"Oh. Forgive me for saying so, but what exactly about us led you to that conclusion?"
"Well, when you've been crawling around at the bottom for five, ten years, you start to pick things up."
The adventurer tapped his own forehead with a finger.
The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties and was bald. A long scar ran along the right corner of his eye, and he wore a leather eyepatch because of it. His skin was deeply tanned from the sun. Between the bald head and the missing eye, he looked quite the thug.
"I get a hunch, see. I can tell at a glance—like lightning—who's a pretty peach with good prospects and who's a shell pretending to have a pearl. Take those loudmouths over by the reception desk."
The bald man gestured toward the crowd milling about in the hall.
"Those are the ones who'll march into the Demon Lord's Castle and come crawling right back out. Second sons and third sons who got full of themselves after killing a few Goblins in their neighborhood, then quit farming and ran off to try adventuring. You can tell without even looking."
"You sound very confident about that."
"Because I was one of them."
The bald man flashed a grin. It wasn't an insolent smile. It was an extremely intelligent smile—the kind a refined man gives when acknowledging and humoring his conversation partner.
And just like that, the bald man's whole impression shifted. The primal virility radiating from his muscular build, the pirate-captain or outlaw aura born from his missing eye—gentleness embraced all of it. It might sound a bit ridiculous, but the bald man was like a gentlemanly thug.
"Most of those greenhorns die in their very first battle. Let's say about thirty percent croak. Another thirty percent get spooked by the experience and give up on their own."
The bald man held out four fingers.
"Forty percent. Got it, brother? Only forty percent of beginners stick around in this business. Their lives get real simple after that. It's one of two things: you either die on the floor of the Demon Lord's Castle, or you catch syphilis from a prostitute and keel over."
I made it clear I was interested.
"Hmm. Is there no chance of surviving?"
"You're better off assuming there isn't. If you're unbelievably lucky, sure, you might still be alive at fifty. But what would be the point? People like us—dayflies—do you think we ever saved up or planned for retirement?"
The bald man called out to a waitress passing near the table.
"Miss, bring us three glasses of barley beer."
"Just three beers? Got it."
The server thrust out a palm with an annoyed click of her tongue. The bald man handed over five or six coins.
Hmm.
I mentally rated the adventurer in front of me quite highly. The bald man had deftly bought Jeremy and me drinks. He wanted to share something with us — and he'd shown it not just in words, but through action to some degree.
People like this are either magnanimous or con artists. If they're magnanimous, no problem — the issue is when they're con artists. A gentlemanly smile is one of the most common tricks in a con artist's playbook. So which category does this guy fall into...?
"You all know this — adventurers can die at any time. We're mayflies. Tomorrow my head might bid farewell to my body for all I know. Think about it. If I kick the bucket, what happens to the money I've stashed away in the guild vault?"
The bald man spread both hands and shrugged his shoulders.
"It all goes up in smoke. That evening, the guild big shots will be raising a toast with barley beer... All that scrimping and saving for a rainy day ends up benefiting someone else anyway. In that case, you're better off just shouting 'que será, será' and living it up."
The bald man had a point.
For an adventurer — someone ten million light-years away from a stable life — there's no wife coming to marry him. No family either. That's why an adventurer's eternal companion is the dandelion blooming by the roadside... in other words, a prostitute.
After making a score in a dungeon, they spend a few lavish days on the money. They throw cash around in a fancy brothel, feast on expensive food and drink. Throw gambling into the mix and it's perfect.
Prostitutes, alcohol, gambling. When all three stack up, the money pouch runs dry in an instant. And just like that, those few days of luxury feel like nothing but a dream, and the adventurer trudges back to his grueling daily life.
He can't even get a single hard rye bread and goes hungry. He eats whatever scraps the citizens throw his way and fills his belly with well water. He counts the days until he can live that glamorous life again, loitering like a bum in front of the quest board at the guild hall.
Success, luxury, starvation — success, luxury, starvation again...
"And then one day, you die. That's what we adventurers do."
Sometimes it's just plain bad luck. A goblin's thrown rock hits you right in the head and you're done for.
Sometimes it's the party making a mistake. The ranger who was supposed to be scouting fails to spot an ogre, and you're thrown straight into a desperate fight to the death.
Humans are weak. Even without letting my guard down, it's easy to die. Statistically, the odds of dying aren't that high. But once you repeat an adventure dozens or hundreds of times, sooner or later that low probability hits the jackpot.
Trash life at the bottom of the barrel. There's no better way to describe an adventurer.
The Hero character in the game Dungeon Attack is no different. After finishing a quest, he always visits the brothel. And here's the damn system — when the protagonist character sleeps with a prostitute, there's a 0.01% chance of contracting syphilis.
It triggers a dead ending!
What makes it even worse is that the syphilis in the game has an incubation period. It manifests exactly one year and six months later. Even if you fall victim to that 0.01% chance and get infected with syphilis — you won't notice until you've already played well past that point, meaning one year and six months have passed.
Naturally, there's no case where you'd have saved your game data from one year and six months ago.
It's a dead ending no matter what.
There's no way to hold back the cursing here. Those developer bastards are even shittier than dog dicks. Fucking motherfuckers. I've gotten a bad ending from syphilis twice now.
I'd rather have died to the Demon Lord — at least then I could overcome it with save-and-load. Where the hell am I supposed to find data from a year and six months ago? And even if by some miracle that data existed, I'd still have to replay another one year and six months of the damn game! Those shameless pricks buried their conscience in a wad of cum and shoveled it into a pile of horse shit!
If I'd spent that one year and six months power-leveling like crazy… it would've been game over.
That's exactly what I did.
Honestly, I wanted to kill myself.
This outrageous system drew enormous backlash from players. Complaints poured in relentlessly. And the answer the developers came up with was something else.
"The base chance of contracting syphilis is 0.01%, but the probability increases if a player's level is abnormally high relative to their current stage. Please refrain from the practice commonly known as power-leveling."
In other words, they were telling us to level up gradually by completing quests. Damn those bastards!
Naturally, players were terrified. Reports kept popping up on the forums — "I power-leveled and caught syphilis, and all my data got wiped."
In the end, players had no choice but to give up power-leveling and push through the game as intended. This is precisely what contributed to the absurdly high difficulty of Dungeon Attack. What a twisted game.
Aaagh, just thinking about it makes my blood boil!
That dog-shit system was definitely Venuspants' doing. I have no proof, but I'm certain of it. Without any hesitation, I can declare that everything wrong in the world is that guy's fault.
The bald man must have misread my expression.
"Oh, so you feel righteous anger about the plight of adventurers too, comrade?"
"...My apologies. I've shown you an embarrassing display."
"Not at all. The younger you are, the more that fury burns inside."
The bald, one-eyed man nodded as though he understood.
His gaze toward me grew noticeably warmer. He seemed to think he'd caught a glimpse of my human side. Well, there was no need to correct him, so I let him keep thinking that.
"Just three beers. Fabian, you should try ordering wheat beer once in a while."
The serving girl set the beer mugs down with a flustered huff. The bald man shrugged. That was just his way.
"After we raid Dantalion's Demon Lord's Castle, I'll order you three hundred wheat beers, easy."
"You know we're both just running our mouths, right? Derdalus already left yesterday—he assembled an adventuring party and set out. Fabian, you're already falling behind."
"Derdalus is a guy who's been coasting on luck and nothing else."
The bald man picked up his beer mug and spoke.
"It's about time he kissed the ground. Want to make a bet, Fleur? That fool will be holding a wedding ceremony with the Earth Goddess within three days. His bones will be so white that no one will be able to tell who's wearing the bridal gown."
The serving girl smirked.
"At least he's charming when he talks! Everyone, don't take this old man too seriously. Even if he's not a con artist, he's worse than one. He looks fine, but he's completely out of his mind. It's famous how this man blew sixty gold in a single night last year. Dear God, he bought out every high-class courtesan at the brothel and had the time of his life!"
"It was exactly eighty-two gold."
The bald man nodded.
"It was an incredible night."
"You're insane. Seriously."
The server burst out laughing.
"I'm not making it up, Fleur. Since that day, I figured I could die without regrets. But then this huge job comes along, right? The goddesses must be smiling down on me, that's for sure. I'm thinking of cashing in and opening a weapon shop."
"Dream big, why don't you. Go ahead and order your wheat beer and run your mouth, Mr. One-Eye Fabian."
The server gave an annoyingly cheerful little wave goodbye and scurried off. Her auburn hair swished behind her.
The moment she left, the bald man leaned in toward us.
"Damn right. What do you think, you two?"
"What do you mean exactly?"
"I'm talking about Fleur. Pretty damn charming, isn't she?"
The bald man whispered.
"Most of the riffraff that's constantly hanging around the guild hall have fallen for Fleur. She's the daughter of a Red-rank adventurer, and after her father died, she ended up doing menial work like this. She knows the adventurer ecosystem inside and out, and as you can see, she's a looker. But here's the thing."
The bald man waved his palm back and forth.
"She's got such a damn strong sense of pride that she never sleeps with anyone more than once. If the mood strikes, she might do it once, but she will absolutely never get into bed with the same person twice. Real piece of work, that one."
"Oh my, so you've slept with her too, Mr. Fabian?"
"Second-greatest night of my life."
Fabian raised his beer mug. We raised ours and clinked glasses. The beer was lukewarm and tasteless, but it fit the market-square-level racket of the guild hall.
"Here's why I'm joining this clown caravan. If I can get my hands on five or six hundred gold coins, I can start a brand-new life right away. I've got connections here with the constabulary, so setting up a small weapons shop is totally doable. And then I could take Fleur as my bride."
Gulp, gulp — Fabian downed his beer in one shot.
"Ahh. My dignity as a man and my… happiness down there are all riding on this job. How could I just round up any random bunch of stragglers and call it an adventuring party? The more urgent it is, the more calmly you've got to separate the wheat from the chaff. Real adventurers know that……."
Fabian looked back and forth between Jeremy and me.
"But look at this, would you — here's a man and a woman sitting quietly at a table, observing every adventurer in the guild hall. As if they're trying to figure out which ones are actually worth a damn. Hey, miss — especially you. I can smell it on you."
"……."
Jeremy had been smiling gently ever since Fabian sat down.
Fabian curled the corner of his lips into a grin.
"I can barely stand it, the stench of blood rolling off you. That's an aura only someone who's clawed their way out of a bloodbath more than once can give off, and it's swirling all around you, miss. I figured it out right away! You two think exactly the same way I do. If you can't find proper companions, you won't even set out……. Tell me, am I wrong?"
I took a sip of my beer. Then I spoke.
"You're absolutely right, Mr. Fabian. We were indeed looking for the 'someone' we needed."
Only, that someone wasn't a companion — they were simply delectable prey.
I smiled quietly.