Volume 3 - CH 1

Chapter 1 – Wyvern Subjugation

Six months have passed since the Manticore subjugation. During that time, Eto and his party kept achieving result after result by accepting many requests and completing them. Eto also passed the promotion test and became a B-class adventurer, while the other three almost became the fastest adventurers to be promoted to C-class.

As a result, their fast rise in rank became a heated topic in the royal capital. Many people came to think highly of Eto for his attitude of respecting his slaves as proper party members and giving them 5% of the rewards as a reserve fund, so they could release themselves from slavery.

Some parties that tried to use Eto’s method began to appear as well. In addition to that, many guild staff who doubted the past trend of making light of the lives of slaves also started to make some effort to solve that matter, such as giving a bonus to parties that respect the freedom of slaves.

Because of that, Eto and his party began to be treated like a hero of the times in the guild, but the person himself and his party just brushed it off and continued their activities as adventurers just as normal.

That was because the moment he felt proud being treated as such, Eto always reminded himself in his mind, ‘Stop, don’t let yourself become something like the Hero’, and once again reevaluated who he was. There was also his mistake in their fight against the Manticore, which reminded him that the profession called adventurer is a profession where one’s easily losing their lives the moment they become too full of themselves.

The members of his party also followed Eto to not become arrogant whatever praise they received. Needless to say, these humble attitudes were favorably received by many other adventurers.

“Oi, it seems Eto’s party just subjugated a group of Wyverns. The crowds have already gone there, so let’s go there too!”

Like that, many young adventurers rushed out of the guild.

“You guys! Don’t look at other people, do your job properly first!”

That, of course, made a certain guild receptionist, Sally, angry. For the past decade, Sally has seen the rise and fall of many adventurers. And there are only a handful of adventurers who managed to seize the opportunity and gained great wealth and fame.

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That is why, even though the faces of many young adventurers who looked up and aimed to be like them might always look so shining, unfortunately, some rookie adventurers couldn’t come back alive.

Although this depends on which area of the kingdom, the probability of an adventurer reaching D-class, which is the rank where they start to be called a full-fledged adventurer, is 70%. And only 50% could reach C-class, which has a wider rank of work. Other than those who managed to reach C-class, some of them either give up on becoming an adventurer or never returned because of their recklessness.

Since adventurers always work in places inhabited with many monsters, there are also some cases where an unexpectedly powerful monster appears, wiping out the adventurers’ party. That’s what it’s meant to be an adventurer, a profession that even a high-ranked party, which was thought to be a party that would have a smooth rise in their rank, could be annihilated due to a little recklessness and bad luck.

And in the middle of such situations where various adventurer parties appeared and disappeared, Eto’s party has been rising and achieved top-class results in terms of the number of requests accepted and the request completion rate despite being a new party. Even today, they just succeeded in thinning out the number of Wyverns, which had been increasing in the mountains in the northern part of the royal capital. And Sally knew that Eto’s party was recently invited to the Guild Master’s room to report about the Wyvern subjugation.

In actuality, Eto, who is always calm and kept a low-profile despite continuously achieving great achievements, was also popular among guild staff. There were plenty of young female staff members who made blatant appeals to him, but Eto politely kept his distance so as not to hurt the other party.

Looking at Eto’s attitude, Sally thought Eto was a man who has gone through much in his life, reminding her of her father, who was doing his business while bowing to people as a small merchant.

“Isn’t that making you tired? I am sure if it’s Eto-san, they wouldn’t mind even if you cut the talk a little forcibly.”

Sally once said that to Eto.

“I am scared to become someone who is full of himself. I was once having a hard time being with such people, after all. That’s why, I will always be careful not to be like them.”

Eto answered with a wry smile.

‘I see’, that’s what Sally thought. Because of that experience, he never became full of himself, and just simply took requests one after another. Sally wondered where Eto had such a hard time, despite still being a teenager, but unfortunately for her, no one knew about Eto’s past before he came to the royal capital.

She once heard from her colleague that the information about his past was blocked by the higher-ups of the guild. But of course, Sally had no desire to look into Eto’s past in the first place. She just felt like she became closer to him, as she found that Eto was someone who has seen much in life.

At any rate, as Sally was organizing some documents while thinking about such things, she saw Eto walking from the back of the guild.

“Thanks for your hard work, Eto-san.”

“Ah, thanks for your hard work too, Sally-san.”

“It seems you have defeated a group of Wyverns this time. Many young adventurers have been talking about that, you know? How many Wyverns did your party subjugate?”

“Wyverns are a strong enemy for new adventurers, after all. I am sure I too couldn’t have defeated them without my reliable companions.”

As usual, Eto replied modestly.

“Thanks to their high fighting ability, we managed to defeat twelve Wyverns.”

“Twelve! That’s amazing. Isn’t that a new record for one subjugation request?”

“According to the Guild Master, the record for that was an A-rank party that subjugated twenty-two Wyverns 20 years ago. That just made me realize once again, there is always someone better than you.”

Eto said with a dazzling smile.