"Hey, wait. Come with me and slay the Demon Lord...!"
The young man, flustered, tried to speak up again.
That was when it happened. A barmaid serving food and drinks hooked her foot behind the young man's heel. Caught completely off guard by the surprise attack, the young man stumbled and collapsed in an undignified heap.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry! I wasn't watching where I was going."
The young man was faced with one incomprehensible event after another. When that happened, his mind went blank, and he simply went along with whatever the other person did. The barmaid reached out to him with a deeply apologetic expression, and the young man numbly took her hand.
The moment he was being helped up, the barmaid let go. The young man lost his balance helplessly and fell backward, landing hard on his backside. With a thud, the young man hit the floor, and the adventurers who had been watching the whole scene burst into snickering laughter.
"Oh dear. What a shame. I'm a woman, so I'm terribly weak, you see."
The barmaid bent down and looked at the young man's face.
"Still, Mister Self-Proclaimed Knight-Hopeful, I'm rooting for you. If you slay the Demon Lord, doesn't that make me the woman who single-handedly defeated the Hero?"
The adventurers around them laughed. It was unmistakably mockery.
At this point, even the young man could tell what was going on. His face flushed bright red.
"How can you be so rude...!"
"The one who was rude first was you, kid. Listen up."
The barmaid spoke.
"This isn't some practice arena where you get to show off what you learned from those fancy knight lords. Got it? This is our workplace. The place where we earn our bread. Understand? It may be a wretched world, but at the very least, you don't smash someone else's rice bowl right in front of their face. That's basic manners."
"To think you'd treat the Demon Lord as nothing more than a tool for earning a living!"
The young man rose to his feet. He jabbed his finger and shouted.
"Of course, obtaining daily sustenance is important. But there are far more important things in this world! Subjugating the Demon Lord who has plunged the continent into despair — that is the true calling!"
"Kid. Nobody cares what kind of moral code you subscribe to. Even if you dropped dead right here and now, there'd be plenty of people lined up to tell you that same boring lecture in your place."
The young woman grabbed the young man's finger and squeezed it tight.
"Thousands of adventurers are living their lives with nothing but the Demon Lord's Castle in their sights. In this city alone, there are thousands of humans who make their living off the Demon Lord's Castle. Once you go and subjugate the Demon Lord with that grand sense of justice of yours, every single one of us gathered here becomes unemployed. — Can you take responsibility for thousands of lives?"
"......"
The young man had never thought about it that way.
"It's only natural to laugh when someone who can't even take care of themselves talks about shouldering the burden of thousands."
The pretty employee with chestnut-red hair let out a scoff.
"You worthless little punk, if you didn't come here to work, then get lost. As you can see, it's always packed in here. When people like you stand around gawking, bodies end up bumping into me before I know it."
The young man couldn't say a word and was chased out of the guild hall.
Watching the young man stumble away in a daze, the adventurers burst out laughing once more. There was virtually no malice in it. They simply figured a funny fellow had shown up to break the tedium of their excruciatingly boring lives.
Thanks for giving us a reason to laugh during our hard lives — quite a few adventurers genuinely felt that way. After all, life was something the more seriously you took it, the more you lost. How could someone who endured a life like an adventurer's also take life seriously?
"That Fleur girl is way too kind to newbies."
An adventurer said over a mug of barley beer at his table.
"I've told you time and again. There's no need for that. Just leave them alone! Novices are hopeless anyway — they can't see what's right in front of them even when someone tries to help. It's pointless, truly pointless."
You're right, that's the truth — voices of agreement echoed from all around.
The young woman rested both arms on her hips and sighed.
"Oh, listen to the great elders talking. It's not like I do this because I want to, and the world just bends to my wishes. It's because I can't hold back my own temper — that's all there is to it. So save your breath, you brainless fools."
"Our miss sure has a foul mouth."
The adventurer chugged his beer.
"Heh. I've been wondering about this for a long time. Fleur, why are you always so nice to the new recruits? You talk about your temper and whatnot, but honestly it just sounds like an excuse. It's an odd bit of meddling that doesn't seem to suit your personality at all."
"......"
The young waitress murmured softly.
"I just hope no one dies. Especially not in that Demon Lord's Castle…"
The adventurers nodded in agreement, murmuring "Ah" among themselves.
It was a common story. Someone precious had probably died in the Demon Lord's Castle—a parent, a lover, an older or younger sibling. In this world, it was nothing out of the ordinary. That was why the adventurers didn't press the matter any further.
Don't ask questions no one wants to answer.
That was one of the unwritten rules you had to live by if you wanted to survive even a little while in this line of work. The adventurer finished his barley ale and thought to himself.
Come to think of it, that young lady's old man was a famous adventurer, wasn't he?
A Red-rank adventurer, if he remembered correctly.
He must have been a proud father. Raising a child to adulthood was as monumental a feat for an adventurer as saving the world. Thanks to her father's connections, he'd heard Fleur had worked at the guild in the neighboring city even before moving here.
I've never heard any rumors of a Red-rank adventurer dying in the Dantalion Demon Lord's Castle, though…
A question arose in the adventurer's mind, but he naturally stopped himself from dwelling on it.
Eh, doesn't matter.
The adventurer was a seven-year veteran as of this year. Around here, he knew better than anyone that what mattered was not thinking too much. What of it, he mused. After all, the world and women are both more beautiful the more secrets they keep…
The young man who'd been thrown out of the guild spent that night sleeping on the streets.
He had no money.
"At least it's not freezing. That's something."
He squeezed himself into the gap between two buildings. Partly because he was worried the cold wind might stiffen his body, but more than anything, it was a precaution against raiders. Sleeping in a narrow passage like this meant that even if thieves came after him, he could put up a fight.
"Haa…"
A sigh escaped him involuntarily.
On the off chance, he'd inquired about lodging costs. It was impossible, as expected. It wasn't even an inn he couldn't afford—he didn't have enough money to rent a stable at a private household for a single night.
If he'd bowed his head a little and slipped inside, it would have been shameless, but he could have slept for free. The people of this city didn't seem stingy. But it was precisely that shame that weighed on the young man's mind. His life had been smooth enough that he hadn't yet grown accustomed to begging……
His entire net worth was now a single silver coin. With this, he could buy four loaves of bread and that would be that.
Of course, he could hold out for a few days. But what would happen after those few days passed……
"No, I can't let my resolve waver."
The young man steeled himself.
"What are you doing, Friedrich Schiller! Resolve is fragile and reality is harsh! The harsh reality is like a great mountain range, and only those who conquer it can become heroes—do they not say so!"
The young man glared up at the night sky, quoting a poem he'd learned in class.
It was the very same night sky he'd gazed upon with dreams while at the academy. The young man gave this meaning. That is to say, no matter where or how one lived—whether born as nobility or as a slave, whether living as a knight or as an adventurer—the path a person must walk was always the same. That was justice.
It didn't matter where one stood. Right now, he was undeniably wretched. So wretched that he had been about to fall asleep leaning against a filthy alley wall. But none of that mattered……
The next day.
"Is there no one who will join me in crushing the lackeys of the Demon Lord!"
The young man strode into the guild hall and shouted at the top of his lungs.
After a single night, it felt as though the goddess Artemis had breathed confidence back into him. The only thing that had changed, ever so slightly, was the wording—from "a Hero who will go to slay the Demon Lord" to "a Hero who will go to slay the Demon Lord's lackeys."
"……."
A serving girl glanced at the young man.
She didn't say a word, but her gaze was even colder than the day before. She ignored the young man entirely and carried barley beer over to the adventurers. One of the adventurers took his mug and let out a snort.
"See? What'd I tell you. He still hasn't gotten it through his head."
"If you ever lecture me one more time, I'll smash that thing of yours to pieces, so you'd better remember that."
"Gyaaah!"
Naturally, not a single person sided with the young man's valiant cry. Once again, the young man had no choice but to return to the alley with nothing to show for the day.
The very next day.
"Is there no brave soul who will join me in vanquishing evil Monsters!"
The young man shouted out with the same unshakeable confidence as before, though his face looked a little more gaunt than usual. The adventurers had long grown used to his calls and didn't even spare him a glance. In fact, they had placed bets on how long he would keep this up.
The day after that, and the day after that…
For three consecutive days.
The young man was starving.
"……."
He was hungry.
He had already exhausted his body and mind traveling a long journey to get here. On top of that, going several days without food made it unbearable, no matter how much training he had endured as a knight aspirant.
Fortunately, that day happened to be Sunday.
People boiled a fresh batch of soup every Monday. As the days passed, the soup grew increasingly watered down and bland. Sunday was when the soup was at its most diluted. When a beggar came asking for a single ladle of soup as charity, people would ruthlessly chase them away on a Monday, but on a Sunday they could usually spare a bowl without too much fuss.
"Just one bowl of broth, please…"
The young man wandered around the six hill villages for the entire day.
The reason was simple. He was afraid that if he only begged at a single village, he would look too much like a beggar. The villagers muttered in disbelief as they served him soup.
"I mean… a young man with all his limbs intact, and yet… tsk, tsk."
Normally, even this watery soup had its rightful recipients. Every village had orphans. With no orphanage to speak of, these orphans ended up at the very bottom of the begging hierarchy, and it was precisely for them that this "Sunday grace" was intended.
A young man who clearly wasn't an orphan and looked perfectly healthy asking to share in the soup was beyond absurd.
The young man could not endure the humiliation any longer.
He had failed to find companions, but he marched into the Demon Lord's Castle all alone. Two Goblins pounced on him — the weakest Monsters taught about at the academy. Yet even as the young man fought off the two Goblins, he came perilously close to losing an entire arm.
"Hagh… hegh… hahh…"
Class and reality were nothing alike.
Two Goblins had been this difficult — what would happen if three of them ganged up? Fear crept over him. The Demon Lord's Castle was no place for someone to explore alone. The young man slung the Goblin corpses over his shoulders and scrambled out in a panic.
He didn't even know how to butcher a Monster, so he had clumsily slung an entire corpse over his back and fled.
The young man handed the body over to a butcher and earned a single silver coin. He'd been shortchanged, but he didn't know the going rate, so there was nothing he could do. With that one silver coin, he bought a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese, and a bowl of soup.
It tasted so good that tears streamed down his face.
The next day.
The young man stepped into the adventurer guild hall and spoke cautiously.
"One silver coin per Goblin head! One silver coin per Goblin!"
The voice was a little awkward, but it managed to blend into the building's noisy atmosphere.
"Anyone heading out to slay Goblins? Two silver coins per head! Butchering available!"
"See, that's exactly why one gold coin per head is daylight robbery!"
"Hey — I looked into it, and those demon bastards' towers and those human bastards' towers are all the same. There's not a single soul in this world you can trust!"
People were bustling about as usual, chattering among themselves while searching for work.
A female staff member watched the young man from a distance and let out a small smile.
"Looks like he finally learned how to speak properly."
============================ Author's Notes ============================
For those who may remember, Fleur was the woman that Fabian — the "bald, one-eyed adventurer" — had loved.