The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary
chapter-1

There was a small rumor that a village was destroyed.

“That’s not an unusual thing to happen”, thought Loren, as he was drinking at a bar run by the Adventurer’s Guild.

It was unfortunate for the people in the village, but for a pioneered village that was developed to create more farmland, it kind of made sense.

It was a village that was built on land that people dared not to venture into.

To whatever that the land was home to, humans were the invaders.

If the conflict is between human beings, it would be an argument concerning right of residence. But since it is usually in lands untouched by humans, conflict with the previous residents most likely cannot be resolved by talking. If the previous residents are not happy with the new ones, destruction is the only possible destination they will end up at.

Loren then turned his slightly drunk eyes down towards the front desk of the Guild.

There he saw a board that gave adventurers, people who did things that normal people would not do for a living, jobs in the form of quests.

“Man, there are more of them now”

The board was filled up with pieces of papers advertising quests up to the point where you couldn’t see the board itself. Loren heard the adventurers in front of it, trying to decide what quest to go on.

“The village was south of Vesta. Well, it was close to the Forest of Chaos”

“But it wasn’t that deep into it. Does a monster that could destroy a whole village even live there?”

“Maybe it was a herd of them. That would be a catastrophe for farmers”

Although Loren was listening to their chatter, it wasn’t the fact that the adventurers were loud and distracting or the reason behind the destruction of the village that was the problem. The problem that he was facing was,

“I’m broke……”

Loren was not originally an adventurer.

He belonged in a mercenary group, and he was a mercenary that would fight in wars for his clients.

He was there for as long as he could remember, and was there ever since, until recently the group was destroyed during a war. As a result, Loren was sitting in the back of the bar, with only a glass of alcohol to company him.

As someone who used to be a mercenary, Loren had experienced numerous victories as well as losses.

For a long time, the group was able to make it through the losses. But in the most recent battle that they participated in, their luck finally ran out. What looked like a won battle suddenly turned south, and Loren saw his group be split apart and many of his comrades being killed, but he managed to survive and escape.

Because of all that happened to him, it was not surprising that his wallet was almost empty.

The words ‘mercenary’ and ‘saving’ didn’t go along with each other, and that was true for Loren. He did not have any money saved up, or even tried to. He even had to ditch most of his belongings at the battle site.

The only thing Loren had was the leather armor he wore, his great sword, and a few silver coins in his pocket.

That was all of Loren’s possessions.

It was better than nothing, but it was clear that if he could not find a job, he would be wandering in the streets soon enough. While fingering the metal tag around his neck, he tried to think of a way to make some money.

The metal thing around his neck was his identification tag, which served as proof that you were an adventurer.

The material used to make the tag reflected your adventurer rank, and Loren’s tag was made of cheap copper.

As your rank goes up, your tag is made from a better, rarer metal, but to Loren that was of little concern.

What filled his head were ways to obtain a certain amount of money through quests that adventurers of his rank could take.

But there was another problem.

“There’s no one for me to go on a quest with……”

His comrades were either killed, or separated.

From the eyes of others, mercenaries were people who made a living from killing people, and were not viewed fondly.

It was natural to only know people from your own mercenary group, and have no friends or acquaintances outside of the group.

Loren was no exception, and being someone who escaped from the battlefield, there was no one he could trust.

That was also the reason that he chose to become an adventurer.

It was not hard to become an adventurer, with no background checks aside from criminal records.

He was easily able to become an adventurer by paying the registration fee.

But it was troublesome that he had no comrades to go on quests with him.

In whatever you do, doing it alone was not a good sign.

Whether the job may be slaying monsters, gathering herbs or stones, or looking for lost objects or persons, doing it alone was too dangerous.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the confidence in his skills and abilities to fight and defend himself, but it was because if something happened and he was alone, it is most likely that he will face death.

“I guess I’ll clean the ditches.”

It was not a job he was looking forward to doing.

To Loren’s surprise, there were many quests that seemed far from something that adventurers would do, such as cleaning ditches or going down into the sewers.

But it was less dangerous than other quests, and the rewards were unexpectedly high.

In order to survive and get food on the table, getting covered in mud and sewer waste was not a bad choice.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be covered in mud and grime, but as a war veteran, if someone asked him to choose between battle trenches and sewers, he would choose the sewers. He was willing to turn a blind eye on smell and unfavorable working conditions if it meant earning money.

Plus, ditches and sewers were within human living areas which made the job safer than most, even when alone.

After deciding that it wouldn’t be too bad, he was starting to get up to go to the board to look for a quest when he suddenly heard a voice,

“Hey you. You’re looking for a quest, aren’t you?”

Loren looked up and saw a young man with blond hair wearing a new set of leather armor and a sword by his side.

The man sat down across from Loren without any permission, leaned over and continued talking.

“From what I can see, you’re a swordsman, and alone as well. Seems like you want to accept a quest, but you don’t have anyone to go with. If you’re up for it, wanna join my party and help us on our quest?”

“If this were back when I was a mercenary, I would definitely refuse,” thought Loren as he observed the young man sitting in front of him.

If you accepted every job offer that came to you, you wouldn’t be able to live long as a mercenary.

Gathering information and performing background checks on the client, as well as the area of operation was the norm for Loren.

But this was an exception.

To put it simply, it was because he had no money.

In society, people won’t take you seriously without any money to back you up.

The young man continued,

“My party has enough people to form a party, but we don’t have enough people to be in the frontline. From what I can see, you’re an experienced swordsman. You should join my party and join us on quests. You won’t be disappointed!”

Cleaning the sewers was safer, but if there was another way, he would gladly take it. While the young man continued to convince Loren to join his party, Loren was trying to decide whether the hand that was held out to him would save him or lead him to destruction.

Only

“What kind of quest did you accept?”

Loren asked, thinking that the guy was looking for a frontline because he already had a quest in mind.

He was planning to decline the offer if the guy said he didn’t pick a quest yet, but the young man, thinking that he had Loren hooked, told him,

“It’s a pretty easy quest. I have a thief, magician, and a priest in my party, but there might be a lot of enemies this time. I’m pretty worried about being the only frontline.”

“Tell me the details, because I might not be much of use. As you can see, I’m copper rank,”

said Loren, holding up the tag around his neck.

“I told you, it’s an easy quest. We just need to hunt some goblins that appeared in the forest,”

the young man laughed, while Loren could do nothing but nod awkwardly.