/
Drew looked at Cadel’s face and rubbed his chin doubtfully.
“Mercenaries? You look too insignificant to be a mercenary. You look like you can’t even kill a rabbit.”
“Seeing you run your mouth talking dogshit, it seems you can’t even be called a human.”1
Cadel hadn’t said that. As he turned his head stiffly, Van, who suddenly approached Cadel’s side, was staring at Drew expressionlessly. His stern posture and sharp eyes were quite unsettling.
“What did you just say?”
It was an unexpected prelude to a psychological battle, but Cadel had no intentions of clashing with Drew. The frightened Cadel hurriedly dragged Van away.
Van had erased the smile he had worn the whole time, as if he was very angry to hear that his commander ‘looked insignificant’. But Cadel was not hurt at all. He hadn’t looked in the mirror yet, but was sure that his body was smaller than Van’s.
“What you see is not everything. The request fee will be charged later, so why not entrust it to us? There is no loss.”
“Hmm.”
As Cadel changed the subject quickly and smiled, Drew showed a worried look. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.
He raised his hand and ordered the knights to retrieve their swords, and looked down at Cadel with his characteristically arrogant gaze and spoke.
“All right. I’ll leave it to you. The target location is a plain 800 meters away from the village entrance, after passing through a forest. It's blocked off by a high fence and these two guys know the way, so you won't have any trouble finding it. Okay. What is the name of your mercenary corps?”
“The Scarlet… Scales Mercenaries.”
“Scarlet Scales? First time hearing about it. Are you from another country?”
“What… yes.”
Cadel was so ashamed of the knight order’s name, which he would have to speak and hear about countless times in the future. He smiled hard, trying to cool the heat on his face.
At that moment, a system window appeared in front of him with a loud notification sound.
[The main quest ‘The Cursed Land’ has been accepted!]
[Clear the quest to advance the story. A reward will be given.]
[If you fail, you lose the knight ‘Van Herdos’.]
Cadel’s mouth twitched briefly as he unhurriedly read the system window.
‘…Huh? What do I lose?’
⚔️
Losing a knight as a penalty for failing a quest. If such a terrible game existed in the world, it would be ruined immediately upon release, with no traces of its existence left!
After a moment of resentment at the outrageous penalty, Cadel quickly regained his composure. It was crazy, but this wasn’t a real game. To be honest, it was closer to another world that shared the same settings as the game.
Therefore, this penalty could also be seen as a kind of prophecy. If he didn’t succeed in the quest, he would be half-doomed in some way.
‘It could be death from fighting a monster, or it could be death from being attacked… No. Maybe that isn’t the meaning of losing.’
It could be losing Van Herdos as a knight. What kind of hope was there for a leader who couldn’t overcome one tutorial quest? Even if Van was disappointed and ran away from the mercenary corps—even though it was closer to a duo than a mercenary corps as there were only two—there would be nothing he could say.
‘No matter what happens, I must succeed in this quest. If I lose even my one and only knight, there is no future for me.’
I didn’t know how to recruit new knights. I couldn’t even expect for the new knight to have better stats than Van.
So, the goal was clear!
With a strong will and clenched fists, Cadel shifted his gaze. Currently, he was on his way to the ‘Cursed Land’ with the two men he had met at the tavern, Ron and Babil.
According to the information heard on the way, the destination, the Smog Plains, was a habitat for monsters that had troubled Viscount Straw for 6 months. As the soldiers who set out to defeat the monsters died or ran away, its notoriety grew day by day. And recently, even if they paid money, no one would show up.
“We will soon enter the forest. The mercenaries who’ve come to the Smog Plains were so excited that most of the monsters here were thinned out, but still, don’t let your guard down.”
Having said that, Babil let out a heavy sigh. Although his number of companions had increased, it seemed that he could not erase his gloomy mood.
“Commander, if a monster appears in the forest, I will take care of it. The commander should save his energy.”
Van bowed his head and whispered that quietly. He was still carrying Cadel’s bag, his own bag, and even a large sword wrapped in cloth. No matter how much he thought about it, it seemed that it would be better for Van to save his energy instead of him. Unable to persuade him, Cadel smiled softly.
‘Now that I think about it, how am I supposed to fight? Cadel Laitos is a mage, so there’s no need to wield a sword. Magic… how do you use magic?’
The problem had come up belatedly when I had to deal with the quest, and the system wouldn’t come forward to explain. When Cadel obtained something or achieved something of his own will, it would only confirm the result. Therefore, he would have to learn how to fight by himself.
Cadel, who entered the forest, checked his stats while wading through the high vegetation.
〈Cadel Laitos〉
Titles: [6-Star Magician], [Commander of the Scarlet Scales Mercenaries]
Magic Attributes: -
Equipment: -
Knights: Van Herdos
Knights’ Cost: 3/10
Assets: 3 Silver
Current Quests: ‘The Cursed Land’
Fame: 2/100
Overall, it was miserable and there was nothing to see. He looked down the list in disappointment and fixed his gaze on ‘Magic Attributes’. Then a new window appeared.
〈Magic Attribute Distribution〉
Retained Points: 10
——————————
Fire: 0/100
Ice: 0/100
Lightning: 0/100
Wind: 0/100
Earth: 0/100
Light: 0/100
Darkness: 0/100
‘Oh! I have points? If I didn’t see it, it would’ve been a disaster.’
The distribution of attributes at the beginning of the story was very important. This was because the types of skills that could be used were different depending on the magic attributes, and a tragedy would occur if they were distributed here and there randomly.
Cadel, who was aware of that fact more than anyone else, went all-in with all 10 points into the fire attribute without hesitation. The range of operations of fire skills was wide, and nothing else stood out in effect.
‘I think my early fire skills were like fireballs, explosions, and fire arrows…’
Cadel Laitos had used instant casting magic from the beginning, which didn’t require a chant. It was like a talent. Therefore, as long as he learned how to handle magic, there wouldn’t be any problems using the skills.
‘There’ll be chances to practice. Let’s not rush.’
According to Ron, the monsters of the Smog Plains started being active when the moon rose. The sun hadn’t even gone down yet, so there was plenty of time.
“By the way, Van, is it okay that you couldn’t even eat properly? There must be some beef jerky that Young Lord Drew gave me in my bag, so would you like to eat that?”
Cadel spoke to Van, who was making a path, pushing away the grass and bushes in front of him. He turned his head slightly to look at Cadel and smiled softly.
“I told you, Commander. I won’t get hurt by starving for a few days. I’ve been training.”
“Still…”
“Besides, it’s the beef jerky given by Young Lord Drew. I’d rather eat the mud on the ground than eat food from the trash that insulted the commander.”
When someone laughed and said things like that, it was strangely chilling. Cadel stood close behind Van, who once again pushed away the bushes to clear a path.
“I didn’t feel particularly insulted. Compared to you, I must seem insignificant.”
Hadn’t he said that Cadel was a person who couldn’t catch even a single rabbit? It was true. He also found it difficult to pluck the feathers of chickens that were already dead. Drew was very good at judging people.
“The commander is not insignificant. Well, mages are usually physically weak, but… the commander is different. The commander’s body is delicate and slender, so it would be judged to be beautiful.”
“...Huh?”
Did I hear it wrong? I thought I just heard the words ‘the commander’s body is delicate and slender’.
Cadel doubted his ears and looked at the back of Van’s head. Then, a firm voice that seemed to have no intention of correcting it continued.
“After all, those nobles aren’t much to look at. It’s not that they wear only silk clothing on such a fat top. Rather, the unclothed commander would look better than them.”
“Is that so…”
While silently listening to the compliments that were getting more and more confusing, a flash of enlightenment passed through Cadel’s mind like lightning.
Right. This was a ‘female-oriented’ game!
In this game, regardless of whether the user was man or woman, not all the knights that appeared could form deep relationships with the player. At the time, I had only skimmed the main story, so I didn't really realize it.
‘What do we do.’
Cadel felt like he had seen a tiny slice of female-oriented games. A cold sweat was running through him that hadn’t appeared even when he had first realized that he had transmigrated.
‘That’s right… Now is not the time to worry about such trivialities. Whatever it is, I just have to carve out my own path, right? Right, that’s it!’
Uprooting the slowly-blooming buds of anxiety, Cadel secretly widened the distance between him and Van.
***
TL:
This is unedited; I might edit it in the morning.