Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World Volume 2 E-Book

Kenichi

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 302

Beschreibung

Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World Volume 2

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Prologue

Chapter Two

Epilogue: Gunjo City

Extra Story: Primera’s Worth

Afterword

Color Illustrations

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Color Images

Table of Contents

Prologue

“C-Captain! Ogre! Headed this way!”

“Calm down! First, tell me as much about the ogre as you can, and be specific!” I yelled at my panicked subordinate. After all, just telling me there was an ogre wasn’t very helpful.

“Y-Yes, sir! A caravan just arrived in the city and said they were attacked by two ogres on the road from Gunjo City! Luckily, they left behind some horses and some goods as bait and managed to escape, but...”

“Wait! Did you say two ogres? A mated pair?”

“We think so...”

If it was a mated pair of ogres, it was possible they were heading for Gunjo City because it was mating season. Most creatures require more stamina and nutrition during mating season. In other words, they were after more food...in the form of humans.

“And there’s more bad news! It’s possible that both of the ogres...were a subspecies!”

What in the world was going on? If it was one regular ogre, I could have bought time all by myself. But if they were both members of a subspecies, even someone like me would get his butt kicked. That was because certain subspecies of ogres were stronger and had higher resistances than ordinary ones. Sometimes they’d even eat their own kind.

“Have the first unit mobilize immediately!”

“The first unit is off on another mission, so they won’t get here that soon.”

“The second unit, then...”

“The second unit is with the first unit. And the third as well...”

So it was just us...which made this impossible. My unit had just been formed a few days ago, so this was too much for them. We’d borrowed a few veterans from another unit, but over half of the unit were rookies. If they tried to fight against an ogre subspecies they’d get completely annihilated. Still...

“I guess we’ve got no choice but to go.” I could see the color drain out of everyone’s faces. I was sure I looked the same way. “I’m not saying we have to defeat them, but we’ll just have to buy time until another unit comes.” I was just about to give the orders to mobilize, when suddenly...

“I have a message!” A separate man rushed in. Had the other units made it in time?

“The ogres have been driven away!”

“Huh?” I blurted out dumbly. Even the veterans looked surprised to hear the news.

“A party of adventurers happened to come across the ogres and defeated both of them! The adventurers’ guild just received the news!”

That was way too fast. It had probably only taken an hour for news of the sighting to get back to me... And they’d been defeated not by another unit, but by a party of adventurers? The strength of adventurers varied wildly, but I’d heard there were some who were so incredible they made the king’s guard look like children. Whoever defeated the ogres must’ve been pretty strong, if not that strong. I was just glad I didn’t end up having to put any of my subordinates’ lives on the line.

A few days after the ogre commotion, rumors started that the party of adventurers was newly formed and made up of rookies, but that died down quickly. It was clear that couldn’t possibly be the case. Plus, there weren’t even any adventurers in Gunjo City who were capable of defeating two subspecies ogres. If they’d been here, they must’ve left right away.

They’d saved the town without bragging about it or asking for any compensation, then left without a trace. I didn’t know who they were, but I felt a deep admiration for them, as well as a desire to repay them.

Chapter Two

Part One

My name is Tenma Otori. I live with my grandpa. I don’t have a mom or dad. They died in a car accident when I was three. I don’t remember it, though. I only vaguely remember being with them when I was really little.

My dad’s dad was the one who took me in.

Grandpa lives in a village where there are no other kids my age. Sometimes somebody’s grandkid will come visit, but only for a few days during Obon and New Year’s.

Grandpa is friends with everyone who lives by him. They’re all very nice to me. Our neighbors across the street and to either side of us come visit Grandpa every day, and they always play with me.

Grandpa’s name is Kotetsu Otori. He goes to the mountains with a gun a lot.

Our neighbor on the right is named Kennosuke. I call him Grandpa Ken. He’s kind of a strict old guy and he likes to practice swinging his sword in his yard a lot.

Our neighbors on the left are an old man named Shotaro and his wife, Tamao. I call them Grandpa Sho and Grandma Tama. Grandpa Sho likes punching through boards and tying belts around trees in his yard and pulling on them. Grandma Tama makes me really yummy food and bakes yummy snacks too.

The man across the street is called Genzo. I call him Grandpa Gen. Everyone in town calls him a grumpy old man.

Sometimes there are arguments, but everyone is really close, and they’re all super nice to me.

They teach me a lot of things in their spare time. Grandpa teaches me judo, Grandpa Ken teaches me kendo, Grandpa Sho teaches me karate, and Grandpa Gen checks my homework and teaches me all kinds of other things.

But most of the time Grandma Tama gets mad at them and tells them they’re overdoing it. I don’t have any friends my own age in town, but once I started elementary school, I made a friend named Takashi. It takes almost an hour to drive to my school, though, so I can’t play with him on weekdays.

I don’t have many friends at school, but we play together at recess all the same and I like learning things with Grandpa and my neighbors, so I have a lot of fun in elementary school.

◊◊◊

I started getting into trouble as soon as I started junior high school. From my perspective, all I did was get into one fight. I just happened to be taking on ten guys at once...

The reason I got into the fight was because a kid in my new class started being violent towards Takashi, so I stuck up for him...with my fists.

Then the bully’s older brother and a bunch of his friends showed up, so I took ’em all out. Unfortunately I got a little carried away and ended up hurting them.

So then, apparently, the bully’s mom came to the school and raised hell about it. I say “apparently” because I wasn’t at school that day, but Grandpa and everyone else sure chewed me out over it.

I guess the kid’s mom didn’t know her son had ganged up on one of the new students at school, but once she found out she came all the way to our house to apologize.

Apparently the reason Grandpa and everyone else was so mad at me was because they thought of me as their apprentice, and because I’d gone too far, but once the kid’s mom apologized they all chalked it up to just a scuffle between kids.

At some point I heard from one of the teachers at school that actually, Grandpa and our neighbors were pretty famous. Grandpa was good at grappling-based martial arts, like judo and jiujutsu; Grandpa Ken was good at fighting with weapons, like in kendo and kenjutsu; and Grandpa Sho was good at karate and boxing. Apparently they’d all made a name for themselves in their fields, and since I’d learned from a bunch of masters, nobody else my age could touch me.

All three of them were rivals who’d kept training because they didn’t want any of the others to be better than them. I thought that sounded like something straight out of a manga.

As for Grandpa Gen, he just laughed and said he wasn’t great at fighting, but he had trained his brain instead.

After I caused that problem at school, they added mental training to my list. They made me stand under waterfalls, do sitting Zen meditation, and copy sutras. One weekend they took me up to the mountains, kicked me out of the car, and said, “See you on Monday!” Once Grandma Tama found out about that, though, all four grandpas got in big trouble.

So as you can see, my junior high school experience was far from normal. And since I had to protect myself from all sorts of people looking for a fight, people treated me like I was the leader of a band of delinquents or something. Naturally, I wasn’t able to get a girlfriend because of those rumors.

◊◊◊

Once I got to high school, I joined a club and got a part-time job, hung out with my friends and studied, and kept up with my training, which had gotten even more intense, so I was always busy.

My schoolwork wasn’t difficult, because it was all stuff Grandpa Gen had already taught me. But the other grandpas were going a bit overboard with my training, and sometimes on school vacations they’d make me spar with a hundred people in a row—and not just with karate, but with judo, kendo, randori, and kakari geiko as well. But most of the time the grandpas wouldn’t tell me what my opponent specialized in, and so I had to figure it out on my own.

Plus, all my opponents were people the grandpas knew, so they were all incredibly skilled in their fields. They had all participated in national tournaments, and even the weakest of them had won a regional tournament several years running.

It was those beasts I had to spar with. Sometimes they’d switch out every minute, or sometimes they’d just give me pointers. Even though they were really tough, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, and it was a really valuable experience. Although the grandpas liked to call it “sparring with a hundred opponents” because it sounded impressive, I don’t think there were ever more than fifty of them. It might have been more accurate to just call it a hundred matches in a row with a time limit and some advice on the side.

Since that’s how I spent my youth, I just couldn’t get a girlfriend. I asked Takashi for pointers since he’d recently gotten one himself and he said, “Your looks aren’t bad, your grades are good, you’re a strong athlete, and you can cook, so I wonder why you can’t get a girl...? Ha ha ha!” It pissed me off a little so I poked him in the head with the corner of my textbook.

Takashi’s advice was totally worthless. I asked his girlfriend Miki about it, and she told me the surprising reason—apparently it was because of the grandpas and their friends!

Sometimes I’d see them on the way to school and say hello to them, and for some reason that made everyone think I was involved with the yakuza. And since some of the grandpas were humble, they’d speak politely to me or even bow to me, so the rumors were that I was actually the son or grandson of a yakuza boss... And of course, I had no idea any of this was going on.

All of the grandpas except for Grandpa Gen looked pretty tough, which only helped fuel the rumors.

◊◊◊

I managed to get into a college on a recommendation. Takashi and Miki went to the same school as me, but they were jealous because they both had to pass the entrance exam to get in. A tiny part of me felt kinda smug about it, like, “Well, serves you right, being popular people with actual lives!”

My long-held dream of having a girlfriend finally came true in college, but we broke up after a year. I was depressed. Really depressed, and if Takashi and Miki hadn’t been there for me I probably would’ve gone on some brokenhearted solo trip. Like to Aokigahara. But just for sightseeing, of course.

Thanks to the advice of my friends, I was able to take just enough credits to give me more time to relax and hang out, so I had a pretty fulfilling college experience.

After I graduated, I worked at the town hall of the village where I’d grown up. They told me I was the first person who was raised in the village to work at the town hall in decades. The work wasn’t very hard, and I knew everyone already, which made it a pretty easy gig for me.

But about three years after I started working there, I had to go to the city municipal office for work. And on my way home, tragedy struck.

I was going to eat lunch before I went home, and I was crossing the street in this unfamiliar business district when I saw a car speeding towards me. As soon as I saw it I stopped, but there was a little girl next to me who didn’t notice, and continued to run out into the street.

I heard the sound of the car’s horn blaring and screams all around me. Without thinking, I dashed out and shoved the girl away from the car. Then I lost consciousness.

The next thing I knew, I’d woken up at my own funeral and was floating above my coffin.

Everyone wore mourning clothes and was sobbing. Takashi and Miki were there too. They were married now, and they sat huddled together crying. All my friends from college and my coworkers from the town hall were there, crying as well.

I looked around and saw a middle-aged couple bowing their heads to Gramps. There was a little girl next to them. They apologized to Grandpa over and over again, but he asked them not to. He said it wasn’t the little girl’s fault, and that I did what anyone else would’ve done. I’d just had bad luck.

The little girl and her parents offered me incense and then went home. When the little girl offered hers, she thanked me as well. Honestly, I was more shocked at how sad everyone was than the fact that I had died. I’d heard stories of people who were presumed dead but had miraculously come back to life, so I tried to put myself back in my body which was lying in the coffin, but sadly it didn’t work the way I’d hoped.

I was trying to figure out what to do next when all of a sudden I heard a voice from behind me.

“Hello, Tenma Otori. I’ve come to recruit you.”

◊◊◊

I had the faint realization that I’d been dreaming—dreaming of my past life. The moment I realized that, it felt like the vivid colors of my dream were suddenly painted over with white. The bright white slowly began to fade, and I heard a woman’s voice soothing me, along with a man’s voice in the background.

My mother Celia was holding me and talking to me softly. And Ricardo, my dad, was peering hesitantly at me as he spoke.

Ahh, I’m so happy.

Even though I knew this was nothing but a dream, I couldn’t help but feel happy. I basked in it, but gradually their faces began to fade away. I felt my consciousness stirring. I was about to wake from my dreams.

No matter how happy I felt here, or how sad, it was only a dream. It wasn’t real.

I knew that, but I wished I could just stay in Mom’s arms for a little while longer as Dad watched over me.

But then I woke up.

Part Two

I woke up staring at the familiar ceiling of the inn. The light was still very faint, so the sun must’ve just risen.

I sat up. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I roughly wiped them away with the sleeve of my pajamas. Since that fateful day three years ago, I’d had that recurring dream every now and then. No matter how much time passed, I always felt so depressed after that dream.

I stretched up as high as I could, trying to shake off those feelings, and took a few deep breaths. One, two, three...

“All right! Today’s an important day! I better go wash my face.” I changed into my training gear and then left the room. As soon as I walked down the stairs, a man emerged from the kitchen.

“Morning, Dozle.”

“Hey, you’re early today, Tenma! Mornin’!”

He was the owner of the inn and restaurant I was staying at—the Full Belly Inn. He was a veteran adventurer, but retired ten years ago after he got married. As the name of his inn might have suggested, he was a quite rotund man. But he gave out wonderful advice to newbie adventurers, and was admired by many in town.

After I parted ways with Namitaro, I wandered around for about a year, visiting various cities and villages along the way. I’d come to this city—Gunjo City—about two years ago, and had been staying at the Full Belly Inn ever since.

Gunjo City was in the duchy of Sanga, which was several smaller domains away from the margrave of Haust to the west. Gunjo City had started as a small marketplace, then gradually grew to the size it was today.

“Food’s gonna take a bit longer to cook.”

“That’s okay. I’m gonna go exercise outside first, anyway.”

Dozle nodded and then went back into the kitchen. The reception desk, kitchen, and dining room were all on the first floor. The second floor consisted of shared rooms, and the third through fourth floors were all individual rooms. Dozle’s house was next door. A one-night stay with two meals was 500G for an individual room, and 300G for a shared room. It was way cheaper than the average inn, plus the food was delicious, so it was a popular place. The dining room was open to nonguests as well. During the day it was a restaurant, but once the sun went down it was more like a tavern. It was pretty well appreciated in these parts for their great food and drinks.

I went outside and headed for the well. I scooped up some water and washed my face. Then I opened up my dimension bag and woke up Shiromaru and Rocket, who’d been sleeping inside of it.

“Morning, Rocket and Shiromaru!”

“Woof!” Shiromaru barked in response and Rocket jiggled his body. I fed them some dried meat and vegetable scraps for breakfast, then gave them a bowl of water.

Once they’d begun to eat, I took a stick that was about a meter long from my magic bag and started training. I practiced my overhead stance as well as swinging, jabbing, throwing, and sweeping.

After I’d trained for about an hour, my stomach made a loud noise suggesting I get something in it, so I headed back inside. I left Shiromaru and Rocket in the yard.

Once the mistress of the inn saw that I’d come to eat, she brought me a plate just like she did every day.

“Today’s breakfast is vegetable soup, bacon, cheese, eggs over easy, and white bread. Make sure you eat every bite!” She put the food down in front of me. Her name was Kanna. She was Dozle’s wife and the mistress of the inn—a beautiful, slender woman who was every bit as powerful as an adventurer, with a caring heart to boot. People always called the two of them Beauty and the Beast, and perhaps it was because of Kanna’s gentle personality, but I never thought the two of them seemed oddly matched.

“Thanks.” I tore off a hunk of the bread and layered it with bacon, cheese, and egg, then took a bite out of it. The bread was a little on the hard side, but much softer than what you’d get at most inns. The biggest issue in this world was food spoiling quickly, so most of the time bread was baked until it was very hard to make it keep longer.

“That looks like a fancy combo.” As there weren’t many people here today, Dozle came over to chat. “You’re up earlier than usual. Any particular reason?” he asked as he sat down across from me.

“Yep—I’m going to get fully registered at the guild today, so I wanted to get there early.” You couldn’t get fully registered with a guild until you were fifteen, but you could still buy materials and stuff like that from them at a younger age if you had a temporary registration.

The registrations were easy enough to obtain—you just had to pay 500G. They didn’t care which adventurers’ guild you registered at, but you had to start at the lowest rank and you didn’t get any special benefits, like the ability to take on jobs, borrow money, or get shared information.

But if you registered, anyone—even an ordinary child—could buy materials, so there were a lot of people who had temporary registrations. That’s why I’d gotten mine three years ago when I’d arrived at my first city.

“Why go to all the trouble at this point?”

“I thought the same thing, but it’s just more convenient to have a full registration.”

There weren’t any rules against hunting monsters with a temporary registration, so if I was about to run out of money I could just hunt a bunch of monsters and sell their parts to live off of. Eventually, I’d done that enough times that I’d become kind of famous around here. And that had also led to a few bouts with trouble.

“Thanks for the meal,” I said, having slurped up my last bit of soup. I stood up and headed outside.

“Are you going to try to get your first job today?” Dozle asked.

“If there’s anything good!” I called back as I went through the door to the garden. “Rocket, Shiromaru! Sorry I took so long. Let’s head to the guild.” I started moving in that direction, and the two of them followed me. Rocket hopped into my bag and Shiromaru trotted up next to me.

There were many people bustling about in the city, but most of them didn’t even blink when they saw Shiromaru. They did when I’d first gotten here, but once they saw the red string and tag around his neck they’d calmed down. That was a symbol that Shiromaru had been Tamed. Some city guards had given this to me, because apparently if Tamers didn’t identify their followers in this way, they had to pay a fee.

The guards handed me a special piece of cloth for Rocket, which was currently stuck to his body. Obviously it was hard to put a collar on a slime, so for monsters like that they provided these pieces of cloth.

It took about ten minutes to reach the guild. Shiromaru and Rocket weren’t allowed in, so they waited outside.

The guild was already packed by the time I arrived, and several people turned to stare at me.

“Tenmaaaa!” I heard three voices say in unison. The three girls near the reception desk were the first to notice me.

“Morning, Lily, Nelly, Milly.” The moment I said their names, the three girls’ cat ears twitched and their tails swished. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, they were felids—cat-type demi-humans. Not only that, but they were sisters and adventurers. They were currently Rank C adventurers and their party consisted of the three of them. Together, they were called the “Wildcat Princesses.” Adventurers had ranks F through SS, and not counting the F ranks which were for temporary registrations, there were seven levels of adventurers. When you got to Rank C, you were considered a full-fledged adventurer.

“You’re going to fully register today, right?”

“Come take a job with us!”

“Yeah, why don’t you just join our party?”

They bombarded me with questions. The combination of Lily, Nelly, and Milly could sometimes be overwhelming.

“That’s right, Lily. If there’s a good one, Nelly. I keep telling you no, Milly,” I answered them in order. They were the first people I’d met when I’d come to this town. It had all started when I was at a spot close to town, gathering ingredients, and came across the three of them being attacked by a couple of ogres. I saved them, and ever since then they’ve been very fond of me. Apparently they were two years older than me, but from my experiences in my past life, I just couldn’t help but think they were younger because of the way they acted. I had a feeling they thought of me like a little brother, though...

Once, I asked them why they liked me so much, and they said they were blown away when a temporary registrant like me defeated two Rank B ogres in an instant. It had intrigued them.

Lily smiled at me, Nelly went to go look at the job postings, and Milly grumbled. They all had similar personalities, but there were differences, of course. At any rate, I never got bored of talking to them.

“All right, guess I’ll go register now,” I said, waving to them. It was a relief to leave the room, since the other male adventurers were glaring daggers at me. The three girls were very cute, and although they weren’t that well endowed, they had a sharp style about them. They were definitely beautiful. They also stood out, since they were almost always together. It was no wonder they were very popular with men.

Meanwhile, I was on the shorter side, and although I was slender I was also pretty muscular. And according to those three, I had a boyish face but was handsome, so I had potential. My “pretty, jet-black hair” was unique so it made me stand out from the crowd, and they said my hair “smelled soft,” whatever that meant. They would constantly follow me around trying to sniff my hair, and every time they did it I faced death glares from their legions of fans.

I went up to the reception desk and told the clerk why I’d come.

“Okay, go ahead and fill out these registration forms. The processing fee is 1,000G.” The clerk handed me three pieces of paper and asked if I needed someone to fill them out for me. I told them I could write so I could do it myself, and started filling out the paperwork. I had to put my name, age, whether I could use magic or not, my followers’ classes and names, and if I had a criminal record. If you wrote things that were too far from the truth, you could get arrested right on the spot. They had people who would do a background check on you, so it’s not like you could put something that stretched the truth too much.

The third piece of paper consisted of these warnings:

1. In general, you may only accept jobs up to one rank higher than your own. Please endeavor to choose appropriate jobs.

2. Any quarrels between adventurers or jobs taken outside of the guild are your own responsibility.

3. Any failed missions will incur a penalty fee and lead you to be sanctioned. However, exceptions may be made.

4. All efforts should be made not to cause trouble for the guild. There are limits to how much the guild can protect you.

5. Please endeavor to obey the guildmaster or guildmaster’s representative.

6. If there’s anything you don’t understand, please don’t hesitate to ask the guild’s staff.

There were quite a few guild members who weren’t that educated, to say the least, so all these things had to be written out plainly.

I handed my completed forms back to the clerk, and after I’d waited for a while, a staff member brought me my card. I paid for my registration, and then took the card.

“Please go ahead and check the details on your card to make sure it’s all correct, because once recorded, they cannot be revised. Also, there is a replacement fee of 3,000G, so please be careful not to lose it.”

I checked the card and there were no mistakes on it...apart from one thing. “Excuse me, but this says my rank is D.” I pointed to the spot that should’ve said Rank E.

“That is correct. You defeated several monsters ranked C or above while you were still at Rank F, so it was decided that there was no need for you to start at a novice rank,” the clerk said.

I’d certainly lucked out. Normally it took about ten jobs before you could level up, and then you also had to take a guild test before being allowed to move to the next level. Plus, Rank E adventurers could only access simple jobs. So it was best if I went along with the guild’s decision here.

“Thank you.” I bowed my head, but they reminded me that the guild does not show favoritism and not to get the wrong idea. I put my card away and left the desk. Lily and her sisters had been watching from afar, and now that I was finished, they came racing over to me.

“Are you done, Tenma?” they asked in unison. I told them I was, and showed them my guild card. All three of them peered at it and then got surprised looks on their faces.

“Wow, you’re starting at Rank D?! That’s Tenma for you!”

“Hurry up and do a job with us!”

“Join our party! Join our party!”

They started to drag me over to the board where the jobs were posted, but three men stood in our way.

“Lily, forget about that newbie and join up with us!”

“You’ll have way more fun. We’re definitely stronger than this kid, so you’ve got nothing to worry about, Nelly.”

“Yeah! It’d be too dangerous to go out of your way to protect this rookie, Milly.”

Their ulterior motives were obvious in the smiles on their faces. Not to mention, it was pretty rude of them to say those things right in front of me.

“No, thank you!” The three girls turned them down in unison, grabbed my hands, and began to walk past the men.

“Hang on! You should really reconsider!”

“It’s safer to join up with someone of your own rank!”

“And we’re really strong!”

Despite having been rejected, the three guys were really persistent, and now they were starting in on me. They called me disgusting, a worthless kid, a piece of trash who was just tagging along with them to make my life easier, et cetera. They were just running their mouths off, though. The fact that they didn’t notice the anger growing in the eyes of the three sisters was a dead giveaway of what their abilities were actually worth.

Also, the fact that they didn’t know who I was must have meant they hadn’t been in town for long. Everyone else in the guild was looking at them with pity in their eyes.

Not to brag or anything, but it wasn’t unusual for me to be engaged like this. No matter what world you were in, if you stood out, there’d always be someone who was jealous of you. This was especially true if you were younger than your bullies.

At this point, the three girls couldn’t stand the guys’ taunts anymore.

“Give it a break. We already said no, so you need to take the hint!”

“Even if we put twenty of you together, you still wouldn’t be stronger than Tenma!”

“Tenma smells good, while you guys are all stinky! Get away from us!”

I decided to pretend like I hadn’t heard that last one.

The men all went red in the face and began to tremble. Meanwhile, everyone around us laughed. In this business, it was all over for you once people stopped taking you seriously. So long as they stayed in this town, they’d be no more than laughingstocks.

“Let’s go, Tenma,” said Lily, tugging on my hand.

Just then, one of the men raised his voice at her. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! We were nice to you! How dare you insult us like that?!” He lunged forward to grab Lily, but got a taste of my special move instead.

“Special move: Ballcrusher!” I caught the man off guard with one swift kick. All the other men watching went pale and protected their crotches.

“A-Are you all right?!”

“Hey, that was dirty, you little jerk!” The two other guys grabbed a hold of their friend and glared at me. However, just then, around ten other men stepped between us, surrounding the three guys. I looked closer and realized it was the three sisters’ fan club.

They spoke quietly to the men, who began to tremble at their words. I heard things like:

“You’ve got some guts, trying to get with those girls!”

“You’ve violated our club’s rules!”

“Those girls are special!”

Occasionally I caught snippets of pretty malicious curses targeted at me mixed in there too.

Lily and the others thanked their fan club, melting the angry looks on their faces in an instant. It was pretty creepy, actually. I watched as the fan club proceeded to drag the three men outside, and then the girls and I headed over to the bulletin board.

“Did you find something good, Nelly?” I asked, as she was the one who’d gone over earlier to have a look at the jobs.

“There were a couple. How about this one?” She showed us a job posting.

Rank C Job: Defeat dashboars

Several dashboars have been sighted at nightfall around the town’s fields, damaging the crops. Please get rid of them.

Payment: 5,000G per defeated dashboar.

Dashboars were Rank D monsters that resembled wild boars, but ranged anywhere from one to five meters in length. They usually used charge attacks, and one head-on hit from a dashboar could be fatal.

But their hides and fangs were used for weapons and armor, and their meat was flavorful, so not a lot of materials were wasted when it came to this monster.

“Sounds good. I’ve hunted lots of dashboar before.”

“If you’re in, then I’m in too!”

“Me too!”

Lily and Milly chimed in after me. Nelly grabbed the posting off the board and took it to the reception desk. When she came back she said with a smile, “I made you the leader, so we’ll be counting on you!”

The village that had submitted the job request was several hours away by foot, so we decided to start preparing now and depart tomorrow afternoon. We had a short meeting to plan things out, and then went around town gathering up supplies.

“Let’s see... Potions, mana potions, antidotes, paralysis cures, and antiseptic. We also need canteens and rations. That should be it, right?” Lily counted off the items we needed on her fingers.

“It’d be nice if we had some rope and hand towels too,” I said.

“I’ll go get some!” she exclaimed and raced off to the shop to buy some.

Personally speaking, my magic bag was pretty well stocked, so I didn’t think I needed much else. I’d recently upgraded it so it was even larger now; it could easily hold around ten tons. I’d also expanded the capacity of my dimension bag, but since it was basically Rocket and Shiromaru’s home at this point, they got mad if I tried to put too much stuff inside of it.

Speaking of Rocket and Shiromaru, they were resting inside of the bag right now.

Once we’d bought what we needed, we decided to have lunch. Since most restaurants were full at this time of day, we just bought some things from an outdoor food cart. We got pork skewers, steamed buns, and chilled fruit, plus grilled fruit for dessert. Apparently the three girls ate a little too much, because they were having trouble walking afterwards. I escorted them back to the place where they were staying, then started on my way back to the Full Belly Inn.