Expedition
Part 1: Mutual Recognition
THE Sunset Forest provided quality timber to the entire country, including Oranz. One typical job for the city’s mid-level adventurers was to act as guards to ensure that forestry workers could carry out their work without issue. After all, the vast, lush forest was home not only to carnivorous animals, but also to numerous monsters.
While they guarded the woodcutters, adventurers sometimes encountered groups of monsters—though on other days, there were none at all. Either way, monster extermination was a standing request from the guild, so if adventurers did encounter monsters (and managed to get through the ordeal safely) they could earn extra income.
For Haruka and her friends, who had defeated the tyrant boar on their first foray into hunting, the Sunset Forest wasn’t so scary. By this point in time, they had become familiar with all the monsters living there and accustomed to dealing with them. Ordinarily, for people of their ranks, even taking on a single monster was a life-threatening endeavor, but Haruka’s party survived thanks to their extremely high combat prowess.
Albert’s swordsmanship was head and shoulders above the rest of his rank. It was a sight to behold whenever he lopped the head off a monster bigger than himself in just one stroke. And Corinne’s skill with the bow was so precise that she almost never missed—and when monsters got too close, she skillfully fended them off with a unique martial arts technique.
Corinne had confided in Haruka that she was the youngest child of a wealthy merchant. Apparently, from the time she’d announced she wanted to become an adventurer, her parents had made sure to provide her with a comprehensive education in the profession, under a great teacher. No wonder her movements were so precise and efficient.
Montana also took down his prey with pinpoint precision. He struck at an adversary’s vitals without wasting any motions. Though his sword style was different from Albert’s, it was nevertheless still refined, and he was always the first to sense a target’s approach.
Every time Haruka watched her friends in combat, she felt pathetic. Yes, she could use magic and she was physically very strong, but she had no capabilities otherwise. She lacked her companions’ skills, and felt like she was holding them back.
But despite Haruka’s gloomy outlook, her friends had a high opinion of her. From that first time they’d defeated a tyrant boar, they knew her magic was powerful—and her physical strength made up for all the usual disadvantages of having a mage in their party.
By nature, most mages weren’t physically strong. In a party, a mage’s job was essentially to act as a fixed cannon that had more firepower than a bow and arrow. In other words, to leverage a mage’s capabilities, the whole party needed to expend energy to protect them.
In Haruka’s case, though, her exceptional physical strength completely eliminated that need, leaving only the benefit of increasing the party’s attack power. At first, her friends had also tried to look out for her safety. However, they soon realized that was unnecessary.
Even if Haruka fell or collided head-on with an animal, she only ever apologized for her clumsiness, never actually got hurt. Once, to test her strength, she tried punching a rock. She succeeded in shattering it—and without a single scratch to her fist.
So, after realizing that worrying about Haruka was both foolish and a waste of time, the party’s movements improved dramatically. Recently, when monsters charged at Haruka, her whole focus narrowed down to a voice saying, “Catch it.” It defied reason to see her stop a charging horned boar with one hand, just by grabbing its horn in her hand. Add in the magic rushing from her other hand and it was no wonder Haruka’s fellow party members thought highly of her.
Her ability to pull off amazing stunts like she was some sort of street performer also made her very popular with the woodcutters under her protection.
“You’re amazing, little lady! Hahaha! Never seen anyone do that before.”
Under the barrage of praise, Haruka and her party completed the day’s request without a hitch. Haruka always avoided eye contact to hide her embarrassment, figuring the woodcutters were just flattering her. But that wasn’t the case at all. They were simply telling it like they saw it.
✦ ✦ ✦
AFTER completing our escort duties that day and reporting to the guild, Albert’s adventurer rank finally rose to Rank 5. It was also his birthday, and he was turning fifteen, the age of majority in this country. He was the last of our party to reach adulthood.
At dinner that night, Albert was in high spirits—not to mention incredibly rowdy after downing his first alcoholic drink ever. He seemed really happy about that, too, like he’d been longing for exactly this type of adventurer-typical boisterousness. On the other hand, I was worried about him getting alcohol poisoning, so I tried to control the amount he drank by offering him food and mixing water into his glass whenever he got up from his seat. In the end though, Albert just kept chugging one glass after another until he suddenly passed out on the spot. I rushed over to him, and was relieved to find that he was only sleeping. But it was still the kind of reckless drinking that only a young person engaged in, and I hoped it wouldn’t become a habit. I was already worried.
After I carried his sleeping form over to an empty space on the floor, the dinner table became much quieter. And while his birthday and rank-up were both happy occasions, I also wanted to talk about the future.
“Soooo,” Corinne asked idly, “what’s our next move?”
“An expedition request would be nice,” I said.
“Yes,” Montana agreed.
Once all members of a party reached Rank 5 or above, parties were much more likely to go on expeditions. You could make a living by only accepting local requests. But if you really wanted to keep increasing your rank, you needed to prove your strength to the Guild and the wider world.
One option was to stay in town and wait for jobs like tyrant boar hunts to pop up. However, since pretty much all the adventurers based in a town or city had the same goal in mind, they had to compete with each other for those sorts of commissions. In other words, it was difficult to rise in the ranks just by waiting around in one place.
But an expedition was a different matter altogether. It wasn’t just going to another town for jobs; it meant acting as an escort for someone who was traveling to other places for an extended period of time.
There were various types of people who needed to travel around long-term. Some were seeking quick fortunes, some were on some kind of mission, and some were driven by curiosity. What they all had in common was they rarely skimped on bodyguards. And having that kind of money usually meant the status that accompanied it.
You could say, then, that expedition missions met all the requirements for ranking up. On top of that, my friends all hoped to travel the world and become great adventurers regardless. If we went on an expedition, we could go here, there, and everywhere while racking up achievements. There was really no reason to choose to do anything else.
I gulped down the rest of the drink that Albert had left behind. It had been a long time since I’d had anything with such a high alcohol content and I could feel my face flushing. I was anxious about trying an expedition, because it was something new, but I refused to let my hesitation interfere with my friends’ dreams.
“Yeah, maybe we should start with a joint expedition first,” Corinne remarked thoughtfully. “I mean, we don’t really know what we’re doing or anything.”
“We would certainly have less to worry about if a veteran group took us on as extras,” I added.
“Yes,” Montana agreed.
When there were multiple targets to protect, clients usually hired one primary, high-level team, then that team could invite other parties. This was just one reason adventurers valued their network of connections. Once adventurers grew used to traveling around, they could take on requests from guilds in various regions. It was a way of life for traveling adventurers, and to my friends, the ideal way of life, period.