Skill? Nee yo Sonnamon! ~ Fugusha tachi no Saino Kaika ~

To Tomorrow

 

Alright, it's been two days since the Stampede so now we're heading to the guild to grab our reward and register our party.
It's afternoon so other adventurers should have finished taking theirs already.
We purposely went late to avoid people trying to solicit Alma into joining their party.

By the way, yesterday we spent all day relaxing in the inn while discussing our future plan.
I mean, can't really muster up motivation to do anything after such a huge battle, can you?
Presently, we're planning to use this town as a base of operation while hunting in low level territories like the forest and such, mostly focusing on training and gathering stuff like mats, and ingredients.
I'm still weak with virtually nil practical experience after all.
I've been relying on nothing but ambushes so far, direct confrontations are kinda a big hurdle with my stats.
And even though Alma has obtained Paladin Job, she's still a beginner in adventuring business.
We gotta think up ways to work together.

At the guild, we went straight to the receptionist Neia-san.

“Ah, Alma-san and Kajikawa-san, welcome.
Thanks for your hard work with the Stampede.
I'm so glad to see you're both safe.”

“Same to you, good work with the herb appraisal.
Nobody's died all thanks to the stockpile of potions you got us.”

“A-are you sure? Ehehe.”

Neia-san shyly yet happily laughed.
I'm being healed.
I confirmed something in a whisper before we took our reward.

“…By the way, is it fine for me to fetch my reward here? Officially, I was absent during the Stampede…”

“Ah, yes.
We apologize, Kajikawa-san's reward will be handed out at a later date.
Not only because it may cause a trouble with other adventurers, we are still currently processing the calculation for  Bladewings' mats and equipment carried by Hobgoblins.”

“Mats aside, am I getting reward from Hobgoblins' stuff?”

“Master said it's kind of bonus for living up beyond his expectations.
I can't believe master would praise someone outright like that, you're really amazing, Kajikawa-san! What did you do?”

“Sure you wanna hear it? It's gonna get pretty grotesque.”

“Hiie, I take it back! You're scaring me, Kajikawa-san!”

How rude.
I just squashed some weird birds and made minced meat out of Hobgoblins…
Err yup, that's terrifying.
By the way, people who know about Soarer's real identity include Alma, her parents, guildmast, Appraiser Filsdaim, and guild staff members of Daijel.
I was kinda worried the staff might leak it, but apparently the guildmast's got a Skill that can prevent that.
Even if a staff member attempted to leak confidential information, their mouth would immediately shut down on the spot.
Guildmast's Job is 'Commander', it makes the people under his commands work well together, a Job suited for leaders of organizations.
The reason he took the risk of being present in the Stampede the other day was for the sake of commandeering the people.
…Well, I guess I'll stop pursuing the fact that there were double the number of magic beasts than estimated then.
Nobody died anyway, and honestly it was a nice little exp festival.

“Ah, we also have a message for 'Soarer'.
They wished us to tell him the next time he dropped by the guild.”

“Message, to Soarer? From who?”

“From Baredrai-san and Rasfin-san, 'We owe you one in the Stampede.
Let us treat you to a drink at least.
Dunno where you ran off to in such a hurry.'”

“Ahaha…
I got a bit too much into the role and stood out.
I didn't want to get barraged with questions in the celebration feast so I excused myself early.
Those two were quite a big help to us themselves.”

Had those two not been there, we likely wouldn't see zero casualty.
That Werewolf was just that dangerous.

“A lot of adventurers also talked a lot about Soarer and Alma-san.
Like, 'What's up with that mask', or, 'We gotta have that Flaming Warrior in our party'.
Someone's popular~.”

“I have no say on the mask…”

“Oh E-ranked 'Heavenly Dragon' party led by Darandizma-san in particular is really persistent trying to invite Alma-san.”

“Those are the same people who said to me 'You're worthless, go home' the moment they found out what my Job was back then…
Frankly, I wish they'd go away.”

Alma pouted with a very low voice.
Oh she's mad alright.

No wonder with that way of rejection.
I mean, what the heck is Heavenly Dragon.
They're still Rank E, aren't they getting ahead of themselves? Or maybe they put that name in hope of a bright future?

“E-err…
Ah, right, let me give Alma-san's reward.”

Neia-san steered the awkward topic away.
No no, it's not your fault.
It's all on that Darasomething! Damn you Darasomething! Whatshisname!

“First you have Stampede's participation reward for 50000 en, in addition to that are one Werewolf, four Bladewings as well as several goblins, the total comes at 75680 en.”

“…I've never earned this much in one day.”

Her sullen look turned surprised.
From what I could tell, it's more about a sense of accomplishment than the amount of money itself.

“It's really a lot of money.
Wonder if this is gonna be a regular thing if we raise our Rank and finish some big job.”

“We managed to get through it without anyone hurting this time by chance.
Taking on jobs beyond our capability just for money is not good.”

“Agreed.
Well, about time I should start thinking of taking on low level monsters instead of just herb gathering though.”

“I wholeheartedly agree! I'm so done with having to appraise so many herbs each time!”

Neia-san, you gotta keep that in your head.
Like, can't you at least worry about my well being a teensy bit.

“Ah right, with your accomplishments in this Stampede, both of you have Ranked Up.
Congratulations.”

“Oh, finally graduated from Rank G.
Still Rank F though.”

“Oh no, both Kajikawa-san and Alma-san have been promoted to Rank E.”

Eh?
I get it with Alma who was previously Rank F, but why me too?

“Um, shouldn't I be Rank F?”

“…No F-ranked adventurer can take on five Hobgoblins and three Bladewings on their own, said master, however raising your rank too much would cause a problem so he made it so it's just one rank above normal.”

“I'm not sure if E-ranked adventurers can do that either…”

“Probably not…”

Hey you two, quit it with distant eyes.

“At Rank E, you are to mainly deal with eliminating magic beasts that are over level 10, but please don't overdo it when you're just starting out…
Oh wait, Alma-san already said that.”

“We will.
Thank you for your kind advice.”

“We'd like to register a party.
Hikaru and me are forming one.”

“Ah, right you two haven't done that yet.
I didn't realize since you were always together.”

“Is there any merit to forming a party besides members helping out one another?”

“Well the commissions you can take expand based on your Skills the more members you have, and the more commissions you complete the more guild trusts your party.
That opens up more chances to take on commissions that earn a lot, that's the chief reason for many people.”

“I see.
Well our party only got me and Alma, so we're stuck with magic beast culling and herb gathering work for the time being.”

“To register a party, please decide on the members, party name and type of commissions you wish to orient on.”

Party name huh…
A name that's too grand's gonna sound painful when you're still low ranked, something I've been made painfully aware of just now.

“Alma, any input on our party name?”

“…I'm not confident I'll give a good name.
It's on you, Hikaru.”

“Eeh.”

She threw it all on me.
Uuh, let's talk it out a bit at least.
Heck, maybe I should just put some references or something.
Like Chikuwadaimeibou…
No no, rejected.
Nn, ah man, just gonna go with guts.

“OK then, let's go with 'Tomorrow of Hope'.
Thought that up on the spot, whatchu think, Alma?”

“It's nice…
Un, it's nice.”

“Is it now.
Well, that's that then.”

Feels like the name sounds a bit pretentious, but well it should be fine.

In Japan, I was so swamped with work I had nothing fun to look forward to, the closest thing to goal I had was reaching my quotas.
It was depressing to have my goal for tomorrow be nothing but work.
I don't have enough time.
Tomorrow should never come.
It was so bad I wished I could just sleep in forever.
But ever since I came to this world, I got to find so many things I wanted to tackle on like mana control, finding good food or culling magic beasts.
I don't have enough time.
Same thought I had in my previous world, yet it doesn't feel depressing at all.
This party's gonna start tomorrow.