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

Chapter 4 Episode 6: Invited to the Training Meetup

A few days later, when we got back to Gimul and headed to the adventurer’s guild to report our success, a meeting was immediately held.

“I’m sorry about the wait,” said Worgan. “I’ve heard the general details through messages from Ryoma. I’m glad you all made it back in one piece. Now, can you give me a more detailed report?”

Asagi began to describe the events. His report went over only what was necessary and was easy to follow. Worgan had the occasional question, but it took no more than ten minutes for him to finish. Then we were given permission to leave, aside from me.

“Oh, sorry, Ryoma, could you stay for a bit?” Worgan told me.

I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t say no to the guildmaster. Worgan and I were the only ones in the meeting room.

“Hold on a sec, I know I put it somewhere around here.”

The sound of flipping through pages of documents was the only noise in the room.

“Here we are! This is it. Since you got back sooner than expected, you should be able to send an application in time. Interested in participating?”

He handed me a document that described a training meetup for new adventurers. According to this, it would start in the morning five days from now, and it would last five days. The training would involve camping skills that were crucial for any adventurer. It would take place somewhere called the Poison Bug Plains. The bottom of the document served as an application form. If I just wrote my name and turned it in, I could join.

There wasn’t anything strange about that in itself, but this was an application for teachers, not for students.

“Look, it’s about camping, and it’s for newbies at that. Not like you’ll be going to a frigid mountain or anywhere that harsh, and you’ve lived in the forest for years. What have you got to learn?”

“Fair enough. Is that why you want me to teach instead?”

“There is that, but I think this job could also help you in the long run.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re planning to raise your rank before you go to the Sea of Trees of Syrus, right? Adventurer ranks aren’t just determined by power. If you proactively take jobs like this, it’ll make raising your rank a little easier.”

“Huh, is that so?”

“Of course, you need enough skill to actually teach. As an organization, we need our weaker members to grow. Anyone who goes out of their way to help with that cause will get some preferential treatment. You’re tough enough to move up the ranks, to be sure, but your age is an obstacle. You’re just too young. You also need to get to C Rank to enter the Sea of Trees, and you see a lot of adventurers give up and retire before they get there. Most folks who make it to C Rank only make it after years of work. If you want to move up quickly, you should take jobs like this.”

“I see.”

“And as you move up the ranks, you get access to more difficult, more dangerous jobs. There’ll be more jobs you can’t take without a party, so you’ll probably have to team up with people you don’t know sometimes. There’s something I’ve been wondering ever since you first joined the guild. You just love to do things on your own, right? It’s not that you don’t get along with groups, is it? You’ve teamed up with Asagi’s group twice, and Miya’s three times. Everyone’s got a good impression of you. Maybe you think it’s more annoying to work with a party, but I know you’re capable of doing it when you want to. I just think you should get a bit more accustomed to working in teams sooner than later. And that should include people you don’t already know.”

“And you think this job will be perfect for that?”

“I sure do. These makeshift parties you might have to work with will usually put whoever has the highest rank in charge. You seem like you could make it to a pretty high rank, but it’d be a pity if you made it that far and found you’re not cut out to be a leader.”

This was a personal recommendation from the guildmaster, and there was something in it for me, so I figured I’d give it a shot, as much as it wasn’t my thing.

“Understood. I’ll take the job. But these documents only state the location and the dates. Are there other teachers?”

I felt like we should discuss how to approach the lessons in advance.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ll meet them the morning before you start. That’ll be enough.”

From what Worgan told me, this would be somewhat different from what I imagined a training meetup to be. First, the students would join either as individuals or with their party. They would prepare for the trip on their own, then meet up with the teachers to leave town together. But the students wouldn’t be sorted into groups under particular teachers or anything.

“I already picked out someone with tons of experience to lead the whole thing. You’re there to provide support, essentially. Make whatever preparations you need to, and meet up with the group at the specified time. As far as how you’ll be teaching, just set up camp the way you normally would. The other teachers will be instructed to do the same. This can mean either bringing your own tools or using what’s available on site; whatever you want. Seeing what you do up close should be useful to them at some point.”

They wanted us all to do it our own way as a demonstration, apparently.

“You don’t have to go out of your way to advise the students, either. The ones who really want to learn will learn by watching you, and if they ask questions, just answer them. Your main job as a teacher is to ensure their safety. If you see them doing anything too dangerous, then you can intervene to stop them. But if they’d only hurt themselves in a way that can be healed with magic, stand back and let it be a lesson for them.”

This was kind of a fast and loose way to teach. Maybe they even set it up expecting students to fail and hurt themselves. And the role of the teachers was to make sure they didn’t injure themselves permanently. I guess that’d be the best way to make them avoid mistakes down the line. But it sounded like the stakes were higher than for the average teacher.

■ ■ ■

“See you later, Maylene,” I said to the receptionist after I left the meeting room and placed the treant wood in my Dimension Home in the designated area.

“Oh, Ryoma. Here for your reward?”

“That, plus I’m applying for next week’s training meetup. Also, I’d like to buy some information again,” I said and presented my guild card and application.

“If you like information, then here, how’s this?” Maylene asked and grabbed a pamphlet from under the desk. It seemed to have information about the Poison Bug Plains.

“On the off chance you’re looking for information on the Poison Bug Plains before you head there yourself, I thought this would be good. Did I jump to conclusions?”

“No, that’s exactly what I need. But how much information is in this pamphlet?”

“It lists the monsters found in the Poison Bug Plains around this time of year, plus the herbs you can pick, and it contains a simple map with info on the terrain. It was made for this training meetup, so it should have all the information you want,” Maylene said. I trusted her enough to accept that.

“I’ll buy it, then. You can take the cost out of my reward for the treant wood.”

“Thank you for using our services. Would you like to take another job, as long as you’re here?” Maylene asked and took out a list of jobs.

“What’s this?”

“Doing a job in the area is part of the training meetup. All of the students are supposed to take one. The teachers don’t have to, but you’d make a little extra money that way.”

Looking over the list, I found that many of the jobs were about collecting herbs or poison bugs. They were all ingredients for medicine, so that wasn’t strange in itself, but one of the herbs stood out.

“Excuse me, but are the giyamana grass roots supposed to be delivered to the guild in some other town?” I asked.

Giyamana grass was easy to pick once found, but it went bad quickly. After uprooting the plant, you had a day at most to make it into medicine. I didn’t know where the Poison Bug Plains were, but considering the length of the training meetup, it would most likely go bad before I returned to town. The value of giyamana grass after it went bad seemed questionable. The list also included herbs that would have to be processed in some way after being picked, as well as some that were especially difficult to pick. There was even tormack tree bark, which was supposed to be unobtainable this season. It was a type of bark used in medicine which naturally peeled off at the start of spring, and that was when it was meant to be harvested. It could be stripped from the tree now, but it would lack most of the desired medicinal properties.

“Right, I forgot to tell you something. Lend me your ear,” Maylene said and leaned over the counter, her beautiful face drawing near to me. “I can’t really say this out loud, but some items on this list are traps meant for the students. If they properly collect information in advance, they’ll either know how to complete the task or know that it can’t be completed. But if they slack off, they’re sure to fail. That failure won’t be left on their records, though.”

“Oh, I get it. Do the guilds do things this way all the time?”

“That’s not an easy question to answer. Every guild does training meetups, but environments differ by location, and the guidelines are decided by guilds on a local level. Some probably do the same thing as us, but there are also some which provide month-long lessons in classrooms instead. It just comes down to who’s in charge of the department, I guess. The guildmaster came up with the plans for this meetup, by the way.”

That reminded me that I was ambushed during my registration test too. It all made sense.

“I’m allowed to tell this to the teachers, but please keep it a secret from the students.”

“Understood. Also, I’m going to refrain from taking any jobs this time. I can pay more attention to the students that way.”

“Sounds good. Here’s your reward for a job well done. It’s been divvied up between all the members of your party, and the information fee’s been deducted from your portion. Here’s your guild card back.”

“Thank you.”

I took the bag containing my reward money and left the guild.