DAY 21: MORNING — THE LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

DAY 21

MORNING

I sit and eat breakfast alone.

THE LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

 

IT WAS MY FIRST BREAKFAST alone in a long time.

Not that that made me a loner! There was just no one else there. They just abandoned me! This was their way of bullying me. Well, not necessarily, but they might as well be bullies, right?

Since the girls were proper adventurers, they had work in the morning. As a member of the noble unemployed class, I ate breakfast alone.

There’s nothing wrong with this! We were just behaving as expected for our respective professions. No need to insult me! Read the room!

The room was empty…

The girls were adventurers, so they formed parties and went on quests. I wasn’t allowed to be an adventurer, so I sat and ate breakfast by myself.

See! Considering everyone’s individual specialties, we were all doing the activities we were best suited for!

The girls were adventurers, so they took on quests. I was a shut-in, so I stayed inside and ate breakfast alone.

That verifies that this is perfectly acceptable, I thought. The mere act of eating breakfast had clarified my place in the grand scheme of things. My titles had cursed me to this existence.

Everyone is probably talking about me behind my back, I thought, even the villagers.

At that moment, my breakfast arrived. Woo-hoo! Eggs! Sunny side up, no less!

They were surprisingly expensive. Maybe I should get my own chicken? If I built a chicken coop in my cave, then I could have a supply of eggs, and meat, too.

The two old guys and the four gorgeous girls were showing my classmates the ropes, which is why everyone had left so early.

Each party had one leader and a maximum of five other members. All of them together formed four parties. That was enough for a genuine expedition. How many parties needed to travel together before they had to register as a mercenary company? Were there mercenary companies in this world?

The girls were stronger than me, but they were inexperienced and relied too much on their cheat skills. The old guys would probably show them how to fight without falling back on a few overpowered abilities. They’d learn the practical skills all adventurers needed to survive… I wish I could be there! Taught by a hot elf…

The girls were finally living and working as adventurers. They’d take quests five times a week, aiming to make 250,000 ele per month. According to the Class Rep’s calculations, that was roughly equal to 500,000 yen. An impressive salary for their first jobs…

It sounded like a lot, but when you consider the cost of lodging, food, and bath access, that totaled about 150,000 ele per month. That only left 100,000 ele in the budget for weapons, equipment, consumables, emergency funds, and snacks. If they had anything left after all that, they’d need to spend it on other daily necessities and clothes. It was a tight budget. 500,000 ele a month would have given them money to spare, but given how weak the local monsters were, it was impossible to make good cash. Despite all these challenges, they were all trying so hard to make it in this town. They were willing to do whatever it took.

Meanwhile, I was turning into a total freeloader because of them. Was this a new bullying technique? I was truly meant for the forest hermit life, with its all-you-can-kill goblins and all-you-can-pick mushrooms!

If I took the shortest possible route back to the cave and slew monsters along the way, the trip would take two days. That’s not accounting for the return trip.

Going to the cave, hunting monsters, and selling the goods in town was a good plan aside from that. I could even skip paying rent by sleeping in the woods.

Right now, the girls were split into four teams. They could set up a rotation system, where at any given time, half of them were selling loot in town and the other half were camping in the woods and grinding for spellstones. That way, they could cut lodging expenses in half and live easily.

In that case, someone would need to be permanently stationed at the cave. None of the girls wanted to live that forest life. It seemed that forest gals were a myth here—this was a hermit-exclusive fantasy world. Don’t call them shut-ins or NEETS, damn it! As a loner, I was comfortable with solitude. This is how I must live.

If someone dropped by my cave twice a week, we could exchange goods and spellstones. Besides, I could always visit town with them if I felt like it.

Since I couldn’t join the guild, staying in town felt pointless.

It was simply the most efficient and effective choice, both in terms of mushroom hunting and in terms of survival.

And that’s why…one day, I’ll die alone in the forest, I thought.

Not like town was any better—I was just as likely to get murdered here.

I would die alone. No one would mourn for me. No one would even know. The thought worried me. Frightened me. The girls were probably worried about it, too.

Did the Class Rep confiscate my money to keep me from leaving?