Grow Up

We tried. We gave it our all.

I’d burned through a team power-up, we were on home turf (the orphanage), we’d used all of our ultimate spells… and still—STILL!

The magical wooden constructs the proctor had conjured destroyed us.

“Gods, even with a so-called emotional-support entity like this contraption, you all still failed?! The audacity!”

He pulled Engelklein from his back pocket—somehow stuffed in there during the fight.

“Some Crystal Elf make, are ya?” the man mocked.

“I-I am not a Crystal device! I am a construct of the Mountain Fu—”

“Yeah yeah, blah, blah. GOODBYE.”

He flicked her off his hand like a baseball.

“WAAAHHHhhhhh—!!!”

So that’s what the doppler effect sounded like…

I swear I heard cogs rattle loose as Engel slammed into the wall.

The test went about as well as you’d expect from a proctor who wanted you to lose.

I knew we were in over our heads. We probably just got lucky against those goblins and orcs… but to be beaten this easily was eye-opening.

“Neither of you would survive a day in the wilderness,” the proctor sneered. “Let alone in scenarios where you get ambushed, fight on muddy soil, go two days on an empty stomach, et cetera, so on and so forth!”

“You think you’re tough?” Daisy gritted her teeth. “You’re just an egotistical little mongrel who delights in picking on the weak.”

“That’s the spirit!” the proctor bellowed. “Say moreeee! Say what you really think! LET THAT FIRE BURN! COME AT MEEE!!”

Py Pir took the bait, charging head-on with her club. Daisy conjured her petals and sent them forward in support…

Only for him to weave gracefully between them and redirect the attack with ease.

Unfortunately, it landed square in Py Pir’s stomach.

“ARGHK—!”

I was pretty sure blood sprayed from Py Pir’s mouth. Her abdomen was sliced open.

She collapsed on the courtyard floor, crimson pooling beneath her.

“Put those healing skills to the test, Sakura.” He didn’t bother with names, but he meant Daisy. “I know you are good for it.”

Her jaw clenched as she dropped to her knees and got to work.

“For years, the Adventurer’s Guild has accepted mediocrity to flourish within its ranks. Its so-called graded systems are a farce, completely divorced from the reality of adventuring.”

He paced, eyes sweeping across the onlookers.

“For too long we’ve endured reports of sons, daughters, and everyone in between not making it home—or coming back so mutilated their families needed closed casket ceremonies. Mediocrity gets people killed! To arbitrarily rank contracts based on letters when anything can happen is insane! Let this be a lesson: adventuring is a game of extremes, not a steady career!

“This is a warning to every child here! Expect to fail at adventuring, and accept it with grace. You’re either good enough, or you aren’t! It is that simple! A simple life is not so bad when you can rely on each other. And with that, I take my leave.”

He turned back to us.

“This better be a productive two years for you four plus one. I have high, high expectations when you reach the capital and undergo the proper procedure.”

And then he left.

I looked down at Py Pir. As expected of Daisy—given time, she was like a master surgeon, her healing precise and unrelenting.

But then, the most unexpected thing happened.

Applause rose from the children watching.

Even Alexandria and Johann, who’d branded me the devil, were clapping.

Mother Martha helped us up. “What an asshole…”

I had to agree.

“Despite your loss, I am so proud of each and every one of you. My word, the calibre of adventurers must have risen so high since I took the test.”

“N-No kidding,” I panted.

“Well, look on the bright side. I get to see you for longer before you leave for adventure!”

Yuree-El sighed. “Do you miss those days, Mother?”

“Oh, been there, done that. I must master what is in front of me before I even think about going back out.”

Martha meant the orphanage, of course.

“But Mother… we failed. The conspiracy will be two years ahead of us while we’re stuck in East Gate.”

“Then those two years must be the most productive of your lives! Because I will help.”

Mistress Laura stepped forward. “So will I.”

Then… Duke Calilah himself emerged. 

Why wasn’t I surprised? Probably here to watch me eat dirt. “And so will I.”

“This is the makings of such a bad shonen…” I remarked.

Mother Martha raised her voice. “People, get dressed. As soon as work time with Cotter’s new product finishes, we’re training straight through dusk!”

I grunted. This was what I was hoping wouldn’t happen. More time wasted, more lives might be in jeopardy.

But at the same time… it’d be nice to see how East Gate develops.

…I guess.

\\

TWO MONTHS LATER…

“Oh me, oh my!”

Four days of the week, I manned the store from open till the middle of the day, when customers were most active. It made for nice downtime in between training with my friends.

“I’ll take, and that, and that! My kids will simply adore these designs!! And it gives them something to do instead of rotting inside all day…”

Honestly, it was a bit therapeutic for me. And a tiny bit nostalgic. Though clients here were remarkably easier to persuade than back home.

But my new customers today were slightly more upscale than my usual clientele.

“It is just so cute!” The woman grabbed our sample ‘complete-product’ crochet stitch. “And all the instructions are in this little slip of paper?”

My voice raised a pitch. “Most certainly! All hand drawn and made by Posteria’s House for Wayward Children, ma’am!”

“These make the perfect welcome home gift!”

“It is not my place to ask, but are your children not here with you?”

“We made the hard decision to move our operations here from the capital. My sons are in school in the capital, and no such equivalent school existed in East Gate. But there is a sort of young buzz when I entered the gates with my fellow entrepreneurs I couldn’t help but get a little excited anyway! There’s just so much unused land and real estate!”

“Well, not many raw material manufacturers operate out here, ma’am. Stuff is too dangerous to get.”

“Which makes it a perfect hub for research and development for my new healing poultices!”

That was true. Silicon Valley and Fukuoka didn’t have much in the way of natural resources, yet tech companies set up shop anyway.

“Is that why you are here?”

“Well that and to evade persecution, of course! These damned potion regulators always going on about my work being too dangerous and could ‘level the city’! They are just jealous!”

“E-Eh… of course.”

“Do come by! If you need extra coin, I’m not exactly flush, but in a few years I could be!”

\\\\\

SIX MONTHS LATER…

“PY PIR!”

At my vocal command, her back shot up upright! “YES, SIR!”

“What are the Harvard University principles of BATNA?”

“Well, it is the—”

I held out a hand. I always stopped the class cold the moment I saw what she was doing wrong.

“Don’t answer me yet,” I said harshly. “I want you to bow. Not what you are attempting right now. I want ninety degrees.”

She froze. “I can’t…”

“Bow. Ninety. Degrees!”

“Owww, Cot—owww! My back! My chest is too heavy!” Py Pir groaned.

“Bowing is the first principle of business! If you want the opposite party to take you seriously, you must bow! Now BOW!”

“Hnggg!!”

With a heroic noise halfway between a growl and a whimper, Py Pir finally managed the full bow. When she straightened, sweat beading her forehead, she still managed a proud little smile.

“BATNA,” she began, “or Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement, is the principle where you enter a negotiation with a fallback—an alternative outcome that still suits your needs if your primary objective isn’t met, sir!”

“EXCELLENT EXPLANATION, Py Pir!”

Honestly, divulging that I came from another world to the group turned out far more mundane than I had expected. To them, Earth was just some distant, exotic land filled with odd customs and stranger words.

And instead of being suspicious, they loved its posterity.

Of course, I didn’t reveal my past to anyone but my close friends.

“But… er, sir?”

I turned to the back of the classroom.

“Yes, Bob?”

One of the construction workers I’d hired with the money we earned—an animalistic crocodile beastkins—had used his break time to sit in and listen to my lecture.

He was an alumni of the orphanage himself, and as soon as word spread that East Gate was being rebuilt, he’d rushed back to help.

“But… eh… shouldn’t you be worried about relying too much on this BATNA thing? I mean, doesn’t having a backup plan make you fight less for your main goal?”

The other kids tilted their heads. A fair point, Bob.

Before I could answer, Daisy leaned back in her chair with an insufferably smug look. “That’s where you’re wrong. A strong BATNA makes you scarier. If you can walk away from the table without losing everything, you hold the cards. And if the other party knows that, they will start to compensate. That’s why Cotter keeps drilling it into our skulls.”

Several kids clapped like Daisy just solved some great riddle.

I groaned.

And all this time, Daisy, I thought you considered yourself too cool for praise.

\\

ONE YEAR LATER…

“I… I can’t believe it.”

My eyes weren’t deceiving me. The words were right there, carved into the freshly painted board:

‘Rebuilding of the Adventurer’s Guild — Opening Next Year!’

And beneath it… the guildmaster’s signature.

Piper was already chewing through a paper bag of donuts, her tail flicking lazily. “’Bout time the Guild took East Gate seriously…” she mumbled around a mouthful.

We were milling about in the lantern-lit streets, celebrating the Midwinter Festival—Calilah’s idea to restore it again after last year’s success. This time the crowds were bigger. The stalls brighter.

East Gate was alive again.

The raids hadn’t stopped, but we and the newly reinforced town guard could hold our own now. For the first time in years, the people believed in tomorrow.

And yet…

“You ever wonder,” I said quietly, eyes still on the sign, “if we’re actually ready?”

Py Pir smirked at me over her donut. “You tell me, Endo. You commissioned a gym and then hogged it for yourself every morning.”

I chuckled. Apparently gyms did exist in fantasy worlds, and people weren’t stuck with calisthenics alone. Who knew?

“You still comfortable calling me Endo?” I asked.

“In private,” she replied smoothly. “What does it matter? People will just assume it’s some nickname I gave you.”

I let her words hang in the frosty night air, my gaze drifting back to the sign.

“Well,” Uriel said at last, “I think we’re definitely improving now. We just need to keep at it!”

“I hope so…” My voice was almost drowned out by the festival drums.

"Things are falling in place a little bit too fast, don't you think?" Daisy mused.

I conceded. "Yeah..."

Because the capital awaited. And the test wasn’t just going to measure strength or magic. It was going to decide whether we stood as adventurers…

Or fell as failures.