「Ellin: So... huh. What are your strongest skills?」

「Allen: Sarcasm, cynicism and common sense.」

It came out sounding like a question. C'mon Allen, be more confident. We have to convince them.

「Ellin: ...」

She swept an uncertain gaze between Namrick and Grastel.

「Ellin: Can you fight?」

「Allen: I punched a few guys back in the days.」

I said, crossing my arms to express confidence.

Long silence.

「Ellin: Are you really sure about this?」

She stared at me in the eyes.

「Allen: Yes.」

She took in a deep breath.

「Ellin: Fine... let's register you at the adventurer's guild.」

She helped me compile the forms and I paid the entry fee. Done. I'm a frigging adventurer.

The trio looked at the billboards to pick a suitable quest. During the process, they glanced at me with uncertain expressions, multiple times. I put on my best smile and gave them the thumbs-up. These kids are making it such a big deal out of this. I'm a competent adult, I can deal with things.

Ellin gave me a quick debriefing: we were meant to exterminate a group of verklings, some sort of creatures, I didn't understand what they were supposed to look like.

We were walking in a forest when Grastel turned sharply to the right and signaled us to drop our backpacks and follow him. We approached a downstream river and I could see it. A yellow-gray skinned humanoid with very leathery skin, it had fangs protruding from the mouth and it was about 1 meter tall or so.

I followed their lead a few steps behind and- *creak*.

Oh, I stepped on a dry branch...

The creature immediately turned toward me, screeched and charged. It didn't see the others, who were already behind a bush just a little ahead.

Here it comes, I quickly unsheathed my short sword and launched myself against the verkling.

Time to get myself killed.

I could feel my heartbeat racing. I felt alive.

「Allen: Gaaah!」

I swung with all my might... and missed.

The creature was just nimbler than me.

「Allen: Crap!」

The verkling punched my arm away with enough strength to make me drop the sword. Embarrassing, I know. Also, ouch! That hurts!

As I was assaulted, I felt the adrenaline kicking in.

The blasted verkling screeched at my face letting out a fetid stench. I kept it at bay with my left arm.

「Allen: Enough!」

I kicked his groin and smashed my forehead against his face. That stunned him for a couple of seconds, enough for me to push it back sprawling on the ground, while I fumbled for my sword. Then I fucking stabbed the shit-eater on the mouth and swung him away, spilling blood all around.

I stomped his head for good measure and looked away... just in time to see another one coming from my left side and shoulder the impact.

「Allen: Agh!」

It frigging hurt.

I swore incoherently.

I let myself roll back, following the momentum, grabbing my foe's arm and pushing upward, so he would fall face-down. I actually learned this move back at school when a bully was charging at me with a big stick, I accidentally tripped on a rock while stepping back, he missed and in my attempt of pushing him away, I slammed his face on the hard ground. Good times!

My arms were shaking with adrenaline, I stabbed and stabbed again at the verkling abdomen. Which didn't turn out to be the brightest idea, since he was directly on top of me. Offals and blood rained upon me to my great regret. I've been desensitized enough by movies and games, but gods, the stench was nearly enough to make me puke.

I pushed the corpse away. This had gotten real, real fast.

Again, I took in my surroundings, there were a dozen dead verklings around me. Whoa, when did that happen? I didn't even notice, those kids are no pushovers.

「Ellin: Allen! Are you fine?!」

I didn't feel too good.

「Allen: I'm fine...」

Still sitting amidst the gore I gave a very shaky thumbs-up toward the guys.

Just before barfing out what was left inside my stomach.

She shook her head with a grave expression, while Namrick and Grastel burst into laughter.

A lesser man would have been embarrassed then, but I've endured worse and more humiliating scenarios. Nothing can tarnish my confidence.

Except maybe having missed my first swing. I gave a kick to the verkling corpse in retaliation. Okay, I feel better now.

Thankfully the river was close by, it would have been embarrassing to walk back home like that. Constantly puking and smelling like... I don't even know what, honestly.

Ellin healed my injuries and we started a fire. I tossed my damp clothes nearby to dry them a little.

「Allen: That was fun.」

I said confidently.

「Ellin: You should have been more careful.」

「Grastel: Yeah, I could have killed that one silently, with an arrow, then things would have been easier.」

「Allen: Sorry about that...」

「Namrick: And you didn't pay attention to the battleground. You stumbled away from us and made it difficult to pick off the enemies without the risk of hurting you.」

I felt like my first day at work, getting reprimanded for beginner mistakes.

「Allen: Sorry...」

I said, scratching my head. Damn, these brats are lecturing me... but they seem to know their shit, I have to give them that.

I took out from my backpack a pan and my patent-pending wooden pizza box and heated up the pizza.

「Allen: A slice for each of us, to celebrate my first quest!」

My friends merrily accepted. I bit down my disgust caused by the excessive pizzaful lifestyle I've been living. I actually just wanted to show off the pizza box, I should have brought some other food...

「Grastel: By the way, interesting fighting style.」

He said mockingly. I almost choked on my pizza while the others snickered.

「Allen: Gah! I wonder if at least I leveled up.」

「Namrick: What do you mean?」

「Allen: Don't you guys suddenly become stronger after defeating a certain number of enemies?」

「Grastel: No... we train and gain combat experience. But it's definitely not sudden.」

「Allen: I see... I was just wondering if this world had some sort of level up mechanism, don't mind me.」

They were giving me puzzled looks, trying to figure out what I was blabbering about.

Okay, so I guess there are no "levels" or RPG mechanics to exploit, but still, thinking back at when I first met Ellin, I went and tried stopping those arguing brats... they couldn't have me knocked out so suddenly. Was there a trick behind it? I may not be ripped, but there's no way a snotty brat could one-hit-KO me, a fucking adult, without magical assistance.

Damn, I need to learn magic!

In the end, we collected our rewards, 20 gold coins, which we split equally.

5 gold coins... holy shit. Adventuring is much more profitable than my pizza restaurants. I could buy three thousand pizzas with this much.

Even with our current capacity I only earn a silver coin a day, after splitting the income and paying our personnel. This is just depressing.

It's more than enough for a modest living, by this world standards. So I can't really complain, but there's a chasm between the money involved for a mundane living and the higher level.

I took a look around and made inquiries. According to what I got, the reward/cost prices are very high for everything related to magery, alchemy, and adventuring. Basically, the money circulates back and forth between adventurers and the craftsmen that supply them, which then hire adventurers to gather rare reagents and materials only found in risky places. And the cycle repeats.

Sounds close to a zero-sum game, despite the high payoffs, it's not so easy to hold on the money. That explains why Ellin, Grastel and Namrick are staying at the inn instead of a more luxurious place. Also, the high cutoff behind the money involved makes it almost a separate economy. I wonder how nobles and merchants come into the equation.

I took a proper bath and went to sleep. I had much to mull over.