CH 5

Episode 5 – Azure Alliance 

After hearing the contract details and conditions from the receptionist lady, I decided to formally sign an escort contract with the adventurer party, [Azure Alliance].

I did have my own share of worries about this, but the low price to hire them was a decisive factor in my choice. For a four day escort, it was essentially four gold coins.

That was about a third of my life savings gone, but I could try to earn as much money back in the next few days if I collected enough plants and herbs.

To be honest, it seemed a little absurd for me to think that I would be able to collect 4 gold coins worth of plants and herbs in just four days when it took me 5 years to earn 12 gold coins working in the Healer’s Guild. Hopefully, I would be able to figure something out.

I knew the locations where Magical Grass was collected in the past based on previous appraisals of those plants, but there were also other valuable herbs on Mount Cornello. For example, there were Medical Herbs, that even without compounding and processing, possessed excellent recovery ability, and All-Herb, which was used to make all-cure potions. In addition, there were expensive herbs such as Linrin Weed and Angel Grass, which were lucrative but difficult to collect due to how poisonous they are.

If I could collect some of those, I would be able to earn a lot of money. I did have the ultimate plant appraisal ability, [Plant Master], after all. Therefore, even if I didn’t have the ability to fight, I was quite confident in my ability to collect plants and herbs. If I could collect several of those rare plants while also picking popular medicinal herbs and Magical Grass, I can definitely recover from this situation.

I was meeting with the [Azure Alliance] in the Adventurer’s Guild this afternoon, so I had to finish preparing for the trip to Mount Cornello by then. So, I decided to go do some shopping with the remaining money.

After briefly shopping my way through the market street, I hurried back to the Adventurer’s Guild with luggage in both hands. Since the sun was shining down from directly above, it was still much earlier than the scheduled meeting time. Maybe a musclehead of an adventurer would look at me funny and decide to pick a fight with me. You never know what will happen after all, so it was best to head over early.

When I arrived at the Adventurer’s Guild, the serenity of the early morning was nowhere to be found and was instead replaced by the familiar overflow of intimidating beast-like adventurers. While carrying my luggage, I cowered as I headed over to the request bulletin board on the far right, which was designated earlier as the meeting point.

The receptionist lady said that the [Azure Alliance] members wore blue headbands as their team symbol. I looked around, thinking they hadn’t arrived yet, but… oh, I found them. It was way earlier than the designated meet up time, but the trio wearing blue headbands was already waiting.

One was a bald-headed man with a short build and had a scraggly beard that gave him an overall dirty appearance. Another was a slender, blonde handsome guy with an amiable appearance, dressed in clothes that a noble would normally wear. Both of them were rather eccentric figures, but I was even more surprised by the person in the middle.

Compared to the other two, this person was a head taller, but this person was actually a woman. I occasionally caught sight of some female adventurers here and there, but this was my first time seeing such a… big-boned woman.

On top of that, while her physique was larger than a man’s, her face was beautiful and poised.

With large almond eyes, a proud nose, and a fair mouth, her breasts were so conspicuously large that my eyes felt like they were gravitating towards them unconsciously. On her arms and legs, I saw many old scars, but that was probably normal for an adventurer. Her clothes weren’t leaving much up to the imagination, and my gosh, the size of her chest made me feel like I was looking at something that I shouldn’t be seeing.

While I was still fascinated by this marvel of a big-boned woman, the trio noticed me for some reason. The moment our gazes met, the woman in the middle squeezed through the crowd of adventurers and approached me.

“Oi, I found him! You’re our client, right?”

The one who called out to me was the big-boned woman. I was lost for words for a moment, but I soon gave a positive reply.

“Yeah, that’s right. You guys must be [Azure Alliance]?” (Lewin)

“Alright alright!! I earned another two silver coins today!” (Elisa)

The woman who was called Elisa inspected her two silver coins with a wide grin. As if he couldn’t put up with the flow of astounding turn of events anymore, the handsome man called out to her in dismay.

“Ahmed-san. You’re troubling the client…(Dion)”

How do I say this… In a single word, I would probably describe this person as “hearty”.

She had a pretty masculine way of speaking, but this beautiful big-boned woman didn’t seem nearly as bad as the impression I got when I heard about her from the receptionist lady.

However, even though I had just met them, I could understand why their behavior was considered bad.

“No no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. I am the one who put in the escort quest commission this time. You can just call me Lewin. Ahmed-san, Dion-san, Smash-san, I look forward to working with you all.” (Lewin)

“Hahaha! Quite the uptight one, aren’t ya! It’s impossible for us to be polite, but if it’s alright with you, we are willing to undertake this escort commission.” (Ahmed)

“Certainly, please take care of me.” (Lewin)

After deciding on a departure time for tomorrow, the three of them returned immediately. Just like that, the meeting with the adventurer party [Azure Alliance] was over so quickly. I went into the meeting thinking that I would refuse if they seemed too unmanageable, but they seemed to be alright, all things considered. Well… I can’t deny that I might have been tricked a little bit by Ahmed’s beautiful face and unique “style”.