Vol 3 Chapter 3 ~ Adventurers Are Hard

“I’m sorry if I didn’t know about this, guys. There’s no way a party of skilled adventurers like Gonz’s brothers would do something as dirty as decoys.”

“Great adventurers.”

The face of Gonz, who muttered with a great adventurer, turns into a smile. Choro, to choro. Are you okay? Gonz. I’m a little worried because it’s too choro.

“You’ve got a proper scout, don’t you? Why don’t you give me that job?”

“There are some scouts, but real scouts don’t exist unless you’re a retired soldier or a great hunter who’s changed careers. It is said that scouting skills are complicated to learn.”

When Al said so, Kimon, a hunter, nodded.

“I’m going to ask you all to listen to me. Between you and me, I’d like to tell you something.”

Having said that and getting everyone’s ears closer, I whispered.

“I’m quite good at detecting and concealing signs.”

“What? Yajin?”

Gonz shouts out. We all faced each other to speak quietly. Gonz’s loud ears become keen.

Everyone frowned and looked at him, holding their ears.

“Oh, oh, I’m sorry. It’s a big voice.”

It was Gonz’s fault that we lost the conversation.

I was asked again if I had the skills. I answered that I have a signing skill, but there is no way to prove it.

Anyway, I asked Gonz and the others to take a request quest with me once. After a bit of prodding, Gonz got into the mood and said, “Sure, I’ll take you out for a spin.

To accept the request, I need to get the necessary goods for the adventure.

However, I don’t know the market price of the goods at all. I’m afraid I’ll get ripped off, so I was hoping you could go shopping with me.

He didn’t mind that I was being too bold and said he would go along with me. I thought they were surprisingly caring people.

To fight monsters, the plain dress is really bad. So, first of all, I decided to buy armor.

I wasn’t wearing plain clothes, and I was fighting almost completely naked with a waistcoat and a koshimi. But I almost died when I fought a hobgoblin, so armor is essential.

The weapon shop and the armor shop are adjacent to each other, but different people run them. The father of the armor shop is a good friend of Gonz, and they were talking happily. You have to serve the customers, the older man of the armor shop.

As a scout, I asked for equipment that would not interfere with my movement as much as possible. I asked him to choose one of them within his budget.

Kimon, a hunter, brings in candidates, and Al decides by looking at the price, etc… If you try it on and it works, buys the equipment.

And so, my first piece of armor for another world was decided.

It is a thin leather armor that is soft and does not impede movement.

Hard leather is not hard leather, so it is weak against cutlery, but it has a thin iron plate on the chest and sneakers, and it meets the minimum defense.

It was a little difficult to move around as he was not used to wearing it, but it was manageable. Al also said that after wearing it for a while, I would get used to it.

I have a small budget, so my options are narrow. There is no doubt that two active adventurers chose it.

When I took my armor to the cashier, Gonz said to the armor shop owner who was chatting with me.

“This is the man I’m supposed to take care of,” he said. He’s the one I’m supposed to be looking after, and he’s a promising adventurer.”

With that, he put his hand on the armorer’s shoulder. You can hear the creak of his bones. As soon as he did, Gonz asked to lose less than half the price.

The armorer’s father, sweating on his creaking shoulder, said he could not afford that price.

“Come on, let’s show them how big you are!”

The older man’s hand tightened on his shoulder as he smiled.

Just as the old armorer’s shoulders were about to reach their limit, Al intervened. It’s a good thing he’s smart enough to know when to back off.

As it was, Al negotiated a discount with the older man of the armor shop. As a result, he was able to buy it at the unbeatable price of 3 discounts.

It’s a dangerous combination. I’m sure they’ve been through negotiations like this before. The scary thing about Gonz is that he has an air of fear about him that makes the other party think, ‘This guy might do it for real.

I wouldn’t say I like it, so I smashed my head with an ax, hey. While bathed in blood, he gives off a terrible air that seems to say such a thing without hesitation.

And it’s not just the atmosphere. It’s doing it. By the way, I had an ax when I got involved.

If I had made the wrong choice, that ax would have been driven into my head without mercy.

Good job, me! I congratulated myself in my mind.

He sensed that Gonz was in trouble, and while the older man in the armor shop was in a state of confusion, he stopped Gonz, ingratiated himself with him, and used his clever talking skills to get the better of the negotiations.

It’s a combination too good to be true.

The armorer’s father, who was chatting with Gonz, was not in a friendly relationship with him but was probably in a good mood so that he wouldn’t be forced to do anything.

So I went to the shop, and the shop, and bargained. Thanks to this, I could buy a complete set of equipment and consumables on my small budget.

I thought he was eating and drinking like an idiot with other people’s money, but the amount of money discounted was more than the amount of money I bought him. It’s very nice.

Instead, the employees of the shop where he made the purchase must feel bad. You have to be careful not to get inferior products. ……

I noticed something when I shopped there. Most shoppers can’t multiply or divide.

I bought four wounds at the grocery store. I bought more than enough for a backup, but then I noticed something strange.

Instead of multiplying the prices of the items by four, I was adding them up three times. He was using a mysterious abacus-like tool to do the addition each time.

The aristocracy and the Church have a monopoly on knowledge and prevent it from being spread. I heard that, but I didn’t think that even the people who do business can’t do the four arithmetic operations properly.

No wonder civilisation has not developed. The aristocrats would like to keep all the people as fools to protect their vested interests.

If they can’t even understand the implications of their misrule, they are unlikely to revolt. Al said to me, “The nobles are doing what they want. Don’t get involved,” he said.

If they do too much, the hate will build-up, and the nobles will be killed in revolts and revolutions, but this world seems to be different.

The aristocrats have raised their level in power leveling and are simply stronger because they can use magic.

The fact that the nobles have a monopoly on magic is also a big factor.

From the perspective of the people, who do not have much knowledge of science, magic, or the power to manipulate natural phenomena, it seems to be a terrifying thing that transcends nature.

The inhabitants of this world, where death abounds, are extremely indifferent to the deaths of those who are not close to them. Few commoners care if a nobleman strikes down a commoner with impunity.

The nobility, who manipulate nature through magic, are considered messengers of gods and spirits who transcend natural phenomena. A nobleman’s death is seen with a sober eye by all but those involved as if he had died in a natural disaster.

They are more powerful as individuals and are capable of magic that can only be considered supernatural. Furthermore, they keep the people as fools so that they do not feel dissatisfied.

And by monopolizing knowledge, he prevents them from starting a revolution that would kill all the nobles.

If the aristocracy were to be killed off in a revolution, the intelligentsia would disappear. If that happens, civilisation cannot be maintained.

The aristocracy has trained people, who have monopolized knowledge, economy, and magic for centuries, to be docile cattle.

It’s the nobleman’s way of doing things,” he said, “and everyone gives up. So never get involved with the nobility, Al said.

When I went into town, I felt it.

The people, who have had their knowledge and fangs pulled out over the centuries, and the nobility, who cling to their vested interests and keep civilization stagnant despite the threat of monsters.

This distorted relationship was the horror of the nobility. As we walked along, vowing nothing to do with the nobles, we arrived at the Adventurers’ Guild.

Al took one of the request forms and showed it to me. He told me the details of the request, the client, the reward, and the deadline.

Because it was a cheat that conveys the language with nuances, can’t you read the letters? That’s what I thought. I could read it normally, so I thanked the god with a slightly bad personality.

At Gonz’s party, only Al can read the letters. So basically, Al chooses the request.

By the way, Gonz is dumb and can’t count more than ten numbers. He can’t count more than ten because it’s more than he can count on his fingers. If you make fun of him for it, an ax will fall on his head, so he tries not to touch it.

As a joke, you can count up to 20 with your toes. When I said that, I said, “I heard something good,” and moved my toes.

He couldn’t do it well, so he said he would do his best to train himself.

I thought to myself, “Why don’t you learn numbers and maths instead of trying to move your toes around so dexterously? That’s what I thought, but when I said it, the ax came down on my head. I’ll keep those words to myself.

The cover story is that I am a descendant of slaves, but I can write and do the math. He said that he had been helping the chief with his work not to look suspicious.

But I hadn’t expected the level of knowledge of the commoners to be so low.

But I hadn’t expected the level of knowledge of the commoners to be so low. I was helping the village chief with his work. How unnatural was that? I thought so, but Al made up his own story and convinced me.

The reason why my mother was freed from slavery was that she had an affair with the chief. I was the child of the chief’s hands on my mother, who was a slave. I was the child of the chief’s affair with my mother, so when the chief’s son came along, he was very hard on me, the child of his father’s affair.

It seems to be a common story among the nobility, and for some reason, he patted me on the shoulder with a kind face.

I’ve heard that it’s not legal to pry into the past of adventurers, so I guess it’s okay if it’s not extremely unnatural.

The quest that Al has chosen is to defeat a wolf type called the Grey Wolf. It’s a great way to get rid of a demon that’s attacking your livestock. It’s a day’s journey.

It’s a one-day trip, and the price is not bad. However, grey wolves move in packs, so if you’re not halfway competent, you’re likely to get beaten back.

That’s why there were so many requests left.

The best requests disappear in the morning. He told me to make a habit of waking up in the morning, even if I went to bed late.

I replied that I understood and tried my best to put it into my small brain.

The equipment was ready. We were to leave tomorrow morning.

Do I have the skills? Would I be able to act as a scout properly? That’s the test.

Finally, my debut as an adventurer: ……. My heart was pounding with anticipation and anxiety.

I’ll tell you how we work together tomorrow when we get there. But first, I’m going to teach you the most important thing about being a Rockcliffe adventurer.

Al looked me in the eye with a serious expression on his face as he said this.

I straighten my posture and concentrate on making sure I hear every word.

The most important thing to watch out for in a small group of nations is not monsters or powerful clients. It’s your fellow adventurers.

That’s what Al said.

It’s not only the descendants of criminals who are despised by the rest of the world. It’s because of the ongoing attraction of criminals to the small nations.

Do criminals congregate here? Is there a huge criminal organization? I wondered but decided to keep my mouth shut and listen quietly.

Both the Megado Empire and the Regam Kingdom have different laws depending on the senior aristocrats’ territory. This is especially true of the Kingdom of Regam, where the aristocratic power is strong.

If you are wanted for a crime, you can escape by going to another senior nobleman’s estate.

Unless they have committed a serious crime, such as harming a nobleman, their crimes in other territories are ignored. They are wanted all over the country, and their likenesses are displayed. This is rarely the case.

You are only wanted in the territory of the senior nobleman who controls that territory.

The law is different in each territory. In addition, there is no handover of criminals to the nobility.

Therefore, criminals are like migratory birds, moving from place to place and committing crimes. Adventurers, who do not stay in one place but roam around searching for prey and work, are a good match for criminals.

And when a criminal is wanted in most of the high nobility, the last place he will end up is in the small states.

The ones who are violent and get out of control quickly will be eliminated soon unless they are blessed with a basic value as good as Gonz, so there is no problem.

The ones who end up in the small states are the genuine criminals who survived.

They don’t make it past level 15 and have only average strength as adventurers. Despite this, they are a sea of criminals who have committed crimes across the land and survived long enough to flee to former penal colonies.

Most of the new adventurers have fallen prey to them, and the ones who have survived have become even tougher than they were.

The first time they saw me, they thought I was just another adventurer.

Certainly, he has a strange appearance, seems to have a low basic value, and has no common sense. No one can join the party.

He indeed has a strange appearance, low basic value, and no common sense. No one would let him into the party.

I was a little depressed when I said it myself.

This is why the first time I joined the adventurer’s guild, I felt that the atmosphere was so bad. It all became clear to me.

If all adventurers’ guilds were like that, they wouldn’t be allowed to exist.

However, it’s too hard to be in a situation where your peers are the most dangerous. I thought being an adventurer would be a dream job.

It’s too hard. It’s hard to be an adventurer. I haven’t even made my debut as an adventurer yet. ……

The brutal truth about being an adventurer brought tears to my eyes.