The Middle-Aged B-Rank Adventurer Takes In An Exiled Boy

My name was Roylotte Blake.

People usually called me Roy.

I was just an ordinary B-rank adventurer.

While the higher-ranked A-rank and S-rank adventurers, and even the SS-rank adventurers above them, enjoyed glamorous careers, I lived a very modest life.

And I thoroughly enjoyed that kind of life.

My previous life had been… well, something else, and after spending so long living an outrageously flashy life that left me exhausted, I wanted to take things easy in this one.

Huh…? What did I do in my previous life?

No, no, it wasn’t anything impressive.

It was the kind of occupation I couldn’t exactly tell people about… though I wasn’t even sure whether I could call it an occupation.

Anyway, even a B-rank adventurer could sometimes land lucrative jobs normally handled by A-rank adventurers, provided he had the skill and accomplishments to back it up.

Today, I’d exterminated a Gigant Lizard that had been ravaging a village, and I was currently on my way back to the Adventurers’ Guild Hall.

For the moment, I’d stopped at a tavern to fill my stomach and was having a meal.

Since bringing back a monster nearly five times the length of a human normally would have been difficult, I’d stored it inside a Storage Ball.

A Storage Ball was a magic stone about the size of a small egg.

A magic stone was exactly what it sounded like—a stone imbued with magical power.

In the case of a Storage Ball, it contained magic for storing objects, so chanting the appropriate spell caused an object to be stored inside it.

When you chanted “Storage Magic,” even a creature this huge disappeared into that tiny ball in an instant. Convenient, right?

These balls were essential items for travelers and were commonly used to store both items and monsters.

Once I delivered this one to the Guild Hall, I’d get the bounty, and they’d also buy the monster’s carcass from me. A Gigant Lizard’s fangs, horns, and hide were all worth good money.

That would give me enough to live leisurely for a while.

Yeah, that was more than enough to satisfy me.

As long as I had a decent income and could enjoy good food and good booze, that was all I needed—

“You’re useless. We brought an SS-rank adventurer into the party to replace you. We don’t need you anymore. Got it!?”

…Yeah. At that very moment, I was the unremarkable middle-aged guy sitting in a tavern, witnessing the Hero’s party throw one of their companions out.

If someone painted this scene, I figured they’d have to draw an arrow pointing at me just so anyone would even notice I was there.

Standing beside the Hero was… I see, a rather formidable-looking female warrior.

And she was a voluptuous beauty at that, with long, wavy dark-pink hair and golden eyes.

She wore bustier-style armor, and a golden-glowing magic stone was embedded in the hilt of the sword at her waist. A platinum circlet rested on her forehead.

The female warrior wore a seductive smile as she rested a hand on the Hero’s shoulder and giggled.

Ah, now that I looked closely, that was “Rosa the Drifter.” She was a female warrior famous for constantly jumping ship from one powerful party to another.

So she’d finally worked her way up to the Hero’s party.

Meanwhile, the one being dismissed to make room for Rosa was a small boy of about seventeen or eighteen. His equipment was old and his clothes were tattered. Weren’t those beginner-grade traveler’s clothes? They were absurdly shabby for someone accompanying the Hero.

“Exactly. Yuri, you just stand around doing nothing whenever we get into a fight.”

The girl laughing mockingly appeared to be a mage. She tucked her orange hair behind one ear as she giggled.

The boy then objected in a quiet voice.

“But I don’t have a weapon, so all I can do is support everyone with enhancement magic…”

“Who said you were allowed to talk back!? We don’t have money to waste buying a weapon for someone like you!”

“…”

Hey, hey, what kind of party refused to give one of its members a weapon?

Were they really that broke? If so, there was no way they could afford to hire Rosa.

That woman was notorious for demanding outrageous compensation. She had the skill to justify it, though, so there was always demand for her services.

Then Rosa opened her mouth.

“Hey, Roy. Why don’t you take care of the kid?”

That stupid woman suddenly dragged me into this.

Heeeey! Why the hell are you trying to pull me onto center stage!? Don’t ruin my wonderful, inconspicuous life!!

“Wouldn’t he be perfect for plain old Roy, the eternal B-ranker?”

At Rosa’s words, the patrons around us burst into amused laughter.

Hey, knock it off. Don’t laugh at B-rank adventurers. I liked where I was.

Most of the customers laughing were B-rank or lower themselves. They sure had some nerve laughing when they were in the same boat.

I glanced toward the boy, who had lowered his head.

His bangs had grown long enough to hide most of his face, but his nose and mouth were well-shaped… If he swept those bangs back, I bet he’d be quite handsome.

Meanwhile, there was the Hero, looking down on his own companion. Brownish-black hair, sharp, narrow blue eyes, and a handsome face that nevertheless gave off an unbearably shallow impression—no, I’d better stop there.

I sighed, stood up, and gave the dismissed boy a pat on the shoulder.

“Come on. I’ll take you to the Guild so you can look for another job.”

The boy widened his eyes at my words, then nodded.

I wanted nothing to do with troublesome situations, but I couldn’t exactly abandon a boy who’d been thrown out without even having proper equipment.

Besides, being made into the butt of their joke had put me in a bad mood too.

After leaving enough money on the table to cover my food and drinks, I left the tavern together with the boy.

First, we needed to head to an Adventurers’ Guild Hall.

There was a Guild Hall nearby, but if he wanted to find a new job, he’d have better prospects in a city.

When we reached a plaza a short distance from the tavern, I took a Storage Ball from my waist pouch and chanted a spell.

“Release Magic.”

Thick clouds of smoke poured from the Storage Ball. Before long, a wyvern emerged from within.

It was a couple of sizes larger than an ordinary riding horse. As a creature considered a subspecies of dragon, it looked very much like one at first glance, but its defining feature was that it only had two legs.

Most wyverns were green, but on extremely rare occasions, a black-bodied wyvern was born, and those were both a size larger and considerably stronger than normal wyverns.

The boy stared in stunned disbelief.

“A-A wyvern… and it’s huge.”

“Yeah. I borrowed it from the Guild, so it isn’t actually mine.”

“…But aren’t wyverns supposed to be monsters that even S-rank adventurers have trouble riding…?”

“Don’t worry about the little details.”

After mounting the Black Wyvern, I gave the reins a tug.

ROOOOOOOAR!!

With its roar, the Black Wyvern beat its batlike wings up and down.

The resulting gust was so powerful that it made me instinctively want to shield my face.

“You’ll fall off, so sit in front of me.”

The boy nodded and took my outstretched hand. Then, hesitantly, he placed a foot in the stirrup and climbed into the saddle.

“We’ll head to Eto first.”

When I pulled the reins once more, the Black Wyvern took off into the sky.

We had a tailwind, so we should reach Eto in less than half an hour.

“Wow, we’re already above the clouds.”

“Is this your first time riding a flying creature?”

“I’ve ridden one before, but none that could fly this high.”

“…”

I’d seen the Hero’s party traveling on flying creatures around town several times before, and if I remembered correctly, they’d arrived here earlier on a wyvern and a Medium Dragon.

Most adventurers rented their mounts from a Flying Creature Rental Station.

The Hero was no exception.

The most common flying mount was the Medium Dragon. It was stable and comfortable to ride, though the rental fee was expensive.

A rental station might have one wyvern available, if it had any at all. After all, even S-rank adventurers had difficulty riding them.

Some adventurers owned personal flying creatures, but frankly, keeping one was difficult.

Feeding them cost a fortune, and if you couldn’t properly communicate with a monster, there was always the chance it would run away, so renting a flying creature properly trained by a monster tamer was cheaper and safer.

Every large town had a shop that rented flying creatures, so that was where most adventurers got theirs.

Considering this boy hadn’t even been bought a weapon or a new set of clothes, there was no way those people would’ve paid for an expensive flying mount for his sake.

They had probably made do with the cheapest flying creature available—uncomfortable, unstable, and incapable of flying very high.

Remembering the smug faces of the Hero and his companions, I tightened my grip on the reins.

Right then, I wanted nothing more than to turn around and punch that conceited Hero square in the face.

“The view from up here is beautiful.”

“…”

Well, for now, taking the long way around for the sake of this boy, who was so moved by the scenery, seemed like the best thing to do.

I figured I might as well let him enjoy the view from the sky for as long as possible.

From his perspective, he probably wanted to forget the companions who’d abandoned him as quickly as he could.

So, for the time being, I decided to take a slight detour on our way to the commercial city of Eto.