Chapter 13

After going back to bed at two, we woke up at around seven in the morning. I once again contacted Frederick, saying that I would be skipping university again today. Frederick was mildly worried.

[Are you sure you're alright?]

[I'm fine, really.]

I appreciate the concern, but that's really not something I want to discuss right now. Not sure if I would ever be able to discuss it with him.

[You've never skipped classes before, not even during the end of semesters.]

I couldn't deny that. Who knew my spotless record would shoot me in the back like this?

[You're worrying too much.]

[Tell me if something's wrong, alright?]

[Yeah.]

Luckily, he didn't ask any other questions after that. I turned around. Elerina was behind me, in the middle of getting into her armor.

“You're not going to get that fixed?”

She shrugged. “Maybe later.”

I was worried, but I'm an outsider. Maybe there's a reason why she continued wearing that armor.

I then gave her the fully-charged action camera. Since I would be staying at home today, I had prepared it so that both action cameras would be connected to my tablet, with one being off. When that one runs out of battery, I'll swap it out with mine, and when the second one runs out, the first one will be full.

I had also charged the drone fully. I could use it to provide intel or create distractions.

“Alright, let's go.”

I watched the video on my tablet’s screen. She descended to the inn’s first floor, walking past several other people. It was surprisingly calm in the morning, not something I expected after seeing last night.

The streets were still crowded. Unlike last night, most of the people had returned to wearing a kind of armor with their weapons on their side. Elerina walked past the market area, heading straight to the guild.

“Woah…”

There was a girl in a striking suit performing some magic tricks. A dragon made of flames danced above her. The spectators all cheered.

“I didn't know magic could do that…”

“That's a special kind of magic.” Elerina stopped and let me watch some of her tricks. “They're illusions, though. They couldn't harm you.”

“I see…”

After enjoying the tricks a bit more, we went to the guild. The guild was already crowded by adventurers. In the center was a pillar that we skipped over yesterday. A group of people surrounded that pillar.

“What do you think about this one?”

“That's… too hard.”

I could hear the voices of the people around Elerina. Despite being in a different language, I understood what they were saying. I couldn't read the writings on the paper, though.

“Which one are you going to pick?”

Maybe because it's during a war, but there were a lot of quests. Each paper had different symbols on them. Some had carriages, others had something like a cabbage. Most of them had a symbol similar to a dragon, though.

She pointed to one put higher up. Each quest also had characters written onto them.

“Help,” she said, lifting her hand. A receptionist came over with some stairs and picked out the quest she was pointing at. She waited in line, the paper in her hand.

The guild’s way of handling adventurers was efficient, as despite the many people ahead of her, it didn't take long for her to arrive at the desk.

Elerina showed the receptionist the quest she would be taking.

“Please let me see your card.”

Elerina showed her a card. A character was written on it.

“Here you go, we're waiting for your safe return.”

Elerina then left the guild, a smaller piece of paper in her hand. She went to the north side of the city and took a carriage ride.

•••

We remained in silence for the whole three hour ride. After the carriage reached the frontline base, Elerina went ahead alone into enemy territory.

“Phew… that was painful.” I chuckled after she was far enough from the base. No other people were around her, not as far as I could tell, at least.

“Yeah… even though I'm used to being silent.”

The people we were with for the ride all had their own team, so they were conversing between themselves. Elerina was the only silent one there, but she didn’t look bothered at all.

“So, what quest did you take?”

Elerina reached into her bag and pulled out the piece of paper the guild had given her. Unlike the one attached to the main pillar, this one was much smaller. It fits in the palm of her hand. Layout-wise, it's almost the same as the large one, except the large paragraph underneath the main text had been moved to the back.

“So this symbol here is the quest difficulty.” Elerina pointed to the single character on the right. “We divided it into five, with A being the most difficult and E being the easiest. You need to have at least two members in your party that rank.”

“But you're alone?”

“Because I'm an S-rank adventurer. There's no S-rank quest, not normally, but S-rank adventurers are experienced enough that special rules apply to them.”

Elerina then told me several of the special rules. Other than being allowed to go solo, they could also take adventurers two ranks lower than the minimum to quests. Other benefits include access to specialized equipment, more payment, and sometimes even priority when taking certain quests. That said, being one isn't easy, hence the difference in treatment.

“I still remember participating in the S-rank exam. Out of the thirty participants, only ten got promoted, including me.”

For the other ranks, there are no exams. Once you've taken enough quests and gained experience, you'll be promoted. You could also get demoted. For other ranks, you would get demoted once every two months to a rank lower if you didn't reach the minimum amount of quests completed. For the S-rank, that time is one month, although like the other rules, hard rules don’t apply to S-rank adventurers, so it’s dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

“Also, every quest carries a different weight. Some will get you more points than the other.”

Elerina pointed toward the dragon symbol.

“This is the symbol for monster subjugation quests.”

“Then the carriage one?”

“That's transportation quests.”

“And the cabbage one?”

“Cabbage? What cabbage?”

“You know, the roundish ones?”

“Oh, those are bags. They're for gathering quests.”

They do not look like bags to me.

“There are more types, like escort or search and rescue quests, but currently, monster subjugation is the most common.”

Since the demons utilized monsters, it could be said that the monsters are their soldiers, thus during the war, killing enemy combatants is the most important.

“I remembered it being much more varied when the war had just begun. Nowadays, there's monster subjugation everywhere.”

“Which one did you take this time?”

“A kind of tiger, apparently… with six legs.”

A six-legged tiger…

I tried drawing a picture of what it might look like in my mind. The result wasn't pretty. It did remind me of something, though.

“In your world, what's the difference between an animal and a monster?”

“... What's an animal?”

“Cows? Sheeps?”

“You call those animals?”

“Are they not?”

“No, they're monsters.”

“I see…”

“Do you differentiate between them?”

“Monsters don't exist in my world.”

Elerina let out a gasp. “Wait, so you're saying, monsters don't threaten your life? That's so nice!”

A monkey with sharp claws and red eyes appeared in the camera feed. She was trekking through the forest, so some monsters should be expected. She unsheathed her weapon and began running. With a single slice of her blade, she sliced the monkey into two. She moved fast, taking out other monkeys that tried to approach her.

Her eyes were faster than mine. Despite being an observer, I noticed her enemies long after she already targeted them. There might be some delay, but I only realized around two to three seconds after Elerina began sprinting toward it. The delay shouldn’t even reach a second.

She took out at least eight monkeys. Some of her attacks sliced through two at the same time, so I wasn't sure how much she had actually killed.

“Impressive…”

“I assume those monkeys don't exist in your world?”

“They're nowhere near as scary.”

These aren't the large gorillas, they're small monkeys, the ones often seen trying to steal people's stuff. And despite their size, they weren't weak, either. I saw one of the trees that got in the way of the monkey's slash. There was a deep slice in its trunk. Had it been Elerina, it might be fatal.

“Do those count as animals in your world?”

“Yeah. In my world, the term encompasses all living beings that aren't plants. Well, there are other types, but animals and plants are the large ones.”

Large in size, at least. I couldn't remember what the other kinds were.

“If an animal is dangerous, we call them ‘dangerous animals’ so the term monster isn't used.”

“I see…”

“That said, yeah. I live in the city, so I don't interact with dangerous animals.”

“So you don't know how to hunt?”

“No.”

“Then how did you get all your food?”

“I bought them.”

“Ah… right, but you really don't know how to hunt? Your parents didn't teach you?”

Why would they teach me? The likelihood of me running into a dangerous wild animal throughout my life is less than ten percent. As long as I didn't go out of my way to look for them, I would be fine.

“I don't even know how to fight.”

Elerina stared at me. Was what I said really that unbelievable?

“A simple punch?”

“Like this, right?”

I turned away from her, clenched my fist and sent it forward.

“That's… slow…”

“Yeah? I never need to use it?”

She gave me a pitying look for whatever reason. She shook her head disapprovingly.

“I'll whip you into shape after this.”

There was a frightening glint in her eyes. It was a look of determination I had never seen in anyone's eyes before.

“There- there's no need! It's not like I need to fight!”

“That's what I thought back then as well!” She shouted. “I'm not letting you slack off!”

“Oh dear…”

She completed the quest way quicker than I imagined, then sprinted back to the city.