Chapter 22: Nell’s Side
Chapter 22: Nell’s Side
Author’s Note:
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My name is Nell. I work as a receptionist for the Adventurer’s Guild in the town of Aressa.
Today, I was quite astonished.
I’ll start at the beginning, when a young girl whose appearance wasn’t clean by any means came to the reception desk at the Guild.
Unintentionally, I had asked a question.
「Ah, yes. Are you alone?」
「Alone.」
「Erm… This is the Adventurer’s Guild, so…」
「I know.」
It seemed as though she really intended to become an Adventurer. She even seemed to carry a sword on her back……
If one thinks of making money, Adventurers are one of the things that naturally come to mind. And so, I thought that this girl was aiming to get rich, much like many others. But a lot of such people die. Especially for children, it can be said that most people who become Adventurers don’t survive.
And so, I informed the Guild Master of the young girl. Sure enough, Donnadorondo was to take charge of the exam.
The Adventurer’s Guild doesn’t have any particular conditions for recruiting, as to attain a wider range of talented people. However, the Guild Master of Aressa secretly imposes a limit. That limit is to protect those younger than 15 years old by inhibiting their registration. Of course, it’s not explicitly stated.
When a child comes to register, Donnadorondo is put in charge of the exam, thus forcing the participant to fail. At first, he’d give verbal threats as a show of force, and then makes them submit by force if they don’t give up at that point.
Without exception, children could not win against Donnadorondo. So, it could be said that the chances of success for Donnadorondo’s exam was “0%”.
Even though it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it’s for the sake of the child. Children have usually no training to be qualified as an Adventurer, and so they’re bound to die almost immediately. If one did survive, then they would be lucky just to scrape by financially. There’s no way that they’d be able to make a lot of money, after all.
They aren’t just sent away afterwards, however. When the child fails, I can enroll them in the Beginner Training conducted by the Guild without a participation fee. If they accept and complete the training, they can take the exam once again.
That day, however… There was an exception. I didn’t watch over the test, so when I rushed to the training grounds in response to a large noise, finding the girl standing unhurt, and the figure of Donnadorondo sunk into the wall vomiting blood… I was surprised to say the least.
But the surprises happened one after another afterwards.
First would be the number of possible Jobs. Where there was usually only 2, maybe 3 to choose from, the girl had 15. Furthermore, they included intermediate Jobs like the Magic Swordsman, Flame Magician, and Blink Swordsman. At the time, I couldn’t even let out my voice……
After making the Guild Card, the girl– Fran was her name — wanted to sell some materials. Because they didn’t seem to be carrying anything, I had thought that they stored the materials in an Inn……
But instead, they took the materials out of nowhere.
Talking about storage, Item Box comes to mind, but that wasn’t the case in that situation. The materials were taken out of the hole which appeared out of thin air. It was a Technique from a super rare attribute: the Spatial-Temporal attribute. I’ve worked at the Guild for a long time, and among the people I’ve seen capable of using Spatial-Temporal attributes this girl was the 3rd.
The next surprise was when the fur of a Twin-Headed Bear was taken out. Its threat level was only F, so it wasn’t a very strong Demonic Beast — but I had never seen one in a state like that one.
The fur didn’t have a single cut, and had absolutely no blood stains. The dismantling was perfect, and the two heads remained close to one another. Moreover, it was a large individual, so its fur weighed in at about 1.3 times the normal amount.
Aristocrats would want this material without a doubt. It could be made into a coat, or even a carpet… Otherwise, it could be used as a material for a piece of high-quality equipment.
The cleanly dismantled Poison Fang Rat pelts could also be used for a wide range of applications. Its materials can be used to make poison-resistant gear, so despite being a lower ranked Demonic Beast, its value is high.
To that 12-year-old girl who brought out perfectly dismantled materials, the surrounding Adventurers could only raise voices of surprise. Some looked back at their own dismantled furs and give a dry laugh.
But that wasn’t all. What she did next stole their voices entirely, rendering the Guild quiet.
She took out materials from the Giant Bat, then the Crashing Boar, then the Rock Bison, the Stone Spider. the Burrowing Mole, and finally she stopped at the Paralysis Nailed Cat. F and E threat level Demonic Beasts came out one after another.
A Demonic Beast of threat level E is said to be capable of leveling a village. It’s equivalent to an average Adventurer at rank D if it’s one-on-one. In other words, those who hunt them would have to be people who have ascended the ranks of beginner adventurers, or a party of said “beginners”.
And this girl hunted them alone? Moreover, she dismantled them perfectly? For dismantling of that caliber, a Dismantling Skill level 5 or 6 would be necessary at least… But having a Skill of such a high level at only 12 years old was abnormal.
By any chance… Did she have a form of blessing? But even with that, I thought that she was a little too strong…… The results of the mock battle with Donnadorondo weren’t a lie, it seemed.
But what was the true identity of the Adventurer who asked that her personal information remained a secret? There’re many people who have done the same, but…
I strongly endured it, and assessed the materials properly. It was the most materials brought in by any copper ranked[1] Adventurer recently. Naturally, it was a record high for the amount of materials brought in by a G rank.
If it had ended there, I would have finished while thinking 「A Promising Rookie has arrived.」
Instead, a certain situation developed. It was one that I expected, but it happened earlier than I thought it would.
Who would have thought that fools would cause a fuss within the Guild’s walls? Doing so would allow me to take away their Guild Cards. At worst, they could have even been turned into crime slaves.
Thinking back, they were a rookie party that caused trouble regularly. The leader was a Mercenary who crossed over and became an Adventurer because he didn’t make enough to eat.
But seriously, a useless Mercenary has no place picking a fight with an Adventurer! Unlike Adventurers who require a great deal of talent, Mercenaries abilities only include battling and decreasing the size of their brains.
There’s no end to these guys who convert to Adventurers thinking that it’ll be easy simply because they have some war experience. Such people have high pride, and low ability. I wouldn’t mind if they were more skillful, but…
Well, anyways. This group of idiots was of that category. They were primitive people who carried in a Demonic Beast that they hunted because they lacked the Dismantling Skill.
They also misunderstood the Guild’s rule not to get involved in fights between fellow Adventurers. The rule means that we’ll overlook mere squabbles. If we overlooked criminals, however, the Guild would be dissolved by the country. I’m really tired of idiots like them who can’t understand that much.
And so, while the group of idiots continued to add groundless arguments to their foolish reasoning, Fran snapped. Because she was the expressionless type, I didn’t recognize her at all.
Nevertheless, a quiet child becoming angry is amazing. I’ll make sure to avoid angering Fran. I vowed so in my heart. At the end, I was called out to. Inevitably, it gave me a bit of a start.
The Adventurers who had spectated the event were also stunned. Without a doubt, they came to the understanding that she was stronger than them.
Even though she had stained the ground with the blood of fools, I didn’t particularly mind. Rather, I thought that she did well.
Screaming to be healed, were they idiots? Ah, right, they were.
They likely carried other crimes, so the death penalty was almost certain. At minimum, they would become Mining Slaves. They had threatened with illegal trafficking and attempted extortion, after all. In this Kingdom, such things are categorized as capital offenses.
While watching Fran leave the Guild, I had a simple thought.
「Before they’re delivered, could you extort the consolation money?」
[1] Remember: Copper = G & F Rank. The Author wrote “Copper Rank” (銅ランク) explicitly, so Nell is talking about both. There’re references to rank via the types of Adventurer Cards later on as well, which is why I’m mentioning this.