I continued to watch the battle playing out behind Rex, and saw that while the four kids were still managing to keep up with the never-ending swarm of ants, it was by no means an easy feat for them. They were slowly accruing more and more injuries, and there were a few close calls every now and then.
It doesn’t matter what this crazy guy says, we need to get past him and go help those kids! I decided. But just as I resolved to fight Rex, I noticed something strange.
Are those kids...smiling?
It was clear the battle was close enough that a single misstep would cost them their lives, but those brats were actually grinning as they fought. They could have easily ignored some of the weaker ants and focused the queen down if they wanted to; they were definitely strong enough. But it was clear they were willingly going along with Rex’s crazy idea. They were actually trying to exterminate every last one of the ants the queen could birth before taking her down. Their eyes were shining with confidence, as well as a burning desire to grow stronger.
“Twenty seconds until the next wave!”
“All right, stop using AoE attacks! We don’t want to hurt the queen too much by mistake!”
Before I knew it, I’d burst out laughing. I’d thought Rex and all the new adventurers he had influenced were all book-smart bozos who cared too much about theory and lacked the passion a true adventurer needed. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Those four kids were adventurers in every sense of the word. Sure, the way they expressed their passion was different, but ultimately they were still the same selfish, reckless lot who loved adventure more than anything.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“D-Dax?!”
I kept on laughing as I watched the kids slaughter every last one of the Ant Queen’s one hundred and fifty-one children, then finish off the Ant Queen herself.
❈❈❈
I sighed. “Man, we really fucked up this time.”
While we’d been able to warp all the way to the Tempest Mountains with Recall Wings, we weren’t able to return to Freelea so easily. In fact, between the rush of adventurers trying to return, all of the carriages getting booked, us needing to take some time to fully heal from our wounds, two entire weeks had passed before we managed to get back to Freelea.
Our first stop back in the city was the Adventurers’ Guild to meet up with the Pretty Cats, but our steps were heavy.
Shit. We weren’t able to accomplish anything during this quest.
After the queen had been defeated, Rex had offered to split the credit of beating it with us, but we’d had too much pride to accept. As a result, our overall contribution toward the extermination quest had been the lowest of all the parties. We’d rushed to the queen as fast as possible while only killing the ants we absolutely had to, after all. Even the parties who were way weaker than us had racked up a bigger kill count than we had.
God, we are so uncool... I thought, cringing inside.
We were an A-rank party, which meant by all rights we should have contributed the most to this extermination quest. We’d set off so confidently, telling the Pretty Cats that we’d come back with the biggest accomplishments of all, and now we’d ranked the lowest among all participating parties.
Before I even had time to steel myself for the upcoming meeting, I heard Mia shout: “Ah, I found them! Heeeey, old timers!” She started running over, Ai and Chisha following close behind. Chisha stopped right in front of me, and I awkwardly averted my gaze.
“U-Uh... Chisha, you see...”
I knew the Guild had posted the quest rankings right next to the task board ages ago, so she probably already knew how badly we’d done. I fell silent, waiting with bated breath for her to insult me. But instead...
Chisha gave me a warm smile. “Welcome back, old geezer.”
“Huh?”
“Ha ha. Don’t worry, I know how hard you guys tried. So let me just say...” Chisha reached up on her tiptoes and gently patted my shoulder, grinning mercilessly. “You suuuck! What a loooser! You guys call yourselves the Hounds? More like puppy dogs, amirite?!”
I gave Chisha a stunned look, completely blindsided, but before I could respond, she added, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be super veteran A-rank adventurers? What happened? How did you end up in last place? Come on, guys, you’re supposed to be better than this. Maybe you really should change your party name to Puppy Dogs.”
“Y-Y-You little...”
Now that’s just going too far. I’ll teach you what happens when you mess with adults, you little brat!
“Well, you did come back safe and sound like you promised, so I guess I can forgive you,” Chisha said, blushing slightly.
All the horrible things I was about to say vanished from my mind. Instead, I muttered a weak, “Thanks,” and looked away bashfully.
“Umm, old geezer?” Chisha gave me a worried look and leaned in closer, as if she didn’t want to say the next part out too loudly.
“Hm?”
After a brief moment’s hesitation, she whispered, “Just making sure, but you guys aren’t going to retire from adventuring or anything just because you messed up this one time, right?”
I smiled.
“Wh-Why are you grinning? I’m seriously worried about you here!”
My smile widened, which only served to spur on Chisha’s anger. It was really quite a surprise that she’d been the most worried for us out of everyone here.
I guess thinking back on it, it makes sense, I thought.
Considering how badly we’d fucked up this time around, it would make sense if we’d become too dejected to keep going. Especially after witnessing how much stronger the newbie party Rex had trained was than us. However, there was no need to worry.
“Don’t worry, we don’t plan on quitting anytime soon,” I told Chisha confidently.
The more I’d learned, the more I’d realized we’d been going about our adventuring the wrong way. It’s true that I’d really wished we’d learned this sooner so we could have taken advantage of a lot of the information we now had, but that was river under the bridge now. Chances were the little girls in front of me would surpass us before long.
But even so... I glanced over at the training grounds, where I spotted Rex lecturing a bunch of newbies.
Initially, I’d thought the guy was just some upstart who didn’t understand the true adventurer spirit, but it turned out he had more courage and grit than any of us. I still didn’t really get his obsession with trying to quantify everything with numbers, and I probably never would. But I could tell he was serious about what he was doing. That was probably why he was so much stronger than me. However, I didn’t want to lose to him in spirit as well.
I really am a stubborn bastard through and through, I thought with a grin.
If Rex was the protagonist of this world, then we were nothing more than side characters at best. I was certain no matter how far we got, he’d always be miles ahead of us. But so what? Sure, maybe I wouldn’t get to be the protagonist. I wouldn’t change the world or become a hero like Rex, no matter how hard I tried. But even so...I was still the protagonist of my own life!
We’re the Hounds, goddamnit! We’re going to keep hounding after our dreams until the day we die!
With this decided, we turned our backs on Rex, the protagonist of this world, and started walking down our own path. And by our sides were a few cheeky little brats who were just as passionate about adventuring as we were.