Chapter 27: Promotion to A-Rank and Departing to a New Stage

 

“Rex-san, congratulations on your promotion to A-Rank.”

It was now a couple days after we had returned to Hexi from Tougai.

When I went to collect the rewards for selling the materials of monsters I had defeated in the forest during Liliella-san’s training, the receptionist suddenly declared that I had gone up a Rank.

“You did it, Rex-san!”

Liliella-san was as happy as if it had happened to her.

“Umm… thank you very much.”

“What, you’re pretty quiet in comparison to what just happened, y’know.”

Yeah, I guess.

“To be honest, it doesn’t feel real.
I’ve only been an adventurer for a month and a bit, but I’m already A-Rank.”

“Ah, I guess you do have a point.
Normally, it takes years to rank up.”

“How many months did it take you to get to B-Rank, Liliella-san?”

I asked her, suddenly becoming curious about how long it had taken her and how long it generally took to rank up.

“Just asking how many months it took is already strange.
I became E-Rank in my first month.
F to E is basically nothing, so anyone can do it as long as they keep completing requests.
But then it took me three months to get to D-Rank.
Then from that to C-Rank over half a year, and I only just became B-Rank recently to tell you the truth.”

“Heeee, it takes quite long, doesn’t it.”

“That’s right, normally it takes longer!”

“Yes yes whadeba”

What’s she pulling at my cheeks for!

“To be frank, Liliella-san was also quite fast.”

The receptionist joined our conversation.

“Really?”

“Yes, normally it takes people from around half a year up to a year to go from E-Rank to D-Rank.
Then, talent starts playing a role from there onwards, and it takes anywhere from a year to two to get promoted to C-Rank on average, or maybe even three or four years depending on the situation.
Getting B-Rank depends mostly on effort, but that also usually takes years and years.”

“Heee, I didn’t know that.”

Wait, why’s Liliella-san surprised?

“But we think that the most important thing for raising your adventurer Rank is enthusiasm!”

“Enthusiasm?”

“Yes, people who are fine with just earning enough to stay alive even if they have talent will stay stuck around C-Rank, while if someone has some powerful drive even if they don’t have talent, they can still get enough power to be B-Rank or even near A-Rank depending on how strong their drive is.
The time it takes to rank up also differs mostly due to this difference in enthusiasm and motivation.”

““I see.””

“So basically in Liliella-san’s case, not only did she have talent, but she also wanted to save her mum and the people from her village, making her rank up many times faster than the normal person.”

“It’s a little embarrassing to hear you say it out loud.”

Liliella-san said, fidgeting, her face red from embarrassment.

The shy Liliella-san is also cuteee.

“Kyuu kyuu”

Then the furball also began fidgeting for some reason.

Is it trying to mimic her?

“One other criterion is whether they jump into dangerous requests without hesitation.”

“Dangerous jobs?”

“Yes, not only do they pay well, they also have a large effect on the guild’s rank assessment.
As such, people who took the initiative on such dangerous jobs will find it easier for their Ranks to go up.”

I see, so there’s quite a few conditions for a rank-up.

“However…”

The receptionist looked at me hesitantly.

“However?”

“…However, there are people who have such ridiculous talent that their effort and enthusiasm pale in comparison.”

Yeah, there are people like that.
People who easily surpass you while you’re frantically trying your best.

“I know what you mean.
I really do.”

“Kyuun”

Liliella-san and the furball said, nodding to each other in agreement.

“Riiight.
Why are people with talent like that so unreasonable?”

““““““You shut up!””””””

“Eeh!?”

What was that for!? And wait, they heard all that!?

“Good grief.”

“Seriously.”

Everyone sat back down in their chairs with faces that clearly said ‘He really had to go and say it’ for some reason.

How unreasonable.

“Erm, anyway, congratulations on your promotion to A-Rank.”

The receptionist congratulated me on my rank-up again.

“Thank you very much.”

Yeah, that’s right.
I should just be happy I was promoted to A-Rank.

“Let’s have something delicious to eat as celebration then, shall we?”

“All right.
You’re paying though, Rex-kun.”

“Kyuu!”

“H-huh? Aren’t we celebrating something that happened to me!?”

“Ahaha, it was a joke! Let’s go!”

Liliella-san said, dragging me along to the guild’s tavern part.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing that there’s actually someone to celebrate with me.

I wasn’t able to experience something like this during my travels on my own.

♦ ♦

“Then, in celebration of Rex-san’s promotion to A-Rank, cheers!”

“““Cheers!!”””

Our voices rang out simultaneously with Liliella-san’s.

Huh? Our?

“Maaaan, congrats!”

“Yes, it is a joyous occasion, a new A-Rank being born in our guild.”

On second glance, it turned out two familiar people were sitting on either side of the table.

“Ivan-san!? Mirisha-san!?”

“Yeah! Congrats on becoming A-Rank!”

“Congratulations on becoming A-Rank, Rex-san.”

The two of them had suddenly appeared at our table.

“Uhh, thanks?”

“C’mon, drink.”

Ivan-san said, pouring alcohol into my cup.

“Uh, t-thanks.”

“But still, to think the rookie that arrived not long ago is already A-Rank.
‘Mazin.”

“Indeed.
I never would have imagined you would build roads through the forest of monsters, or defeat an S-Rank monster.”

Ivan-san and Mirisha-san kept on praising me.

“You’re giving me too much credit.
All I did was normal adventuring.”

“Normal, huh.”

“Normal, you say?”

Ivan-san and Mirisha-san’s expressions suddenly changed.

“You did some ridiculously unbelievable things, and this is normal?”

“What kind of normal is that?”

The two of them looked at me inquisitively.

“Hey, Rex.”

“Just who are you?”

Eh? They ask me who I am… how should I answer?

I can’t tell them I reincarnated…

“Alright, stop there, you two! Any more than that will be an invasion of his privacy!”

Liliella-san said, stepping in.

“Not asking about others’ pasts is a rule amongst adventurers, is it not?”

Liliella-san said, glaring at them, and the two of them looked away like scolded children.

“Honestly.
Your actions aren’t befitting an A-Rank adventurer and the guild chief’s assistant at all.”

“Eh? Ivan-san, you’re A-Rank?”

“Ara, you didn’t know, Rex-san?”

Yeah, I didn’t ask what his rank was even once.

“Ah, yeah, I never told you, did I.
Well, you need to be at least B-Rank to enter the forest.
And there’s not that big a difference between A and B anyway.”

“There is for the guild.”

“Gahahaha”

Bursting out into laughter, Ivan-san downed the rest of the alcohol in his mug in high spirits.

“Hang on, did you just try to change topics?”

““Eek””

Ah, they tried to change subjects.

It’s what grown-ups do.

“Ah, now that I think of it, there was something I wanted to ask you, Mirisha-san.”

“Do I have a boyfriend, you ask? Well…”

“Eh!? N-no, that wasn’t it!”

“A pity.”

That shocked me.
Why did she start talking about that all of a sudden.

Well, I do think she’s beautiful for an adult woman.

“So, what did you want to ask?”

“Umm, when will the Ancient Plant’s auction start?”

I wanted to know what was going on with the Ancient Plant that had been put up for auction.

I was currently staying in Hexi because that auction was still going on, so I couldn’t set off on a journey until it had finished.

“I think it’ll take a while longer.
You can’t hold an auction unless you have a certain amount of products, and everyone spent quite a lot of money on that Dragon last month, so I’d say it’ll take another month at least.”

“A month!? It’s going to take that long!?”

“My my, is there some problem?”

“Well, erm…”

I told them how we wanted to leave the town soon, and how we had to wait for the Ancient Plant’s auction to end before we could do so.

“I see.
It would be unnatural for someone like you to stay in one place for too long.
Or rather, it’s only natural to want to go to new lands.”

She wasn’t wrong.
And due to that, I began considering whether I should just cancel the auction.

“Then, why don’t you go to the royal capital?”

“To the royal capital? Why?”

Mirisha-san’s proposal confused me.
What did the royal capital have to do with anything?

“Well you see, the auction will be held in the royal capital.
The items put up by the guild are taken to the auction’s venue, where the bidding can begin.
So, why don’t you do some adventuring from the royal capital while waiting for the auction to start?”

I see.
And now that I think about it, I seem to remember them saying that the auction for the Green Dragon would be held in the royal capital too.

“If the two of you are looking for new adventures, I recommend the royal capital.
It is the core of our country after all, so not only are there more requests, they are also better quality.”

I feel kinda excited with how Mirisha-san described it.

I glanced at Liliella-san.

We were a party, so we couldn’t just do what I wanted.

“I have to go with you to repay my debts, so I’ll follow you wherever you want to go.”

“But if you have anywhere you want to go, tell me, all right?”

“I don’t have anywhere I want to go right now.
I was doing my utmost to find a way to cure Alza, so I had no time to think about other things.”

“If that is the case, I also recommend the royal capital for you, Liliella-san.
It’s the heart of the nation, so there will be plenty of pretty clothes and accessories.”

“…I guess it can’t hurt?”

Hm, she seems to want to go now.

Going to places you want to go to is way more fun than being told to go there by someone else.

“Then, our next destination: the royal capital!”

“Woooh!”

“Kyuuu!”

“Alright, a toast to Rex’s new journey!”

Ivan-san said, raising his mug up high in even higher spirits.

“Don’t you just want to drink though?”

“That goes without saying! Gahahaha!”

And with our next destination decided upon, we revelled late into the night under the name of a pre-departure-party.

♦ ♦

“Shall we go then?”

“Yes.”

“Kyuu!”

The next morning, we met up at the town’s entrance with all our luggage.

Reason being, Mirisha-san had said there was something she wanted to give us before we left.

“Everything about the auction is written in this letter, so please give it to the guild in the royal capital.
If you do, they’ll pay you the money from the auction over there instead of you having to come back here.”

Said Mirisha-san, who had come to see us off, handing me a letter.

I see, so it was because of this.

“Thank you, and sorry for having you do this for us.”

“Not at all, it is my job after all.
Take care, you two.
Please stop by here if you’re ever in the area again.”

“Yeah, we definitely will!”

With that short farewell over, I tried to pick Liliella-san and the furball up, but the two of them backed away from me for some reason.

“Erm, we can’t fly if I don’t hold on to you?”

“But we’re finally getting to go on a bigger adventure, so flying would just ruin the experience!”

“Kyuu!”

The furball nodded in agreement with Liliella-san.

“But, then, what should we do?”

I asked, and they both?? chuckled.

“This!”

Said Liliella-san, holding out a piece of paper.

“This is… an escort request?”

“Indeed, a bodyguard request all the way to the royal capital.
And since it’s a request from a caravan of multiple merchants, there will be a lot of adventurers participating, making it relatively safe.
Well, in exchange, the request’s rank is low and it doesn’t pay much, but if you want to go along the highways, doing so in the company of a caravan is the most basic of basics.”

It was indeed true that there were many stories about the great swordsman Raigard guarding merchants from monsters and robbers.

“You’re amazing Liliella-san! Escort requests like this are indispensable to being an adventurer!”

“Indeed! I have already accepted the request, so let us head to the client!”

“Yes, right away!”

Liliella-san’s amazing! She even accepted the request already!

Alright! I’ll have to do my best!

“Yay!”

“Yokkyu!”

Liliella-san and the furball made triumphant poses for some reason.

Well aren’t they full of motivation.

♦ ♦

“Man, I never would’ve thought that even an A-Rank adventurer would accept the request.”

Having met up with the client, we set off along the highway not long after.

And along the way, the merchants kept talking to me, finding someone so young being an A-Rank adventurer rather strange yet curious.

“Ahaha, I just ranked up yesterday.”

“Nono, being A-Rank at your age is still really impressive.
The young lady’s B-Rank too, right? With an A-Rank and a B-Rank here, I won’t get scared no matter what monsters come!”

““““That’s right, hahahahaha!””””

The other merchants laughed along in good moods.

Well, I guess it’s okay if it gives them peace of mind.

♦ ♦

“This is it for us!!”

The merchants who had said it would be fine no matter what came earlier were now trembling in fear.

And not just the merchants.
Even the adventurers with their weapons at the ready were trembling, their faces pale.

“H-how come such a huge number of monsters is attacking us!?”

Indeed, as they were saying, we were surrounded by a group of monsters.

And quite a lot of them at that.
Probably around 300.

Had there been an outbreak of monsters in the area lately?

“Forest Wolves, Ogre Bears, and even Arkcoatls!? Why are different species even attacking us together!?”

Everyone was trembling so much they wouldn’t be of much help in a fight.

Because the request’s rank was low, there were a lot of E- and F-Rank adventurers.

“Hey, what do we do?”

Liliella-san asked me calmly.

As expected of a B-Rank adventurer, with these kinds of monsters, they wouldn’t be a match for her no matter how many of them there were.

“I’ll thin out their numbers, so please crush the one left over afterwards.”

“All right.”

“H-hey! D-don’t you understand the situation!? Thinning out their numbers a bit won’t be of much help!”

The adventurers shouted at us, almost in tears.

Don’t be so scared.

“We can easily defeat this many if everyone fights.”

I said to cheer everyone up, then stepped forward to shoot some weak magic.

I guess around this much power should be enough?

“Agni Burst!!”

The scorching mana spread out in a fan-shaped pattern, attacking the monsters.

High-temperature flames made the ground boil, and the monsters caught up in it began writhing in agony as if in some mad dance as flames ran up their bodies from the ground, burning them alive.

“Liliella-san!”

“No can do, it’s too hot! Cool it down!”

Oops, my bad.

“Blizzard Coffin!!”

I cooled down the scorching land with blizzard magic.

“I cooled it down!”

“Okay, I’ll be attacking somewhere else now!”

Eh? Why?

Liliella-san ran over somewhere else for some reason.

Having strengthened her physical abilities with body strengthening magic, she closed in on the monsters one by one, decapitating them with her spear.

She almost looked as if she were dancing, and I thought it was quite a beautiful sight.

Mhm, the fruits of her training are showing immediately.

And she seems to be able to use the Dragon Emperor Style Air Spearmanship pretty well now too.

“Whoops.
I’ve got to do my job too.
I shouldn’t make it hot nor cold this time, so… Cyclone Tower!”

I used tornado magic, sending the monsters in the vicinity flying.

Everyone will be able to attack them easily like this.

Oops, I’ve got to watch out so I don’t accidentally hit Liliella-san too though.

“Everyone, now’s your chance!”

“…”

Huh? What happened to them?

“It’s already over.”

Said Liliella-san, wiping off the blood from her spear.

“Eh?”

“That tornado sent over half of them flying, and the rest ran away in fear.”

“Eeh!?”

But when I looked around, all I could see were a few stragglers struggling to run away.

“Huh, that was easier than I thought.”

“It would be for you, wouldn’t it.”

Liliella-san said, sighing.

“W-who are you two?”

The adventurers nearby asked weakly.

“I’m just an A-Rank adventurer.”

“I’m just an ordinary B-Rank adventurer, don’t lump me in together with him.”

Eh? What do you mean, Liliella-san.

“So this is what A-Rank and B-Rank adventurers are like…”

“A-Ranks are insane, man…”

Hm? This much is normal though.

“No no, I’m just a novice for an A-Rank! Actual A-Ranks are nothing like me!”

“You for real!? The hell kinda monsters are A-Ranks!?”

The adventurers were filled with wonder and fear at A-Ranks’ power.

I mean, I was just being given too much credit for some reason and become A-Rank.
It’s only obvious that the people who worked really hard to become A-Rank would be way more amazing!

“Erm, don’t go expecting too much from A-Rank adventurers, okay, you lot…?”

Eh? What do you mean, Liliella-san?