Sevens Volume 9 Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Plain Adventurer

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The proficiency test that was held by Beim’s adventurer guild.

I decided to not take it. Marianne-san looked surprised to hear that.

「──Your party is quite strong isn’t it? Are you really not going to  take the test? Your party will be treated like rookie for three months  at the very least.」

We had heard the explanation about that in the short course.

「There is no problem. We will spend the three months quietly.」

My party members didn’t complain even when they heard my decision.

But Shannon was the only one making a dissatisfied face.

「Haa? Why aren’t you accepting? We’ll be recognized by the guild right away if you accept the test.」

Miranda-san quickly used her hand to block Shannon’s mouth.

「Just be quiet Shannon.」

Marianne-san was about to speak more, but there were other people who cut in.

It was Erhart.

「What? Do you get cold feet to take the test?」

He placed his hands inside his trouser’s pockets and brought his face closer to me while walking with confident swagger.

「There’s no problem even if we don’t take the test, that’s all.」

It seemed Erhart decided in his mind that I was a coward when he heard that.

「Keh! You won’t accept my challenge, you also won’t take the test.  It’s strange that a weakling like you are having beauties following you  around. You girls, are you seriously planning to follow this guy? We’re  far more reliable than him.」

I’m more amazing than this guy! Erhart and his friends were making that kind of appeal, but Novem shook her head at them.

「Lyle-sama isn’t a weakling. He is really reliable.」

Monica was sending me glances while praising me.

「Chicken dickwad is certainly unreliable, but he is still my master.  It’s impossible for me to serve any other person. Kyaa~, I’m really a  laudable maid!」

Clara was reading her book because she had nothing to do, but she  closed it and put it back into her bag because we were getting noisy.

「I don’t know what you are expecting from us, but please pay us no mind.」

Eva made fun of Clara.

「You really don’t understand the inner workings of heart. They’re  showing off in front of cute girls right now. ──But, be careful because  you’ll only look silly if you show off too much okay?」

Erhart’s cheeks were twitching when Eva said that to him.

His hand was moving to grab the handle of the large sword on his  back, but Aria had thrust the pommel of her spear at Erhart’s throat  before he could finish his movement.

「Resolve yourself if you’re going to point your weapon at us. You won’t be able to play it off as a joke.」

Sophia preached at Erhart’s group indifferently.

「In the first place, Lyle-dono is our leader. You calling that leader  as unreliable means that you’re looking down on our party on the whole.  Do you understand that you’re not just making fun of Lyle-dono but all  of us?」

Erhart didn’t know how to answer that. He glared at me.

「You coward, hiding behind women’s back like this!」

Please don’t say that because it was slightly weighing me down too.

But, I was scared to step forward because it felt like Erhart would really draw his sword in this place if I did that.

「Look here, we don’t want to get involved with you guys. I’m not  taking the test because I have my own objective, that’s all. In the  first place it’s not your business at all isn’t it?」

Why are you picking a quarrel with us huh?

Erhart’s face went bright red and he yelled angrily when I told him that.

「You’ve got some nerve. Fight me!」

「──Don’t wanna.」

「Fight me!」

I made a displeased face. Then May seemed to be fed up with this and casually threw a provocation from where she was sitting.

「It’s animal’s instinct to quarrel when competing for female. Lyle, just beat them up a bit.」

No no, I wasn’t working on instinct here.

I wished May wouldn’t judge everything based on her own standard.

But, May who was kind to May was approving her opinion.

『May is really clever. Lyle, it won’t be any problem to beat them up once and teach them the reality.』

The Third was exasperated by that opinion of the Fifth.

『Making Lyle fight just because May-chan is adorable, Fifht, isn’t that horrible?』

Horrible. These guys were really horrible.

If you asked me what was so horrible──they were criticizing the  Fifth, but none of them was advising me to settle this matter  rationally.

Everyone sounded like they were telling me 「Do it」.

I didn’t want to become this kind of adult, so let’s search for a rational solution.

H~m, I couldn’t think of any solution.

Shannon was tilting her head.

「Onee-sama, why are those men picking a fight with Lyle? Even though  their focus are directed at us rather than Lyle. Besides, there is a  persistent gaze that keep following me.」

Miranda’s eyes turned sharp.

「Shannon, hide behind me. Putting that aside, we too don’t have any  time to waste here. We can’t answer the expectation of you guys. ──You  guys are nuisance, so be gone.」

Erhart’s group jerked back from those blunt words.

Their gaze looked at me and Miranda alternately before Erhart pointed at me and yelled.

「Y-you’re saying this guy is better than us huh!?」

Miranda-san answered with a smile.

「Yes, that’s right. He’s a good man right?」

It was embarrassing to hear such straightforward words. I could feel my face going red.

The ancestors were getting noisy 『Miranda so cool!』 inside the Jewel,  conversely their comments toward me 『Lyle you’re pathetic』 were  ridiculing.

Erhart gritted his teeth and turned his back toward us.

「We’re going you guys!」

After seeing off Erhart and others leaving, I noticed that Marianne-san was the only staff remaining here.

She looked at me and chuckled.

「You’re really loved. Looks like all of you are a good party.」

──It was doubtful whether they would even call each other comrade when the atmosphere was tense though.

「I guess. They are too good for me.」

「Oh, how envious. But, men who don’t know the circumstance will look  at a harem party like bitter enemy. Something like what happened just  now will happen quite often you know?」

「Well, I have experienced it several times until now.

「I see. But, don’t resent them okay? Those kids are still young and rash.」

I had no intention to resent them.

But, if I was allowed to say, I was also jealous of a party that consisted of only men.

In the first place it was mistaken for me to be the only man in the party.

Right now we also had Damian(ダミアン) with us, but he was purely a logistical support so he didn’t count.

「Now then, I’ll also explain about the quest for your party from tomorrow.」

「Ah, can I ask just one thing before that?」

「What is it?」

I asked Marianne-san to recommend an inn for us before talking about the quest.

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Our action from the next day──was very plain.

We got out of Beim’s gate from early in the morning and cleaned the highway.

A lot of humans and horses were coming and going endlessly on this path.

The area around the gate would immediately turn dirty if it was left alone.

It wouldn’t be any problem if it was only dirty appearance, but it  could also cause hygienic and disease problem, so it was necessary to  clean the area.

It was a plain work but important.

Although the job was mostly to gather filth and trash and to throw them away.

It was simple, but there were few people who would be happy to this kind of work.

That was why the adventurer guild undertook the job from Beim and made adventurer accepted the job as a quest.

And then, there was one important thing.

The place was smelly, it was hard work, and then no matter how much  you cleaned the place it would immediately get dirty again. Such  job──paid very little.

Shannon threw her shovel to the ground.

「I can’t do this anymore!」

I looked at Shannon’s act and felt angry.

「I told you that the tool is borrowed thing! We’re going to have to pay if we break it.」

Shannon wasn’t dressed in her usual frilly dress. She was wearing  fatigues, long boots, and gloves that would be alright even if they were  dirtied.

Her long hair was tied into a bun behind her. With her current  appearance, you wouldn’t be able to realize she was Shannon just from a  glance.

「Why do I have to participate in the cleaning too!? You should do something like this by yourself!」

Right now I and Shannon were doing a plain and cheap quest.

Even though Beim was the home of adventurer, the quests that rookie adventurers could take were still few.

The guild would prepare some jobs like this that anyone could do and the rookies would choose from among them.

「It can’t be helped. Novem is taking the writing quest, while we  can’t let May go out alone before we teach her about human common sense  first.」

Shannon picked up the shovel and trembled.

「Why am I also in the po○p cleaning duty!? Hey, why!? I don’t want to  work! Even if I have to work, I want an easier job! An intellectual and  elegant work!」

Shannon saying some splendid complains, but this girl was still in the middle of learning how to read and write.

Her writing was also still clumsy, so she was unable to do writing work.

Also Miranda said 「Let’s make her do something a bit tough」 and assigned her highway cleaning duty together with me.

「You can complain, but if you don’t move your hands too then we won’t finish forever.」

「Other houses will immediately poop even if we clean the road! I can’t do something like──ah!?」

At the place that Shannon cleaned, a horse was looking at us while dropping its excrement.

And then it bared its teeth at us as though it was laughing. It pulled its carriage forward and left.

Shannon resumed cleaning while crying.

「Don’t screw with me-! I was a noble lady who never even held  anything heavier than a spoon, and yet why do I have to clean po○p now」

The world was really harsh. It was also painful for me at the beginning.

「Move your hands together with your mouth.」

「I’m doing it! More importantly, why are Aria and Sophia doing  writing job together with Novem even though they are more suited for  this huh? Normally it should be them doing this.」

Those two were taking writing quest together with Novem.

The reason──it was also because Miranda was saying「We should have the  two of them learn about various things other than fighting already」.

Shannon slipped on a horse feces and fell. I saw that and laughed while pointing my finger at her.

「You slipped! ──Oy, watch it!」

Seeing me laughing loudly at her, Shannon grabbed some horse feces and threw it at me.

「I’m going to──cover you in po○p toooooo!」

「You, don’t call yourself a lady when you leep saying po○p with that mouth! That’s vulgar!」

We got warned by the staff for making a loud commotion.

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──Monica was crying alone inside an inn’s room.

She was crying while sitting at the corner of the room.

「It’s horrible. Even though I also want to be useful for chicken  dickwad. And yet I’m made to stay home because of stupid reason like  needing at least one person staying in the inn──this is too much!」

Monica who was left behind to watch the room had finished cleaning  the room and every other thing to do, so she was free right now.

「Even though if this Monica is there, a trivial job like cleaning the street won’t even take an hour!」

Certainly if it was Monica, she had the capability to finish cleaning the highway quickly.

But, it would surely attract too much attention if she did that.

It was taken into consideration that she would be conspicuous in a  bad way, so the other party members also agreed with Monica staying  behind.

Monica was waiting for Lyle’s return in the room, but then she noticed something and lifted her face to look at the door.

She stood up and unlocked the door right away. There wasn’t any knocking sound.

「It’s opened.」

Then the door opened with Eva standing there with a surprised face.

「Y-you, don’t open the door before I knock. You surprise me.」

「I will consider it if it’s chicken dickwad, but there isn’t any merit for me to be considerate to you.」

「You’re really an annoying automata. But setting that aside, there is still nobody who have come back yet?」

Eva entered the room and took out her own luggage.

She opened her traveling bag while talking to Monica.

「It’s still noon after all. I think it will still take chicken dickwad five more hours until he return.」

「I see. Then tell them that I will return late.」

Eva took out her stage outfits and worried which one to wear.

Monica made a guess when she saw that.

「Are you going to stand on stage?」

「I was requested by the manager of the elves. There is one elf that  has to stay on a bed for a while, so he wants me to act as substitute  for a while.」

Eva had contacted the elves that were at Beim to gather various  informations. She wasn’t doing any quest as adventurer, but her role was  important.

She decided her outfit before long and changed into it. Then she  stood in front of a mirror to check her appearance. She made some poses  and confirmed that there wasn’t anything wrong with the outfit.

「Leaving that aside, where is Clara?」

Eva seemed curious about Clara. Monica snorted at her.

「Oh, are you acting tsundere to a fellow woman?」

「That’s not it. I don’t know what that girl is doing, so I thought I should ask just in case.」

Monica talked about Clara’s activity.

Clara also wasn’t receiving any quest, but she was at the adventurer guild.

「She is in the guild’s reference room. She is asked to investigate various thing about the circumstance around Beim.」

Eva took off her outfit and prepared to go out while listening.

「That job seem suitable for her.」

The right person in the right place. It was a role that was suited for Clara.

Monica too could also do the same or perhaps even more than that.

But, Lyle judged that it would also be dangerous to rely on Monica alone, so he left the role to Clara.

The door was knocked just when Eva was about to leave with her luggage.

Miranda and may entered the room with tired faces.

Monica asked about the situation happily.

「Oh, did you two made a blunder or something?

May sat down and averted her face. Miranda was looking down on her while sighing.

「May wouldn’t leave from in front of the food stand.」

They heard May’s excuse next.

「It was because Miranda said no even though there were a lot of delicious looking foods.」

Miranda crossed her arms under her breasts and looked irritated with twitching expression.

「We had talked about how you would learn about living in human  society hadn’t we? I told you that I would buy those foods for you as  reward after we finished.」

「But you didn’t buy them for me!」

「Because the lesson was cut short in the middle. Good grief, I’m worried about the future now.」

Miranda was taking May outside for sightseeing around Beim to teach her about human society.

Although Miranda’s true objective laid in other place.

It was investigating Beim. She was walking around Beim in person to gather information.

Eva laughed at Miranda who had it hard with looking after May.

「Looks like you also have it hard.」

Miranda turned a cold gaze at Eva.

「It looks like you’re having fun.」

「It’s rare to see you suffer after all. Putting that aside, I will return back late today so everyone can eat without me.」

After Eva left, Miranda crouched to bring her gaze on the same level with the sulking May.

「May, we’re going to go outside once more after lunch. If you keep your promise, I’ll buy you sweets.」

「S-sweets? Y-yep──I’ll do my best.」

May would work hard too at the afternoon because she wanted to eat sweets──.

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──At Beim’s adventurer guild.

There was a partitioned counter inside the writing room.

The person who gave the quest would sit face to face with the person who accepted the quest in each partitioned area.

Sophia had finished one job and her upper body fell on the table after her client left.

「I-it’s over.」

She had been writing for several people since the morning and felt completely tired now.

She had no problem with job like a man who was working away from home wanting to write letter to his family.

But she was at a complete loss when she was asked to write a love letter.

She could be angry if the client was just screwing around, and she also could just consider it an unpleasant job.

She was unable to do that because the client was really serious.

Her hands were smeared with ink from writing for various people since  morning. Even though she was usually swinging around a battle axe, she  was completely tired today from just moving pen.

Aria who was sitting beside her was also the same.

「I don’t want to continue anymoree~. I’d rather clean the highway than doing this.」

Sophia heard that complaining voice, so she leaned forward from her partitioned counter and peeked at Aria’s desk.

Aria’s hands were also smeared with ink.

「You’ve worked hard today Aria.」

「You too. Even so, why is it us who got assigned here?」

It would be better to do physical labor compared to this. Sophia also had the same opinion.

Then Novem who had finished her work came to their place.

「It’s because we want the two of you to learn about this kind of  work. It’s fine even if you aren’t very good with this work, but can’t  possibly leave both of you completely unable to do this. This is  Lyle-sama’s decision.」

Even if they weren’t suited for this work, they should at least have  experience in it. Even Lyle wasn’t planning to ask Sophia and Aria to be  skilled in this kind of work.

Sophia looked up at the ceiling.

「That Lyle-dono is cleaning the highway though.」

Novem made a grave face and looked down when she heard that.

「As I thought, perhaps it would be better if I also took the highway  cleaning quest too. I’m feeling ashamed because this looks like we’re  pushing the heavy labor to Lyle-sama.」

Sophia and Aria looked at each other and shrugged.

「She is starting again.」

「Novem is really overprotective of Lyle. Sometimes she is really  strict with him though. But setting that aside, what will be for dinner I  wonder?」

「I heard that the inn’s dinner will have fish as the main dish. Fresh  fish is cheap here because Beim has a harbor, so it looks like there’ll  be a lot of fish dish. I can’t wait!」

The two were getting excited talking about dinner while watching Novem worrying──.

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──Within an alley of Beim with complicated pathway, the atmosphere there was different from the main street.

A person who seemed like a cook came out from a building. He threw  some kitchen waste into a garbage can before returning inside again.

Erhart who was watching that from hiding led his group toward the garbage can and started to rummage it.

「Oh, there is a full set of something nice today.」

What the cook discarded was the guests’ leftover foods.

Erhart and his friends ate those to endure their hunger somehow.

One of his friends let out a tearful voice.

「Hey, what’s going to happen to us after this? Even though we finally  managed to come to Beim, we’re rummaging trash bins to fill our  stomach. This is just pathetic.」

The other young men were also thinking the same. Their expression turned gloomy.

Then Erhart encouraged them all.

「You stupid idiots! This is just temporary until we can enter the  dungeon. If we’re recognized as fully fledged adventurer there, we’re  going to earn as much money as we want after that. We’re going to stay  in a good inn, have good women take care of our every need, and eat  extravagant meal and alcohol!」

They ran away from their birthplace because they had such dream.

But, the reality was really cruel. Erhart and his friends didn’t even  have that much money and could only live in a big room that they rented  in a cheap inn. They also had no work and when they realized they had  become penniless and got chased out from their rented big room. The  difference between the life they dreamed of and the reality was like  heaven and earth.

「It would be better to till the field in the village compared to this.」

Erhart desperately encouraged one of his complaining comrades.

「This life is going to be over soon! And then we’ll be able to earn a  lot of money after that. Or else, are you going to clean the highway  everyday like that adventurer called Lyle?」

The highway cleaning job was the triple threat of smelly, dirty, and tiring. In addition the pay was also low.

Erhart and his friends absolutely didn’t want to accept such job.

But they were also unable to do other quest like writing and the like.

Among them, Erhart was the only one who was barely able to write and read.

They refused to do the quests that the guild provided for them and had no money right now.

「It’s only for now. We’re going to surpass that bunch soon and show  those stupid women. We’ll tell them, you idiot women, refusing our  invitation like that.」

Erhart and his friends were somehow living in Beim while repeating such delusion──.

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At night of the second week after we arrived at Beim. We had finished  dinner and relaxed in our rooms. We had three rooms, two four-people  rooms and one single room.

I was using the single room. I had finished taking a bath and dinner. Right now I was spending my time leisurely.

I placed the Jewel on the bedside table and conversed with the ancestors.

My talking partner was the Fourth today.

『Even still I’m surprised. I thought that if it’s Lyle you would take the test.』

I was rejoicing inside my heart for betraying the Fouth’s prediction.

Although it wasn’t like I made my choice because I wanted to surprise him.

「We had only just arrived at Beim. I want to prioritize collecting  information about this place. Going to the dungeon is also a charming  offer, but there isn’t much time until the test is going to start.」

Perhaps I would also take the test if there was more than one month time.

But, I was glad that I chose the plain option.

『Thanks to that you’re doing well with collecting information.』

Clara was investigating about the necessary things for living in Beim from the adventurer guild’s reference room.

Eva was collecting various rumors from her fellow elves.

It seemed Miranda had found several information brokers in Beim.

May had learned about living as human just for a bit within these several days.

The remaining members were receiving the quests from the guild and steadily earned trust for our party.

──I think that we weren’t doing bad.

If I chose to challenge the dungeon, the situation would become really busy and chaotic.

Right now I wanted to prepare while solidifying our foundation.

「It has only been two weeks, but we obtained quite the result. Even  so, cleaning is also nice. It reminded me of the ditch cleaning that I  did at the beginning.」

When I said that with a laugh, the Fourth replied with a delighted tone.

『You were also complaining like Shannon in the past, but you have really changed after a year passed.』

「That time when I was working as adventurer without knowing anything is nostalgic.」

The me at that time was really horrible.

『And, what is your planning for after this?』

「I also want to investigate the dungeon. After that──there is the matter of Damian I guess?」

Damian was living outside Beim in Dump Car together with Lily(リリィ)-san.

The vehicle was parked at an open space outside the wall, but the  cost for renting that spot was also taking quite the amount of money, so  I wanted to quickly search for a place where Damian could settle down.

『Beim is a place that’s just like we hoped for, so it’ll be better for you to search for a base soon.』

「A place where we can put Damian’s Dump Car and also enough for us to live there──I guess──a mansion──would be nice.」

I got sleepy and started to doze off. The Fourth talked kindly to me.

『Looks like you’re sleepy. Go to sleep already for today.』

「I’ll──do that.」

I had to wake up early too tomorrow, so I immediately went to sleep. I could hear the Fourth’s kind voice.

『Sleep well, Lyle.』