Chapter 127:
Rank
“NEXT UP, let’s discuss the matter of rank!”
“………”
In the end, Reina had managed to craft a subspace, but its capacity was no more than two or three buckets’ worth of water or supplies. To make matters worse, the magic would fall apart the moment Mile so much as spoke to her, spewing the subspace’s contents everywhere. She was nowhere near the point of calling herself a proper wielder of storage magic. At this point, there had to be dozens—if not hundreds—of times more people as unskilled as Reina as there were bona fide storage mages.
Needless to say, this modest accomplishment served no functional use. But at least it placed her among the hundreds out of millions, and if she continued to put in the work, she stood a good chance of becoming a full-fledged practitioner one day.
Pauline had learned to sustain her storage space for slightly longer than before, but it still broke down the moment she directed her attention elsewhere. Holding it together for the short time it would take to get contraband through a checkpoint was the most she could manage.
When Mile said as much, Pauline insisted that she would never smuggle goods, but not a soul believed her.
“Staying at F-rank is going to keep us from taking on quests or escort missions… Oh, get over it already!” Mile snapped, finally fed up with Reina and Pauline’s sulking. “There’s no point in crying over spilled milk! Well, maybe it’s my own fault for getting your hopes up…”
Mile had always held their magical talents in high esteem, and now both girls had been upgraded to a level-2 authorization, something nigh unheard of among ordinary humans. Why, they were on par with most elder dragons! It wasn’t unreasonable of Mile to assume that learning storage magic, which even a handful of level-1 humans had mastered, would be a breeze for them.
She knew that Kragon could use storage magic, as she had seen him pull out dragon balls and the like on numerous occasions, and he also held an authorization level of 2. Therefore, it stood to reason that her two companions could easily master the technique with her guidance. No one could blame her for assuming as much, anyway.
Unfortunately, her calculations had been wildly off the mark. Instead, the underdog—Mavis—had risen to the occasion.
But just think! If we keep all the things we need for camping in Mavis’s storage, it won’t disrupt everyone else’s work if I do my own thing for a while. Unlike my inventory, hers doesn’t have the ability to freeze the passage of time, so we’ll have to be careful about how long we store produce, game, or foodstuffs. Still, six tatami mats is pretty big. As long as we keep everything on the small and light side, that’s plenty of room for a bathtub, toilet, and folding beds.
About half of the time, Mile used her inventory while pretending it was storage magic, and the other half of the time she actually stowed things away with storage magic. In truth, her real storage magic wasn’t fantastically capacious (nothing like the size of several Tokyo Domes, for instance). As such, she kept items that were oversized, that would lose value if they cooled or spoiled, or that she rarely used in her inventory, while her storage was reserved for only a select few of her belongings.
A regular storage space was a constant magical drain on its user. Not even Mile could afford to throw things in there willy-nilly.
All of which was to say that, as far as Mile was concerned, Mavis’s storage capacity was plenty big. In fact, it was probably in the running for first or second largest on the old continent…if you took Mile out of the equation, of course.
I can’t believe how cool Mavis is… She’s the purebred daughter of an established line of counts, not some phony aristocrat like me. She’s a master of the blade, a magical swordswoman who can use spells like Wind Edge or the Mav-ius Strip, a practitioner of mouth-to-mouth healing, and a paragon of chivalry… Plus, she’s an apostle of truth and justice, not to mention that she loves cool things and practically oozes chuunibyou…
It’s not easy to find a catch like her! Oh, if only she were a guy…
Mile was not yet enlightened enough to make an exception for Mavis where gender was concerned.
“Enough of that! We’re supposed to be talking about rank!” With a furious shake of her head, Mile steered her thoughts back on track. “The Hunters’ Guild here doesn’t offer skip applications. But upon taking a closer look at the rules, I noticed another system they were missing…”
The dramatic lead-in had her friends on the edge of their seats.
“That’s when it dawned on me… The guild rules here don’t specify a minimum term at the previous rank to qualify for promotion.”
“Whaaaaat?!” all three girls shouted in surprise.
Their reaction was only natural. This meant that if they completed a large number of difficult missions or profitable gathering requests, they could be promoted in no time.
On the old continent, the only reason the Crimson Vow had spent so long at C-rank, even though they had long since racked up the skills and contribution points to make B-rank, was because of the rule that they had to spend a minimum number of years at one rank before progressing to the next one. Here, that wasn’t an issue.
Although, to be fair, that requirement had recently been abolished on the old continent as well.
“That’ll be a cakewalk.”
“A cakewalk indeed.”
“Where’s the challenge in such a cakewalk?”
“A total cakewalk…”
“We are four joined down to our very souls! And our name is the Crimson Cakewalk!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on! That sounds ridiculous, you guys!” Mile chided her friends.
“Oh, please. You were just as eager to make the joke as the rest of us.”
“Hrk…”
Reina’s retort brought Mile straight to her knees.
***
“We’re looking to sell our stock!”
“Sure thing! Lay ’er out right here!”
Thud-thump-thunk!
A mountain of dead ogres, orcs, jackalopes, and various other monsters, along with a slew of valuable loot, poured out of Mile’s storage (read: inventory) and onto the floor in front of the purchasing counter.
“WH-WHAT IN THE BLAZES?!” the middle-aged man behind the counter shouted, attracting the attention of the rest of the guild.
Since they were still F-rank, the only monster extermination jobs the girls could take on were for jackalopes. So instead of doing quests, the Crimson Vow had opted to earn money and contribution points via dailies, which allowed them to sell raw materials without a prior order. If they kept this up until they reached D-rank, they would be eligible to take on standard quests.
That said, even if it made them technically eligible, not many people would hire a lone D-rank party to guard them, and many quests had stricter prerequisites.
In that case, what was their best possible play?
The solution was simple: They just had to make a name for themselves. That way, people would gladly accept offers from their D-rank group and start singling them out for jobs. And in order to do that…
***
“We’re looking to sell our stock!”
Thud-thump-thunk!
***
“We’re looking to sell our stock!”
Thud-thump-thunk!
***
“We’re looking to sell our stock!”
Thud-thump-thunk!
Day in and day out, the Crimson Vow delivered massive amounts of monsters and loot.
***
“Do something about those girls!” yelled the man who worked behind the counter.
“Like what, exactly?” replied the guild master, clearly at a loss.
“No matter how you slice it, they’re bringing in way too many jackalopes, orcs, ogres, and herbs! I appreciate ’em thinning out the growing monster population, but it’s tanking the prices of meat, fur pelts, and other materials! The guild’s profits haven’t taken a hit, since we’re making more sales at lower prices, but this is murder on the butchers whose workload has skyrocketed without a change in their wages!
“Still, it could be worse. At least the butchers ain’t losing income yet. Meanwhile, thanks to the price drop of monster parts and loot, the earnings of mid-level and low-level hunters have taken a nosedive! As if we didn’t have enough people dropping out of the hunter business already! What are we supposed to do, huh? Huh?!”
“Ugh…”
On some level, the guild master had realized this was going to happen. Still, the Crimson Vow was a party of pretty, powerful young girls—with loads of storage space, to boot—who had come from a faraway land to grace the local guild with their presence. He couldn’t very well tell them, “You’re catching too many monsters, so stop working for the rest of the week.” The girls’ livelihoods hung in the balance, and the guild didn’t have the authority to issue such orders to its hunters.
“The problems don’t end there. If we don’t put a stop to the girls’ overhunting soon, no matter how fast the monsters reproduce, the number hunted is going to outstrip the number bred, with the exception of the jackalopes. The local monster population will take a hit. And when that happens…”
“When that happens…what?”
“If the pool of prey dips below a certain level and the girls stop raking in as much dough, they’ll pack up and move to another area. In their wake, they’ll leave a guild branch reduced to a handful of members, the bulk of its hunters having quit the business due to the steep drop in income. And then…”
“There’s more?!”
The guild master had had his fill of bad news by this point. He looked weary at the prospect of more to come.
“Once the girls are gone, the monsters will start multiplying again. Here, by this town where only a handful of hunters remain…”
“…”
“……”
“………”
“What are we supposed to do?!” the guild master yelled.
“That’s what I’m askin’ you!” the man who worked the purchasing counter yelled back.
“………”
“Give them a promotion,” muttered the purchasing clerk.
“Huh?” said the guild master, a blank look on his face.
“I’m telling you to raise their rank! The reason they bring in so much game and loot every day is because they’re F-rank, the lowest a hunter can be. At F-rank, the only quests you can get are for picking herbs or hunting jackalopes. An experienced party ain’t gonna take on such low-paying jobs for beginners! That’s why they’ve been steering clear of quests and sticking to dailies, which lets them make money off meat and raw materials! If we gave them a promotion and made them eligible for a super-challenging ‘Mission Impossible,’ like an escort mission or a big-game hunt, I bet you anything those young ladies would jump at the chance.”
“Oh, I see what you’re saying now!”
“That’s all you’ve got to say, you big buffoon?! You should’ve thought of it yourself and brought it to a meeting ages ago! You hear me?!”
“My bad… I swear I’ll fix this somehow.”
“It’s a risky move for a guild master, but are you planning to invoke Clause A-3 of the Special Measures Regarding Guild Master Jurisdiction, ‘Exercise of guild master authority in the event of danger to multiple human lives’? That would let you promote them two ranks, from F to D, right?”
The guild master shook his head. “No. I’m going to invoke Clause A-2 and promote them three levels at once, to C-rank. At D-rank, the number of quests they can do solo is still limited. Merchants who don’t already know them won’t be willing to hire them as guards, so that rules out any caravans from other towns. Our best bet is to advance them straight to C.”
“Wha… But Clause A-2 is ‘Powers granted in the event of a threat to the town’s survival’! If the Guild Masters’ Council in the capital deems it an abuse of authority, you’ll lose your post!”
A faint smile rose to the other man’s face. “I may be a buffoon, but I’m well aware of the obligations that come with my position.”
“Oh, Boss…”
Little did they know that this decision would later be applauded by the Council in the capital and earn the guild master a promotion.
There was nothing strange about it. If he were punished for acting to protect his town, knowing full well that it could cost him everything, there would be a sharp decline in the number of guild masters willing to put themselves on the line for the good of their home. The Council had little choice but to praise his judgment, even if it meant turning a blind eye to a few transgressions—especially since what he proposed was the most logical course of action and hurt no one.
***
“What?! We’re getting promoted?”
“Hooray! All our hard work of hunting monsters and gathering materials paid off!”
“Exactly as planned!”
Mile nodded along. “Now we’re finally E-rank. If we work even harder and get to D-rank, we can take on extermination jobs—with a few restrictions, mind you—and escort missions will be on the table if we team up with another party! In the meantime, we just do our best to supply more and more raw materials!” she rambled, delighted.
You’ve done enough hunting and material gathering! the guild master swore internally. He had summoned the Crimson Vow to his private office to tell them the news of their promotion, but he still had more to say.
He cleared his throat. “You’re no E-ranks. You’re C-ranks now.”
“Whaaaaaat?!” the four girls shouted, astounded by the news.
Was that a “That was no Kafrizz spell. It was Frizz” moment?
As usual, Mile was lost in her own ridiculous thoughts.
“Wh-wh-wh-what do you mean?!”
“I-I-I-Isn’t that taking things a little too fast?”
“Th-th-th-there’s gotta be a catch…”
“I-I-I-It’s a trap! It’s got to be!”
The Crimson Vow had worked as C-rank hunters on the old continent and later been promoted to S-rank, but even with all that experience under their belts, the shock of receiving a triple promotion had them reeling.
The old continent’s skip system was one thing. It was designed to primarily serve super strong veterans, such as retired hunters returning to the field, soldiers, mercenaries, or disgraced ex-court mages. The occasional incredibly talented newbie shared in the benefits. As such, it wasn’t all that uncommon to be registered as a D- or C-rank right from the get-go.
Here, however, there was no such system. Regardless of whether they had shown some skill in one-on-one combat or killed a slew of orcs and ogres for their dailies, it should have been impossible for a party of teenage girls, one of whom was underage, to receive a special three-rank upgrade. Though the members of the Crimson Vow had in fact been gunning for an accelerated promotion, no one could fault them for being suspicious.
“What are you scheming?!”
“Wait, I know… Is your plan to bump us up to C-rank, make us eligible for the guild’s emergency draft, and saddle us with all the dangerous quests you’d rather not give to the local hunters?”
“I bet that’s it!” the whole party shouted.
“Oh, for crying out loud! NO! The purchase price for monsters and loot took a nosedive thanks to your overhunting, and it’s making life hell for the other hunters! I was so desperate to get you girls to do something besides hunting and gathering that I threw my weight around and implemented special measures! Did you know that could get me fired, you little menaces?!”
“…”
“……”
“………”
“We’re sorry…”
Even the Crimson Vow had realized they were in the wrong. The guild master was old enough to have a family to support, and they had forced him to risk his job—to say nothing of the problems they had caused for the local hunter community. They had no choice but to apologize. But still…
“We can’t make a living on standard quests alone,” said Reina.
“The reward for a quest is entirely dependent on the client, after all,” Pauline added. “A child’s allowance is one or two silver coins a day. A beginner job of F- or E-rank will net a hunter around four or five silver coins. Payment for less dangerous C-rank jobs could range anywhere from six to seven silver coins or a little under one half-gold. Finally, the escort jobs that involve fending off dangerous monsters or bandits typically pay around two or three half-gold per day. Of course, prices can soar depending on the conditions. For example, if the client is almost certain to come under attack, or if the enemies are professional mercenaries or ex-soldiers…”
“Well, if we’re C-rank, I doubt we’ll be looking at E-rank jobs or lower… The point is, escort missions or high-paying jobs don’t come up every day, and competition will be fierce for the ones with good terms,” said Mavis. “We newcomers won’t be in a position to snag many of them, and even if we could, we shouldn’t. It would just make trouble for the other hunters again.”
Mile nodded. “There’s only one solution left for us, then…”
“We leave this town for a bigger city!” the four girls finished together.
“How did you get to that conclusion?!” the guild master wailed.
He didn’t want them to keep overhunting monsters, but he had no problem with them hunting to a reasonable degree. In fact, he appreciated it. It thinned out the dangerous monster population, and the guild got to reap the profits by purchasing their hauls. It was important to him to keep the Crimson Vow in his town, both as a source of revenue for the guild and as a means of transporting emergency supplies and aiding evacuees in the event of a disaster.
Besides, the hunters and guild staff in the other towns would never believe that the Crimson Vow had brought in such an outlandish amount of goods. If it became known that the girls had left this town to move to another city, their guild branch would be the laughingstock of the nation for foolishly driving out high-capacity storage magic users, who were massive moneymakers and a potential godsend in emergencies.
Granted, any guild branch where the Crimson Vow set up camp would discover the truth within a few days…
“It’ll be the same no matter where you go! Even if you go to the capital or a city of comparable size, I figure you could last about ten days tops.”
“………”
The quartet fell silent.
“We totally knew that,” they eventually muttered, acting like a bunch of sore losers.
“You’re limited to three orcs and ogres per day. You can have thirty goblins and kobolds apiece. I won’t place a limit on herbs. That said, you’d better not pick our land barren! If you agree to follow those rules, I don’t mind if you keep doing dailies. Also, don’t juggle a ton of quests at once…except for the ‘red mark’ jobs or inactive requests with no takers. You’re free to take as many of those as you like.”
While the guild offered an extermination reward to incentivize hunters to thin out the numbers of orcs and ogres, the real reason such creatures fetched high prices lay in the value of their flesh, hides, horns, and tusks. If those prices were to tank, a lot of people would be in a tough spot. Without the lure of substantial profit, fewer hunters would be willing to haul back such heavy meat. And of course, no butcher would risk going in person to dress and skin a beast, knowing that the stench of blood might attract even more monsters. It was easy to see why the guild master would impose a cap on the Crimson Vow.
Goblins, on the other hand, provided no raw materials to sell and only carried the extermination reward. Kobold hides could be tanned and shipped off to the capital or other cities, but it didn’t matter much if the girls brought in a surplus of one or the other. In these cases, the depopulation efforts took precedence over any concern over market rates. Plus, the Crimson Vow always delivered their kobolds whole, apparently loath to skin the creatures themselves, so the guild got to collect that sweet, sweet labor fee.
As for the herbs, those could be made into medicine and distributed to other towns indefinitely. In a world where medicine couldn’t be produced by chemical or industrial means, medicinal herbs were always in high demand, even if their effects were minimal.
“………”
Powerless to challenge the guild master’s terms, the Crimson Vow said nothing at all.
***
“Well, what can we do? He’s right,” Reina shrugged on the way back from the guild branch. “Besides, the whole point of those mass deliveries was to get to D-rank fast—plus to establish ourselves enough to actually get decent jobs at D-rank. Now that we’re C-rank, we can make more than enough money doing things the normal way. No big deal.”
“Yeah,” Mavis agreed. “Our main goal isn’t to make money or get promoted anymore. We’re in this for the adventure, to help those in need, and to meet the expectations of our struggling clients.”
“Wrong! Money always matters!”
“Ha ha…” Mile cracked a dry, amused smile at Pauline’s comment. Her friends never changed.
“Anyway, we’ve hit our daily quota for everything but the herbs,” said Reina. “I suggest we hunt in batches, keep our haul in Mile’s storage so it can be frozen in time, and turn in our allotted amount each day. Though if we hunt too much at once, that will cause a discrepancy in the number of monsters turned in versus the actual distribution of monsters, which could make problems for the people monitoring the culling efforts. Let’s be careful not to take it that far.”
The rest of the party nodded along in agreement.
“Finally, let’s grab all the most intriguing, challenging, and fun quests on the board!”
“Yeah!”
There were three types of hunters. First were those who worked to make a living. Second were those who sought to rise to the top, gaining status and rank. Lastly, there were those who did it for the love of the game, seeking out heart-pounding adventure and helping people along the way.
The current incarnation of the Crimson Vow was clearly this last type.
***
“On that note, here’s the job I claimed on our way out…”
Back at the inn, Reina placed a job posting in front of the group. It read:
Exterminate whatever is preying on the livestock in Golba Village. Payment on completion: 3 gold.
From the sound of it, Golba Village was a small farming community about five or six hours’ walk from their current location.
“We weren’t going to get many requests to slay an earth dragon or a gryphon out here in the sticks,” she added. “This is the best we can hope for from an extermination job.”
“I guess…”
“We’re in this one to help people,” said Pauline.
She was right: Accepting this request was a form of volunteer work. A poor village might consider three gold a large sum, but for a party of four, it amounted to seven and a half gold per person. That was equivalent to a mere 75,000 Japanese yen. At a glance, that might seem like fair compensation…but within that figure lurked a trap.
First of all, the type of monster that needed exterminating wasn’t specified. It could be a goblin or a kobold…but there was a nonzero chance that it was an orc, an ogre, a wyvern, a manticore, a gryphon, or something of that ilk.
The posting had also neglected to mention the number of monsters that needed exterminating or the duration of the job. In short, the girls had no idea how many monsters they would be expected to kill and for how long. In a worst-case scenario, they might be instructed to keep at it until harm ceased to come to the livestock. After ten, twenty, or even thirty days on the job, an injury as minor as a gopher chewing on a cow’s tail could be what stood between them and completing the mission.
Most clients had more common sense than to subject hunters to something like that. Yet some unscrupulous villagers would deliberately phrase their request in such a way that they could claim, “You haven’t done what I requested in full, so I can’t sign the completion certificate” in order to get out of paying, just as some well-meaning villagers would earnestly believe “I’m paying good money for this, so it’s their obligation to hunt down every last monster,” or “I should work the hired help for all they’re worth to recoup my investment.” Consequently, few hunters would get involved with such a vaguely worded request.
Since no one was willing to take the job, it had been left up on the board indefinitely—a so-called “inactive” request.
Needless to say, the Crimson Vow knew all that. Still, they also knew it was very possible that the client wasn’t up to any funny business. Maybe this was their first request, and they just didn’t know the proper way to write one.
Normally, the clerk would explain all of this to a client and have them rewrite the request, but this one likely would have been entrusted to a peddler for delivery, meaning the guild had been left no choice but to post it on the board as it came to them.
Reina had, of course, made sure to go over the particulars with the clerk when she picked up the quest. Ever the professional, the clerk had told her, “If the village that made the request tries anything shady, don’t give them the time of day. Just come back.” If anyone tried to cheat the Crimson Vow—perhaps especially likely given how many people tended to underestimate a party of young girls—the guild would be sure to deal with them accordingly. All subsequent requests from that village would be rejected. The guild would neither buy nor sell materials, medicine, or anything else from them again. None of the villagers would be permitted to register as hunters.
There was no need to bring legal action into the picture. A small village would be powerless if an entire guild turned against it.
Occasionally, a village ignorant of this eventuality would try to pull a fast one on a party of hunters, but such conflicts were usually resolved by a conversation with the village chief. After laying out the situation in plain facts, the guild rarely had any need to tighten the noose. As such, there weren’t likely to be any major problems.
Still, the last thing anyone wanted was to have their time wasted and their day ruined for a pittance, so the average hunter would still proceed with caution when it came to a request like this.
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