“Thank you for your help, youngsters.”

“Thank you for the business.”

As the old grandma waved and thanked them, she walked into her house with an impressive amount of rocks inside a giant grocery bag. Heann and Millie, who painstakingly brought the rocks by combining their strength blinked twice at how casual she carried the bag with one hand.

The cold wind blew harder than before and the assignments they took felt even more tiring in every step they took through the snowy road. 

Huh? Was this how adventurers lived?

Matching the job profile from the tale of the citizens and what he was experiencing, Heann felt that he was trained to be more like a delivery man. This was more or less the same compared to his previous labor jobs.

Helpless hunger? Check. Cold sweats? Check. Body pain? Check.

...this was his usual job alright.

Under the chilling weather, they walked back to the adventurer’s guild. After waiting for Millie who was confirming the assignment, Heann finally saw Millie coming over.

“Alright. That makes it three.”

“How much money did we get?”

“25 copper coins.”

Heann calculated inside his mind. If an average home-cooked meal for one sitting costs about 20-25 copper coins, then they needed to earn at least 120 copper coins or 1 silver coin and 20 copper coins to eat three times a day. So far, they had only earned 80 copper coins. Agreeing that they would share the earned money, they planned to save some of the money for future needs.

“Let’s work harder.”

“Should we skip lunch?”

“I agree.”

At the moment, the food stock at Millie’s house was limited and still freshly bought right after they finished two assignments at once. Thinking for the long term benefit, it was wiser to cook the ingredients for dinner and save the rest for the day’s meal. 

Taking a deep breath, Heann shook his head and looked at what was in front of him. There was a bigger problem at the moment. This time, it was Heann’s turn to pick the assignment on the bulletin board. There were hundreds of papers stuck on the board. That being said, there were hundreds of people swarming around the board as if they were hungry predators.

The first attempt, Millie had volunteered to experience the event herself, and before she went into the crowded space, Heann heard Millie letting out a small battle shout which not too long after, he couldn’t see her head and her voice was drowned with the others’ shout. It was about fifteen minutes later Millie returned with a slightly ripped paper on her hand, her hair all messed up and stared dead at Heann like a crazy person.

The second attempt, where Millie firmly decided that they should take turns and Heann rushed in without too many thoughts. He thought that he had the advantage as a male and thought that Millie was too small and weak. Fifteen minutes later, he came back with a slightly ripped paper and his hair all messed up, staring dead at Millie like a crazy person.

Millie nodded her head and looked at him sympathetically, understanding his pain and put her hand on his shoulder, patting gently.

It was a scarring past. However, this time, he had learned through experience. In this highly competitive field, you have to be ruthless and quick!

Scanning posters with quick gazes and considerable rewards in mind from far away, he rushed towards the crowd and slipped in between the slight gaps people made with swift steps. When he was halfway through, the crowd started to move frenziedly. Fixing his eyes on one of the posters, Heann quickly drew out his arm and snatched it and stepped back, immediately bouncing and ran away to secure the paper.

Walking while waving the poster casually, Millie, who saw this sight, was dumbfounded. Heann saw the surprise on her face without the usual blank expression and felt rather satisfied.

“Well... that was pretty fast.”

“I learn pretty quickly, didn’t I?”

“Great job. So… anyway, what did you take?”

“This says “Give me Slime’s Slime!” and the rewards are 70 coppers. We definitely have to take this one. I’m starting to get back pains from carrying all those bags full of rocks.”

“I couldn’t agree more. This should be our first monster hunting assignment. What about the requirements?”

“Blue, green and red slimes. 5 each and should already be contained inside an empty bottle. Anyway, this one gives five contribution points.”

The guild gave contribution points each time you completed an assignment. With this system, the guild could determine the effort and assess each adventurer for one of the requirements to rank up with a certain standard of points the adventurers had to reach to take the rank up test.

Moreover, they were used as a special currency to unlock special privileges that adventurers benefit from such as a general discount from the locals.

After sharing a look of understanding, Millie took off and walked to the entrance. However, she was soon grabbed by the back of her shirt by Heann, facing him who was smiling sinisterly.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Don’t you remember? One quest for each person.”

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“Let’s go!”

While pointing to the sky with a straight face, Millie posed flashily on the middle of the fields. This was the open plain outside the town. With her shouting monotonously, the blob of colors hastily bounced away.

“What the heck are you doing? You’re scaring the slimes.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just excited for my first subjugation request. With my teammate and facing monsters and all."

“I don’t think that this counts as a subjugation though… moreover, are these preparations really necessary?”

“What are you talking about?” she responded slowly. “We have to take extreme precautions outside safe areas.”

“Here’s the thing… you’re not the one who’s carrying all of these,” Heann grumbled. “Anyway, these baggage are seriously heavy! What did you pack in here?”

“Hey, I’m holding some too.”

“Yours doesn’t stack up to twice the size of your head, does it? I’m not getting any light over here!”

“Fine. Let’s see.”

Dropping the humongous bag, Heann heard clattering sounds. Millie, while crouching, opened the bag and showed the content to Heann.

“See? Weapons and armors.”

“Right… weapons and armors. Of course. The most obvious thing is to bring an army’s amount of weapons and armors for two people. Wait... how the hell did that bag didn’t rip apart and stab me?”

“Don’t misunderstand, alright? Don’t you see? Being included in this business requires combat skills and we don’t have any. This is the perfect chance to test our compatibility with different kinds of weapons. Also, I invented the bag myself. It’s a new material I’m working on.”

“...you’ve thoroughly convinced me.”

“Anyway… can you use magic or do you already have any weapon in mind?”

“No. I can barely use it. I’ll take a halberd though.”

“That was fast. Do you have any lancing experiences?”

“No. It’s just safer to jab at long distances rather than slashing and stabbing with swords and daggers.”

Reaching out to the dangerous stashes, she pulled out a standard halberd that looked sharp and handed it to him.

“Is it me or does this still looks new?”

“I stocked up on them recently.”

“So… this is why you’re poor?”

“Yes. However, I believe that all of these metals will pay me back in more ways than one.”

“You’re right. I have an idea.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s sell them.”

“What are you talking about? They’re for our adventures.”

“With all those adventurers around, these weapons are in high demand.”

“Hold on. This is my money we’re talking about. I make the decisions.”

“Millie... ” he started deeply, his eyes and mouth were smiling. “We only have today, we don’t know about tomorrow.”

Seeing the flash of gold in his eyes, Millie reverted her gaze and widened her eyes, pointing on something for him to notice.

“Let’s leave this discussion for another time. The slimes are crowding over there.”

“Alright...” he trailed off. “What’s the plan?”

“I’ve got this.”

From her pocket, she brought out a wooden blowgun and five darts at her fingertips.

“Really? Blow darts?”

“Yeah. It’s loaded with sleeping drugs. This should be quick.”

“Millie, with this kind of range, the darts wouldn’t even be able to reach the slimes unless you have some kind of superpowered lungs. Besides, do slimes even have any nervous system to begin...”

“Alright. I’ve got two of them.”

“...uhh.”

True to her words, the two slimes were left behind and stopped bouncing. They were red and green slimes and their goo slumped, seeming unconscious.

“That’s some amazing accuracy...”

“This isn’t much. I practiced after all.”

Heann saw her in a new light. She was really useless when they picked labor tasks and all she did was saying “Let’s take a rest.” and grumble all the way through their assignment. Seeing her usefulness after all past events of her being a deadweight made him appreciate her more.

“Looks like I don’t have to do anything much with you around, Millie.”

“Really? Did I really help that much?”

“You did. I actually thought that we had to chase the slimes until we pass out in the evening. You’re making this easier for the both of us.”

“I guess I’m useful, huh?”

When Heann complimented her even more, she touched her red cheeks and shook her head while looking down, embarrassed. While he found the sight to be absurd, Heann decided to let it go.

“This should be an easy task.”

“It is. We should just worry about the slime king and be careful overall.”

“They rarely appear. Don’t worry about it and just go crazy with the darts. They’re just big and no danger.”

“Nevertheless, we wouldn’t want ourselves to be trapped inside a slime and be barfed out after hours, right?”

“Alright, alright. Let’s be careful.”

As Millie took out the slimes, Heann carried the slime-filled bottles while carrying the baggage at the same time. With a consistent pace, they finished the mission in about half an hour long. All in all, the assignment was easy and they finished quicker than they had expected. Even though there was some competition with other adventurers, it was still no problem as they could find another with the quick tactics.

Eventually, they were walking on the way to the town.

“Wow… that went smoothly.”

“Yeah… smoothly. This gets me a little bit excited for the next mission.”

“Me too. Well… I should probably work on the halberd or other weapons so I could fight at least.”

“There’s not much free time, but we shouldn’t blindly start quests and practice once in a while, you know? The world’s wide and there are much stronger people and competition waiting to be discovered.”

“You’re actually right for once...”

Heann considered Millie’s sentiment and the sudden thought of him being strong motivated him. He was an average guy who worked labor duties. Besides the fact that he had a strong build from all the lifting he had to do, he was nothing compared to the competitors at the guild. At some point, he had to keep up with them and go out from the boundary that separated him from all of them.

Today, his point of view towards Millie was completely changed.

“...partner.”

“Eh? What did you say?”

Millie, with her eyes opened wide in shock, faced Heann who was smirking lightly at her.

“Well, it’s getting dark. Let’s walk faster. I’m fired up right now!”

“It’s still pretty sunny. Look in front of you.”

“Wait…”

Both of them turning back, they saw a giant yellow blob that stared down at them silently with hungry eyes as if they were prey.

“...oh crap.”