Despite all manner of persuasion and temptation, Amy was unable to break Friede’s stubbornness and finally had to give up.
The ambitious plan to create a fait accompli while Hilde was drunk.
For Amy, who had been aiming for this opportunity since the moment they first formed the party, it was truly something to be furious about, but…
‘…There’s nothing I can do.’
There was no other way.
The golden-eyed girl who declared she wouldn’t let a finger touch Hilde, glaring at her with a face devoid of even a shred of mercy.
Amy didn’t have the ability to remove this small obstacle before her.
Even the sophistry of ‘then why don’t we make Hilde’s fingertips touch us instead?’ was mercilessly denied.
In a situation where inserting fingers into Hilde and inserting Hilde’s fingers into herself were both forbidden.
The second-best option she brought up with a do-or-die mentality – the suggestion that she wouldn’t mind being embraced instead of Hilde – was met with a response asking if she was crazy.
‘This won’t work either.’
Even the alternative plan of using Friede as an appetizer before tasting Hilde as the main dish was rejected.
In the end, the only path left for Amy was to lie down quietly next to Hilde, comforting herself with her figure and scent.
“Ugh… mmm… huu…!”
So that’s what Amy did.
As long as she could just stay next to Hilde, there would be plenty of opportunities in the future.
Learning from this failure, she could aim for a more certain chance next time.
There was plenty of time. Still ahead.
* * *
Friede also didn’t interfere with Amy comforting herself.
Although it was a bit embarrassing and somewhat unpleasant, it was still an act that was precariously balanced on the limit of what she could tolerate.
In fact, she didn’t have the leisure to interfere.
Friede, who had been looking down at Amy with an astonished face as she began to focus on her act of comfort, was also in a situation where her patience and self-control had already reached their limit.
‘…Isn’t this much okay? It’s not harming Hilde.’
An excuse she came up with to convince herself.
Repeating to herself that since she wasn’t touching Hilde’s body at all, this wasn’t doing anything bad to Hilde, Friede started doing the same thing as Amy, lying down next to Hilde.
Squirming for a long time with youthful cries of ecstasy, until finally falling asleep from exhaustion.
And the next morning, the two who woke up agreed to play a prank on Hilde about ‘taking responsibility’ to gauge her reaction.
It was Amy’s suggestion.
She wanted to check in advance how Hilde would view it if ‘such a thing’ actually happened.
Friede accepted the suggestion after a moment’s hesitation. She too was curious about Hilde’s inclinations.
Would she show aversion to sleeping with the same sex? Would she be bewildered but accept the act of sleeping together? Or would she actively take responsibility?
It was something worth knowing in advance when thinking about the future.
…They never imagined she would faint.
Anyway, that was the full story of what had happened last night.
* * *[ Hilde ]* * *
Three days later. I visited the Adventurers’ Guild request office again.
I think I’ve rested enough by now. It’s time to work, work. If you rest too long, you lose your edge.
Just as muscles atrophy when you stop exercising for a long time, experience is lost when you play around without working.
Most adventurers who made a big score and played around for days on end would lose their edge and die pathetically as soon as they went back to dungeons.
If you chose a profession that lives by the sword, there should never be a day when blood dries on your blade. That was my principle.
Anyway, that’s why I went to the request office.
Given the conflict with the church due to the mass betrayal of copper token adventurers, I was a bit worried that they might have taken down their sign and closed…
But when I arrived, fortunately, they hadn’t gone out of business. Although it seemed the number of guild staff, including receptionists, had decreased a bit.
“Someone had to take responsibility.”
The receptionist girl told me the reason.
The negotiations with the church were settled relatively smoothly, but it wasn’t possible to just let it go without anyone taking responsibility.
In the end, some people had to take responsibility for the betrayal incident and ‘retire’?
Judging by her joke that the whereabouts of those who retired were unknown, it seemed the retirees had lost more than just their jobs.
“My boss… excuse me, former boss also retired. The party I arranged – that is, Hilde’s party, didn’t have any traitors, but eight out of ten adventurers that person arranged were traitors.”
The receptionist girl spoke with an incredibly refreshing smile, telling the story of her boss being ‘dealt with’ as if it were an inspiring tale, in a cheerful tone.
“Ah… I see.”
I smiled awkwardly and agreed appropriately.
So that’s how they determined responsibility – it seems they lined up the employees in order of the proportion of traitors among the adventurers they managed and cut off the top.
On the grounds that the guild employees responsible for managing adventurers couldn’t even properly distinguish between trustworthy adventurers and those who shouldn’t be trusted.
“It’s really like that, you know. From copper token adventurers up, the guild takes responsibility and guarantees their credibility, but they put just anyone in such positions. Isn’t it natural that they’d be fired?”
Is that so…?
It’s nice to call it firing, but in reality, it seems they weren’t just expelled from the guild, but from this world.
Well, thanks to that, the conflict with the church was completely resolved, but…
Should I call this a rational decision, or cold-hearted handling without blood or tears?
I couldn’t tell at all.
This guild is really a ruthless organization.
As soon as a problem arose for the whole guild, they chose a few employees with poor performance as scapegoats, beat them up, and threw them into the sea.
Like Mr. Shim from Blind who sold his daughter to a fishing boat in exchange for eye surgery costs.
Is this a guild or the mafia?
As expected of an organization managing people who live by the sword, their way of handling things was incredibly brutal.
* * *
“By the way, Hilde. Have you heard the news?”
While I was looking through a bundle of request forms the receptionist girl had handed me when I asked if there was any work, she suddenly asked such an out-of-context question.
“What news?”
I tilted my head slightly and asked back.
“I heard that His Highness Heid is planning to visit Vespian. According to what I heard, he plans to find and recruit the person who subjugated the undead giant and Abyss Priest…”
Thud.
I dropped the bundle of request forms I was holding onto the reception desk and gaped. A name that should never be overlooked pierced my ears like thunder.
“Who, Heid?”
Heid Gardarik Hervor?
Why is that bastard coming here?
“What?! No, no. Hilde, even if you’re an adventurer, you shouldn’t speak like that…!”
The receptionist girl was even more flustered than me and quickly turned her head to look around. With a face that seemed afraid someone else might have heard.
“Ah… I’m sorry. I was just surprised.”
I apologized, lowering my head slightly.
“Even if you were surprised, still… I really thought my liver was going to fall out.”
It was natural for the receptionist girl to be bewildered. Doesn’t the surname Hervor explain why?
The owner of the holy sword Tyrving, Heid was not only this country’s hero… but also the eldest son of the current king.
A prince, in other words.
Although he had to hand over the crown prince position to his younger brother due to receiving the hero’s mark, even if he lost the crown prince title, his bloodline as a prince remained unchanged.
If a mere adventurer spoke carelessly without honorifics, it wouldn’t be strange to be summarily executed for insulting royalty.
“…So, His Highness Heid is coming to this city? In the near future?”
“Yes. I don’t know the exact date, but it seems certain that he’s coming.”
It was an emergency situation. To the point where cold sweat trickled down my spine.
“To think someone like him would visit a city like this… We’ll probably only be able to glimpse him from afar, but aren’t you excited?”
The receptionist girl spouted nonsense that I couldn’t relate to at all, with a face like a girl waiting for a prince on a white horse.
Right. As befitting a prince and hero of a country, he too had thoroughly managed his reputation.
Heid’s public evaluation was that of an exemplary royal without a single flaw, and a hero steadily growing.
So of course the receptionist girl would be delighted. It’s like getting a chance to see a hero from a fairy tale in person, even if from afar.
“I’m not so sure…”
Of course, I wasn’t.
Excitement my ass.
That insidious person is coming all the way here in person to find the one who subjugated the undead giant… in other words, to meet me. How is that something to welcome?
If I don’t want to become a pet doll, I should pack my bags and run away right now.
It’s fortunate that only Amy and Friede know that I subjugated the undead giant; if I had revealed it to others, I would have been dragged into his harem without any choice.
Of course, I can’t be at ease just with that.
Considering how my luck has been at rock bottom lately, in the worst case, I might accidentally encounter him and be discovered.
So, the best move for me now was to eliminate the possibility of meeting him altogether.
“Ah, I’ll take this request. Is that okay?”
“Escort for a merchant group? Hmm… this request will take some time, is that alright with you?”
…Therefore, I chose the escort request that seemed likely to take the longest time from among the bundle of request forms on the reception desk.
A long-term request to escort a merchant caravan heading from Vespian to another large city.
What could be more appropriate as an excuse to leave and avoid Heid?
I could just dawdle there for a few days and come back.
“I don’t mind. I think I need to take care of Kikel a bit too, and I also had some business in that city.”
Additionally, unlike other requests that required adventurers of copper rank or higher, this one had no rank restriction, so I could also take Kikel along, which I liked.
While I, Amy, and Friede were recognized as copper token adventurers, only Kikel was still struggling at iron rank.
For the time being, we had to take on jobs that allowed iron rank adventurers to participate.
If we intended to continue activities as the same party in the future, we needed to first match our ranks equally.
In other words, I’m saying I’ll carry him to copper rank.
To be honest, that lizardman would rarely find adventurers willing to let him join their party except for me, so he was in a situation where he had no way to accumulate achievements.
If left alone, it was hard to even guess when he might reach copper rank, so unless I was going to cut ties with him, I had no choice but to raise him myself like this.