Sevens (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 98

Chapter 98 – Plain Adventurer
I decided not to take the proficiency test that was being held by Beim’s adventurer guild.  Marianne-san looked surprised once she heard that.

「──Your party is quite strong, isn’t it? Are you really not going to take the test? You’ll be treated like rookies for at least three months if you don’t.」

We had heard the explanation about that in the short course.

「There’s no problem. We’ll spend these three months quietly.」

My party members didn’t complain even after they heard my decision.  Besides Shanon, that is.

「Haa? Why aren’t you accepting? We’ll be recognized by the guild right away if you accept the test.」

Miranda-san quickly used her hand to block Shannon’s mouth.

「Just be quiet, Shannon.」

Marianne-san was about to speak some more, but there was another person who interrupted us.

It was Erhart.

「What? Did you get cold feet when it comes to taking the test?」

He placed his hands inside his trouser’s pockets and walked up to me with a confident swagger, bringing his face right up to me.

「There’s no problem with not taking the test, that’s all.」

It seemed Erhart decided in his mind that I was a coward when he heard that.

「Keh! You won’t accept my challenge, and you also won’t take the test. It’s strange that a weakling like you has this many beauties following you around.  You girls, are you seriously planning on following this guy? We’re far more reliable than him.」

Erhart and his friends were making that kind of appeal, but Novem shook her head at them.

「Lyle-sama isn’t a weakling. He really is reliable.」

Monica was sending me glances as she praised me.

「Chicken dickwad is certainly unreliable, but he is still my master. It’s impossible for me to serve any other person. Kyaa~, I’m really a laudable maid!」

Clara was reading her book because she had nothing to do, but she closed it and put it back into her bag since we were getting too noisy.

「I don’t know what you’re expecting from us, but please pay us no mind.」

Eva made fun of Clara.

「You really don’t understand the inner workings of the heart. They’re showing off in front of cute girls right now. ──But, be careful.  You’ll only look silly if you show off too much, okay?」

Erhart’s cheeks were twitching when Eva said that to him.

His hand was moving to grab the handle of the large sword on his back, but Aria had thrust the pommel of her spear at Erhart’s throat before he could grab it.

「Resolve yourself if you’re going to point your weapon at us. You won’t be able to play it off as a joke.」

Sophia preached at Erhart’s group indifferently.

「In the first place, Lyle-dono is our leader. You calling that leader as unreliable means that you’re looking down on our entire party. Do you understand that you’re not just making fun of Lyle-dono, but all of us?」

Erhart didn’t know how to answer that. He glared at me.

「You coward, hiding behind a woman’s back like this!」

Please don’t say that, because it was slightly weighing me down too.

But, I was scared to step forward.  It felt like Erhart really would draw his sword in this place if I did that.

「Look here, we don’t want to get involved with you guys. I’m not taking the test because I have my own objective, that’s all. In the first place it’s none of your business, right?」

Why are you picking a quarrel with us, huh?!

Erhart’s face went bright red and he yelled angrily when I told him that.

「You’ve got some nerve. Fight me!」

「──Don’t wanna.」

「Fight me!」

I made a displeased face. Then May seemed fed up with this and casually threw a provocation at them.

「It’s an animal’s instinct to quarrel when competing for females. Lyle, just beat them up a bit.」

No, no, I wasn’t working on instinct here.

I wished May wouldn’t judge everything based on her own standards.

But, the Fifth who was kind to May was approving her opinion.

『May is really clever. Lyle, it won’t be any problem if you just beat them up once to teach them the reality of their situation..』

The Third was exasperated by the Fifth’s opinion

『Fifth, isn’t that horrible?  Making Lyle fight just because May-chan is adorable?』

Horrible. These guys were really horrible.

If you asked me what was so horrible──they were criticizing the Fifth, but none of them were telling me to settle the matter rationally either.

Everyone sounded like they were telling me 「Do it」.

I didn’t want to become this kind of adult, so let’s search for a rational solution.

H~m, I couldn’t think of any solution.

Shannon was tilting her head.

「Onee-sama, why are those men picking a fight with Lyle? Even though their focus is directed at us rather than Lyle. Besides, there is a persistent gaze that keeps following me.」

Miranda’s eyes turned sharp.

「Shannon, hide behind me. Putting that aside, we too don’t have any time to waste here. We can’t answer the expectations of you guys. You’re a nuisance, so just get out of the way.」

Erhart’s group jerked back from those blunt words.

Their gaze looked at me and Miranda alternately before Erhart pointed at me and yelled.

「Y-you’re saying this guy is better than us, huh!?」

Miranda-san answered with a smile.

「Yes, that’s right. He’s a good man, right?」

It was embarrassing to hear such straightforward words. I could feel my face getting red.

The ancestors were getting noisy, shouting 『Miranda so cool!』 inside the Jewel.  Conversely, they were also ridiculing me for being pathetic

Erhart gritted his teeth and turned his back toward us.

「We’re going, you guys!」

After seeing off Erhart and the others, I noticed that Marianne-san was the only staff member remaining here.

She looked at me and chuckled.

「You’re really loved. Looks like all of you are a good party.」

──It was doubtful whether they would even call each other comrades when the atmosphere was tense, though.

「I guess. They’re too good for me.」

「Oh, how envious. But, men who don’t know the circumstances will look at a harem party as if it were a bitter enemy. Something like what happened just now will happen quite often, you know?」

「Well, I have experienced it several times until now.」

「I see. But, don’t resent them okay? Those kids are still young and rash.」

I had no intentions of resenting them.

But, if I were allowed to say it, I was also jealous of a party that consisted of only men.

It was mistaken for me to be the only man in our party in the first place.

Right now we also had Damian(ダミアン) with us, but he was purely a logistical support so he didn’t count.

「Now then, I’ll also explain about the quest for your party from tomorrow.」

「Ah, can I ask just one thing before that?」

「What is it?」

I asked Marianne-san to recommend an inn for us before talking about the quest.

.

Our actions from the next day──were very plain.

We got out of Beim’s gate early in the morning and cleaned the highway.

A lot of humans and horses were coming and going endlessly on this path.

The area around the gate would immediately turn dirty if it was left alone.

It wouldn’t be any problem if it only looked dirty, but it was also a hygenic problem, so it was necessary to clean the area.

It was a plain yet important work, even though the job was mostly just gathering the filth and tossing it out.

It was simple, but there were few people who would be happy to do this kind of work.

That was why the adventurer guild undertook the job from Beim and made adventurers accept the job as a quest.

And then, there was one important thing.

The place was smelly, it was hard work, and then no matter how much you cleaned the place it would immediately get dirty again. Such a job──paid very little.

Shannon threw her shovel to the ground.

「I can’t do this anymore!」

I looked at Shannon’s act and felt angry.

「I told you we borrowed that!  If you break it, we have to buy it!」

Shannon wasn’t dressed in her usual frilly dress. She was wearing fatigues, long boots, and gloves that would be fine even getting dirty.

Her long hair was tied into a bun behind her. With her current appearance, you wouldn’t be able to realize she was Shannon just from a glance.

「Why do I have to participate in the cleaning too!? You should do something like this by yourself!」

Right now Shannon and I were doing a plain and cheap quest.

Even though Beim was the home of adventurers, the quests that rookie adventurers could take were few.

The guild would prepare some jobs like this that anyone could do, and the rookies would choose from among them.

「It can’t be helped. Novem is taking the writing quest, while we can’t let May go out alone before we teach her some common sense.」

Shannon picked up the shovel and trembled.

「Why am I on po○p duty, though!? Hey, why!? I don’t want to work! Even if I have to work, I want an easier job! Something intellectual and elegant!」

Shannon was voicing some splendid complaints, but she was still in the middle of learning how to read and write.

Her writing was also clumsy, so she was unable to work as a scribe.

Also Miranda said 「Let’s make her do something a bit tough」 and assigned her highway cleaning duty together with me.

「You can complain, but if you don’t get to working, we’ll never finish.」

「Other horses will immediately po○p even if we clean the road! I can’t do something like──ah!?」

A horse looked at us and dropped a dump at the place Shannon just cleaned.  It even looked like it was laughing at us, and then it pulled its carriage forward and left.

.

Shannon resumed cleaning while crying.

「Don’t screw with me-! I was a noble lady who never even held anything heavier than a spoon, and now I have to clean po○p!?」

The world was really harsh. It was also painful for me in the beginning.

「Move your hands and your mouth at the same time.」

「I’m doing it! More importantly, why are Aria and Sophia doing the writing job together with Novem, even though they’re more suited for this, huh?! Normally it should be them doing this.」

Those two were taking a writing quest together with Novem.

The reason──it was also because Miranda was saying「We should have the two of them learn about various things other than fighting already」.

Shannon slipped on some horse feces and fell.  I broke out in laughter after I saw that, guffawing as I pointed my finger at her.

「You slipped! ──Oy, watch it!」

Seeing me laughing loudly at her, Shannon grabbed some horse feces and threw it at me.

「I’m going to──cover you in po○p toooooo!」

「You, don’t call yourself a lady when you keep saying poop with that mouth! That’s vulgar!」

We got warned by the staff for making a commotion.

.

──Monica was crying alone inside the corner of an inn’s room.

「It’s horrible. Even though I also want to be useful for chicken dickwad. And yet I’m made to stay home because of some stupid reason like needing a person to watch the stufff.  This is too much!」

Monica, left behind to watch the room, had finished cleaning the room and every other thing she could possibly do, so she had some free time.

「Even though if this Monica is there, a trivial job like cleaning the street won’t even take an hour!」

Certainly if it were Monica, she had the capability to finish cleaning the highway in a flash.

But, it would surely attract too much attention if she did that.

It was taken into consideration that she would be too conspicuous, so the other party members agreed that Monica should be the one to stay behind.

Monica was waiting for Lyle’s return in the room, but then she noticed something and lifted her face to look at the door.

She stood up and unlocked the door right away. There wasn’t any knocking sound.

「It’s opened.」

Then the door opened, and Eva could be seen standing there with a surprised face.

「Y-you, don’t open the door before I knock. You surprise me.」

「I will consider it if it’s chicken dickwad, but there isn’t any merit for me to be considerate to you.」

「You’re really an annoying automata. But setting that aside, nobody’s come back yet?」

Eva entered the room and took out her own luggage.

She opened her traveling bag while talking to Monica.

「It’s still noon, after all. I think it will still take chicken dickwad five more hours until he returns.」

「I see. Then tell them that I will return late.」

Eva took out her stage outfits and worried which one to wear.

Monica made a guess when she saw that.

「Are you going to stand on stage?」

「I was requested by the manager of the elves. There is one elf that has to stay on a bed for a while, so he wants me to act as his substitute for a while.」

Eva had contacted the elves in Beim to gather some information.  She wasn’t doing any quests, but her role was still important.

She didn’t take long to decide her outfit and quickly changed into it.  She then stood in front of a mirror to check her appearance. She made some poses to confirm that there wasn’t anything wrong with the outfit.

「Leaving that aside, where is Clara?」

Eva seemed curious about Clara. Monica snorted at her.

「Oh, are you acting tsundere to a fellow woman?」

「That’s not it. I don’t know what that girl is doing, so I thought I should ask just in case.」

Monica talked about Clara’s activity.

Clara also wasn’t receiving any quests, but she was at the adventurer guild.

「She is in the guild’s reference room. We asked that she investigate various things on Beim’s circumstances.」

Eva took off her outfit and prepared to go out while listening.

「That job seems suitable for her.」

The right person in the right place. It was a role that was suited for Clara.

Monica too could also do the same or perhaps even more than that.

But, Lyle judged that it would also be dangerous to rely on Monica alone, so he left the role to Clara.

They heard a knock just when Eva was about to leave with her luggage.

Miranda and May entered the room with tired faces.

Monica asked about the situation happily.

「Oh, did you two made a blunder or something?

May sat down and averted her face. Miranda was looking down at her with a sigh.

「May wouldn’t leave the food stand.」

They heard May’s excuse next.

「It was because Miranda said no, even though everything looked so delicious!」

Miranda crossed her arms under her breasts and looked irritated, her face twitching.

「We had talked about how you would learn about living in human society, hadn’t we? I told you that I would buy those foods for you as a reward after we finished.」

「But you didn’t buy them for me!」

「Because the lesson was cut short in the middle. Good grief, I’m worried for the future now.」

Miranda was taking May outside for sightseeing around Beim to teach her about human society.

Although Miranda’s true objective laid in another place.

It was investigating Beim. She was walking around Beim in person in order to gather information.

Eva laughed at Miranda who had it hard with looking after May.

「Looks like you also have it hard.」

Miranda turned a cold gaze at Eva.

「It looks like you’re having fun.」

「It’s rare to see you suffer after all. Putting that aside, I’ll be late coming back, sso everyone can eat without me.」

After Eva left, Miranda crouched to bring her gaze eye-level with the sulking May.

「May, we’re going to go outside once more after lunch. If you keep your promise, I’ll buy you sweets.」

「S-sweets? Y-yep──I’ll do my best.」

May thought to herself that she’d work hard in the afternoon, since she wanted those delicious sweets──

.

──At Beim’s adventurer guild.

There was a partitioned counter inside the writing room.

The person who gave the quest would sit face to face with the person who accepted the quest in each partitioned area.

Sophia had finished one job and her upper body fell on the table after her client left.

「I-it’s over.」

She had been writing for several people since the morning and felt completely wiped out now

She had no problems with something like a man working away from home wanting to write a letter to his family.

But she was at a complete loss when she was asked to write a love letter.

She could be angry if the client was just screwing around, and she could also just consider it an unpleasant job.

She was unable to do that because the client was really serious.

Her hands were smeared with ink from writing for various people since this morning. Even though she was usually swinging around a battle axe, she felt exhausted just from moving a pen around.

Aria who was sitting beside her was also the same.

「I don’t want to continue anymoree~. I’d rather clean the highway than doing this.」

Sophia heard that complaining voice, so she leaned forward from her partitioned counter and peeked at Aria’s desk.

Aria’s hands were also smeared with ink.

「You’ve worked hard today, Aria.」

「You too. Even so, why is it us who got assigned here?」

It would be better to do physical labor compared to this. Sophia also had the same opinion.

Then Novem who had finished her work came to their place.

「It’s because we want the two of you to learn about this kind of work. It’s fine even if you aren’t very good with this, but we can’t possibly leave both of you completely unable to do this. This is Lyle-sama’s decision.」

Even if they weren’t suited for this work, they should at least have experience in it. Even Lyle wasn’t planning to ask Sophia and Aria to be skilled in this line of work.

Sophia looked up at the ceiling.

「That Lyle-dono is cleaning the highway though.」

Novem made a grave face and looked down when she heard that.

「As I thought, perhaps it would be better if I also took the highway cleaning quest too. I’m feeling ashamed because this looks like we’re pushing the heavy labor on Lyle-sama.」

Sophia and Aria looked at each other and shrugged.

「She is starting again.」

「Novem is really overprotective of Lyle. Sometimes she is really strict with him though. But setting that aside, I wonder, what’s going to be for dinner?」

「I heard that the inn’s dinner will have fish as the main dish. Fresh fish is cheap here because Beim has a harbor, so it looks like there’ll be lots of different kinds of fish. I can’t wait!」

The two were getting excited talking about dinner while watching Novem worrying──.

.

──Within a complicated alley of Beim, the atmosphere was totally different from the main street.

A person who seemed like a cook came out from a building. He threw some kitchen waste into a garbage can before returning inside again.

Erhart, watching that from a hiding spot, led his group to the garbage and started rummaging around in it.

「Oh, there is a full set of something nice today.」

What the cook discarded was the guests’ leftover foods.

Erhart and his friends had to eat these leftovers in order to endure their hunger.

One of his friends let out a tearful voice.

「Hey, what’s going to happen to us after this? Even though we finally managed to come to Beim, we’re rummaging through trash bins to fill our stomachs. This is just pathetic.」

The other young men were also thinking the same. Their expression turned gloomy.

Then Erhart encouraged them all.

「You stupid idiots! This is just a temporary thing until we can enter the dungeon. If we’re recognized as fully fledged adventurers there, we’re going to earn as much money as we want after that. We’re going to stay in a good inn, have good women take care of our every need, and consume extravagant meals and alcohol!」

They ran away from their birthplace because they had such a dream.

But, the reality was actually cruel. Erhart and his friends didn’t even have that much money and could only live in a big room that they rented in a cheap inn. They also had no work and when they realized they had become penniless, they were chased out of their room.  The difference between dreams and reality was like heaven and earth.

「It would be better to till the field in the village compared to this.」

Erhart desperately encouraged one of his complaining comrades.

「This life is going to be over soon! And then we’ll be able to earn a lot of money after that. Or else, are you going to clean the highway everyday like that adventurer called Lyle?」

The highway cleaning job was the triple threat of smelly, dirty, and tiring. In addition, the pay was also low.

Erhart and his friends absolutely didn’t want to accept such job.

But they were also unable to do other quests like writing and the like.

Among them, Erhart was the only one who was barely able to read and write.

They refused to do the quests that the guild provided for them and were flat broke.

「It’s only for now. We’re going to surpass that bunch soon and show those stupid women. We’ll tell them, you idiot women, refusing our invitation like that!」

Erhart and his friends were somehow living in Beim while imagining such a delusion──.

.

On the night of the second week after we arrived in Beim. We had finished dinner and are relaxing in our rooms. We had three rooms, two four-people rooms and one single room.

I was using the single room. I had finished taking a bath and dinner. Right now I was spending my time leisurely.

I placed the Jewel on the bedside table and conversed with the ancestors.

My talking partner was the Fourth today.

『Even still, I’m surprised. I thought that if it’s Lyle you would take the test.』

I was rejoicing inside my heart for betraying the Fouth’s prediction.

Although it wasn’t like I made my choice because I wanted to surprise him.

「We had only just arrived at Beim. I want to prioritize collecting information about this place. Going to the dungeon is also a charming offer, but there isn’t much time until the test is going to start.」

Perhaps I would also take the test if there was more than one month’s time.

But, I was glad that I chose the plain option.

『Thanks to that, you’re doing well with collecting information.』

Clara was investigating the necessary things for living in Beim from the adventurer guild’s reference room.

Eva was collecting various rumors from her fellow elves.

It seemed Miranda had found several information brokers in Beim.

May had learned a bit of common sense within these several days.

The remaining members were receiving the quests from the guild and steadily earned trust for our party.

──I think that we weren’t doing bad.

If I chose to challenge the dungeon, the situation would become really busy and chaotic.

Right now I wanted to prepare while solidifying our foundation.

「It’s only been two weeks, but we obtained quite the results. Even so, cleaning is also nice. It reminded me of the ditch cleaning that I did at the beginning.」

When I said that with a laugh, the Fourth replied with a delighted tone.

『You complained like Shannon in the past, but you’ve really changed in the past year.』

「That time when I was working as an adventurer without a clue is nostalgic.」

I was pretty horrible back then.

『And, what are you planning to do after this?』

「I also want to investigate the dungeon. After that──there is the matter of Damian, I guess?」

Damian was living outside Beim in the Dump Car together with Lily(リリィ)-san.

The vehicle was parked at an open space outside the wall, but the cost for renting that spot was also taking quite the amount of money, so I wanted to quickly search for a place where Damian could settle down.

『Beim is a place that’s just like we hoped for, so it’ll be best for you to search for a base soon.』

「A place where we can put Damian’s Dump Car and also enough room for us to live there──I guess──a mansion──would be nice.」

I got sleepy and started to doze off. The Fourth spoke kindly to me.

『Looks like you’re sleepy. Get some rest.』

「I’ll──do that.」

I had to wake up early tommorow too, so I immediately went to sleep. I could hear the Fourth’s kind voice.

『Sleep well, Lyle.』