Chapter 5: The Old Man Gets Drunk and Passes Out

They even went so far as to say all that.

Of course, I’m an Old Man. I know better.

I was well aware that their words were nothing more than social pleasantries.

They had already reached Adventurer Rank B.

There was no way they should stay cooped up in a remote guild like this forever.

Besides, they’d gotten a great offer from the guild in the Royal Capital.

There wasn’t a single reason for them to turn it down.

No… they were just really good kids.

That’s why they must have felt sorry for me.

After all, I’m the Old Man adventurer who’s been stuck at F-Rank forever.

I can barely even take on requests when I’m solo.

The thought of me dropping dead in a ditch right after leaving their party must have weighed on their conscience.

And to be fair… I’m pretty much on the verge of that right now…

Right… well, that’s fine.

Anyway, even if it was just pity, I was happy enough that they cared.

And even a guy like me has a bare minimum of pride.

I didn’t want to be any more of a burden to those girls, who’d been so kind and taken care of me for so long.

I just wanted them to be able to set off on their journey feeling good, without any lingering hard feelings.

They were young enough to be my own children… not that I’ve ever had any… they were just young girls.

That’s why, in an effort to not make them worry, I might have put on a bit of a… well, a pretty big front.

Putting up a false front in front of women is a bad habit of mine.

But, if you’ll let me make an excuse, I’d had a lot to drink at that time, too.

And so, I think I spouted some nonsense like,

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m getting on in years, so I’m thinking of retiring and settling down. What… I may not look it, but I’ve got prospects.”

On top of that, they played along so perfectly, saying,

“N-No way… It can’t be… So… so that rumor was true after all? That you and the Guild Master, Emma-san, are… involved…”

That I got even more carried away and I think I gave some vague answer like,

“Ah, uh, yeah… w-well, you know…”

It was, of course, a bold-faced lie.

There was no way a perpetually F-ranked guy like me would have any luck with women, now or ever.

Much less a beautiful woman of high standing like the Guild Master… Emma-san… She wouldn’t have the slightest interest in me.

Thinking about it now, it was such an obvious, cringeworthy lie that I wish I could dig a hole and crawl into it.

…Maybe that’s why their reactions at the time were so… weird.

They had these incredibly sorrowful looks on their faces, the kind I’d never seen before.

Or rather… I think they just froze.

Yes… they were smart, sharp, and intuitive… and they were good at reading the room.

Looking back, they must have seen right through my transparent lie in an instant.

Still, they must have pretended not to notice to protect my pride.

Like a group of girls giving that look of pitying amusement to an Old Man drunkenly rambling on about his old war stories and tall tales…

And in their hearts, they must have felt an unbearable secondhand embarrassment for my pathetic little display of vanity.

I threw back the rest of the booze in my cup.

Sigh… I was finally starting to feel good, and here I am ruining the mood myself.

I shake my head vigorously, trying to banish the pathetic memory from my mind.

Well… whatever.

It’s all in the past now, anyway.

I look up at the sky.

Aside from the faint glow of the town lights in the distance, the moon was shining dimly, shrouded by clouds.

I haven’t heard a single word from them since.

In a way, that’s to be expected.

In this world, there aren’t any easy ways to contact someone far away.

Letters exist, sure, but it’s not like there’s a postal network.

Therefore, they’re expensive and not something you can use frequently.

I’ve heard that magical communication devices exist, but those are treasures so rare that only royalty could ever hope to obtain one.

The bottom line is, for common folk, once you leave a town, it’s often the same as a final farewell.

This is even truer for rootless adventurers in a dangerous profession like ours.

You could lose your life at any moment…

I wonder if those kids… are okay…

As long as they’re safe and well, that’s all that matters, but…

Then again, it’s them we’re talking about.

I’m sure they’re still doing great.

Maybe they’ll even make it to S-Rank someday…

Nah… no way that’s happening…

There aren’t any S-Rank adventurers in this kingdom.

I hear you can count the number of them on the entire continent on one hand.

No… wait, I think I heard something at the guild the other day about the kingdom getting its first S-Rank party in over a decade.

Word is, that party is also all women. The women these days are really something else…

It had nothing to do with a perennial F-Rank like me, so I mostly just tuned it out…

Besides, the usually calm Emma-san seemed to be in a strangely bad mood at the time, so I couldn’t ask for more details.

Come to think of it, Emma-san tends to get oddly grumpy whenever the topic of female adventurers comes up…

For some reason, she never got along with them… with the Moon Maidens…

I wonder if there’s some kind of strange rivalry between women…

Especially since Emma-san herself used to be an adventurer before becoming Guild Master… and an A-Rank, at that.

And I hear she was so talented, she could have made S-Rank.

Apparently, she had to retire from adventuring due to family circumstances…

Maybe because of all that, she holds some kind of grudge against other female adventurers…

Well… from my perspective, Emma-san and whatever S-Rank adventurers are out there are in a whole different league.

As I was lost in thought over all this, the alcohol finally seemed to be kicking in properly.

I started to get drowsy.

“…Mikami-sensei… I still haven’t given up on you… When we finally become S-Rank… at that time, please, once again, with us—no… Mikami-sensei’s… your… please make me your—… It’s a promise. An absolute one.”

“You girls aren’t good enough… Only I… will be Mikami-sensei’s—”

“…Hey! That’s not fair! I… I, Alicia, will be sensei’s—”

Come to think of it… I feel like I made some kind of promise with them at the end…

What was it…

On that last day, I was so sad to be parting with them that I drank myself stupid.

My memory of it is hazy.

Well… it doesn’t matter… not anymore…

I’ll probably never see them again—

My eyelids grew heavy, and sleep started to pull me under.

My head felt foggy, my vision blurred.

I let the drowsiness wash over me.

And it was at that very moment.