Aramsus had managed dungeons.
Managed to prevent monster outbreaks and keep adventurers out of the Innermost Hall.
The defining feature: management of the adventurers who entered.
Not anyone could challenge them, and at times entering was non-optional.
For Aramsus’s Guild, which managed the dungeons, they were a precious revenue stream — parts, mana-stones, treasure.
Managed dungeons needed a steady flow of adventurers to keep monster counts down.
Which meant—
“The right to enter a dungeon?”
The three of us — me, Novem, Aria — had shown up at the Guild and spotted that request among the rows of bulletin boards.
The request — really, a posting from a party wanting to sell its right and find a successor party to keep entering the dungeon.
Guild-mediated.
Aria, head tilted.
“You need a right to enter a dungeon? Darion didn’t have anything like that.”
Darion didn’t have the know-how or strength to manage dungeons; the style was to pour knights and adventurers in en masse and clear them.
Dungeons deepened over time, eventually disgorging a wave of monsters and disappearing at a certain stage.
But if monster numbers were low, they’d just keep deepening and growing instead.
Novem checked the details more carefully.
“In Aramsus, this is the management approach. Party requirements… three front-line, two rear-line, one or more support. Not us.”
We were three.
Mostly we went out, killed monsters, and earned by selling parts.
The Jewel.
The Fourth.
“Rights come with duties. You don’t have to force the issue, but you still need people… Lyle, move with the goal of recruiting six total.”
I gripped the Jewel — understood. With this many people watching, speaking out loud wasn’t viable.
I could hear the ancestors, but my inner voice didn’t reach them.
”…Let’s gather six here. Young adventurers without local attachment — that’s the demographic.”
The conditions were tight.
Adventurers willing to leave their home town were plenty, but young, promising ones were sought by everyone, not just us.
Aria muttered, looking at me.
“You’re just going to look for cute girls, aren’t you.”
She’d been picking fights lately. I came back.
“Male or female — if they’re good, into the party!”
But Novem:
“Ideally — let’s stick to women. Various problems otherwise. They say men-women friction in parties is common.”
Flat refusal.
I’d been telling Novem I didn’t want a harem, and she’d just been smoothly changing the subject.
What was she thinking?
(If I built a harem, would Novem really not be angry… it’s pretty lonely.)
Excessive jealousy was a problem, sure. But being not jealous at all from the woman I liked was a lonelier problem.
Aria, like she’d remembered something.
“I’ve heard that too! Few-men parties have women fighting each other; many-men parties have men fighting each other!”
She nodded to herself. Listening to us, an adventurer chuckled and corrected.
A robed sorcerer-type in a hood addressed Aria.
“Miss, that’s a touch off.”
A middle-aged man’s voice — she straightened her tone for the older man.
“What do you mean?”
His explanation—
“As a rule, adventurers don’t end up romantically involved with each other. They date civilians. Dangerous job — come home and you don’t want to see your colleague’s face. Plus, partners run into work-related friction.”
“R-really?”
“Yes. And there are jobs requiring overnight stays. On the road, you see the unpleasant sides of someone regardless of sex. For men, they want fantasy preserved — civilian women or courtesans. For women, a man who treats me as a woman, not a peer is more attractive than a colleague. — Generalizing, of course. Not absolute. But plenty of adventurers think that way.”
I thought of Zelphy.
(Right — she married a civilian. She had plenty of adventurer acquaintances; same-trade probably wasn’t appealing.)
Rondo and Rachel had been in the same party and dating, so it wasn’t a hard rule.
But the plenty of adventurers think that way part I got.
“If they treat women as not-women, isn’t that the problem…”
Aria pushed back. He answered:
“You’re risking your life equally. In that environment, being protected because you’re a woman — or being underrated — is that pleasing? Treating you as a peer is the courtesy.”
She closed her mouth.
She’d had the same experience and couldn’t argue back.
Novem thanked the adventurer. Aria, on cue—
“Thank you for the kindness.”
“Th-thank you.”
I thanked him too. The hooded adventurer went to the counter with his form.
Plenty of dry residents, but plenty of kind ones too.
”…All right. Romance between party members is bad. Let’s start recruiting seriously. First, posting a flier?”
I proposed the standard approach.
The two reacted poorly.
Aria.
“Then we interview them, right? Or trial-party them and go out? Wouldn’t reaching out to people work better?”
Novem agreed.
But her input I couldn’t trust.
“Guild introductions are an option, but they have to satisfy House Walt’s precept. Interviews work, but I’d want to check with my own eyes.”
This time I would ignore Novem’s input.
“All right. No posting. We approach people. (There’s time. No rush. Better than rushing and failing.)”
Stay in Aramsus a while and the adventurer acquaintances would grow.
Or — approach rookies, instruct, and recruit.
Zelphy had taught us the basics; we could pay it forward.
Teach basics, build credit — not bad.
“All right. Earning time again today.”
I headed for the counter. Aria.
“The least motivated one is you, Lyle.”
◇
Outside, I used Skills to confirm monster positions.
The Fifth’s and Sixth’s were truly convenient.
Where the monsters were.
Where to fight.
How much to fight.
Easy to plan.
Reaching a monster cluster — the Fourth’s Skill for speed.
Without leaving the two behind, the Second’s Skill let the two also use [Speed].
In combat, slight disadvantages weren’t a problem.
Surrounded by goblins—
“Lord Lyle! Two heading your way!”
Novem from behind. The Second’s Skill picked up two goblins approaching my back.
Turning, I knocked aside the lead one’s weapon with the sabre and drew the spare with my left hand, finished one.
Used the corpse as a shield, locked the other’s movement, threw the sabre into its head.
Finally, magic—
“Lightning!”
Violet lightning blackened the surrounding goblins.
Aria shouted from the back.
“Th-that’s scary! Call it out when you cast!”
I was using Skills to maintain real-time positional awareness; even so, magic from the back without warning was startling.
(I explained that…)
Combat coordination — still rough?
The ancestors evaluated.
The Second, calm.
“Lock the enemy’s movement before getting surrounded. Because I can win doesn’t justify the current style.”
The Third, easygoing.
“Well, well — call it experience. Hard to fight surrounded. Need to learn that in real combat. Whether Lyle’s actually learning it, dubious.”
The Fourth.
“For now, fight winnable enemies and polish coordination.”
The Fifth.
“If you put Lyle’s [Experience] over the team and burn through experience together, coordination should improve faster too. The Skill grants more experience than Growth pace anyway.”
The Sixth, my behavior was reckless.
“Don’t underrate winnable enemies. The bill comes due in your own life eventually, Lyle.”
The Seventh, soft.
“Lyle’s skill can handle this much. Natural enough — though the head-count issue is painful.”
Right.
We were undermanned and couldn’t operate the way we wanted.
No pack-carrier, so once a moderate volume of parts and stones piled up we had to head back.
I knew we could fight more, but throwing away parts and stones to keep fighting wasn’t an option.
Don’t take unprofitable actions — an important adventurer principle. We adventured to live, not to fight.
(I want the experience, but dragging these two around just to grind is bad.)
Novem and Aria.
Couldn’t run combat thinking only of myself.
The Second’s day-evaluation:
“With three, this is about your ceiling. A support, or a combat-capable front- or rear-liner, would change things significantly… well, that’s the path forward. New people coming in doesn’t instantly raise earning, either.”
(…Doesn’t raise earning.)
True — a fresh recruit doesn’t immediately translate to higher party earnings.
Training, coordination — time-investments.
(Some promising talent, somewhere…)
I knew it was greedy, but I had to wish for it.
◇
After work, we stopped by a bathhouse near the Guild to wash off the blood and sweat, then back to the house.
The Sirclay family’s Aramsus house — rent essentially zero living.
Miranda met us.
“Welcome ba~ck.”
Being told welcome back — also not bad. I went in—
“BWUH!!”
“L-Lord Lyle!”
“Aha, ahaha ha!!”
My foot slipped. I went down at the entryway.
Novem ran over; I borrowed her hand and stood.
Aria laughed at me.
“What — something slippery…”
I touched the floor — a liquid.
“Hey, are you okay? Wait, this is…”
Miranda came, touched the floor.
“Right, I dropped an egg here. — Weird, I wiped it up… ah, sorry, Lyle. Are you hurt?”
Honestly, yes — but the woman was apologizing. I’m in pain would have the Fourth come unhinged, so I held it in.
“No, my attention was lax. I’m fine. — Aria. You’re laughing too much!”
Aria, holding her stomach in the back, was in tears.
The Jewel sighed.
The Second and Third.
“Lyle, attention-deficit. — Maybe this needs serious thought.”
“Right…”
Novem also exasperated — at Aria.
Novem, as always, on my side.
“Aria-san. Too much.”
“S-sorry. The fall was just so — and remembering it—”
She’d found her trigger; she was fighting to suppress the laugh.
I stood and entered the house.
Novem supported me, Aria trailing.
Miranda was cleaning the floor.
“I really did wipe it…”
She looked confused. We had bags to drop off.
We went to drop them in our rooms.
Separate rooms. Mine, then Novem’s, then Aria’s.
But—
“GYAAAAH!!”
Aria’s scream. We ran.
“What’s wrong, Aria — PFFT!!”
I looked through her door and snorted.
There: Aria, on the ground, with a jar on her head.
For a second I’d been worried, but she was alive, so I laughed.
“Amazing, Aria! You open the door and a jar from the shelf falls and hits you?! It’s a miracle! And that scream just now didn’t sound like a girl at all!”
I pointed at her, hand on my forehead, howling.
She lifted her head out of the jar and glared.
“You…”
Novem, to me this time.
“Lord Lyle, you’re laughing too much.”
“Sorry. But it was funny.”
“Lyle!”
She threw the jar at me. I caught it. Dangerous!
Miranda came over, looked at the shelf, confused.
“That’s weird. This jar’s usually on the middle shelf. — My memory wrong?”
I considered whether Aria had moved it. She denied it.
(Lots of these incidents since we moved in. Lots, for this house.)
This kind of thing had happened repeatedly since we moved in. Strange.
I considered whether Miranda was doing it deliberately, but her display was still blue, no hostility.
(Blind Shannon? — Can’t be her either.)
I was wondering whether the place had a ghost. The Fifth.
“Well, well — looks like a talking-to is needed.”
For whom?
(Not me, right?)
A bad feeling. I touched the Jewel.
No response.
The Fifth wasn’t going to say it here.