A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale

“Honestly, this is more surprising than I thought,” I said with slight wonder.

“Huh, I can understand what you mean with that,” to my side, my best friend Kyouya agreed. “The town looks so…rustic, but the medieval setting really has its charm, right? Especially with that simple touch of technology.”

I, Tatsuya Nagata, had to nod to his statement, slightly enthralled by the rural appearance of Laveata town. Compared to the intense hustle and bustle of Japan’s Tokyo, there was much less noise and it wasn’t so crowded that I felt like everybody was touching me as I walked down the street.

However, it was still decently crowded due to a simple reason: the E rank monster dungeon, Fur Walker Dungeon. While there were quite a few normal citizens running around and working, my attention was drawn to those that were carrying around weapons.

Staffs, giant greatswords, mighty axes, and many other medieval weapons that you could imagine an adventurer would carry around. What differentiated them from guards, was that they were all wearing different kinds of clothes and armor as they walked past us.

While the guards had orderly and almost identical sets of equipment, the adventurers would range from gambeson, chainmail, metal armor, robes…and some also had leather armor…which was pretty good on the eyes.

Ahem, anyway, considering what I just learned, I should stop calling them "adventurers" and start differentiating them into "hunters" and "mercenary". You see, compared to a traditional adventurer guild, the "adventurer" job is separated into the hunters and mercenary guilds.

While they technically weren’t too different, both hired people to fulfill quests that mostly relied on endangering their lives, the quests that they offered differed. Hunters would handle anything that related to monster hunting and material acquisition, while mercs handled requests that could range from services to bounty hunting.

When we were in the respective guild houses to get our ID card eligible to accept both guild’s quests, we got an explanation from their guild masters about things. Apparently, the two guilds were practically the same with some adventurers accepting both guild’s quests.

“Hey, Nagata-kun, Ishigami-kun! We are leaving you behind so get a move on, please!” a girl with dark brown hair called us out from a distance.

Looking over, the girl that called for us was Tamae Tsuji, one of our two ex-class representatives, who was wearing a wizard outfit while carrying a staff.

As we hurried towards her, the guy walking beside her berated us, “Come on, you two. This isn’t Tokyo, anymore, but you can still get lost here, and getting lost here would be disastrous.”

“Ahh, cut us some slack, Kudo-san. We were just admiring the town. You have to admit that it’s pretty cool,” I said.

“Sigh, I know we are technically tourists, but you have to start being more serious about things," Nishio Kudo said exasperatedly. “We are in a world where people are allowed to carry around their weapons anywhere they wanted, while also being paid to kill things for money. Getting lost is a real problem here!”

“He’s right, you two. You heard what Sir Elrick and Lady Yorshka have said, yeah? Not everybody around here is civil, so we must stick together,” Tsuji-san said seriously. “We’re all a team now so let’s work hard together, alright?”

It wasn’t a mistake of her to say that we were a team now, as it was very much true. After the two stunts my party pulled in the church, it seems like the upper echelon wasn’t too happy about it at all. While my argument with that piece of shit Mikami only caused a scene, the fight Sakamoto-san and Hanazawa had knocked out two members of our party while it also forced the knights to handle the situation.

Elrick von Karstein, the supervising knight of party “Misfits”, lectured our group for that display, telling us that our party had to work with another one as the bishops were confident that we would be a danger to ourselves at this point.

The lecture content itself wasn’t as bad but the way how Elrick gave it was frightening. It was clear that something happened to him after we caused that incident as both his demeanor and mood worsened. He hasn’t dropped his usual façade, but his words have gotten a bit sharper.

Also, Sakamoto-san was quietly crying as she listened to our lecture, and afterward apologized fervently to Elrick for causing him so much trouble. She said something like, "I thought she wasn't giving you enough credit for all you've done for her. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t want to reciprocate your kindness like this…” which made him sigh exasperatedly, before telling her that it was alright.

Clearly, it wasn’t as he seems more stressed than usual. Sakamoto-san also made an effort to apologize to Hanazawa, but she just brushed it off, saying, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I don’t care. I heard what you had to say” before walking away.

So, Sakamoto-san has been depressed ever since. Kyouya tried to comfort her but seeing him only made it worse for her as she felt bad that she was at fault that he was hurt. The punch Hanazawa gave him should have been hers, she said.

The depressing mood lasted for five days as we were stuck in a carriage while we traveled to Laveata Town. Once we were there, we were told that we would cooperate with Tsuji-san's and Kudo-san's party as a joint effort. We were told that they were the only party that was willing to help us as the rest declined.

Honestly, that suited Tsuji-san so well. She was popular due to being willing to help anybody she could. They might not be our class representatives anymore but those two totally still acted like they were…thankfully for us. Our party's cohesion was so bad that we needed extra help.

After introducing our status board to everybody, our party decided that it would be good to get something to eat together before we went to the lodging that the church reserved for us. The next morning, our knights escorted us to the hunter and mercenary guild. We got our ID updated and were then allowed to accept quests.

Quest: Kobold Subjugation

Rank: G

Reward:

Experience, 1 G Rank Point, 2 Larger Copper Davi

Objective:

Slay 10 Kobolds of any kind

Slain Monsters:

0/10

Once the receptionist registered the quest into our ID card, we could always review them using our party bracelet’s menu. I also overheard that older versions of the party bracelet didn’t have this function but who could possibly have something that old?

Anyways, we continued walking towards the location that we would rendezvous with our respective knights; the reason why we even came to this place, the dungeon. Once we were there, the rest of our party came into sight.

From our party, there was: Daichi Mikami as our mage, Asaka Hanazawa as our cleric, and Haruka Sakamoto as our ranger. Elrick was our [Paladin] and including Kyouya and me, the frontline of our party.

Tsuji-san's party also consisted of five people and a knight. Tsuji-san was the cleric, while Kudo-san was the mage. The other three were: Misaki Kawano as their archer, Kazumi Hoshino as their rogue, and Kohaku Kobayashi as their swordswoman. Lastly, their knight was Lady Yorshka whose class was [Dragoon].

Looking at her spear and how high she was able to jump made my heart skip a beat…it was so cool, just like in a video game!... What is she doing with Sakamoto-san?

Lady Yorshka was a woman of average height whose arms were lean but had enough muscles in them that they could probably crush my head, however, she didn't look anything like a bodybuilder. Her appearance was more like one of those super athletic girls in their early twenties.

Her snow-white hair also made her even more exotic looking, giving her a Scandinavian-like aura.

While she had an extremely attractive appearance, I was more mesmerized by her white spear and armor. While Elrick's was polished and more metal, hers had a lot of scales and other parts that I would associate with monsters. It reminded me of a certain monster hunter game where you could transform the materials of monsters into weapons and armor.

Although my eyes were at first looking at her cool gear, my focus was quickly directed at the fact that she was sniffing Sakamoto-san.

Closing in, I was able to hear Lady Yorshka say, “Sniff…Yup, that’s the smell of a foxian alright. Sniff, it’s not my favorite scent but I can’t help but want to nibble you up, little Miss!”, which clearly scared Sakamoto-san.

“Huh? Oh, sorry about that, I didn’t mean that literally. I was simply in awe of your unique skill’s effects,” Lady Yorshka said with a playful smile.

“Lady Yorshka, please, I bid you to behave yourself,” Elrick said with exasperation to the mischievous lady knight. “Are you trying to give everybody a bad image of the Knights of Aurena?”

Yorshka looked at Elrick for a second, blinking her eyes, before bursting into a giggle, “Oh, Elrick you’re too stuck up, honestly. You should know yourself that nobody is expecting a commoner like me to act like you and the other nobles in the knight order. They only need me for my fighting abilities, besides…” she then went to Kazumi Hoshino’s side and wrapped her arm around her shoulder. “start acting a little bit less distant and try to speak with your wards. The ‘Heroes’ did come from another world, so isn’t this the perfect chance to gain more knowledge. One of Aurena’s subordinate gods is the God is Knowledge after all.”

Ending with “Kazumi, could you continue talking about that “internet” of yours?” before they started hitting it off with each other.

However, as they noticed that the four of us finally arrived they had to stop, looking dejected that they couldn’t continue speaking of their interests.

As the whole group has assembled, Tsuji-san, acting as the de facto leader of our two parties due to Hanazawa not wishing to do it, announced the quests that we picked up at the hunter guild and what our plan for today was.

Elrick and Yorshka simply spectated and only added information when they really had to. As we had to learn how to coordinate this stuff alone, our knights decided to act their supervisor role and just support us, instead of leading us.

This seems to be done differently with the other three parties that went ahead of us into the dungeon. Yorshka "accidentally" mentioned that our classmates in the other three parties are being led by old-fashioned knights who wish to teach them how to lead by example.

"Urgh, those old men are such a drag…sure, they are drilling the fundamentals into them but nothing else. Fieldwork needs to be more flexible and it's better to learn this sorta stuff by making mistakes than by copying some stuck-up noble's fantasized image of combat,” Yorshka put a hand on her hips exasperatedly, before realizing that Elrick was listening. “Oh, nothing against you Elrick. You’re good.”

“None taken, Lady Yorshka, but may I ask you to stop bad-mouthing our fellow knights, please?” Elrick said with a sigh, clearly still stressed out.

Considering how Elrick is treating Yorshka, I get the feeling that she should be his senior, especially with how she’s speaking about the other knights who clearly looked quite veteran. She looks about the age of Elrick but how old was she really?

Finished with our briefing our group started moving towards the entrance of the dungeon. As it was only in the morning, a massive line was in front of it. It seems like the guards were checking everybody for their IDs.

Elrick wanted us to skip the line, using our church-issued IDs, but that was overruled by Yorshka.

“Jeez, Elrick, I know you are impatient but settle down. How many times have I told you about the importance of mingling among the crowd? Are you trying to make these adventures hate our wards?” Yorshka said with a disappointed tone, glaring at Elrick as she scolded him.

“Uck! I- I apologized for my rash decision, Lady Yorshka!” Elrick apologized, understanding his own faults.

Wow, this is the first time that I’ve seen this guy like this. Usually, he acts like that to us!

Apparently, the adventurers, both hunters and mercenaries, have established unofficial etiquette rules to keep the peace among the rowdy masses of freelance fighters. One of them is to never cut the line, except in the direst of situations.

Many adventurers wanted to enter the dungeon for exp, to fulfill their quests, or to gain materials. Nobody wanted to see somebody skip thirty minutes of waiting and then enter the dungeon while you still had 15 minutes left.

Reputation was important among adventurers and Yorshka understood the value of it. We might be chosen by Aurena but the common adventurer wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about that.

I guess this is similar to having a good rep in an online game. While the casual part of gamers just drifts around, not knowing who you are playing with, the people that play religiously absolutely will remember you.

If you showed bad manners, then that could cripple your future reputation with others. In an MMORPG, you can be hunted down, or your guild could suffer because of you.

Lining up, I was able to fully see all the different people that have made it their job to kill monsters. Some of the adventurers look like they haven’t eaten anything good for days while keeping badly maintained equipment, and then some people look like they've been doing this for all their life.

Yorshka explained that the people we see here aren’t anything special yet, due to the dungeon being an E rank. It wasn’t suitable for total beginners, but you wouldn’t find experienced fighters above rank C here.

“Hey, Kyouya, I don’t know why but I can’t get rid of this feeling that everybody is looking at us,” I told my best friend, uneasy of all the people glancing at us.

“Not at us, but at the girls,” Kyouya pointed out. “Some of them even look pretty jealous.”

Having my friend point that out made me understand our current situation. Our group was majority female!

Tsuji-san’s party had four girls, while our party had two. Quick math told me that we had six girls, while only having four guys. Our girls weren’t bad looking but I guess Yorshka was attracting the most attention due to her womanly charms.

Thinking of all these reasons, it might not be surprising that everybody was looking in our direction. Looking around, there were a few female adventurers, but they were in parties with mostly guys. We really must stand out.

After some waiting, we finally made it in front of the entrance of the dungeon. It wasn’t anything boring like a hole that led into the dungeon, but it was instead a proper entrance built by the people responsible.

“IDs, please,” one of the guards said.

We were told by the guild masters of the guilds that only the leader of the party had to show their IDs to gain entrance. When we registered by the guild, our two parties also made our five-man parties official, which also allowed us to name it. Hanazawa, in all her wisdom, chose to keep the joke name for our party, so we’re now officially party “Misfits”.

Both Tsuji-san and Hanazawa went forward and showed their IDs to the guards.

“Huh? G rank?! Wait, are you kids sure about this? The dungeon might only be an E rank but it’s still quite dangerous,” a guard burst out, worry clear in his face.

Monsters in the world are given a rank by the System, which starts at rank G and goes up to SSS rank, or also known as the Myth rank. The hunter and mercenary guild adopted a similar system by ranking each adventurer with a scale from G to S rank.

As we just registered, we had to start from the bottom of the barrel despite the church’s support. The guild masters told us that they couldn’t grant us that, and that a rank skip can only be given on rare occasions, and that this wasn’t one.

While G was our official rank, it wasn’t a correct measure for our current strengths. Elrick told us that every single one of us had the stats of an F rank adventurer, just without the experience.

“Hey, excuse me but this should clear a few things up,” Yorshka went in front and showed the guards her ID. "This is just to give them their first combat experience, and I can guarantee that these kids can hold their own…hopefully, ha ha ha!”

“Uhh..what?! Aren’t you the-mhrmmm!” the guard was able to comment on her ID when she pushed her hand to block his mouth.

“Uh, uh, silence, please. You should know what I mean with that, correct?” Yorshka said with a wink.

Once he nodded, Yorshka removed her hand. The guard whispered the details to his partner, who couldn’t help but also shout out, nearly exposing whatever Yorshka was hiding but he was also swiftly silenced by Yorshka.

After a few more seconds of this comedy act, the guards finally gave us permission to enter the dungeon. When we entered, I could faintly hear the two guards fanboying, saying, "I can't believe I met the-you know who!" and "Ha, the others will absolutely kill us for this but it'll be worth it!".

The dungeon was underneath the entrance, so we had to walk down a set of stairs. While we walked, Kohaku Kobayashi, one of Tsuji-san’s teammates approached Yorshka, while her long, black hair with red highlights flowed around.

“Hey, Lady Yorshka, can I ask you something?” she asked, only continuing after Yorshka nodded. “See, uhm, I’ll cut to the point, how does it feel to kill?”

“How does it feel to kill?”, a very important question for literally every single one of us. Since we came to this world, we learned how to fight but nobody has killed anybody in their lifetime before. As much as I was hyped of finally leveling up, I also was anxious about actually drilling my spear into somebody, even if it’s a monster.

“Hmmm, I guess that is something you kids would be interested in, so I’ll give you a serious answer,” Yorshka said, her carefreeness gone, which made all my classmates listen intently. "Frankly, it really depends where you came from. The place that I grew up never batted an eye about killing stuff. Besides the adrenaline rush and the thrill of having survived, we think of killing as something natural."

If you have to hunt to eat, then it makes sense that killing animals wouldn't affect you too much. It was their common sense, after all.

“However, I guess you kids are more like sheltered little nobles, right? Well, in that case, you should be content if you only have to vomit,” she further added. “I’ve seen some weaker willed people completely lose it. To defend their mind, their personality twisted into something more aggressive, so they can stay sane despite knowing what they just did. Still, in that case, maybe they were already insane, to begin with?”

All of us gulped at her words.

“Ha ha, come now, just because it happened to others doesn’t mean that it will happen to you kids,” Yorshka smiled at us, aware that her words struck us hard. “Stay focused, all of you. Elrick and I are here to defend you, but we won’t protect you from every single hit. It’s a battle for survival in the dungeon so treat it like that. If you have to throw up then do it, but get right back into the battle, otherwise, you are risking yours and your party’s life. I can describe how killing feels, but every single person handles it differently.”

With those words in our minds, we continued moving down the stairs, eventually reaching the bottom and entering into a large cavern room. It was mostly empty, besides the few adventurers preparing for their trip.

“Alright, young ones, it’s time for all of you to finally get out of level zero!”

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