We finished prepping for outside the wall and headed to the Guild.
By rule, you had to notify the Guild whenever you went out beyond the walls.
There was a reason.
The Guild kept track of where adventurers were and what they were doing. At the same time, if you didn’t return by the planned date, they could assume something had happened.
When we met up with Zelphy, she had her usual easy-movement clothes on under leather armor.
Worn-in shield and sword. Depending on the angle, she looked like a knight.
“On time — actually a little early. Good.”
Praised. Then up to the second floor, where I filled out the form and brought it to the counter.
Hawkins was the duty officer.
”…Received. Please return on time. Should plans change… well, unlikely, but if you’re badly overdue the Guild dispatches a search party.”
Hawkins, worrying. But we had Zelphy. Letting your guard down out of complacency was out of the question, but with an instructor along, things weren’t likely to go sideways.
“Today, just enough to learn the rhythm. Bringing you two back alive is part of my contract.”
“Adventurers honor their contracts, you said?”
I quoted Zelphy. She nodded.
True of adventurers, even more true of mercenaries. Breaking a contract was a major credibility hit.
That was why Zelphy had drilled us on reading contracts carefully.
“It’s just basic, as a person. Don’t break your word.”
Hawkins sighed.
“That so many can’t is exactly the problem. Anyway — best of luck. As an adventurer, demon-beast subjugation is essential to making a living.”
“We’re off.”
We left the Guild.
Outside Darion’s walls.
We walked the road out from the four-meter wall.
Stepping aside for carts and travelling merchants, trading hails with passing travellers from time to time.
“You both brought extra potions?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. Zelphy called over to a slightly grimy traveller.
“What happened? You’re covered in mud.”
He explained.
“Real mess. Stepped off the road to relieve myself, slime jumped me. Robe blocked it, but the cloth got a bit scorched.”
Slime — a transparent membrane around fluid and a core. Demon-beasts that pounced on living things and dissolved them as prey.
Low intelligence, so if you got close they attacked, if you didn’t they didn’t.
They came out in numbers and caused trouble for travellers and cart horses — annoying.
“That so. Here, take this.”
The traveler showed her his robe and a red-burned arm; Zelphy tossed him a potion. Cheap stuff, but was that really fine to give away?
“Sorry about this. They’re about two kilometers ahead, then a right turn into the thicket. There were quite a few in that area.”
In exchange for the info, Zelphy waved him off and parted.
“What was that?”
“Travelers who’re used to the road know how things work on our side. Pay them a little, they give you info. Sure, some lie. But they’re using the road too, so they’ll generally feed monster-hunting adventurers some intel.”
So you didn’t even have to pay? — I thought, but Zelphy smirked.
“Lyle, remember this. People work harder when there’s payment in it. Same goes for information.”
“That so? They get the benefit out of it too, don’t they?”
I couldn’t understand why someone would withhold information that worked in their own favor.
“Some people think the way you do. Some people don’t. You’ve got more world-learning to do.”
We started walking toward the spot the traveler had described.
The spare sabre I’d bought was on my hip, so the gear was fine. And today’s target was slime — knowledge alone, a regular townsman wasn’t out of his depth, I knew that much.
“Oh — perfect timing. You two, see those three adventurers over there. Watch as we walk.”
She pointed. Three knife-armed figures in light clothing — civilian gear, basically. A trio.
They were fighting slime, but their movements were out of sync. No teamwork.
“Are they amateurs?”
Novem’s question. Zelphy answered, sort of.
“Amateurs. The gear gives them away. But struggling against slime isn’t actually rare. The general view is that even regular townsmen can kill them with a weapon…”
While she was explaining, the First weighed in.
“I used to fight ‘em with a stick I picked up. Skin, core, mana-stone — bring ‘em to the Guild geezer and he gave me candy. As a little kid, that’s how I got my snacks. …A weakling like you couldn’t do it, of course.”
There was a clear taunt in it, but what I was actually thinking was…
(That’s a scam, First.)
I almost felt sorry for him. Surely, being a child, he didn’t notice — they took advantage.
(Also — fighting demon-beasts as a tiny kid… the First really was a wild child.)
The Second couldn’t restrain himself. He started up, cackling.
I’d been quietly trying not to say anything. My kindness had been pointless.
“GYAHAHA! Monster parts for candy?! Just how much did they rip you off?! My sides—”
“Wh-WHAT?!”
“Even in my time those parts went for several coppers. Candy by the bag for that price.”
The Second was enjoying himself, making fun of the First.
(…What’s between these two?)
The Second was the plainest of the House Walt ancestors, easy to forget. But there was clearly something buried deep between him and the First.
Then again, I had some guesses.
“That old bastard! I am DEFINITELY going to punch him out!”
“He’s dead by now, I’d think.”
The Third closed the thread out. But things weren’t so easy on my end.
”…Hey Lyle, you listening?”
“Lord Lyle?”
“Eh, ah… sorry.”
I’d tuned too far into the ancestors and missed Zelphy. A done-with-it sigh.
“Haa. Once more. They may be weak, but a hit is a hit — it hurts. Doubly so with a knife’s short reach. So fear keeps the trio’s footwork stuck. If they surrounded and beat the thing, it’d be efficient — but they’re so flustered they can’t see that either, which is its own problem.”
Novem, watching the trio, asked Zelphy.
“You won’t go teach them?”
“Why? I’m your instructor. Got paid, owe you a duty. I don’t owe those three anything. Want to go teach them yourself, Novem? I won’t stop you. Only…”
“Only?”
What was Zelphy about to say? It caught my attention.
“Those three need to learn now. The pain. Especially when they’re like you two — not realizing they need an instructor, and not having the funds to put together proper gear either.”
”…You’re right.”
Novem seemed convinced.
But she kept glancing back at them. They were getting hurt, but they were getting their slimes down.
Calling out “ow, ow” as they collected slime materials.
I watched the trio too.
“Think me cold?”
“No, I — a little.”
I answered honestly. Zelphy laughed. “Honest, aren’t you.” Then she explained.
“An adventurer who fights a demon-beast and dies, that’s on him. Worse, fools throw themselves at demon-beasts way out of their league. You save that kind of fool, he does it again. Quit demon-beast hunting and he’ll do something else stupid.”
That kind of fool, she said, was scary.
“And give them an inch — too many take a mile. Especially in the bottom-rung adventurer work.”
(Meaning — don’t get too involved.)
“So even if not everyone is like that, we can’t extend a hand to all of them?”
Novem’s read. Half-right, Zelphy said.
“Helping is easy. But can you keep looking after them? Help them once and they’ll just do it again. Worse, they might start expecting that someone’ll save them when it gets dangerous… So before it costs them their life, better they learn the pain.”
The Second agreed.
“‘Don’t just give a man bread, teach him to grow wheat,’ that one? It’s true — give a man bread on tap and a lot of them rot.”
“Anyway, basic story is — you two are amateurs too. Not the saving side, the being-saved side… in the middle of being saved, in fact. If you want to save anyone, get to first-rate fast.”
Zelphy went quiet and walked us to the destination.
We reached the spot the traveler had indicated. Slime, as promised.
Five of them visible at a glance.
Murky yellow-green blobs slithering on the ground, occasionally springing. The red-orb cores barely visible inside.
“Hmm. He said thicket, but the forest is close. Don’t want to go deeper… ah, there we go.”
Zelphy picked up a rock lying nearby.
A few light tosses in her palm, then she lobbed it at the slime.
The hit slime’s movement turned suddenly frantic.
It came toward us.
“No eyes, no ears, and it still picks up our location.”
I drew my sabre. Zelphy raised shield and drew her sword. Novem readied her staff.
“You two are tense. Stiff as boards. I’ll show you — watch.”
She stepped toward the oncoming slime — or rather, what was coming in our direction.
She stepped a little aside from where she’d thrown the rock. That alone — the slime kept tracking to the spot we’d been a moment before.
That single trick gave Zelphy plenty of room to take her swing.
“Once you’re close, footfall or vibration, either way they pick you up. So go for one-shot kills.”
She thrust, broke the skin, fluid poured out.
After a moment the slime stopped moving. Zelphy called Novem over.
“Novem, come.”
“Y-yes!”
“Easy. Put out the cask.”
Novem held out the small cask we’d bought on the Guild’s first floor.
Zelphy drew her knife, drained the murky fluid, lifted the skin with the knife.
The core and the mana-stone dropped out; she scooped them into a separate leather pouch.
The skin and the sticky residue clinging to its surface went into the cask.
“Done. Basic rule: collect materials only after you’ve checked the perimeter. Or, if you’re a party, have the others watch the perimeter — I taught you that, didn’t I?”
She looked at me. I scrambled to apologize. She smirked — no big deal.
“Be careful next time. You saw the method? You two are doing the rest, by the way. Oh — the gloves you collect with, don’t use for anything else.”
I took the warnings, and we copied Zelphy and started picking up rocks.
“Novem, either thrust with a knife or borrow Lyle’s sabre. Bludgeoning’ll kill them too, but it splatters — pain.”
“Yes. Lord Lyle, may I borrow your sabre?”
Just as Novem said it, Zelphy raised her voice.
“You two, fall back!”
She was suddenly tense — and a voice came from the Jewel.
The First.
“Get behind the female adventurer NOW! No — protect Novem-chan while you get behind her! GOBLINS!”
Goblins.
Green-skinned, large-headed demon-beasts. Two-thirds the height of a grown man, but disproportionate strength relative to their thin torsos and limbs.
Counted as weak among demon-beasts, but classified as troublesome.
The reason: a single goblin is weak, but they come in groups, and they carry weapons.
A scholar had once said: if goblins had even slightly more intelligence, the surface world would be ruled by goblins.
In the thicket—.
A goblin nocked a bow. Another, gripping a stick with a stone lashed to it as a club, came charging out.
Zelphy moved fast to put herself in front of the archer’s line, blocking the arrow. Told us to fall back.
The First agreed.
“Both of you, back, wait behind me! I’m putting these down!”
“You can’t win, kid. Shut up and do what the woman says. They aren’t strong individually, but they push with numbers.”
The First was right.
Seven goblins came out of the thicket.
But—.
“What are you talking about? Lyle — show them.”
The Seventh. I leveled my sabre at the goblin pack. Zelphy was in front of me; I had to warn her.
“Zelphy, don’t move.”
“Wha—”
Before she could finish, I started prepping the spell.
The Jewel was siphoning my mana.
Given my mana and the number of enemies, one spell was the ceiling. Yes, no question — fair to say I couldn’t really use magic in combat.
“Hey, idiot! There’s no way you can—”
The First’s voice cut in. I cast.
(One spell to handle that many…)
“Lightning.”
Lightning magic rained down on the goblins charging Zelphy.
The cast time, the scale, the power — yes, not a combat-grade level. As I’d known.
Violet sparks crawled over the goblins like they were caught in a static field. I had the distances calculated; Zelphy wouldn’t be in it.
But—.
“One got away.”
The goblin closest to Zelphy slipped past. The spell had clipped him — the arm was charred black.
Reading us as a threat, or just desperate, he came charging.
Zelphy, briefly stunned, snapped to it the moment he moved.
Cut him down in one stroke.
So this was the woman they’d picked as our instructor — the skill checked out.
”…Hey, hey, hey. That was lightning element? You’re a sorcerer?”
“I declared it, didn’t I?”
“Sure, declared, yeah — but spells at that level were not in my predictions. I can cast a few things myself, but if you told me to put down something at that level, my answer would be no, instantly.”
Zelphy swept the surroundings, confirmed safety, then turned to me. Eyes still wide from the spell.
“Good work, Lord Lyle.”
Novem dropped her guard and walked over.
The goblins were on the ground, hissing faintly. Not a pleasant scene.
(Come to think of it — first time fighting demon-beasts.)
The smell too.
I winced.
Partly the scene, partly the fact that certain people were burning through the last of my mana.
“‘You can’t,’ was it? …Pffft. Bwa, BWAHAHA! See that?! THAT is Lyle’s true strength! Don’t underestimate House Walt’s prodigy son!!!!!”
(Grandpa, please — that’s embarrassing.)
“You all underestimated Lyle too much. He’s a sorcerer carrying royal blood, end of story.”
The Seventh, impersonating the First’s bluster. The Sixth, exasperated, addressed the rest.
“N-no… but sorcerers, they’re, you know. Normally they’re more inconvenient than that.”
The Second still surprised; the Third, simply impressed.
“That’s something. Granted, not combat-ready, but with better conditions he could pull off easy spells. I’ll revise upward, Lyle.”
The Fourth, surprised, and pleased that his bloodline had produced a sorcerer.
“All that strain marrying up to a viscount family — finally paying off! House Walt is, in the truest sense, nobility now!”
The Fifth was exasperated with all of them.
“That’s all it takes to set you off? Well — at this age, that level is genuinely good. The evaluation does need revising.”
”…”
The First was silent.
Silent. And — I had just used magic.
“L-Lord Lyle!”
“Hey, hey! What’s wrong?!”
Novem and Zelphy. I dropped to one knee on the spot, breath ragged, screaming internally.
(WILL YOU PEOPLE SHUT UP! I JUST CAST A SPELL, I AM RUNNING ON FUMES! PLEASE — SHUT — UP!)
Lower-difficulty spell, three times.
Bump the difficulty slightly, once.
That was my magic ceiling at the moment. And as this run-in showed me, any more difficulty and I just couldn’t cast at all.
(I am increasingly convinced the Jewel is dragging me down. Is that just me?)