Adventurers’ Guild

“…Well, that is about how it was. Inside, there were cave areas, magma areas, and more, and it was not a scale that looked remotely possible to fully traverse in a day or two. As for the monsters’ strength, in the shallow layers, they could probably be defeated by E-rank adventurers, so we should be able to attract a fairly wide range of adventurers.”

“Hmm, hmm, I see…”

“I don’t know where that dragon came from, but I doubt that was the boss. This is just my guess, but if you go deeper down, there should be loads of powerful enemies that even strong adventurers would struggle against.”

“Personally, I don’t really need monsters that powerful, though.”

But from the feeling I got listening to the report, it seemed to have enough drawing power to gather a certain number of adventurers.

After listening to the report from Nadja, who had apparently spent the last two days holed up in the dungeon and fighting continuously, I was satisfied for the time being.

“If we attract a guild with this, even more merchants will come here in expectation of business opportunities.”

“The more goods there are, the more attractive this place will become, so in the end, Wenti’s population will likely increase too.”

“Yeah, it’s just a guess, but if we’re talking only about scale, I think the village we build around Magros Volcano will become the largest. Again, it’s just a guess, but I feel like before too long, it won’t be a village anymore. It’ll become a town, then a labyrinth city.”

The dungeon I had ended up obtaining almost by accident in order to recruit the dwarves.

Dungeons brought in great profit, but their management responsibilities became just as great, so I was already feeling a little heavy about it.

…But if things had stayed as they were, I did not know what would have happened to the dwarves.

If I thought of it as a cheap price to pay for gaining their loyalty, then I had no choice but to keep doing my best.

“For now, let’s start preparing to attract the guild. Aira, could you call Val-san and the others?”

“Yes, right away.”

One of the reasons we had not been able to actively invite trade caravans from outside until now was that we did not have an Adventurers’ Guild.

—Adventurers were mainly people who accepted monster subjugation requests and the like, rough-work specialists who were something like all-purpose workers.

Their abilities varied widely, but powerful adventurers were literally worth a thousand soldiers.

Among high-rank adventurers, there were apparently third sons of noble families and noble young ladies who had left home for various reasons, and there were quite a few aptitude holders among them too.

The ones who collared those rough people and supervised them were the Adventurers’ Guild.

Because the guild firmly held the reins and managed them, they were able to live without disrupting public order too much.

“Once they find out there is a dungeon, those people will probably immediately change their tune and start currying favor with us… What a truly lamentable matter.”

“When profit is involved, the guild moves quickly. For better or worse, they are sensitive to earnings and benefits.”

Since before, I had contacted the guild headquarters in the royal capital several times about wanting a branch of the Adventurers’ Guild in Wenti.

But the answers had not been very favorable, and so far, every attempt to attract them had ended in failure.

Simply put, the reason it had not gone well was that there had been absolutely no benefit for the guild.

To begin with, in Wenti, almost no requests were issued for adventurers.

Tree Village and Guinea Village were both protected by the power of Sanctuaries, so as long as people did not go outside, they did not suffer monster damage.

Furthermore, even regarding bandits, who would normally trouble remote regions like this, there were no problems at all.

When we made the Sanctuary Road, we crushed all the notable Sand Bandits who came after us, and since Sandstorm and the Dark Elves regularly patrolled the desert, the damage from Sand Bandits was an astonishing zero.

On top of that, as long as someone stayed within my territory, no matter how destitute they became, they would not die of starvation.

Even for people with no trade at all or people who could not work properly due to certain circumstances, we at least provided food until they could properly find new work.

Since we had a large number of Wood Golems, there were no issues with defensive forces either.

And this might be fatal from an adventurer’s perspective, but… desert monsters basically had no demand.

Their appearance was extremely plain, and because the monsters were also chronically lacking in water and nutrition, when made into materials for weapons and armor, they apparently lacked strength.

So there was no demand within Wenti in the first place, and the monsters outside did not sell for much either, so there was no demand there as well.

There was almost nothing that would make money for adventurers or the guild.

However, from my perspective as the lord, there was a reason I wanted to create an Adventurers’ Guild branch no matter what.

As I said earlier, adventurers were all-purpose workers for matters involving rough work. And among that “all-purpose” work, caravan escort requests were also included.

What we expected from adventurers was their role as inexpensive guards.

After all, escorts were absolutely essential in order to travel back and forth between the various regions connected across the desert.

Many large merchant companies had people who kept exclusive escorts, but for now, we did not do business with large shops like that.

Incidentally, to come to Wenti by crossing the desert at the very least, one would need about C-rank strength.

So I had always thought it would be good if there was something that could make them stay.

And then, into that situation came the transformation of Magros Volcano into a dungeon.

It was not like there were no problems when thinking about the future, but for now, rather than that, I should be glad that this looked likely to let us attract the guild.