195 - A Certain Adventurer’s Report

I had never thought of myself as special.

Though I was born into a noble house, after it became clear that my aptitude for magic was low, there was no one left whom I could call family.

I left home as if I had been driven out, and it seemed that ending up as a hunter was a common story, because when I told the receptionist my background, though she did not say, “Ah, again?” aloud, to me, who had lived a life of constantly watching others’ expressions, I understood what she wanted to say to a painful degree.

Just as my parents had said, I was “an ordinary person who could be found anywhere and replaced as many times as needed.”

When I was young, I had gazed dazzlingly up at the tower that only a handful of geniuses were permitted to attend, but around this time, magic itself had come to feel detestable to me.

That was why I took up a sword.

I stubbornly refused to use the magic that had been drilled into me since childhood and swore that I would live relying only on the sword gripped in this hand.

With no way of knowing that such an oath would be broken in less than a year, many lives slipped from my hands.

At that time, I was conceited, thinking that “my life began” on the day I discarded my family name and became simply “Cole.”

Even though I knew that the world was this harsh and overflowing with absurdity, I had been taking living lightly.

The scene brought about by that result was still burned into my mind even now.

My companions’ deaths and myself, who survived――we challenged an opponent we could not defeat and lost.

If that had been all, it could have been dismissed as a common story.

But in the face of my companions’ deaths, I yielded to fear.

I should have been able to save them.

Driven by fear, when it became my turn as the last one remaining, I instinctively used the magic that had seeped into my body, and because of that, the magical beast became wary and fled.

“Why… didn’t you use it?”

Those were the last words of a companion I was no longer permitted to call a friend.

In this way, my own weakness was beaten into me to a painful degree, and I lost everything, leaving only regret behind.

But cruelly, making a comeback was easy.

In this country, there was no shortage of targets for hunters to hunt.

There were never enough hunters, and no matter how many died, they were replenished.

People lived in order to live.

I was still living as a hunter.

I could no longer form a team, but risking my life alone was easy and good.

Though I sometimes teamed up as a temporary hire, even now I did not work with fixed members.

Before I knew it, ten years had passed.

I continued to live.

Dragging that day’s scene with me and carrying worn-down regret, I nevertheless reached the level where I was called a veteran.

Even now, there was not a day when I did not think, if only at that time――

But unfortunately, the fact remained that this had made me this strong.

I told myself that this ability and the guild’s trust had grown by feeding on that day, and “Know your place and live” had become something like my favorite saying.

Without those around me knowing that it was directed at myself, I intended to go on living as a hunter.

As hunters changed their name to adventurers, and while there were still many who called themselves “hunters,” one request came to me.

The client was a patron of the Adventurers’ Guild, a man who had used money to force his way up by creating the new position of vice guild master.

His name was “Guon,” and he was the former chairman of the “Lowpoune” Trading Company.

Apparently, he had handed the chairman’s seat to his son, but in step with the country showing signs of advancing westward, he obtained a position in the Adventurers’ Guild, making him a man sensitive to profit. However, he was mediocre enough that people whispered someone else might have put the idea into his head.

The man, who considered it only natural to act arrogantly toward adventurers using his position as a shield, became hated in the blink of an eye.

Because he was of commoner origin in particular, and because there were rumors that his position had become precarious due to how harshly he treated mages, I had no intention of accepting a request from such a person, but… when a team I owed a favor to asked me, I could not shake my head.

“Thank you very much,” said the female priest Nea as she raised her head.

During a subjugation request, I had picked up a troublesome illness, and because she had saved me, I had ended up owing her.

There was something attractive about her character, but she had already met a good partner within her team.

All I could do was silently bless that.

Now then, the content of the request was escort duty.

It would be a joint job between two teams, but apparently Guon had hired only those among the upper ranks even in Saisaros.

When the familiar faces shrugged at one another, it was easy to imagine what sort of methods had been used to gather them.

And when we heard the details of the request, we were struck speechless.

“Negotiating with a monster? Is he insane?”

I did not remember who said it, but someone spoke on behalf of every hunter gathered there.

In response to this, Guon showed an unexpected reaction by merely snorting.

Apparently, it was an individual that had become a topic of conversation some time ago, and he boasted that it was quite intelligent and already had a record of having conducted transactions.

The name of the new species of monster was “Argos”――it seemed to have rampaged in Canaan, but for some reason, there had still been no damage in Seizeria.

The name of the hunter said to be involved with it was raised.

Diera Kinoshita――she was a young mage permitted to bear the Kinoshita name, and I remembered her as a user of practical magic.

I had heard that her team had been caught off guard and wiped out, but… apparently she had been operating solo.

According to the report she submitted to the guild, this monster called Argos was extremely intelligent, and not only understood human speech, but could communicate using multiple languages, at least among those confirmed.

It would have been nice if we could have dismissed it with, “What nonsense,” but the fact that there was already a person who had conducted a transaction with it was significant, and since it was an official request approved by the guild master, it could not be overturned.

Furthermore, the detailed information regarding its combat ability was described at the end as, “This is all we know within the confirmed range,” and it horrified us.

I wanted to think it was some kind of mistake, and although a monster that could single-handedly scatter a mixed army of over five hundred mercenaries and regular soldiers sounded like a joke, it was added that this report had been proven correct by a separate investigation as well.

Naturally, opinions burst out that we could not fight against such a monster, but Guon, holding the report in hand, proudly dismissed our protests by saying, “As long as we do not attack from our side, there will be no problem.”

Just how far could that be trusted?

The fact that everyone was going into the job while carrying dissatisfaction and anxiety was, in my experience, almost certainly an omen that something bad was about to happen.

And that instinct hit the mark perfectly.

However, it came not from the anxiety, but from the explosion of dissatisfaction.

It was obvious that Guon, who sought the achievement of concluding negotiations with Argos, would become a burden along the way, but even so, he did not drop his arrogant attitude, and the atmosphere of the group could be called the worst because the escort target showered us with abuse at every opportunity.

Guon, who could not even sense that, tried to lay his hands on the mage Lizary and the priest Nea.

He became displeased at the women’s undisguised disgust, causing delays in the schedule, so I could say without doubt that he belonged among the worst category of clients I had ever had.

The problems continued further.

We arrived at the river and raised smoke signals there according to the prior information, but Argos showed no sign of appearing.

One person, having run out of patience, snapped at the client, asking whether the information Guon had brought was wrong, or whether he had forgotten something important.

As though responding to that, the mage Lizary vented her dissatisfaction, and Guon, of all things, walked up to her while shouting, grabbed her dress robe, and dragged it down.

A scream rose, and her teammates moved.

From there on, it happened in an instant.

Guon did not admit his own fault and only said that we were the ones at fault.

We could endure it until we stopped one person who was about to act rashly, even by putting him in a full nelson, and Guon threw a stone at him and injured him.

But the hit landed in a bad place, and when Nea judged that immediate treatment was necessary and rushed over, only to be kicked away, I realized that there was no need for restraint.

After all, everyone shared the same opinion.

Even if we disposed of him here, if everyone aligned their stories, we would not be held guilty.

We cut off his arm, and it seemed that all that remained was to finish off the fleeing Guon, but the bastard had prepared a means of escape.

A smokescreen――and an expensive one at that, which blocked magical reactions and gave mild dizziness to those who inhaled it.

However, those present here were the elites of Saisaros.

Handling that much was easy, and as though to clear away all the frustration built up until now, countless ice arrows were fired over a wide area as if to sweep away the smokescreen.

As expected of someone called Yameida’s treasured child, it was splendid magic.

It was just as rumored: at her age, she would certainly be permitted to claim the Yameida name.

Judging that it was worthy of praise and that Guon had certainly been finished off, I stepped into the river while waiting for the smoke to be cleared by wind magic.

Guon had collapsed around the place where he had left the river, pierced by ice arrows.

But more than that, my eyes stopped on the monster directly in front of me.

“Argos…”

That position was bad――yes, the ice arrows scattered over a wide area had stabbed into the ground around Argos as well.

If it judged that as an attack, avoiding battle would be difficult.

I reflexively tried to shout that we had no intention of fighting, but Argos, as if losing its balance, fell forward and went down on all fours.

That Argos began being dyed black.

I did not know what that meant.

I only felt on my skin that it was a dangerous sign, and predicting the attack that would come from that posture, I took evasive action.

Behind me, I heard voices calling out to Argos, but ignoring such things entirely, Argos, now dyed black over its entire body, charged.

As expected――but its speed was beyond expectation.

It closed the distance in an instant, and though I blocked that blow with the magic sword I drew reflexively as a shield, at the same time that I felt my long-time partner and the bones in my arm shatter, my vision was dyed completely with the color of the sky.

My vision soon changed to green, and immediately after I realized I had been blown as far as the forest, I must have struck a tree, because I lost consciousness.

This was everything I remembered from that place.