Chapter 18

When I got back to the guild, I spoke to the receptionist girl again.

“Excuse me.” [Ryouma]

“Oh, you’re that kid from this morning.” [Receptionist]

“It’s done.” [Ryouma]

“Eh? Done? It’s only been 3 hours, are you sure you don’t mean you’re giving up?” [Receptionist]

“Nope, I completed the request.” [Ryouma]

As I said that I handed the request form.

“…Wow you really did complete the job. You even got a bonus… Amazing. Although this job isn’t particularly hard, the stench is horrible and most people lose their resolve just from seeing all that trash pouring in endlessly through the hole.” [Receptionist]

“I knew a convenient spell.” [Ryouma]

“Good job. Here’s your reward for completing the request: 30 silver coins.” [Receptionist]

The receptionist girl brought me the reward on a plate.

Hmm? That’s a lot more than the request posted for.

“I did hear I would be getting a bonus, but isn’t that a bit much?” [Ryouma]

“Miya-san has been increasing the reward since everyone kept refusing, and on top of that, you even got a bonus. This much is just right.” [Receptionist]

“I see.” [Ryouma]

“By the way, the guild master asked me to call you to his room when you returned. Mind dropping by?” [Receptionist]

“The guild master?” [???]

The one who replied to the receptionist wasn’t me but the man on the next counter.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing special, just the usual.” [Receptionist]

“What do you mean? I’m Ryouma Takebayashi, by the way.” [Ryouma]

“I’m Jeff Grange. That old man’s a busy body and just loves to help out young fresh recruits under 13 like you. He helped me too when I was new. He looks more of a bandit than any real bandits, but there’s no need to be afraid.” [Jeff]

“I see. Thanks.” [Ryouma]

“It’s fine.” [Jeff]

After that a voice called out inside the counter. It was the guild master.

“Exactly. You don’t have to thank that guy.” [Wogan]

“Ah, guild master.” [Receptionist]

“Geh! Old man.” [Jeff]

“You go ‘Geh’ after seeing someone’s face!? And whose face looks more like a bandit’s than real bandits, huh!?” [Wogan]

“Yours obviously, old man!” [Jeff]

“Shut it! It’s not my fault my face is so stiff! And I don’t recall ever making an evil face like some bandit’s!” [Wogan]

“Don’t Women and children run when they see you in a dark place?” [Jeff]

“Gu… But the people of this town don’t.” [Wogan]

“That’s because they’re already used to it!!” [Jeff]

“*COUGH! …Enough …Ryouma, come.” [Wogan]

Seemingly hurt by Jeff-san’s words, the guild master pushed down on his chest called me over as he went back inside. I followed him in after saying my goodbyes to the receptionist and to Jeff-san.

The room I was brought to was the same room as yesterday’s, the guild master’s room.

“Sit where you like… Is that a basket? You stand out like a sore thumb.” [Wogan]

“Sorry, my familiars are inside.” [Ryouma]

“You were a monster tamer? I thought for sure you were a hunter.” [Wogan]

“They’re just slimes and I only learned from watching, so at most, you could call me a monster taming hunter. I mainly just use the sticky slimes for traps and the poison slimes to coat my arrows in poison.” [Ryouma]

The guild master broadly grinned.

“…That’s a nasty combination you have there.” [Wogan]

“You think? They’re just slimes, you know.” [Ryouma]

“I’m sure you already know this, but don’t look down on advanced slime variants.

A lot of adventurers think they’re no different from normal slimes, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Well, ok, a lot of them are still weak, but an acid slime’s acid can spoil armor. Fighting those repeatedly will easily turn new armor into rags. Poison can take your life, and a stick slime is a pain in the ass. After all, if you can’t move, what are you gonna do when another monster shows up? Nothing, you just wait and die.

Adventurers who’ve fought with slimes like those will never look down on them.” [Wogan]

“I see… It looks like I’ll have an easier time in the Adventurers Guild then. Actually, I went to the Tamers Guild, but apparently, there’s a current trend of looking down on slimes.” [Ryouma]

“I’ve heard that story lots from that old guild master. So that’s why you came here, huh.” [Wogan]

“Yes. Slimes can’t take on manual labor, so I came here to find some other work.” [Ryouma]

Wogan nodded several times.

“So that’s why… Anyway, on to business. I heard you took on your first job already. From the looks of things, it seems you did well.” [Wogan]

“Yes, the client was satisfied with my work. I even got a bonus.” [Ryouma]

“Ho, you were able to do it that well, huh. I heard it was a cleaning job of sort, what job was it?” [Wogan]

“I cleaned Miya-san’s house.” [Ryouma]

The guild master’s eyes opened wide.

“You cleaned her house?” [Wogan]

“You know about it?” [Ryouma]

“Well, Miya is an adventurer who lives in this town, so yeah. I see her around a lot.” [Wogan]

“I see.” [Ryouma]

“Still, since you were able to complete her request, that must mean you were able to clean her house.” [Wogan]

“Yes.” [Ryouma]

“I didn’t think there’d actually be anyone who could clean her house… So, how did you clean it?” [Gowen]

“I knew a spell suitable for the job, but it costs a lot of mana, so it’s hard to use and isn’t very popular.” [Ryouma]

“Ho? In that case, I have another job I’d like you to take.” [Wogan]

Could it be?

“Are you by any chance referring to the common toilet?” [Ryouma]

“What? You knew about it?” [Wogan]

“Yes, I was choosing between that and Miya-san’s house this morning.” [Ryouma]

“That’ll make this quick then. We were tasked by the government office to clean the common toilet, so now we’re being blamed for it. It was originally their fault for not paying the slum residents, but the people are starting to complain.” [Wogan]

“I heard that from the receptionist, actually. Is that really true?” [Ryouma]

“It is. You know the town’s income has been decreasing these past years, right?” [Wogan]

“I heard it’s because of the declining mines.” [Ryouma]

“Right, so the government office cut down on expenses, but their methods mainly revolved around cutting the budget for the town’s management and shifting the problems to the people.” [Wogan]

The biggest cut was the budget allocated to the slum people.

The government office has been gradually cutting down on personnel, until eventually, they didn’t have enough people anymore.

When certain jobs couldn’t be finished on time, they shifted the blame onto the workers, saying that it’s only because they weren’t taking it seriously that the job wasn’t done yet, and then forcefully drove down their pay.

When the people started to complain, they argued that there’s no point in hiring a large group from the slum people since they won’t take the work seriously. But with the pay provided being essentially zero, it was only natural that the slum people wasn’t interested in working for them.

“They may be poor, but if there’s not enough compensation, even the slum people won’t be willing to work. It’s not like they’re asking much either. But if the compensation they receive isn’t even enough to cover their minimum living expenses, then what’s the point of risking getting sick? All that will do is just make their lives worse. It wasn’t worth the risk.” [Wogan]

I see, so that’s what happened.

“Just let me get ready and I’ll do the job. The soonest I can do it is tomorrow.” [Ryouma]

“Thanks. I’ll pay you lots, so do a good job.” [Wogan]

“You can count on me.” [Ryouma]

I should try talking to Reinhart-san and the others too. They’re the ones with the most authority around here. They’ll be interested to hear what I did today too. Once they’ve been informed, I’m sure they’ll take care of it.

“…What are you thinking?” [Wogan]

Did it show on my face?

“Well, I’m by myself today, but I was thinking of talking to the people who accompanied me yesterday.” [Ryouma]

The guild master broadly grinned.

…No wonder Jeff-san says you look like a bandit. That face…

“Well, aren’t you a nice kid? Do you think they’ll help?” [Wogan]

“I’m sure they’ll do something about it so long as they’re informed.” [Ryouma]

“On what basis?” [Wogan]

“Well, I’m an orphan living in the forest, and they just happened to meet me by chance, yet they actually went out of their way to help me out. We were strangers, you know.

Of course, it’s impossible for them to do the same for a large group of people like the entire slum, but there’s no way people like that will just sit and do nothing after knowing the situation.” [Ryouma]

“I see. I’ll be looking forward to it then.” [Wogan]

“…If that’s all, can I go? I need to prepare for tomorrow.” [Ryouma]

“Yeah, I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell them to prioritize you when you drop by, not that it’s really needed since no one wants to take the job on anyway.” [Wogan]

“That’s true.”

We laughed and I went back to the inn. Along the way I bought some cheap cloth and a set of sewing tools from a cheap shop. I also bought a spool of thread that thread can’t enter.

Tl Note: Not really sure what that last line means. I don’t know a lot about sewing other than sticking the needle in, pulling out, and repeating, but anyway, that’s pretty much a literal translation, so if someone could figure out what it’s actually talking about and post it in the comments, that would be nice.

Another way to interpret it: a spool of thread that thread hasn’t entered or doesn’t enter.

Oh, and reminder to use spoiler tags when discussing or answering questions with information from the previous version. I’m sure there are people who decided not to read it and are solely reading this version (I do recommend reading the old version though). To use them, just put the contents in between these things (no space): [ spoiler ] [ /spoiler ]

Comments with spoiler tags might need approval, so just wait for me to approve it. I didn’t set that rule by the way, they just keep getting caught for some reason.