Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation - Volume 3

Chapter 11: A Smooth Start

When we made our way to the front door of the Adventurers' Guild the next morning, a lizard-man immediately approached me.

"Oh, hello there. I already took care of ranking us up."

For a moment, I had no idea who this guy was supposed to be, but then I noticed the bug-eyed lady next to him and realized they were the petnappers from yesterday. Their names were... uh, Jalil? And Vizquel, I guess? In my defense, it was tough to tell one face from another around here. There were a ton of lizard-people in this city, and it didn't help that these two were wearing leather armor instead of the civilian clothes they'd had on the day before. They seemed like totally different people when they dressed like commonplace adventurers instead of commonplace citizens.

"Good morning, Jalil. Thank you very much for dealing with that."

"Wh-what's with the polite tone? You're giving me the creeps..."

"I'm just speaking respectfully. Is that a problem?"

"N-no, no..."

When I glared at him, Jalil quickly averted his eyes. "Nice to see you as well, Vizquel. I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Uh... right." Vizquel was staring fearfully at Ruijerd. To be fair, Ruijerd was glaring daggers at the two of them. Oh well.

"Well then, shall we head inside?"

"Y-yeah. Sure," Jalil said with a nervous little nod.

The moment we stepped foot inside the guild itself, a certain horseman spotted us and sauntered over. "Hey there!"

"...Hi."

This guy was hanging around in here again...? Seriously, how did he make any money?

"Oh hoh, what's this? You're with P Hunter today, huh?"

"H-hey there, Nokopara. Been a while."

Apparently, Horseface and our new friend lizard-man were acquaintances. "Yeah, long time no see, Jalil. I heard about you guys rankin' up to C! Sure that's a good idea? Ya won't be able to work those pet jobs anymore, ya know?"

Pausing for a moment, Nokopara looked from Jalil to me and back again, then nodded with a horse-like neigh.

"Nooow I get it. No wonder ya pulled off that lost-pet thing yesterday, kiddo! Musta convinced P Hunter to help you out, right?"

"P Hunter" was presumably the name of Jalil's party. Sounded about right. "Yep, exactly!" I said. "We ran into them while we were looking for that pet yesterday, and they offered to show us the ropes!"

"Oh hoh. So timid little Jalil's found himself some apprentices now? And one of 'em's even a bogus Superd! Guhuhuh..."

Horseface was all too happy to buy my low-effort lie. He'd totally misunderstood the situation in a rather convenient way for us. After chortling to himself for a while, he leaned over to look around Jalil. "Hey, I don't see Roman with ya today. Where's he at?"

"Y-yeah... Roman, uh... died."

"Ah, gotcha. That's too bad."

Roman was presumably the name of that man Ruijerd killed. Nokopara didn't sound especially shaken up by the news. Maybe someone dying wasn't even that big a deal in this line of work. Was I the only one who'd taken it that seriously? Jalil and Vizquel seemed relatively indifferent about the whole thing as well.

"Still, if ya lost Roman, why would ya wanna rank up now? That guy was the best fighter in yer party, wasn't he?"

"W-well, I..." Jalil shot me a nervous glance. Seeing this, Nokopara let out another knowing neigh.