These girls who couldn’t have been adventuring for more than a few weeks seemed to think they could teach us, veterans who’d been adventuring for well over a decade, something new.
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“All right, let’s introduce ourselves first! I’m Ai, leader of the Pretty Cats, and super Mage in the making!” The girl with flaming red hair and a wide forehead puffed out her chest as she spoke. She seemed the most strong-willed of the three, so it made sense that she was the party leader.
“Okay, me next! I’m Mia, the healer of the party!” the youngest, and most energetic, of the three said. She was clearly a free spirit, but with a simpleminded nature that would make her easy to deal with.
“Seriously, you guys are giving them our names? What if they turn out to be stalkers or something? I don’t want these old geezers knowing who I am,” the final girl said. She was the one who’d roped us into this mess, and also the one who seemed the craftiest of the three. “Okay fine, I’ll introduce myself too. I’m Chisha, a swordswoman. I doubt we’ll ever see each other again after today, so no need to remember my name.”
“N-Nice to meet you all.”
I did my best to smile politely, but it was getting harder and harder to keep my anger in check.
Their leader, Ai, seemed like she was quite the stubborn one, while Mia didn’t seem like she was thinking about anything at all. And Chisha just pissed me off. At least the three of them were distinctive enough that I doubted I’d be forgetting their names anytime soon.
“Oh yeah, I guess we’ll introduce ourselves too. Our party is the Hounds, and—”
“Meh, don’t bother. Not like there’s any point in remembering your guys’ names.”
I could feel my smile slipping, but these brats didn’t seem to care at all that they were being rude.
“Hmph! You better be grateful that future superstars like us are willing to teach you about the new wave of adventuring! Normally you’d never get a chance like this!”
“Yeah, thank your lucky stars you old geezers!”
They were brimming with so much confidence I couldn’t even find the energy to get mad. Sighing, I watched as Ai put her hands on her hips and started her lecture.
“First things first, we already know this bronze armor is super weak!”
“Wait, you do?” I gave them a stunned look, and Chisha started snickering.
“I mean you can tell just by looking at it that this equipment is garbage. Only a moron would let themselves get swindled into thinking it’s strong.”
“Th-That’s a bit harsh...”
I tried not to let it show on my face that I was one of those morons who’d been swindled in the past. Meanwhile, Mia started humming “Sucky, sucky, sucky, sucky aaarmor!” to herself. I knew they weren’t making fun of me in particular, but it was still annoying.
As I was trying to stitch my tattered pride together, Ai continued her explanation.
“We spent a lot of time thinking about what equipment we wanted to rent, you know! We stared at the catalog for days so we knew exactly how weak and strong each piece was.”
Well, how was I supposed to know that? I thought, but I kept my words to myself. Since I’d already agreed to listen to her lecture, I figured I may as well see if I could glean anything useful from it.
“Then why the hell did you rent such shitty equipment?” Geeko asked, and Chisha grinned, as if she’d been waiting for that exact question.
“It’s easier to show you guys than explain. Ai!”
“Time to show you what a super wiz—I mean Mage like myself can do!” Ai stepped forward and puffed her chest out proudly. “Watch this. Fire!”
She launched a fireball at an empty patch of land in the distance, and the three of us whistled in admiration.
“Whoa.”
“Oho.”
“Impressive...”
Looks like she’s not just all talk.
Of course, her Fire spell didn’t compare to an A-rank mage’s, but it was far stronger than you’d expect from an adventurer who just got promoted to D-rank. I could see why she called herself a prodigy.
“What are you getting all impressed for? The real show starts now,” Chisha said with an impish grin.
“Huh?” I turned back to her, confused.
Ai took off the steel bracer she was currently wearing and handed it to Chisha. She then took the rental bronze gauntlet and equipped it.
What’s the big idea? I wondered, confused.
The bronze gauntlet was clearly weaker than the steel one. Not only that, a gauntlet was much heavier than a bracer, and not really suited for mages. Ai, however, raised her staff high, the bronze gauntlets looking somewhat comical on her, and shouted, “Watch this! Fire!”
When we saw the size of the fireball she unleashed, our jaws dropped open. It was so massive that it beggared belief that a newbie adventurer like her had been able to conjure it. No matter how gifted you were, you couldn’t cast magic of that caliber as a beginner. I mean, her first fireball had already been pretty impressive for a newbie, but this one was as big as the ones cast by veteran adventurers!
“H-How did you do that?” I muttered.
I’d never heard of bronze equipment that raised someone’s magical capabilities. And yet, by swapping out to the gauntlet, Ai’s magic had grown exponentially stronger.
Grinning, Ai answered my question. “That’s because all of the pieces of equipment we borrowed have really powerful enchantments on them!”
“Really?” The three of us exchanged glances.
We knew what enchantments were. Very rarely, you’d find equipment in a dungeon that raised some of your stats when worn. But it was impossible to tell what stat it raised until you equipped it, and you couldn’t go out of your way to try and farm equipment that raised specific stats. Honestly, relying on enchantments to raise your stats was a waste of time.
“Look, here! See how the gauntlet has I-78 written on it?!”
I took a closer look at the gauntlet and indeed saw I-78 carved into the side.
“That means this gauntlet is enchanted to boost Intelligence by 78 points! My current Intelligence is 49, so the gauntlet more than doubles my Intelligence!”
“Wh-What?!”
I had never heard of equipment that more than doubled an adventurer’s stats. Not even a newbie adventurer’s. On top of that, Ai had mentioned her Intelligence was 49, so that meant she must have some way of knowing just how high her magical power was as a numerical value.
“Wait, hold on! Then what about that ring?!”
“Of course, that’s enchanted too. Look, it says M-49.”
I leaned forward to examine the ring and once again saw the letters Ai mentioned.
“Don’t get so close, old geezer! You’re scaring Mia!” Ai shouted.
“Oh, m-my bad.”
I was still stunned by Ai’s earlier display of power, so I meekly let her push me away. I had thought the Pretty Ring that Mia was holding was completely useless, but it seemed it was actually immensely powerful.
“I guess if ‘I’ stands for Intelligence, then ‘M’ must be Mind, right? So I take it this ring raises Mind by 49? Well, compared to the gauntlets I guess it’s a little weak,” I muttered, talking more to myself than anything.
However Chisha heard my musings and shouted, “That’s because everyone’s after the good enchanted rings! Do you have any idea how long we had to wait to get our hands on this?!”
Upon hearing that, I suddenly remembered something. “I get it now—so that’s why Eld gave us that ring!”
With trembling fingers, I took the Anti-paralysis Ring he’d given me out of my Inventory. Just like the Pretty Ring, this ring also had a letter and numbers carved into it.
“Hey, I actually got a similar ring from an acquaintance of mine. It says ‘S-91,’ so does that mean—”
“Let me see!”