The morning of day three — the morning I learned that House Walt’s precept, passed down across generations, had actually started from a misunderstanding.
Novem and I were on the Adventurers’ Guild’s third floor, meeting the female adventurer who’d be our instructor.
Hawkins had brought her in. Her name was 【Zelphy】.
Distinctive short, wavy purple hair. She showed up to the meeting room in rough clothes. The bare skin showed old scars.
Her eyes were sharp too — the air of an adventurer who’d actually earned her keep.
“Zelphy, these are the two new adventurers I told you about.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“P-pleased to meet you.”
After our greetings, Zelphy looked us over and nodded a few times.
”…I figured someone had to be pulling my leg when I heard rookies wanted to hire me, but — you’re some kind of nobles, aren’t you.”
That caught me off guard.
Today’s duty ancestor was the Third, who also sounded mildly surprised.
“The kind of woman it would be a mistake to write off just because she’s a woman. Although — are female adventurers common these days? Sign of the times, I suppose… still, something’s off.”
(Off?)
I almost cocked my head at the Third’s comment but caught myself. Hawkins, meanwhile, was warning her.
“Zelphy, asking too much about a client’s background isn’t—”
“I know, I know. Wouldn’t make trouble for you, Hawkins. But on my side, if I’m going to teach, I’m going to set a few ground rules. Especially for a noble’s kid. Can’t go in halfway. If they don’t like it, I’m out — I won’t be responsible for them.”
I looked at Novem. She nodded, so I asked her to lay them out.
“Understood. As long as it isn’t unreasonable.”
“That’s fine, then. Rule one: no complaints about my teaching methods. Meaning, do what I say. Rule two: three months, I drill the basics into you. No picking and choosing which work you’ll take. Rule three—”
So far, nothing unusual. We waited for the third.
“Rule three: get at least one more partner. Temporary’s fine, but make sure you can run a job as a three-person team.”
Novem and I exchanged glances. Hawkins seemed to agree.
“True. With three of you we can hand out a wider range of work.”
I hadn’t thought about additional party members. I’d figured we’d recruit after learning the basics.
“Hmm. She’s got her reasons. We’re amateurs on the adventurer side too — better to defer here.”
The Third’s verdict. Not just because it was him, but I decided to accept all three.
“The conditions are clear. We have no objection.”
Zelphy broke into a smile.
A much more attractive woman smiling than intimidating, frankly.
“All right! Then I’ll take the job. Honestly, when I heard new rookies were hiring me, I was a little surprised, but — you’re more straightforward than I expected.”
Novem asked, “Is it that unusual?”
“Not how it usually goes. Most rookies have no money, so they save up first, then hire mid-rank instructors like me. Two or three gold a head, pooled, paid to the Guild. If they’ve got drive, basically everyone does it eventually.”
Hawkins picked up the thread.
“Darion has a lot of work available, so it’s a good place for new adventurers. The Darion branch operates this instructor system.”
“At a certain point, people plateau and start pushing themselves into trouble. So first the basics from a lower-rank veteran, then a mid-tier instructor like me for the next stage.”
Apparently this kind of program existed in only a handful of branches — Darion being one. A branch that put real effort into raising rookies.
“Anyway — unusual or not, Zelphy here is a twelve-year veteran. Plenty of experience, no conduct issues. By all means, take her as a model… except for the language.”
Zelphy protested.
“I’m still in my twenties, sir! Don’t go calling me a veteran already!”
“Use this room to settle your schedule. Learn what you need from a veteran, gain the experience, and become a fine adventurer — I’m expecting it.”
Hawkins left, smiling, and we were placed under Zelphy’s instruction.
In the Guild meeting room, Zelphy started drilling us on the essentials.
“—Right, that covers the basics. The important thing is your companions. Don’t get this part, and no matter how talented you are, you’ll fail. Pay attention.”
The basics: how to accept jobs from the Guild, how to handle the demon-beast carcasses you turned in for bounty.
If you accepted a job and couldn’t complete it, it got recorded on your Guild card. So did your completion rate and any problem behavior — for individuals and parties.
Watch how you carry yourself in town.
Don’t try things you can’t do.
Adventurers must not go adventuring.
Things like that.
And finally, the value of companions.
“Pure numbers are strength. The reason thugs band up is, simply, that grouping makes you stronger. Don’t forget that.”
Novem asked, “Numbers aside… do you not care about quality?”
Zelphy shook her head.
“Quality depends on what you’re looking for. Want a strong guy who’s a behavior problem in your party?”
I couldn’t agree to that. I shook my head.
“Not really.”
But from the Jewel, the Third—
“Things or people, it depends how you use them, doesn’t it?”
(…This man is a little black.)
“Right? Even if there are issues with strength, depending on the job, an honest person can be better.”
Zelphy added that it also depended on what you were aiming for.
“Going outside, killing monsters and selling them. Taking jobs and finishing them. Diving into labyrinths for treasure. Those are all adventurer work, but few individuals or parties can do all of them. Figure out how you mean to make a living, then find the partners you need.”
She added: knowing where you’re heading, and what you’re missing, mattered.
If there was a skill you needed and didn’t have time to acquire, hire someone — or recruit someone who has it.
“There’s a limit to what one person can do. Aiming for first-rate is fine, but get this part wrong and one day you’ll fall hard.”
Novem and I both nodded.
“Right then! Time to talk jobs. Honestly, the fastest way to learn is to do.”
She slid a stack of papers across the table.
“Um… Zelphy?”
Novem looked troubled.
So did I.
“What is it?”
“This request says — ‘gutter cleaning’ for the town…”
“Yep! The kind of job people who don’t take it never take. Better you get the experience now.”
Smiling, then a sideways smirk:
“You’re not going to break my rules right out of the gate, are you? Trust matters for an adventurer.”
And so, my first job as an adventurer was decided. Gutter duty.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
The council room inside the Jewel.
When I went to sleep that night, the Sixth and Seventh — leading the charge — were against me taking it.
“I said it, I’ll say it again — we are NOT letting Lyle do gutter cleaning! Listen, former heir or not, he’s the heir of House Walt! Fifth — please, talk some sense into these idiots!”
The Sixth had a wild, rough look, but in later evaluations he was known as kuroguro — black-hearted — not the best image. My grandfather, the Seventh, agreed with him.
“You lot! Are you really going to let Lyle do this?!”
But the First and the Fourth weren’t interested. Or, rather…
“Not really? Long as Novem-chan doesn’t get dirty, no problem.”
The First’s concern was whether Novem would get dirty in gutter work. As a man, I… actually got that.
It was clearly filthy work, so I’d already decided to have Novem help indirectly. Zelphy had even commented that a man who looked out for the women on his team scored well.
That was, of course, the ancestors’ opinion.
“Eh, this is a good chance for Lyle to learn how the world works. That Zelphy is honestly a stroke of luck.”
The Second had decided Zelphy was a hit.
The Sixth, though.
“I told you, former heir or not, he’s a noble! Unlike you lot, Lyle’s the real article! A genuine, bona fide aristocrat!”
The Third smiled at the worked-up Sixth.
“Calling us fakes is harsh~. But what’s the difference, ‘real’ versus ‘fake’?”
The Fourth was on the same page. The Fifth, uninterested. The Fifth, by the way, took a neutral stance on basically everything so far.
The Seventh launched into the explanation of my birth.
“Lyle is descended from my wife — the daughter of a marquis house! Listen, to put it simply: he carries the blood of the royal house that ruled before the Banseim Kingdom — the line that goes back beyond Centras!”
”…That’s a hell of a bomb to be carrying.”
The Third called it a bomb — that lineage—.
“Eh? This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
Even I didn’t know. The room briefly fell into noise. The Third checked with the Sixth, looking at me.
”…The man it’s about doesn’t seem to know.”
I nodded.
“Father never told me.”
Then again, I’d been treated coldly since I was ten. Maybe I’d just never been brought into the important conversations.
“Some things you can’t put out in public! In our era, the remnants of the old royal family were exploiting the corrupt politics and stirred up civil war!”
The Third had been killed in a foreign war. After that, in skirmishes, the heads of House Walt kept being deployed to the front. The Sixth and Seventh in particular had lived through skirmishes, civil unrest, and foreign war.
Things had calmed down now. But I’d heard my own father had been in a war when he was young.
The Seventh moved on to my grandmother.
“The old royal — Centras’s royal line, the blood — survived, naturally, and was passed to the current royal line. Just, you couldn’t bring them in openly. The survivors were descendants of 【Agrissa】, the one who triggered the civil war.”
Agrissa. The “beauty who toppled a nation” — the last queen of Centras the First had mentioned.
“Eh? Grandmother… my grandmother 【Zenoa】… then she’s…”
The wicked beauty, the queen who’d monopolized the king’s love. A descendant of Agrissa meant a direct descendant of the old royal house.
“Wow… suddenly it seems more natural that Ceres is a monster, huh?”
The First offered the comment. The Second was disgusted.
“You’re still on that?”
The Seventh pressed on.
“Banseim is only distantly related to the royal line. The remaining truly noble blood is limited. Lyle is one of those… do you understand now?”
The Sixth explained why the old royal line couldn’t be wiped out.
The official record was that the civil war had succeeded and the entire royal family had been purged. The only survivors, supposedly, were a line that had been exiled from the throne earlier.
“I was taught the old royal survivors were a distant branch. Everyone else was purged — that’s what I heard.”
“Idiot! A royal bloodline polished by centuries of history — you don’t just wipe that out! You purge in name, then quietly shelter the survivors!”
Sorcerers were nobles because magical blood had been kept within noble families. People with mana, refined into people who could use magic.
Eventually producing kings.
Even when fallen, even when reborn, that blood survived.
“The king in my era — if nothing had gone wrong, the plan was to send Zenoa to be a foster daughter at some house, then welcome her into the royal family. But the corruption disgusted certain relatives, they rose up… and after that, foreign nations got their hooks in too.”
The Seventh began his hardship monologue.
Everyone was listening — no, half-listening. I’d heard this many times, so I tuned out and chatted with the others.
“Wait, what were we talking about again?”
The Fourth pushed up his glasses with a finger.
“Gutter cleaning. Though we’ve taken gutter cleaning to a real epic place. Hard to believe House Walt has royal blood in it.”
The Third agreed.
“For real. And yet how is it Lyle has so little mana?”
“Because you all keep making noise! For your information, I’m above average for my age! Then you all drain my mana with the constant—”
The conversation derailed, and a sighing Fifth stepped in.
Looked exasperated by the lot of them.
“Calm down. Don’t get this worked up about gutter cleaning.”
“B-but, Fifth—”
Maybe because the Fifth was his father, the Sixth couldn’t go hard against him. Reverse of the First-Second dynamic.
“Royal blood or not — he was thrown out of the house and he’s an adventurer now. If the Guild instructor wants Lyle to clean gutters, fine. She’s not telling him to commit a crime, is she?”
The Seventh tried to argue.
“B-but Lyle’s standing—”
“His standing right now is ‘adventurer.’ Good experience. Plus for Lyle, zero minus.”
Hearing that, the First and the others nodded along.
Only the Second was struggling to keep up with the change in topic.
“My descendant carrying royal blood… I never imagined. From this barbarian, a descendant who inherits royal blood…”
“What.”
The Second glanced at the First — fur-pelt barbarian style — and shook his head.
The Fourth declared the meeting over.
“Then, Lyle’s gutter cleaning goes ahead as planned.”
(How did gutter cleaning blow up into something this big?)
The Sixth and Seventh, unconvinced, grumbled.
“After everything we went through…”
“Zenoa, I’m sorry…”
The others weren’t interested. What mattered to them was that their bloodline had royal blood in it.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
Next day.
I was, as of that morning, on gutter duty in Darion.
Bluntly: filthy. Garbage tossed in. Worse, in places — human waste—.
“This… is rough…”
Cloth tied over my mouth. Body covered in rubberized work gear.
“Lord Lyle, it’s already noon. Let me take a turn.”
”…The thought is enough.”
Novem, worried, kept offering to take over. I wasn’t going to let her do this.
That, plus another problem—.
“Oi, oi! You’ve got royal blood in you and you can’t put more back into it than that?! Drive from the hips!”
The First, weirdly energetic, was shouting away.
“House Walt with royal blood… even reaching count rank was the moon to me, and now this…”
The Second was muttering, lost in thought.
“Hey, what was the reason for Zenoa marrying into the Seventh’s house, anyway? Doesn’t seem like there had to be one.”
The Third, apparently, wanted to know how the royal blood got in.
“Yeah, I wondered too. Send her to the current royal line, surely? Stretching like this rarely ends well.”
The Fourth, also not interested in me. All four were fine with this as long as Novem didn’t get dirty.
“The situation was different from your eras. Once you scale up, trouble finds you whether you like it or not.”
The Fifth — somehow detached, as always — and the Sixth agreed.
“The political corruption was bad. A noble who tried to retreat and hold his ground without real power would just get labeled and put on the chopping block. That was the era.”
The Sixth grumbled, clearly remembering his own struggle.
“The plan was to marry Lyle’s child or grandchild into the royal family, or take in a royal daughter and elevate House Walt to marquis rank — make us untouchable. That was the plan…”
The Seventh had had that calculation in mind.
Also, Grandmother Zenoa had cleared the House Walt precept.
About to be purged in the civil war, she was taken in by the Seventh and the matter quietly buried. From that angle, being out on the frontier was convenient.
(Setting that aside — could you all keep it down!)
My breathing was getting ragged.
Physical stamina wasn’t the issue. The mental fatigue was visible.
Because the Jewel kept siphoning my mana!
My instructor Zelphy looked at me with a hint of disbelief.
“You’ve got less stamina than I figured. Going outside to hunt demon-beasts is going to be a ways off at this rate. Let’s stick to these jobs for a while and put some training in.”
“Eh, no — if I could, I’d rather get out there and hunt—”
I tried to push back, but Novem was on Zelphy’s side.
“True. Pushing yourself too hard is no good. Lord Lyle’s safety comes first. This kind of work is experience too, and I’ll do my part.”
When Novem said she’d join in, the Jewel’s residents started up again.
“Don’t! Don’t make Novem-chan do this!”
“Lyle, come on, get it together! You’re worrying Novem-chan!”
“Truly her ancestor’s daughter. Already so capable. But this kind of work, no, we can’t let her.”
“Show some grit! In front of a girl, a man pushes through!”
The First, Second, Third, Fourth—.
(B-because of all of you…)
And it didn’t end there.
“You’re still going to make him do it?! He’s done enough! What is the point of dragging this out!”
“Calm down. It’s safe — by definition that’s a good thing.”
The Fifth restrained the Sixth.
“How did it come to this… I should have hit that idiot son of mine harder! And the rest of you — pipe DOWN! Lyle’s clearly suffering!”
The Seventh, also worked up.
That they were angry for me was nice. But, at the same time, let me say it—.
(Please, all of you, be quiet!!)
Plain gutter duty — difficulty level multiplied by my ancestors.