Sevens (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 100

Chapter 100 – Life in Beim
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One month has passed since we arrived at the Freedom City Beim.

Our days here were fundamentally about accepting and completing quests from the guild for about five days a week.

We had the remaining two days for rest, but──

「Sophia, you cheater!」

「W-what are you talking about?」

──We were learning something new.

Today, all of us traveled to a ranch located outside Beim.

It was possible to learn horse riding using the horses raised in this place.

Aria is a lively girl who was a former noble. It seemed she had experience in horse-riding and was immediately able to skillfully ride a horse.

Sophia saw that and her sense of rivalry was set ablaze.

It seemed Sophia also had experience in horse-riding, but she was less skilled than Aria.

This led to the two of them racing each other on horseback.

At first, Aria was pulling ahead, but Sophia caught up and overtook her.  Aria, her sense of rivalry also set ablaze, spurred her horse onwards

It was the beginning of a heated race.

They repeatedly overtook each other, and before anyone realized it, it became a true race.

At first, Aria had the advantage.  But…

「You used your Arts because it looked like you were about to lose, didn’t you!?」

──Sophia didn’t want to lose and used her Arts.

Sophia’s Arts changed the weight of herself and the thing that she was touching.

Even just lightening her weight would become a great assistance to the horse.

「What are you talking about? Please stop with the false accusations.」

Sophia tried to feign ignorance, but her expression was stiff. It was immediately clear that she was lying.

Aria noticed the lie and her blood rose up to her head. She then used her own Arts too.

「Don’t underestimate me! Even I can accelerate if I use my Arts──e-eh!?」

Aria’s Art was the type that accelerated herself, but it was pointless to use it while she was riding a horse.

Even if she was able to move quickly, it wouldn’t affect the horse at all.

Sophia was laughing.

「Looks like this is my win, Aria!」

「THIS CHEATERRRRR!」

The other party members also laughed seeing Aria’s flustered state.

「Aria is really stupid. Even though her Arts can only make herself move fast.」

Eva, who was already used to riding a horse, looked like she was having fun after not doing this for so long.

Miranda was also the same.

「No, I’d say the both of them are really stupid. Well, let’s just think of it as a good thing that they noticed about their Arts’ quirks during training. Setting that aside, Shannon──it’s no good if you hug the horse like that.」

However, Miranda was responsible for looking after the problem child Shannon.

Shannon was straddling a small pony.  Her body was trembling uncontrollably as she hugged the pony’s neck.

「Because it’s scary mon!」

I turned my gaze away from Shannon and looked toward Clara, who was also riding a horse for the first time. She was receiving instructions from Novem.

「Clara-san, please calm down. Also, straighten your back.」

「Impossible. Impossible! This is absolutely impossible! I-I-I’ll get seriously injured if I fall from here!」

Even though it didn’t really look like it, it felt like you were up high while you were riding a horse

It was a bit scary if you looked down.

The Third was worried for Clara.

『Won’t it be better for Clara-chan to stop before she injures herself? In the first place, is there even any need to learn how to ride a horse because of Porter?  Clara-chan looks pitiful.』

The Seventh remonstrated the Third.

『What’s important is the experience. It’s hard to find the chance for this. Clara should also experience how to ride a horse.』

Clara was normally calm and composed, but right now you could see her trembling on top of a horse.

Her eyes looked tearful and she was talking very loudly. This was really a precious sight.

And then, when I looked at my other companion──at May, the Fifth muttered happily from inside the Jewel.

『Animals are really nice. They heal you, so we should come here every week.』

It was obviously impossible to come here every week.

The Fifth’s voice sounded excited, unlike his usual self.

『Lyle, look at May. She looks like she’s having fun. As I thought, animals are great.』

Horses and other animals were gathering around May.

「H~m, it feels strange for me to ride a horse.」

The horse that May was riding looked nervous. It made me pity it.

May was a qilin. Perhaps the animals were able to sense that?

And then, as for Monica──she was pulling the horse that I was riding.

In her case, it didn’t look like there was any need for her to ride a horse, since she was able to run faster than one.

「Good grief. They’re really noisy. Even so, chicken dickwad, you’re skilled in horse riding. Even though I was hoping that you would be trembling and showed a little bit more of your hopeless to me.」

「──You, what kind of person do you think I am in that head of yours? Although I don’t look like it, I’m still the former heir of a Count house. It was only obvious that I had learned how to ride horse…perhaps.」

I couldn’t remember my past because of Celes stealing my memory, but it did seem like my body knew how to ride a horse.

I had no problem making the horse walk or run.

But I couldn’t ride it as skilled as Aria.

In the first place, Aria was too skilled.

「I finally catch up! Sophia, you won’t get away!」

「How can you catch up even with this!?」

The horse that Aria was riding was catching up to the horse of Sophia who was using Arts.

Aria was really good at horse riding.

It was Miranda who found this facility.

It was a result of her going outside the city and collecting rumors.  She also collected other pieces of information about private schools and dojos.

Eva approached me on her horse.

「It looks like Lyle doesn’t have any problems.」

「I think I need to practice some more though. More importantly, do you need something?」

When I asked her reason for talking to me, Eva rode her horse up next to me.

Eva was also skilled with riding a horse.

「I heard about a rumor before this so I’m thinking I should tell you about it. ──Do you know about Zayin(ザイン)?」

Zayin Theocracy was a country near Beim.

Around Beim was a gathering of small countries that continuously skirmish against one another.

There were adventurers who also worked a side business as a mercenary in order to participate in those skirmishes and earn some money.

Zayin was a relatively large country among the other neighboring countries.

Just a little while ago──or to be more accurate several dozens of years ago, even if it was only called a little while ago in the history books, Zayin snatched some territory from a country called Lorphys(ロルフィス) and became a country that was just a size larger among the smaller countries.

I had heard about that information from Clara, but Eva would be sullen if I mentioned Clara’s name so I elected to stay quiet.

「It’s a country that is categorized as large among the countries surrounding Beim, isn’t it?」

「About that country though, it seems that there’s internal conflict going on there right now.」

「Really?」

「There is no definite proof though. But, there are a lot of suspicious rumors coming from there.」

Was there a civil war going on in Zayin?

Eva had obtained such a story.

The Sixth was starting to plan something bad again in the Jewel.

『A religious country? It sounds a bit troublesome but──it’ll be interesting if we can make use of that conflict well.』

The Third sounded disagreeable to that line of thought.

『Isn’t it impossible for Lyle right now? Even his comrades are few in number, and even if he does start up a mercenary group, it’ll still be far in the future.』

The Sixth sounded disappointed.

『That’s too bad, even though it looks like there’s a chance to take advantage of this.』

──No, even if you talked about taking advantage of a place that was in trouble……

These people were horrible as usual.

But, certainly there might be information that we could use somehow.

「Eva, I have a request.」

「What?」

「Can you gather rumors and information about that Zayin?」

Evan made a delighted expression.

「Oh? Do you have some kind of idea? Got it. I’ll try asking my fellow elves who came from the direction of Zayin. I’ll also talk to Miranda.」

「To Miranda?」

「That girl has several information broker acquaintances after all, so perhaps she has also heard something about this from them.」

「Then I’ll leave it to you.」

We got a lot of results in this one month.

Everyone was really reliable.

.

I talked with the owner of the ranch and entrusted Damian’s Dump Car to him.

I was facing Damian inside the Dump Car.

「H~m, and so you were taking plain jobs as adventurer.」

Damian was drinking an overly sweet coffee. It seemed he was interested in what we were doing.

「Well, I guess that’s fine. After all, it’s important to gather information. But putting that aside, is there no place where we can settle down inside Beim? There are a lot of tools available in Beim, and it’ll make it easier for me if I have a lab inside the city.」

I wanted to listen to Damian’s request, but I too didn’t have that much money right now.

The amount of money I had was a lot from the perspective of an adventurer, but it was necessary to save money right now if we are considering the future.

「Our expenses right now are large, so I’m thinking of saving money for now. We might be able to enter the dungeon after three months. We’re planning to earn money then.」

「If it’s you, Lyle, then you won’t have any problem earning money. But how about going a step further and searching for a merchant patron?」

「Patron, huh? I’m considering it.」

Beim was the city of adventurers──and merchants.

There were a lot of wealthy merchants here who earned immense wealth from trade. It would make it easier for us to take action in Beim if we could get one of them to be our backer.

The problem was about who we should promote ourselves to.

We wouldn’t be able to negotiate unless the other side was interested in us.

The merchant’s disposition would be important too.

We couldn’t join hands with a merchant who would only make use of us until we became useless for him.

「If we’re thinking about the future, then a major merchant will be ideal. But right now when we still don’t have any reputation to speak of, we’re focusing on gathering information.」

Damian looked disappointed.

「It can’t be helped. If Lyle gets a patron than money will also flow to me, so please look for a big company if possible.」

Even if he asked me to provide him funding as though it was only natural──that was troubling.

But, Damian was a genius.

He would develop useful tools for us in the future──perhaps.

「Damian, don’t do anything too reckless, okay?」

「Hahaha! ──I’ll keep it in mind.」

He laughed at first, but then his face turned serious and muttered the rest as he averted my gaze from me.

No good.

This guy would absolutely do something that he was interested in without considering the consequences

The Fourth was thinking seriously about the patron inside the Jewel.

『We have also investigated various things about the merchants, but we have to move very carefully in this matter. I want more information.』

The Seventh was also careful.

『Indeed. We want to avoid getting treated like a disposable tool. After all, merchants are shrewd when it comes to profit. That’ll be even truer when the merchant is a major one.』

In other words, if the merchant thought that we were a drawback──they wouldn’t hesitate to betray us.

The Third was giving a different opinion from those two.

『You two are too careful. But you know, I don’t think we’ll be able to win against Celes if we don’t make use of those kind of people too. Well, I agree that we need to gather more information though.』

It was easier before when I just needed to think about how to earn money as an adventurer.

.

I said farewell to Damian and headed to the adventurer guild.

I was going there to check on Clara who was researching things in the reference room.

The Third’s excited voice came from inside the Jewel.

『Beim’s adventurer guild is amazing. This is even better than a third rate library.』

I entered a door that had a plate with “reference room” written on it, and saw what looked like the inside of a library.

The shelves were high and reached until the ceiling. There were stepladders prepared to help reach those high places.

The room was also spacious. There was even staff that was assigned here to manage the place.

I talked to the staff at the counter.

「Are you looking for some kind of data?」

「I came to pick up my companion.」

「I see. Please talk to me if you want to investigate something.」

Among the books that were prepared inside the reference room, there were also books like light novels and miscellaneous writings that were unrelated to the adventurer profession.

It looked like this place could also be used as a normal library.

In fact, there were some adventurers who were reading for enjoyment here.

A large muscular man with a splendid moustache was reading a picture book while learning how to read the letters.

There was also an adventurer who was dressed like a magician studying several books that were related to magic piled up in front of him.

There were quite a lot of people making use of this place.

「This place really looks like a library.」

The Third sounded delighted.

『It’s inferior when compared to Arumsaas(アラムサース), but it’s amazing that the guild has a library this big. That means that Beim itself must have a splendid library of its own too. I’m jealous.』

The city itself also had its own library. Clara said that that place was even more magnificent than this reference room.

I searched for Clara and found her right away.

She had several books placed on the table. She was reading them and also taking memos.

The Third spoke with a warm voice when he saw that.

『H~m, Clara-chan is also doing her best. Lyle, treat her to tea or something later.』

The Third was soft on Clara.

It seemed he himself also liked to read, so he favored Clara because they had the same hobby.

「Please don’t ask me something unreasonable. ──Clara, I came to pick you up.」

I admonished the Third with a small voice while walking toward Clara and calling out to her.

Clara lifted her eyes and took off her glasses before she stretched her body.

「So it’s that time already.」

Clara looked at the clock inside the reference room, but she had taken off her glasses so she couldn’t see clearly.

She narrowed her eyes.

She had quite a clumsy side to her when she was unfocused.

「It’s already evening. Shannon will get angry again if you come back too late. So I came to pick you up.」

Clara was in charge of investigating things through the reference room.

We were gathering information in order to live in Beim as adventurers.

I was also asking her to investigate other things like the history and circumstances of this place and the surrounding area.

The person herself loved to read, so she didn’t think of it as work and enjoyed it. Because of that, she often came back late.

「I’m sorry to have worried you.」

She came home late at night several days ago and was scolded by Eva and Shannon.

Well, rather than angry──it was more that they were worried.

「Is there any interesting information?」

「Interesting or not will depend on each person’s subjectivity, so I can’t really give a guarantee. But, there are various interesting stories regarding Beim.」

「What?」

I sat on the chair beside her and talked with a small voice so as to not disturb the other people.

Clara started tidying up the materials while continuing to talk.

「It’s about Beim’s dungeon. It’s a large vertical hole with a path spiraling downward along the wall. If we look at it on the whole, it’s a dungeon with a single continuous path.」

I couldn’t imagine it even after she told me.

「A spiraling path?」

「It’s something like this.」

Clara drew a diagram on a memo paper before I finally understood.

The dungeon’s structure was like a spiral staircase.

「It seems we have to walk down a slope with dilapidated houses lined up through the path. But it’s the same with other dungeons in that the deeper we go, the stronger the monsters become.」

Dungeon.

Dungeons had varied shapes, but the deeper you went the stronger the monster became and the treasure would also become greater.

Every dungeon was the same in regards to that.

「What about the floor transfer device?」

「The dungeon has it. Unlike Arumsaas, it seems that this device’s shape is only a round floor. It will float in the air and people can go up or down by riding it.

This kind of convenient device would definitely exist in a large scale dungeon.

There was a hypothesis that the dungeon prepared it so that adventurers could advance even deeper.

「Beim’s dungeon is strange huh. And what about the interesting story you mentioned?」

「It’s from here. About that dungeon, people believe that it has more than 100 floors deep.」

「──That’s deep.」

「There is no adventurer that has even reached the deepest part though. Though even if there is an adventurer who can manage that, they wouldn’t be allowed to destroy the dungeon.」

The dungeon in Beim was a managed dungeon.

The dungeon was alive. It would vanish if it was subjugated.

If the dungeon vanished, people would become unable to obtain monster body parts and magic stones.

It was the same with the treasures.

That was why it was profitable to manage a dungeon without subjugating it.

The dungeon was greatly related to Beim’s development, so people were protecting it.

「So it’s not an exaggeration to call the dungeon here as number one in the world.」

「Well, a dungeon with a scale this large is rare. Many people commented that exploring the dungeon feels like walking through a destroyed city.」

It felt like walking through a desolate city even though it was inside a dungeon?

In that case, the way to fight in it would also be different.

「I’m also investigating the types of monsters that are appearing in it. Ah, I almost forgot. I haven’t talked about the most important story.」

「Important story?」

「About the standard of Beim’s adventurer guild to ascertain the adventurers who can enter the dungeon. It’s mentioned inside the material here.」

The Third praised Clara after he heard that.

『Good job! As I thought, Clara-chan is really reliable.』

The Fifth was exasperated at the Third. He was doubting the reference materials in this place.

『Learning about a test’s standard in a reference room? ──Is it a test to check whether the adventurer is a type that will thoroughly prepare in advance or not?』

Was it that important to investigate properly in the reference room beforehand?

「Clara, great job.」

「Yes?」

It seemed Clara didn’t understand why she was being praised. She tilted her head.

.

When we returned to the inn, Miranda was waiting for me.

「So you were together with Clara.」

「I went to pick her up──even so.」

Clara headed to the bathroom. There was only Miranda and I inside the room──or not, because there was also May who looked listless in her qilin form.

She was sprawled on the floor sleeping with a tired face.

The Fifth was worried seeing May looking like that. The Sixth was trying to calm him down.

『Oi, what did you do!? What did you do to May!?』

『Fifth, please calm down.』

I also got curious and asked Miranda.

「Why is May looking that tired?」

「I was just teaching her some common sense. As I thought, her way of thinking is different so it looks like she has it rough. She has worked particularly hard today so she got tired and fell asleep. With this, even if she went out alone──well, I’ll still be worried but it won’t take too long before she’ll be able to go out by herself.」

Qilin had a long life. Their senses were different from humans.

Because of that difference, it was difficult for them to get used to human society.

It seemed that she was getting quite used to it recently, but Miranda who was looking after May also had it hard.

「Miranda must also have it hard teaching her until this point.」

「I’m used to it from taking care of Shannon. But putting that aside, this is the information that you requested.」

I accepted the documents from Miranda and checked the contents.

The ancestors inside the Jewel showed their interest.

『Zayin Theocracy is a strange country, isn’t it? The king will change when it hasn’t even been ten years? No, the queen, I guess.』

『Queen, huh. It seems the woman holds the highest position in that country.』

『──Looks like this saint is just a figurehead. Isn’t it the priests under her who are taking control of the government?』

『But, recently a single saint has been in reign continuously. Since she was fifteen years old──for fifteen years. Perhaps there is opposition from her holding too much influence.』

『There are a lot of openings that can be taken advantage of here. But, unfortunately Lyle can’t do anything about it in his current state.』

The country called Zayin was a theocracy.

The saint ruled as the sovereign and the priests working under her carry out the processes of government.

Normally a saint would hold her position for three years at the shortest. Even if she could hold her position longer than that it would be six years──or perhaps nine years at the longest.

However the current saint had held her position for fifteen years. Even throughout all the generations of saints she could be counted as one of the top three.

I continued reading the document. That saint right now was in a confrontation with the knight order that was the military of Zayin. This knight order was harboring dissatisfaction towards the saint.

The document mentioned that knight order commander was currently in the middle of political struggle with the saint.

「Perhaps the saint holds too much authority?」

When I spoke my honest impression, Miranda looked at me and said 「Too bad」.

「Certainly this saint might be someone who managed to seize quite a lot of political power even among all the saints before her. But, the number of skirmishes with the neighboring countries has decreased sharply since this person ascended to her position.」

「Decreased?」

When I looked at another document, surprisingly Zayin had instigated many wars with other countries in the past.

It would go into war at least once a year. Even skirmishes were like an everyday occurrence for them.

「──This is horrible.」

The ancestors were also agreeing with me.

『There is a lot of war around Beim. ──And the one profiting from that are the adventurers in mercenary business huh. No, the merchants perhaps?』

The other ancestors stayed silent after the Third said that.

The current saint was known to be in the moderate faction. She decreased the number of wars drastically and focused the country’s effort into domestic affairs in order to change Zayin.

「The number of skirmishes in this area is already high since the start, but recently the number of wars is decreasing and the knight order is angrily demanding for war so they can amass achievements. That’s the situation from an outsider’s perspective.」

「Hee~」

I expressed my admiration. Then Miranda sat on the armrest of the sofa I was sitting on and brought her face closer.

「And? What are you planning on doing by investigating this country?」

「Right now we can’t do anything about it. Our party’s size isn’t on the scale of mercenary group, so we can’t promote ourselves to this country.」

We couldn’t get involved with something like war with how small our number was.

We might be able to make great contributions there, but there wouldn’t be anyone there who would want to ally themselves with us.

We would only get treated like disposable tools in our current state.

The saint or the knight order──it would be difficult to ally ourselves with either of them.

「Well, that’s true. If we are more famous and stronger, then perhaps we’d be able to raise distinguished achievements there.」

In the first place, the reason I wanted to get involved there was to gain a reputation──and yet to do that we needed reputation first. It was difficult.

It was just as the Seventh said, I couldn’t do anything about this with how I am right now.

Miranda looked at me with an amused expression.

What was I thinking, what would I do──it was as though she were enjoying it.

「Lyle, what’re we going to investigate next?」

「──I want to raise our reputation as adventurers first. Perhaps we should start investigating the famous adventurers or parties in Beim.」

First let’s raise our reputation steadily, step by step.

.

One day while we were continuing our plain life in Beim.

「Geh! You’re…」

「Ah」

When we went out to clean the highway──Erhart’s group appeared in front of us.

They immediately made a displeased expression as soon as we met without even bothering to mask it.

Erhart’s group was dressed in fatigues just like us.

Erhart seemed to be embarrassed to be seen by me and averted his face.

I asked him an unsophisticated question.

「Eh? Why are you here? The dungeon expedition still isn’t over yet, right?」

The test was participating in the expedition.

And then the expedition team should be still in the dungeon right now.

Erhart’s shoulders were shaking.

「Could it be that you guys failed and returned? Was there any damage to your party?」

When I looked carefully, the number of Erhart’s friends had decreased.

Could it be that something happened in the expedition?

Erhart turned his gaze at the worried me and yelled angrily.

「That’s right! We failed there! You’re satisfied now?」

I couldn’t understand why Erhart suddenly got angry. The Sixth’s laughing voice came from inside the Jewel.

『Lyle, be more sensitive. These guys are the only ones that failed.』

The Fifth’s attitude was cold toward Erhart’s group.

『Perhaps his friends died or ran away──it’s good that they learned how reality is so early like this. They survived the experience and now they’re having a fresh start doing grunt work.』

──So they either ran away or were sent back in the middle of the expedition?

I didn’t realize that.

The way I spoke just now must be rude.

「T-that’s──sorry.」

I apologized because I was unable to realize what happened. But then Erhart got teary.

「Are you being sarcastic, you bastard!?」

I got yelled at even though I apologized.

The Fourth was holding back his laughter.

『Lyle──stop making remarks that pour salt on their wounds.』

.

When we started working, Shannon who had gotten used to cleaning the highway within this one month was acting bossy in front of Erhart’s group.

「Don’t look down on street cleaning! Put your back into it some more when you’re scooping up po○p! You won’t be able to pick the po○p with that kind of half-assed posture!」

A girl shouldn’t keep saying po○p like that.

Shannon demonstrated how to scoop po○p in front of Erhart’s group.

「Watch this. Scoop it up firmly. It’s no good if there is still some po○p left on the ground.」

Shannon had become pointlessly skilled in picking up trash. She became angry when she realized Erhart’s group wasn’t listening seriously.

「Listen seriously!」

Erhart’s group looked daunted at Shannon’s unruliness and took some distance away from us.

How should I say it, their attitude toward this work was a bit──no, was completely unserious.

「No need to get that worked up just for cleaning.」

「No one is going to do something like this if they can help it.」

「Can’t the time go faster?」

Erhart spoke sarcastically with some irritation in it when he passed me by.

「──So you’ve been doing this kind of thing for one month, huh? You guys are really easygoing.」

Shannon stamped her foot on the ground angrily.

「Haa!? Who are you calling easygoing? You’re the one who should work properly, stu~pid!」

I cleaned the highway while listening to the conversation between the Third and the Fifth inside the Jewel.

『Easygoing eh. They’ve quite the angry attitude there.』

『Lyle provoked them even if it was only unintentionally, after all. Can’t be helped that they got a bit angry.』

『But even discounting that, they look like they’re venting their dissatisfaction on the wrong person though?』

『They’re young, after all. Those kind of people always act disagreeable with their surroundings.』

『Aa~, I know what you mean. The people who will say it’s not their fault but their surrounding’s fault. Even though in the end one has to do their best even if the circumstances are bad.』

『Those guys are really enviable. They don’t get it just how fortunate they are. Even though they almost got erased by that staff member named Marianne.』

『──I wonder about that. That girl didn’t really plan to erase them, did she?』

『There was still a risk of death. It was a fact that she threw them into such a situation. It also didn’t look like there was more to what she was doing. A woman who can do something like that so naturally is scary.』

The Fifth was harsh to Marianne-san.

The Sixth grinned suggestively.

『Fifth doesn’t understand a woman’s heart at all, huh.』

『──I don’t want to be told that by you.』

The other ancestors were also showing reaction that said 「You’re saying that?」 to the Sixth.

I also felt the same.

Even so, it became a good way to kill time to listen to their conversation while doing work monotonously like this.

『──I understand what everyone wants to say, but if I have to say, I think there is something with that woman.』

I couldn’t think of anything if the Sixth spoke vaguely like that.

The Fifth demanded a more detailed explanation from the Sixth’s statement.

『And, what is this something?』

『I don’t know. But, I got the feeling that she was shouldering something.』

『She only looked carefree to me though? Well, I also got the feeling that she was quite peculiar.』

She was a normal woman who seemed kind.

I didn’t know what to think even if I was told that there was something shady about her.

It was just as the Fifth said, it would be scary if such a kind looking woman was intentionally throwing Erhart’s group into danger.

However, the Sixth trusted his own instinct.

『My instinct is telling me. That she’s a good woman.』

The Seventh snorted after hearing that.

『Then, she is undoubtedly a woman with heavy love. Lyle, be careful. Don’t lay your hand on that woman no matter what happens.』

──Was he thinking that I was an unfaithful man like the Sixth?

That was insulting.

I continued my work quietly. Shannon who had become more diligent compared to the first day was feeling indignation over how unmotivated Erhart’s group was.

「Those guys, they’re just playing around.」

There were a lot of unmotivated adventurers.

The thought that this kind of work was just to earn money for the time being──that it wasn’t something that they would keep doing.

The number of diligent adventurers was few.

I said to Shannon.

「Leave them alone. Just do your work properly rather than minding them. I don’t want to get scolded by the supervisor like what happened on the first day.」

「You think I want that either!?」

Today too, I worked hard cleaning the highway together with Shannon.

.

──Around two weeks after Erhart started the highway cleaning job.

Erhart was called to the guild and talked to Marianne behind the counter.

He could hear talking voices from the other side of the partition. It seemed there were also other people beside them.

Marianne was talking to Erhart with a slightly angry voice.

「Geez, Erhart-kun!」

「Y-yes!」

Marianne started scolding him in a huff that seemed a bit cute.

「I got a complaint from the supervisor that was monitoring the highway cleaning! He said that you guys aren’t taking your work seriously.」

Erhart was feeling happy inside that he was able to talk with the older, kind, and beautiful Marianne.

「No, because you know. We hate this kind of plain work.」

He honestly hated the work of cleaning the highway.

He also kept getting odd jobs pushed on him in his hometown and came to hate them.

He couldn’t become serious no matter what, because he would be reminded of the past.

Erhart acted spoiled toward Marianne.

「Hey, Marianne-san. Isn’t there any cooler work? Like bodyguard quests or monster extermination quest, there’s other work right?」

Marianne’s eyes narrowed.

「Looks like you haven’t learned even after the failure in the dungeon.」

「That’s not it! There’ll be some monsters if we go out of the wall right? You know, the small fries. If it’s against those then even we can fight them.」

Erhart tried appealing that they would be more suited for monster extermination, but Marianne wouldn’t listen.

「You guys don’t even have any decent equipment. Besides, are you guys properly saving money? Right now all your money is going to your living expenses, right?」

They had no funds with which to buy equipment.

The small reward that they obtained from cleaning the highway vanished upon paying their cheap inn and buying their daily meals.

「That’s why, we want to earn more money with bigger quests. At this rate we’ll lose hope.」

Marianne looked like she was also considering that.

She sighed.

「I understand where you come from, but the guild’s trust  party right now isn’t even a zero, it’s a minus. Even I won’t be able to assign work with a nice reward to your party as you are right now.」

「But still」

Marianne seemed like she was yielding and made a suggestion to Erhart.

「Then, if your party will work hard with cleaning the highway, I’ll allot a quest with a good reward to you just once.」

「As expected from Marianne-san!」

Erhart rejoiced, but Marianne gave him a warning.

「But, you better resolve yourself for that one chance. If your party fails this too, then even I won’t be able to stand up for you all.」

「I-I get it.」

Even Erhart got nervous by Marianne’s serious expression.

(But, Marianne-san is still cute even when angry. I’m going to confess to her when I become a fully fledged adventurer.)

Erhart fell in love with the guild staff who was kindly advising his party.

Marianne prepared the paperwork while Erhart was acting bashful from his convenient delusion.

「First you should do the highway cleaning seriously──」

At that time they heard a shocked voice of a staff member from the other side of the partition.

「Eh!? T-this girl is also cleaning the highway!!?」

The two of them looked at each other’s face and looked toward the direction from where the voice came from.

They got curious and peeked at the other side. Over there was Lyle and Shannon──and a child with short blond hair.

Lyle was talking to the staff member.

「Yes. This child will also work cleaning the highway from next week.」

The girl who was with them was wearing a peculiar outfit that showed a lot of skin.

The girl herself was looking around with interest at the inside of the guild. It didn’t look like she was listening to the talk.

The two other than Lyle, including Shannon, were still little girls.

Erhart thought once more.

(T-this guy, he is even making little children like them work!? Even I wouldn’t do something like that!)

From Erhart’s perspective, Lyle looked like a greedy adventurer who made even small children work in order to obtain more money──.

(This guy is the worst!)