I Guess I Can Relax Now
Even while being stared at strangely, we arrived at the guild.
“Well then, shall we?”
“I’m too embarrassed, so I’ll wait outside.”
Well, last time the setup was that Angela had come along to guide me, so going alone the second time was fine.
“Understood. I’ll come right back after taking a request.”
“The quickest ones are goblin, slime, or kobold extermination, or herb gathering.”
“My thanks for the advice.”
“You flipped the character-switch again...”
Leaving the exasperated Angela there, I entered the guild.
Just like last time, the rowdy guild hall suddenly went dead silent, but immediately after, it erupted into chatter again, different from before.
Whatever. Go do your jobs.
Thinking that, I headed to Viola at the reception desk.
“Good day. How do you do?”
“G-good day...”
Maybe “good day” was laying it on too thick.
“I came for work today.”
“The forest?”
“That’s right.”
“Figured as much...”
Viola gave a wry smile.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘figured as much,’ but I need to earn living expenses too.”
“I see. What request would you like to take?”
“Just to confirm… what kinds of requests are there?”
“For the shallow parts of the forest, monster extermination, hunting beasts, gathering herbs or berries, things like that.”
I see.
Hunting beasts would take time, so Angela’s suggestion was probably best.
“Then I suppose I’ll go hunt some monsters.”
“Understood. Please bring back proof of extermination.”
Goblin ears, slime cores, kobold fangs.
Even someone like me who wasn’t an adventurer knew that much.
“Understood. If I find herbs, I’ll gather those too.”
“Please do. Then be careful out there.”
Viola waved with a smile, so I raised a hand back and left the guild.
Outside, Angela was leaning against a pillar, looking bored as she waited.
“I took a request.”
“Monster extermination?”
Angela pushed herself off the pillar.
“Yeah. And herb gathering if I find any. Shall we go?”
“Yeah, yeah. Man... I wanted to go with you, Eric.”
Well, sorry about that.
Apparently Angela really had wanted me to come along.
“I’ll go with you next time.”
Not making excuses, but I had been worried. And considering Angela had zero talent for close combat, I hadn’t been against the idea of going with her.
Still, she’d obviously go with kids her own age, and I thought I’d just get in the way.
“Promise. More importantly, how was Viola?”
“That first encounter is still haunting me. Even though I changed my voice, she was convinced I was Eric.”
Even though I’m Fullface Maskman.
“Well... yeah~”
“But what are those brats loitering around the guild for? Aren’t they going to work?”
“The ones hanging around there are off-duty. They’ve got nothing to do, and the guild serves alcohol too, so it’s a nice hangout spot.”
Hmm… come to think of it, I’d heard the guild also existed to keep troublesome youths managed.
Better they gather somewhere supervised than make trouble elsewhere.
“So the guild has thought this through. Angela, tell Mary she’s too young to be drinking.”
This country didn’t actually have a legal drinking age.
Still, the general custom was to wait until you were independent and considered an adult.
“I’ll tell her. Though I doubt she’d drink. Katrina and Shirley are the serious types.”
True enough.
I couldn’t picture either of those two drinking.
Then it was probably fine.
Feeling relieved, we passed through the gate and left town.
Though of course, when we went through, the gate guard Winnie stared hard at me again. I ignored it.
“Well then, shall we check the same place as the other day?”
“That’d be easiest. You said the mask’s cooler now, but what about the clothes and cloak? They look hot.”
“I made those cool too.”
There was an enhancement spell called enchantment for things like that.
“How convenient.”
“In bigger cities like the royal capital, they even sell clothes and armor enchanted like that. Want me to enchant your clothes too? It’s going to get hot soon.”
That kind of thing was technically part of being a magic tool shop too.
Though demand for it wasn’t very high.
“I’d appreciate that. I hate the heat.”
You hate the cold too.
Just a little while ago, whenever I walked her home, she’d complain about how cold it was.
I kept thinking wind must be blowing through those slits in her clothes and freezing her legs.
“When winter comes, I’ll protect you from the cold too.”
“I’m fine.”
Why?
“You don’t want it?”
“I’m good.”
Really?
After complaining that much about the cold?
“Well, whatever. Let’s head to the forest.”
We walked until we reached the forest, then entered through the path I’d cut down the other day.
After going deeper in, I searched for the three girls with farsight magic.
“There they are. Over there.”
Ah, there they are.
“Why are they crouching?”
All three of them were squatting near the boundary between the road and the forest.
“Probably gathering herbs. I’ll tell them all three crouching at once is a bad idea.”
No lookout.
“That’s dangerous.”
“In this area, dangerous monsters don’t appear, and even like that they could probably handle things just fine. But stuff like this needs to be drilled in from the start, or later they’ll make careless mistakes.”
I understood that.
You had to build good habits properly, and you had to get used to the act of keeping watch.
“With that lineup, Mary should be the scout.”
Katrina seemed slow and was backline.
Shirley was the attacker.
By role distribution, Mary had to do it.
That was what parties were for.
“Right. I think Mary’s confident she can respond at any time.”
Judging by what I saw yesterday...
“Senior, go teach her.”
“Ugh... Here it comes.”
“Yeah.”
A goblin was approaching from the forest behind the three girls crouching on the road.
“Supporting them again today?”
“If it gets dangerous. I want to see how they handle it.”
I took out a knife and prepared to throw it at any moment.
Then I watched. But just as the goblin was about to emerge from the forest, Mary stood up.
Immediately, Shirley stood too, turned around, and swung her sword in one motion.
“Wow.”
“Instant kill.”
The goblin took Shirley’s blade, split clean in two, and fell.
Strength, technique, none of it was bad.
“She can do that with those skinny arms, huh?”
Angela bent her arm, trying to make a muscle.
But it was just soft squishiness.
Angela was truly weak, and no matter where you touched, she was soft all over.
Well, magic-specialist mages were like that.
“Enhancement magic. And she’s very good at it.”
Even people who weren’t mages usually had some magic power.
Warriors converted that power into strength and fought.
“She strong?”
“She’s aiming to be a knight for a reason. Right now, she’s several levels above those other two.”
No wonder, if Arvin had trained her.
“Heh... Nice girl to bring into the party.”
“Yeah.”
The three of them smiled, high-fived, then collected proof of extermination and magic stones.
They seemed to get along too, so there shouldn’t be any problems.
“Well, that’s reassuring then. Let’s casually hunt some monsters ourselves and head back.”
“Sounds good...”
We decided to head deeper into the forest.
What do you think about this chapter?
