Chapter 24

“What’s a party?”

At the Adventurer’s Guild. Melt had been invited by the trio of rookie adventurers, but she didn’t know what a “party” actually was.

“Wait, you don’t even know that…? Rikka, mind explaining?”

“Sure. So, a party is like a small group of people—adventurers or sometimes guild members—who temporarily team up to take on the same request together. That kind of thing.”

“I see… So you want me to be your companion?”

“Yeah, that’s basically it.”

Melt finally understood and felt a quiet joy in the fact that someone wanted her.

But at the same time, she was cautious—Why me? Are they trying to use me for something?

“See, if you’ve got four people, you can sometimes take on requests that are one rank higher than your party’s rank. Our party is still at Shining stone Rank, so we can’t go on gathering missions in the highlands yet. But if Melt joins, we’d have four people, so we could take on Crystal stone Rank gathering requests.”

“Right now, you can find good-quality mushrooms up in the highlands, and we were hoping to make some money that way. But since we’re still newbies, not many people want to team up with us. It’s been tough.”

“Yeah, most of the veteran adventurers are out lately. Wonder why.”

“Hey, Melt-chan, since you’re a newbie too, how about joining us? With four people, we’d earn more easily.”

Melt now understood the party system and saw the logic behind inviting her.

But she also realized she had little to gain from it—after all, I’m already at Emerald Rank, she thought. It didn’t seem worth teaming up with a lower-ranked party.

However, she also remembered that her rank was a bit of an exception, and thought it might be worthwhile to learn more about her actual abilities, the gap between her and others, and how true newbies make a living.

Melt might’ve looked thoughtless on the surface, but she was a bit more reflective than others her age.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say she was simply cautious.

“Hmm… okay! Just for today, alright?”

After a brief pause, she accepted the proposal.

“For real!? Alright, let’s head to the desk and register!”

“Great news, Kash! Now we can go mushroom hunting.”

“Thanks, Melt. Now we can take the ‘Collect fallen Axebreak Trees’ request. It’s a highland job, so we couldn’t accept it until now.”

“Yeah. And I heard Sunny Polche mushrooms grow up there. If we’re lucky, we might even earn enough to upgrade our gear.”

Seeing the trio’s excitement, Melt smiled too.

“I’m glad you’re happy. This was going to be my first real request today. I’ll take the chance to observe the three of you.”

“Wait, seriously? Your first mission? But with four of us… we’d still be treated as a Shining stone Rank party on average, right?”

“That should be correct. So four people should be able to take a Crystal stone Rank request with no issues.”

Still thinking Melt was just a beginner at Stone Rank, the trio headed to the front desk to register the party.

“Excuse me—anyone here?”

At the reception desk, Kash called out. The receptionist from earlier was nowhere to be seen. After a moment, the man who had previously interviewed Melt showed up.

“Oh, what is it now, chicks?”

“Ugh, it’s old man Sigurt. Is the usual lady off today?”

“Shut it. Got a problem with me? She’s on break. So, what do you need? You decide on a request yet? More shrimp gathering downstream?”

It seemed they were on familiar terms, as they bantered casually.

“Nah, not this time! Today, we’re adding a new rookie adventurer to our party!”

“That’s right! So now we can go to a Crystal stone Rank area! You’ll approve that, right?”

“A new rookie, huh? Do we even have one of those… ah, yeah, we do. So who is it?”

Rikka brought Melt, who had been looking around behind them, up front.

“This girl! It’s her first request today! We’re okay for Crystal stone Rank now, right?”

“Oh… it’s Melt! So, you’re gonna look after this lot, huh?”

“Oh, it’s that guy from the other day! Yeah, I’m just trying it out with them for today.”

Sigurd clearly remembered Melt, who had joined the guild with an unusual starting rank.

“You sure about this, kid? These guys are just Shining stone Rank.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I thought it’d be a good learning experience.”

“…I see what’s going on here. You guys got it backwards. This girl—Melt—is Emerald Rank. If anything, she’s the one doing you a favor.”

Sigurd revealed Melt’s true rank to the trio.

Their reaction was one of complete shock.

“Huh!? No way—she said she only just became an adventurer!”

“Yeah. But she’s no amateur. Her partner—if I can call them that—is at Ruby Rank. I’m guessing she trained under them before joining. Her knowledge is probably above most veterans. You guys should take the chance to learn from her—you’ve never teamed up with someone above your rank before, right?”

“No way… Melt-chan is amazing…”

“Now I feel kinda bad… Are you sure about this, Melt?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s still my first day as an adventurer. I want to learn how the three of you work, too.”

And so, a slightly unusual party was formed, and the four of them set off on their request: “Gathering Felled Axebreak Trees.”

“Melt-chan, you have a partner?”

“Partner…? I guess you could call them that. Someone who’s helped me a lot. I’m working hard to repay them.”

“They’re Ruby Rank, right? Are they strong?”

“I think so. I haven’t seen them fight directly, but I’m sure they’re stronger than me.”

“Hmm… I heard monsters show up often in the highlands. We can fight, but we’re still weak. We’ll be counting on you, Melt.”

As they walked, the four of them exchanged stories.

“I’m a mage, by the way. I can use basic fireball magic—good for distraction, and it can take out small monsters in one shot. How do you fight, Melt-chan?”

“Me? I use knives. I fight with two of them—dual-wielding!”

“Oh nice! I use a one-handed sword. Look.”

Kash showed the sword on his hip.

It was a bit short, but looked easy to handle with one hand.

Melt stared at it, thinking.

“Hmm hmm… Kash? Do you feel like your sword’s a little short?”

“Huh? Why do you say that?”

“The grip’s worn down. You’re holding it as far out as possible to get more reach, right? That grip is dangerous.”

“Whoa… you’re right. I do grip it that way to get more range.”

“You still haven’t fixed that, huh? I told you it’s risky if your blade gets deflected.”

“That’s amazing, Melt-chan. You can tell stuff like that?”

“Yeah, I used to do the same thing a long time ago. Once you save up a bit, Kash, you should get a new weapon.”

“Yeah. Man, Melt… Emerald Rank isn’t just for show, huh.”

Feeling just a bit proud, Melt walked ahead with a light and cheerful step.

“By the way, I’m a hunter—an archer. I’ve brought plenty of arrows, but if I run out, I can engage in close combat with a knife.”

“I see. Hunters have sharp eyes, so you’ll probably be really useful on mountain missions, huh?”

“Heh, exactly. I can also do simple monster dismantling. It’s mostly only useful for removing the parts needed as proof of subjugation, but this time of year, you can sometimes catch fatty badgers or deer. In those cases, I can butcher the meat to try for a bonus reward.”

“Yeah, it’s really helpful to know that kind of stuff. I can do dismantling too! Let’s bring back lots of meat and mushrooms!”

Melt spoke cheerfully, imagining herself earning a lot of money with the bonus rewards.

Seeing her innocent smile, the other three also smiled in return.

Despite her being a far more experienced and high-ranked companion, her carefree demeanor warmed their hearts—

“But… this is kind of a strange request, isn’t it? You don’t come across fallen Axebre trees all that often, do you?”

Then, Melt voiced a concern she had about the nature of the mission.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, those trees don’t normally fall over, right?”

“They don’t? We don’t really know much about it…”

“Yeah, we only know that it’s a valuable type of wood… Can you explain it to us?”

“Sure, no problem.”

As expected, Melt seemed knowledgeable about mountain vegetation and began explaining the details of the current request.

“The Axebreak tree, as the name suggests, is so tough that it can literally break axes. You need a very strong saw to cut it, and even then, it takes a long time. It’s considered premium timber. And that applies from the trunk all the way down to the roots. So, they don’t just fall over. Not even if a monster like an Owlbear charges into it with full force.”

“No way. Owlbears? Those are those three-meter-tall muscle monsters!”

“If even the roots are that strong… then it really is strange that one of them fell over.”

“Maybe there was a landslide or something? What do you think?”

Rikka, wondering how such a rare occurrence came to be, asked Melt if a landslide might be the cause.

“It’s possible, but in that case… it would’ve been a pretty big landslide. The highland area might actually be in a dangerous condition right now—so everyone should be careful, okay?”

“Yeah, maybe the footing’s bad or something.”

“Let’s keep that in mind. By the way, Melt, can you think of any other possible reasons?”

“Me? Hmm… When I was looking at the job board earlier, I also glanced at the one for subjugation missions. There was a request mixed in there titled ‘Investigation of an Unknown Monster.’ It wasn’t a subjugation request, but it was posted among them. I was thinking, maybe there’s a monster even stronger than an Owlbear up in the mountains, and it’s been rampaging, which caused the tree to fall over.”

Melt shared her speculation, based on what little she had seen and heard.

And that theory… was frighteningly close to the truth.

Coincidentally, it was directly connected to the mission Silent had taken on.

“D-Don’t scare me like that…”

“…No, we should probably consider that as a real possibility. Today, we should try to wrap things up quickly. Let’s keep the mushroom gathering to a minimum, just in case.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right. Wow… I never thought something that dangerous might be lurking in the mountains near the city… but it’s not impossible…”

After exiting through the city gates, the group entered the nearest forest and followed the river running through it, heading upstream.

That was the easiest and most straightforward route to reach the highland area.

“Wow! What a beautiful river! Looks like you could gather all sorts of things here!”

“Yeah, that’s right. We usually take gathering requests around here, collecting food ingredients, and occasionally hunt small monsters that show up to make some money.”

“The earnings aren’t great, but the expenses are low too. It’s a good way to steadily save up money.”

“Lately though, we heard you can find good mushrooms higher up in the mountains, so we thought we might be able to make a decent profit and started recruiting party members.”

“I see. Ah—you’re right, there are a lot of shrimp-like creatures here. This river must be really clean, huh?”

“Yeah, it seems a lot of local farmers draw water from here too. Until recently, there were tons of requests for helping out with the wheat harvest. That’s how we earned enough to reach the Shining stone rank.”

“Actually, small monsters sometimes hide in the wheat fields, so for beginners like us, it was a pretty good source of income.”

“Plus, ‘Horned Rabbits’ are delicious. One of our clients once baked us a rabbit meat pie. That was… so good.”

“Right?! Hey hey, once we finish the job, let’s all go grab a meal together!”

“Sounds great! Melt, you’re in too, right? Come eat with us!”

Melt had been secretly feeling a bit down, thinking she’d end up eating alone today.

That’s why their invitation sounded so appealing—and without hesitation—

“Of course I’ll eat with you! I want to try this ‘pie’ too!”

Her innocent, excited response brought warm smiles to the three of them.

However—that smile quickly faded.

Because of the strange phenomenon they noticed in the river flowing right beside them—

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