By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 20

Chapter 4 Episode 20: After the Match

~Ryoma’s Side~

When the match ended, the students and teachers in the audience were quite divided.

“Ryoma! That was incredible!”

“How’d you get so good?”

“Not bad! But we won’t lose to you!”

“If I started training with a bow now, how long would it take until I could use it in real combat?”

One side included Gazelle and Beck’s party, and they respected my talent. Even after I explained how I fought, they kept coming up to me to ask questions.

The other side kept their distance, as though they were avoiding me. After Roche thanked all the participants and declared the event over, they quickly ran off. I could only assume that was because of what they saw in my fight.

“Did I do something wrong?” I wondered. “Maybe I scared them or something.”

After I answered the students’ questions, I decided to talk to Roche about it.

“Scaring them was part of it, I think,” he said. Maybe it was because I looked weak at first glance. Even Beck’s party underestimated me at first. “It’s gotten pretty clear now that you’re strong. And maybe you were just taking the fight seriously, but you suddenly came off like a totally different person. Even I thought it looked like you lacked some humanity. It was like I was being hunted by a predator.”

I thought that now that I looked like this, I’d be able to scare people less, but alas. I never thought about how I came across in battle.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Roche consoled me. “Nobody was expecting it, so I’m sure they’re just a bit freaked out right now. Give them time, and I’m sure some of them will chill out.

“On another subject, remember how I asked you before about why you became an adventurer? This kind of connects to that, but do you have any particular goals as an adventurer?”

I thought he wanted to get off that topic, but he sounded sincere, so I straightened myself out and answered him. “My goal right now is to go to the Sea of Trees of Syrus.”

“There, of all places?”

Once he was done asking me questions, Roche seemed to understand. But at the same time, he was holding his head in his arms like he had some problem with my objective. When I asked him about it, he said that he was under the impression that the guildmaster wanted him to get me to join a party, and that having us both on this job was to introduce us to each other for that purpose.

“A party? Wait, should you be telling me this?”

“I’m only guessing that this is what the guildmaster wants anyway. He didn’t tell me not to say anything, and I’m just telling you what I think. As you start taking higher ranking jobs, they’ll just keep getting more dangerous. The Sea of Trees of Syrus is one of those dangerous places you could go. You’re supposed to be at least C Rank to take jobs there, but that assumes you have a party. Actually going there alone as a C Rank adventurer is suicide. You get me?”

Roche picked up a stick and drew a circle with another circle inside on the ground. “Maybe you’d know all this given where you’re from, or maybe the way you think about things is just different, but try to see how people from the outside look at it. First of all, the further into the Sea of Trees of Syrus you go, the stronger the monsters you encounter. Thinking of these circles as the Sea of Trees, you could only effectively operate solo as a C Rank adventurer in this outer circle. Once you enter the inner circle, you start to see A and B Rank monsters everywhere, and you’d have no hope of making it to the center.

“I don’t know where your hometown was, but from what you told me, I can’t imagine it was in the outer area. It would’ve had to be deep in the forest. You’ll be forced to fight numerous battles. And the actual Sea of Trees has that name for a reason: it’s vast. Even if there weren’t any monsters, it’d take more than a couple days to reach your destination. Doesn’t matter that you have space magic, it’ll still be rough out there on your own.

“If I’m being honest, neither I nor the guildmaster have any right to stop you. Like I keep saying in our morning gatherings, adventurers have to take responsibility for themselves. If you reach the required rank, you can go anywhere you want.”

The guildmaster had shown me this job so Roche could tell me all this, presumably. But I wasn’t convinced. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see myself joining a party,” I said.

I had temporarily teamed up with Jeff or Miya on a few occasions. Before the Founding Festival, I even worked with Beck’s party. I had no problem with those jobs. But if I had to be around people all the time, for every job, it just didn’t sound like a good fit for me. I tried to imagine it, but it gave me some indescribable discomfort that I couldn’t shake off.

“You don’t have to do it right away,” Roche said. “Honestly, I think you’ll be fine on your own in the outer area of the Sea of Trees. That was a pretty impressive fight, and I could really feel your strength. But just remember that people with that kind of strength have a tendency to put themselves in danger. I’ve only survived as long as I have thanks to my allies. They were around to stop me when I didn’t know when to quit. It’s happened plenty of times. Finding allies that can match your skills probably won’t be easy, but at least think about it before you go to the Sea of Trees.”

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t know how to respond, but I at least appreciated that he cared.

“No problem, I’ve just been in the business for a while and I thought I could offer some advice. Besides, I hate to see someone die young because they weren’t more cautious. Especially if it was someone who saved my life before. If I were a bit younger, maybe I would’ve gone with you, but I think I’d just be a burden nowadays.”

“Really?”

Roche stretched his shoulders and sighed. “I got close to A Rank back in the day, but now a goblin knight can take me off guard and nearly kill me. You healed that wound for me, so you should know.”

I did remember that, but apparently this meant that Roche used to be B Rank. “When you introduced yourself, I seem to remember you said that you were C Rank,” I said.

“My whole party stepped down from B to C. Not many folks do that, but if you’ve got a good reason, you can drop your rank at any time if you do the paperwork. My problem is that I was too reckless when I was younger and got injured a whole bunch of times, so I can’t move like I used to. These last few years in particular, my old age has really killed my stamina. I can handle myself in short spurts, but if I had to fight as much as you would in the Sea of Trees, I’d get worn down pretty quickly.

“I wasn’t even sure about getting to A Rank at some point, and my allies realized it’d be dangerous to keep taking jobs that I wasn’t feeling so confident about. In the end, we gave up on getting to A Rank. Then we dropped down to C Rank because it seemed like a good idea to commit and give up any hope of getting there. Wait, what am I talking about?” Roche said and bashfully scratched his cheek. “Anyway, that’s what happened. We decided to use the time we have left to train the next generation and save up money for retirement.”

I guess that was a choice some adventurers had to make, but it sounded kind of sad. “By the way, Roche, do you know a lot about the Sea of Trees of Syrus?”

“I wouldn’t say a lot. I’ve been there a few times, though.”

“Then you have some experience, at least. Could you tell me more about it?”

“Sure, but aren’t you from there?”

“Well, I hardly interacted with the other villagers there. It was usually my grandparents who spoke to them when they were alive, and I left the village soon after they passed away.”

“I see. That’s understandable. If I were a parent, I wouldn’t want my kid getting accustomed to a place like that. Oh, sorry, not trying to insult your home.”

“I don’t have any attachment to anything there aside from my grandparents, so I don’t mind. I just wonder what you mean by that. What does it seem like to someone from the outside?”

“Well, to put it simply, people from the Sea of Trees think that strength is everything. It’s dangerous territory, so strength is in high demand, and powerful adventurers are praised. You see some of that everywhere, but the Sea of Trees goes too far with it. For example,” Roche said and pointed to the campground, “everyone’s camping there, but if this territory had dangerous monsters instead of poison bugs, how do you think that’d be?”

“We would probably have to put all of our energy into protecting the students.”

“Right. Now what would happen if we abandoned the students in that situation?”

“I don’t especially want to think about that, but I imagine it would be tragic.”

“At the relay points meant for adventurers, there are a fair number of merchants and artisans that buy materials off adventurers, sell supplies, and repair equipment. Without them, it’d be harder for adventurers to do their job. They support us. And with their support, adventurers strive to defend these locations. So really, we should all be seen as equals,” Roche muttered, then paused before he continued. “But over time, the power dynamics between the protectors and the protected there have become distorted. The strong have the glory, while the weak can’t survive without protection. We haven’t been there in about a decade, but it was like that all over the place. Some people who live there for a while start to get that attitude as well.”

“And then what?”

“People will turn a blind eye to their cruelty in the Sea of Trees, but it’s generally frowned upon in the outside world. They start to have problems once they leave. I hear some of those people get fed up and just return to the Sea of Trees. Also, since they’ll accept some bad behavior as long as you’re strong, the place tends to attract some nasty adventurers.”

Whether they were poorly behaved, virtually criminals, or unable to get jobs at other guilds for whatever reason, they would be welcomed in the Sea of Trees as long as they had the skills for the job. Their views were so different from those immediately outside the forest that it was like a completely different culture.

“I’d go there for work, but I wouldn’t want to raise any kids there. When I heard you were from there, I was kind of shocked. You must’ve had a pretty wonderful family.”

“Thank you.”

I was a little disappointed after the match, but I ended up getting some good advice. I didn’t know if I could live up to Roche and the guildmaster’s hopes, but I decided to at least look into forming a party when I got back home.