The Guild Master Whose Hobby Was Helping People Found Himself Surrounded by the Strongest, Overly Attached Members - 33

Chapter 33: The Other Old Man Is Just as Terrifying

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“So then, I suppose it’s about time for me to make my appearance?”

A low, calm voice echoed from beyond the interview room door. At that weighty sound, the old man standing behind Ceres smoothly stepped aside. The one who entered was a white-haired elder, his back perfectly straight. He must have been around sixty, perhaps. But the only signs of his age were his hair and wrinkles.

 The way he stood left no openings. Every movement was without waste, his sharp gaze clear as a blade. At his hip rested a well-worn longsword. The moment he stepped into the room, it felt as though the very density of the air had changed.

“Hmm…So this boy is the ‘Bloodstained,’ eh?”

The elder relaxed only the corners of his mouth when his eyes met mine. But his eyes were not smiling. They fixed on me intently, as if measuring something. That gaze felt like it was seeing straight through to my core, and I found myself unconsciously straightening my posture.

“You’ve got eyes that look a bit troublesome… But you’re a much more decent young man than I expected.”

He saw through my nature… No, my psyche in just one glance? This guy definitely isn’t an ordinary man.

Not that it really mattered if he saw through me. After all, I was the one conducting the interview. In other words, I was the master of this room.

“Uh, sorry to jump right into it, but our guild is a global, fantastic workplace where young people’s slang flies left and right. So, in order to categorize the agenda for the consensus of the résumé, being of the senior generation—”

“Hold it, lad.”

The elder raised his hand slightly. That single gesture cut my words short, and the atmosphere in the room tilted toward him. My secret weapon—the rapid-fire barrage of random foreign words I’d just invented—didn’t work at all.

Normally, when people hear a string of incomprehensible words, they give up thinking. Could he be another one of those types who suddenly claimed I was their benefactor? That thought flickered for a moment, but I realized immediately that wasn’t the case.

He had said, “So this boy is ‘Bloodstained,’” and “a more decent young man than I expected.”Those weren’t the words of someone who had seen me before, or owed me a favor. Still, “more decent than I expected”? What the hell did that mean?

Sensing my doubt, the elder spoke.

“…My name is Rovan. I’m a retired adventurer. I had a wife, Shino. She was far too good for me.”

“Uh… Right.”

He’s suddenly talking about his wife. Dangerous. At this rate we might dive into a flashback long enough to fill three comic volumes.

“Shino passed away a few months ago from illness… But for years before that, she often told me something.”

Rovan-san’s eyes narrowed, looking off into the distance.

“She said she’d been saved by ‘Bloodstained.’”

“…Is that so?”

“We lived deep in the mountains. Once a month, Shino would go down to the village at the foot for shopping. That day was no different… Except a horde of monsters happened to be closing in on the village.”

I had a faint idea of what he meant. There was a patch of herbs in those mountains known to help with magic power recovery. Several years back, I’d taken a request and gone into the mountains, where I stumbled across a village under monster attack. The villagers could barely fight. I had charged ahead alone, cutting down monsters one after another, drenched in their blood.

“The monsters were defeated by a man who fought without regard for his own wounds—‘Bloodstained.’ Shino told me he had saved her life that day. She told me over and over, until I was sick of hearing it.”

Rovan-san exaggeratedly shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“I regretted it. While you were covered head to toe in monster blood, I was snoring away. Thanks to that, I had to listen to my wife repeat some stranger’s tale of heroism dozens of times.”

In his tone, there was a mix of wry laughter and a faint sadness.

“And then… Shino told me this: ‘Life with you has been full of happiness, I have no regrets. But I wanted to repay that young man who saved me.’ That’s what she said… And then she went to sleep.”

His last words were faintly hoarse. I lowered my gaze slightly.

“So… Rovan-san, that’s why you wish to join the guild?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

So that was the reason he had gone out of his way to come here.

“But… I only did what anyone would have. There’s no need to repay—”

I tried to deny it hastily, but his low, steady voice stopped me.

“…But lad, the one who was saved remembers it forever.”

His words were like an old blade. Not sharp, but they sank deep. For me, the village incident was little more than, “I happened to be there, so I helped.” Honestly, I’d mostly gone for myself.

But to Rovan-san’s wife—Shino—it had been the difference between life and death. She had carried that moment in her heart for years, with the same warmth and passion, telling her husband about it again and again.

“To you it may have been just a passing shower. But for us… It became a clearing in the storm we could never forget.”

Rovan showed the faintest of smiles, but in his eyes was the color of time that would never return.

“I’m here to repay that debt. That’s all.”

His voice was heavy, but warm. And yet, I couldn’t just nod so easily.

I understood perfectly how much Shino-san had cherished her gratitude. But if guild members increased, my peaceful life would slip even further away. There was already Ceres, who gave off an air of being dangerously brawn-over-brains, and her butler, who casually threw out terms no butler should ever say.

Just those two were enough to be fatal. If possible, I wanted to politely decline his application and hoped he would leave. Besides, what requests could a sixty-year-old adventurer really handle? He might have been formidable in his youth, but even an active A-ranker couldn’t escape the decline of time.

I should be stronger now, so unless something extraordinary happens, I should be okay. Worst case, maybe Ragnar and I could drag him out together— 

…No, wait, Ragnar is already bawling with emotion. Guess it’s just me.

“Rovan-san, I appreciate your feelings, but… As you know, being an adventurer is a life-risking profession. At your rank, I’m afraid—”

“―SS.”

“…Excuse me?”

“SS rank. Ever heard of ‘Rovan the Dragon Slayer’?”

In that instant, it felt like my heart had been squeezed tight.

“Wait, you’re that Rovan the Dragon Slayer!? That means he’s the senior to the sword saint!”

“Oooh! The great warrior who felled two dragons in a single stroke! Most reliable indeed!”

Sera and Ragnar were ecstatic. Even Ceres, who had been quietly watching, let out a “Hohooo” of admiration. And I alone sat frozen, my smile stiffening like stone.

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