[Interlude] Filehien Drei Menexes (2)
Continental Calendar 576 ~
After graduating from the academy, I fully committed myself to working as an adventurer.
Right after enrolling, I became Copper rank, and during the long breaks I challenged beginner and intermediate dungeons in the Lizmoni Kingdom.
To reach Silver rank, I needed to solo-clear a beginner dungeon, and also clear an intermediate one as part of a party.
I teamed up with friends who were also registered adventurers and dove in several times, and by my third year, choosing the adventurer course meant moving from the noble dorms to the student dorms on the outskirts of the royal capital.
Thanks to that, it became much easier to engage in adventurer activities on days off, and I was even able to send money back to the Margrave. The former Margrave kept telling me to use the money I earned for myself, but I just couldn’t feel at ease until I repaid the debt I felt I owed for being raised up until then, so I kept sending it anyway.
Darkness-attribute magic received special handling even within the academy, and wasn’t taught in the basic magic classes. I didn’t list it as one of my affinities either, so the students didn’t know I possessed the dark attribute. But when I heard the academy had special classes for dark magic, I studied under an elf teacher and managed to learn a little of it.
Students gathered at the academy from all over the continent, and I met many of various races.
Marian of the Sea Folk had beautiful blue hair, and whenever she had free time she would soak herself in the academy fountain. Her appearance didn’t differ much from humans, but apparently Sea Folk often displayed far stronger fish traits. The stronger those traits were, the less they could live away from the sea, and most Sea Folk spent their lives in port towns or out at sea.
Marian could live perfectly fine without the ocean, but soaking in water seemed to be her absolute bliss, and whenever she had no classes she would spend her time in the fountain like this.
For the few Sea Folk students, the academy had set up several fountains and ponds, and they spent their time happily at their preferred water spots.
There were also far more dwarves than I had expected.
Since they hardly ever moved once reaching adulthood, the Turmare Margrave’s territory had only one. They had been a married couple, but the wife had passed away, and after graduation the child traveled the Republic and eventually settled somewhere without returning.
I remembered the former Margrave saying the territory must simply have lacked the charm to capture a dwarf’s interest.
As I formed bonds with all these races and interacted with people from every country, I genuinely wanted to travel across the entire continent.
Originally, I just didn’t want to return to the Menexes Kingdom or Margrave Turmare’s territory, but before I knew it, I truly wanted to visit all the places my friends had talked about.
I considered forming a party with my friends, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them about my eyes.
Even while I was at the academy, rumors about the Menexes Kingdom would sometimes float around. The Crown Prince had violet-colored eyes, while the Second Prince had deep-purple eyes, so he would never become king.
In that royal family, it was said that the one with violet eyes always became king. That was why the former king’s brothers could never become kings themselves, no matter what.
Now that I was in a foreign country, even more than back home, the need to hide my violet eyes had become critical.
Even if I were an illegitimate child, just having violet eyes would be enough to cause an uproar.
If I told my friends the truth, even if they weren’t connected to the royal family, danger could come to them. I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to risk that.
While I was still a student, when I was diving solo into a dungeon, I met Iris, who was also working solo.
The first time we met, we both simply thought, “Oh, another solo adventurer,” and didn’t interact.
The second time was in a dungeon I visited because it was sparsely populated and would be good for practicing dark magic. There were hardly any people, just as I’d hoped, and I was surprised to see her again—but she looked just as surprised.
Neither of us had planned to fully clear it, but I was there to practice magic, and she was there for monster materials, so we decided to work together and formed our first party. I was fifteen, and Iris was thirteen.
Iris, a mage, told me when we met that she specialized in water and wood magic. I had learned wind magic at the academy, so teaming up with someone who could use magic I wasn’t good at led us to pair up during the long winter breaks.
She had apparently been an adventurer since age seven, and was already mid-tier Silver rank. I was Silver white-tier at the time, and being surpassed by someone younger lit a fire in me—so by graduation I had challenged many dungeons and raised myself to beginner Silver.
Iris had formed temporary parties as needed, but being a lone girl made it dangerous, so she mostly stuck to day-trip solo dungeons.
Even if only once a year, we’d been working together since our academy days, so we eventually slipped into a comfortable rhythm as a two-person team.
Being with Iris put me at ease. She had as much knowledge as my academy friends despite being a commoner, and above all she was creative and unpredictable in an interesting way.
Not to mention the fact that somewhere along the way, I fell in love with her.
Three years after meeting, when Iris turned sixteen, I asked if she wanted to form a real party instead of temporary ones, and she laughed, “I already thought we had one.”
Now that we were officially forming a party, I decided to reveal my secret.
“Iris, there’s something I need to tell you. Can you listen without freaking out?”
I removed the color-changing magic tool and showed her my violet eyes.
Ever since that ship journey, I hadn’t shown them to anyone.
“Heeey, that’s a pretty color. Hiding that is such a waste.”
“Eh? That’s your reaction?”
“Hm? Should I have been more dramatic?
Like— ‘Eeeeeh!? I thought we had matching brown eyes but they were totally different!?’ or something?”
Her reaction was so normal that it shocked me, but also relieved me.
I told her how, since it was a royal color of the Menexes Kingdom, people sometimes assumed I was an illegitimate royal child, and she only said, “People nitpicking just because of color is such a pain.”
“Ah— since you told me a secret, I’ll tell you one too, okay? Listen without freaking out?”
Since she repeated the exact words I’d used earlier, I laughed and told her she could throw anything at me.
She loosened the tie that always held her hair in one bundle, and when she let it fully down, it wasn’t the usual familiar brown—
It was a beautiful pink.
“What? Iris, you were using color-change too?”
“Yeah. My real affinity includes Holy magic.
When I registered at the guild at age seven, the staff screamed, and I almost got dragged to the royal castle or the Church.
I bolted out of that country immediately, but Holy magic plus pink hair really stands out, right?
So I only listed two of my affinities, hid my hair color, and left the country.”
Holy attribute…?
That shocked me far more than the hair color. But thinking back, I didn’t recall ever seeing her use Holy magic over the years we’d spent together.
“Oh, I disguised my healing as water magic. That was actually Holy.”
Her next statement floored me even further.
Iris’s spells had always been slightly different from what we were taught at the academy—she said, “As long as the trigger works, it’s fine,” but apparently she could use magic completely chantless.
She only pretended to chant to make it look normal for others.
Healing without Holy magic was rare enough, but she said she’d been taught it in another country, so I had believed her.
Compared to my “maybe” secret, hers was far more dangerous, yet she spoke carefree, almost making my own panic feel foolish.
“You’ll reach upper-tier Silver soon, right? Once you hit Silver upper-tier, the guild won’t force unreasonable requests on you.
If you go Gold, you’ll have to deal with nobles though, and I hate that.
So I don’t want to go beyond upper-tier Silver. You said you weren’t aiming for Gold either, right? So I figured that worked out perfectly.”
When I heard during rank evaluation that Gold rank adventurers couldn’t refuse noble commissions, I decided that if there was a chance of getting dragged into Menexes Kingdom business, I would stop at upper Silver.
Iris clearly understood the danger of her own attribute as well.
“So I think I’ll stop hiding my hair and my Holy attribute from now on.
A Silver-ranked mage with Holy magic and pink hair stands out a lot, right?
So I figured it’s actually safer to be visible than to hide. Sorry for dragging you into it.”
She pressed her hands together apologetically, and I felt strength leave my shoulders.
For our own safety, we could make the guild and adventurers our allies.
I handled close-range combat but could fight at range too, and though my magic was limited to fire, earth, and wind, I’d honed both offense and defense.
If we wanted to build a reputation as a temporary-party duo, operating in the Lizmoni Kingdom might be best.
“Idiot. It’s fine, right? We’ll let everyone know we’re Silver, and show off your healing in temp parties. I’ll support everything else.
So, what should our party name be?”
“Hmm, then how about Manjurika? In the town where I used to live, that’s what they called violet flowers.”
“That sounds awfully cute.”
“But nobody here knows that word, right? That town didn’t even have an Adventurers’ Guild, so nobody from there would show up. No one would figure it out.”
Honestly, as I continued adventuring, I’d grown less fond of flashy party names like ones that included “dragon,” so we registered under Manjurika. When we entered the guild showing our real appearances, the room stirred for a moment, but once people recognized us, they all gathered around.
“Oi, Fil and Iris? I thought you were someone else!”
“No way! Are you two doing a makeover? Using color-change tools?”
“Oh my gosh, Iris! Your hair is so cute! Eh—this is your real hair?”
“Fil, your eyes look different too, don’t they? That’s a pretty cute color you’ve got.”
The ones we occasionally teamed with struck my shoulder and laughed loudly.
What? Was I the only one worrying about my eye color? Cute? What does that even mean?
“You two look so different I was shocked~ Are you here for a request today?”
“Ah, no. We came to officially register as a party.”
“““Ehhhhhhhhh!?”””
“Oh, about time.”
“Wait, you weren’t officially teamed yet?”
When we told the receptionist why we were there, several people cried out in surprise and several sighed, saying “Finally.”
So that’s how people saw us?
“Now that you mention it, you two were both solo adventurers. I completely forgot.
Initial registration requires a private room, but party registration can be done here or in a private room. Which would you prefer?”
“Hmm, here’s fine. Fil?”
“Here’s good.”
Come to think of it, when I registered, they told me, “We switched to private-room registration a few years ago.”
Before that, it was done at the counter, right?
Wait—didn’t Iris say the receptionist yelled out her attribute when she registered?
“Do you have a party name ready?”
““Manjurika.””
“Understood. Please hand over your guild cards and tags.”
We pulled the tags hanging from our necks and paired them with our cards.
Iris’s tag had three holes; mine still had two.
After working the machine, the receptionist returned our card and tag. The name [Manjurika] was engraved on both.
“You’re both veterans, so this may be unnecessary, but would you like a reminder of party-related regulations?”
We declined, since we already knew things like:
– With rank differences, you can only accept requests of the average party rank.
– Request reward points are distributed evenly (monster-slaying rewards are based solely on results; individual combat achievements aren’t counted).
– The monetary reward is handed entirely to the reporter, so dividing it is the party’s responsibility (and the guild won’t mediate arguments from that).
We already knew all that, so we said it wasn’t needed.
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What do you think about this chapter?
