Petty gamer

"A… o… of course…"

Even though he sobered up in an instant, Terry felt very nauseous as he nodded and prepared the graphite plate.

"Can we finally start?"

"Yes. Sorry for the delay~"

The other guild member asked with a slightly annoyed expression, and the gold-haired girl nodded with a bright smile.

As turning in the monster corpses progressed, the slightly greenish in the face receptionist kept marking the gold-haired girl's quests as completed while forced to listen to the occasional gasps of his colleague singing praises to the marvelous state of the carcasses.

"Y-you put in some good work… haha…"

Terry gulped down his saliva and let out an awkward laugh while looking at the tall man with black hair and white roots.

"A leg work, sure."

"...?"

But the response he got was an absentmindedly light shrug of shoulders and a dismissive sigh.

"A… ahaha~! I see. Of course, those monsters can't even count as a warm-up for a man of your power!"

The receptionist quickly recovered, trying to show that he was on the man's side in his struggle working for the gold-haired girl.

Or, at least, that was what was happening in Terry's mind.

"...yeah…"

Zane closed his eyes and breathed out - Melinda explicitly told him not to clear up any misunderstandings about who had done the bulk of the hunting, and he, of course, agreed to do just that…

But seriously, the annoyed and almost disgusted glares the receptionist was sending Melinda when he thought no one was watching him made the monstrous servant's blood boil.

"...!"

Zane looked to the side to save himself the anger and then immediately flinched, noticing the way Adrianna was glaring at the rude man who thought he was being coy.

The brown-haired maid looked at the receptionist as if he was some filth rolling towards the gold-haired noble, and she, for once, was barely holding herself back from kicking it into oblivion.

The monstrous servant was completely sure that if not for Adrianna's ability, the rude bastard would have, daring to use some crass language here, shit himself already.

It was hard not to notice, but the brown-haired maid became extremely overprotective of Melinda, becoming the main damage dealer at the end of their hunting trip despite being so shaken and wanting to go back earlier.

And honestly… Zane wouldn't be surprised if Adrianna actually managed to kick the receptionist's head clean off his shoulders and not even be acknowledged by the other guild staff member.

"...that… that would be all of the quests you took today…"

"TODAY?!"

When the receptionists took back the final quest note from the gold-haired girl, his colleague let out a baffled shout that got the attention of the people walking by the mostly unblocked street…

Mostly unlocked - because there still was quite a lot of monster corpses waiting to get cashed in…

"That's alright. Oh, but we do have some monsters from the higher-rank quests, which I couldn't take on at the time. Will turning them in like that count as me completing those quests or just like additional monster loot?"

The girl asked innocently with a wide smile, but her eyes focused on the profusely sweating receptionist were as cold as ice.

"...i-in case of a precedent like that, even if the adventurer's rank would not allow them to accept the quest, the guild is obliged to acknowledge the quests as completed since their objectives are met…"

"Isn't that a lovely precedent~"

The receptionist gulped down his saliva and spoke hesitantly, often clearing his throat, but that very unease was much to the gold-haired girl's liking.

"Wi-with all of that, we can pay up all the quests rewards, but when it comes to the carapace of the… the Snapping Demon Turtle…. since it wasn't an ongoing quest for it and the guild didn't foresee anyone hunting creature like that down, we do not have the money available at this moment…"

As all but one monster corpse had been turned in, the sickly-looking receptionist holding the graphite plate in his trembling arms pointed out, feeling too nauseous to dare to look the gold-haired girl in the eyes.

"The adventuring guild doesn't have money for monsters?"

"?!?!"

A brown-haired maid, whom the receptionist didn't even notice standing there the whole time, spoke up with dissatisfaction, causing the man to flinch and stare at her, wondering what she had to do with anything.

"I-I mean, normally we do, b-but this gentleman has brought us the Blood-Sigil Bear that had the extermination quest put up by the guild itself and… well… the bear was keeping to its territory, and the quest was up mainly to deter the adventuring parties of rank B and lower from attempting it and…"

"..."

The receptionist fidgeted and began explaining nervously before closing his mouth and turning his head away, realizing that he had said way too much.

"The money for that one can wait. We have the time."

The gold-haired girl shrugged her shoulders before looking to the side and smirking at the Snapping Demon Turtle's beak resting on top of its shell.

Finding it was very lucky, as both of her servants were sure that she had blown the part apart.

"Oh, and we do have a few stat-boosting pearls, too. And since they can only be used by characters under level 40, we might as well cash them in, too… but I guess we will have to wait to get paid for them as well, wouldn't we?"

The girl added while taking a bag previously used to carry clothes from the brown-haired maid and taking out a shiny pearl the size of a tangerine, smiling at her own reflection on the surface of the item.

"!!!"

At that point, Terry's eyes bulged out, and he almost dropped the graphite plate.

"Here, they aren't sorted though. Sorry for the trouble."

"No, no, no! I wish to have that kind of trouble every day, Miss!"

Melinda threw the pearl back into the bag and handed the whole thing to the other guild staff member, who was literally blushing from excitement over the loot he had been passed.

"I'm glad to hear that~"

The girl smiled, leaning forward and playfully leaning her head…