Chapter 153

Apparently, being a B-ranked adventurer was a title that held great prestige in St. Point, although I didn't know about other places.

Everyone was looking at me as if I had a death wish.

Even Hugson tilted his head at my words.

What did I just hear?

That was what he seemed to be thinking. The gesture was only cute when Harriet did it, if some old geezer did it, it was simply disgusting.

"Do you want me to repeat myself? Let her go."

"…Who are you to order me around?"

Hugson spoke to me in a commanding tone, looking down on me as he approached me.

"Then who are you to order her around and just tell her to follow you, even though she hasn't answered yet, geezer?"

You don't want to get ordered around, then why do you do it to others?

Well.

It wasn't anything special—humans want to just passively depend on each other, after all. I was similar, sometimes.

However, I couldn't stand it if someone did that to my people!

Eleris looked at me with a strange expression tugging on her lips.

It seemed that Eleris was the most surprised about my sudden actions, more so than anyone else.

"Do I need to wait for an answer? Our party can offer her the best conditions and the best results. There's no need to even think about it."

St. Point wasn't a very large base, and according to Loyar, its surroundings were rather safe.

So it wasn't a place high-ranking adventurers would go to. Hugson's party was the highest-ranked party in the area. The others seemed to accept that as well.

In other words, someone from a big corporation came to scout a talent that was getting recruitment offers by countless small businesses, so why did he have to even ask for her opinion on that? Of course she would say yes to that offer.

Well…

After I thought about it, he was kind of right…

No.

It was different in that case, though.

It didn't matter if he was part of some huge conglomerate or some rich second generation!

"Anyway, you can't just drag someone away without asking for their opinion."

"You… Yeah, Miss Wizard. So are you going to come along or not?"

"Ah…"

Eleris, her expression rather vague, looked at Hugson, who was glaring at her slightly.

"…I must refuse, after all."

"…?"

At those words, Hugson and the people watching had quite bizarre expressions on their faces.

That girl.

She turned down the offer of a large corporation!

For who does she even wait for her to turn him down!

That was what their expressions seemed to shout. Hugson stared at her, seeming as if he had never even imagined that his proposal would get turned down.

"…I don't know what rank you have as a wizard, but do you think you can afford to reject my offer?"

Hugson was asking if she was a wizard strong enough to demand such high prices. At those words, Eleris shook her head.

"I don't think that… But I hate people who act like you."

Eleris looked at me while gently pulling her arm out of his grip.

"Rather than someone who has excellent skills but is much too dogmatic, I'd like to work with someone… who may lack skill but at least asked for my opinion first."

And like that, Eleris directed the conversation to wanting to join my party. She declined that guy and—at the same time—added a natural reason why she would want to join me.

That's right. I didn't step in for nothing.

Not only Hugson, but everyone inside the inn was astonished at Eleris's declaration.

* * *

In the end, Hugson said that he didn't like it but couldn't force Eleris to join him.

Even if he managed to drag her away, Eleris wouldn't have joined his party, but Hugson still glared at me with an overbearing look, perhaps thinking that he lost the wizard he was about to bring over because of me.

"…You look like a rookie, but it would be better if you didn't act so unruly."

I was going to say something, but the look in Eleris's eyes told me everything.

'Don't talk any nonsense!'

That silent pressure forced me to just nod slowly.

"Ah yeah. Excuse me for being a rookie."

"…"

You were still alive because of Eleris, got that?

Hugson left the inn. Eleris then rushed up to me and reached out her hand.

"I'm Relya. Nice to meet you."

I had never met Eleris in that form before. She promised to act as if she didn't know me and that it was our first meeting, even if it was just to prevent Ellen from suspecting anything.

"I'm Reinhardt."

I noticed the envious eyes of the guys directed at me; it probably wasn't just because I managed to get a wizard to join my party.

* * *

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Ellen had wiped her hair with a towel and slipped into her casual clothes, probably while I was causing a fuss downstairs.

And then, I brought Eleris into the room to introduce her.

"…You really brought her."

Ellen was a little dazed as didn't expect me to actually bring the wizard to our side.

"I'm Relya."

"…I'm Ellen."

They shook hands. Ellen seemed rather awkward as she didn't expect to welcome another member into her party.

"I don't know what conditions Reinhardt offered you, but… we don't have the money to pay a wizard like you."

"Conditions? Oh, I don't need anything."

"…?"

I explained to Ellen what happened downstairs.

Of course, Ellen still wasn't convinced. It seemed strange that she turned down all those amazing conditions to join us, no matter how much I kind of saved her from a tough situation.

"Actually, I'm not really a high-ranked wizard… However, seeing how much those people offered me, it's clear that they are expecting a lot from me… So I felt really troubled… Rather than getting treated preferentially, I feel much more comfortable working with someone on equal footing. People think that all wizards are Archwizards."

It seemed that Eleris had already thought of an excuse.

If one received preferential treatment, people would have great expectations of one's abilities. She said that she had been refusing every offer because she was afraid of disappointing them if she wasn't able to meet their expectations later on.

"…That's true."

Ellen nodded her head slowly as if she had found her explanation plausible. Of course, she probably hadn't fully loosened her guard yet.

"I can use some attack magic and some support magic."

Eleris didn't specify what magic spells she could cast. She only used vague expressions like, "some", "a little", and "to a certain extent".

Anyway, Eleris ended up joining us, so I could stop worrying so much about unexpected situations occurring.

"By the way, how did you end up in that difficult situation anyway?"

I was most curious about that.

Wizards didn't have 'wizard' written on their foreheads, nor did Eleris wear a robe or show off her magic.

How did people get wind that she was a wizard?

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On the surface I was just asking her, but it was actually more like an order. Eleris scratched her cheek with a vague smile on her lips.

"Aah… Well, there were some people that had been bothering me, so… I punished them a bit with my magic…So… That's all… I didn't know it would turn out like this…"

It seemed like she used some magic to get rid of some guys who kept on hitting on her. She succeeded in driving them away, but when it got out that she was a wizard, things became even more troublesome.

Even Eleris didn't seem to know that wizards were so sought-after.

"Do you have any plans on what to do from now on?"

Eleris changed the subject, perhaps because she didn't want to talk about that anymore. She seemed to feel great shame reporting these things to me.

She told me to not get led by my temper, but she couldn't even keep hers in check, and even ended up using magic.

Ellen shook her head when she asked if we had any plans.

"We were going to make our plans tomorrow."

"How about we come up with something together?"

We sat around the table in our double room.

We came to the Darklands because we needed practical experience, so we chose St. Point, which was the safest place around there.

"Do you have a map?"

"Yes."

Ellen and I opened up the map of the Darklands we had gotten from the Thieves' Guild. Most areas were left blank, but they would continue to be filled out depending on how much progress the adventurers made.

The Exian Outpost was located in the westernmost part of the Darklands, and the eastern part was gradually getting explored.

The adventurer' bases spread out like spiderwebs around the route the Allied Forces had taken towards the east, with the Exian Outpost being their starting point. If I had to use a different simile to describe its shape, it would be a tree root.

St. Point was one of the places seen as relatively safe.

The further north one went, the more dangerous the areas would get, and the deeper eastern parts were also very dangerous. Higher-ranked adventurers were probably pioneering those areas at the forefront. Of course, there was no reason for lower-ranked adventurers to go to those places, so there were some who went there so that they wouldn't miss out.

Ellen and I also did some preliminary research, but Eleris definitely knew more than just the basics.

…And she obviously also knew more about the Darklands than any other adventurer.

St. Point was located to the south of the eastern advance route, so the area we would mainly explore was the south, not the north.

"Actually, the exploration of this area is almost complete, so it would be difficult to obtain any new information. There are no particularly dangerous areas, and at best, there are only requests to make a more detailed map of the area… Do you know how to draw maps?"

"No."

"Not at all."

Eleris knew more detailed information than us because she got there long before us, which meant she understood St. Point's situation a lot better.

St. Point was safe, so the only requests available were creating detailed maps of the area. However, none of us knew how to draw maps.

"As you know, this place is just a waypoint before Klitz Point, which would be a day's journey going south. It seems that a lot of the area has already been pioneered, but there are rumors of demons appearing in its vicinity. There were quite a few eyewitness reports, or so it seems. Of course, there weren't any casualties, though."

A full day's trip going south… Then we would reach Klitz Point. St. Point was just a waypoint, preparing one for the journey to Klitz Point.

The area around Klitz Point had been explored, but not completely. It seemed that there were some eyewitness reports of demons appearing in the area.

"And further south from Klitz Point… that's where problems had been cropping up from recently."

"Problems?"

Eleris nodded at Ellen's question.

The Points were base-like constructs built by humans as they explored the Darklands that acted as supply bases for adventurers.

St. Point wasn't too far east from the Exian Outpost, so they were still pretty close to each other.

St. Point was located south of the Eastern Advance Route.

Since its purpose was to enable adventurers to explore the South further, new Points would be built when they found appropriate regions for those bases as they continued south.

Eleris placed her finger on the map. St. Point, that split off the Eastern Advance Route, and the other Points that were located along the way deeper into the south.

Als Point, the main base located deepest in the south, was split into three different bases, Als-1, Als-2, and Als-3. This might have been done to broaden the exploration area. As for the Southern Exploration Route, stretching from St. Point: Als-1, 2, and 3 made up its forefront.

Eleris pointed to the Als Point.

"Recently, we lost contact with the bases furthest to the south, including Als Point. A specific reason or cause for this has yet to be discovered. Rumors say that some adventurers set out to investigate, but it doesn't seem like they have found anything yet. Speculations suggest that Als Point was probably attacked or destroyed."

"…So what happened to the other three Points connected to Als Point?"

Ellen's expression hardened, seeming to know that the situation was more than unusual.

"They must have become isolated."

Als Point should have played an important role in providing supplies to the other three bases in the south. However, since the waypoint bridging them to the other bases collapsed, it was impossible to deliver supplies to the frontlines.

Therefore, the people who were at Als-1, 2, and 3 are probably isolated from everything.

For some reason, the waypoint had been destroyed recently, and adventurers went to investigate, but there hadn't been any results yet.

"Unless one planned on staying in St. Point and only doing work around the base, the biggest request in all the other bases in the south is to escort convoys storing supplies for those isolated bases. The convoys also seem to contain material to reconstruct Als Point as well as supplies for the three Points further south."

It was presumed that Als Point collapsed. However, the truth behind the incident had yet to be revealed.

It was still necessary to provide the three frontline bases, cut off from any normal supply road, with supplies as soon as possible.

Therefore, convoys were organized to deliver supplies to the three southernmost bases, and escorting those convoys was the biggest task available in the south.

There wasn't much one could do if one decided to stay in St. Point.

However, if one planned on leaving St. Point, treading into more dangerous areas, then the thing most requested was escorting convoys.

I looked at Ellen.

"What are we going to do?"

"…"

The choice was left with Ellen. Exploring the vicinity of St. Point might not be very tempting for Ellen.

"Let's join the convoy."

As I had thought, Ellen chose to do something bigger.