Chapter 73

About an hour agoーーーーー

「With this, I’m a yellow rank now . There’s no problem for me to go to the dungeon, right?」

At this moment, Akira was holding a pile of requests fanned out in front of Yamato that he had taken on just two hours ago .

There were five of them .

There was a seal stamped on all of them that signified that the requests had been completed perfectly .

「Y, you really did it, huh, Akira . 」

The triumphant look on Akira’s face made Yamato’s face cramp up .

Next to them in another reception desk, Mile’s eyes were widened in surprise .

Though they were commissions from the guild, Akira had just randomly completed the odd-job requests that had accumulated .

Among those requests, there was even one that had made many rookie adventurers cry up until now, and that was a request to give an eccentric jii-san a shoulder massage . However, even those commissions took Akira just ten minutes to complete .

Furthermore, it was even written on the request paper that all the requests that he will put forth from now on will be designated to Akira .

「You, what kind of magic did you use to make that jii-san so satisfied?」

Akira tilted his head in confusion when Yamato muttered that .

And he said this in a matter-of-fact manner .

「Magic, you say, I didn’t use magic though? I just talked with the jii-san and massaged his shoulders and then he just stamped the seal . …seriously, what did you mean when you said that it’ll take a week . Wasn’t it completed in ten minutes . 」

Yamato gave a wry smile as he changed Akira’s dog tag to a yellow one . He did not even bother to warn Mile who was gaping with his mouth wide open and ignoring the adventurer at his own reception desk .

「What about the other commissions? The others were demolition work, running errands for the obasans, suggesting creative ideas for dishes…what was the last one?」

Akira look the yellow dog tag and hung it around his neck .

For Akira, the requests were really easy, so it didn’t really feel like he had ranked up .

「Aah, I remember!」

Looking over the commissions, Yamato raised his voice .

I could feel the gazes in the room concentrating on us .

Perhaps Yamato did not notice that as he leaned forward with excitement .

「It was that, cleaning of the house full of garbage, wasn’t it! How did you clean that up?」

Aah, Akira nodded and leaned his chin against his hand .

It’s not that he was obsessed with cleanliness, but even for Akira, this was the first time in his life that he had seen an actual “trash house”, so he was shocked .

「First, for the house demolition, it seems that the client could use some barrier magic, so he conjured a soundproof barrier and I destroyed all the pillars supporting the house and then it was complete . It seems that it was fine to just knock it down, so it was completed just like that?」

Akira looked up, somewhat absentmindedly, as he counted his fingers .

「(No, like I said, how did you destroy those pillars . If I remember correctly, the pillars in that house were extremely thick and they were as wide as the average person . )」

TN: the parenthesis within the speech brackets are what Yamato is thinking .

It was not possible for Akira to know about the tsukkomis in Yamato’s heart, and it also couldn’t be said that Akira had used shadow magic to form a sword to cleanly severe the pillars .

Absent of tsukkomis, he continued .

TN: tsukkomi, well, I’m sure a lot of you know what this is, but for those who don’t, they are kind of like retorts one would have about another person’s statement . This originated from a style of Japanese stand-up comedy where you have a duo where one is the straight man and the other is the funny man and the straight man would usually retort and give smart quips in response to the crazy things that the funny man says .

「For the obasans’ errand, I recalled all of the shops I visited with Amelia when we went out to eat . Then, I simply calculated the distance between the shops and compared their prices to find the best deals . Thanks to that, I was able to complete the errands really quickly at cheap prices . 」

Yamato was at his wits’ end, when Akira said that this was the simplest task .

「(Nono, just what kind of head does he have on his shoulders! Normally, one wouldn’t memorize that kind of thing, and in the first place, those obasans, they always demand an amount that would be impossible to complete by yourself, so in actuality, that commission should be for adventurers who are in a party! Though this time, we made a mistake and put it out!)」

Not noticing what was going on with Yamato, Akira once again ticked off another finger .

「On the other hand, suggesting creative ideas for dishes…maa, I cook for myself, so when I gave them advice based on my own experiences, they revered me as their master for some reason . 」

When Akira tilted his head, wondering why they did something like that, Yamato slammed his forehead onto the reception desk .

「(Who is this adventurer in front of me whose cooking ability surpasses that of restaurant chef’s! Go open a restaurant!! Or rather, the chef who put up the request, is a pretty famous cook in this town!)」

It’s good that he didn’t say these things out loud .

If he did so, Yamato’s voice would’ve definitely turned hoarse .

When he looked up, Akira was looking at Yamato as if he was a somewhat disappointing person

Yamato’s heart was becoming more and more perturbed .

Yamato, wanting to recover himself, even if it was just on the surface, prompted him to continue .

His flushed face slowly turned back to normal .

He seemed to have already came back to himself .

「U–n . Maa, the last one was the most troublesome one though . 」

Akira started off by saying that as he ticked off another finger and shrugged his shoulders .

「I was cleaning it, but it was the first time I’ve seen such a splendid trash house, so I was bewildered in the beginning and it even took me an hour . 」

Yamato, with great difficulty, squeezed out, “Hee, is that so,” in response to Akira who made it seem like he had so much trouble with it .

「Oh . However, it was kind of fun? It seems that the client found the key to his safe that he’s been looking everywhere for and was ecstatic . 」

Hidden under the desk, Yamato’s clenched fist was trembling .

「(The place that you cleaned was the residence of the former earl! The house had already fallen into ruin, but it’s said that the family’s fortune was stored in that safe, and the reason why it became so messy was because of thieves who wanted to steal it! They found the safe, but not the key, and in the end, it had been left like that and no one’s cleaned it up for a long time!!)」

Before they realized it, the guild hall had fallen completely silent . The adventurers and guild staff members who were listening to Akira’s story couldn’t help but tremble upon hearing Akira casually speak about his accomplishments .

「Ah, I have urgent business regarding the dungeon, so I’ll be going! Odd job-type commissions are pretty fun, so if they pile up again, let me do some . 」

They didn’t know if he was a natural airhead, thickheaded, or he had already realized it, but Akira gallantly left the guild that was embroiled in a strange atmosphere .

Yamato and the others silently saw him off .

「…the ’Messiah of Odd Jobs’, huh . 」

Someone uttered that and everyone nodded .

There was a messiah who had tidied up almost all of the guild’s odd jobs that were piling up and in doing so, maintained the citizens’ trust in the guild .

From that day on, Akira would come to be known as the “Messiah of Odd Jobs” among the citizens as well as those in the guild .

As one would expect, there was no one brave enough to call him that directly, but Akira will never know that that anecdote will be told for a long time by the minstrels .