「See you later, Elena-sama, Rei-sama.」

Rei and Elena left the inn and headed for the stables as Tufal saw them off.

It was the second day after they had arrived in Exil. After a leisurely breakfast, the two of them decided to head straight to the dungeon.

Rei was dressed in the Dragon Robe and was wearing the Shoes of Sleipnir as usual, looking very much like a mage. Unlike the day before, where Elena had gone to the guild in plain clothes, she was now wearing white metal armour and a cloak alongside a pair of Shoes of Sleipnir, similar to Rei. Sheathed at her waist was her sword whip, Elena’s signature weapon.

All of Elena’s equipment were magic items, and if they knew the value of everything she had, it was worth an amount that would make bandits and thugs attack without hesitation.

However, in many cases they would be more focused on Elena than her magic items. After all, she was a beauty, the daughter of a duke and the General Princess. Overall, there were too many reasons for people to attack her.

……That said, it would be a very difficult matter for someone to actually attack her.

Regardless, as the two of them left the Golden Wind inn, they received all sorts of looks from the other guests who were staying there.

However, no one called out to them, probably because some drunks who had been dazzled by Elena’s looks or judged that Rei was weak due to his appearance had been beaten up severely during dinner the night before.

Of course, none of them were seriously injured, but they were still injured to the extent that their pain wouldn’t subside for another day or so. Because of that, it wasn’t surprising that the other guests had decided it would be best not to careless interact with them, lest they got badly hurt themselves.

As for the inn employees, they were grateful to Rei and Elena for subduing the drunks who had been making a racket in the dining area.

The fact that the food they had been served for breakfast was a bit more sumptuous than the other guests was probably a sign of the inn’s goodwill.

「Come to think of it, did Yellow not return to you last night, he’s not with you now. ……Did Yellow stay with Set overnight?」

Elena nodded with a wry smile at Rei’s question on the way to the stables.

「That’s right. For some reason, Yellow is strangely fond of Set. I had known that for a while, but I didn’t think it would go this far.」

「……I see. Well, in a sense, they are quite similar.」

Rei said that as he looked at his surroundings.

(After all, Yellow was created as a familiar and Set was created using the Magic Beast Art. Although there are various minor differences, they were both created using magic power. It’s probably because of that.)

Walking along as Rei thought about it internally, the two of them eventually arrived at the stables.

Seeing Rei, a person approached them.

「Oh, are you heading out right away? You are……you were the one working under Duke Kerebel. I……pardon me, I am Proton, the person in charge of the stables at the Golden Wind. Forgive me for my lack of politeness.」

「Ah, nice to meet you. There’s a small Dragon inside the stables, right? It’s probably with Set. Do you mind if we go inside?」

「No. Of course not.」

Elena replied to the man called Proton.

Rei had a slightly surprised expression on his face, seeing the interaction between the two.

After all, Proton had used two completely different ways to refer to Rei and Elena.

However, in a sense, that was natural. Even though they were working together, Rei was an adventurer while Elena was a duke’s daughter. It would probably have been a bigger problem if Proton had referred to each of them the same way.

As they entered the stables, the man called Proton seemed to look at them suspiciously, as if wondering what their relationship was.

「Kyukyukyukyu~!」

「Gururururu~」

Immediately after entering, they heard two cries from the back of the stables.

Both Yellow and Set came over to them, with Yellow sitting on Set’s back, which had become his usual spot.

As the two of them came close, Yellow jumped off Set’s back and towards Elena while Set rubbed his face against Rei to say good morning.

「Kyu!」

「Mm, good morning Yellow. You seemed to have slept well last night.」

Yellow gave a happy cry at Elena’s words as it shook its short tail that was so small that it couldn’t be compared to that of a real Dragon.

「Set as well, you seemed to have slept well.」

「Gurururu~」

Rei spoke with a smile as he stroked Set’s head.

That situation continued for several minutes before Elena briefly called out to the two warhorses that pulled her carriage and the 4 of them left the stables.

At the same time, it probably wasn’t just Rei’s imagination that the other horses and monsters inside the stables seemed to be relieved.

 

 

「Hmm, in the end, we really do stand out.」

「Guru~?」

Set tilted his head and turned his round eyes towards Rei, who muttered as he walked down the main street towards the dungeon.

Set had been sad and depressed when he arrived at Exil the day before, but today, with Rei and Elena were next to him and Yellow was on his back like yesterday. Thanks to that, his dispiritedness seemed much less.

「Oh, that smells kinda good. Set, let’s get some.」

「Guru~」

Giving a cry at Rei’s words, they headed for a nearby food stall.

As expected of a labyrinth city, there were many adventurers heading for the dungeons at this time of the day.

Most of them were attracted by Elena’s appearance while simultaneously astonished when they saw Set. However, they all had looks of understanding when they saw Rei.

In some cases, a few female adventurers who liked cute things looked at Yellow fervently, but those people were a minority.

Normally, some of those adventurers would definitely have tried to mess around with Rei and Elena, but the day before, Rei’s title of Crimson had spread through the guild and to every adventurer who came to the guild after. ……As a result of the story being spread from person to person and they were fortunate to avoid any meaningless troubles, unlike when Rei had first started his activities in the guild.

Regardless, Rei called out to the owner of a stall that was selling skewers, despite the looks from the surroundings.

「Those skewers look delicious. What kind of meat is it?」

「I-It’s Lizardmen meat from the dungeon.」

「Huh, Lizardmen? In that case, give me two skewers for now.」

「I understand, it will be done right away!」

The stall owner hurriedly grilled up two Lizardmen skewers with sauce while feelings the stares of adventurers around them. Rei paid for them without seeming to care.

Receiving the skewers, which had been prepared at a speed as if the owner was scared that the Griffon would kill him otherwise, Rei took a bite out of the first one.

The Lizardmen meat in his mouth had a taste and texture similar to that of chicken. It was coated in sauce as it was grilled and gave off a sweet and spicy taste with a crispy texture when chewed as the gravy overflowed in his mouth.

「It’s delicious. Here, Set.」

「Gururu~」

With a cry, Set ate the Lizardmen skewer by pulling the meat off the skewer Rei offered with his beak.

「Guru……Gurururu~!」

It’s delicious! Set seemed to say with a cry.

The stall owner watched on happily as he saw Set eating the skewers he had made, as if his fear from a few minutes ago had just been a lie.

The adventurers and other stall owners nearby also started to wonder why they had been so afraid of someone who was now happily eating skewers.

(Seriously……I never thought Set eating skewers would take away peoples’ fear of him. Well, I suppose it’s all part of Set’s loveliness.)

With Yellow on her shoulder, Elena could feel the fear leaving the people who had been watching Set.

At the same time, some of the residents and adventurers, who had stopped moving previously out of fear, felt a sense of warmth in their hearts as they saw Set happily eating the Lizardmen skewer.

After that, they continued to eat for about 10 more minutes. Seeing Set like them so much, Rei ordered a few more skewers and by the time Set had eaten them all, the fear in the stall owner’s eyes was completely gone.

「That’s for the food. It was delicious, I’ll be stopping by again.」

「……Ah, y-yes! We’ll be waiting for you again!」

The stall owner bowed his head in a hurry.

There was no fear in the stall owner’s attitude. Rather, he looked over at Set as if he was a familiar person.

「Here, a bonus. Did you call him Set? Give them to the Griffon.」

Saying that, he offered a few more skewers to Rei. However, they were made from meat that couldn’t normally be sold.

「Are you sure? Sorry about this. Set, say thank you.」

「Gururururu~」

At Rei’s words, Set gave a cry.

The stall owner’s cheeks relaxed involuntarily at Set’s adorable appearance.

 

 

「Since it’s a labyrinth city, there are quite a few people gathered around the dungeon.」

Rei muttered as he looked over towards the adventurers lined up in front of a gate to enter the dungeon.

Elena nodded at Rei’s words as she looked around.

「But, aside from the gate to the dungeon’s entrance, it doesn’t seem to be particularly crowded?」

A gate was installed near the dungeon and people had to show the guards their dungeon card in order to enter. Unlike the dungeon where the Altar of Inheritance had been located, which had been the only dungeon Rei and Elena had been to, it didn’t seem like adventurers lined up directly in front of the real dungeon entrance.

「Well, we’ll find out when we get there.」

Saying that, Rei and Set headed for the gate with Elena, Yellow on her shoulder.

As expected, with so many adventurers gathered, many had yet to know about Set and were surprised to see him.

However, even so, none of them ran away after seeing the Necklace of Subservient Monster on Set, as expected of adventurers.

Eventually, it was Rei’s turn. He showed his dungeon card to the guards before heading through the gate.

Although the guards were surprised to see Set, they were even more surprised when they saw Rei’s dungeon card. Going past the gate, the first thing Rei saw was a brown pillar standing next to a set of stairs which seemed to be the entrance to the dungeon. The pillar was about 3m tall and 1m in diameter.

There were no decorations on it, it was really just a brown pillar.

「What is……that thing?」

Rei muttered out loud, but it became clear before Elena could answer him.

A party of 3 touched the pillar and the pillar glowed dully before the 3 of them disappeared the next moment.

「I see, is that the transfer device I had heard about?」

「That seems to be the case. And because of the transfer device, it doesn’t get unnecessarily crowded when entering the dungeon. It’s the first time I’ve seen it in person.」

Rei and Elena were naturally distracted by the prominent device and only came back to their sense after being lightly poked by Set and Yellow.

Let’s quickly go into the dungeon.

The two of them recollected themselves after being poked by Set’s beak and Yellow’s foot.

「Well, we won’t know what it’s actually like until we enter the dungeon. Rei, do you want to go down right away? In our case, we’ll be starting from the first floor.」

「We’ll learn if we get used to it I guess. That’s fine, but……take a look.」

Rei looked over towards the dungeon entrance.

Although they had only been paying attention to the transfer device previously, looking more closely, there were actually quite a few people around it.

When Elena turned her attention to what they were doing, she found that they were calling out to other people, some by themselves, others in small groups at most.

「Recruiting thieves. Our goal is the search the third floor.」

「We’re looking for a warrior! We are an archer and a warrior!」

「We’re looking for a warrior! Anyone with healing magic would be appreciated as well!」

「I’m a porter. I carry baggage around. You can leave your baggage to me. I’m confident in my strength, so hire me and you won’t need to worry about carrying materials!」

「I’m also a porter but I can also assist in combat with a bow. Would anyone like to hire me?」

There were people who were advertising their skills while others were calling out what skills they needed.

「Are these the so called pick up groups?」

Elena caught Rei’s gaze as he looked around as she spoke.

Pick up groups were temporary parties or the otherwise called one day parties. They were like dungeon versions of the temporary parties Rei had experienced several times in the guild.

However, unlike guild requests, dungeons almost always involved combat. It wasn’t that desirable to party up with strangers, but not everyone could find a proper party. In a labyrinth cities like Exil, where the number of adventurers greatly exceeded that of Gilm, it wasn’t rare for this to happen. In a sense, it was even considered a speciality. One of the reasons was that unlike proper parties, that had to report back to the guild each time, temporary parties didn’t require that.

「Well, that shouldn’t matter to us……?」

As Rei said that, he was about to start heading over to the dungeon entrance when his eyes turned to a certain location.

Unlike other pick up groups, there was a group of nearly 20 people. In addition, although all of them were wearing different equipment, they were similar enough to give off a sense of unity. Aside from the many warriors they had, they also had thieves and mages, although much lesser in number.

One of the mages sensed Rei’s magic power and his expression tensed up. However, Rei just shrugged it off as he asked a question.

「Hey, what do you think that group over there is?」

「That’s the Church of Holy Light.」

It wasn’t Elena who answered Rei’s question, but the voice of a young man from somewhere else.

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