Chapter 024: Obligation and Responsibility

“Can I really join this adventuring party?”

That question of Shien’s startled Vivian and company.

“What?” Vivian asked strangely, “Do you have an issue with it?”

To that question, Shien had a sudden impulse to answer truthfully – Yes.

However, giving an answer like that was just too rude.

Thus, Shien tried to bring it up in a more roundabout way.

“The party you are in seem to be composed of all female adventurers. For a male adventurer like me to suddenly join in, there should be a number of inconveniences, right?”

The meaning behind Shien’s words is that even if he didn’t have any issues with it, Vivian and the rest should.

Vivian and group didn’t think that Shien would bring that up first.

Thus, Vivian gave a smile in reply.

“Perhaps there would be some effects?” Vivian didn’t avoid the issue and instead replied honestly, “However, don’t judge us just on appearances now. Actually, we’ve already experienced the same situation many times already. Plus, this is arranged by the guild, so be it from the perspective of obligation to the guild or our responsibility as senior adventurers, we should have no objections to the raising of newcomers.”

“Obligation and responsibility… Huh?” Shien raised his eyebrows.

“Indeed.” Vivian observed Shien. She gently smiled while explaining, “We too were once excited newcomers to the path of the adventurer, and at that time, we too experienced the careful arrangements of the guild and our senior’s teachings. It’s thanks to that that we were able to get where we are now. The guild and adventurers have always been this way. It is by contributing to the business of adventuring that adventurers and the guild have managed to grow as large as it has over these past thousands of years.”

For adventurers and the guild to develop to where it has today, for it to become a major power that extends across the world, the amount of mutual control and aid required in various places can be imagined.

Although on the surface, it looked like adventurers and the guild were simply using one another for mutual profit. One side would use the stage that is the guild to accept various requests and get paid for it while improving their strength, while the other side would profit from being the middleman between the adventurers and quest givers. However, for the sake of bettering the enterprise that is adventuring, the guild had indeed enacted quite a bit of restrictions and support.

For example, with new adventurers, if they just allowed them to go off on their own without any sort of training or testing, then even putting aside the success chance of quests, just the normal dangers would have massively increased the chance of casualties.

Thus, in order to deal with that, the guild required new adventurers to undergo a certain amount of training and testing. On one side it’s so that they could better complete quests, and on the other it’s for the sake of keeping those unsuited to be adventurers from encountering too much danger.

Given that, having senior adventurers lead the newcomers is a must.

Over all this time, the adventurer’s guild used that kind of method to raise up newbies, which is how the adventuring as a business managed to grow larger over time.

Vivian and group were once newbies too, and they too received the care of their seniors. Therefore, they who already received the benefits of that would naturally need to pay it forward to Shien.

“Is that so?”

Shien nodded while muttering to himself in his mind.

As someone from another world, Shien knows full well that while the theory might be so, those who can actually put that into practice tend to be rare indeed.

In his previous life, he doesn’t even know just how many people received the generosity of others, but for the sake of their own profit, ended up instead paying that back with ingratitude.

Even for those who didn’t want to be ingrates, gratitude itself is something that most people just hold in their hearts. And yet, how many people would actually take that gratitude and pay that back in the end?

Perhaps, here, training up newbies is an unavoidable task of senior adventurers, but whether everyone would do that happily and willingly is another matter entirely.

No matter what, once a group of adventurers become a party, then what follows is to work together and adventure. Some of that would involve life and death battles, and the strength of each and every member of the party will end up deciding just how the party will do in said adventures.

If the members of the party are strong, then they’d naturally be able to take some more dangerous but better paying jobs.

If the members aren’t strong though, then have would have to take careful considerations for the sake of their own safety. Thus, the party might not be able to take certain more dangerous quests without careful consideration, and their party activities would also become more difficult.

All in all, a newbie joining in, for most parties of senior adventurers, is basically a millstone on their necks that they have to drag about.

With that kind of effect, the number of parties who would actually want to lead a newbie would definitely be quite few.

Plus, Vivian’s party is consisted of solely beautiful female adventurers, so the effect of a male adventurer joining in is even greater.

Even so, she could still honestly state that she doesn’t mind. That kind of character, at least, was something that Shien could admire.

Besides, Vivian even went on to say even more.

“The training period is just a month after all. We also had a lot of frequent activities before, so it’s already been a long time since we really had any time to properly rest. So, we’ll just be treating this a some time to properly rest and relax a little. This was a decision made by everyone in the party, so there’s no need for you to hold back.”

That’s what Vivian stated.

Hearing that, Shien gave it some though and gave a bow to Vivian and group.

“Well then, I’ll be in everyone’s care for the next month.”

Shien basically accepted the current situation.

“Alright.” Vivian gave a brief laugh and followed with a suggestion, “Let’s not procrastinate then. We’ll go ahead and accept some simple quests today and familiarize you with adventurer work.”

Shien naturally couldn’t refuse that suggestion.

No matter what, Shien does want to quickly gain an understanding of adventurer work so that he could smoothly get stronger later on.

The others didn’t have any objections either, so they left the room along with Shien and Vivian and descended down to the first floor hall together.

……

“————”

When Shien’s little group came down from the second floor and entered the first floor hall, the originally noisy hall suddenly became silent.

Vivian, Diere, Lumia, and Melika didn’t say anything about that situation. They just gave one another a look and headed towards the request board.

Shien who was with them, on the other hand, did show some changes in his expression and let out a resigned sigh once more in his mind.

(Things have gotten troublesome as expected.)

In the main hall of the guild, the gaze of those adventurers there were first drawn to Vivian and group, before then concentrating on Shien.

Obviously, Shien who was moving along with Vivian was going to receive a lot of attention whether he wanted to or not.

Shien noticed that kind of scene, but he only showed resignation.

After all, this kind of situation was something Shien had already predicted some time ago.