Chapter 141: Leave things to me

I’m Alec, an adventurer.

At present, I have made the recently built village in the wasteland my base of operations.

It’s called a village, but to be frank, it was on the same scale as a metropolis. When we first arrived here, it could somehow still pass as a stopover town, albeit a very prosperous one. However, in the extremely short time since then, its population has grown and its infrastructures have increased tremendously to the point that it was hard to believe this place was originally a wasteland.

And it was all thanks to its village chief and his powers.

I, myself, have nothing but gratitude for Chief Luke.

If not for this village, I and my party would never have gotten our Gifts. It was thanks to our Gifts that we could obtain so much more items and materials from the dungeon—that was in this village—than ever before.

We used the money we got from that to upgrade our equipment. And what an upgrade it was. Each piece we bought was made by the dwarves of this village, meaning it was guaranteed to have great quality. Finding equipment like this would be hard even in the royal capital.

After some while, as the rumors of this place spread further, many other adventurers arrived in the village. To make purchasing items and materials from us easier, Luke-sama decided to establish a certain organization. Yes, it was the first ever [Adventurers’ Guild] in the country.

In this adventurers’ guild, parties were assigned a rank based on their achievements. Novice parties start at E, and climb up to D, C, B, and A as they progress.

At present, our party was the only party to be awarded an A rank.

“Oi, aren’t they that A rank party? [Crimson], I believe they’re called.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I heard they broke the record again for the deepest floor reached in the dungeon.”

When I overheard those comments, I unconsciously smiled.

“Hey, stop it, your face looks weird. Why are grinning like that, anyway?”

“You say that, Hazena, but you’re also grinning from ear to ear, you know.”

“N-n-no, I’m not!”

We needed to have a name for our party in order to register at the guild, and [Crimson] was the name that our party agreed on. It has since become well known by other adventurers.

To be honest, before coming to this village, I never would have imagined that I would be the center of attention, especially at my age of 38 years old.

“…fame…to me…is unnecessary…”

“I feel the same. The voices around you are nothing but noise. Rid yourselves of your worldly desires, and simply follow the path to where you need to go.”

Spouting such stoic words were Dill and Gai, the other members of our party.

Dill was a hunter who excelled at locating enemies, stealth, and other such things. As for Gai, he was a warrior monk who could not only heal us but was also proficient in fighting with a staff.

Based on those words, it would have been understandable to think of the two as upstanding adventurers.

…I knew better though. I knew that both of them would always go to a bar and have multiple women entertain them, all while they ogled at those women with malicious eyes.

At any rate, while most adventurers were active only on the first few floors of the dungeon, we have been devoting ourselves to clearing the deepest floors.

Dungeons expand over time. It normally happens little by little though. In the village’s dungeon, however, it was happening at quite a quick pace. When we first arrived here, the dungeon had 5 floors, but it now had more than 20.

As for why we do it, well, why not? We had obtained Gifts, so we thought we should aim for as high as a goal as we could. The risks were higher, yes, but it was well worth it to us so far.

We were planning to go deep into the dungeon today as well.

“Kamuru, we’re in your expert hands again today.”

“Hey, yeah, leave things to me.”

In order to clear the dungeon, we have employed Kamuru, a villager who possessed the [Labyrinth Exploration] Gift.

His participation always made a great deal of difference in exploring the dungeon. And because of that, many other parties naturally also wanted his help. For some reason though, he seemed to give scheduling preference to our party.

“You’re always such a great help.”

“I-it might be unexplored as of yet, but I know the place like the back of my hand already, so rest easy while I’m here!”

…it might be just my imagination, but can it be that he’s interested in Hazena?

Kamuru was 38 years old like me. Meanwhile, Hazena was just 18 years old.

Moreover, Kamuru wasn’t fortunate enough to have good looks, unlike Hazena who was popular enough among adventurers that some of them secretly formed a fan club for her.

Them becoming a couple just didn’t seem likely to me.