Volume 2 - CH 1

Act 2-1: Hunter Registration

We ended up staying in this Barse city for a while due to Fracton and his knights’ treason. Since I had a lot of spare time in my hand, I naturally visited the hunter guild.

To live in this world, money was indispensable. And the quickest way to earn money was becoming a hunter and completing quests.

Acquiring a hunter’s qualification was a must for me as I wanted to venture around the world. Moreover, one of my strongest obsessions before that dungeon had swallowed me was to become a hunter. Therefore, I decided to take this chance to register as one.

This city, Barse, is one of the five biggest cities in the Amelia kingdom. The reason is the den of monsters called the sea forest of Silke located near it. This sea forest of Silke, which is spread in the southern side of the Silke great forest, is a dense forest that we had passed by before arriving in this city that is devoid of monsters.

Hunters around the world visit this city to meet high-level monsters in this sea forest of Silke. In short, this place is the greatest hunting ground for hunters.

After walking along the street toward the center of Barse city, I entered a certain four-story building. Yes, this place is the hunter guild.

Upon entering the building, I found out that the left half of the building had a bar, and the right half had a bulletin board, where the officials placed quests.

I went straight toward the counter manned by a blonde girl who had tied her hair in a ponytail.

「I want to become a hunter. It should be possible, right?」

I asked straightaway without beating around the bush. The woman sent a rather irritated look at me for a while, but then…

「You have to pay 10000 oars as the registration fee.」

Her expression was instantly replaced with a business smile.

Ten thousand oars. If my memories serve me right, the average monthly income of a normal family is around 8000 oars.

I had received 100k oars from my grandfather as my activity fund in the royal capital instead of a farewell gift. Money was more useful than a useless item after all.

This money was kept in the item box. I clearly remember it since I had sorted my item box at a regular interval after receiving a perfect memory. Thus, I knew where I had placed my bag of money inside my item box.

When I grabbed into my item box and took out the bag―

「Is that an item box?」

The blonde receptionist gasped. This made me recall that the item box was a rare skill. I had been forced to become a royal guard due to my carelessness once. If people knew I could use an item box, I would stand out.

「No, you’re mistaken. This bag… is always strapped on my belt.」

「B-But, there was nothing here a while ag―」

「Are you sure that you didn’t just fail to see it? I have no such skill. You’ll know about this as soon as you examine me. I mean, I lack any merit that can be hidden. Am I wrong?」

「That might be true, but still…」

Yup, she at least started to believe my BS. Yeah, obedient people are the best after all.

「This is 10000 oars for my registration fee. Please take it.」

「Yes, I’ve confirmed that the amount is exactly 10000 oars. Well, we’ll start with examining your stats and gift.」

In front of me was the same type of crystal that I had touched when I had received my gift in the temple. Gift was a falsehood that made many people put restraints upon themselves. Valid measurement aside, I preferred to just announce the truth about me being “incompetent” rather than participating in this troublesome farce.

The problem was the result of the measurements after the crystal scanned my stats and gift.

The gap between weak and strong in this world was like the difference between heaven and earth. After the memories of me who had cleared the dungeon merged with the restored memories of me before I had entered the dungeon, I realized that my full strength, unsuppressed by the 【Glove of Sealing God】, belonged to the top class in this world. I had realized this matter after deep contemplation when I gave some pointers to that greenhorn sword emperor. No matter how much talent he had, that Ashburn shouldn’t have given the Sword Emperor title to a swordsman with mediocre, albeit immature, abilities. That was why although I had a hard time believing it, I felt that the current sword emperor, that greenhorn, was amongst the strongest in this world.

Nevertheless, it didn’t mean that this world had only small fries. I mean, there was the legendary hero, the four great demon kings, and the strongest species in this world; the dragons, along with many other strong beings. That was how it was supposed to be. Since I lacked much information about this world, it was best not to stand out.

That being said, it was still unclear how much the average of 100 in my stats would mean in this world. Rather, I didn’t even know whether the result of their appraisal would be the same as mine. I mean, that self-proclaimed spirit king’s evil spirit did say that I was quite powerful with stats averaging 100.

Since that’s the case, to keep the consistency between my fake stats and my gift, maybe it’s better if I lower my stats even further. Now then, let’s see what will happen if I lower my stats to around the first half of a teen with the help of the 【Glove of Sealing God】. Those numbers shouldn’t cause disparities for a rookie hunter. Yeah, let’s go with that.

After adjusting the average of my stats to 12 with the 【Glove of Sealing God】, I touched the appraisal crystal.

「T-The most incompetent in this world?」

The shrill voice of the blonde receptionist resounded in the entire guild.

「AH!」

The blonde receptionist snapped out and shut her mouth in hurry. After looking around, she realized that she had become the center of attention of the entire hunters in the guild. They were curious about her statement.

Those hunters started whispering amongst themselves. It was obvious what they were talking about.

「M-my apologies!」

I was about to tell the blonde receptionist, who bowed in hurry for her blunder, that it didn’t really matter, but…

「OI, LISTEN! This brat’s gift is 【The most incompetent in this world】!」

A blonde man with bad eyes approached me. After he glanced into the crystal from behind me, he shouted. When the other hunters heard this, they jeered at me.

The blonde man had worn red and white warrior clothes. He was carrying a greatsword on his back. Appearance-wise, he seemed to be the same as me, a swordsman.

「Wait a minute, Raiga-kun!!」

Although the receptionist glared at the man, I waved my right hand toward her.

「It’s okay. I don’t mind even if others know it.」

The me before I got trapped in that dungeon would have been shocked by this matter. However, I had spent 100k years in that dungeon. I wasn’t so petty as to care about this youngster’s joke.

「Raiga-kun, I’ll definitely report your deed today to the branch chief!」

「Wooah! Good grief, you’re way too diligent in doing your job, Mia-chan. Why are you siding with this apostate?」

The man returned to his comrade with a sullen expression.

I see now. This youngster called Raiga might have a crush on Miss Mia.

So this is the love between youngsters, huh! Yup, definitely not interesting at all. Honestly, I don’t care about his attempt to woo Miss Mia.

Anyhow, thanks to the youngster called Raiga, the hunters in the guild completely treated me as incompetent.

Yup, this might be a good thing. I mean, I could use this opportunity to announce my gift and let the others realize what kind of a person Rose had chosen as her royal guard. That way, I could use the surroundings in my favor.

「My deepest apologies for blurting out your secret.」

Therefore, when Mia bowed and repeatedly apologized for her error, I gave her a thumbs-up with a triumphant expression.

「It’s okay. Rather, I prefer if you let more people know about it.」

Due to my unexpected reaction, Mia was dumbfounded for a while.

「Are you by chance a masochist?」

She ended up asking a question that would hurt my public image.