Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Meanwhile, the Apprentices... Part 1

On the outskirts of Maalt, there was a large manse situated with a sizable estate. This belonged to the Latuule family, and currently, there were three individuals in the garden. From the way two of them were engaging in strenuous exercise with the third standing nearby observing, it was obvious that they were undergoing some manner of training.

As for who these individuals were...the overseer was Isaac, a servant of the Latuule family, and the other two were Rina and Alize.

“That should be enough. You may rest.”

The two girls immediately dropped to the ground at Isaac’s words, panting heavily.

“Can’t...breathe...”

“I’m...exhausted...”

From the pair’s appearance, it was clear that they were truly worn out. However, as Isaac studied them and stroked his chin, he said, “But we’re only just getting started...”

Rina and Alize immediately went pale.

“Just kidding,” Isaac said, laughing. “Your persistence is quite admirable for a novice, Rina—and as for Alize, I’m impressed by your willpower, given your age. To tell you the truth, I thought you two would wear yourselves out a lot faster than you did. If you continue at this rate, I’m certain you’ll become fine adventurers one day.”

The girls relaxed in relief.

At first, Isaac had mainly provided them with magic instruction, but as time went on his lessons had naturally progressed to include the martial arts as well.

While there were various different methods of casting magic, the most common one was manipulating one’s internal mana to sustain the casting, and this was what Rina and Alize were learning. The other methods involved making use of the ambient mana in one’s surroundings or drawing from the mana stored in an object—but at the end of the day, the most fundamental approach was using your own.

However, an individual’s mana was a finite resource; casting too many spells would cause it to run out. And while it would recover naturally with time, it usually took several hours for one’s levels to return to normal.

As such, since running out of mana had left Rina and Alize with a good deal of idle time, they decided to use that time to learn how to fight. At first, they’d simply repeated the basic exercises and forms they’d learned from Rentt, but once Isaac saw them, he began providing them with advice.

Rina and Alize were both the type of people who had no problem submitting to another’s instruction, and they knew from Isaac’s magic lessons that he was quite skilled, so they were more than happy to accept his guidance.

Eventually, Isaac started to suspect that they were growing bored of practicing sword swings over and over again, so he added more exercises to their training regimen. These days, they capped off their training sessions with a sparring session against Isaac himself. Overall, Rina and Alize’s capabilities had improved considerably ever since Rentt and Lorraine had departed from Maalt.

However, Rina and Alize themselves did not realize how much better they’d gotten. This was because in their sparring against Isaac, it always took them around the same time to lose. Naturally, since it would be a problem if this demotivated them, he made sure to sprinkle in regular compliments at appropriate times during their training.

There was a limit to how much good that could do, however, and evidently that limit had been reached.

“Have I actually gotten any stronger...?”

Rina’s murmur had been a truly quiet thing, meant for herself and spoken so softly that almost nobody would have been able to overhear—but the keen senses afforded to Isaac by virtue of being a vampire allowed him to catch it. In fact, his hearing was so sharp that he was able to notice a pin drop anywhere on the entire estate, if he so wished. Rina’s quiet monologue was no effort at all.

Isaac could not leave this matter be, of course, so he spoke up. “Rina.”

“Oh, um, yes?”

“This is merely a suggestion, but why don’t you try accepting a solo job? Doing so every now and again might help to break the monotony of just training all the time.”

As of late, Rina’s mind had been entirely occupied with looking out for Alize after Rentt and Lorraine had left her in her care. She had hardly accepted any commissions at all, and the ones she did take were all minor jobs like cleaning up around Maalt. She’d avoided any that involved heading to the dungeon or required traveling outside of town. This was not out of any dislike for jobs like that, but rather because Rina was so delighted to have her very own, first-ever apprentice—of sorts, anyway—that she was practically inseparable from Alize and wanted to spend every day supervising her.

As such, Rina’s response was...

“But...”

Her next words would likely have been “I can’t leave town because I need to look after Alize”—or yet more likely “I want to look after Alize”—but the young girl in question cut in first.

“You should go, Rina! Don’t worry about me! Didn’t you mention that you’re tight on money these days anyway?”

“Huh? Did I?”

Rina had been low on coin recently, as a matter of fact. Compared to how she’d been in the past, the types of commissions she was able to take had broadened considerably, and her skill at identifying herbs had improved to the point where she didn’t have to go on long forays outside of town to find and pick what she needed. As a result, she was a long way away from needing to live on her day-to-day earnings like she had always done in the past.

However, Rina’s finances were still not ample enough that she could purchase any luxuries without a degree of uneasiness, and if she did not take a proper, well-paying monster-slaying job on occasion, she would end up penniless. Currently, her coin purse was nearing empty. She had no memory of mentioning this to Alize, but she must have muttered about it to herself or something while the girl had been around.

Ultimately, if it came down to it, Rina had no issue with camping outside. With her current body, the darkness of the night was actually soothing, and if anybody attacked her she could use Splintering to make her escape. However, if she did that, there was a chance that vampire hunters could catch wind and come sniffing around. She couldn’t use any of her vampiric abilities in town so frivolously. Though Rina knew from Rentt and Isaac that she apparently wouldn’t be judged a proper vampire even if she was found out, there was no need to take unnecessary risks. As such, camping outside...wasn’t the best option. Perhaps it really was about time she went out and took a hunting job.

Given all that, Rina decided to heed Alize’s words.

“Hmm...all right. If you say so, Alize. But make sure you stick to your training properly while I’m away, okay? No cutting corners.”

Alize nodded. “Mm-hmm! Of course!”

“There should be no issue in that regard,” Isaac added. “Don’t worry—I will watch over Alize as long as she’s here. Will you be taking your leave for the day then, Rina? If you plan to accept a commission tomorrow, then I imagine you must have some preparations to make.”

“Yeah, I probably should,” Rina agreed. “Alize...?”

“I’ll head home after a little more training.”

“Yeah? Okay, then. Do your best. And take care of her, Isaac.”

“I shall—to the best of my ability.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“There,” Isaac murmured after Rina had left. “That should go a ways toward helping her regain her confidence.”

“I kind of already realized, but she really has lost it recently, hasn’t she?” Alize asked.

“Indeed. Likely that’s because she feels that she hasn’t improved by much. I would worry for you too, Alize, but it seems that you don’t share the same doubts.”

“It’s because I do chores at the orphanage every day. That usually takes a lot out of me, but recently I haven’t been feeling tired at all. I figured that meant I’d gained some stamina.”

“I see. I suppose Rina must feel the way she does because doesn’t have a benchmark like that to measure her progress against. Her training’s a good deal harsher than yours, so I believe she goes straight to sleep after she returns to her room at the inn.”

“You...can be really merciless once in a while, Isaac.”

“Ha ha. I’m always merciless.”

“Huh? Really? But when we’re just talking like this, you’re so kind. And cool! I bet you wouldn’t have any trouble finding a wife if you wanted.”

“As a servant of the Latuule family, I am occupied with my duties...but enough of that topic for now. Let us return to your training. Since you called me merciless, I’ll be pushing you a little harder than usual, all right?”

Alize groaned, before reluctantly saying, “Okay...I’ll do my best.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“A commission, huh...?”

Although Isaac had suggested that she take one, Rina still felt hesitant. It wasn’t because she was afraid of the work or anything. Far from it, in fact: with all the training she had been doing recently, she quite strongly wanted to accept a pile of jobs so she could really feel like an adventurer again.

Nevertheless, she was dragging her feet because she was convinced that her abilities hadn’t actually improved. It would be a different story if her party members Raiz and Lola were with her, but they were still recuperating. Injuries caused by vampires harmed the spirit as well as the body, so it was going to take a little more time for them to make a full recovery. Still, it would also be detrimental if they stayed cooped up all the time, so every few days, they met up and took a simple job together. Nothing more than that, though.

If Rina was going to accept a proper commission, she’d have to do it alone, or work with people other than Raiz and Lola.

When she arrived at the guild, she stood in front of the commission board. As an adventurer, the only jobs she could accept were of the lowest rank, rated for Iron-classers like herself. If she’d been with Raiz and Lola, their party could also accept Bronze-class jobs, because those two had passed the Bronze-class Ascension Exam—with Rentt, in fact.

When it came to Rina by herself, however...

Well, she didn’t have enough merit to her name that she could accept that level of job yet. She needed to put in the work first.

In Rina’s mind, since she had gone on Bronze-class jobs before—albeit with a party—she’d thought the guild would let her attempt the Ascension Exam, but they were strict about that. It was fairly easy to sign up for the Bronze-class exam in the royal capital, though, so maybe that was more of a Maalt thing.

If it was just Maalt, there was always the option of going to the royal capital to take the exam there, but that then raised the question of whether or not she could actually pass it, and she was uncertain in that regard. But perhaps “uncertain” was underselling it; in truth, since she couldn’t have any confidence in her own abilities at all at the moment, she reached the conclusion that she would likely fail.

In the end, her only option really was just to put in slow and steady effort.

“You should have more confidence in yourself, Rina.”

Isaac had said that during training. However, Rina thought that compared to herself in the past, she had gained a degree of confidence in her own abilities. It was just that everyone around her was so skilled and amazing.

Rentt Faina, skilled in not just combat and adventuring, but pretty much everything else too.

Lorraine Vivie, who was first class as both a mage and a scholar.

Isaac, who despite firmly proclaiming himself to be a simple servant of the Latuule family, was skilled enough in combat that he could easily wipe the floor with Rentt and Lorraine combined.

Laura Latuule, whose sheer presence even when asleep possessed unfathomable gravitas.

Alize, who despite her age was improving her command over magic at a rate much faster than Rina had when she’d started.

No matter who Rina compared herself to, she found herself coming up short. She didn’t think anyone could blame her for thinking that way—though she did realize that her point of view was a bit overly pessimistic, so she tried not to let it get her down too badly. Nevertheless, she still felt some resistance to being told that she should have more confidence. She didn’t think she deserved that.

“Are you perhaps unsure which commission you should take?”

When Rina turned to see who had spoken to her, she was met with a woman she knew: Sheila Ibarss, an employee of the Maalt guild and someone who was aware of Rentt’s secret. Rina had also heard that the guildmaster Wolf knew about it as well, but she hadn’t discussed the matter with either of them yet. The opportunity simply hadn’t come up, and there was a time and place for such things.

However, Rina was fairly sure Sheila knew about her “situation” too. From the look of things, Sheila had come over out of concern for her.

“Oh, Sheila—um, no, it isn’t that I can’t pick...”

“Hmm? Is that so? But you’ve been standing here staring at the commission board for quite a while now.”

“I just had something on my mind... It’s not a big deal, though. I mean, you know how amazing Rentt and Lorraine are, right? I suddenly found myself thinking about where I stood in comparison to them, and, well...”

Sheila nodded in understanding. “They have been particularly impressive as of late, haven’t they? But that reminds me—they’ve been teaching you, right?”

Rina’s relationship to the pair could perhaps be most strongly defined by her special status of being Rentt’s vampiric kin, but there was no doubt that she was also his disciple, and he was her instructor. From the uncertain way that Sheila had asked, it appeared the latter fact hadn’t left a strong impression on her, but it wasn’t as though she’d forgotten entirely. Even if it had slipped her mind, it would have been entirely reasonable to have done so: guild employees heard hundreds of minor tidbits of information like that one every day. Perhaps Sheila was the type to genuinely just remember them all.

Rina realized that her admiration must have shown on her face, because Sheila tilted her head slightly to the side.

“Is something on my face?” she asked.

“No...I was just thinking that when it comes to amazing people, you certainly count too.”

Sheila’s eyes widened and she hurriedly began shaking her head. “Oh, no, not at all! I’m really quite ordinary, so please don’t count me in with the likes of them! In fact, Rina, I would say that you’re more—oh! But I didn’t mean that in a bad way, of course!”

By “bad way,” she likely meant that she hadn’t wanted to imply that she felt negatively about vampires. Rina knew this already from the way that Sheila hardly treated Rentt any differently despite knowing what he was. Part of that was because she knew him, though—it seemed unlikely that Sheila had any particular fondness for the random vampires out there prowling the world.

Come to think of it...would Laura and Isaac fall into that prowling vampire category? Did Sheila know about them?

Rina resolved to confirm that kind of thing more thoroughly with Rentt when she next got the chance.

“No, I’m the normal person...I think,” she said. “An acquaintance of mine has been kind enough to train me recently, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any stronger. It makes me wonder if I’m really doing the best that I can...and that’s actually the reason I’m here today. They suggested that I come and accept a commission.”

After Rina bared her worries and frustration to Sheila, she nodded firmly. “I see...so that’s why you were standing here looking so distracted. Very well. If you don’t mind, could you wait here? I’ll be right back.”

Then, she ran off somewhere.

◆◇◆◇◆

After a short while had passed...

“Sorry for the wait,” Sheila said, returning.

“It’s fine. I don’t mind,” Rina replied. “Where did you go?” She didn’t think that Sheila had any particular business with her, so she was curious as to what the guild employee had gone off to do.

“I was going through the commissions to find the perfect one for you, of course. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but not all of them get posted to the board. Some just haven’t been fully inspected, while others have specifications about the kinds of adventurers they want.”

So she was looking for something to give me. Sheila’s explanation wasn’t entirely new to Rina; she had heard about something along those lines before. By “inspection,” Sheila was talking about the procedures that the guild used to check whether or not it could accept the commission at all, whether the client had set an appropriate reward for the job, and whether it was designated as the appropriate difficulty, among other factors.

As for specifying what kinds of adventurers could take the job, that often involved requesting that candidates fit into certain categories, such as age, gender, and whether they were a swordsman, a mage, or some other profession—among other things. It could get quite specific.

Since not just anybody could take these commissions, most of the time it was up to the guild employees to pick out suitable adventurers and ask them about the job—or at least, that was what Rina had heard.

Still, as a greenhorn adventurer, Rina didn’t have much to do with that kind of thing. Only Bronze-classers and above were picked by guild employees for those jobs, so she had never really paid them any mind.

Despite this, it seemed that Sheila wanted to show one such commission to Rina right now.

“Are you sure...?” Rina asked. “I’m still just Iron-class...”

“It’s a common misconception, but not every commission that isn’t posted on the board has class requirements,” Sheila explained. “It’s not a rule that Iron-classers can’t take them. It’s just that jobs which seem like they’d result in a dispute if given to an Iron-class go to Bronze-classers instead—and if the same problem crops up at that rank, then it gets passed to Silver-class, and so on and so forth. They’re...well, they’re not the easiest jobs to handle.”

Upon hearing that, Rina only grew more worried. She had a hard enough time completing most of the normal commissions she took...would she even be able to handle one like that?

“There...probably weren’t any jobs that I’m qualified for, right?” Once Sheila confirmed that there weren’t, all Rina had to do was go back to the board and pick one that seemed relatively doable. Whichever one I select would definitely be easier than any of the unposted jobs. Sheila really should have just hurried up and gotten that over with to begin with, Rina thought.

However, Rina’s expectations were overturned when Sheila said nonchalantly, “There were, actually, which is why I came back over.” She paused. “Why do you look so dismayed...? I know I might have made it sound a little intimidating, but there’s no need to be so fretful. If it’s you, everything will be fine.”

As Sheila encouraged the uncertain Rina, she handed over papers with the details of the commissions she had picked out. There were two, which caused Rina to tilt her head in confusion.

“Two...?” she asked.

“I thought it would be best if you had a choice. And with only two, there’s not too much to decide, right?”

“Thank you...”

Rina was on the verge of tears at Sheila’s kindness, but pulled herself together—crying would be far too pitiful—and studied the two sheets of paper, comparing them.

At the end of the day, Rina earned her bread as an adventurer, which meant that at times like these, she considered her options seriously.

One job involved serving as a porter for a Bronze-class adventurer who needed someone to carry their things for them during a delve into the Water Moon Dungeon. Since the client was a Bronze-classer, they apparently wanted an adventurer of the same rank, if possible. In any case, their goal was to do a preliminary exploration of the Water Moon Dungeon, and they would be grateful for the help.

Although the job seemed promising, it was slated to last for three days, during which they would have to camp inside the Water Moon Dungeon. That was not an easy ask by any means, which is probably why it hadn’t been posted on the board.

Mentally, Rina discounted the job for the most part. While she had no problem with taking a three-day job, she wasn’t confident that she could handle herself for such a long time in a dungeon. There were safe zones where monsters didn’t appear of course, and those would be the places they made camp, but it was still no good. She had to gather more experience in dungeons before she attempted a job like that...

With that option eliminated, she studied the second commission: a merchant’s request for a bodyguard. The client was a young woman, and she had specified that she wished to hire a female adventurer.

The plan the merchant described in the commission details was to visit several villages around Maalt, where she would sell various necessities that people needed for their daily lives. Then, she would use the money to purchase local specialties and bring them back to Maalt, where she would sell them at the marketplace. The scheduled length of this commission was also three days, and from the route described on the paper, they wouldn’t be traveling through any areas with any particularly strong monsters.

That did not discount the possibility of something unforeseen happening, of course, such as a powerful monster that shouldn’t have been there suddenly showing up in the area. However, if worries like those were enough to stop an adventurer from taking a commission, then none of them would ever accept any work at all. Wanting a guaranteed degree of safety was one thing, but get greedy for anything more and you’d never make it in the adventuring business. After all, risking danger was quite literally part of the job description. It was natural to avoid it where you could, but that didn’t mean you could run from it entirely.

The conditions of the job also seemed promising: lodgings during the journey were provided at the client’s expense, and the pay was fairly decent.

“Have you decided which one you’d like?” Sheila asked.

Rina nodded, handed the papers back, and indicated the latter one. “I’m thinking of accepting this job.”

“All right. Hmm, I agree that this is probably the better choice. And since the female client wants a female adventurer, you’d be doing the guild a favor by accepting it too...”

It was often said that the profession of adventuring did not discriminate when it came to gender, but it was the truth that there were more male adventurers than female ones—something that was perhaps only natural, in a certain sense.

In the end, it boiled down to brute physical strength. While there were many female adventurers who were far stronger than their male counterparts because of the mana or spirit they used to enhance themselves, before such factors came into play, the truth of the matter was that the profession was just not especially appealing to many women. When it came to swordsmanship, the majority of the people who knocked on the doors of training halls and academies were male. That wasn’t the case for magic, but mages in and of themselves were far rarer, and thus only made for a small percentage of adventurers as a whole.

As such, female adventurers were well worth their weight in coin—especially if they were unusually competent. If Rina were to be asked whether she should be counted as one of those valuable individuals, she would shake her head and deny it, but she was also just glad to be helpful when she was needed.

A short time elapsed, during which Sheila brought the commission over to the reception desk and completed the necessary procedures for Rina to accept it.

“There you go,” Sheila said. “The job’s now yours. Since the time of departure is up to the adventurer, you should meet with the client today and inform her that you’ve accepted the job, as well as discuss any preparations.”

“Got it!” Rina replied cheerfully. “I’ll go right away!”

Sheila watched her go as she departed the guild. “The client is a little fussy...” she murmured to herself. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine. Probably...”

These ominous words did not reach Rina’s ears.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I hope it’s not someone strange again...” Dorothea muttered.

Dorothea Merrow was a merchant, and she was currently lying on the bed in the room she had booked at an inn, staring at a stain on the ceiling that vaguely resembled a person’s face. As for what she meant by “strange,” she was referring to the male adventurer she had hired as a bodyguard a month ago at the guild in the provincial town of Zahak, to the west of Maalt.

Like all merchants, Dorothea’s work was closely intertwined with the individuals known as adventurers. Merchants made their livelihoods by traveling from city to city and village to village, selling daily necessities, stocking up on local specialties, and selling them for a profit. As such, the most vital factor in their work was the safety of the roads they traveled.

The results of their trade were vital too, naturally, but a dead merchant obviously could not enjoy the fruits of their labor.

While there were a few high-stakes daredevils who risked their lives for the promise of great wealth each time they set out, Dorothea, at the very least, was not one such individual. She would not go so far as to say that she would never consider such a venture—she knew that one had to take chances like that at least once in one’s lifetime—but for better or worse, she was not currently faced with an opportunity that forced her to make that decision, and neither did one seem to be coming her way anytime soon.

Right now, her plan was to earn a slow but steady profit, save up a decent amount of capital, and eventually own her own store in a decently sized city. Everything else she could deal with afterward.

This goal was what had driven her to set off on her own as a merchant independent from her father, who was of the same profession, two years prior. She had put a lot of hard work into her goals—none of which had prevented her from running into trouble just the other day.

The male adventurer she had hired a month ago had looked down on her, his client, for being a woman, and had raised his fees accordingly. Under normal circumstances, that would be grounds for canceling the commission outright. However, he had only broached the topic halfway through their scheduled journey, meaning canceling then and there would have directly led to Dorothea’s life being at risk. As such, she’d had no choice but to agree to his terms.

Upon the completion of the job, Dorothea had lodged a complaint with the guild, but—to everybody except the adventurer’s chagrin—since she had formally agreed to his terms and he had followed all the correct procedures, the guild’s hands were tied when it came to doling out any kind of punishment.

Thinking back, the man had been oddly specific and detailed about the exact terms of the commission before they had departed. As it had turned out, after discussing the potential cases where his fee would be raised and putting that into writing with her, he had taken that to the guild and informed them of their “agreement” prior to their departure, twisting his words when she wasn’t around to object.

After that, Dorothea had then figured her next option was to bring her complaints to the man himself—but before she had even realized that was what she needed to do, he had already skipped town and was nowhere to be found.

The only conclusion Dorothea could draw was that he had planned all of this from the start. In a way, the adventurer had actually done an excellent job for what he’d set out to do.

Needless to say, the whole situation was exceedingly irritating. However, left with no other recourse, all Dorothea had been able to do was write it off as a stroke of bad luck and move on.

Of course, in her two years as an independent merchant, she had weathered similar trials before. Many, in fact—and because of that, she thought that she was cautious when it came to watching out for such tricks. Unfortunately, this time around, the result showed that she just had not been cautious enough.

Dorothea recalled the words her father had given her when she had told him that she wanted to go independent, mumbling them under her breath.

“‘It’s a difficult thing for a woman to be a merchant’...”

Now, Dorothea knew what he had really meant by those words—he hadn’t been trying to stop her at all. But that was what she’d thought at the time, and it had resulted in a quarrel. In the end, she had left home on bad terms with her father, and had not been back ever since.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him. The truth was, she didn’t think she had the right to face him after what she’d done. When her father had said what he’d said, he had been talking about how female merchants faced trouble—just like having their protection fees raised—far more often than a male merchant did.

Dorothea was decently acquainted with a number of male merchants who were her peers, and whenever she spoke to them of her troubles, they would reply with unfortunate stories of their own. However, she experienced them much more frequently than they did, and she’d been cheated out of far more exorbitant amounts of coin.

In the end, people simply looked down on her because she was a woman. That was the conclusion she had been forced to draw, and it was one she wholeheartedly believed. Nevertheless, she had no intention of abandoning her career as a merchant—rather, the adversity only motivated her more.

She wanted to achieve her goals despite—no, because of what she had to go through, and each time she ran into another such obstacle, those feelings of hers only strengthened. Furthermore, just because she had gone through a rough time didn’t mean she couldn’t learn from it.

Still, that didn’t mean she was exactly in the mood to hire a male adventurer for her very next job, which was why she had asked for a fellow woman to accompany her. Dorothea knew that there were far fewer of them around compared to their male counterparts, and that meant it wasn’t feasible to make this a regular habit. If she wanted to smoothly keep to her sales schedules, she could not make unreasonable demands.

However, given everything, for this particular foray, she was prioritizing her own peace of mind.

There was no guarantee that female adventurers wouldn’t try to pull something on her either, though. A merchant’s worries were inexhaustible. As such, all Dorothea could do was pray that someone decent would come along—hence the words she had muttered to herself alone in her room.

Then, there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Dorothea called out, sitting up and moving over to the edge of her bed.

The door opened to reveal one of the inn’s staff. “You have a guest, ma’am. She claims she’s an adventurer who accepted your commission...”

So she’s arrived.

This time, Dorothea resolved to be meticulous with her negotiations so that she did not end up being cheated. Bracing herself for the struggle to come, she stood up and made her way down to the hall on the first floor of the inn that served as a dining room and rest area.

Here goes nothing.

◆◇◆◇◆

Dorothea headed toward the hall feeling as though she was about to face down a ferocious monster, but was quite surprised by what awaited her when she arrived. That was because the hall, which was furnished with numerous sets of tables and chairs, was only occupied by a single person.

That sole person had to be the individual who had accepted Dorothea’s commission. But, well...

There was no getting around the fact that she was clearly younger than even Dorothea herself.

Immediately upon seeing her, the girl seemed to infer that Dorothea was her client. She stood up from her chair and walked over.

“Um, pardon me, but would you happen to be Dorothea Merrow?” she asked with a smile.

Dorothea desperately forced the frozen cogs of her mind to begin spinning again. “Y-Yes, I am... Did you...accept the job I listed?”

“I did! My name is Rina Rupaage, and I’m an Iron-class adventurer. It’s a pleasure to meet you—and to be working for you!”

◆◇◆◇◆

An Iron-class adventurer.

Dorothea’s first reaction was surprise. The commission she had listed involved bodyguard work for her merchant caravan, which by necessity required a certain degree of ability.

More specifically, in this case, “ability” really meant “strength.” Given the route that Dorothea planned to take, she needed her bodyguard to be a Bronze-class adventurer at least, and she had made sure that was clear to the guild when she’d submitted her commission.

Then again, now that she thought back on it, her exact words had been closer to something like “anyone weaker and I would feel uneasy.” The guild employee had also said that they would take her requests into consideration and make the appropriate adjustments where necessary. They’d also explained that since Dorothea wanted to prioritize a female adventurer, there was a chance that her desired class wouldn’t be available.

Dorothea hadn’t been keen on that, but she had agreed to the terms. In short, since there hadn’t been any suitable Bronze-class female adventurers around, this girl had taken the job. To be perfectly honest, Dorothea didn’t mind that at all—but she did think the job might prove difficult for a single Iron-classer.

Still, for all that it could be haphazard and easygoing at times, the guild would never send out someone truly incapable of completing the job they had taken. Considering that, Dorothea wondered if this girl was actually pretty tough. It wasn’t as though class was always a completely accurate representation of an adventurer’s strength, and there were plenty of capable individuals whose classes just hadn’t caught up to them yet. After all, if they didn’t make the express effort to go out, build themselves a good record, and then undertake the Ascension Exams, their class wouldn’t go up.

Perhaps this girl was one such individual. Then again, she really did just look like a regular girl...

Maybe I should turn her down...?

Dorothea’s doubts must have reflected in her eyes, because the girl was quick to speak.

“Um, I’m sorry...” the girl said, a little self-deprecatingly. “I guess you wouldn’t really feel safe with me, right? I get that.”

For some reason, the girl’s—Rina’s—lack of confidence made Dorothea rather angry. It wasn’t Rina herself that irritated her, though. As someone for whom being belittled and having her abilities questioned was a daily occurrence, Dorothea saw herself in Rina.

Then, Dorothea had a sudden realization: When I’m face-to-face with customers and business partners, I act just like this. That’s why they look down on me.

Even though none of that should ever matter—it wasn’t gender or age that was important, but what you were capable of.

And the same applies to adventuring classes.

“No, that isn’t it,” Dorothea said, spurred on by that thought. “I was just surprised. You’re much younger and more delicate-looking than I’d expected. While I’d be lying if I said I’m not uneasy...the guild sent you because they believe you can fulfill the terms of my commission, right? In that case, it’s fine.”

Some of Dorothea’s irritation leaked out into her tone, making her words less polite and more brusque than she’d intended. Rina, however, just smiled at her.

“Delicate? Me?” Rina asked. “You know, I haven’t been able to put on any muscle no matter how much I eat recently... And I really want to, so I’ve been eating a lot...”

Dorothea had to stop herself from blurting out, “That’s the part you comment on?!” Instead, she said, “Now you’re making me jealous... I put on everything I eat.”

She was being mostly serious. Perhaps it was because she took her meals at irregular times due to the nature of her work, but it didn’t take much food at all for Dorothea to put on weight. That was a good thing for a merchant, since it meant they could travel for longer on smaller amounts of supplies, but as a woman...well, Dorothea honestly was envious of Rina’s ability to eat whatever she wanted, as much as she wanted, without gaining weight.

“You think...?” Rina asked. “I’d much rather have what I eat end up exactly where I want it to. No matter how hard I try...things are looking pretty bleak...”

Now that she mentioned it, Dorothea couldn’t deny that Rina was a bit on the scrawny side, physically. However, she was still young. Who knew what the future could hold for her? Dorothea was about to tell her that it was early to give up just yet, but Rina spoke before she could.

“Oh, we’ve kind of strayed from the main topic, haven’t we? Um, I came here to discuss the details of the journey we’ll be making. Do you have time right now, Dorothea?”

“S-Sure...” Dorothea replied. She nodded, swept into Rina’s momentum, and the pair sat down at a table.

Dorothea couldn’t get a good read on Rina. At first, she’d thought the girl lacked confidence, but now it seemed that maybe she had the determination to take everything at her own pace. Her intuition, however, did tell her one thing.

Traveling with her seems like it’ll be fun.

◆◇◆◇◆

“...And that’s the rough plan for the route we’ll be taking. As for when we depart, I’d like to go as soon as possible. If it’s okay with you, that would be as early as tomorrow.”

After Dorothea finished laying out the plans she had made for their journey, she waited expectantly for Rina to answer her question. After taking a brief moment to think, the girl did just that.

“I don’t mind leaving tomorrow...but I would suggest taking a detour so that we don’t get close to the area around Tute Mountain. Also, I think using the Radha Highway would be better than using the Farga. The rest of the route seems fine though.” She even suggested some route changes for good measure.

For a moment, Dorothea almost lost her cool, wondering what an amateur would know about trade routes. A part of her assumed that Rina was making unnecessary suggestions to try and show off the fact that she was a proper adventurer.

However, when she took a better look at the girl’s expression, she didn’t see a trace of that jumped-up eagerness. Rina was the picture of composure.

The sight cooled the blood rushing to Dorothea’s head, and she decided to first ask Rina for the reasoning behind her suggestions.

“Can I ask why? Both of those routes are the shortest option for where I want to go, and I’ve used them many times before. If we go with your suggestions, it’ll add a whole half day to the journey.”

Dorothea wasn’t exaggerating in order to shoot down an amateur’s opinion either—that was the plain truth. Furthermore, the longer their journey took, the more risk there was of being attacked by monsters or bandits. It was basic practice to make one’s journey as short as possible.

Rina’s response, however, surprised Dorothea. “That was true up until yesterday,” Rina said. “But not anymore. There’s been a report that harpies have come to roost on Tute Mountain. They do this every year, but they’re a month early this time—likely because of the warm weather we’ve been having. I’m afraid to say that you’d only end up as feed for their hatchlings if you went that way, so it’s best to use a different route. As for the Farga Highway, you know about the bridge that it crosses, right? Apparently, it crumbled, so anyone trying to travel along the highway would be forced to turn back and go around instead. I mean, I’d get paid more in that case, so if you want to do that regardless, I guess I wouldn’t stop you...”

◆◇◆◇◆

Dorothea was frankly astonished by Rina’s explanation. As for the reason she felt that way...

“It’s not that I doubt you...but is that really true? I thought I’d put quite a lot of effort into keeping up with information about my route, and I didn’t hear anything like that.”

While Dorothea was a minor traveling merchant, the sort that you could find anywhere, she was a legitimate member of the merchant’s guild. As such, she also had access to their information network. On top of that, she always made sure to talk with the other merchants around her about any changes in the local area. And even despite all of this effort, she hadn’t heard anything about the information Rina had just given her.

Rina nodded. “It’s probably because the news hasn’t really spread yet. I mean, I only heard it because I talked to the people who live near those areas.”

“‘Those areas’?”

“Yes. People from villages near Tute Mountain and the Farga Highway.”

“How did you...? Don’t tell me you went to the trouble of going all the way out there already?”

“Oh, no, of course not. It’s just, Maalt’s the biggest town in the region, right? People from smaller villages come here every now and again to pick up daily necessities; especially the villages where merchants like you don’t visit often. I see quite a lot of them whenever I go to the market, and at this point, we’re basically like acquaintances who chat every now and again.”

“I see...”

Indeed, only someone based in this specific town could use such a method of gathering information. While Dorothea could certainly talk to those same people if she went to the market, she wouldn’t know who lived where and how much faith she could put in their words. In the end, she’d only end up with information that was of questionable reliability.

However, since Rina was actually based in Maalt and talked to these acquaintances of hers regularly, she could separate the good information from the bad. It wasn’t foolproof, of course, but then again, neither was the information provided by the merchant’s guild.

As if to prove that point, Dorothea then asked, “Can we trust those reports?”

Rina replied, “I can’t say they’re definitely accurate, but I do think they’re trustworthy, yes. Of course, as I said earlier, I’ll go along with whatever you decide, so...”

So the final decision fell to Dorothea. Likely enough, all Rina wanted to do was share knowledge she thought would be necessary.

Hmm. What should I do?

When it came to your everyday merchant, most of them would probably choose to put their faith in what they’d learned from the merchant’s guild and proceed as they’d initially planned. After all, the guild’s information network was tried and tested, and even though it slipped up every now and again, it was fundamentally trustworthy on the whole.

In comparison, an adventurer’s knowledge of the situation could be suspect—though that was really something that had to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes trusting an adventurer’s word had led merchants to rare opportunities and massive fortunes. Other times, it had led them to the exact opposite.

In short, it was all or nothing.

Dorothea knew that she in particular was extremely vulnerable to such gambles. However, at the very least...unlike the adventurer she’d hired a month ago, Rina didn’t seem dishonest to her. In fact, if Rina had only wanted to increase her retainer fee, all she would’ve had to do was keep quiet and proceed with Dorothea’s plan. They would have been forced to turn back and take detours, adding even more days to their journey, which she could have used as grounds to ask for a larger payout. Dorothea wouldn’t even have blamed her for that—in fact, she would have agreed to the increased payment. It was only fair, after all.

However, Rina hadn’t done that.

Doesn’t that mean that I can trust her, then?

That didn’t mean that Dorothea could completely place herself in Rina’s hands, of course, but she could at least place her faith in the information she had provided...right?

“Okay...” Dorothea said. “I’m going to trust you. Let’s alter the route. We’ll take a detour around Tute Mountain and use the Radha Highway.”

Rina’s smile was nothing but honest. “Oh, great! I wasn’t sure if I’d be strong enough to keep you completely safe from a whole harpy flock on my own...”

Now that was a scary thought—one that called a question to Dorothea’s mind. “Just asking, but...what would you have done if I’d chosen to go near Tute Mountain and the harpies had attacked us?”

“I would’ve fought to the best of my ability, of course. Well, to begin with, you can pass by harpies without any issue so long as you don’t kick up a particularly loud fuss...but it’s just a problem of numbers, really. When harpies settle in an area to roost, they form flocks in the hundreds, so there’s a limit to how much I could really do against them alone. I probably could have managed to deliver your final mementos to the merchant’s guild though.”

“Meaning...in a scenario like that, I would die?”

“We probably would’ve chosen to turn back once we saw a huge harpy flock, so I don’t think it would ever have reached that point. But if you had insisted on forcing our way through, I can’t say the possibility is exactly low...”

I suppose you never know where a pitfall might be waiting for you...

Dorothea knew that Rina had nothing to do with that, of course—in fact, it seemed like she would have done her absolute best to protect her. Regardless, Dorothea was certain that if she had run into a flock of harpies, she would have turned back just as Rina had said, so it never would have come to that anyway.

There were merchants out there who would have tried to force their way through, however, which is why Rina had said what she did. The young adventurer knew that there was really nothing to be done for clients like that.

Still, hearing about the possibility of her own death spoken about so casually by a girl who looked like she would never even harm a fly made Dorothea feel as though she had caught a glimpse of what made Rina a true adventurer—someone who was constantly fighting alongside the looming specter of death.

Then, a sudden question occurred to Dorothea. “Come to think of it, when you say you would have delivered my final mementos...were you implying that you were confident you wouldn’t have died?” Taking Rina’s words at face value, that would seem to have been what she was saying.

“I suppose so...” Rina replied. “Yeah, I don’t think I would have died.”

Her casual tone had to imply that she trusted in her own capabilities. If she could be so confident against monsters, then even if she was an Iron-class adventurer...

Well, maybe the guild had sent Dorothea the perfect candidate for her needs after all.

“I see,” she said. “I’m glad we were able to have this discussion. I get the feeling that I’m quite lucky you were the one who accepted my commission.”

“Does that mean...?”

“Yes, consider yourself formally hired. I’m counting on you.”

“Of course! I’ll do my absolute best!”