Bonus Short Stories

A Strange Request

“Rentt, can you see it?”

In the dim forest, hiding between the short vegetation, my current client leaned in and whispered to me. He was an artisan named Dylas from a town called Kikal.

I looked to see what was up ahead. “Yeah, doesn’t look like there are any problems right now. This is a strange request, though. I know crystal wolf pups are supposed to be cute, but they’re still monsters. Well, they’re fine as long as you approach them with caution, I guess.”

What I saw was a monster. Inside a large, hollow tree lay a wolf bigger than an adult man. The translucent crystals all over its body glittered like jewelry, giving it a mysterious beauty. This monster was called a crystal wolf.

Cuddled against the large wolf’s stomach were three smaller ones, about the size of cats. They were wolf pups. These had clearly just been born, and if I had to guess, they were drinking milk from their mother. Unlike their parent, they had no crystals yet, but they would grow them as they got older.

Crystals from a crystal wolf were valuable in advanced alchemy and blacksmithing, and the guild had recently received a request to obtain some. But these were powerful monsters that called for an adventurer of at least Gold-class. In other words, they were too much for me. I wouldn’t take such a risky job. You might wonder, then, what I was doing here.

“We’ve confirmed that they’re safe, so let’s give them some space. What about the guys I told you about in town? How are we doing as far as where they’re at?” Dylas asked.

I sniffed for the scent of blood and got a general idea of their location. “It should be fine. I don’t think we’ll have to do anything about them. I think they’re injured, and even if they aren’t, neither of them would stand a chance against a crystal wolf.”

“But you heard what they were saying in town, right? They want to snatch some crystal wolf pups. I just can’t tolerate that. They’re not even doing anything. I know they’re monsters, but they deserve respect.”

Dylas and I had overheard a couple of adventurers talking about this in town. There was nothing especially strange about it. I couldn’t even call them evil. This was normal for adventurers. But Dylas couldn’t accept it. I could kind of understand how he felt. If these were goblins that made their living attacking humans, that would be one thing, but these crystal wolves hadn’t harmed anyone. Crystal wolves would sometimes even clear away other monsters in their territory, so if anything, they were beneficial to humans.

Not only that, but this crystal wolf was raising children. Dylas knew this, so he told me that he wanted to stop the adventurers from hunting them. As to why he told me in particular, we just happened to be in the same location and were both put off by what these adventurers said. Dylas got the sense I would understand and take his request, according to him. And I did, so it turned out he was right.

“Well, I took the job, so I’ll see it through,” I said. “Besides, now that I’m actually seeing the pups, I’m feeling pretty sympathetic. Oh, there they are.”

We followed the scent of blood until we found the two adventurers from town. They didn’t look that strong. My guess was that they had only just become Bronze-class. Stealing crystal wolf pups at their level was a little much. And it looked like I was right about them being injured too.

I thought we might be able to ask them to leave without a fight, so I came out of hiding.

“Who are you?!” one of the men asked.

“Calm down, I’m an adventurer too. Look, I’m Bronze-class.”

“Looks like it, yeah. But why are you here? You after the crystal wolves too?”

“You too, eh? Well, that was my intention, at least.” I forced a bitter grin.

“What, did something happen?”

“I found their den, but there were footprints from several male crystal wolves around it. I didn’t see that ending well, so I decided to turn back. Maybe you two know this already, but I figure you’ll appreciate a warning. Most crystal wolves are raised by just their mother, but sometimes other wolves hang around to protect them. That makes them immensely more dangerous to approach. Going after the pups is way too risky. I won’t stop you if you want to try, though, so I can tell you where their den is. What do you think?”

If I simply told them to leave with no explanation, they would just argue, so it helped to make a courteous offer as well. I also didn’t make up what I said about crystal wolves. When there were other wolves guarding the mother, they could be exceedingly dangerous. Had I lied, the adventurers could have returned to town, done some research, and found me out. Then they would just come right back here, making this all pointless.

The two adventurers discussed what I told them. Then they slumped their shoulders and said, “Thanks for the warning. I don’t think we want to risk it.”

“Are you sure? There’s a lot of money in it if you manage to get the pups. You can get good materials from them. They’re in high demand as pets from nobles too.”

“I know, that’s why I thought we got lucky when a mother with pups was found in the forest. But I got hurt just getting here.”

“Right, I see your left arm is injured. The crystal wolves might smell your blood, I guess. All the worse if you come across the guard wolves.”

“Exactly. But we had come so far, so we trudged the rest of the way here instead of giving up. Now that we’ve heard your info though, we’re calling it quits. We’ll do the smart thing instead of getting greedy.”

“Going back, then? Well, that’s probably for the best. Need help with anything? If I return to town and hear from the guild that you guys never made it back, it’d keep me up at night.”

“No, I know this looks pretty bad, but I’ve halted the bleeding. And while I’m hurt, he’s doing fine. Not like there are any dangerous monsters around here aside from crystal wolves anyway. Getting back should be easy enough.”

The taller of the two men did all the talking while the other remained silent. Even when the taller man looked to him, the short one kept his lips sealed. He did nod a lot, though. Most adventurers who used to be hunters were like this, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. When you were hunting animals that would flee at the sound of a single breath and using only a bow and arrows, this was necessary.

“Yeah?” I said. “Then this is where we part ways. If we see each other in town, though, maybe we can get some drinks or something.”

“Sure, let’s do that. Thanks for the info. Bye.”

The two adventurers left the area. In situations like these, you wanted to wait for the other group to be out of sight before you got moving yourself. Otherwise, you might present yourself as a threat. However, if you were in a desperate situation or knew that monsters were around, then both groups would want to leave as soon as possible. But there was no such danger at the moment.

“All right, you can come out now, Dylas,” I called.

“Sounds good,” Dylas said as he came into sight. “Wow, you really convinced them. When you said you’d tell them where the den is, I wanted to strangle you.”

I wasn’t even sure if I could be strangled to death anyway, so I just said, “Scary.”

“Haha, sorry. Well, either way, I’m glad that ended peacefully. Besides, they kind of seemed like normal folks. They really looked like bad guys to me, but maybe that was my bias showing.”

“Probably. From their perspective, they were just trying to hunt some monsters. They don’t have a special connection to crystal wolves like you do.”

Dylas’s eyes widened with shock, and he asked, “When did you notice that?” He’d never mentioned anything about a special connection with crystal wolves and thought it was odd that I mentioned it. But Dylas simply wasn't that careful to hide it.

I pointed to the small gem on Dylas’s necklace. “That was made from a crystal wolf’s crystal, wasn’t it? I can tell.”

“That’s ridiculous. This is green; crystal wolf crystals are transparent.”

“I hear that when crystal wolves are pregnant, a single green crystal appears on their bodies. Few people have even seen it, though, so not many would know.”

“Right, and I’m surprised you do.” Dylas sighed. “Yes, I got this from that crystal wolf.”

“That’s incredible. I sure wouldn’t want to get near a pregnant crystal wolf.” They were even more dangerous then than while they were raising the newborns.

“I raised that crystal wolf outside town when she was little. I happened to find her when she was hurt, and ever since then, she’s been comfortable with me.”

“So you tamed a monster?”

Dylas shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that. It’s more like she treats me as a friend.”

“That’s still pretty remarkable. A monster like that wouldn’t typically be friendly with a human.”

“It just happened by coincidence. Anyway, that’s why I wanted to help her and her pups. Sorry I asked this of you for such personal reasons.”

“Most requests are made for personal reasons. Want me to tell you about a few silly ones I’ve taken? I’ve done everything from cleaning toilets to acting as a butler.”

Dylas laughed. “I guess mine’s relatively normal compared to those, since it's about monsters.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Now that that’s taken care of, I think we should head back to town. I want to see if those two made it back in one piece. Oh yeah, and I said I’d go drinking with them too. Dylas, you should join in.”

“Why me?”

“Because you got in the way of their job. You at least owe them a drink.”

“When you put it that way, yeah,” Dylas said, nodding. “Alright, fine, it’ll be my treat. And I want to see you drinking plenty too, Rentt.”

“I plan on it.”

The Senior Staff Member Is An Adventurer?

While I was at the guild one day, I pulled a job posting off the bulletin board and took it to the reception desk.

“I’d like to take this job,” I said.

The receptionist checked the posting and cocked her head. “Huh? I feel like someone just took this job a minute ago. Hold on a second, maybe we made a mistake somewhere,” she said and stood up from her chair.

The guild managed requests in the form of job postings, but sometimes problems like this happened. The listed reward or the job description would be wrong, or jobs that were past their expiration date would be left on the board. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen. The guild staff were only human, so I couldn’t get mad about it. Some adventurers did, but they were wasting their time and energy.

I preferred to make use of the wait time by reading the books the guild made available. They had encyclopedias on monsters and medicinal herbs, pamphlets detailing the guild’s rules, and literature on a number of topics. I’d read them so many times already I had them memorized, but I figured it was better than doing nothing, so I picked up one of the pamphlets full of rules.

As was typical of the guild, the rules were extremely broad, but they were painstakingly made to maintain order to the greatest extent possible. But they were careful not to infringe on the freedom of their adventurers, too. Whoever made these knew adventurers well. A fair number of adventurers still ignored them, though. Wherever you went, you’d always find people who didn't follow the rules.

“Um, excuse me,” someone said from behind me as I was reading the pamphlet. I turned around and saw an unfamiliar face. Her outfit told me that she was a guild staff member, but she was a very young girl. She must have been new.

“What?” I asked.

“I have a question about the rules in there. Specifically regarding Section 15, Article 7, on paying compensation for incomplete requests.”

“Oh, that?”

I answered the girl’s question at length. The pamphlet didn’t explain it in detail and the rule was hard to understand without reading the annotated edition, so I could see why she would have questions. I had the same experience back in the day and only understood after reading the annotated edition.

“I see!” the girl said. “Now I get it. Oh, and there’s more I’d like to ask.” I had nothing else to do, so I answered the rest of her questions. When she finished asking them all, she looked like she understood thoroughly. “Interesting! Thank you! Now it all makes sense. The people that’ve been working here for a while are really something else! See you later.”

The girl thanked me and left. I was about to say something, but she ran off before I could.

“I’m not even a staff member here,” I muttered to myself, but nobody was around to hear it.

“Rentt? What’s wrong?” the receptionist asked as she returned from confirming the details of the job.

“Nothing, really. So what about the job?”

“Oh, we made a mistake after all. It looks like this job was posted twice. Somebody else has already taken it, so you won’t be able to. I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine, I’ll look for another job.”

“Will you? That would help. Oh, in that case, I have one to suggest.”

“What?”

“This one, if you wouldn’t mind? I don’t know if it’s something you’d like, exactly, but we’d really appreciate it if you took this job.”

The description said it was a simulated job for new guild staff. I didn’t know whether this was a thing in other regions, but in Maalt, the guild had a tradition of making new staff members take a job at least once, whether they could fight or not. Not that they forced them to fight, of course, but they wanted everyone to go along for the experience. The guild decided what the job would be, and it didn’t have to be anything difficult. It was usually nothing more than slaying goblins or picking herbs. But that didn’t mean it was completely safe, so they would send a trustworthy adventurer to attend them. I was trustworthy enough, apparently. They had asked this of me just about every year before I started to wear this robe and mask, but I was surprised they would still ask now.

“Are you sure you want me to do it?” I asked.

“Yes. We weren’t sure who to ask, but you have Sheila and Guildmaster Wolf’s approval. And personally, I think you’ll be fine too.”

That was the power of having acquaintances that trusted you. But even this staff member here seemed to have faith in me. I wanted to live up to that trust, so I decided to take the job.

◆◇◆◇◆

The job itself was simple enough, but one of the new staff members was shocked to see me.

“Huh? You’re that senior staff member who told me about the rules,” she said. It was the girl I’d talked to before.

“I never said I worked for the guild. I’m an adventurer,” I replied wearily.

“Come on, no adventurer knows that much about the rules! Geez, this is a surprise. Well, if that’s true, why don’t you quit being an adventurer and work for the guild instead? I’d love to work with someone like you, and it’d make the job easier.”

“Not going to do that, no. I’m sure you’ll be great at the job without me anyway. Good luck.”

The girl looked surprised. “Wow, I never thought I’d hear that. Most people say I don’t seem serious enough.”

“There aren’t that many staff members who try to understand the rules in as much detail as you are. It seems to me like you’re the sort who acts casual but gets the job done.”

“Now I feel really motivated all of a sudden! Let’s go do this job quick,” she said smiling. Then she pumped her fist in the air.

“I feel like your personality is more suited to adventuring. Well, do your best and try not to hurt yourself,” I responded and began to walk off.

Troupe Member Rentt

“Well, this is a problem. What should I do?”

I was walking through Maalt when I suddenly heard that. Curious, I looked over and saw a small group of men and women standing around. The one who spoke was a plump middle-aged man; the rest of them looked attractive by comparison. It was hard to tell what this group’s purpose was at a glance. But as much as I liked to assist people, I couldn’t stop and help every troubled person I encountered.

I tried to walk past them, but then someone said, “You there! Wait a moment,” and grabbed me by the arm. It was, once again, the plump man. I noticed the instant he started to move and could have avoided him, but he could’ve fallen over if I did, so I didn’t. However, I suspected that I made the wrong choice. These people seemed like nothing but trouble, but maybe I was fated to get involved in this.

“What?” I asked with a sigh.

The man didn’t respond right away. Now that he got a good look at me, he seemed intimidated. I had a skull mask, a robe, and a well-worn sword, after all. Adventurers were used to seeing men like me, but any civilian would see me as dangerous. The man still didn’t back off, though.

“I have a favor to ask,” he said after he mustered up his courage. When I saw how serious he was, I gave up on figuring out how to get out of here quickly.

“I’ll let you tell me what it is, at least,” I said.

◆◇◆◇◆

“So, essentially, you can’t use the theater you were planning to and you’re not sure what to do. I see, so you’re a theater troupe.”

I listened to their story, and it turned out that they were a traveling troupe who’d arrived in Maalt the other day. Maalt wasn’t that big, but it was at least big enough to be considered a city, so it had its fair share of entertainment. There was a small theater in Maalt where troupes periodically performed. Troupes from Maalt itself performed there, of course, but some came from outside town too. These people were one of the latter, and they were supposed to put on a show at the theater for a few days starting tomorrow. But the head of the theater suddenly decided against it.

“That theater’s owner is just the worst,” explained the troupe’s leading actress. “He said a local troupe insists on using the theater, but he’s the one who called us to this town in the first place. Oh, it’s so frustrating.” Her glamorous face was fit for the stage, and her mannerisms were refined and conspicuous. She was the kind of person who you’d want to see act.

“Liesse, it’s just how things are. Traveling troupes like ours are treated this way everywhere,” said another actor. At first glance, he looked docile and timid, but something about him made it hard to look away. It was easy to see that he was another performer. “I just hope we get our own theater eventually. But we sure don’t have the money for that yet. Let’s forget about this town and try somewhere else.”

I was an absolute amateur at anything regarding performing, but every member of the troupe had an interesting aura that I didn’t have the words to describe. I only talked with them a bit, but it was enough to make me curious to see their show. There was no way I’d actually be able to, though, which I thought was unfortunate. But the middle-aged man, who seemed to be the leader of the troupe and a manager rather than a performer, showed me that wasn’t the case with the next thing he said.

“We’ll perform in the town square if we have to. As long as we have enough space, we can make it work somehow. But it’ll be hard to have backgrounds or acoustics without a proper theater.”

That gave me an idea. “If I can secure a location for you and do something about the backgrounds and acoustics, would I be able to watch your show?” I asked.

“What? Oh, yes, but we didn’t get permission to use the town square.”

“No, I have another idea. I’ll see if I can make it work, but if it doesn’t, then I’m sorry.”

The man shook his head. “We’re out of options anyway. If there’s even a slight possibility, we’ll take it. We’re trying to come up with something as it is.”

“Got it. But why did you stop me anyway? You’re lucky I thought of something, but I don’t think there was any reason to assume that I could help you.”

“Oh, I wasn’t really going to have you do anything about that, but...”

Then the troupe leader told me why he stopped me, and the answer was shocking.

◆◇◆◇◆

I never thought I would end up on the stage myself. But I didn't say that. What I did say while I was up there was the villain’s dialogue written in the troupe leader's script. He wanted to hire me to play the villain. The man who was supposed to play the part fell terribly ill, so they happened to be seeking out a replacement when I was passing by.

The villain was a masked sorcerer who used dark magic. The leading actress played a woman who was kidnapped by the sorcerer as a sacrifice, and the timid actor played a confident knight who set off to rescue her. Surprisingly, the show was received favorably for all four days it ran.

As for the location, I talked to Lorraine. I asked her if the troupe could borrow the land she owned on the outskirts of town, and she was quick to give permission as long as she got to watch. She also solved any problems with the backgrounds by using her illusion magic. Lorraine’s versatility was greatly appreciated by the troupe.

“Then I shall sleep. It will come to you too one day, in the deep darkness, quietly. Ah, I will be waiting,” I cried after being slashed by the knight. Then I fell from the side of the stage and disappeared.

Lorraine was waiting there for me. “You’re a surprisingly decent actor, Rentt,” she said with a laugh.

“All these actors are more brutal than monsters. Well, not really, but they’re a good troupe. I hammed it up, but they’re all really talented, so I guess it worked out.” Even when I flubbed my lines, they changed up their own to make it seem like I didn’t mess up. Anyone could have played my role, really. I just happened to look the part.

“They do seem like a good troupe,” Lorraine agreed. “I was even thinking about introducing them to an acquaintance I have in the Empire.”

“You should do that. I would hate to see their talent squandered by lack of opportunity.”

“I’ll do that then. By the way, did you hear what happened at the theater?”

“Hm?”

“So many people came to watch this show that they didn’t have much of an audience. They should have stuck to their plans.”

“I see. I guess they made a big mistake.”

Lorraine laughed. “Well, this was pretty fun. Tell me if anything like this happens again.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t, but I’ll consider it.”

Heirloom Management

“Sorry, Rentt. You’re a pretty strong adventurer, right? You should be above this,” a middle-aged woman said as she restlessly moved her hands. Her name was Rota, and she was from an ordinary household in Maalt. Her grandfather was an adventurer, but I never knew him.

“Oh, I don’t mind. That’s just the kind of job this is. I saw it was about cleaning a house and took it anyway, so it’s on me.”

I was here for a house cleaning job. Not Rota’s house, but that of her grandfather. He passed away the other day and Rota inherited the house and all his assets, so she needed to sort it all out. Her family could have done it on their own, but the fact that Rota’s grandfather was an adventurer presented a problem.

Most adventurers did some dungeon diving, and dungeons were full of special magic items. Finding and selling them was the quickest way for an adventurer to make money. That seemed to be what Rota’s grandfather was doing. But while some magic items sold just fine, others didn’t because their uses were unclear. Unsure of what to do with those items, many adventurers would leave them lying around the house.

That was fine as long as the adventurer kept track of them, but it became an issue when their family inherited their assets. They wouldn’t be able to tell which items were dangerous and which weren’t. Sometimes a magic item could injure them or cause a huge disaster. To avoid that, most families sought help from other adventurers when sorting out these belongings. That was the purpose of this job.

“I appreciate your attitude. I wish I could have sorted these out on my own, but his will said that some of the magic items might be dangerous. At least it kept my relatives from hounding me about the inheritance, though.”

“They belonged to an adventurer, after all. I guess they thought some of these things could be fairly valuable. But they valued their lives more. That was probably smart of them.”

“And very calculating, but yes. It doesn’t seem like anything has been dangerous so far, though.”

I finished going through most of the heirlooms, but they all seemed to be safe. It was possible that her grandfather’s will only said what it did to keep her relatives away.

When I told that to Rota, she thought for a bit and then nodded. “He was certainly wise,” she said. “Maybe he did have that in mind. If so, I may have wasted money paying for this job.”

I almost agreed to that, but then I noticed something strange between two shelves. “Maybe you didn’t waste your money after all.”

“Oh, did you find something?”

“Yeah, look at this.” I’d found a cube about the size of my palm.

“What’s that?”

“Probably a magic item. I can feel mana flowing through it. It doesn’t seem active, though, and it’ll take some research to figure out the effects. I think Lorraine could appraise it, if you’re interested.”

Rota knew a lot of people around Maalt, including Lorraine. She knew what Lorraine was like and knew her occupation as well. “Sounds good. Would you mind asking her? I’ll pay her for it, of course.”

“Sure, then I’ll be taking this.”

“Thanks.”

I finished cleaning the house by that night and then headed off to see Lorraine.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I see, this belonged to Rota’s grandfather? It’s certainly a magic item,” Lorraine said after taking a close look at the cube.

“Well, I don’t think it’s anything too dangerous, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. You don’t see a lot of magic items that look like this, so I decided against filling it with mana while I was there.”

“These types are rare, yes, but I’ve seen one before.”

“Oh, you know something about this already?”

“Yes. I’ll pour mana into it now.”

Lorraine let a little mana flow into the cube. It was sitting on the dinner table, so I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but Lorraine wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Well, maybe she would, but she at least must have thought this would be safe.

The cube didn’t appear to do anything dangerous, but glowing particles began to float from it. Then they condensed into an image in the air. Now I knew what this cube was too.

“This magic item is used to create projections, right? These are pretty rare, but they’re not impossible to get ahold of. I’ve never seen one that’s cube-shaped, though. Or this size, either. They usually look like crystals.”

“Yes, that’s how they tend to look in Maalt. In the Empire, they’re often cube-shaped. Ones this small are only found fairly deep in a dungeon, though. Rota’s grandfather must have been a decent adventurer.”

“I see. This image is unexpected, though.”

Lorraine paused before saying, “I think this magic item would go for a fair bit, but I don’t expect Rota to sell it.”

“Probably not. Maybe her grandfather wanted to keep his relatives away so it wouldn’t be sold.”

“That would make sense. Well, bring it to her tomorrow,” Lorraine said. I nodded.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I see, so that’s what this magic item does. This is a very clean image of the past.”

I delivered the magic item to Rota the next day, and when I showed her how it worked, she gazed at it with a nostalgic look on her face. The image depicted Rota’s grandfather, his son and daughter-in-law, and their baby, Rota.

“I can tell you about a place where this’d sell for a decent price,” I said, but I didn’t expect her to take me up on the offer.

She smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m keeping this. It’s not like I’m hurting for money anyway. And even if I were, I could never sell this. Thanks, Rentt. I’m glad I asked for your help. If not, maybe I never would’ve learned what this was.”

I doubted that, but if her relatives did the cleaning, maybe that could have happened.

“No problem,” I said.

A Researcher’s Nature

“What? Well, uh, but...”

As I was napping on the second floor of Lorraine’s house, I heard someone speaking on the floor below. We must have had a visitor. Lorraine was an alchemist and a magic medic, so she received her fair share of visitors at night. People would suddenly fall ill and come for medicine and such. I didn’t think she had to go out of her way to assist everyone who came to her doorstep, but Lorraine was always happy to help. When someone came to see her out of concern for their family, she almost never ignored them. She did turn particularly awful people away, though, so she wasn’t too generous.

I thought that this was one of those people looking for medicine at first, but if so, then their conversation was lasting an oddly long time. Lorraine would usually just ask about their symptoms and hand over some concoction. Maybe it was about something else, but it was wrong to eavesdrop, I guess. I tried to ignore what I heard and go back to sleep, but a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

“Lorraine?” I said as I cocked my head, got up, and opened the door. There stood the head of the household.

“Yes, sorry to bother you so late.”

“It’s fine. Does this have something to do with your guest?”

“You heard us? Well, you do have incredible ears, so I suppose you would. That makes things quick, then.”

“Hold it, I didn’t hear exactly what it was about. I could have, but I thought it best not to listen. You’ll have to explain.”

“Thanks for being considerate,” Lorraine said. “All right, I have a bit of a favor to ask.”

What Lorraine described to me was just a bit disheartening. She sounded like she didn’t even even want to discuss it, but I could tell it was something that had to be dealt with.

“So a scholar you know caused an accident at their research facility in Maalt. It isn’t a problem for that scholar, but now the facility is full of dangerous gas and there may be modified monsters living there. And you want me to do something about it?”

“That’s the idea. It’s not that big of a facility. You know that building that looks like a warehouse next to that blue spire?”

I immediately thought of the building she meant. I’d lived in this town for a decade, so I knew what was where.

“That? I never knew it was used for experiments.”

“It’s privately owned, so there’s no sign or anything. But they’ve gotten some decent results there. They aren’t lacking in funding either. But they’re having trouble cleaning up after this mess, so they came crying to me. I could ask another adventurer, but the gas seems to be pretty bad. They’ve kept it from leaking outside, but nobody can get inside.”

“But this acquaintance thought you could go inside?”

“I’m Silver-class, after all. And I know a lot about alchemy, so they thought I could handle it. They overestimate me, though. I was going to say nothing could be done, but I do have you. Gas would have no effect on you, would it?”

“That’s true, it wouldn’t. Well, I got it. I just need to kill all the monsters, right?”

“Right. According to them, the gas should be neutralized within a few days, so we don’t need to worry about that. I imagine that most human beings would still be worried about it, though.”

“I’m glad this job is perfect for me,” I said as I got ready to leave. “I’ll be off, then.”

“It’s in your hands.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Well, well, there are some interesting monsters living in here.”

When I got to the research facility, a few robed sorcerers were standing outside the building. They were probably researchers. When I told them I was here to slay the monsters, they guided me to the entrance.

“You can enter through here,” one said. “We’ve used magic to keep the gas from leaking out, so don’t concern yourself with that. But this gas makes monsters go wild, so be careful.”

“Thanks for the unpleasant information. Well, at least I know what the gas does. What types of monsters are there?”

“Slimes and goblins, and slimes and orcs, but...”

“But what?”

“I think you’ll understand when you see them. Good luck.”

That didn’t sound good, but I just sighed and went inside. The building was fairly large, but when one monster spotted a human, the rest would gather around as well. I couldn’t exactly call myself human, but I looked humanoid enough that they might see me as worth attacking. That made things quick, so that was nice.

But the monsters themselves were a problem. I saw what the researcher was talking about. There were goblin-shaped slimes and orc-shaped slimes. Slimes could change their shape in an attempt to intimidate foes, but only more advanced slimes could imitate other monsters this accurately. These didn’t look as powerful as those advanced slimes, however. They were just a little stronger than an ordinary slime. Lorraine’s acquaintance probably created these, whether on purpose or by accident. Maybe this actually made that acquaintance an excellent researcher. But I couldn’t just run away. If I did, a whole new type of monster might start to thrive in the wild. I had to stop them all here. So I drew my sword, charged it with spirit, and dashed at them.

To my surprise, the goblin and orc slimes both moved exactly like the monsters they were copying. I didn’t know how these could have been created, but they were amazing. Just on a technical level though; they weren’t that strong. The gas probably had some effect on them too, making their movements exceedingly repetitive. It seemed like it made them more powerful too, but they were no match for me. I destroyed all of their cores in one strike.

I left the research facility and told the researcher who I presumed to be Lorraine’s acquaintance that I’d defeated all the monsters. The researcher looked somewhat disappointed but said, “What’s important is that nobody was hurt. Thank goodness for that.” It didn’t sound like she was a mad scientist, at least.

“If something like this ever happens again, just tell me. Gas like this doesn’t pose much problem to me.”

I’d said it to make her feel better, but it made her eyes light up. “Oh, very interesting. Could I do some research on you?” she asked.

At that, I frantically ran away. “What else should I have expected from an acquaintance of Lorraine’s? She’s just like her, in a way,” I muttered to myself as I rushed to Lorraine’s house.