Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Recruiting Party Members!
[We welcome all beginners! In this quest to fight evil! Testimonials: I have realized how wonderful the world really is, after joining this party!]
Three people sighed in unison as they stood
surrounding a leaflet which had an incredibly easy-going look with a simple
image of two crossed swords underneath the cute handwriting.
“I guess only those weird bastards in the beginner’s town would think of joining a newly formed adventurer party like this? This is the front-line of the war against the demon lord, you know?”
The girl with pointed ears bit into the piece of meat that she held with one hand, while reaching out with the other to grab one leaflet from the pile that was resting on top of the table.
“Don’t give up so soon, Louise-san! There are still lots of people in this city who haven’t joined a party yet! Let’s just wait for them, okay?”
“Wait a minute, Nasha!? You do know that we are not just looking for a person to take care of the leftovers, right?!”
Ignoring the words of the elf called Louise, the little girl Nasha kept on inviting every person who passed by their table indiscriminately.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. We were banned from our first beginner’s town because of the huge amount of debt we had… any more than this would worsen our financial crisis even more. We lost thousands because of Louise and Anastasia. It’s time to take this seriously and make some real profit…!”
The girl wearing red rimmed glasses, Suzette, heaved a sigh while tilting her glasses up. Louise let out a sly grin while staring at Suzette before pointing towards her with the bone scrap.
“Even you’ve been using a lot of money for the offerings to Gods and rituals and whatnot. Get yourself together, Ms. Treasurer!”
“O-obviously! It’s natural for a worshiper to give offerings to God! How can this even be compared to the waste you two had made in the first place? Ahh, at this rate we’re just wasting another day with no progress again!”
The three were very different people. But all had the same feeling of at their inability to recruit a new party member in this small town adventure guild. While they were all wallowing in despair, it appeared before them.
“Na-Nasha, what is that?”
With a visible twitch on her elven ears, Louise directed her gaze towards the man whom Nasha was holding.
Although he seemed somewhat stunned himself, the man still didn’t forget to delightfully gobble down the food that was laid in front of him, bite after bite.
Nasha oversaw the entire situation with the smile of a holy God mother. Her jade eyes were sparkling in glee.
“I saw him collapse on the roadside earlier, so I gave him some food.”
“W-wait a second Anastasia, don’t tell me that money is…”
“It can’t be the money we had for our dinner, right?”
When she was suddenly being questioned by Suzette and Louise with strangely twitching faces, Nasha simply replied ‘Yes’ with a bright smile on her face.
An empty pouch laid in her hands.
The two were now trembling all over at Nasha’s absurdly nonchalant attitude.
“ “ YOU DAMN SOFTIE!!! “ “
Louise’s and Suzuette’s cries rang throughout the entire guild hall.
〇〇〇
[We welcome all beginners! In this quest to fight evil! Testimonials: I have realized how wonderful the world really is, after joining this party!]
I stared intently at one of the leaflets that was pasted on the town’s notice board.
“What the hell is this suspicious looking leaflet?”
“Recruitment for the front-lines? The only skilled people you could find from here, have either lost their partners in battle or just lost the will to keep moving on.”
“They should have just gone to a beginner's town if they want to have fun.”
Some adventurers scoffed at the sight of the leaflet that was in front of me. But as for me, I didn’t really care about such things.
All the other recruitment notices were seeking people with specific types of magic. Unfortunately for me, I'm a demon who used to serve in the Demon King’s army. Hence, the only type of magic I could use was destruction magic, which only a few among demon troupes possessed. So, I didn’t meet most of these requirements to begin with.
I mean, if I were to use that kind of magic, my identity would immediately be exposed anyway and then all hell would break loose.
So for someone like me, this one leaflet is almost like the one final straw that I could latch on to.
I— Eric Adel, was the Commander of the 1st Battalion of the Demon King’s army.
The 1st Battalion was one of the major fighting forces within the Demon King's Army. It ranked quite highly even among all the other divisions.
It has been five years since I joined the army. And I think I did pretty well, since I rose up the ranks at an exceptional pace.
But the Demon King’s army was way too black*
(T/N: This derives from a common Japanese term called, Black Company. Which typically refers to a company that exploits their employees in every possible way. Cue to the title)
I kept on working every day, till I lost track of time and many days had gone by.
After a while, I lost the taste of rice.
At that point, working overnight at the army camp became a normal thing to do.
My job was a middle manager position. It’s a place where you would constantly receive pressure from above and complaints from below, along with a parade of unpaid overtime.
And after 97 consecutive days on duty, something happened.
“Commander of the 1t Battalion, Eric-kun. It seems that three new hero parties have invaded the demon territory. I’d like you to go and defeat them.”
“Unde-...! Wait, Colonel Garlock! D-did you mean right now?! But I’m on vacation, I was planning to go home for the first time in a long while—-”
“Even if you don’t like it, look, that area is still under your supervision, right?”
“But Sir! My body is already in a really bad condition right now. Can’t you swap me out just for today at least?”
“Is that so? But everyone’s having a hard time, you know? If you want to take it easy, that’s fine too.”
“...I’ll do it.”
“Hm, thanks. Well then, I’ll lend you one of my squadrons. I’d prefer if the casualties are on the lower side but if it happens, make sure to write a damage control report and request for the replacement soldiers in time. And take care of the merit commendations as well. Well then, I have to take Cerberus-chan on a walk now, so please take care of the rest~”
“Wai- Senpai!? I have to do all that too!? Wait, plea— !”
In the end, although I was somehow able to drive away the hero party by the order of my power-abusing superior, I still couldn’t quite recall anything beyond the 100th consecutive day at work.
The last conversation I had was…
“First Battalion Commander, about the damage done during the battle against the hero party the other day—-”
“Okay… I got it.”
“Battalion Commander, I would like to request for more volunteers for the replacement personnel, we are currently short of men everywhere as you see—”
“Okay…I got it.”
“Battalion Commander Eric, we are receiving a huge number of complaints about stray magic spells hitting the Third Squadron Commander’s castle premises. How should we pro—”
“I don’t fricking know anymoreeeeeeee!!!!!!”
—-And the new thing I knew; I was already on the run from the Demon King’s Army.
I don’t quite recall what exactly happened after that but for some reason, I ended up at an adventurer's town filled with heroes.
The adventure town ‘Order Knights’, was a town located at the border between the human territory and the demon territory. Since it was at the forefront of two territories, many skirmishes happened there on a daily basis.
After going crazy due to overworking myself, the place I fled to somehow ironically ended up being a hero territory.
The military uniform that was on me had long disappeared somewhere.
The only thing that was left was my emergency waistband.
If someone were to discover my lost clothes, they would probably assume that I died a mysterious death, but that’s fine.
Right now, I’m clad in a tattered dark brown robe.
I probably looked like a fallen warrior escaping
the battlefield.
Guuu~...
The little bugs in my stomach were chirping cheerfully.
Now that I think about it, I hadn't eaten anything ever since I had fled the demon territory.
As I was thinking that, all the strength in my body left me as I suddenly felt so weak.
Right after, there was a figure of a person gazing at me with concern.
“Excuse me, a-are you okay?”
“You are…”
And then, I was led inside a building carried by that girl’s shoulders.
“Anastasia Francesca von Mueller. But everyone calls me Nasha. Anyway, your face looks so haggard! Please eat something!”
“Well, I don’t have any money right now, so…”
“Oh don’t worry, I’ll pay for that! Onee-san, please bring him some delicious food!”
The girl named Nasha waved at a woman nearby. To help out a total stranger like me, I could only describe her as an angel.The tears that welled up in my eyes almost spilled out as I took a mouthful of food in.
Ever since I joined the demon army— No, this is the first time in my whole life that I've been treated so kindly.
“I’m so glad! You’re so happy enough to cry! It makes me just as happy!”
Perhaps affected by my crying, Nasha shed a tear as well.
Meanwhile two fiendish angry faces popped from behind Nasha, sending glares her way… I wonder if they were companions of this child.
“Ah! by the way—”
Nasha turned her head towards me
“Are you interested in joining a hero party?”
In her hand was the leaflet I was looking at earlier.
“I was actually looking at that a few minutes ago, I was thinking about joining too.”
“Really? That’s great! Then please come join us!”
When I saw that leaflet, I immediately agreed.
If there’s an angel like her in that party, I’m sure I'd be happy with—
“Wait! Wait a minute please!”
As if to retrieve Nasha’s outstretched hand, the two from the back glared at me with challenging eyes.
Then the girl with pointed ears started talking.
“We’ll have you face an interview first. And if you pass, we’ll let you in! But if you thought we would let just anyone enter our party, then you’ve made a big mistake!”
After hearing that the girl with the glasses also grumbled.
“This is quite sudden but we can’t just let someone useless into our party. If you can convince us, then you’re welcome to join the party.”
So it began, the interviewing process of me; the former member of the Demon King's army in joining a hero party.
Comments