“Yes, that’ll be 40 silver for the damage to the guild. 30 silver for the damages, and 10 for the improper conduct.”

I wept tears of blood as I saw my fortune of 70 silvers slowly fly away from me. Improper conduct? What did i do?!! The onee san smiles sweetly when she receives the money. Uuu… My fortune…. Mili has been hitting me for quite some time, since she’s angry that I didn’t do anything. I try to console her as I head towards the request board to take some requests, since my first objective is to double my loss of 40 silvers into a profit of 80 silvers.

It was a huge board, with various parchments stuck on it with little gold pins. The top right corner, like the onee san said was filled with parchments with green outlines. Those might be the guild sponsored quests. The rest of the request board was full of parchments of various sizes, with a great variety of quests. I check the guild sponsored ones first, The rewards…. Were disappointing.

Slime subjugationRequestorAdventurer’s guildProofSlime coresA slime outbreak has been spotted on the outskirts of Ravenblack, and the local farmers have filed a complaint about it. The adventurer’s guild has decided to sponsor the adventurers in order to reduce the number of slimes as much as possible.Recommended rankBronze, SilverReward100 nirs for every 10 slime cores

100 nirs for every 10 slime cores huh. I need to earn 80,000 nirs, so that means I need to kill….. 800 slimes?!! And collect all of their cores too. I’m sure the maximum number of slimes that would be available would be at most 2000. Correlating that with the estimated number of adventurer that would be in Bronze or silver rank, I could get a shot at about 5 of them per day. Meaning, I’ll need to spend at least 50 days to earn it up?! Decreasing the other costs that may happen, like the repair fees I had to pay today, I may be set back for even a longer time. I need a better request, something tougher, and more plausible. I scour the request board, and I tear of three requests that seem perfect. It’ll also help to become a Silver ranked adventurer.

Curas subjugationRequestorRavenblack mercenariesProofCuras scalesThe Curas near the route to Alsain village has been troubling us whenever we try to head to the other villages for work. Urgent cleanup is requestedRecommended rankSilverReward10 silvers

Collecting water from the Red springsRequestorRavenblack Town HerbalistRequiredRed spring water (5)The water from the red springs is needed for the preparation of several salves and tonics. The Red springs are infested by monsters, so caution is advised.Recommended rankSilverReward5 silvers for every vials of Red spring water.

Sarol subjugationRequestorRavenblack town headProofSarol leg meatA wounded Sarol is bothering the town by frequently gobbling up the village’s livestock. The Sarol is missing a leg, so the difficulty is quite low.Recommended rankSilverReward20 silvers

Alright. If I do all of these I can earn 55 silvers at most. The variables are the spring water quest, since it’s possible that the request might have already been fulfilled to a certain degree. I walk off, and then remember.

“Ah~ Where do I go again?”

“Sigh…”

I understood why the spring water collection quest was such at Silver rank. The monsters were small fry, but there were quite a lot of them. But that’s not the tough part.

“Where is this damn spring?!!”

I yell as I slice apart another monster caterpillar that tries to salivate on me. Ewww. Gross.

I have no idea where the spring is, and I’ve been in a forest quite a bit away from Ravenblack. I just roamed around the forest, trying to find the spring. I was sure I would find this spring within a second. I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

I keep walking through the forest, killing occasional caterpillars. I don’t collect their meat. It’s quite disgusting, so it’s better to just leave it alone.

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As I keep walking, the sounds of battle reach my ears.

Might be other adventurers. Now, what do I do? I’m sure they know the way to the red spring, so I could ask them for the path. But the limit of vials that is needed is just 5. Meaning, they might get greedy and not share. Well, I could easily outrun them and win the mone—

“Yuuya, your face looks creepy”

I quickly wipe the evil smile off my face and smile brightly at Mili. She insists on following me, and I let her. She looks quite disgusted with the caterpillar drool though.

“Mili, there are some other adventurers here. Why don’t we party up with them?”

“Un? Why? Aren’t we plenty? Yuuya is plenty strong”

“Hahaha… Well, that is, don’t they say, ‘the more the merrier’? And, um, well we can get some frie—“

“Yuuya, you don’t know the way right?”

“Hehehe… Of course I do.”

She stares at me. I can’t look at her face. Geez, do you really want me to admit it?

“Alright, I don’t “

“Good. At least you’re honest. Don’t worry. We don’t need the help of some scary adventurers. You have me”

Mili puffs out her little chest and beats her fist on it. Cute. Seriously, too cute.

“Yes Mili sama. Please lead the way”

“Un! Leave it to me, useless Yuuya”

You didn’t need to say that Mili. I follow after her, and she confidently leads on. Good thing she knows the way…

“Eh? Didn’t we cross this place before Mili?”

“Um, no way. You’re just confused. This is the first time we came here. Of course.”

“So you say, but isn’t that the corpse of the caterpillar I killed a while before?”

Her eyes start swimming wildly, and she tries to make up excuses. I see, we’re lost.

I sigh. No choice then. I charge up the Dragon slayer energy into my legs, and crouch down. The nerves in my legs bulge, and I can feel my legs digging into the earth. I push off, and fly.

Flying is so great! I soar through the skies, at high enough speeds. When I reach the apex of my jump, I repeatedly use gust to slow my descent to the maximum. I glance around as much as I can, to find a place where the other adventurers were.

There. I just saw a hint of flame. Fire magic. I face that direction and land onto the ground, as softly as possible. I grab Mili and put her on my back ,and start my super run.

“Eh. No wait, waiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttt!!!”

I was already running in the direction, and Mili’s screams were lost to the wind.

A few minutes later, I can see the adventurers. Change of plans. I’ll just ask them the way to the spring, and be on my way. I ignored all the monsters on my way here, so we get there fast.

I let Mili throw up, and head on to the adventurers. It was a party of five, with a warrior, two pikemen, and two magicians. An.. ordinary party?

They were fighting against some of the caterpillars, and seemed to be having a hard time. I remind myself to always pretend to be weak, so that I’m not marked by some weird organization or the other. I wait for the adventurers to finish their battle.

It’s been fifteen minutes, and they’re still fighting. Are they just seriously weak? They haven’t even killed one caterpillar, and they’re covered in the acid drool.

Thirty minutes. Even Mili looks amazed at the fight of the adventurers, since they’re taking so long. I’ve given up just killing time, so I try to learn some party play tricks from them.  The warrior engages the caterpillars in battle, using his heavy armour to tank the attacks. The pikemen stab into the gaps of the caterpillars tough skin, in order to distract them and deal some serious damage. The magicians began chanting in sync suddenly. Is this Union magic? I feel interested, and gaze towards their magic.

“”Burn through our enemies, swallowing them in a tempest of flames, leaving behind nothing but their ashes, and present them to the all ruling Fire. Burn through, Flame Vortex!!””

Just like its name, a vortex of flames swallow up the caterpillars, and two of them fall dead. Finally.

The other three concentrate their attacks on the third one and quickly finish it off. I didn’t use the Monster slayer energy to intimidate them. Nope. Never.

I wave towards the warrior, who was clad in heavy leather armour, and a copper helm with a red plume on it.

“Yah? What d’you want?”

“Can you tell me the way to the Red springs?”

The adventurers laugh at me. I have no idea why.

“Yah sure. Jus’ head tha’ a way. You can get there in no’ time”

He points towards the direction behind him. The pikemen burst out laughing. I seriously don’t understand.

I thank him and walk off to the direction. I call Mili, who stays away from them and then she follows along too. Their laughter echoes into the forest, and I’m still feeling that something’s wrong. They couldn’t have tricked me right? No way.

Those bastards. They tricked me. I swear, if I ever find them again, they would wish they were dead.

Because right in front of me was—