I Said Make My Abilities Average! (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 139

Chapter 139:

Clan

“I’M CERTAINLY INTERESTED in being able to pop over to see Little Lenny whenever we want, especially if I can also keep an eye on Mariette to make sure she doesn’t get forced into any unwanted engagements…”

Mile still didn’t know that Mariette had gone to see Mile-001 for advice on that very topic. The Wonder Trio had yet to bring it up, since it was hardly an urgent matter.

“But our means of transportation on the other continent would be limited,” Mile mumbled under her breath.

“Huh? What do you mean?” asked Reina.

“Oh, I was just thinking that, even if we can instantaneously travel between continents, it will still take a few days to travel from the capital of Brandel, which would be our entry point, to the capital of Tils, your domains, or your parents’ homes. I wouldn’t want us to waste that much time trekking around the continent if we could avoid it…”

“True…” 

The members of the Wonder Trio were all from locations quite near to the capital of Brandel. 

In Marcela’s case, it was a few days’ journey to the lands that she and her parents governed, but they had a second residence in the capital. Her father had been promoted from baron to viscount, so Marcela had purchased a fairly lavish mansion to serve as their joint capital residence, figuring there was no need to have a place of her very own. (Marcela’s family was still struggling to move past their penny-pinching ways, but they understood the need to keep up appearances now that they were viscounts.) 

It would take Aureana only a few days by carriage to reach the village where her parents lived, and Monika’s family business was located in the domain belonging to Marcela’s parents. In short, none of them would have a long journey home from the capital. 

It was different for the members of the Crimson Vow, whose territories were scattered in various directions around the capital of Tils. Mile’s shrine and her domain were located on the very outskirts of the country. The Marquisate of Ascham (formerly the fief of Ascham) was located in the kingdom of Brandel. And then there were the Servants of the Goddess and the various other friends the girls had made over the course of their travels. The orphanages where they had helped out. The Crimson Vow had a lot of places to visit on the old continent, and they were all too far apart. Even if they could warp instantly between the two continents, as long as the Wonder Trio’s entry point was limited to Princess Morena’s room in the kingdom of Brandel, the Crimson Vow would spend far too much time in transit.

Of course, there was always the option of one or two of the Wonder Trio warping via the Princess Transport System, sneaking out of the royal palace, and releasing the Crimson Vow in an alternate locale, but that still wasn’t ideal.

“Hmm… I wonder if there’s a better solution.”

Mile could think of several different methods of high-speed travel. Say, flying through the sky. Or building a car. The nanomachines would be sure to whine at her about prohibited requests, but the Slow Walker would manufacture her any vehicle she asked for regardless of restrictions. And since it was already mining and refining minerals from underground deposits, she wouldn’t have to worry about metal shortages getting in the way.

Still, we can’t just drive a car down the roads here… And we don’t have a runway for an airplane…

In actual fact, any airplane built by the Slow Walker probably wouldn’t need a runway, but it was hard for Mile to shake her past-life sensibilities. She ultimately abandoned the idea of building a vehicle, which was the right call, considering the commotion it would cause if the inhabitants of this world were to witness such an invention in action. A runway was really the least of the obstacles involved.

“I don’t mind asking Kragon to give us a taxi ride every once in a while, but I really don’t know about employing him as our personal chauffeur.”

Few humans would have the guts to appoint an elder dragon their designated driver.

Another option was for Mile to run ahead with her “falling horizontally” trick, then grant the others access to a shared inventory, but she went ahead and nixed that idea, too. She was trying to encourage the Crimson Vow to master proper storage magic on their own, rather than cheating like the Wonder Trio.

“A maiden’s time is precious! We can’t waste multiple days on travel! Oh, what to do?” Mile groaned, clutching her head. 

“The cost of purchasing and maintaining carriages and horses would be no issue for us these days, but we wouldn’t have many opportunities to put them to use. I’d feel bad for the horses if we left them to graze most of the time,” said Mavis. “Horses weren’t meant to spend their lives lounging in a pasture without any work to do.”

“Actually, that sounds like a great deal for the horses…”

“Agreed!”

Mavis was a little miffed to hear her party dismiss her logic outright.

“We could always have the Scavengers carry us on a palanquin, scuttling down the roads at high—”

“Rejected!” the rest of the party yelled at Mile.

Not only would something like this draw too much attention, it would be mortifying. Worse still, passing hunters and soldiers would likely assume the young girls had been kidnapped by monsters and run over with swords swinging.

Marcela had to cut in. “Excuse me, Miss Mile, but could you kindly continue this discussion among yourselves at a later date?” The conversation had strayed wildly from the topic at hand.

“Uh, sorry about that…”

“At any rate, I do hope you will consider our offer. I think it would be to your own benefit.”

“………”

Marcela had a point. Still, the girls didn’t want to give her an answer without talking it over first. This was yet another discussion best saved for later.

“Tomorrow, we will explain everything there is to know about the capital and the surrounding area. In particular, the matter of the local monsters’ superior intelligence…”

“Typical!” the Crimson Vow exclaimed in exasperation. 

The Wonder Trio had yet to explore the continent beyond this town and the capital, yet they already had a grasp of the most essential facts. The Crimson Vow couldn’t help but be a little impressed.

“The day after tomorrow, let us return to the capital together. Although—” Marcela abruptly hung her head, looking uncomfortable. Realizing what she was about to reveal, Monika and Aureana, too, averted their eyes. “On that note, I do have some unfortunate news.”

“Huh? What’s up?” asked a puzzled Mile.

“I omitted this part in my earlier explanation, but when Sir Kragon brought us to this continent, he didn’t drop us off somewhere out of sight and let us walk the rest of the way to the capital. Rather, we, erm…”

Marcela was usually one to speak her mind, so Mile was starting to find all this hemming and hawing strange. Until… 

“We landed right in the middle of the royal palace gardens, and it turned into something of a debacle. Rather a few of the palace residents saw our faces amid all the chaos… So if you were to encounter a palace official in our company, we might draw a bit of attention.”

“You WHAAAAT?!” 

“That sounds like it would draw more than a ‘bit’ of attention!”

“A-a-ah…”

Reina, Pauline, and Mavis all took turns expressing their dismay.

Mile, meanwhile, gave Marcela an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Aww! Even after all this time, you can still be a little ditzy…”

“You are the absolute last person to call anyone here ditzy!” Marcela shouted.

Monika and Aureana nodded in emphatic agreement.

***

“So, what do we want to do?”

The Crimson Vow had gone back to their room, agreeing to meet up with the Wonder Trio again the next morning. They would be expected to give their reply to the clan proposal then, so they had to make their decision tonight.

“I’ll let everyone else say their piece first,” offered Mile.

She knew that if she came out and said what she wanted, it would be harder for everyone else to offer an opposing opinion. The rest of the party nodded, appreciating Mile’s approach. 

“Marcela already listed all the pros and cons for us,” said Reina. “The advantages are pretty significant for us, and if we’re teaming up with the Wonder Trio, I don’t think we have to worry about any of the disadvantages too much.”

Everyone else nodded emphatically.

“If anything, I’d say the worst part is that being in a clan takes away a little of our autonomy. We’re used to up and leaving without a word to anyone else, but if we form the clan, we’ll have to make sure to give them advance notice before we hit the road, which is a bit of a hassle. Still, it’s not like we’ll need their permission or anything, and it’s their choice whether to come along or not. And we could always disband the clan, if there’s some place we want to go and they’re really set against it. It’s not like we’re going to be entering some kind of unbreakable contract. Heck, we may as well consider this a trial period.”

Reina actually seemed quite open to the idea of forming a clan.

“That sounds good to me,” said Pauline. “There are a lot of upsides and not too many downsides. Besides, it’s like you said, Reina. If it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, we can just disband the clan then. I see no reason to object.”

“I agree,” said Mavis. “And you, Mile?”

It was clear what Mile thought. She was nodding along like a bobblehead.

“Are we decided, then?” asked Reina.

“Yeah!!!” the rest of the party chorused.

The next morning over breakfast, the Crimson Vow officially accepted the Wonder Trio’s offer to form a clan. Then, they spent the whole day chatting about the new continent with their very chipper new clanmates. 

***

“Whaaaat?! The ocean is home to schools of monsters?!”

“This continent has a village of elder dragons, and you’ve already made connections there?!”

Marcela and friends were stunned to hear the Crimson Vow’s account of their recent adventures. 

Mile and friends were likewise stunned to hear the Wonder Trio’s tales of their time with a certain elder dragon.

“No way! Kragon gave such a generous gift to the orphans of the capital?!”

“I didn’t realize Kragon had a soft spot for kids…”

“I’m not convinced he thinks of them as kids,” said Mavis. “Wouldn’t the feeling be closer to a human who finds small animals cute? Kind of like how we feel about baby birds or newborn kittens? Something tells me he doesn’t just respect you because you’re the divine messenger, Mile—you fall into the same category. You’re more of a pet to him than anything.”

Mile was shocked. “Huh?”

“I mean, based on what we just heard, it sounds like it had less to do with helping orphans and more to do with children being better at cleaning out the gunk between his scales… Kids have smaller hands, so they can get in all the tight crevices, and he might not want grown adults scrubbing at his sensitive skin.” 

“That does make sense,” Pauline agreed. Leave it to Mavis to analyze the situation objectively.

“Well, I suppose I understand where he’s coming from,” said Marcela. “She does have a cute, dewy-eyed quality to her.”

“Excuuuuse me?!” roared Mile.

Counting the time she had spent as Adele before regaining her memory, Mile had lived almost thirty-three years as Misato, Adele, and Mile. This meant her cumulative mental age was twice that of nearly everyone else in the conversation. Being called “cute” was tolerable, but “dewy-eyed” was over the line.

Conveniently enough, Mile would never have to worry about anyone suspecting she might be older than she claimed—although the girl herself wasn’t sure if that was actually a good thing. 

“Setting this trivial matter aside…”

“It’s not trivial!”

“Let’s discuss our living arrangements in the capital.” Marcela pushed the conversation forward, firmly tuning out Mile’s protest. She certainly knew how to handle her friend. “Booking rooms for seven people at an inn seems ill-advised, so I was thinking that perhaps we ought to rent a house. Call it a party pad or a clan cabin or what have you. Our inven—ahem, storage magic provides us an easy means to make money, and we have ample gold coins and materials from home tucked away. The gold coins are only worth the metal they’re made of here, but they should still fetch a fair price.”

The Crimson Vow agreed with that assessment. With a group of seven, they would need to book two four-person rooms in an inn. There was no guarantee that the average inn would always have two rooms available, and they would all need to gather in one room for group discussions, which would get pretty cramped. The cost of lodgings and food for seven people would inevitably add up. Given all that, it would probably be both cheaper and more convenient to rent a house.

Besides, at an inn, they wouldn’t be able to use Mile’s quality crafted bathhouse, portable toilet, or soft and fluffy beds, nor would they have the chance to enjoy her homemade cooking. And so…

“Motion approved!!!” the Crimson Vow shouted.

***

“By the way, do you three know how to cook?” Mile asked the Wonder Trio as their group of seven was walking to the capital the next day.

They had seven mouths to feed now. It would be a lot of work for Mile to cook all three meals every day.

Mile’s own culinary skills were at the level of a hobbyist. She hadn’t mastered any fancy peeling techniques, nor was she an expert handler of a kitchen knife. Her physical strength made it easy for her to cut things, but the cross-sections rarely came out looking like works of art.

What she did have was a liberal supply of rare herbs and spices, some magic to facilitate the cooking process, and her Earthly culinary knowledge. With those advantages, she ranked among the most skilled chefs in the whole world. It was cheating, really.

Of course, she knew the culinary skills of each member of the Crimson Vow already. Pauline was on the level of the average adult. She could whip up a decent home-cooked meal. She was no gourmet chef, but if she ever made something for a boyfriend, he would probably rave about it.

Mavis was, to use a Japanese analogy, like a first-year junior high student trying her hand at cooking. She could make a very plain, amateur, by-the-book effort, but it wouldn’t taste especially great.

And as for Reina…

If she cooked anything, it would be a one-hit kill. The world would be destroyed by her culinary incompetence.

“Hmm. I suppose I would put myself on the level of the average commoner housewife,” Marcela replied.

“Huh?!” 

The members of the Crimson Vow cocked their heads in surprise, though Monika and Aureana didn’t look particularly astonished. Obviously they would be familiar with Marcela’s cooking skills after months spent traveling together.

“A-a-aren’t you supposed to be the daughter of a nobleman?!” Reina sputtered.

“Yes. Until half a year ago, I was the third daughter of a baron, and now I am the head of a newly established house of viscounts.”

“Then how are you so good at cooking?! It makes no sense!”

Marcela’s eyes took on a distant look. “Despite our noble status, we were still poor. We were, in fact, a good deal worse off than Monika’s family, a medium-sized merchant house with a steady base of customers. We employed the bare minimum of staff, and we couldn’t very well have Mother do the work of a servant, so the task fell to me.”

“Uh, sorry I asked…”

Reina realized that she had forced Marcela to air her noble family’s dirty laundry. Her apology sounded genuinely contrite.

“I’ve helped out around my family’s shop,” Monika volunteered. “You know, carrying sacks of grain, carrying sacks of grain, carrying sacks of grain, and carrying sacks of grain…”

“In other words, we should count you out, huh?” Mile concluded with a rueful grin.

“While my parents were working in the fields, I had to take care of my younger brother and sister, and that included doing the cooking,” said Aureana. “I got my start at six years old. Later on, I was enlisted to help in the fields as well, but I remained on cooking duty…”

For a moment, Mile thought to praise Aureana for her culinary prowess, but she clamped her mouth shut. Given the context, this might not be something she was particularly proud of.

“W-well,” Mile forged ahead, “that means we’ve got five people who can cook, and Miss Monika just never had the chance to try before, so I bet she can pick it up in no time!” 

“Why only Monika? What about me?” 

“Ack!” 

The Wonder Trio didn’t know to worry, but the three other members of the Crimson Vow could sense that this conversation was heading in a dangerous direction. Offending Reina was pretty bad on its own, but what the three members of the Crimson Vow truly feared was the thought of their fellow party member in the kitchen. If Monika learned how to cook, Reina would be the only one excluded from the rotation. Given her strong sense of duty and intense fear of being left out, Reina would never tolerate being the only one shut out from meal duty.

It’s all over…

We’ll die…

The world as we know it will be destroyed…

The Wonder Trio shot the Crimson Vow a blank look, oblivious to the reason for their expressions of gloom and doom.

***

As they had set out immediately after breakfast, the seven members of the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio managed to arrive at the capital before dark. Their hunter’s licenses got them all through the gates without issue, though they did have to wait in a bit of a line. 

Even without their credentials as hunters, it was hard to imagine the gatekeepers detaining a bunch of cute young girls who clearly had no criminal intentions. It helped that five out of seven of them were sporting mage equipment. They might have been young, but they were clearly skilled at magic. Besides, they were well dressed and well equipped, neat and tidy. Definitely not the type that the gatekeepers would take the time and effort to investigate.

“So this is the kingdom’s capital city,” Mile remarked. She looked around the streets wide-eyed, her out-of-towner status on full display.

Some rubbernecking aside, Reina, Pauline, and Mavis were doing their best not to embarrass themselves. If they made it too obvious that they were country bumpkins, it would be like issuing an invitation to pickpockets, kidnappers, and human traffickers. Then again, a group of seven girls in hunter gear were probably not at too much risk of being targeted… 

Since the Wonder Trio had begun their journey in the capital, they were slightly more at ease than their companions. Still, they weren’t particularly familiar with the area. They had really only gone straight from the royal palace to the city gates and had spent no more than a few dozen minutes in the city beyond the palace walls.

“First things first. We ought to find ourselves an inn.”

Despite their plans to rent a house, they couldn’t very well barge into a real estate agency and get that done within the evening. At the very least, they needed temporary lodgings for the night. After that, they would pop over to the guild to see what was going on before dinnertime. 

For their first meal in the capital, the girls didn’t plan to settle for whatever was served at the inn. They would check out the area and find themselves some quality cuisine.

***

Ding-a-ling!

The members of the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio stepped inside the capital branch of the Hunters’ Guild. This was new territory for all seven of them, since the Wonder Trio had waited to register as hunters until they had arrived at the suburb where the two parties had met up. 

Unsurprisingly, the sudden entrance of seven young women attracted some attention.

In fact, it attracted quite a bit of attention. 

Usually, parties of C-rank or below consisted of four to six people. Obviously, parties of three were not unheard of, but they were rare. A “party” of two was regarded as a different beast altogether, generally referred to as a duo, pair, or partnership instead. Those tended to come in the form of married couples or lovers. 

Parties of seven or more were difficult to manage due to concerns of mobility, adaptability, teamwork, and finances, and the perks typically weren’t significant enough to balance out the drawbacks. There was also more potential for interpersonal issues to arise in bigger groups. Thus, it was very unusual to form a large party unless you were B-rank or higher. More mature hunters had both the ability and earnings to overcome at least some of these problems and could focus their efforts on cultivating their younger members.

Still, parties of that size usually ended up operating like clans, splitting up into multiple teams or changing their member lineup depending on the nature of the job. And even when they did work all together, they would usually send a few representatives to pick up requests from the guild instead of crowding the building. The arrival of a party made up of seven young girls, most of them equipped like mages, absolutely broke the mold.

The girls had traveled far and wide, yet the only other all-female party they had ever encountered was the Servants of the Goddess, which had been a standard five-member party until Leatoria bumped their number up to six. Plus, their only members capable of magic were Lacelina, their mage, and Leatoria, who could double as a close-range fighter with her giant club. This was another way the addition of Leatoria was also a happy accident. Their original plan had been to stay a five-person party with one mage, which would have been much more typical. 

All this is proof of how rare it was to find an all-female, C-rank-or-lower party with seven or more members. Gender and number aside, any kind of party with more than one mage was already unusual. Mages’ higher survival rate and memorable talents sometimes created the illusion that there were a fair number of them around, but in reality, they were rare. Most parties would be fortunate to have even one magic user, and if they were lucky enough for said mage to be a young, beautiful girl, they ought to be thanking the gods each night at bedtime.

Considering all this, a party of seven, more than half of whom were minors, all of whom were gorgeous young girls, and the majority of whom were mages was about as rare as a male calico cat (one in every thirty thousand) or a red diamond (less than thirty currently known to exist on Earth). Plus, they had an abundance of mages, who were always in high demand but short supply. A headcount and job imbalance that made it hard to believe they could be a single party. And each of them were young and pretty.

All eyes—those of hunters and guild staff alike—were on the seven girls as they made their way to the reception counter.

“We’re the Crimson Vow, and we’d like to request an application to transfer home branches,” Mavis announced. “Starting today, we’ll be hunters of the capital branch. We look forward to working with you!”

Each of the four members of the Crimson Vow dipped her head in a polite bow.

“And we are the Wonder Trio,” Marcela declared. “We will likewise be relocating our home branch to the capital. Your assistance in the matter would be noted and appreciated.” With that, the three members of the Wonder Trio bowed as well. 

Marcela’s was a slightly haughty tone for a newbie hunter to take with a guild employee, but she so clearly had the aura of a noblewoman that no one dared question her. 

Only individual hunters and parties needed to be registered with the guild. Clans were strictly an arrangement between parties, in which the guild had no business getting involved. Any sharing or joining of forces was treated as temporary backup. For this reason, neither Mavis nor Marcela had mentioned the clan.

Of course, young, female hunters were a welcome addition to any guild. Their presence motivated the men and made it easier for other women considering becoming hunters. Female hunters also presented valuable potential marriage partners for the men of the guild, the great majority of whom were bachelors. No one would ever dare belittle a lady hunter, not even the ones who stuck to chores and herb gathering and avoided battle with monsters.

What’s more, the majority of these girls were equipped with mage gear. Even if they could do nothing more than produce water, that was an incredibly valuable skill. If they could use healing magic, the competition to recruit them was going to be fierce. And if they could cook, well…men would be throwing themselves at their feet. 

As such, the whole guild was staring intently at the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio. The girls simply ignored their new fans. 

By now, they were used to this. 

***

“We’ll use this inn as our base for the next few days,” said Marcela. “If all seems well in the city, we can rent a house here and make it our clan home. Any objections?”

“None!” Her six companions were in agreement.

After submitting their branch transfer applications at the guild, both parties had scanned the information board, checked the jobs to get a sense for what kind of requests were available, and made a quick exit, gracefully dodging the numerous parties that tried to approach them. Then, after dinner at an attractive restaurant, they all gathered in the Crimson Vow’s room at the inn (which they had booked prior to heading to the guild) for a clan meeting.

Neither party had built credit in the city yet, but as long as they paid the rent in advance and put down a security deposit, they were unlikely to have problems renting a house. They wouldn’t need to provide a copy of their family register or find a guarantor or anything like that. As a trade-off, if their overdue rent ever exceeded the amount of their security deposit, they would be evicted without further notice, and all their household possessions would be seized and sold off.

Here, landlords were given firm protection under the law, while tenants were at a disadvantage. It made sense, given the context. Merchants could always take off in the night or move to another town for business—never to return. Hunters might be killed by monsters. Soldiers were liable to die in wars. Guards could always be cut down by the criminals or drunks they set out to apprehend. When tenants were likely to disappear at any given moment, there had to be safeguards against landlords losing money, or none of them would stay in the business of renting out houses.

Ironically, this was to the benefit of the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio. As long as the rent was paid in advance, even a little girl of undetermined background with no sponsors to speak of could rent a house without any issue.

Easy as it might be to obtain a lease, no member of either party was brave enough to rent a house without first getting a sense for the surrounding city. If the quality of life here proved poor, or if the guild staff, nobility, or royalty turned out to be a bunch of morons, they would simply pack up and move on to another kingdom. This was far from the only country on the continent; it was simply where the Crimson Vow had first happened to land because of its location on the eastern edge of the landmass. It bordered the sea, which was a bonus, but that was all it really had going for it. Plenty of other nations lined the coast, and the hunters didn’t particularly mind staying in a landlocked country, either. After all, if they ever needed to stock up on fish, Mile could always fall horizontally toward a seaside town and return with plenty.

True, moving elsewhere would mean that the Wonder Trio would have to trek all the way back to this capital to use the Princess Transport System; however, they hadn’t exactly been planning to utilize it with any frequency. Besides, if Mile developed a method of transport to get them across the old continent, they could always use that over here as well.

“Any house we rent needs a courtyard where we can set up Mile’s bathhouse and toilet,” said Reina. “Also, it should have a big kitchen. We’ll need to cook for seven every meal, and that way we can make big batches of food and keep them in Mile’s storage.”

Mavis had a slightly bigger appetite than the average girl, and Mile and Reina’s appetites were downright enormous. As a result, they would actually need to make a lot more than seven people’s worth of food.

“It needs one big dining room, at least two other multipurpose rooms for each party, and ideally seven bedrooms,” Reina went on.

“No house with a courtyard is going to have space for three big chambers!” Mile interjected.

“Does it have to be a courtyard? Can’t it just be a backyard with a tall enough fence to keep anyone from looking in?” Mavis suggested.

Reina got a little defensive. “Courtyard, backyard, what’s the difference?! Call it whatever you want!”

“Um, actually, they have completely different definitio—”

“It doesn’t matter, Mile!” Pauline cut her off before the debate escalated any further.

The Wonder Trio shot her a withering look. “That’s your most insufferable habit, Miss Mile. You truly never change…”

“Huh? What did I say?”

Mile remained as oblivious as ever.

“If we’re living in a proper house rather than an inn or school dormitory, I would prefer not to sleep four to a room. Let’s set our limit at two to a room at most,” Marcela proposed. “Of course, the ideal scenario is that everyone gets their own private bedroom, but I doubt we will easily find a single-family home that meets our criteria. That narrows our options to some kind of merchant house, a former inn, or a particularly small, rundown estate once owned by a house of poor knight barons… Depending on what’s available, we may have to look outside the city center, or the rent will get too expensive. I’m certain both our parties could afford a little extra, but living somewhere too nice might draw attention to ourselves.”

“Fair point,” Mavis agreed. “We’re supposed to be newbie hunters. We’ve got to put in the work to sell our cover story.”

Flaunting their excess of power and wealth would attract another swarm of pests, and the girls were sick and tired of dealing with people who wanted to take advantage of them. 

“Well, once we’ve decided to stay here long-term, we can go look for a real estate agency. There’s no point in discussing our dream house if no such properties are even available.”

Following Aureana’s very sensible lead, the girls agreed to table the discussion.

***

A week had passed since the new clan had arrived at the capital. The Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio had completed a few jobs in the immediate vicinity of the city, and both parties had earned a measure of trust as promising youngsters with consistent, reliable track records.

Unsurprisingly, there was already intense competition among parties hoping to recruit the newcomers. Particularly among those attempting to catch the eye of the Wonder Trio… 

With two frontline fighters, the Crimson Vow was assumed to be a relatively balanced, established party. It helped that Mavis and Pauline both appeared to be adults, and the whole party had already achieved a C-rank. 

The Wonder Trio was, as far as anyone could tell, an underage friend group with a horribly unbalanced composition of three mages and zero frontline fighters. Plus, they were F-rank—novices among novices. They had clearly only been hunters for a period of time between few days and a few months. The general assumption was that they were a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears newbies who had blown all their savings on mage apparel and supplemented with secondhand staves and daggers. Both those with unsavory motives and those without were desperate to bring these girls into their own party and take them “under their wing.”

Of course, the fact that Marcela had already made her enormous storage space public knowledge made the members of the Wonder Trio all the more attractive as potential recruits. 

Although the party was steadily working their way through requests, they had to stick to the jobs that F-ranks were eligible for—most of which they could have done with both eyes closed. Needless to say, none of those jobs involved exterminating orcs or ogres. This meant that the Crimson Vow remained the only ones in the capital who knew the Wonder Trio’s true capabilities.

Like Marcela, Mile had disclosed the existence of her storage magic, making her another prime target for recruitment efforts. As a mage who could fight on the front lines and keep things in storage, she was a hot commodity. Still, seeing as the Crimson Vow was an established party, most hunters assumed that the Wonder Trio, which had “barely found its feet,” would be more vulnerable to poaching.

It certainly didn’t help matters that Marcela was clearly of noble birth. No one was sure whether she was a current or former aristocrat, but either was fine by them.

Little did the hunters know that the Crimson Vow were all noblewomen, and even held a higher rank than Marcela. Even if they had made this fact public, no one would have believed them, and in truth, it didn’t much matter what status they held on some distant continent. 

The point is, all the girls were receiving some invitations, but as long as they didn’t hide the existence of their “storage magic”—probably even if they did—that was bound to happen anywhere they went. Keeping their storage a secret wasn’t particularly practical, anyway, since it would mean they couldn’t carry large amounts of game, or use their tents, toilet, bathhouse, or fresh ingredients around other hunters or during escort missions. The benefits of using their storage outweighed the cost.

Perhaps because this was the capital, crime seemed like less of an issue than in the other cities. No one had tried to extort them with threats or violence thus far, and based on the information they’d gathered by treating the veteran hunters to ale, the king and upper nobility sounded relatively decent. Of course, that wasn’t to say there were no questionable aristocrats hanging around, but things were apparently better here than in some of the surrounding countries. 

As for the most influential merchant families…well…there was no such thing as a country full of nothing but honest, upstanding merchants, and if there were, it would probably be destined for ruin. That wasn’t worth dwelling on.

In summary, the kingdom and its capital received a passing grade.

***

“I believe our second option would be most appropriate,” said Marcela. “What are your thoughts, ladies?”

“Yes. I agree that’s the best choice,” said Reina. “Everyone good with that?”

The rest of the party members nodded in agreement.

Once they had given the area their stamp of approval, the girls found a real estate agent to give them a tour of potential properties. Of all the places they had seen, one appeared to be particularly promising. 

The property in question was a former inn, with several guest rooms of uniform size. This was one point in its favor, since these rooms made for perfect bedrooms. As an inn, it also had a spacious kitchen, which would make it easy to cook large batches of food to store in Mile’s inventory. It even came pre-stocked with large pots, pans, and platters. 

The former dining area on the first floor provided an ideal spot for everyone to gather for meals. It was quite spacious and even had room for the blackboard and other tools Mile had made for meeting purposes. 

There was also a rather large backyard, originally meant for drying laundry or giving guests in combat professions a place to work out and stay in shape. The outdoor space was big enough to fit Mile’s portable bathhouse and toilet, and it also had a well. Mavis could use the excess space to do her own training or to give the Wonder Trio sword-fighting lessons. The existing hedge was a bit short to completely block the view from the street, but they could easily solve that problem by building a wall with earth magic, which would have the added bonus of fortifying their clan house’s defenses. When the time came to vacate the premises, they could use earth magic again to put everything back how it was.

Several of the other properties they toured were too big and expensive to be appropriate for a party of young hunters, particularly one like the Wonder Trio. Others had the opposite problem and were too small to have a sufficient number of rooms or a satisfactorily big yard. 

The real estate agent was likely expecting the girls to pick a smaller property. A common technique in the business was to show off two big properties, then two small ones, and finally pitch an option of just the right size. In this instance, however, the girls had ended up settling on one of the two “big ones” instead. 

The other oversized option had been blatantly beyond the means of the average hunter. It wasn’t unheard of for the children of noble or rich families to become hunters as a pastime, and the presence of the obviously well-off Marcela and Mavis might explain why the clan had no shortage of coin despite the ages of its members. Yet even if they had avoided too many raised eyebrows, a youngster who appeared to have deep pockets rarely led to anything good. As it was, there was little to be done about the two ladies’ innate aura of nobility. At least the real estate agency couldn’t care less about the background of its renters as long as they paid their rent and security deposit in advance.

Their place would be a bit far from the city center—which was where the Hunters’ Guild, Merchants’ Guild, and shopping district all were—but there was a market in the vicinity. Plus, living away from downtown had its perks, such as cheaper rent and less noise. Around the temple, the bells that announced the time were quite loud, and drunkards always made an unbearable ruckus outside the guilds and bars.

“We’re going with option two,” Reina told the surprised real estate agent.

The girls weren’t planning to buy the place. They could always move if they didn’t like it. As a result, they hadn’t actually spent much time stressing over the decision.

In contrast to the average household in modern Japan, the two parties didn’t have much stuff to pack. Besides, Mile and the Wonder Trio could use their inventories to take care of the whole moving process in an instant. This significantly lowered the psychological hurdle of finding a new place to live.

The expense was a different matter. In order to secure the house, the girls were expected to put down an advance payment of the monthly rent and the security deposit—that is, a sum of money held in trust for as long as they occupied the property. As already mentioned, this was meant to protect the landlord from suffering losses due to unpaid rent, tenant abandonment, or significant damage to the property. The security deposit was equivalent to half a year’s rent.

It was a significant investment, but there was no getting around it. Even if the tenant had the best of intentions, in a world like this one, one had to prepare for the worst. It was not uncommon for even the youngest and healthiest hunter to leave for work one day and simply never come back. Hence, advance payments and security deposits were the norm among landlords. 

The reason for the real estate agent’s surprise was simple. Given their age, these girls had to be newbies—and yet, they had nonchalantly settled on a very expensive property, and they didn’t seem the least bit concerned about how they were going to pay for it. Still, hunters came in many types—including the playacting children of nobles or rich families who moonlighted as hunters to indulge their youthful fantasies, or the so-called “tourist parties” who hired veteran hunters and set off on luxurious adventures. 

Likely concluding that the girls were an example of one of these, the real estate agent signed the contract without too many misgivings. As long as the rental company received the security deposit and advance rent payment, they had no reason to care whether their tenants died or ran away.

***

“This is our castle!”

“This is where our legend on this continent begins!”

“How many times do I have to remind you? We don’t want to become a legend! We’ll have to move to another continent again!”

“Ha ha ha ha!”

The Crimson Vow were being their usual selves. As for the Wonder Trio…

“Our first order of business ought to be cleaning up. After that, we can focus on finding ourselves furniture.”

“For a start, we’ll need beds, cookware, dishes, and cutlery. We can use what came with the house for now and gradually swap those items out for equipment that better suits our needs. Oh, but before that, we need to set up the toilet and bathhouse. Next comes checking the light fixtures…”

“The well probably hasn’t been used for a while, so we’ll need to draw some water and clean it out. We should also put up a privacy screen in the backyard…”

Clearly, they were a bit more practical than Mile’s team. 

If you added the parties together and divided by two, you might end up with just the right balance of outlandishness and pragmatism. The Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio were proving to be a very good match. 

***

“The bathhouse and toilet are all finished!” Mile announced, pretending to wipe sweat from her brow. In reality, she hadn’t had to do much physical labor.

The amenities she had set up weren’t the ones she always kept in her inventory—the fortified, portable bathhouse and toilet encased in huge walls of stone—but brand-new creations. They were both fully equipped against peeping toms and sudden ambushes. Since the group had grown in size, she had even added a second toilet stall to the restroom. Both were flushed with water drawn from a water tower she had built in the house’s backyard. 

Although everyone except Mavis could produce their own water, it would be a pain to use magic each time they wanted to drink a glass of water, cook, wash up, or do the dishes. With magic, it was sometimes difficult to control the amount of water that one produced, which could be a bit messy. One solution might have been to keep some kind of vessel on hand for all their necessities, but that was too unhygienic for Mile to bear. It was much more convenient to have a water tower.

The tower Mile created was tall enough to supply water to the second floor of the house, and its tank was refilled using magic rather than by pumping water from the well. The amount of water that remained in the tank was displayed on a screen in the kitchen, and when it fell below a certain level, whoever noticed first would be in charge of filling it up. Mavis was exempt from this system because she wasn’t a mage, but Monika and Aureana were expected to participate despite their weaker magic abilities. They were to treat it as another part of their training and put forth their best effort to replenish the tank.

Between the water tower, the running water it provided, and Mile’s flush toilets, this property was head and shoulders above the average household in terms of plumbing and hygiene. It even had a bathing facility, which would generally only be found in aristocratic residences and luxury inns. Heck, once you added in Mile’s custom-made shampoo, the amenities far surpassed anything you would find in even a noble’s mansion.

All wastewater was stored in an underground tank and magically purified. The resulting distilled water was then poured down the street gutter. It was so thoroughly filtered that it would have been perfectly safe to repurpose, but to Mile’s eye, the psychological barrier to using former wastewater was too great, no matter how clean it technically was.

“Is your plan to spoil us rotten, Miss Mile?”

“Ha ha! I’ll never be able to stay at a regular inn after this.”

“When I go home to my parents, I won’t be able to stand using our pit toilets.” 

The Wonder Trio shuddered at the perils of having to live in any other house.

Indeed, the Wonder Trio weren’t acting as uptight or competitive with the Crimson Vow as they had in the past. Perhaps they were appeased by the fact that both parties were now living together, which allowed them to see their friend daily and know that she was safe and happy. Evidently, that was all it took to satisfy them. 

Most of the time, the two parties still worked separately, though the Wonder Trio did occasionally have the option of working with Mile from time to time, whether through joint missions or by mixing and matching their forces with the Crimson Vow’s. 

If the Wonder Trio ever did need to borrow some firepower, they were most likely to pull Mavis and Mile as frontline fighters. With those two on their team, they would never need to go looking for another frontline-oriented party to join them on a job. 

Reina and Pauline, on the other hand, might be invited to join the Wonder Trio so they all might study one another’s magical techniques. Even Reina was not uninterested in learning from her fellow hunters. The Wonder Trio wasn’t like the Crimson Vow—a party that thrived on brute force and the individual firepower of its members. They had more in common with the Servants of the Goddess, who excelled at teamwork and complemented each other’s strengths. Since the Servants were led by Reina’s idol, Telyusia, it seemed she wanted to learn more about their way of doing things.

Thus, with a brand-new base and all their ducks in a row, the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio commenced full-scale operations on the new continent.

***

“We need a party up in here!” Mile announced out of the blue.

“Huh?” It was almost as though a question mark formed over the heads of all six of her compatriots. 

Unsurprisingly, Mavis and Pauline were the first to raise voices of protest.

“Er, wouldn’t that be moving a little too fast? Our two parties have yet to even officially begin working together.”

“I don’t think we’re at that stage yet, Mile…”

“Hm? Sure we are. It’s now or never, as they say!”

“We don’t even know any other parties around here,” said Reina. “Who exactly are you planning to invite?”

“Huh? Invite? What are you talking about? I wasn’t planning to involve any other parties. I was imagining a small, private affair!”

“What?”

“Whaaat?”

“Whaaaaaat?!”

***

“Wait, you meant a party to mark our fresh start? Why didn’t you just say that?!”

“What she said!”

“Oh, honestly…”

“Inadequate explanation can be a recipe for disaster, Mile!”

“Sorry…”

The Wonder Trio watched with helpless smiles as Mile apologized to her companions. For their part, they were usually pretty good at sussing out the meaning behind Mile’s madness. They had inferred what she really meant from the start, so they weren’t particularly surprised by the reveal.

And so, the Wonder Trio watched in amusement as the Crimson Vow raised a fuss over the misunderstanding, perhaps a bit smug that they understood Mile best.

Before long, it was determined the party would take place the next day. 

***

The gathering began with a short speech from Mavis, the Crimson Vow’s party leader—and thereby, the clan leader as well. 

Then, Mile encouraged everyone to eat.

“Bon appétit!”

They were all friends and family now. Any discussions were best had over food and drink.

“What does that even mean?”

The Crimson Vow were used to Mile’s odd turns of phrase, but this one was entirely new to the Wonder Trio. They shot her a dubious look, then shrugged, assuming it must have come from one of her folktales. Ultimately, they decided to let it go without any further thought. They were hardly strangers to Mile’s little quirks.

A large spread of food and drink had been laid out on a table in the first-floor living-slash-dining room. Mile had done the cooking yesterday and kept the prepared dishes in her inventory. It was always moments like these when she was most grateful for her storage powers. If another hunter or merchant got wind of the breadth of her abilities, they would probably run right up and punch her out of sheer jealousy.

“I say this every time, but your cooking truly is delicious, Miss Mile. It might prove difficult for everyone else on meal duty to measure up,” Marcela commented between bites of food.

It was a fair concern. Previously, the Crimson Vow had left almost all the cooking to Mile. When she was away or otherwise occupied, Pauline would occasionally pitch in, but that was the extent of anyone else’s efforts. From now on, however, they would all take turns doing the cooking, which meant getting a taste of everyone else’s food. Even Monika and Reina were expected to contribute, though they would be on probation for a while as they got the hang of things. 

“Oh, well, I’m not a particularly skilled cook,” shrugged Mile. “I just make use of herbs and spices that I’ve collected from every corner of the world, as well as the shoyu, sauces, miso, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and various dipping sauces I spent a long time experimenting to make. Plus, I came up with the idea to make soup stock and invented various new culinary techniques—”

“Humblebrag much?!”

Mile had only meant to lay out the facts, but now she had the entire room yelling at her.

“Wh-what I meant to say is, er, the results of my cooking are a product of the knowledge and flavorings at my disposal, not any special skills of my own. If the rest of you used the same seasonings and copied my methods, I think you could easily whip up food of the same quality. Probably even better, really!”

“Uh…”

It was the honest truth. Mile did not have the God Tongue, nor could she slice a daikon into one thin, long strip. She would never win a cooking competition where salt was the only seasoning allowed. She simply knew about seasonings and culinary techniques from Earth. If she were to share that knowledge with her friends, they could all make the exact same dishes.

Well, except Reina.

***

For the rest of the meal, the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Trio chatted about cooking tips, their future plans, and various other topics. Eventually, they started to get full.

“I think it’s getting to be bath time. Who wants to go in first?” Reina asked.

The bathhouse was rather large, so the girls usually went in a whole party at a time. Which group got to go first varied from day to day.

“Let’s all go in together today!” Mile suggested. “I made our brand-new fortified clan bathhouse bigger than the portable version. There’s plenty of room for everyone to take a bath together!”

“………”

It was suddenly clear to the group that Mile had designed the new bathhouse with this exact purpose in mind. The Crimson Vow didn’t have a Mile Simulator, but even they had known her long enough to be pretty sure this was the case. 

Naturally, they also knew that Mile wouldn’t take no for an answer. There was no point in arguing about it.

“Okay, fine…”

***

“………”

Mile had bathed with the Wonder Trio once before, back when she reunited with them at the end of her solo journey. However, this was the first time the rest of the Crimson Vow would be joining them for a soak. Even after moving into the clan house together, they had stuck to bathing with their own parties.

Pauline, they could live with. She was a Hall of Famer in a league of her own and thus excluded from any rankings. That effectively put Marcela in first place. She was of noble descent, and she currently held a peerage of her own. She had gorgeous, aristocratic features, a sharp mind, top-notch magic abilities, decent skill with a sword, and a high-minded personality that earned her the affection of commoners and the respect of her fellow nobles. Last, but certainly not least, she was quite well-endowed. They say God doesn’t give with both hands, yet she had been blessed with almost every advantage one could possess. 

If only those had been smaller. Then, she’d have had at least one shortcoming…

The other six girls were burdened with a sense of defeat.

Mavis didn’t have it so bad. Hers were a bit smaller than average, but she had a masculine, “bifauxnen” vibe to her. More than once, she had been heard saying, “Large breasts only get in a swordswoman’s way, so I’m happy with what I have.” Somehow, she never seemed to notice how Reina gave her the stink eye during those moments.

(Also, those claims of hers were actually just sour grapes. She secretly mimicked Mile’s breast-building exercises each night before bed, having yet to realize everyone else knew exactly what she was doing. …One look at Mile’s chest ought to have told her that this was an exercise in futility, anyway.)

Monika and Aureana were also on the smaller end of the scale. The two girls were cute, but they didn’t have Marcela or Mavis’s aristocratic features. With their ordinary looks, they needed whatever advantages they could get. They both dreamed of becoming a little more buxom, but…alas, that had been a bust.

As for Mile and Reina…

Mile was already aware of the “power gaps” among the two parties but was comforted by the fact that, in this body at least, she was one of the youngest of the bunch. In other words, she was holding out hope for further developments. 

Meanwhile, despite being the second oldest after Mavis, Reina was evenly matched with Mile.

“Hm? Where’d Reina go?”

At Mile’s prompting, everyone glanced around the room. Reina, who had been soaking in the tub with them just moments earlier, was nowhere to be found. 

Instead, there were bubbles floating on the surface of the water where she had been.

Down into the depths she went…

***

After bath time came teatime.

“Any thoughts on our name?” Marcela asked out of the blue.

“Huh? What name?” Mile asked, genuinely unsure what she was talking about.

“Our clan name!”

“Oh,” everyone else muttered.

That was something they needed to figure out.

“How about Buff?”

“What, from the Buff Clan?”

“Or Berry?”

“What, from Cranberry?”

“Okay, then Hound…”

“What, from the Hound of Culann?”

“This is important, Mile! Stop trying to slip in a reference!”

The Wonder Trio were lost, but the Crimson Vow remembered Mile’s folktales about how a white flag could be the ultimate declaration of war, a call to eradicate every last enemy from the face of the earth, as well as her stories of the Child of Light. They could tell she was messing around.

Reina in particular was picky about party names—to the point that she had made it her goal in life to make sure the Crimson Lightning’s name entered the history books, dubbed her own party the Crimson Vow, and named her newly founded noble line Reddlightning. The thought of Mile turning their clan name into a joke had her hackles up.

“Sorry!” 

Mile knew this about her friend, so she opted to back down without a fight.

“How about…the Crimson Wonder Clan’s Seven Vows?” 

“That’s too long!”

“The Wonder Septet!”

“Now it doesn’t have a single element of our name in it!”

Thanks to Reina’s nonstop nitpicking, the group was still struggling to settle on a clan name.

Though really, it wasn’t Reina’s fault that no one had come up with any good ideas. 

“Oh, forget it! We can come back to the name issue later! Unlike parties, clans don’t have to register with the Hunters’ Guild, so it’s not like we’re in any rush to decide.”

Reina was right. When the two parties first came to the capital and submitted their branch transfer request, they had reported the names of their parties and individual members, but they hadn’t mentioned anything about their clan. Because clans were based purely on the relationships between parties, the guild didn’t get involved.

“Besides, it would be in our best interest not to advertise the fact that we’ve formed a clan,” said Marcela. “If we’re not careful, other parties may come pestering us to let them join. A particularly pushy all-male party might even attempt to take residence in our clan house.” 

“We certainly don’t want that!” Reina shuddered. “So let’s say that, while we don’t need to go out of our way to hide our affiliation, we can all agree not to make any public announcements. Sound good?”

Everyone else nodded.

The all-male parties always came swarming as soon as they spotted a party of young girls, and the fact that Mile and Marcela made no effort to hide their storage magic (actually inventories) would bring the remaining parties over in droves. Things were especially bad for the Wonder Trio, who were still F-rank, short on members, and had a serious job imbalance problem. The frontline-oriented, all-male parties in search of a mage never stopped leering. 

If word got out that the Wonder Trio and the Crimson Vow were living together as a clan—not to mention that they still had a few rooms available, since their clan house was a former inn—it could spell disaster.

“It’s not like we’d ever agree to something like that. Even if they offered to pay rent, we don’t need the extra money. And if some harem-seeking loons forced their way in and tried to take charge of our all-female clan, we’d just drag them somewhere out of sight and give them the beatdown of their lives.”

“I can’t agree to that, Reina,” Pauline protested. “It shouldn’t be somewhere out of sight. We’d have to crush them where everyone is watching, or we won’t be sending a message to the rest of their ilk.”

“Oh, good point. Sorry, I didn’t think that one through.”

“………”

“Oh, that reminds me, Miss Marcela, you guys are still F rank, right?”

“Correct. We only just registered as hunters, and they don’t offer skip applications here.”

Of course, the Crimson Vow knew this all too well. They, too, had gotten their start at F-rank.

“We’re all C-ranks as both individuals and a party, so that might make it difficult for us to do standard quests together.”

“Ah,” all three girls gasped.

Dailies and loot deliveries were one thing, but F-rank hunters couldn’t take on escort or extermination missions. Even supposing the two parties teamed up to complete a job, the Wonder Trio would be seen as leeching off the Crimson Vow. Cheap power-leveling was against the rules, and though no one minded the idea of younger hunters tagging along to learn from their more experienced colleagues, the guild didn’t award contribution points in situations where it looked like one party was carrying another. 

The Wonder Trio had actually long since reached C-rank in terms of sheer ability, but what they needed at the moment were contribution points, so power-leveling wasn’t going to do them any good.

Obtaining C-rank by virtue of their high-capacity storage magic was an option, but it was only applicable to Marcela, the sole member of the party who could disclose the existence of her storage space. If she went forward with the promotion on her own, she would be forced to join a high-ranking party and let them protect her. There was no chance that a storage user from a party of F-ranks—whose own combat ability was likewise F-rank—would get the C-rank treatment for that ability alone. Were a party like that to take on a C-rank extermination or escort mission, they would get wiped out in an instant.

Marcela scrunched her brow into a thoughtful frown. “We must find some way to get a promotion to C-rank… Or D-rank, at the very least!”

The others nodded in agreement.

“Hmm… Oh, I know!” Mile shouted, struck with an epiphany.

“…”

As everyone present had learned from experience, it was never a good sign when Mile made a face like that. Every last one of her friends eyed her with suspicion.

***

“We’ve come to deliver our dailies!”

Thud-thump-thunk!

“We’ve come to deliver our dailies!”

Thud-thump-thunk!

“We’ve come to deliver our dailies!”

Thud-thump-thunk!

“We’ve come to deliver our dailies!”

Thud-thump-thunk!

“We’ve come to deliver our—”

“Stop! Would ya give it a reeeeeest?!”

It was now the fifth day since Marcela had begun delivering massive heaps of loot alongside her party. She had gone public about her large storage space, so she could justify bringing back an absurd amount of game every evening, and the man behind the purchasing counter had finally blown his top.

“Enough is enough! You girls’ve completely tanked the price of jackalopes!”

“There’s something reassuring about employing a battle-tested strategy,” Mile commented, sipping on fruit juice as she watched the commotion unfold from the dining area.

The other members of the Crimson Vow bobbed their heads in agreement.

***

This time around, the Wonder Trio had limited their game deliveries to jackalopes only. Overhunting normal animals—say, deer or boars—would cause a drastic decrease in the population. If things got out of hand, no one would be able to hunt them in the area for years to come. 

Therefore, it seemed only responsible to limit their potential targets to monsters only. Of the monsters that were plentiful locally, Mile had determined that the ones most likely to make the guild cry uncle were jackalopes. The creatures were an essential source of income for associate guild members under the age of ten and hunters starting out as F-ranks. They were relatively safe to hunt, could be sold for a decent sum, and were plentiful enough that most hunters sold some and saved others for their dinners. 

What would happen, then, if the prices of those jackalopes were to plummet?

The village children and orphans would survive. They wouldn’t be able to save as much coin, but they could still hunt enough of the creatures to feed themselves. Besides, jackalopes reproduced at a rapid rate, so a slight dip in the population wouldn’t have a lasting impact.

Still, a dramatic drop in the purchase price would be a serious blow to fledgling hunters. 

An orc or ogre crash might be manageable. Anyone brave enough to be hunting those monsters could just switch to a different prey, and any party that skilled would have the savings to get by for a few months.

But for the newbies making a living on jackalopes as they racked up experience, aiming to rise in the ranks, a dip in prices was a devastating prospect. The guild couldn’t sit back and let it happen. It was little wonder that both the old man who worked the purchasing counter and the guild master were spitting mad.

Soon enough, the Wonder Trio were brought to the guild master’s office on the second floor.

“What’s the big idea here, ladies?”

“What an odd question,” Marcela responded. “As you can see, we’re newly registered F-ranks doing our best to hunt jackalopes. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The guild master, the old man from the purchasing counter, and the clerk who had registered the Wonder Trio had no arguments they could make. Marcela’s logic was sound. The only requests that F-ranks were allowed to take involved doing chores around the city, gathering herbs, or hunting jackalopes—the Big Three of entry-level hunter jobs. It made perfect sense for the girls to commit themselves to one of those options, and they certainly didn’t deserve to be criticized or questioned over it.

Of the three jobs, hunting jackalopes tended to be the most profitable. As a result, anyone skilled enough to hunt safely in the forest wasn’t going to bother doing chores or gathering herbs for low-quality potions. (Rare medicinal herbs were a different story due to the high degree of difficulty involved. They often grew in remote, dangerous areas or were otherwise difficult to find.)

In any event, it was perfectly natural for fresh-faced F-ranks like the Wonder Trio to hunt an abundance of jackalopes, and calling them to the guild master’s office to chew them out over it was completely unwarranted. A total injustice.

Or so the Wonder Trio argued… 

“You girls ever heard of a thing called moderation?! Or how about common sense?!” the guild master roared back. The man from the purchasing counter and the clerk nodded in emphatic agreement.

Of course he would say that, thought the Wonder Trio.

Despite getting on board with Mile’s plan, they were aware that what they were doing was pushing the bounds of both moderation and common sense. In fact, they had adopted the strategy knowing full well how ridiculous it was.

Marcela took her chance to go on the offensive. “As F-ranks, this is the most efficient way for us to earn money and contribution points. We can safely and reliably hunt jackalopes and bring back copious amounts of game with the help of my storage magic. Is there any good reason why we should fall in line with the other newcomers and earn a pittance gathering herbs or doing odd jobs around the city?”

“………”

Of course, the guild couldn’t ask its hunters to do less than what they were capable of. And as long as a party wasn’t breaking any rules, even the guild master had no authority to tell hunters what they could and could not do.

Just as the guild master and his staff began to flounder, Aureana threw them a lifeline. With a determinedly casual air, she spoke almost under her breath. “You know, this reminds me of a rumor I heard recently. They say that a port city branch had to implement the special measures to give a rookie F-rank party a special three-rank promotion…”

Though the guild master did not speak, he and his staff were screaming internally. 

So that’s what they were after!

This was a setup. There was not a shadow of a doubt.

As a matter of fact, something of the sort had occurred in a port city not too long ago. The event had been dubbed the Special Promotion Case or simply the Incident. It had been the talk of all the guild branches, and though the name of the party in question had been on the paperwork, it hadn’t stuck in the mind of the guild master and his staff. 

Although a special three-rank promotion was rare, the mystery party was still only C-rank—barely worthy of attention in the grand scheme of things. The capital branch had a few A-rank and B-rank parties, and even one S-rank party that rarely came home but still technically worked out of their city. As unusual as their circumstances had been, no one was all that interested in a party that was bumped up to C-rank for convenience’s sake. 

The incident itself, on the other hand, was so infamous that every guild employee in the country had heard of it. The guild master involved had risked punishment to do what was best for his town, guild, and hunters, and he had been lauded and promoted for his courage.

Of course he had. If someone were punished for acting for the good of their town, guild, and hunters, no one would ever follow their example. These men had wives and children to support. They needed to look out for themselves and preserve their own standing.

All the same, that didn’t make it advisable to play right into the hands of these fledglings.

Silence pervaded the guild master’s office as both parties contemplated their next moves. 

Three-rank special promotions couldn’t be handed out like candy. Still, knowing another guild master had done it before lowered the hurdle significantly. 

Even if the guild master did give this the go-ahead, he couldn’t imagine any future newcomers being on par with this group. If nothing else, their absurdly large storage space made them unique. Thus, there was no need to worry about setting a bad precedent and encouraging imitators. This was certain to be a one-time, one-off event.

Even so, was it morally justifiable? Was it really okay to let a bunch of young, F-rank girls skip two or three ranks? Or would that amount to killing youngsters with bright futures ahead of them?

“………”

It was an agonizing choice. Never in their wildest dreams had he and his staff expected to be put in such a difficult position.

Plenty of hunters could take down dozens of jackalopes…assuming the monsters came anywhere near them. Jackalopes tended to steer clear of the more skilled hunting parties. The only exceptions were when they were picking on obvious newbies or charging an enemy to give their friends a chance to escape. Although their horns gave them a means of attack, the tiny monsters were inherently herbivorous, easily spooked, fast on their feet, and good at hiding. It wasn’t easy to hunt them on a massive scale. 

Even supposing one did manage the task, how many jackalopes could a single hunter manage to bring back? They still had to carry weapons, armor, water, food, and an emergency kit, which meant their capacity to transport game was limited. 

What these girls had accomplished required, at bare minimum, the strength to fight off a huge horde of jackalopes, a healing mage in case of emergency, and a storage user with a big enough space to take the game home. No party with all those assets would be wasting their time hunting jackalopes at any volume. Meanwhile, any party who fit these criteria had long since worked their way up to B-rank so they could live the good life.

As a general rule, mages with absurdly high-capacity storage magic didn’t work as hunters, anyway. They were more likely to be employed by merchants, the nobility, or even the royal family. If anyone with so much going for them was stupid enough to settle for becoming a hunter, the guild master would gladly give them a special promotion… 

The moment that thought crossed the guild master’s mind, he realized he had already made his decision. 

This party had an insanely huge storage space and could hunt a horde of jackalopes each day with a mere three mages. And they hardly even damaged the jackalopes’ horns or fur in the process. This all but guaranteed that they could cast some very advanced spells. Really, the mere fact that three tiny girls had survived long enough to break in their clothes and protective gear spoke volumes to their skill.

All things considered, no one could argue with the need to grant them a special promotion. The real question was whether to move them up to D-rank or follow the precedent and offer them the triple skip. 

Advancing them to C-rank would be a three-rank special promotion. It was a highly unusual occurrence.

In contrast, making them D-ranks would constitute only a two-rank special promotion. That wasn’t exactly common, either, but it wasn’t unheard of, especially if someone pulled off an ultra-amazing feat—say, an F-rank hunter taking down a dragon or wyvern on their own—and proved themselves in action.

Occasionally, the newbie F-ranks might include a former knight of the royal guard who had been driven from their post, or a former court magician who had lost a power struggle. These individuals brought a level of skill to their work that would earn them a special two-rank promotion, taking them from F to D or E to C. Beyond that, you had to work your way up more organically. The system was never used to send someone from D to B or C to A—well, unless they accomplished something as monumental as saving the kingdom from destruction or defeating the demon lord and protecting the whole continent…

Precedent or no precedent, a three-rank special promotion was much less common, even if it was only from an F-rank to a C-rank. 

D-ranks could theoretically take on standard quests, but they were ineligible for jobs specified as B-rank or higher, and though they could technically accept C-rank jobs, there were restrictions on tackling those alone. Plus, no merchant would ever hire them for an escort mission.

And while they might be drafted as transport personnel in the event of an emergency—say, a monster stampede or a major natural disaster—D-ranks were also still considered junior members, entitled to the protection of the guild. If a D-rank party were ordered to transport supplies to a dangerous area, only to die in the process, that would be a bad look. The guild branch would be responsible for taking three gorgeous, talented young girls—likely noblewomen, from the looks of them—and squeezing them dry for their own selfish ends, sending them to their deaths before they could truly blossom. 

A tragedy like that would be the undoing of both the capital branch and the guild master. He was an honorable man who would not hesitate to take responsibility for his actions, but it would kill him if his own shame extended to his wife, children, or parents.

So, what if the girls were C-ranks?

C-ranks were considered proper, mid-level hunters. If something happened to the girls as C-ranks, one could argue that, as full-fledged members of the guild, they had fought hard to protect the capital and its people and died in the line of duty.

Oh, come on, that’s just an excuse! What am I supposed to do here?! Agh! Aaaghhh!!

The guild master clutched at his head. Although there was no guarantee that the capital would face a Wonder Trio-killing crisis, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining the worst. As a result, he was caught in a hell of his own making.

Finally…

“M-message received,” the guild master croaked out. “I’ll bring the question to a guild branch meeting. Just give me a few days.” 

Making the call all on his own would be too great a burden for him to bear.

***

“So, how’d it go?”

Back at the clan house, Mile asked the Wonder Trio about their discussion with the guild master.

“Everything played out according to your strategy, and the final result will be decided in the next guild branch meeting. Given his reaction, I imagine we’ll end up at D-rank at worst, so no jobs will be off-limits if we team up to do them together! In other words…”

“Just as planned,” everyone said in unison.

Of course, this was a reference to a catchphrase from Miami Satodele’s novels.

And everyone present knew exactly who Miami Satodele really was.

***

Three days passed before the Wonder Trio were called to the guild master’s office, where the ashen-faced man informed them that they would be receiving a special promotion.

“You will all individually be bumped to C-rank, as will your hunting party, the Wonder Trio.”

If all the individual members were C-rank, their party level had to match. If he’d tried to make them any other rank, the whole thing could have blown up in his face.

“Erm, you look a bit sickening—pardon, you’re looking a bit sick. Are you feeling quite all right? Are you in need of healing or restorative magic?”

“Whose fault do you think that is?! And I don’t appreciate that slip of the tongue! I’ll take the spell, though…”

The guild master had clearly given up on saving face, so it couldn’t hurt to take Marcela up on her offer. 

Marcela did realize that his despair was probably her own fault, which was why she had offered her magical services. It would weigh heavily on her conscience if the guild master were to collapse from stress on their account.

“Cripes! The moment we learned the second party was a bunch of C-ranks with storage magic, I should’ve realized what was going on!”

From the sound of it, the guild master had finally pieced together the identity of the party that arrived alongside the Wonder Trio. Perhaps one of the attendees of the guild meeting had pointed it out to him.

“Then, if I may... Hyah!”

Shiiiiiing!

“What?! You can silent cast?! Whoa! That feels better already. I can feel the pain in my shoulders, lower back, and stomach practically melting away…” The guild master savored the moment of bliss, a look of ecstasy on his face. “Aaahhh… Man, I feel bad that the rest of the staff is missing out on this. Alan from accounting and Galtz from the butcher department are both getting up there in age. I always hear them complaining that their shoulders, back, and neck are killing ’em…”

The Wonder Trio thought the fact that the guild master was showing consideration for his elderly staff was probably a sign that he was a good boss.

“I would be happy to offer my services to them as well,” Marcela said. 

“Huh? A-are you sure?”

“Certainly. It’s no danger to expend my mana now, when we’re right in the middle of town.”

This was the truth. Marcela wouldn’t have to worry about fighting off hordes of monsters any time soon, and she could make a full recovery after a good night’s sleep.

It bears mentioning that Marcela’s offer to help was entirely genuine. She had no intention of using her healing magic to curry favor with the guild staff. Even as their bodies began to fail them with age, the elderly continued to work themselves to the bone for themselves, their families, and the citizens of the capital. She truly wanted to do whatever she could to help relieve their burdens—nothing more, nothing less.

“Wait right here, then! I’ll go grab the old folks right away!”

A few minutes later, the guild master brought a few elderly employees into his office. Judging by the confused looks on their faces, he had yet to offer them a proper explanation of what was going on.

Without any preamble, Marcela cast the spell-free version of her AoE healing and recovery magic.

“Area Heal!”

“Wheeeeew…”

She had only bothered yelling the spell’s name because she was afraid silent casting might leave everyone confused as to what had just happened.

“Whoa! All the stiffness in my shoulders is gone—just like that!”

“I can’t believe the relief I’m feeling in my lower back!”

Their faces relaxed into blissful expressions, but the next minute, the old folks suddenly snapped to their senses.

“You can cast AoE spells? At your age?!”

“That’s the least of my questions! She didn’t just heal our injuries or revitalize our bodies—even our stiff shoulders and aching backs are suddenly fixed! Since when does a Heal spell work on those kinds of ailments?!”

Indeed, normal healing and recovery magic could heal wounds, but it had no effect on chronic conditions. These types of magic weren’t a cure-all but rather a phenomenon that depended on the casters’ ability to visualize both the injury and the healing required. The nanomachines generated exactly what the healer pictured, which made healing magic much more effective on external injuries that could be clearly visualized than on often-imperceptible, abstract afflictions without defined causes. 

The result of this was that unskilled mages often made unfortunate mistakes, such as sealing up the outside of a wound but not the internal damage, or not properly stitching nerves and blood vessels together. Without a clear understanding of the causes of infection, inflammation and cellular necrosis were common, though thanks to Mile’s lessons about bacteria and the workings of the human body, Reina, Pauline, and the Wonder Trio were able to avoid any such mishaps. Mile had also taught them about all the potential sources of stiff shoulders or back pain—poor circulation, pinched nerves, muscle tension, accumulated fatigue—which allowed them to fire off a very concrete image of how such symptoms might be alleviated. It was something most other mages could never hope to achieve.

“I-I can hardly believe it! What a relief!” 

“Th-this is incredible. Aaahhh…”

Marcela promised the old folks that she would be happy to offer them her healing magic again once she had finished a job and submitted her completion report. They kneeled before her with tears streaming down their faces.

It didn’t take long for the other hunters—particularly the long-time veterans who had stayed in the business past the age of retirement—to notice that something was different about the older members of the guild staff. Previously their companions in misery, with long hours of desk work taking a toll on their health, these employees were suddenly in great shape and better spirits. It was inevitable that the hunters would have questions about how this came to be. 

And so, it was only a matter of time until the elderly hunters also received the boon of Marcela’s healing and recovery magic. With the exception of the Wonder Trio and the Crimson Vow, there were no doctors, apothecaries, priests, or mages who could cure stiff shoulders or back pain, so she didn’t need to worry about anyone getting upset about her taking their patients from them.

Marcela hadn’t intended to charge for such a basic service, but people warned her that this might set a bad precedent and cause other mages to be pressured into offering healing for free. She thus opted to set a small fee, but it was very much a token service charge.

This episode endeared the Wonder Trio to the guild master, elderly guild staff, and long-time veteran hunters. With a passionate base of loyal fans, the C-rank hunting party known as the Wonder Trio began their rise to stardom.