180 - - the Silver League

Second floor of the Adventurers Bureau.

The corridors lined with thick doors are quiet and empty, a stark contrast to the lobby downstairs.

This makes it a perfect place to hold a meeting that you do not want others to hear.

This way, Mr. Thor. They are already waiting for you inside.

"Thank you very much for your help."

Thor's frank words of thanks made Enna, the receptionist who was showing him around, smile.

The position of adventurers is reversed when they reach the silver level, and they are treated with a deep bow within the Adventurers' Bureau.

This is probably why most of them are so careless with the staff.

However, Thor, who has quickly risen to the rank of B as the hero who liberated Bossalia, shows no such signs of being a hero.

It would be more correct to say that he is not humble, but rather the same.

As Thor opened the door and entered with a calm demeanor, Enna naturally bowed her head.

Then, as she went back down the stairs to her usual window, she remembered the fact that they had hardly exchanged a word until about four months ago, and muttered to herself, trying to keep her mouth from rising into a smile.

"......It's been almost half a year... You're almost to the A level, aren't you, Mr. Thor?"

The room was more spacious than I expected. The ceiling was high, and there were two windows with sliding doors.

A large rectangular oak table in the center.

There were four chairs, three of which were already occupied by the previous occupants.

The man at the far end of the table urges Thor to take an empty chair in front of him as he enters.

"This is Thor. Nice to meet you."

The red-haired man on the right was the first to respond to the greeting as he pulled out a chair.

He was probably no older than thirty. He had a soft, fleshy face and was dressed in a cozy black robe.

The man in the rear guard nodded exaggeratedly and lifted his hands to call out to the other two men.

"Hello, my name is Barconia. I've heard a lot about you. I hear you're the hero who crawled out of the mud. You all seem to be very fond of such gossip. What do you think?　I would love to hear all about it here as well.

"Wait, chatterbox. That sort of thing is better done over drinks. How about it, are you a drinker?"

Immediately he was interrupted from the side by a man with long green wings sitting to his left.

This man's eyes were sharp and his appearance was reminiscent of a bird of prey.

His right arm is about two times thicker than the left one, which suggests that he handles a bow.

"I like to drink, but I don't like to talk."

"Well, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry I'm late. I'm Chiru of the House of Tokiwa, a member of the Storm Peak Alliance.

After saying his name, the man checks on me as if he expects something.

However, he turns his head to the side with a slight frown, perhaps because Thor's face did not react as he had expected.

"...... it's sorlgum."

The last person to speak out briefly was the great man sitting across from him.

He was probably the biggest man Thor had ever met.

His dull blond hair was cut short, and behind his sunken eye sockets peeked a purple eye with a powerful light.

His bare, log-like arms were scarred with scars from long battles.

When the three men have finished saying their names, the red-haired man opens his mouth again.

"So, how many times have we been to ......, then? Well, okay. Shall we begin the meeting of the Silver Alliance?

"Balconia." Captain of the "Bearers of the Burning Flame"... and rumored to be a pretty good fireman.

Thor looks at Garudo, who suddenly interrupts his reminiscing, with a look of dismay.

He exhaled in resignation as his friend lifted his chin in a proud manner.

I've heard of the "Bearer of Burning Flame. I've heard that they are close to the SS of Straccia and the others.

"Yeah, the members are almost all Red Tails. ....... Oh, you know some of them, don't you?

Was there anyone?

You know, I beat the shit out of you once on the training ground. His name's Raszel.

"...... Ah, ah!　That's him. I didn't know his name, but I vaguely remember him."

When we were still a party of two with Sora, he was the one who had been harassing us for allegedly guiding new adventurers, which is forbidden in Japan.

Nodding in nostalgia, Thor switches to the second person's story.

"Do you know the man from the Midoriwa tribe too?　I would have been disappointed if I didn't know his name."

"Chiru of the Tokiwa family. He's a self-respecting man. I mean, you know him too."

"Hm?　No, I have no idea, but ......"

"Huh?　Come on, we just went around the ant's nest together the other day!"

"What, are you Mr. Chita, by any chance?"

Thor, remembering the calm tone of the horseman, straightened up and looked at him in surprise.

He was so surprised that he stretched out his back and stared into his eyes, which caused Mu to squeeze behind him and let out a tingling sleep-talk.

"Oh, she's Chiru's sister. You'd think she'd at least know my name.

"No wonder I get stared at so many times. ....... Is the Storm Peak Alliance famous?"

"It's a coalition faction of the Midoriwa and the Chakaku clans. If I had made it through the wilderness, I probably would have joined them."

"I see. If the Red Tails are at Balkonia and the Green Feathers and the Brown Horns are at Chil's place, then ......."

"The Thunderclaws, of which Sorrugum is the leader, are the faction of the Purple-Eyed Tribe. I believe they are the largest in Dadan.

"I see. I see...you have a fine appearance. Are there any of the Blue Scales or the Ash Ears?

Not that I know of. Recovery and support workers don't want to come forward, and there aren't many of them, so it's hard for them to form a clique."

Giving a plausible reason, Garudo shook his head lightly as he loosened the reins.

"It seems that the three factions led by the three of them are in effect in charge of the Shin Gin class and below," he said. And that group of heads is called the Ginrenkai. So, what on earth did they talk about?"

"It was a boring story. ......"

In the miasma of noxious mist that is the hunting ground of the true silver class, there is a prison labyrinth where the Kongo class and others go.

Since it is difficult for flying boats to land in the muddy area, Stratchia and the others must disembark at the front and cross the swamp in order to reach it.

Thor and the other B-rank adventurers are assigned the task of finding a way to get there and back.

They were to destroy the monsters that would get in the way, repair the broken passages, and see to it that the A-rank adventurers reached the labyrinth and returned without a hitch.

For this purpose, they must use the three encampments along the way and do various things according to the schedules of the stratchers.

The meeting was to determine the order of the rotation of responsibilities.

Naturally, Thor and the others, who were new to the area, were not qualified to use the encampment.

Therefore, they were proposed to belong to one of the three factions.

"The heroes of Bossalia will be in great demand. Where did you decide?"

"They said it would be hard to decide right now, so we're going to try three different places on a weekly basis. He said it was a trial period.

"I see. Well, I'm glad you had time to think about it.

"As for me, I'm hoping for the fourth option. I can see it now: ......."

As we talked at length, the wagon was before long in a position from which we could see the blackened marshland.

At the same time, the unbelievable scene spreading out from behind the haze was reflected in Thor and his companions' vision.

A peculiar humid wind blew, and Moe, who had been asleep, let out a small sneeze.

As if hearing the sound, the small door behind the dais opens and a dark-haired girl appears.

Her hair, which was usually left to play freely, was now tied tightly on both sides like a dumpling.

"Thor, are you almost there yet?"

"Oh, your hair looks lovely today, Miss Sora."

"Heh heh heh. Mr. Yuril did it for me."

"It looks good on you, Sola. We're less than five minutes away from the ruins of the fort.

The rotting stone wall near the entrance to the swamp is said to be a remnant from the days when the Central Kingdom still had troops stationed in the marshes.

It was already almost dusk, and Thor and his companions planned to spend the night there.

The horses could not withstand the thick miasma for long, so Garudo unloaded his baggage and left.

Thora almost nods at Thor's reply, but the moment her gaze turns forward, she stops dead in her tracks.

What unfolds before the girl's eyes, who remains stunned and does not look away, is--...

A sea of black mud, so black that it is impossible to see the depth of it.

In this gloomy and monotonous landscape, there were changes that caught my attention.

There were some long, vertical shadows rising out of the mud.

They must still be quite far away, but they were large enough to be clearly visible.

Moreover, at first glance, they looked like large trees, but they were moving slowly.

They were moving as fast as an insect could crawl.

The shadows were barely discernible with what appeared to be limbs due to the white haze that had cleared up in some places.

Roaming the miasma-filled swamp was a group of giant humanoids.

Defeating these mud-poisoning giants is the condition for promotion to rank A.