Hey there—it’s me again. Inori, your favorite protagonist. Remember me? I’m the guy who tried being on the other side of the new adventurer cliché and got knocked flat on my ass. Of course, I’d had no intention of taking that situation any further. Actually challenging them to a fight would’ve been more trouble than it was worth. All I’d wanted to do was confront them for the novelty of it. Thanks to Detect, I’d known that Ariya would be entering the guild hall soon and that she’d immediately shut down whatever I was doing.
One week had passed since we’d arrived in Regin. Since then, Ariya had earned herself the nickname of “Black Rose,” hiding her full strength while still making a name for herself. Apparently, she even had her own fan club.
Personally, I felt that it’d be better if a former princess like her wasn’t out in the open like this, but now that her hair had turned black and her eyes red, there wasn’t really a trace of who she used to be left. It was more than enough to have people second-guessing themselves. The fact that she’d become popular enough to have a fan club was proof enough that nobody recognized her. Then again, that could have been because we were in an area far removed from the Rising Sun Kingdom, and Ariya hadn’t made too many public appearances in foreign countries, anyway.
She was also wearing the black dress that I’d crafted for her. That was where her nickname had come from. If rumors about her spread, people would only be talking about that dress, not her looks. With all this in mind, I was pretty confident that we could keep her identity a secret, bar anything really unexpected.
Well, enough about how Ariya’d been spending this past week. Let’s get into what I’d been up to. Simply put, I’d been sleeping and drinking. Yep, that’s right—I’d been living the life...during the day, at least. When night came, however, I’d slip into the shadows and leave to hunt. But despite my best efforts, I hadn’t leveled up at all... What the hell?! I was used to leveling up fairly quickly, so this was weird to me. If only I could see how many experience points I needed for the next level. That would’ve cleared everything up.
Regarding my daytime activities, sleeping was necessary since I was a creature of the night. As for drinking, though, that wasn’t because I was an alcoholic or anything. No—I had my own well-thought-out reasons. First of all, drinking was a good way to gather information, which was incredibly valuable. It was best to spend any idle time learning as much as I could. I didn’t even need to drink with others. Thanks to my super hearing, I could catch any and all conversations happening around me.
The other reason why I drank was to gain debuff resistances. Every drink I ordered was the strongest that I could get my hands on. The toughest adventurers gathered in this place, and even the average person here could hold their liquor pretty well. Drinking the strongest stuff they had wasn’t too far off from drinking poison, which was something I was more than happy to do since I wanted to level up Poison Resistance.
Sure, I was in pain at first, but now it was as effortless as drinking water. My Poison Resistance had reached level 5. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. By the way, in this country you were considered an adult when you hit the age of sixteen, so I wasn’t underage drinking. Just in case anyone was wondering...
Either way, that was how I’d ended up living the oh-so-luxurious life of just sleeping and day drinking. This had earned me a less than stellar reputation, though. Everyone saw me as Black Rose’s flunky or her lackey, a drunkard, and a goblin.
As a reminder, “goblin” was short for a person who rides on the coattails of someone more successful. And even if I was the one defeating some of the monsters Ariya had to slay, I didn’t care too much about what people were calling me. I shoved all the annoying responsibilities that came with accepting jobs onto her, which meant that I could live a free life as an adventurer.
Today was another great day to be at the bar. Usually I drank alone, or with the other person that nobody really liked. They were kinda like my drinking buddy. However, they were nowhere to be seen, so instead I planned to enjoy a drink while the rest of the patrons talked shit about me from a distance. To be fair, I guess it’s hard to “enjoy” a drink when you’re not drinking something particularly tasty.
Unsurprisingly, when I entered the guild, I caught a lot of looks that seemed to be saying I had some nerve showing up after what I’d done yesterday. I didn’t blame them for it, but that didn’t stop me from glaring back at them either. I was really living out the small fry underling fantasy.
I put the mug to my lips and gulped down the liquid inside. It burned my throat on the way down, and the aftertaste was absolutely horrible too. This alcohol had no flavor—just pain. I slammed the tankard down on the table afterwards, then looked up at the young girl who’d sat down across from me.
“You’re back. Whaddya want?” As I addressed the girl I’d gotten involved with yesterday, I was only pretending to be in a bad mood.
She looked at me as one would a toy. It went without saying that her approaching me like this drew the gazes of everyone present.
“What do you say to becoming my pupil?”
Riiight... What the hell kinda suggestion is that? The people around us buzzed with confusion. It was only natural for them to react that way, watching this girl ask the thug who’d bothered her yesterday if he’d like to be her pupil. Did this girl have a few screws loose or something?