After Crushing the Final Boss, I Got Infinite Mana and Returned to Earth ～With Cheat-Level Power, I’ll Rule Both the Game World and the Real World～ - Chapter 11: Took My First Request at the Adventurers’ Guild

Chapter 11: Took My First Request at the Adventurers’ Guild

So, I asked Aoi and Saori what exactly they wanted to do once they got to the other world.

Their answers hadn’t changed one bit—

“Onii-chan!! I wanna be an adventurer, go full-on overpowered, and live the ultimate I’m the strongest!! lifestyle!!”

“Mama wants to be an adventurer too! I’ll rescue tons of pretty girls and have all the flirty fun I can!!”

…Yep. Both of them wanted to be adventurers.

Which meant I needed to know more about how adventurers actually worked.

In Final Stories, the adventurers’ guild basically functioned as a quest system. NPCs in trouble posted requests, the protagonist accepted them, solved the problem, and got a reward.

Turns out the real guild wasn’t much different.

Someone in need posts a request, an adventurer accepts it, completes it, and gets paid.

Sometimes in the game you’d snag rare items, but in reality, most rewards were plain and simple money.

That much was the basic info I’d gathered about the adventurers’ guild ahead of time.

So, I ditched the magic academy for the day and headed to the guild in the royal capital.

Oh, and the academy? No worries there. Arshiel was absent again today, which meant self-study as usual—so skipping didn’t cause any problems.

The Adventurers’ Guild building was a rare three-story structure in this world—pretty big.

The first floor had the reception where you took on quests. The open second floor was a tavern where adventurers partied after work.

The third floor was cheap lodging they rented out to adventurers with nowhere to stay—and if you took on enough annoying quests, you could snag a room there at a big discount.

“Hey, hey—what’s with that lame mask and the fat lizard on your shoulder!?”

“…Am I truly just a fat lizard…?”

“You’re just chibi-fied, but you still look like a dragon to me.”

“Aoi and Saori are the only ones who call me a dragon. …And your mask isn’t lame either.”

Diabel was sulking about being called a fat lizard, but he still went out of his way to defend my supposedly “lame” mask.

See, I was wearing the black cloak and mask I’d made back when I was full-on chuunibyou in my previous life.

Sometimes nobles came to the guild to post quests. If one of them happened to recognize me as a prince out adventuring, it would cause all kinds of headaches—so I was keeping my profile as low as possible.

Sure, I could solve problems by blasting everything away—but if Aoi and Saori saw me resorting to violence without hesitation, they might hate me or get scared.

So my plan was to hide my identity with a mask and avoid fighting in front of them as much as possible… 

But the moment we stepped into the guild, trouble came right to us.

A couple of adventurers grabbed us immediately. They definitely looked the part—one had a massive axe strapped to his back and reeked of booze, like he’d been drinking since noon.

What to do? 

If Aoi and Saori were going to be using this guild, I really wanted to avoid picking fights with the local adventurers in the capital. 

For now, I softened my tone and tried to get them to move aside without revealing who I really was.

“Sorry, could you step aside, please?”

“Hey, who’re you ordering around? I’m a Second-rank adventurer—Garf, the ‘Skull-splitter Axe’!”

Adventurers had ranks from Tenth up to First. The closer you got to First, the stronger and more accomplished you were. “Skull-splitter Axe” might’ve sounded cheesy, but Garf was probably one of the top fighters active in the capital.

Fair warning: without magic, I had zero actual fighting ability. Face-to-face with a hulking, musclebound guy like that, I had no way to fight back.

Back in my chuunibyou days, I’d come up with all sorts of flashy “sword-and-gun combat styles.” Of course, they were just daydreams—they wouldn’t actually work in real life.

If I used magic, sure, I could silence anyone forever. But since Aoi and Saori might be using this guild later, the last thing I wanted was to cause unnecessary trouble here.

So, let’s go with some good old-fashioned flattery.

“Garf, was it? I’ve heard of you—the brave warrior who never flinches, even against the fiercest monsters. So you’re that Garf? My apologies for not realizing.”

“Uh—y-yeah, that’s right!! I’m Garf!! Heh, guess you do know what’s what!! You’re alright!! And hey—looking closer, that mask of yours is pretty cool!!”

Yep. He was a complete musclehead, but just a little praise was enough to butter him up. Simple and easy to handle.

Thanks to that, he stepped aside without a fuss, and I made it to the reception counter without a problem.

“Welcome to the Magiluke Kingdom Capital Branch of the Adventurers’ Guild. How can I help you today?”

“I’d like to register as an adventurer. Please handle the paperwork.”

“Understood. Then please fill out this form.”

I took the document from the receptionist and filled in the required details.

“Here you go, Sir Minato. This is your guild card.”

“Guild card?”

“It’s a magical tool we distribute to adventurers. By touching it, you can instantly check the details of any quest you’ve accepted. It also serves as proof of your status as an adventurer, so please don’t lose it.”

“Hmm, understood.”

That was a system that didn’t exist in Final Stories.

Still, being able to check quest details anytime sounded really convenient.

Just then—

“S-Someone!! Please, help!!”

A boy, probably just over ten years old, came rushing in. His clothes were torn, and his body was covered in painful-looking wounds.

“M-My village—my village is under attack by goblins!! If we don’t hurry, everyone will be killed!!”

“U-Um, so you’re submitting a goblin extermination request, is that right?”

“I don’t care what you call it—just help!! Everyone’s still fighting, but they sent me away to get the Adventurers’ Guild!! Please!!”

The boy was clearly desperate. The receptionist struggled to calm him down long enough to get details.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the tavern, a group of adventurers started whispering to each other, careful not to let the kid hear.

“Goblin extermination, huh.”

“Bet the pay’s crap.”

“If it were a gold coin per goblin, I’d take it with a smile.”

“Yeah right, it’ll just be a few copper coins each.”

“Ha! You’d make more money cleaning ditches in the capital.”

Goblin extermination clearly wasn’t a popular job—nobody looked the least bit willing to take the boy’s request.

…Hmm.

I stepped closer to the tearful boy, knelt down on one knee, and met his eyes through my mask. Tilting my head slightly, I spoke:

“I’ll take that quest.”

“R-Really!? You’ll help us!?”

“Yeah.”

Up on the second floor, the adventurers burst out laughing like they were mocking me.

“Hey look, isn’t that the guy who just registered?”

“A 10th-class rookie, huh. Can’t believe he actually took it.”

“He probably doesn’t even know goblin extermination’s not worth the pay. Somebody should tell him.”

“Not me. Too much hassle.”

“Yeah, forget it. If he’s clueless, that’s on him.”

Their words were harsh, but I wasn’t doing this on a whim or out of pity. Of course, to most of them, that’s exactly what it must have looked like.

Even Garf, the guy I’d spoken to earlier, called out from nearby.

“Those guys upstairs are right. Goblin extermination barely pays. Want me to show you a quest with better rewards?”

I didn’t become an adventurer because I wanted money.

If I really needed it, I could just threaten the king and rake in cash by the bucket.

No—the reason I took the goblin extermination quest was to improve my standing with the guild.

If I accepted the kind of quest everyone else avoided, the guild would no doubt start seeing me in a positive light.

Of course, if I admitted that outright, it’d kill the cool image I was aiming for. So I decided to play it smooth.

“An adventurer’s job is to help people, right?”

“……”

The entire guild suddenly went quiet.

Even the noisy adventurers upstairs stopped talking, and the receptionist was staring at me, wide-eyed.

…Did I say something weird?

While I was wondering that, Garf turned toward the boy and asked:

“…Hey, kid. Do you know how many goblins there are?”

“Eh? Uh, the village chief said… at least fifty.”

“Fifty, huh. That’s enough to make the knights mobilize. But if we wait for those slowpokes, the village’ll be gone before they get there… Hey, you—Minato, was it?”

After hearing the number, Garf looked at me with a sharp, serious gaze.

Being stared at so intently by a big middle-aged man honestly left me not sure how to react.

“Yeah?”

“There’s no way you can handle fifty goblins alone. I’ll go with you.”

“I thought goblin extermination didn’t pay well?”

“Don’t rub it in. It’s just… it reminded me. Back when I was a kid, my hometown got attacked by goblins, and adventurers saved us.”

“…I see.”

Garf scratched his head as he said it, and the other adventurers started murmuring.

“…Makes me feel pathetic, drinking in the middle of the day like this.”

“Yeah… I remember when my mom was sick and needed rare herbs, and an adventurer helped me back then too.”

“When I first became an adventurer, just hearing a client’s thanks was enough. When did we start chasing quests only for the payout…?”

“H-Hey, guys…”

“Yeah, you’re right. Guess it’s time we got back to our roots.”

One by one, the adventurers upstairs came down and gathered around the boy.

“Hey, kid. We’ll help too.”

“T-Thank you, mister!!”

“O-Oh, uh… heh.”

And just like that, the whole guild decided to band together and take on the goblin extermination quest.

“No, really—if it turns into a brawl, I won’t even be able to use my magic, so you don’t have to come—”

“Silence. This is a touching scene, don’t ruin it.”

“Ow, Diabel, that hurts.”

Diabel smacked me across the cheek with his tail.

…Yeah, that stung a lot.

―――――――――――――――――――――

[Afterword]

A Random Tidbit

Diabel’s recent hobbies include playing games with Aoi, napping in the yard with Shiva, and eating Saori’s cooking. Thanks to that lazy lifestyle, he’s put on a little weight.

If you thought “Diabel napping with Shiva is adorable,” then drop those ★s!

And if you found yourself thinking, “Getting called fat-lizard really hit him where it hurt lol,” “The adventurers turned out to be way nicer than expected,” or “Don’t ruin the emotional moment with random comments lol,” —then please leave a comment, bookmark, ★rating, or review!