Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 270

Sara, who has been listening beside me, pouts and complains, “He was a good person! What’s not good about it?”

“Yes, he’s a good person, but the work and the system need to be designed so they can function even without good people. Otherwise, it’s flawed.”

“Huh?” Sara seems to sense something in my words and shows a more attentive attitude.

“It’s going to be a long discussion… Why don’t we sit down and talk? I’d also like to hear your thoughts, Sara, and it’s been a while since I’ve checked in on the rookie adventurers.”

“Alright, let’s sit at that table over in the corner. It kind of reminds me of when we used to take the rookie adventurers on shopping tours.”

As we sit on chairs in the corner of the Adventurer’s Guild, it feels like going back to the days when our schedule was packed with reservations for shopping tours.

Sara would handle the sales and bring in customers, while I’d show them around. It was a job to earn a little extra money from novice adventurers, but I remember it being quite fun.

“Yeah, I’d like to restart that business again. I’m pretty good at haggling in the marketplace, you know.”

“No! It’s too dangerous!”

“Yeah, I know. Things are different now compared to back then. I get that…”

I say it casually, but Sara shoots me down quite firmly. Given all the recent dangerous situations, I understand why she’s worried.

I shift the conversation back to the present.

“So, getting back to the request we were talking about earlier. First of all, I believe that work and systems should be designed in a way that anyone can achieve the same result, no matter who does the job. The fact that the request couldn’t have been handled without that really decent adventurer means the system is flawed. Are you with me so far?”

“Hmm… Kenji, you talk about systems and design a lot. I don’t really get it.”

One thing I appreciate about Sara is that she’s honest about what she doesn’t understand, so it’s easy for me to come up with creative explanations.

“Alright, let’s break down the problem from the beginning. If you try to think of everything all at once, it gets confusing. First, the villager brought the request here himself, right? That’s a problem.”

“Why? The village doesn’t have a guild, so wasn’t it the only option?”

“Did you see his clothes? Those were cuts from branches and bushes. Even if it’s along the highway, for an ordinary villager to travel and camp outside is life-threatening. He was probably running away, being chased by beasts or monsters. It’s a miracle he even made it to the city.”

“That’s… true.”

“Then, after making it to the city, finding the Adventurers’ Guild must’ve been incredibly difficult for a country bumpkin like him. He was carrying a decent amount of money, wounded and exhausted. Imagine what could have happened to him in the city. The security here isn’t exactly great. It’s surprising he wasn’t robbed, right?”

“…Yeah, that’s true.”

“On top of that, the villager didn’t know the going rates for hiring adventurers. In rural life, there are very few situations that require cash. He probably scraped together whatever little he had, but it still wasn’t enough. He could’ve been turned away.”

“…” Sara falls silent.

She must be imagining what it would’ve been like for the injured villager, unable to even make a request.

He is really lucky.

“Finally, it’s wrong for villagers to bear the cost of defending the village in the first place. It should be the landowning noble who covers the cost. To the landowner, the villagers and the harvest are their property. Nobles who don’t defend their lands don’t have the right to own them.”

“Hey! That’s going too far!”

Sara sharply rebukes me, glancing around to make sure no one overhears. She’s right, I’ve spoken carelessly, so I lower my voice and continue.

“Yeah, you’re right. I went too far there. It’s not something I can do anything about. But one day… Anyway, that’s why I said the system is flawed.” I wrap up my explanation.

“But there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?” Sara says.

That’s exactly why I’ve been gathering funds and connections all this time—precisely so I wouldn’t have to say that.

“That’s not true.”

I can say that now.

I’m not the type to just complain and leave it at that.

Now that I’ve identified the problem, there must be a way to solve it.