「Thank you, we are grateful for your help. Um, how can we pay you for the escort?」

It was early afternoon when they left the dungeon and Tivia bowed her head towards Rei and Elena.

Behind her, Esetus, Nakuto, and Goto also bowed their heads.

However, Rei just shrugged his shoulders as he replied to the four of them.

「Even though we were your escorts, no monsters ended up appearing on the way back.」

Hearing what Rei said, Elena thought about it for a few seconds before giving a slight nod.

「In that case, Rei, how about they help out with stripping materials tomorrow for free?」

「……Ah, that’s right. That would be good. I’d rather they help out with physical work than giving me money.」

「Gururu~」

「Kyu?」

Set gave a cry in agreement and Yellow gave a cry to match.

However, while Set probably understood what Elena was suggesting, Yellow was probably just going along the flow.

「Stripping materials?」

Tivia didn’t quite understand what Rei and Elena were talking about……or rather, she understood what they were talking about, but she didn’t understand why that was being brought up as a form of payment.

It was the same for the rest of her party.

「Oh, it’s nothing complicated. As you can see, our party has absolutely no issues in terms of combat power, but we have trouble stripping materials from all the monsters we kill.」

「…..Is that so.」

At Rei’s explanation, Tivia and the others all nodded.

In fact, it was clear from fighting the abnormal species Skeleton that Rei and Elena were incomparably stronger than their own party.

And, it was also true that most parties consisted of 4 or more people, it was because most parties had that many members that materials could be quickly stripped.

No matter how strong their combat power was, with just Rei and Elena, it was only natural it would take them a lot of time to strip materials.

Even though Set was more than strong enough, he couldn’t help with stripping materials.

That said, Tivia’s perspective wasn’t quite right.

While it was true that Set couldn’t help in stripping materials, he was able to keep an eye on the surroundings while Rei and Elena were stripping materials.

After all, stripping materials……in other words, dismantling monsters, would spread a strong smell of blood into the surroundings that would attract other monsters.

At such times, with Set around, most monsters would withdraw after sensing his strength. Even if they did attack, there was no way the monsters would be able to beat a Griffon. As a result, Rei and Elena were able to safely stip materials.

When Rei and Elena explained their situation, everyone, including Tivia, nodded in approval.

「So, as you can see, I have an item box. Inside my item box, there are a lot of monster that we killed in the dungone. Of course, the corpses won’t rot as long as they are stored inside, but it’s hard for me and Elena to strip all the materials from them.」

「I see. SO you want us to help with the request you put up in exchange for escorting us today?」

「Yeah. You guys can’t resume dungeon exploration right away, can you? Then you can help us with stripping materials……how about it?」

Hearing Rei’s offer, they thought about it for several seconds before Tivia nodded as she looked to her party members.

「What do you think? I don’t mind.」

「Yeah. As expected, it would be bad for rumors to spread that we had some with a title escort us for free. I don’t mind replacing the reward with helping to strip materials.」

「He has a title?」

At Nakuto’s words, Esetus asked back in confusion.

It seemed that Esetus had been the only one who hadn’t known who Rei and Set were. When Nakuto and Goto whispered the information into his ears, his face gradually turned pale.

He must have remembered the words he had said to Rei.

However, from Rei’s perspective, he didn’t care about it. That was because he knew that the remarks Nakuto made weren’t out of malice but purely out of consideration for his party members.

That was why, without saying anything else, he decided to just tell them to meet at Exil’s front gate at 9am the next day before they parted ways.

Although Tivia’s injury had been sealed with the potion Rei had given them, she hadn’t fully recovered. After this, they had to head to a clinic where mages could use healing magic on her. As for Rei’s group, he had to finish sorting ou the request for stripping materials at the guild and he also had to bring the abnormal species over to the Silva family.

(Although that last one is mostly for my own sake.)

Abnormal magic stones were extremely troublesome for Rei, who used the Magic Beast Art, so he wanted the situation with the abnormal species to be sorted out as soon as possible.

That is to say, not with a scapegoat, like the Levisor family, but the real culprit.

「Rei, let’s get going. It’s a lot earlier than usual, but considering we have to head over to the Silva family, shouldn’t we go to the guild as soon as possible?」

After hearing Elena’s words, Rei nodded before calling out to Tivia and the others, who were still explaining the origin of Rei’s title to Esetus.

「Pardon us, but we won’t hold you any longer. As I said before, we’ll meet up at Exil’s front gate at 9am tomorrow morning. If you’re coming, don’t forget.」

After saying that, he left the four people, who still seemed to want to say something to him, exiting the plaza in front of the dungeon.

For a moment, the thought came to Rei’s mind that they might not show up the next day, but the thought disappeared right after.

He had no reason to think that they would show up. But based on the short period of time they had been with each other before leaving the dungeon, Tivia’s loyalty, Esetus’s honesty, Nakuto’s prudence, and Goto’s good nature, Rei judged that they wouldn’t renege on their agreement.

And, in fact, the four adventurers had no intention of doing so either as Rei had saved their lives.

 

 

As usual, Rei and Elena entered the guild without Set or Yellow. Since it was early in the afternoon, hardly any adventurers could be seen around.

If this guild branch had been been like a regular guild branch with a bar attached, there might have been some adventurers eating lunch there. However, due to the number of adventurers that frequented Exil’s guild branch, it didn’t have a bar attached to the guild.

After entering the guild, Rei and Elena headed straight for the counter for accepting requests instead of going to the purchase counter like they normally would.

The receptionist who was there was surprised that Rei, who she had only spoken to a few hours ago, was already back. That said, she spoke up as if Rei had come in at a good time.

「Oh, Rei-san. Regarding your request……」

「Yeah. Has its rank been decided? How much is the fee?」

Thinking that the receptionist had called out to him regarding the fee, Rei asked how much it was. However, the receptionist’s reply was not what he expected.

「Oh, yes. There is that as well. We were inundated with applicants and have already sorted out 10. However, if it’s possible……would you be okay with accepting more people? We’ve had a lot of trouble handling the quota problems.」

The receptionist recalled the time she had put the request up on the request board.

The fact that it was still early in the morning, before 8am, probably had something to do with it. Adventurers who had heard Rei discuss the request with the receptionist had immediately rushed over and, as a result, a fist fight had broken out.

The only reason no weapons had been used was probably because they thought it wouldn’t be good to go to such lengths inside the guild.

It was basically a rationally thought out fist fight, something that would make anyone who heard that give a sigh.

Although it was a request that Rei had casually made, the reward was enough to make such a situation happen, considering that the reward could be earned with barely any personal risk.

In addition, whether it was Rei, titled Crimson, Set, the Griffon, or the beautiful Elena, who attracted gazes from both genders, many adventurers decided that it would be a good opportunity to become acquainted with them.

On a side note, the reason Yellow wasn’t included was because he had stayed back at the inn for the duration that Rei and the others had been exploring the desert floors.

However……

「I’m sorry, I’ve already gathered more people than I had initially requested.」

Hearing those words, several adventurers who had been listening into their conversation gave a regretful sigh.

They had been waiting around with the hope that there might have been additional recruitment.

The receptionist gave a faint sigh of relief as she glanced at her surroundings before realising something that Rei had said.

「Eh, uh, is that so? ……So, will you be paying for the additional manpower you gathered?」

Rei shook his head at the question, which seemed to have carried a sense of tragic determination.

「No, I don’t plan to give them any rewards. Or rather, I helped out an adventurer party who nearly died to a monster in the dungeon and escorted them back, so they will be helping out with stripping materials tomorrow instead of giving me a reward. In a sense, it’s payment for helping them leave the dungeon safely.」

At Rei’s reply, the receptionist let out another sigh of relief.

If Rei had hired additional adventurers on his own in addition to the ones recruited by the guild and paid them the same amount, there would no doubt have been an uproar.

Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue. In a sense, Rei would just be giving out a nominated request.

However, a complicated situation might have broken out due to how good the rewards were.

「Anyhow, I won’t be recruiting anymore people this time. But if I continue to enter the dungeon, I’ll have to deal with stripping materials again sooner or later. At that time, I’ll be recruiting more people. That said, as I’m in the deeper floors now, it will take a certain level of skill and knowledge to strip materials from those monsters.」

「Yes, I understand. The rank of the request was based purely on stripping materials, the highest ranked monster is also a C rank Earth Crab, so I’ve assigned this request as D rank. Is that okay with you?」

「Sure.」

「You said this morning that there might be a few more monsters……」

「Not today, we ended up dealing with undead on the 16th floor and didn’t run into any that we could strip materials from.」

After that, Rei looked over the paperwork to confirm, paid guild fee, and completed the full process.

「Thank you very much.」

「As I said before, I’ll probably ask for your help again when we have more monsters to strip materials from.」

「Yes, we’ll be waiting for you.」

Lightly waving to the receptionist, who bowed her head, Rei and Elena then headed over to the purchase counter instead of leaving the guild……

「I knew you would come this way as well.」

Nodding at the receptionist, who greeted them with a small smile, Rei immediately took out the materials he obtained.

Having said that, they had only been inside the dungeon for a few hours this time and they planned to hand over the abnormal species Skeleton, their greatest harvest, to the Silva family. Because of that, only the Living Armour could be sold to the guild, the parts other than the magic stone at least.

「Unfortunately, this is all we have today. But I’m sure we will have a lot more things to sell from the request I put up tomorrow.」

「Is this……armour? No, Living Armour?」

Rei nodded at the receptionist, who asked him quizzically as they looked at the armour on the counter.

「It’s a Living Armour from the 16th floor. I was able to remove the magic stone with very little damage to the armour.」

「Hmmm, Living Armour. The quality of the armour is also quite high, so most adventurers who kill one would either use it or sell it to a weapons shop.」

「Yeah, I don’t mind though. I’m a mage, so I don’t want to wear full plate mail that would be hard to move around it. Above all, the size doesn’t fit.」

As a human, Rei, who was quite short, was naturally limited in the type of armour he could wear.

In that sense, the Dragon Robes were a perfect match for Rei, both in terms of quality and size.

「Understood. So, as for the weapon used by the Living Armour……?」

The receptionist asked as weapons used by Living Weapons were in more demand than full plate mail, which had high defensive power but was difficult to move in. Unfortunately……

「That ended up being broken in the fight.」

Rei said that as he averted his eyes slightly.

Seeing that, Elena looked at him with a wry smile.

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