Chapter 522: The Senior Adventurer Team

The B-rank adventurer team that had come in response to Nor Village’s request introduced themselves as “Fangs of the North Wind.”

They were apparently a fairly well-known team at the Adventurers’ Guild branch responsible for this region.

Just as Tauro and the others were about to introduce themselves—

“If you’re adventurers, you must know this already, so I’m sure you haven’t gone accepting requests and carrying out subjugations in another guild’s jurisdiction without going through the guild, now have you?”

Tauro flinched.

He had already gone and defeated two basilisks, so he was instantly at a loss for words.

He had originally planned to introduce the team and then take the basilisk corpses out of [Magic Storage], but in that instant he decided against it.

“O–Of course not!”

Tauro blurted out a lie without thinking.

Aeris and the others had also forgotten about the jurisdiction issue in the excitement of their first hunt in a while, so they played innocent too.

“…So then, what’s your team name? You have one, don’t you?”

The leader of Fangs of the North Wind asked Tauro, who was speaking on behalf of the group.

Tauro realized that, on his first journey in a year, he had stored both his honorary-noble insignia and the tag showing his adventurer rank in [Magic Storage], and had missed the chance to take them out.

The same was true for Aeris and the others; most of their luggage had been entrusted to Tauro.

“Um, well, it’s not really a name that B-rank adventurers would have heard of, so…”

Tauro answered evasively. If he gave the team’s name and they recognized it, they might become angry later if they learned that Black-Gold Wings had taken down the basilisks that were supposed to be their target.

“Hey now, don’t get so down on yourselves just because you’re comparing your team with ours. You’re still young. Keep working hard and become a strong team.”

The leader of Fangs of the North Wind misunderstood Tauro’s attitude and offered encouragement.

He doesn’t seem like a bad person, Tauro thought.

“…Thank you.”

Tauro had been misunderstood, but decided it was fine and answered anyway.

“If you want, we can use the B-rank team privilege to hire you as local assistant adventurers and let you participate in the subjugation. We have to search the surrounding area based on the eyewitness reports anyway before we can find the target. The request says it may be a basilisk, but you hardly ever encounter such a rare monster. I think it’s probably a Fire-Breathing Lizard.”

The leader of Fangs of the North Wind made the offer, apparently thinking he would let this beginner-looking team earn some credit as well.

Standing nearby, the village chief seemed to grasp the situation between the adventurers. Deciding that speaking up might only cause trouble for Tauro’s group, he kept quiet and gave Tauro a meaningful look.

They’re being strangely considerate… but since we already defeated the basilisks, I can’t exactly deny it…

Tauro accepted the village chief’s consideration and said to the leader of Fangs of the North Wind,

“Then please, let’s do it that way.”

They shook hands and agreed to the arrangement.

“Leader, wouldn’t it have been better to leave this village to that team and move on ourselves?”

Ankh asked Tauro that question in an open lot at the edge of the village.

“We told the village chief we’d patrol the surrounding area for a few days to make sure it was safe, so we can’t just abandon the place, can we? But we can’t embarrass another adventurer team either. In that case, isn’t it better to sign on with them and participate in the quest?”

Tauro was concerned about the balance of things, since they had effectively taken Fangs of the North Wind’s request out from under them.

“…I suppose it can’t be helped. Tauro’s right. We haven’t even reported to the Adventurers’ Guild on this side that we’re working here, so let’s think of it as fortunate that they hired us and spared us that trouble.”

Aeris showed understanding of Tauro’s reasoning.

“But what are we going to do? We’ve already defeated two basilisks, and even the King Basilisk. There might not be any search targets left in this area.”

Ragune voiced a very reasonable concern.

“That should be fine, don’t you think? Their team already suspects that the ‘basilisk’ is actually a Fire-Breathing Lizard. It sounds like those do live around here, so let’s quickly find one of those instead.”

Tauro proposed substituting another monster and wrapping the request up that way.

“As expected of you, Lord Tauro! If that’s the case, we can solve this quickly and head to the nearest Adventurers’ Guild!”

As always, Zion praised Tauro enthusiastically.

“All right, everyone. The basilisk matter stays a secret, understood?”

Raising his index finger, Tauro firmly reminded everyone, then returned to the village chief’s house.

That evening, a small dinner party was held at the village chief’s house to welcome the adventurers.

The leader of Fangs of the North Wind introduced himself as Kantaro.

He was a spearman, and the other members were a female warrior, a female priest, a male archer, and a male thief. The five of them formed a well-balanced party.

“If you want to succeed as an adventurer, you have to prioritize balance.”

Kantaro, his face bright red from drinking, offered Tauro that advice.

“I agree.”

Tauro shared that same opinion, so he nodded.

“From what I can see, your team looks well balanced too, so keep it up. Ours was an unbalanced, all-offense team until we reached C rank—”

Kantaro tried to pass on his experience to the young Tauro and his companions.

In reality, Tauro’s Black-Gold Wings was a B-minus team, while Fangs of the North Wind was a full B-rank team, so Kantaro’s party really was senior to theirs.

Tauro decided there was no harm in listening, so he endured the smell of alcohol and heard out the veteran adventurer’s story.

Tauro already knew much of what Kantaro discussed and was beginning to get a little bored, but when the subject turned to how adventurers in the B-rank band were expected to conduct themselves within the guild, there was a great deal he didn’t know.

At that level, politically sensitive named requests from nobles became more common, and dealing with them required negotiation and maneuvering.

Although adventurers in the B-rank band were considered first-class, Kantaro lamented that there were many things they could no longer do entirely as they pleased.

Tauro and the others had entered the Dragon’s Den immediately after reaching B-minus rank, so in truth they knew almost nothing about life in the B-rank band.

Because of that, the drunken team leader Kantaro’s stories turned out to be surprisingly useful.