the table. Predictably enough, I got water skills like Swimming and Current Manipulation. They were going to come in handy if we ever found ourselves in an aquatic battle.
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the C-Rank Threats!
“Yep!”
Fran got excited and threw the two gems into the air and sliced them with a single swing.
“Ha!”
Here it comes! I hadn’t had this much to eat in a while! Delicious…
Red Colossus: 196 crystals; Frenzy 1; Heat Resistance 1; Weight Gain; Strength Up (Medium)
Old Yeti: 127 crystals; Cold Resistance 1; Poison Knowledge 1; Frost Resistance 1; Magic Up (Small)
And I finally ranked up! Here were my stats prior absorption:
Attack: 434; MP: 2050/2050;
Durability: 1850/1850
Mana Conductivity: A
Evolution: [Rank 8; Crystals: 3146/3600; Skill Capacity: 70; Free EP: 2]
And this was after:
Attack: 478; MP: 2500/2500;
Durability: 2300/2300
Mana Conductivity: A
Evolution: [Rank 9; Crystals: 3630/4500; Skill Capacity: 79; Free EP: 47]
Now that I was stronger, we were ready to take on that dungeon quest.
It had been two days since we took the dungeon examination quest.
We had stopped by Randell’s shop to stock up on supplies before going to the guild. His shop was as disorganized as ever, yet he still had high-quality potions up for sale. There
were Necro Potions to increase the strength of Necromancies at 100,000G each. They were made using a plant called Necroweed. There were also Green Potions which increased the power of Wood Magic. I doubted anyone ever bought these potions. Still, he made plenty of business from selling regular potions.
We were at one of the guild’s meeting rooms to meet the other members of the expedition.
“Alright, let’s start with introducing ourselves. My name is Cruise. I’m the leader of the Azure Guardians. These are my teammates Rig and Eizelle. I’ll be acting as your supervisor and examiner on this trip.”
Name: Cruise Riouselle
Age: 28
Race: Human
Class: Duelist
Level: 33
HP: 206; Magic: 175; Strength: 113; Agility: 178
Skills: Evil Sense 3; Stealth 2; Evasion 5; Royal Etiquette 2; Presence Sense 4; Sword Arts 5; Sword Mastery 6; Martial Arts 4; Command 2; Blink 7; Cold Resistance 4; Poison Resistance 5; Trap Sense 2; Spirit Manipulation
Title: The Upright
Equipment: Flaming Mithril Longsword; Lightweight Silver Plate Mail; 100-legged Spider Mantle; Antivenom Bangle
He was a dashing lad with a head of blonde hair. He was already C-Rank at his age. His armor was glistening white so he must have had money to spare. His surname made me think he was noble-born. His facial features were elegant and graceful. He must be popular with the ladies. Jerk! But he did have The Upright as his title. He couldn’t be all bad, so I decided not to wish death upon him as yet. If he made any moves on Fran, I’d come swinging, though. I’d make him regret being born good-looking!
“My main weapon is the sword. Let’s get along.”
I thought the C-Ranks were strong but they were nowhere close to Don. Don must be one of the strongest C-Ranks the guild had.
Cruise’s teammates were about as strong as he was. Rig was a Water Mage and Eizelle was a scout-class Thief. They were there to complement Cruise’s abilities but they seemed to get along. Cruise must’ve been a fine leader.
