Harem Bus Driver (1)

After undoing my transformation at home and changing my clothes, I arrived at the restaurant.

I was here to meet the people who wanted to join my temporary Expedition team.

I’d received a message saying they were at a window seat, and when I got there, I found two women.

“Hello!” “Hello!”

“Ah… a pleasure to meet you.”

They looked to be about my age.

“First… shall we introduce ourselves? I’m Lee Han-gyeol, a Magic-type. And… I was B-rank when I posted the notice, but I was re-evaluated recently and got A-rank, so that’s my current rank.”

“Oh, really? Ah, I’m Lee Yu-jin, an Enhancement-type, and this is—”

“Choi Seo-yoon. I’m also an Enhancement-type. But are you really A-rank? That’s amazing.”

“I know, right? Isn’t an A-rank a little too much for us?”

And then the two of them burst into giggles.

“You both said you were C-rank… so what level of gate should we be aiming for?”

Suddenly, their laughter stopped.

…And they started trying to read my expression?

“Um, well… the thing is, we’re both actually D+-rank.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ah, about that. We both got that rank a pretty long time ago, and we were planning to get re-evaluated soon, you see?”

“We’ve gotten a lot stronger since then, so we were going to get re-ranked, but, ah, Yu-jin. You want to tell him?”

“Right. We were about to, but then our Guild Master passed away and the guild was disbanded.”

“Oh… a guild can be disbanded just like that?”

“After that, there was an internal, uh, power struggle? Things like that happened. Then the Vice Guild Master died, and, well, yeah.”

“Ah… but regardless, you’re both currently D+-rank, aren’t you? This is… a bit baffling.”

“We’re truly sorry about that. But we’re really desperate.”

They seemed awfully cheerful for people who were desperate. No, wait, maybe you have to be cheerful in times like these. Sigh.

“Um, Han-gyeol-nim, you’re a high-rank Awakener so you might not know, but for Awakeners like us, having a gap in our record can make things difficult. We get suspected of things, like maybe we were in a criminal organization and are trying to join under false pretenses.”

What is this? Why do I feel so called out?

“So you haven’t tried teaming up with anyone else? It’s a bit awkward for me to say this, but the rank difference between us… it’s quite large.”

Who in their right mind would team up an A-rank with D-ranks?

“If we set the difficulty to my level, you’ll be in danger. If we set it to the average, you’ll still be in danger. And if we set it to your level, then I’ll… be taking a loss from an opportunity cost perspective.”

For this reason, both sides usually object when Awakeners with a large rank disparity try to form a team.

“We know that, but… our guild was disbanded on very bad terms… It’s a little hard for us to form a team right now.”

At this point, I was more curious about how exactly their guild fell apart.

But while my curiosity was piqued, I was mostly just bewildered.

Because they lied about their rank?

No. If it was just about them lying about their rank, I could just write it off as wasted time and leave.

What bewildered me was the story behind this team request, the first one I’d gotten in a long time.

It meant that no one would even apply to join my team unless they had some kind of sob story.

Sigh… I need to change the wording of my post.

Now that I’m A-rank, should I just go for a tough gate? But then… can I handle being a team leader?

“So, is it… not possible?”

“What? Just a moment… let me think.”

“We’re truly sorry for lying about our rank, but we really are evaluated as C-rank. By other people.”

“But why was your guild disbanded?”

“That… is…”

“I’ll decide after I hear the reason. It sounds like you can’t find a team because of rumors, and honestly, rumors don’t just appear out of thin air, do they?”

“…To be honest, all we know is that our Guild Master passed away. We don’t know the exact details. But according to the rumors—”

“There’s talk that our guild was actually a subsidiary of some criminal organization. You know how a gate collapsed a while back?”

“The rumor is that it happened because the people managing the gate were all killed off during a fight between criminal organizations.”

“They say our Guild Master… was killed after getting caught up in that fight. And did you know that guild masters of small and medium-sized guilds are being killed off one by one right now?”

“Is that so?”

The Guild Master of Elemental was in a league of her own, so I had no idea about such things.

“Well, the word is that the winning side is cleaning up the lower-ranking members of the losing side, one by one. The theory is that those guild masters were probably killed because they were subsidiary members.”

“So the reason you can’t find a team is—”

“People are afraid that if they team up with us, they’ll be mistaken for subsidiary members and get targeted.”

“But we honestly didn’t know anything about that. We’re already under suspicion, and if we get a gap in our work history on top of this, we’ll have to quit being Awakeners for good.”

But according to your logic, wouldn’t I be the one under suspicion now?

“Please, we’re begging you!” “We’re begging you!”

Both of them pressed their hands together, pleading.

Still, lying about your rank and then trying to pass this hot potato to me is a bit much.

And…

Just how far is this snowball rolling?

I think they’re talking about the organization that clashed with Yoo Yi-jun’s group. The one David was in.

It seems the two of them really went at it. That organization was pretty large, too.

Well, it was a place that would drop hundreds of millions on a simple safety measure (a succubus), after all.

The damage is spreading everywhere.

A gate collapsed, a guild collapsed…

I didn’t feel any guilt about it.

No, why would I feel guilty in the first place?

The organization that got wiped out was the one in the wrong.

They should have been less greedy.

“In any case, the rank difference makes it difficult. I don’t have much experience as a team leader either, so I was planning to go to an easy gate, but if the gap is this wide—”

“Then would it be okay if we brought more people? People like us.”

“Then why don’t you just go with them?”

“They’re all D-rank Enhancement-types…”

So why are you trying to dump them on me?

I wanted to slap my forehead but held back.

“You’re an A-rank Magic-type, and since you’re from Elemental, you must be an Elemental Mage. In that case, having several Enhancement-types shouldn’t be much of a burden, right…? Even if you’re alone.”

Honestly, the timing was awkward.

I had promised to go on another run with my last Expedition team, but I had this gap in my schedule before then, which was why I decided to form my own team.

If I turned them down and tried to find new members, I’d be cutting it too close.

But to just do nothing and let the time pass…

It would be a waste of time, and more importantly, it would delay my goal of becoming a team leader at Elemental.

I should have come up with a Plan B in advance…

The number one regret of Awakeners (unofficial).

And now I was experiencing the number two most common last words of Awakeners (unofficial)…

For the record, the number one last words (unofficial) are, “Huh, so this is what kills me.”

Anyway, it was true that the timing was awkward.

And from the sound of it, they could gather more team members easily.

The truth was, finding members was the most time-consuming part of the whole process…

Ah, screw it.

Let’s just go somewhere easy.

“Sigh… Fine. Let’s just go somewhere easy.”

“Really? Thank you!” “Thank you!”

“Then please bring the other people you mentioned. We’ll need several.”

I’ll just take those people, get it over with quickly, and come back.

“Yes! How many should we call?”

“Hmm, for now, just call everyone… and we’ll pick from there? We need to pick the members before we can decide on a gate.”

“Okay! Seo-yoon, can you contact Blue Rock? I’ll take care of this group.”

“Sure.”

“And I heard that other group was having trouble finding people too, so I’ll contact them.”

…Listening to their conversation, it sounded like a lot of people.

*

Even if I said to call everyone…

Fifty people isn’t a bit much, don’t you think?

I couldn’t complain since I was the one who told them to call everyone.

But still, even if I said that, shouldn’t they have filtered them a little on their own?

“We’ve narrowed it down a bit, so what should we do now?”

“…”

“Sorry. It’s a lot of people, isn’t it?”

“Hmm… For now, that person over there, that one, the one standing over there, and the one next to that pillar—”

I picked out the people from whom I could feel the most magic power.

Even so, that was twelve people. Including me, Lee Yu-jin, and Choi Seo-yoon, that made fifteen. That was too many to enter a gate.

It would be impossible to control a group this large.

“Wow, you can really tell the difference in rank. You picked out all the D+ people.”

“Alright then… I’ll just pick a gate first and then choose the people who fit the gate.”

Usually, in situations like this, you go to a place where the mission itself is easy but tedious.

But why is an A-rank going to a place like that…

What’s done is done. I focused on searching for a gate.

“How about this one?”

“Where? Ooh… not bad. Seo-yoon, you’re pretty good at finding these. Han-gyeol-ssi, what do you think of this one?”

“What is it?”

[Gate 71

Gate Information: Gate 71

Restrictions: Cannot apply if below government-certified F-rank. For more details, click here.

Mission: Base camp management, further details to be discussed (?)

Compensation: Per ‘Expedition’ guild compensation regulations

Team Leader: Undecided

Team Members: Undecided

Apply for Team Leader / Apply for Team Member]

[Gate 71

Environment: Snowy mountain range and highlands. Temperature is quite low.

Flora and Fauna: Slime-type, Mammalian-type monsters.

Special Notes: Requires periodic management due to heavy snowfall. The composition of the snow seems slightly different from Earth’s. Ice Slimes and mammalian monsters are numerous but do not pose a significant threat. Management area is marked on the map. Additional exploration areas to be decided upon consultation.

Attached File: map.pdf]

It looked like a simple snow-shoveling mission.

The idea of becoming an A-rank Awakener just to shovel snow was a bit absurd, but I had no choice.

I’ll just melt it all with fire.

“Alright. Let’s go with this one.”

I clicked the ‘Apply for Team Leader’ button.

My ID appeared in the ‘Team Leader’ field.

“Alright then… now we have to pick people who are suitable…”

“Ah, we know them well, so can we recommend them?”

“That would be a great help.”

Actually, it’s not a help at all.

Honestly, I’m just being a bus driver here… And in a situation like this, it’s only natural that they’d make the recommendations.

“So how many should we pick?”

“Hmm… Besides us… six people from that group?”

Even Team Orchestra, which had the most members, only had eight including me.

If it was just shoveling snow, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Still, too many people was a bad idea. You never know what might happen inside a gate.

It was precisely because of that ‘you never know what might happen inside a gate’ that D-rank Awakeners couldn’t just form a group and enter a gate on their own.

Well, they could, but the Expedition guild would advise against it.

And the Awakeners themselves would be anxious.

“Okay!”

Lee Yu-jin and Choi Seo-yoon scurried around, bringing people back one by one.

“This should be enough, right?” “Yeah, this is good.”

“Is that everyone?”

“Yes. These six.”

Uh… but why are they all women?