Chapter 26, The Daily Life of Adventurers
The seventh day when the Great Tomb of Nazarick arrived in another world, the fortress city. Lantel, Adventurer's Guild
Although in terms of cleanliness and sanitation, this human city in a fantasy world is much cleaner than those medieval European cities on earth where feces paved the roads, people splashed urine on the streets, and everyone defecated everywhere. However, compared with modern cities on earth, this place is much cleaner. The environment still looks dirty.
For example, on the wooden floor of the Adventurer's Guild, there are food crumbs and dirty footprints of unknown origin everywhere; the walls are covered with all kinds of strange stains; and in the corners of the counter, you can also find Some mysterious lumps that have become moldy... The air is always filled with the lingering smell of alcohol and sweat, echoing with all kinds of rude shouts and jokes, and occasionally a few vulgar words. of swear words.
However, the adventurers in this world are obviously very adaptable to the above-mentioned environment, and even like such a noisy atmosphere with a lot of people.
——After experiencing a dangerous fighting adventure, you can drag your exhausted and even scarred body, as well as the jingling coins in your wallet, and come here to buy a few glasses of spirits that make you forget your worries. As well as a generous portion of rough meals, while bragging and chatting with your companions, you can relax and spend a leisurely time. For those of them who spend all day licking blood at the tip of a knife, it is already a kind of enjoyment.
As for cleanliness and hygiene, how can rough guys like them, who travel around and fight for blood, afford to pay attention to it?
"...Sigh...it seems like there aren't any better jobs recently!"
Peter Mock, the captain of the four-person small adventure group "The Black Sword", a silver medal adventurer, and a young swordsman, leaned crookedly on the wooden bench while drinking wine mixed with water from the iron pot he carried. He said boredly, "...the hotel room prices have increased at this time..."
"...Yeah, I've almost spent all the money around me, and I still have credit at the pub I frequent! So much so that I don't even dare to drink anymore."
The scout archer of the adventure group, Luclotte Polbu, who also had a silver medal, also folded his arms and sighed repeatedly. He was a blond man wearing leather armor, with brown eyes that were so narrow that he looked a little happy. She has a thin body, and her hands and feet are extremely slender, and she feels like a spider. No fat at all.
After complaining for a few times, Luclotte suddenly rolled his eyes, and with a frivolous smile, he approached Captain Peter, "...Captain, um... money is really tight now, can you lend me some money?" ? No need to pay more, just one gold coin is enough!”
"...Go, go, go, every time I shared rewards before, I never lacked your share."
Captain Peter frowned and pushed Luclotte away, "... lending you money, isn't it the same as throwing bread at the goblins? Didn't I tell you, don't get paid every time? Turn around and immediately spend all your money on the girls in the brothel! You have to save some money for the future!”
"...Sigh, adventurers like us who drink in the city today and may die in the wilderness tomorrow, wouldn't it be too boring if we can't have fun in time and get drunk today? Could it be that the captain thinks that we are in this industry? Can a person live a long life?" Luclotte rolled his eyes disapprovingly, "...Rather than letting goblins and ogres take away my money, I would rather spend it on lovely girls. .”
Upon hearing this, Captain Peter also fell silent. Indeed, although the income of adventurers is relatively good, it is also a high-risk profession.
——For those rural teenagers who work hard all day but rarely have enough to eat, they can become adventurers, leave the boring and boring small villages, see the vast and wonderful world outside, and defeat monsters with a cool and handsome sword. Gaining wealth and honor is really a dream life that they yearn for. After many people inherit weapons and equipment from their relatives or elders, or accidentally pick up swords and armor on the battlefield, they will happily run to the Adventurer's Guild, wanting to register as an adventurer and start a successful and wonderful life.
But in fact, most of these fashionable guys ruined their lives in the first few adventures.
According to the public statistics of the Adventurer's Guild, leaving aside those "highly qualified talents" who were once professional warriors, ruined knights or graduates of magic academies, half of the people who have transferred from ordinary villagers to adventurers are He would be dead if he failed to upgrade from the lowest bronze medal to an iron medal. Another quarter of people give up halfway, and 15% of people will die in the process of being promoted from iron medal to silver medal.
The four members of the "Sword of Darkness" adventure group are all silver medal adventurers. Although they have successfully navigated this adventure path with an elimination rate of 90%, they have also seen the death, injury and retirement of many adventurers' acquaintances. Naturally, Understand: This is not a job where you can stay safe until old age.
After leaving the relatively safe cities and villages, it is no longer a human world, but a wild and dangerous environment full of dangers.
No one knows what kind of terrifying monsters they will encounter on their next adventure, or what kind of unlucky death situation they will encounter. In a life-and-death battle, a seemingly insignificant misfortune and the tiniest mistake are enough to cost the most famous adventurer his life.
Therefore, out of fear of the unknown future, there are many hedonists among adventurers who are "drunk now".
"...Actually, a lot of people have died recently. In just over a month, several low-level adventurer teams have disappeared collectively in the city, and one adventure group has been killed until only one person is left. The man ran back, and that man had broken his arm and became disabled.”
The third member of the "Sword of Darkness" adventure group, a burly and honest man, Silver Forest Druid Priest Dyne Woodwanda, suddenly intervened, "...Although we are unlucky, I missed several missions, but at least there were no casualties, so it was a blessing in disguise.”
"...What? So many people were wiped out in one fell swoop?" Luclotte, who had recently spent a lot of money on two girls and slept in a gentle house all day long, so he was somewhat ill-informed, was immediately shocked, "... …Could it be that some powerful monster appeared nearby?”
"...It was not done by monsters, but by humans! To be precise, it was foreign knights!" Captain Peter replied, "...I have vaguely heard of this matter. The adventure groups that were destroyed seemed to have been... They took on missions in nearby villages, or spontaneously swept away monsters in the suburbs. As a result, they encountered the elite knights of the Bahas Empire attacking and massacring the border villages of the kingdom. Some of them escaped, but most of them were killed. Ghost..."
(These are the guys who were annihilated in Karn Village before and were impersonated by people sent by the Silian Theocracy.)
——Although in theory, adventurers should be regarded as hunters who specialize in fighting monsters and should not get involved in the internal disputes of mankind, but because they are in a chaotic country where princes are fighting and bandits are rampant, many adventurers are often inevitably involved. into the internal fighting among human beings.
In most real battles, other humans are often more dangerous than seemingly scary monsters...
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"...It was precisely because he heard these terrible rumors that the captain had been hesitant before, not daring to take on missions that required leaving the city." Dyne continued, "...the four of us were promoted to silver medals not long ago, and even one horse We can’t even afford horses. If we encounter a large group of Bajas Empire knights on the open grassland, let alone fight them, we won’t even be able to escape with just two legs!”
"...But in this case, if we can't leave the city, wouldn't we have to accept missions like drilling into sewers to fight giant rats?"
Scout archer Luclott curled his lips, "...the pay is extremely low, and there aren't that many giant rats in the sewers for us to fight every day!"
——In this world where magic exists, rats can also mutate into monsters called "giant rats" and like to live in the sewers of big cities. These oversized rats not only dig holes and make nests without permission, destroy sewers and cause poor drainage, but they also spread terrible infectious diseases. Therefore, the municipal government must regularly send soldiers or hire adventurers into the sewers to carry out the task of eradicating giant rats, so as to ensure the safety of citizens.
Of course, such missions cannot happen often, otherwise this city would have been occupied by giant rats long ago.
Moreover, due to layers of corruption and embezzlement by city officials and powerful nobles, the final rewards given to adventurers are pitifully small. If the government hadn't pressured the Adventurer's Guild to force the assignment, few people would usually be willing to take the initiative. The sewers in Xuntian do such dirty work.
"...There is no need to worry about this. Just two days ago, the group of Imperial knights wandering outside the city were annihilated. It was Warrior Captain Gazef who brought an exotic magician he found from nowhere. When that guy came into town, I remember you went to see the excitement," the captain replied.
"...Uh...that weird guy who wears an ugly mask, has a bunch of cats around him, and uses two cats to pull his cart?"
Luclotte immediately thought about it, "...Tsk, tsk, although it's a bit strange, most of the more powerful magicians in this world seem to have such unique and strange clothes. Haha, his cat He can still talk! I remember it scared me!”
——In this world where occultism is prevalent, all kinds of magic exist, and education is not popular enough, ordinary people are generally very receptive to all kinds of novel things: the masked "Great Magician Ainz" has a group of people who know how to do it. Talking cats, this is indeed a new thing, but it is not new enough to surprise adventurers like them who fight all kinds of strange monsters all day long.
After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, magicians are a group that transcends common sense. It is true that ordinary pet cats cannot speak, but who knows whether the great magician Ainz will have figured out the magic to open up the cat's intelligence, or simply some fantasy beast summoned from an alien plane?
Since even angels can become conventional weapons of war in human countries, and the dead can be summoned into undead soldiers by evil magic, then there seems to be nothing serious about the emergence of a few talking cats. In remote wild forests, some people have seen big trees that can talk and dance! If they were to be frightened when they encountered something they had never seen before, then these adventurers should have scared themselves to death long ago. People with poor psychological quality cannot be adventurers. This profession inherently requires infinite courage and curiosity, and finally appropriate caution.
Therefore, after chatting a few random words about the recent street rumors and the strange things about the great magician Ainz, Captain Peter of the "Dark Sword" adventure group turned to a man standing on the bulletin board. The figure shouted, "...Nina, how are you? Is there a suitable job?"
"...Sorry, captain, I didn't see anything suitable." Nina turned around and shook his head, leaving the bulletin board and walking over with his wand
This is the youngest fourth member of the "Dark Sword" adventure group, the magician Nina. He has dark brown hair and blue eyes. He is the youngest among the four, and the most handsome among the team. , looks like he is still a child who has not grown up, wearing a thick leather coat, with strange-shaped bottles and strange talisman bags hanging around his waist, which are obviously materials and props used for casting spells.
The entire "Sword of Darkness" adventure group is composed of these four members. Although I am currently living in a fortress city. There are a lot of adventurers in Lantier, and it is said that there are usually at least a thousand people. However, the size of a single adventure group is generally small, usually consisting of small teams of less than ten people.
This is first of all because small-scale monster crusade does not require too many troops; secondly, because the main employers of adventurers, the villages that issue monster crusade missions and the merchants who hire adventurers to escort convoys, usually cannot afford too much. Commission for multiple adventurers.
Then, if there really is a large-scale wave of Warcraft that cannot be resisted by several adventure groups working together, then it will be a major event that requires the local adventurer guild to issue an overall attack or dispatch the national regular army. And something like this usually happens only once every few years.
Finally, although the nobles who rule the country cannot guarantee the security of their territory due to their own incompetence and have to rely on adventurers to resist monsters, they have also been guarding against this uncontrolled armed force in every possible way, for fear that They become too big to lose their tails...
In short, adventure groups that rely on accepting tasks to survive are generally not large in scale, even top adventure groups with great names are no exception.
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"...Those Mithril-level and Platinum-level missions are not something that silver medal adventurers like us can undertake. The silver-medal level missions were snatched up as soon as they were posted. Now there is only one mission left to escort the caravan, but Applicants are required to bring their own horses, otherwise they will be unable to catch up with the action.”
At a round table in the corner of the Adventurer's Guild, the magician Nina vomited his bitterness to the other three companions of the "Dark Sword" adventure group, "...and we don't even have a horse, nor have we bought one. funds, and there is no place to borrow horses... and then there are some iron medal and bronze medal levels. The task, not to mention the mere reward of a few copper coins, is not even enough to buy a loaf of bread. Moreover, we already have four silver medals. If we do the iron medal and bronze medal level tasks again, we will compete with those newcomers for food. , there will also be criticism of the 'Sword of Darkness'!"
——Adventurers who join the guild are classified according to their levels. When accepting a task commission, you must choose a task commission with different levels of difficulty according to your own level. Bronze medal rookies can only take on bronze medal missions that are not very dangerous but have very meager rewards. It is difficult to even maintain food and clothing. Only after proving your strength and improving your level can you accept high-level tasks of the corresponding level.
According to the rules of the guild, low-level adventurers cannot accept high-level tasks above their own level. In a sense, this is also a kind of protection for them. Lest these incompetent rookies, greedy for generous rewards, rashly attack monsters that are far stronger than themselves, or take on tasks that they cannot do, end up not only dying at the mouth of monsters, but also causing harm to others. Too bad for the employer.
But the converse is also the same. Although there is no clear rule, according to established conventions, high-level adventurers generally will not take on tasks lower than their own level. Because not only does this seem cheap and disrespectful, it will also be considered a lack of self-confidence. It feels like you guys are too timid and dare not take risks, so you do low-level tasks regardless of your status. It really makes people feel sorry for you. Shame...
——By analogy, if the 007 spy does not dare to go out on a mission, but guest works as an urban management officer to catch illegal vendors on the street, what kind of attention will it attract?
And for adventurers who need to rely on their reputation to make a living, once they are considered to lack courage, their personal future will be dark. Think about it, even on modern Earth, if the mercenaries of any security company are known for being cowardly, who else would hire them?
Therefore, the four members of the "Sword of Darkness" adventure group would rather sit around doing nothing than do these low-level tasks. Because this won't make much money, it will also attract contempt, damage one's reputation, and even make people question one's own strength. It can be said that the gain outweighs the loss.
"...Well, since you can't find a good job in Lantier, why don't you go to other cities to try your luck? Uh, no, forget it. Just considering the tolls along the way, it's not worth the gain. Besides, If it were any other city in the kingdom, it might not be as good as here.”
Captain Peter muttered casually while considering his next move, but he immediately realized that he seemed to have said something stupid.
——Fortress city. Lantier, this border city under the direct jurisdiction of the royal family, although it is located in a desolate border area and looks like a remote place, it is actually one of the most prosperous commercial cities in the entire kingdom. Because inside. The Kingdom of Yestije, the Silian Theocracy and the Bahas Empire meet here, and there is no other land connection except here. All import and export trade between the three countries must pass through the fortress city. Lantier will do it.
In this way, we can go back and forth. Naturally, there is an endless stream of transnational caravans in the city of Lantier all year round. These caravans not only effectively prosper the economy of the fortress city, but also allow the royal family and local government to obtain a large amount of tax money, and return it to the adventurers here. Plenty of job opportunities are provided.
If it were replaced by small cities in the hinterland of the kingdom where commercial trade is not very developed, then there would be far fewer employers who could afford to hire adventurers, and the competition among fellow adventurers would become more intense. A fortress city. Lantier is having an easy time!
So, let’s continue to endure it for a while! I believe that this market downturn should only be temporary.
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"...It's decided, we will disband and go back today, and then continue to rest in the city for another day. If we still don't find a suitable mission in the guild tomorrow, let's take the equipment and dry food and leave the city together! It's not like sitting back and waiting for nothing. It’s a matter of course, and people will gossip about us. In our profession of adventurers, the most despised person is a coward, and the second most despised person is a lazy person.”
After pondering for a moment, Captain Peter slapped his thigh for the last time and announced to his teammates.
"...Wait a minute, if we didn't receive the mission, why would we go out of the city?" Magician Nina blinked in confusion, and then his expression suddenly changed, "...could it be that...we were going to do that? 'A job that's not a job'? ”
"...Yes!" Captain Peter nodded simply, "...As adventurers, isn't it our job to hunt monsters?"
"...Although the reward is not proportional to the hard work, I can still make ends meet..." Dyne, the druid, also echoed.
——Although the job of an adventurer is to be a monster hunter, in fact, regardless of those fledglings, the truly experienced senior adventurers are not willing to look for trouble and take the initiative unless they are entrusted or offered a reward. Fighting with monsters in the wild.
Because the real world is different from online games. Players in the game can collect treasures by fighting monsters, exploding equipment and dropping gold coins along the way, and earn a lot of money. But in the real world, after the adventurers defeated the goblins and ogres, apart from accumulating practical experience, there was almost no economic gain: the smelly meat of these humanoid monsters was impossible to eat. No one wants their furs, and the tattered clothes and rough weapons they peel off are almost worthless, and there are almost no goblins still carrying gold coins and gems when they come out to rob homes...
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Although it is not impossible to obtain a large amount of valuable loot after killing monsters, it is still as rare as winning the lottery. However, the adventurers had to pay out of their own pockets for the dry food they ate, the arrows they shot, and the potions and scrolls they consumed. Weapons and armor damaged in battle also require money to be repaired. If you are not careful, you may even be injured or even lose your life
In this way, if someone did not offer a reward or pay them to hire them to kill monsters, adventurers would not be able to voluntarily travel to the wilderness for a long time to destroy monsters at the cost of both money and lives based on their sense of justice and dedication. Even a saint cannot persist in such voluntary labor for a long time.
However, cleaning up monsters in the suburbs and expanding human living space are, after all, the common vocation of every human government. To this end, the rulers of each town issue reward standards for monster hunting through the Adventurer's Guild. If someone is able to hunt monsters and bring back some corpse parts as proof, the guild will give the adventurer a certain amount of bonus based on the monster's strength level and the number of kills.
The government can also take the opportunity to reduce the danger in the domestic hinterland, ensure the smooth flow of trade routes and the normal payment of toll taxes, which is the so-called win-win situation.
From this point of view, it seems that the adventurer can finally fight monsters and upgrade all the way, finally marry Bai Fumei, and embark on the victorious life of a legendary hero, right?
But the problem is that due to official financial constraints, the standard for this bounty is set very low. If adventurers specifically hunt Warcraft and come to the guild in exchange for money, the amount of monetary gain may be far less than that of normal guild entrusted tasks, and the risk is Sex is much higher.
In fact, after spending blood and sweat to buy equipment and defeat monsters, the little official bonus they received from the Adventurer's Guild would be pretty good if they could make ends meet and make ends meet. It is common to have trouble making ends meet.
Therefore, even with the above incentives, adventurers are still not very enthusiastic about taking the initiative to form groups and go out to fight monsters. Only when you really can't receive a high-paying commissioned task and there is really no other way, you will do this kind of "job that is not a job" to make a little money for a few days.
In short, after determining their next plan, the four members of the "Sword of Darkness" adventure group packed their things together, stood up and left their seats, preparing to leave the Adventurer's Guild and go back to rest. Unexpectedly, as soon as they got up, they saw a large group of adventurers gathered in front of the counter. There was also an old man dressed as a noble butler, standing in the center of the crowd, talking to the lady who was the teller of the Adventurer's Guild across the counter. What are they talking about...
...In this case...could it be that another guest has come to issue a new commission?
Thinking of this, the four members of the "Sword of Darkness" adventure group slowed down a little, wanting to see what was going on. Immediately afterwards, the guild lady behind the counter noticed the group of four people who had been hanging around for a long time, and quickly stopped them.
"...Excuse me...are you Mr. Peter from the 'Sword of Darkness'? Please come here quickly! There is a task commission named for you!"
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PS: Long-lost complaint: There have been some hilarious news recently. Some devout Buddhists first released venomous snakes in the park, and then released rats and foxes in the countryside. As a result, they were beaten to death by angry villagers. While being beaten, these guys scolded the villagers for their lack of kindness.
Afterwards, many chickens and piglets in the village were killed by foxes, and the snakes released in the park almost bit the children.
Hey, hey, can such a crazy approach still be called a life release? It was clearly a biological weapon terrorist attack! !
If left unchecked, these lunatics may one day release a rabid dog infected with rabies virus downstairs of your house. It is also said that someone released a snapping turtle in the pond of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, and as a result, all the ornamental fish in the pond were eaten...