Ossan Saikyō Chapter 12 Part 07
When I showed the summons to the attendant at the gate, he led us to the inn prepared by the Royal Family. We were told to stay there until the date of the audience was decided, but naturally, it was a fairly luxurious inn.
The rooms assigned to us were two three-person rooms.
The Royal Family presumably had not expected the〈Saul's Guidance〉to have a male-to-female ratio of 1:4, and as a result, we had a bit of an argument over the room assignments. The reason was that Fraynil wanted to share a room with me.
When I told her that would be rather problematic considering my exchange with the Princess, she looked as though she were about to cry.
“I understand what Soushi is saying, but don't you think you can stop worrying about that? Everyone knows nothing is going to happen, and if I'm there too, it should be fine, right?”
“No, Rani-san. I think it would be easier to explain to the Princess if I, as a guild employee, shared the room with him.”
“High Elves have the Royal Family's trust, so perhaps I would be more appropriate. If I tell Her Highness that nothing happened, she will not pursue the matter any further.”
And so, after about 10 minutes of arguing, the decision was left to me. In the end, Freynil and Mariane would share a room with me.
I explained that Mariane was an adult woman and a guild employee in a neutral position, but it seemed I would need to reassure Rani and Sphenia later as well.
For the time being, we rested in our rooms, but Freynil did not seem to have returned to her usual self. She had a troubled expression on her face the entire time, occasionally glancing toward me as though there were something she wanted to say.
“Fray, is something bothering you?”
“Ah… yes. I believe you told me before that you didn't care about the fact that I used to be a noble.”
“Yeah, I did say that.”
“But earlier, when you spoke to Big Sister Margalotte, you said that our original social statuses were too different…”
“So that's what was bothering you?”
“Yes…”
“Well, how should I put it… I only said that because I thought Her Highness wouldn't have been satisfied otherwise. It wasn't what I really think.”
“Is that… so?”
“Of course. Fray is Fray. It doesn't matter what you used to be.”
Perhaps reassured by my words, Freynil let out a relieved sigh and her expression softened. I suppose girls really do worry about little things like that.
Freynil at least shows it in her behavior, which makes things easier, but as the leader, I need to be sensitive to even the smallest changes in my members…
Honestly, that's probably the thing I'm worst at.
Once Freynil finally seemed to calm down, Mariane had somehow changed into her guild uniform and stood up.
“Soushi-san, I'm going to stop by the Guild. I want to make sure everything is ready so that we can move immediately from tomorrow onward.”
“Got it. I might as well see what it's like too. The Guild in the Royal Capital must be pretty big, right?”
“Yes. It serves as the Headquarters for the Adventurers operating in the Kingdom, so in terms of size, it is second only to the main Headquarters in the Empire.”
“Should we tell everyone else too? What about you, Fray?”
“Of course. I will accompany you, Soushi-sama.”
And so, in the end, we all went to the Adventurer's Guild together.
It was already approaching evening, but the streets of the Royal Capital showed no sign of losing their crowds.
We were currently walking along a street one block east of the main avenue, but even here, buildings stood packed tightly together, with stalls and booths filling the spaces between them.
Naturally, countless people were busily moving about, shopping and carrying goods, and if we weren't careful while walking, we could easily bump into someone and knock them over.
There were also many different races present.
Humans, beastmen, and elves were naturally among them, but there were also races rarely seen elsewhere, such as the Oni with their short horns and the demonfolk with blue skin.
Most were ordinary citizens, though there were naturally some Adventurers here and there as well.
After walking for a while with Mariane leading the way, we came upon a particularly large four-story building. This was the Royal Capital Headquarters of the Adventurer's Guild.
Apparently, it was located away from the main avenue in order to secure space for a training ground. The monster dismantling facility was apparently located outside the city walls, with only the materials being brought inside the walls.
Overwhelmed by the building, we entered and found a space as vast as an airport lobby. Rows of quest boards lined the back, while more than 10 receptionists sat behind a long counter.
There were also easily more than 300 adventurers who had just finished their day's work, and the entire place was filled with an incredible mixture of smells from blood, sweat, iron, and all sorts of other things.
Apparently, there were many dungeons ranging from F to A-Rank in the area around the Royal Capital, which attracted a corresponding number of adventurers. Even so, I had never seen this many adventurers gathered together, not even during a large-scale subjugation.
Looking closely, I could see parties of various ranks mixed together, including several clearly high-ranked parties.
“Whew, that's a lot of people. It's making my head spin.”
Rani's eyes widened beneath her hood. Taking advantage of our experience(?) in Barbadoza, we had the other 3 women besides Mariane wear hoods this time.
“There are quite a few high-ranked parties here. As expected of the Royal Capital.”
Sphenia was looking toward a party centered around a tall female beastman. The beastwoman had a huge sword strapped to her back, and simply seeing it was enough to tell that she was at least B-Rank.
“Soushi-san, I'm going to go greet the Guildmaster. The master may summon us afterward, so please wait here for a while.”
With that, Mariane went up the stairs at the back.
Curious about what sort of quests were available in the Royal Capital, I moved toward the bulletin boards. Fray and Sphenia followed me, but for some reason, Rani headed toward the tall female beastman we had just seen.
“Hey, aren't you Karma?”
“Huh? I am Karma, but… wait, Rani!?”
When Rani called out to her, the female beastman placed both hands on Rani's shoulders with a surprised expression.
The tiger beastwoman, who was a head taller than Rani, laughed and hugged her, saying, “Long time no see!”.
Rani's head disappeared completely into the woman's rather prominent chest, and she looked like she was having a hard time breathing… She had even started tapping out, so she really was in trouble.
The beastwoman called Karma finally noticed and released Rani.
“If you've become an Adventurer, don't tell me, you've Awakened too?”
“About a year ago. It's been 3 years for you now, right, Karma?”
“Yeah, it's already been 3 years. Is the Wolf Chief doing well?”
“She* was when I left. The Tiger Chief was still doing well too, but I guess they're probably preparing for a change of chief by now.”
(E/N: * - ambiguous gender, we'll see later what the Chief's gender is.)
“Oh, I see. Well, there shouldn't be any problems with the tigers since my old man is still there, but won't things be difficult for the wolves now that Rani has become an adventurer?”
“Probably. But there's nothing I can do about it. Now that I've become an adventurer, I want to get stronger, and I'm just going to live my own life.”
“You really are something… From the sound of it, you just casually left the settlement, didn't you?”
Faced with Karma's sharp observation, Rani stuck out her tongue to play it off.
“By the way, what rank are you now, Karma?”
“B-Rank. I've been blessed with good companions, too. After only a year, you're probably still around D-Rank, aren't you, Rani?”
“Hehe, I've been blessed with good companions too, and I've made it to C-Rank. I'll catch up to you soon, Karma!”
Rani proudly puffed out her chest, and Karma's eyes widened slightly.
“Oh? Well, Rani was strong even back then. But reaching C-Rank in a year is pretty impressive, isn't it? What kind of party are you in?”
“Well, that's…”
As she spoke, Rani looked toward me. When our eyes met, she quietly came over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me in front of Karma.
“This is the party led by Soushi, and we're called the〈Saul's Guidance〉. Remember the name, because we're going to become famous later!”
“Ah, um, hello. My name is Soushi, and I'm the leader of the〈Saul's Guidance〉.Rani-san has been a great help to us. It's a pleasure to meet you.”
Her forceful introduction caught me completely off guard, and I instinctively gave the sort of greeting I used back when I was a company employee.
Karma looked at me as though she were examining something unusual, then returned my greeting with a wry smile.
“Oh, hello. You're quite an unusual adventurer, aren't you? I'm Karma, leader of the B-Rank party〈Drunken Tiger〉. Looks like you've been taking good care of Rani, so thanks for that.”
Karma extended her hand, so I shook it.
“…!?”
The moment our hands met, tremendous force was applied to mine.
A strength contest. Seriously?
I'd seen this sort of thing in movies, but I never imagined I'd be challenged to one here by a woman.
I couldn't exactly leave things as they were, so I put some strength into my hand and squeezed back.
To be honest, Karma was an attractive woman with beautiful, long golden hair that had a somewhat distinctive style, so even holding her hand felt strangely awkward to me…
“Oh? I've actually mastered【Might】, you know? I didn't expect you to take it with such a straight face.”
Karma relaxed her grip, so I did the same and released her hand.
Then Karma leaned forward and looked up at my face from below.
“Hmmm. Are you quite the veteran, Soushi?”
“No, I've only been an adventurer for a little over 6 months. I was Awakened rather late.”
“Well, you're an interesting one. Hmm… Anyway, take good care of Rani, will you? She might be a bit of a handful.”
“Hey, Karma, I'm doing just fine, so don't worry! Don't tell Soushi unnecessary things.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
While Rani was snapping back at Karma, Mariane came down the stairs at the back.
There was something in her expression that made it seem as though she had something to tell us, so apparently we really did need to go and greet the Guildmaster.
I called out to Freynil and Sphenia, then pulled Rani away from Karma and headed toward the stairs.
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E/N:
Shi, another baddie, a kemo-mimi, muscle-mommy, on top?! Ossan you lucky dawg! 🤣 Let's meet the GM now.
Stay tuned!
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