episode_0016

Three days after clearing the dungeon .

After a two-day break as I suggested, the members of the gathered again at the bar .

“………”

“…………..”

(The atmosphere is quite grim)

‘Last time something like that happened, if you welcome me with a big smile, you’re a real idiot with no guts. But you’re not in a position to kick me out either… Hyunwoo, that punk, is probably seething with anger and wanting to die.’

I didn’t come back to the party to play with those kids in the first place.

If you can scratch this much from the first dungeon, then you can call it a successful return.

— Gulp, gulp….

After emptying a glass of alcohol, amidst the gazes of the party members who were silently looking at me.

I began the story in a relaxed tone.

“Then I’m going to start deciding on the next schedule. Do you have any opinions or requests?”

“Why don’t you decide for yourself, you smart guy? You could take 50% of the party’s profits and do that yourself.”

“I’d like to do that too, but I’m a guest party member anyway. If I mess around with this party as I please, I might end up driving you guys to the brink of death for my own pocket money. If you don’t want to die on the floor of a dungeon, you should decide where to go.”

Well, even if they do express their opinions, I will slowly adjust them and guide them in the direction I have in mind.

But for now, we still need to make them believe that they are choosing their jobs of their own free will.

“Huh….”

Hyunwoo, who closes his mouth with a displeased expression.

Julia glanced at him and sighed as she began to tell the story.

“Hi, Mr. Hire.”

“What is it?”

“Our warrior party has lost a significant amount of the guild’s trust and reputation due to the four consecutive failed requests. If possible, I would like to choose the next agenda item in a way that can restore some of the lost reputation.”

After pretending to think for a moment.

I stopped by the guild in advance and laid out on the floor a few of the request forms I had picked up.

Then he handed one of them to Julia.

“Then… how about this request?”

“………..”

— Client: Labyrinth City Defense Force

We request the subjugation of the bandit group that has occupied the mountainous region leading to the northern part of the Labyrinth City.

They have recently become notorious for taking over the roads near the Dolm Mountains and killing travelers and attacking merchants. The damage is enormous, and it is having a negative impact on the economy of the entire city.

The terrain is rugged and their strongholds are not well-positioned, so it is difficult to deploy regular troops. They judged that infiltration by a small number of elite troops would be more advantageous, so they requested the Adventurer’s Guild to subdue them.

Rank: A

Reward: 2 silver per regular bandit, bounty for officers regardless of life or death

——

“After looking into it separately, I heard that these guys are a bandit group formed mainly by retired soldiers and adventurers who fled the Labyrinth City. There are only about a hundred of them, but each individual has excellent combat ability and many of them have skills such as magic, sniping, and trap setting. They probably made this request because they are an opponent that is difficult for regular soldiers to deal with.”

“………..”

“……………..”

“There is a bounty of 50 gold per head for the executives, and 200 gold for the leader, the author named Gladden. If you wipe them all out, you can make close to a thousand gold. Since they are the ones causing harm to civilians, you can also get a decent amount of ‘fame’ from what you just mentioned.”

“……….”

After accepting it with a careful expression and reading it, Julia handed the request form over to Hyunwoo.

“Tsk… Even if you solve this kind of request, wouldn’t it be the commoners who will be grateful? If you want to build a reputation, shouldn’t you solve requests that will appeal to the royal family or high-ranking nobles?”

“You really are so narrow-minded….”

“Huh?”

Hyunwoo crumples up his expression and swears.

After giving him a smirk, he continued to explain in detail.

“Why do you think the guild put such a high bounty on a bunch of bandits? Because their evil deeds have caused the overall perception of adventurers in the labyrinth city to deteriorate. People are starting to feel uneasy that these authors will be no different from bandits when they retire.”

“……….”

“In that situation, if you go out and take care of those guys with a warrior party, you’ll get a pretty good evaluation from the guild. At least you’ll be able to escape the current situation where you’re on the verge of being demoted from A-rank.”

“………..”

“In addition, the leader of the bandits, Gladden, is a former vice-captain of the Kingdom Knights. He is a thorn in the eye of the Kingdom Army. If you bring him his head, the reputation of the warrior party within the Kingdom Army will rise significantly. If things go well, it will be possible to receive high-level requests related to subduing the Demon King’s army.”

Hyunwoo still looks at the request form with a reluctant expression.

Well, I guess you don’t like the fact that I’m recommending this commission.

But Julia nodded after gathering her thoughts with a careful expression.

“That sounds okay. I agree.”

“Cream is against it.”

“….Why?”

“Cream is the staff of the goddess. I hate fighting with people….”

“……….”

This bitch has a head full of sponges…

You playfully beat up demons and monsters, but you don’t want to fight people?

“Then 1 for, 1 against. What about Zion?”

“I, I….”

Sion, who had been observing Hyunwoo’s expression with a timid expression for a while…

After a while, I closed my eyes tightly.

“I will abstain….”

“I see. Well, I’m a guest so I guess I don’t have the right to vote… You can decide, warrior.”

“……….”

For a moment, he observed the expressions of the party members with his narrowed eyes.

Hyunwoo picked up the request form and swore at it.

“—Fuck.”

The next day, early in the morning.

My party of warriors and I gathered at the square and went to the post station that was affiliated with the guild to rent a carriage.

When the grooms heard that they were heading to Dolmsan, most of them waved their hands and told them to go and look somewhere else…

Just like in the original, there was a fairly large-scale coachman, and I hired him as he suggested, giving him a deposit of 1 gold and the condition that he could run away and abandon the carriage if it became dangerous.

— Dagdak, dagdak, dagdak….

“Hmph… Do I really have to go and fight people? Cream, I don’t like that kind of thing….”

“………”

“………….”

“Brave brother~ Stop it now and go back~. We’re a warrior party, not murderers…..”

“………..”

It’s been about 5 hours since we left the post station.

Krimhilt must be really dissatisfied with this situation, because she has been muttering and complaining without stopping her mouth even once.

Hyunwoo and Julia, who had tried to appease her with kind words at first, seemed tired and had now given up.

Well, in the original work, there was a setting where if you received a PvP quest while Krimhilt was in the party, her favorability rating would drop.

It’s not that I didn’t expect that kind of reaction, but…

Still, there’s a world of difference between what you expected and what you actually experienced.

(She really is a scary girl… Who would have thought she could keep mumbling like that without getting tired…)

‘When I was active in the warrior party, about 20% of the neurosis I felt was due to listening to that punk’s complaints… Well, it seems like nothing much has changed since I left.’

“Brave brother aaa~.”

“Hey, seriously…. Stop it……”

at that time.

— Thud….!!

The carriage suddenly stopped, and the party members almost fell forward and backward, barely managing to keep their balance.

“Huh…!?”

“You piece of shit…! Hey, aren’t you driving properly? Do you want to get caught?”

“Oh, no…! That’s not it….”

Party members reacting in various ways, including screaming and swearing.

I ignored them and quickly jumped out of the carriage.

–Whaaah….!!

The faint smell of blood wafts in.

The remains of a carriage and the corpses of soldiers can be seen in the distance.

Did that event happen as expected?

I motioned for the coachman to wait a moment and headed in that direction, and the party members also got out of the carriage belatedly following me.

“What the… What the hell? What happened?”

“It seems like there are 20 dead people…..”

“They must be the ones attacked by the bandits. Krimhilt, search for anyone who might be alive and treat them. You, the warrior, and Yulia, check the carriage, and Sion, be on the lookout for any enemy remnants nearby. ”

The warrior party members each nodded and scattered in all directions.

Soon after, Krimhilt found one of the survivors and began to treat him, and I approached him.

“Are you okay~? Come to your senses…. It’ll hurt a little, so bear with it for a little bit?”

“Ugh…. Gasp, ugh…. Yes… Go, thank you….”

“What happened?”

I’m not asking because I don’t know, but…

The soldier who was saved from the brink of death by Krimhilt’s treatment coughed a few times and then answered with difficulty.

“We were attacked by bandits…. Phew…. We were on full alert…. But then magic suddenly came flying…. And the carriage flipped over…. And the guards were helpless….”

“………”

“You… are you… oh, oh my… a priest?”

“Yes~. My name is Krimhilt Lund Parna, a regular knight of the Holy Shield Knights.”

“Su… Guardian Knight… Krimhilt…?”

Despite her outrageous words and actions, Krimhild is a high-ranking cleric with considerable fame within the Order.

The soldier’s expression changed when he heard Krimhild’s name, and he grabbed her hand with an earnest expression.

“Lady Krimhilt…!! Please!! Save the saintess…. Please save the saintess!!”

After that.

The party of warriors who had finished their search gathered without much success, and after talking to the surviving soldiers, we were able to get a general idea of the situation.

They appeared to be ordinary soldiers, but in reality they were members of the Knights Templar, a sect of the Goddess Cult.

And the one riding in the carriage was Eterna, one of the candidates for the original heroine and a girl revered as a by the religious order.

It is said that he was on a journey to inspect the northern territory that had recently been devastated by an epidemic and to treat the patients.

To reduce the risk of the journey as much as possible, I pretended to be an ordinary traveler…

Where did the information leak from?

The bandits attacked them as if they had been waiting for them, and the knights were helplessly repelled, and had no choice but to kidnap the saintess.

“Please, I beg you!! Please rescue the saintess from their clutches….!! If anything happens to her body… a great disaster will strike the entire continent….!!”

“……….”

Well, I was thinking of doing that from the beginning…

The other party members’ expressions were considerably darker, as if they were perplexed by the fact that the request, which they had thought was a simple matter of subduing bandits, had become so large in scale.

one side.

Immediately after hearing the story of the saint being kidnapped, Krimhilt is fidgeting and pacing in place as if she wants to climb up the mountain right away.

— Crack…!!

After getting the party members’ attention with a light clap.

I sorted out the situation.

“Although an unexpected mission has been added, the fundamental objective has not changed. We go into their hideout, wipe out the bandits, and rescue the saintess. Anyone else have any objections?”

“……….”

“…………….”

“It doesn’t seem to be there. Originally, I planned to attack them head-on and sweep them away, but since the enemy has taken hostages, I think I’ll have to move more covertly. I’ll send the carriage back here and go on foot. Everyone, unload your luggage and prepare to climb. ”

After sending the survivors of the Knights back on the carriage.

The warrior party members each carried their own loads and prepared to climb the mountain.

— Beatle, beatle…

“Ugh….”

Zion struggled to get up, carrying a backpack that was larger than his body.

The other party members seem to be carrying only simple bags or backpacks, so it seems that they have in fact left more than half of their luggage on Zion.

Perhaps the bullying that arose from the failure of the last B-rank request is still going on.

–Suddenly.

After snatching the backpack Zion was carrying.

“Warrior.”

“Why?”

— Whoosh….!!

I threw her backpack to Hyunwoo.

I smiled at Hyunwoo, who was looking at me with a bewildered expression.

“You carry this. Hand me that damn backpack.”

“What…? Huh, shit. What the hell is this? Who are you to tell people how to distribute luggage within a party?”

“The sniping ability of the is essential to secretly infiltrate the bandit group’s hideout. I can’t let my shoulders get tired from the street like this, so you should sacrifice some of your useless stamina.”

“So, does that mean it’s okay for my shoulders to be worked a little?”

“That’s what I meant, but if you didn’t understand, should I explain it in more detail?”

“This fucking….”

Hyunwoo exudes murderous intent, ready to draw his sword at any moment.

but–

“Sir, please stop.”

“Don’t fight~ Okay? If you think it’s hard, I’ll put cream on it~”

Julia and Krimhilt tried to stop him, and Hyunwoo gritted his teeth with a rotten expression.

The emotions revealed in those eyes.

It would be a betrayal that two people who would have taken his side in this situation until recently intervened in the situation from a neutral position.

Hyunwoo, who had been glaring at me for a while, turned around and walked away, carrying his backpack on his back.

“Ha…Fuck, seriously….It’s so dirty I can’t eat it….”

and.

I spoke to Zion, who was looking at me with a bewildered expression.

“You never know when your archery skills will be needed. You don’t have to carry a burden, so come with me, always ready to shoot arrows.”

“…..Okay.”