Chapter 196

Today, we came to the Adventurer’s Guild to pick up a mission request.

Speaking of which, how long has it been since we came to the guild in order to request for missions instead of being called in to handle them as a special team?

Today was our last day in this town, so I really wanted to relax over at our nice rental house. However, Fer said that would just be too boring… [1] Dora-chan and Sui also said that they wanted to go outside, so we decided to take on a request from the guild.

I mean, I am still an adventurer.

So we came here to take a look at the notice board… but there’s really nothing that we could take on. As an A Rank Adventurer, I can only accept missions that were ranked above A, but everything on the board were all B Rank missions or lower.

Should I make a personal inquiry at the reception window?

“Excuse me, I would like to pick up on a mission request.”

I handed my guild card over to the receptionist as I received a, “Please wait here.”

Oh, was she going to call for Yoran-san? Surely that’s not necessary? I’m just here for a mission after all.

A short while later, the wizard-ish looking Guild Master came over, “Oh, what great sense of timing. We have a sticky little problem in our hands just now and can’t seem to gather enough suitably ranked Adventurers to handle it. I was just thinking of contacting you.”

According to Yoran-san, large numbers of Orcs had been seen around villages and highways north of the city. The number of Orcs seen were too high for a mere roving band and Yoran-san suspected that an actual Orc Village had been established. [2] He had sent Adventurers over to investigate the situation up north and they had just came back this morning with the news that an Orc Village really had been established.

Moreover, it was a fairly large Orc settlement hidden in a forest directly across a human village. The Adventurers have also confirmed the presence of higher ranking monsters such as Orc Leaders and Orc Generals. It was unclear whether there was an Orc King or not, but from the size of the village, it was only a matter of time before one was born into the village.

Generally, guilds don’t go after Orc Villages or other monster villages in general unless they were causing trouble or were set too close to a human settlement. The problem now was gathering C Rank and higher Adventurers to take on the task. [2] From the number of Orcs reported by the scouts, they would need at least five or six parties to take on a village this size.

Unfortunately, most of the higher ranking Adventurers had gone out of the city on various mission requests.

“Mukouda-san, after your party has taken care of the Evil Plants and the Cyclops, trading routes have resumed and quite a lot of Adventurers had been sent on missions to escort traders out to send their goods to other cities.”

Ah? So in a way it’s kind of my fault?

Well, maybe not my fault exactly but I’m not completely free of responsibilities either.

“I’ve managed to secure the assistance of one C Rank party, but as mentioned before, one party is not enough… [3] I could wait for the other Adventurer parties to return, but escort missions are rather time consuming. Waiting for enough parties to return before sending them to the north could take a long time and an Orc King could have born by the time we muster up enough force to take on the village.

If an Orc King is born, we would need at least two B Rank parties to take out the village. Mukouda-san, I’m afraid letting too much time pass between now and taking care of the village could prove dangerous. I’m sorry, but would you accept this mission?”

“Please wait while I consult my familiars. Fer, what do you think? I think this is a good opportunity to secure a good supply of meat, right?”

“Orcs are boring enemies, but I guess it’s a good idea to get more meat.” [4]

“Dora and Sui?”

“I’m good for it,” said Dora.

“Sui too~” [4]

“Yoran-san, we accept the mission.”

“Ooh, very good, very good, thank you very much. Ah, by the way, would you be able to work with the C Rank party I have on standby?”

“Yes, we’re fine with that,” [5] come to think of it, this will be the first time we take on a mission with another party. Hmm, I guess I could chalk this up as a learning experience as well.

“Very well, I shall introduce you to the other party. Come this way, please.”

Yoran-san lead us upstairs, towards a large conference room. [6] The ‘other party’ turned out to be four very manly and alpha looking typical ‘Guys’ in their 30s that I would never be caught associating with in my past life. [7] I, Mukouda, am a very herbivore male.

I want to run away from these macho males.

What’s with those overwhelming muscles?

Even their faces are twitching with muscles! [7]

I feel so inadequate naa…

“Apologies for the wait,” said Yoran-san.

“Guild Master, what about the mission request?” the leader for this group of muscle heads seemed to be this skinhead guy…

“It shall proceed as usual, but first, let me make the introductions,” Yoran-san introduced me as an A Ranker to these burly men.

“It is an honour to work with an A Ranker,” said the leader, who had been introduced to me as Alonzo.

I tried not to look too frightened as I acknowledged the greeting. Then, surprisingly, Alonzo asked to shake my hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” [8]

I ended up shaking hands with the rest of the party members as well. Maa, well, I guess these people aren’t so bad. [9] They looked brutish, but they are really quite nice. To be honest, I’d rather pair up with a group of female Adventurers… but it’s not up to me to decide who gets to come along.

Anyway, this C Rank party called themselves [Shadow Warriors] [Z1]

I’m not sure why, but the people here like to give themselves these chuunibyou [10] names, but whatever. I haven’t question it until now, and I’m going to just keep ignoring it. There must be a reason behind their fancy names, but it has nothing to do with me.

The skinhead leader, Alonzo-san is a swordsman who handles a huge, two-handed sword. The second guy had dark wavy brown hair, Clement-san, who wields a slightly more normal looking sword. The shaggy blonde guy, Mathias-san, was the party’s scout and has a short sword. [11]

Finally, we have Earnest-san, the party mage. He has short brown hair and looked just as fierce as the others. He’s a mage who focused mainly on fire and wind magic, but could also perform some healing magic.

“I’ve heard the rumours, but seeing is believing. You really do have a Fenrir as your familiar,” said Alonzo as he stared at Fer.

Could he see through Fer’s real identity because he’s a C Ranker?

To be honest, Fer was becoming quite popular lately with guild masters, so it’s not surprising that Adventurers would know about him, especially after we cleared Doran’s dungeon.

“Fer is one of my strongest familiar, of course. But Dora-chan the Pixie Dragon and Sui, my Slime companion are strong too.”

“I’ve never heard of Pixie Dragons, but you’re saying that this Slime is strong?”

“Sui is kind of special, please look forward to her performance at the Orc village.”

My familiars are all quite strong. Though Sui is often looked down upon as a Slime, but don’t make the mistake of treating her like a regular Slime!

“Very well, shall we set out now? Yoran-san, where exactly is this Orc village?”

“Umu, it’s hidden within a forest about a day’s walk from here.”

Eh? A whole day’s walk just to get there?

“But, we plan to leave the city by tomorrow… I guess there’s no choice. We’ll have to get it done by today.” After all, I have one huge advantage when it came to transportation. [12]

“Hn? What are you saying?”

I told Yoran-san and the [Shadow Warriors] about Sui’s special ability, but I could see the scepticism in their eyes. Ah, it’ll be faster for me to show it. So, we made for the city gates.

[13] Once we’re outside, I turned to Sui, “Alright now, this is good enough. Sui, can you transform into something big enough to carry our four friends?”

“Understood~” immediately, Sui began to grow and grow. She stopped when she was the size of a carriage, just slightly bigger than when she carried Anton and his party the other day.

Fufufu, it was really gratifying to see the stunned looks on Yoran-san and the [Shadow Warriors’] faces.

“W-Woah, this is incredible!”

“This is the first time I see a Slime like this…”

The three remaining members of the [Shadow Warriors] nodded silently.

“Our party plans to leave the city by tomorrow. So, I’ll have to trouble everyone to travel like this,” I said modestly, pretending not to smirk with pride at their awe [14].

The [Shadow Warriors] quickly got on top of Sui. I, of course, mounted my faithful Fer.

“Then, we shall leave first, Yoran-san,”

“I’ll be counting on you.”

Thus, we began heading towards the Orc village.

[Z1] Zzonkedd: I’d imagine a group of skinny assassins to be a better fit for a name like this but… okay

Gumihou: I know, right? Lol!

[1] Structural Changes: Combine 2 paragraphs

[2] Structural Changes: Combine 2 paragraphs, adjusted language from passive to active.

[3] Structural Changes: Changed ‘explanation’ to dialogue. See no point of using the narrative POV, then switch back to dialogue again to repeat everything.

[4] Deleted Unnecessary Information: I’m not sure why the author have the tendency to write ‘xx seems to agree’ directly after they say ‘we’re good with it’. Delete!

[5] Deleted Unnecessary Information: Why all the repetitive things? Also, combined paragraphs.

[6] Deleted Weirdly Superfluous Information: Why into a room ‘like a conference room’ on the ‘first floor of the Adventurer’s Guild’? Why not just… a large room upstairs? Also, combined paragraphs.

[7] Added Details on why Mukouda would feel intimidated by muscular men. Also, make full use of Mukouda’s thoughts for comedic purposes.

[8] Added Details re Handshake: Why is it significant? Despite this being a western style RPG world, the writer is a Japanese, and hence, Japanese values leaked through as well.

Asking to shake someone’s hand means you respect that person very much, since the normal greeting for Japanese is to bow from a certain distance. Alonzo would not have asked to shake hands with Mukouda if he doesn’t respect him according to Japanese logic.

[9] Structural Changes: Combine 3 paragraphs

[10] Chuunibyou – is a derogative colloquial term in the Japanese language used to describe a person who manifests delusional behavior, particularly thinking that one has special powers that no other person has. Originally a term used to pertain to children in the second year of middle school who act like adults, the term eventually evolved into a term generally used to describe delusional behavior in general.

https://animanga.fandom.com/wiki/Chuunibyou#:~:text=Chuunibyou%20(%E4%B8%AD%E4%BA%8C%E7%97%85%3B%20Ch%C5%ABniby%C5%8D,that%20no%20other%20person%20has.

[11] Structural Changes: Combine 3 paragraphs

[12] Structural Changes: Combine 2 paragraphs and dialogue

[13] Additional Transitional Information: disguised as dialogue tags.

[14] Additional Information for Texture: Also, this is true for a lot of Japanese. Pretending to be modest while smirking, because it’s unseemly to be seen openly smirking.