Chapter 3

Part III: Job Selection “Was that your manager from your previous world? That must be tough,” said Louisa with a bright smile. I’m sure she treated every Seeker who came to the Guild with such kindness, but it made me feel better. Ever since I was a kid, I’d never been popular with girls. I hadn’t had many opportunities to meet women outside of committees or work, either. It made me happy if a woman was just nice to me, which even I thought was pretty simple-minded. “Now that you’ve come to the Labyrinth Country, your status as a Seeker is determined only by your achievements. That’s why I want to help you pick a job you won’t regret.” All I needed were achievements. If I could accomplish that much, then maybe Igarashi would come to see me in a better light. No, that wasn’t a good goal. I should aim as high as I possibly could. In my old world, the only way I could’ve ever gotten to the top would have been if I quit my job and started my own business, became my own boss. That didn’t seem to be the case here. “Louisa, what kinds of achievements do I need to be considered?” “Well…first, you’ll need to climb higher in the Seeker ranking. New Seekers aren’t even put in the rankings yet, but as you do more, the rank on your license will change.” Louisa pointed to my license. She traced the characters shown in the top left, and the displayed information changed. So can this be used like some sort of miniature tablet? If so, I should be able to get the hang of it quickly. “This page shows a record of your work in the labyrinth. There’s nothing in here at the moment, but your actions will be evaluated once you leave the labyrinth, and your new rank will be calculated. Please make sure that you don’t enter the labyrinth and then leave immediately, or flee right after a single monster attack. The lowest ranks have to sleep in the barn or even the dungeon.” “…Well, I guess I’ll at least aim for the barn.” “Your magic and vitality only recover a tiny bit in the barn, so your situation will likely just worsen. If you find yourself in such circumstances, please come to me with a request for assistance. You can’t keep doing it over and over, but I can arrange accommodation for you.” It’d be wonderful if she meant she’d take me in, but I doubted I’d get that lucky. “…Oh, will you need something immediately? It is difficult for me to arrange something on such short notice, so as an emergency arrangement, I could find something in my—” “N-no, that’s fine. I might not even mess up in the labyrinth yet,” I said, turning her down in a bit of a panic. Maybe I should have let her go on. No, if I let Louisa help me before I’ve done anything to end up the lowest in the ranking, there’s a chance she’ll doubt me in the future. “Louisa, can I ask you one last question? It seems a lot of people look for newcomers who are rearguards, like what that Elitia person mentioned. Is that correct?” “Yes, rearguards are in high demand. They typically have lower physical strength and defense; they tend to have the lowest survival rates after five years, so the number of people in rearguard jobs has hit an all-time low. Vanguards are able to use better protective equipment, but rearguards tend to be lightly equipped. That means that a monster a vanguard can stand against could potentially kill a rearguard in one hit. It’s a difference that’s even more pronounced in newcomers who have weaker physical abilities,” explained Louisa. So that meant rearguards had a high chance of perishing in an accident while they were just starting out as Seekers and more likely to make newbie mistakes. But that’s when your companions in vanguard or midguard roles weren’t doing their job and an attack got past them to the rear. “It’s necessary to be part of a party if you want to try the high-rank labyrinths. For whatever reason, Elitia left her former party, and she tried to train up her own rearguard. However, I don’t know any more about her situation beyond that, and I don’t want to speculate.” “…I see.” So vanguards weren’t enough on their own to take on too much, and rearguards were definitely not capable of acting solo. One way for me to make an ideal party would be if I became a rearguard, made it hard for me to die, and added lots of companions. But even among rearguards, what sort of job was I even suited for? I wasn’t particularly religious, so a Priest wouldn’t work. I also didn’t have any skills like archery, which were suited to being in a rearguard position. Eh, anything’ll do, I guess. I just wanted to be a rearguard. If I wrote rearguard, then it’d automatically assign me to a job I was suited for. “It looks like you’ve made your decision. Please use your finger to write on your license,” said Louisa. I steeled myself and wrote rearguard in the job field. The next moment, the letters in rearguard sparkled before rearranging themselves into something different, which was now firmly displayed in the job field. “Huh…?” I felt relieved it was over, but Louisa appeared to be at a loss for words. I thought I’d heard an “Eh?” but that could’ve just been my imagination. “Um, Louisa, the shape of the letters changed… I wrote rearguard, so shouldn’t I have been put in some rearguard job?” “Well, n-no, not necessarily… Whatever you wrote should have changed to something like Wizard, or Priest, or Marksman. But this…” She flipped my license toward her, took a monocle out of her pocket, and examined the letters as if she were appraising a piece of jewelry. After a moment, she leaned far over the counter to speak directly into my ear. It seemed like she didn’t want the people around to hear. “I have never seen symbols like these before,” she whispered. “Um, you are…Arihito Atobe. What exactly did you write, Mr. Atobe?” “Uh…um, as I said, I wrote rearguard.” I managed to keep calm despite her whispered voice on my ear. Louisa stepped back, compared the license against me once more, then apparently came to a decision. “Congratulations, Mr. Atobe. You’ve been accepted into your desired profession,” she said. “W-wait a second. What exactly is the job I ended up with…?” I asked, slightly flustered. For the second time, Louisa took care to lean across the counter to keep others from overhearing. This time I noticed her full breasts riding on the countertop, but I couldn’t stare without risking my karma going up. “W-well…your job is literally rearguard. But I don’t think people will believe it even if you tell them, and some may even make fun of you. I am partly responsible, since I was the one providing you with advice, so I feel compelled to provide you some extra support. Please use these Mercenary Tickets so that you can better understand the strengths of your job,” said Louisa, and she stuck her hand into her pouch-like sleeve and brought out a few slips of what looked like paper, then passed them to me while hiding them under her sleeve. “If you use these tickets, you’ll be able to hire one mercenary for one expedition into a labyrinth. I say mercenary, but since these are only bronze-level tickets, you won’t be able to hire any humans.” “By not human, you mean like…animals or something?” “No. There are some animals that have been trained, but they only work with Animal Tamers. For special purpose hiring, there is the demi-human type monsters. The most dependable in my opinion are the lizardmen. Their base abilities for being a vanguard are excellent, so they tend to have fighter-type jobs.” It didn’t seem like this whole being a rearguard thing was a total loss. With these bronze Mercenary Tickets, I’d be able to hire someone, even if once per ticket, but I could go into a beginner labyrinth. I could use this opportunity to learn about being a rearguard, find my strengths and weaknesses, and maybe figure out how I was going to survive here. “I know I’ve just taken on this job, but do I have any skills or that sort of thing?” “Yes, even rearguard jobs should be able to select two skills in the beginning. Since I’ve never seen your job before, though, I can’t be absolutely certain…but if you turn the page of your license, you’ll come to your skill set. Please select from the skills that are shown there. I cannot provide you with any advice in that selection process. Skills are a Seeker’s lifeline, so in general, we don’t show others what we have available.” “Okay…so it’s only something I should share with companions who I trust enough.” “Exactly. If it’s someone you trust to watch your back…or rather, watch your front, then you should let them know. Parties are about teamwork. You can’t get strong if you don’t work with other Seekers,” she said, then clasped her hands together in front of her chest and closed her eyes. “…It is part of my duty as caseworker, but I will pray for your safe passage. May the Secret Gods smile upon you.” Yet again, our interactions just left me with more questions than answers. What were these “Secret Gods” she was talking about? Were they something the people in the Labyrinth Country worshipped? I decided it was fine to learn things little by little rather than asking about it all at once. Right now, I needed to focus on learning what exactly my job was. Louisa took my license from me and drew a map to the Mercenary Office on it. I thanked her, then got up to leave. After standing from my seat, I moved by a wall where I wouldn’t stand out and turned my license to the skills page. ♦Available Skills♦ …How much is ten injury points? I assumed injury points were like damage, but I couldn’t find a way to make the license display damage. I guess I just had to feel how much ten points was. I had no idea how many vitality points I had, though. If ten points was equal to someone flicking me in the forehead, then adding that wasn’t exactly useful. I didn’t want to have to do it, but I decided I just needed to hire a lizardman, have them take some damage from a weak enemy, and I’d try to gauge how much damage it was. Seems like “Rear View” is a skill that lets the low vitality rearguard keep an eye on their own rear… Sounds useful, but I think to start, I’m gonna take “Defense Support 1,” then maybe “Recovery Support 1” for healing once I’ve tested out Defense Support… Actually, maybe I’ll hold off on healing. There wasn’t even any damage to heal yet, so it might have been a bit soon to be taking Recovery Support 1. I stood there unable to decide for a little while before putting one point into Defense Support 1. I wanted to also try out Attack Support 1, but I wanted to use my remaining skill point carefully. I didn’t notice any glaring changes as a result. The people around me probably had no way to know that I’d just taken a skill. I wouldn’t know if I’d made a good choice or not until I put a party together. I double-checked I had the bronze Mercenary Tickets Louisa had given me, quietly readied myself, then left. Part IV: Hiring a Mercenary The Labyrinth Country appeared to be a fortified city encircled by an incredibly long wall. I had no idea how many entrances to the labyrinths there were inside the walls, but it didn’t matter what direction you went, there was a wall there eventually and no way to get past it. Starting in the north, the Labyrinth Country was divided clockwise into eight districts, and the other reincarnates and I were in the eighth district. There were a few one-star beginner labyrinths in this area. I was headed for the nearest one called the Field of Dawn. Louisa had drawn a map to a mercenary hiring office on my license, so I stopped by on my way to the labyrinth. It was near some facilities like the Monster Dissection Center and the Slave Market. When I tried to enter the Mercenary Office, a red-headed woman wearing an eyepatch came out to meet me. “Hey, you’re a novice, aren’tcha? You’ve got some backbone comin’ here as a brand-new reincarnate,” she barked at me. “Is it that dangerous around here?” I asked. “Nah, not really. But there’s the occasional reincarnate who takes one glimpse at the Monster Dissection Center and gets so scared that he turns tail,” the eyepatch lady scoffed. She came off as a sort of Amazon, carrying a sword and clad in tight-fitting leather armor that exposed her well-sculpted midriff. “Hmm…I see you recognize the value of strong muscles. You may yet have some promise. The last thing a Seeker has to rely on is their own brawn. You’d do well to remember that.” “Ha-ha… Well, I’m not a vanguard, but I’m sure I could do with some physical training. Sitting at a desk all day has left me pretty flabby.” “Certainly, in your current state, even the small monsters that appear on the easy levels of the beginner labyrinths would be a threat to you. I’ll give you one piece of advice. Avoid getting hit until you’re at least level three. You could die in one hit if you’re not careful.” The way she so casually used the word die sent a chill down my spine. I flipped through my license and found the page displaying my job and level. Below that there was a red and a blue bar. Farther below that were ten circles in a row. The red must be vitality, the blue could be magic, and the black circles must be my experience points. “Didn’t they explain this to you at the Guild? Who’s your caseworker?” asked the woman. “Uh, no, it’s my fault for not asking… My caseworker’s name is Louisa.” “Oh, well then. Louisa’s a veteran, she’s been doing it for five years. She’s a dependable one. There’s some useless caseworkers out there.” “Louisa’s the one who gave me these bronze Mercenary Tickets. She said it was just for extraordinary circumstances, though, and she can’t keep helping me too much.” I showed the woman my tickets. She handed me the boards she was holding. It seemed a bit like a binder. There were sheets of paper with lines of characters written on them sandwiched between the boards. “Sorry for not introducing myself sooner. My name’s Leila. I’m the assistant manager here at the Mercenary Office. The people at the Guild buy quite a few Mercenary Tickets, so I see them for work a lot.” “So that’s how you know Louisa.” “Yeah. As a matter of fact, she was originally a Seeker before she retired and decided to take on a support role. You could say something like that about the demi-humans here, too… Well, anyway. What kind of mercenary do you need?” “I’d like a lizardman, preferably a vanguard. I see some on this list here.” Leila’s expression turned apologetic. I got the impression they’d all been hired by that point. “Unfortunately, all the male lizardmen who have strong physical builds are out on jobs at the moment. We’ve got a female lizardman, but her equipment’s different, and I can’t really say she’s suited to be a vanguard.” “Is she a fighter type?” “She’s got a job called Rogue. It’s not really a vanguard or a rearguard, more like a midguard job. They can use some weapons, but they’re not as good as a specialized fighter. They also don’t have the same dexterity as a Thief, but they can use a bow. It’s kind of an all-around sort of job. Rogues are pretty rare among lizardmen, but it’s usually safer to gather newbies with specialized skills, so this one isn’t very popular.” Which is why she was the only one left. Since I didn’t have many tickets, it’d probably be better to choose a male lizardman who was very clearly oriented toward fighting. “Can this Rogue lizardman use a shield?” I asked. “Yep. She comes with a leather buckler. It’s not the greatest piece of equipment, but it should be plenty if you’re only going to the first floor of the Field of Dawn. But be careful, both the person’s physical abilities and the shield’s performance change how much they can take.” If I have her take a low-risk attack, taking into consideration her physical abilities, I should be able to test Defense Support 1. Then I wouldn’t have to waste time waiting for my turn. “There are some other mercenaries you could employ, but if there’s too big of a gap in level between you two, they might not listen to your orders. They won’t just leave your party, though. Knowing that, this young lizardman is probably good for you. She’s level three; she’ll do what you tell her.” “Thank you. In that case, I’d like to hire that lizardman, please.” “All right. I’ll bring her out, you wait here,” said Leila. There were other people who’d come to the Mercenary Office to hire mercenaries, but there were other workers assisting them. It was sheer luck that I was able to get help directly from the assistant manager. A few moments later, Leila returned with something…completely different from what I imagined a lizardman would look like. …Is this just someone dressed up as a lizard? When you say lizardman, I assumed…well, a man that was also a lizard. Like, a human-shaped lizard creature. I think most people would agree with me. But what Leila brought out was definitely a “person,” no matter how hard you tried to argue otherwise. It looked like a human woman who’d put on the head of a lizard costume and then clothes made of lizard skin.