episode_0003

After a while.

A dungeon, dyed red like a socialist paradise. Besides me and a country bumpkin, there was no one else around, their breaths clinging to them.

Hans, who had cursed his shoddy armor, had turned into a human sieve with holes all over him. Having sought holes and obtained them, perhaps he found satisfaction in this peculiar end.

Jamie was like a drunken surgeon who had performed surgery with a blender instead of a scalpel. Due to a lackluster dodge as if dancing as an archer, she had been slashed dozens of times, resulting in a stench of blood, sweat, and the smell of entrails filling the air, enough to make one dizzy.

And John.

“P-please… save me…!”

He trembled, a sword lodged in his shoulder, begging for his life.

“I-I was just… they threatened me! They said if I didn’t help, they’d kill me…!”

Ah, so you were threatened? Well, it’s a plausible scenario.

It’s much easier and quicker to twist someone’s life than to entice a fledgling adventurer with promises until they become a plunderer.

“Oh, really? If that’s the case, you should have said so earlier.”

I shrugged lightly, as if understanding his excuse. Did he think I sympathized with him? John looked at me with a pathetic smile, eyes filled with hope.

“A-are you going to… save me?”

“Why would I?”

This is why greenhorns are… realistically, why would anyone save them?

“Why…!”

“I explained. You should have said it earlier. Before they attacked me, you should have said then. Those two were planning to ambush me. So, be careful.”

As a party member, it was something obvious to do. Even if I couldn’t shout it out loud, there were plenty of opportunities to subtly warn, more than enough.

“That’s… I mean…!”

“Don’t make excuses. I get it roughly.”

But he didn’t.

“The odds of winning in this two against one fight were uncertain. Instead of that, it seemed better to stick with those guys and share the spoils they offer.” If it was a three against one with a surprise attack, he could have been confident of victory.

“Clearly, shut your mouth. Your breath stinks. You.”

“No, please…! I-I just—!”

Squelch.

The severed head, with its cervical vertebrae and vocal cords sliced off, bent downward and plopped through the gap between the country bumpkin’s soaked thighs.

“Huff….”

Seriously, what a dog-eat-dog world.

I sighed, wiping the blood off my black attire, and hastily gathered whatever loot seemed salvageable before exiting the dungeon.

The crimson-stained twilight sky was particularly grim.

◆◆

“…So, you’ve killed all your party members again this time?”

The receptionist at the guild office sighed as if in disbelief, shaking her head slightly.

Was it the peculiar emphasis on “again” that caused the adventurers idly chatting at the table in the guild building to subtly glance in my direction?

“…See? Wasn’t I right? I had a feeling it would happen again this time.”

“But seriously, Hans was with you, wasn’t he? He was a fairly trustworthy guy for someone from his neighborhood…”

“If a guy keeps losing at gambling, who would trust him? Come on, pay up already. It was two silver coins, right?”

…There were even people betting on me. I wanted to say something, but seeing them wagering, I decided to hold back, fearing I might lose in a fight.

Even if I happened to win, it would only complicate matters for me.

“…Hilde, are you listening to me? If you keep killing off your party members like this, it’ll be very troublesome for us too, you know?”

The receptionist pointed out with an affable tone. Of course, I felt unjustly accused.

“They weren’t party members; they were looters.”

“Hilde, the return rate of adventurers entering your party is less than 60%, and you’re saying they were all looters?”

True, even as the victim, the statistics seemed unbelievable. But what could I do about it being the truth?

“Excuse me, Hilde. Do you have any idea what people are saying upstairs? If you’re killing off half of the party you went with, then isn’t she the real looter?” The words were openly circulating.

“Um…is that so…?”

Honestly, even I would have doubted myself.

Bare-faced, a foreign woman with an unclear past and identity has been found in the situation of having killed a party member she had met until now. She looks like a looter or a witch to anyone. I’m sure even the country thought so, if it wasn’t my story.

“Of course, I know Miss Hilde is not that kind of person, but others don’t know that, do they? There are limits to what I can defend.”

Despite the situation, the reason the security officer holding the arrest warrant didn’t knock on my door was entirely thanks to the receptionist girl in front of me.

Most of the staff at the guild office didn’t care about lower-ranked adventurers, but the receptionist girl in front of me was at least someone who paid a little attention to me.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Of course, you should be thankful. Do you know how difficult it is to find a party for Miss Hilde? The rumor has already spread throughout our branch, so there’s almost no one willing to form a party except for the new foreigners who have just arrived.”

…Is it because I often meet looters?

“But still, honestly, it’s not my fault, right? I’m the victim. The victim. Just because I form a party, those looters…”

“Then why don’t you walk around without that armor? If you’re still at the iron rank and yet you’re already wearing such armor, wouldn’t you become a target for looters?”

Walk around without armor? That’s impossible. This is my lifeline. If it weren’t for this armor this time, it would have been impossible to return unscathed like this.

At least a couple of arrows would have been stuck in me along with a few sword wounds.

So how could I give up this armor?

“That seems a bit difficult.”

“Yes. Well, I guess so.”

I thought she would say more, but surprisingly, the receptionist nodded her head calmly.

Well, to someone who lives hand to mouth, telling them to walk around without armor is hardly a sensible thing to say.

She must know very well that it’s an impractical suggestion.

It was probably more of a joke that there’s no other solution than sincere advice.

“Life is more important than reputation, after all.”

As it was said, the most important virtue of an adventurer was to fiercely protect their own life by any means necessary. Reputation, fame, wealth—those were things that could eventually be obtained as long as one’s life was intact.

Those who didn’t know that and lived in the opposite way were likely to be discovered as corpses before they reached their thirties. Losing both reputation and life.

“Anyway, for the time being, don’t take on any requests and take a break. My superior mentioned that if more deaths occur here, they might just dismiss or expel us without any promotions or whatever.”

“…I see. Thank you for letting me know.”

“Don’t mention it. Well then, be careful as you go in.”

That must be a warning not to get into an accident.

Nodding my head, I let out a deep sigh, then walked out of the request office building with the reward that fell to me.

The request was to subjugate ten goblins, so the reward was barely enough for about twenty meals. In reality, there were forty goblins and even higher-tier creatures, but would the request office acknowledge that?

No matter how tough the situation was on-site, the reward remained the same as the amount predetermined by the client.

Unless the client had initially submitted a false request.

Instead, if you obtained unrelated loot, there was a benefit of being granted ownership without any interference, but that was only a story for those who surpassed the lowest rank.

What good loot could lower-ranking adventurers like me get from goblin dens or wandering around with an iron pickaxe? The loot they could obtain was at best just rusty bits of metal, barely enough for a meal’s worth of money.

The life of an incompetent day laborer was truly miserable.

“Life is… so…”

Stuffing the almost weightless pocket into a small bag hanging from my belt, I let out another deep sigh. In truth, the fact that the pocket was light could be easily laughed off.

What I wanted wasn’t the reward, but rather the public recognition for promotion.

However, didn’t the receptionist warn me earlier? She advised me to refrain from taking on any requests for the time being. That was the issue.

But how could I let public duties pile up while doing nothing? It’s an absurd thought.

Yet, it’s not like I can sneak into dungeons or cause a ruckus in front of the receptionist by submitting requests. That would be out of the question.

In short, I had become an unemployed person with money. And even worse, I couldn’t begin to guess when I might find another job.

…Isn’t that a good thing?

Ah, yes. If this were Earth, it might have been. If it were Earth.

In the endlessly peaceful land of my hometown, the life of a wealthy unemployed person is surely the ideal life everyone dreams of.

But this wasn’t Earth.

It was a world filled with regret and debauchery, the adult-oriented novel, “Becoming the Protagonist of an NTR Game.”

…Perhaps.

◆◆

I became possessed by the protagonist of a novel.

I realized this fact less than three minutes after inexplicably becoming possessed.

It was about five minutes later that I realized how screwed I was and ran away.

It was truly bewildering. And despairing.

So, how did that happen…?