His body was wrapped in light for a moment, and the next thing he knew, the scenery around him had changed completely.

A few seconds ago, they had been surrounded by the stone passageways with faintly glowing walls that made up the dungeon. However, he and the others were now standing beside the 3m tall pillar of a magic device that was at the dungeon’s entrance.

「Huh, so that’s how the transfer works? There’s no uncomfortable feeling at all. As expected of technology from an ancient magical civilisation.」

Moving away from the transfer device, Elena muttered in an impressed manner.

Rei nodded as he walked beside Elena.

The two of them aside, Rei stroked Set’s head as Set looked around in surprise at the sudden transfer. Meanwhile, Yellow climbed onto Rei’s hand, giving a warm fuzzy feeling to the people around them.

In fact, in terms of experiencing a magical transfer, Set was the only one who had experienced it before. However, no one would be able to tell from his reaction as he looked around.

When Rei’s group had returned, there were some people who were surprised and tried to move away from them. But, seeing Yellow, they couldn’t help but relax their tense expressions.

The time was roughly in the middle of the afternoon, the fact that there weren’t so many adventurers around right now was one of the reasons there wasn’t too much of a commotion when they came back up.

「Well then, what should we do for now? Since we’ve come back from the dungeon, should we get some food?」

Rei asked Elena as he returned Yellow to Set’s back, but Elena shook her head.

「No, let’s go to the guild first.」

「The guild again? Why?」

「Part of it is so you can hand in your materials, magic stones and proofs of subjugation. I used to leave this kind of work to Vel. I’ve wanted to try experiencing it for a while.」

「Experience it? I really don’t think there’s much to experience there.」

「That’s probably because it’s already become part of your daily life to hand things in at the guild. That’s not the same for me. And……there’s a few questions I would like to ask them.」

Elena’s eyes shone sharply when she said that. It was clear that her real purpose wasn’t to hand in materials at the guild, but to find something out from the guild.

As for Rei, he had a feeling he knew what she wanted to ask, so he accepted Elena’s decision without saying anything more.

The adventurers who were nearby watched them leave without a saying a word……finally opening their mouths after Rei and Elena could no longer be seen.

「Hey, hey, hey! What’s an adventurer with a Griffon doing here? This isn’t a joke right?」

「Y-Yeah. Also……if I didn’t mistake it, there seemed to be a Dragon on the Griffon’s back.」

「You aren’t hallucinating, I saw that as well.」

「You know, I’ve never seen such a beautiful woman in my life. I would really want to spend a night with her.」

「Hey, don’t say that. Don’t you know that the person with the woman was Crimson?」

「……You’re not joking?」

「Oh right, didn’t you spend the night in the dungeon yesterday? It’s no wonder you don’t know. That has to be it. I heard it from others that the two of them had participated in the war with the Bestir Empire when they arrived at Exil yesterday and registered their dungeon cards. It seems that Crimson is a B rank adventurer.」

「……Really?」

「As serious as I can be. There’s no doubting the information, the guild receptionist accidentally leaked it when she saw his guild card.」

「That kid in his mid-teens? He’s a B rank adventurer……」

「So, if you’re not careful, you’ll get done in.」

The female adventurer who said that drew her finger over her neck.

Seeing her gesture, the man held his breath.

「No, no. That couldn’t possibly happen right……」

「You think so? As far as I’ve heard from the rumours, Crimson has no mercy against people hostile to him. There were stories that he burned the Bestir Empire’s army all by himself and that he had made a show of cutting off the limbs of nobles who complained against him.」

Cutting off people’s limbs for show. Hearing that, the adventurer held his breath again.

If he did that to people who were just complaining about him, what would happen if someone laid a hand on his companion.

「……No matter how good she looks, it seems it would be better not to touch her.」

「Yeah. Well, I would be more than happy to be your companion though.」

「……Eh?」

Just like that, a couple was made off the act of exaggerating Rei’s deeds, causing rumours and gossip to spread endlessly. However, it was true that Rei had cut off both the arms off a noble and the heir of a Marquis, Renodis Imarhen, causing rumours of him to spread from there with significant embellishment and exaggeration.

 

 

「I would like to hand in some materials and ask some questions.」

「Eh? Ah, r-right. Please hand in materials over there. As for questions……what would you like to ask about?」

The guild receptionist replied to Rei’s questions.

Next to him, Elena responded to the receptionist’s words.

「I want to know about Byune Fraut. Why is she allowed to enter the dungeon solo at her age?」

「In her case, it’s because she wants to do that. It’s partly due to her family problems and because we as the guild can’t refuse.」

「But, at her age?」

「Yes, I understand what you mean, but she needs the money and we as the guild never have enough good thieves. Besides, as you know, adventurers are responsible for their own actions, the guild can’t refuse them as long as they have the skills and the motivation to do so. This is especially true when it comes to the daughter of the Fraut family, one of the families who built the prosperity of Exil.」

Although she was overwhelmed by Elena, the receptionist didn’t not retreat from her points.

To the receptionist, Elena was the most beautiful person she had seen in her 20 years of life. Elena was also a duke’s daughter and the General Princess. However, as a guild staff member, she couldn’t concede on the matter.

Understanding the receptionist’s predicament, Rei placed a hand on Elena’s white shoulder armour.

「Elena, you’ve lost here. As the receptionist said, it’s true that all adventurers have to bear their own risk. That is why adventurers have become so strong.」

「But!」

Rei also thought to himself as he tried to calm Elena down.

(Although adventuring is certainly at your own risk, when a 10 year old child tries to register, other adventurers would usually try to stop them. It’s suspicious that no one stopped her. Well, maybe it’s something to do with the fact that her ancestor was one of the people who discovered the dungeon and built Exil……but, I’ve heard that it’s been 300 years since the Fraut family fell. Are they still that influential?)

Rei was skeptical himself as he thought about it, but realised that any further argument would only bother the guild. Ignoring the gazes from the curious surroundings, he took Elena over to the area for handing in materials.

The fact that the reception area and the area for handing in materials were two different places was probably unique to Exil as a labyrinth city with a large number of adventurers.

「Rei! Why……」

「Elena.」

Rei interrupted Elena’s words as she started to speak out.

「……What is it.」

Elena reluctantly responded.

「You’ve been a soldier up until now, so you’re not familiar with adventurers……right?」

Elena nodded silently at Rei’s question.

She was well verse in the world of the army and knew a fair amount about nobility as well. However, Elena had never been deeply involved with adventuring outside of killing monsters, so all she could do was nod.

「Soldiers have their military ways and adventurers have their rules as well. ……You understand that?」

「……」

Elena nodded silently at Rei’s words again.

She wasn’t convinced emotionally, but she understood the reasoning behind it.

「Look, if you meet Byune again, you can ask her about it. For now, we’ll sell off our materials and head back to the inn.」

「I understand.」

Accepting Rei’s words, the two of them headed to the place where materials could be sold to the guild.

Fortunately, the number of adventurers lined up at the counters wasn’t too great, probably because it was still early in the day, so there were several open counters. Rei and Elena went up to one of the counters and called out to the guild staff.

「We would like to sell some materials.」

「……That’s fine, but where are the materials? It doesn’t look like you have anything with you.」

The female guild staff in her 30’s looked confused when she saw Rei.

On the other hand, seeing the General Princess up close, who’s identity had been spread around the guild staff, made her want to shout for joy.

However, as expected of a professional, she didn’t reveal what she was thinking.

「Oh, my bad. Here.」

Saying that, Rei lined up the materials, magic stones and proofs of subjugation he took out from the Misty Ring on the counter.

The materials themselves were quite ordinary and their quality was in the lower middle range, with the best ones being in the upper middle range. But event so, the female employee still looked at Rei with astonished eyes.

「An item……box……」

「Yeah, ah well. More importantly, could you assess the materials? That said, I’m not expecting much since they’re all materials from monsters on the first and second floors.」

The woman seemed quite shocked, but she immediately recollected herself after Rei admitted he had an item box and asked her assess the materials.

Several adventurers who saw that sighed and shook their heads as they left the guild. Given that Rei had a title, it probably fine for him to own an item box.

If it had been a more crowded time of the day, someone might have been reckless enough to try and steal the Misty Ring from Rei. Fortunately, it was still early and there weren’t that many adventurers in the guild.

「Ah, yes. Please wait a moment.」

After coming to her senses, the woman went through the materials Rei had brought out.

There weren’t that many in total, so the check didn’t take long……

「The materials, magic stones and proofs of subjugation are worth 4 silver and 5 copper coins in total. Is that fine?」

「Yeah, that’s fine. I’m surprised, thtat was more than I expected. I was thinking it would only be 2 silver coins if I was lucky.」

「Recently, the price of magic stones has risen, the Marschels and Levisors have been competing to buy up magic stones from the guild. Of course, the guild can’t complain as long as they’re buying it at a fair price, but thanks to them we’re starting to run short on magic items we can produce. That’s why the price of magic stones have gone up. Magic stones are also used for magic items used in daily life by the residents of Exil, so it’s more about quantity than quality. So, if it’s okay with you two, it would be a great help if Rei-san and Elena-san could keep that in mind when you enter the dungeon.」

The woman said that as she glanced at Rei’s wrist.

「Especially Rei-san, as you don’t need a porter if you have an item box.」

「We will continue moving down the dungeon, but it looks like we’ll only be able to sell the magic stones of small monsters for now. If you don’t mind, I will bring as many magic stones as I can collect.」

「That would be a great help.」

Rei nodded at the woman’s words, but Elena interjected as if to douse water on the conversation.

「That said, Rei has the unique hobby of collecting magic stones, so it might not be possible to buy all of them.」

「Collecting magic stones?」

The woman turned to look at Rei at those words.

Elena knew Rei’s main purpose for coming to the dungeon was to let Set and the Death Scythe absorb magic stones. Because of that, she was stopping Rei from promising to sell all the magic stones they collected in the dungeond to the guild.

Rei understood what Elena was trying to do. He nodded at the woman with a wry smile at Elena’s concern.

「Yeah. I basically keep two of each magic stone for preservation and ornamental use. I’m sorry but I can’t sell those ones.」

「……I see. But in that case, it means you can sell all other magic stones aside from two of each right? Oh, of course, you can also directly sell them to stores within the city instead of the guild.」

Rei was puzzled at the woman’s words.

If the Marschel and Levisor families wanted to buy up magic stones, they could buy them from the guild. It was also a way for the guild to make money. Because of that, he wasn’t sure why the woman said he could also sell the magic stones to stores outside of the guild.

However, this was related to Exil’s current situation of having insufficient magic stones.

There might still be some buffer in the current stock of magic stones, but if magic stones continued to be bought up at their current pace, there was a possibility that there wouldn’t be enough left over to create magic items. Because of that, the guild’s idea was to throw as many magic stones as they could into the open market to make up for the shortfall.

Elena aside, who understood that due to her aristocratic upbringing, Rei was about to ask the woman when……

「Don’t be stupid! You caused us to lose so much!? But you still want that big a cut of the rewards!?」

Such an angry voice echoed out in the guild.

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