Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 50

“So, what are you going to do, Kenji?”

“I’m not going to do anything different. Just keep going as we have been.”

“But Kenji, whenever I try to guide rookie adventurers, the guild staff interferes! They say they’ll guide them for free!”

“It’s fine. Just wait and see. The customers will be back in a few days.”

I was calming down the agitated Sara on the first floor of the inn. While the number of bookings had decreased, we still had repeat customers, maintaining our pace of two tours per day, and managing to keep the group size at around ten people. From a numerical standpoint, it wasn’t affecting our business. I was also managing to pay Sara her commission of two copper coins daily. For now, the only real nuisance was the guild staff’s interference.

Besides, the Adventurers’ Guild had no understanding of what rookie adventurers really needed. Their scheme would collapse soon enough.

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My premonition quickly became reality. Those who had once taken advantage of the Adventurers’ Guild’s free guidance service were now returning to my service.

Since it was a good opportunity, with Sara present as well, I asked why they had stopped using the free service.

“Well, they say it’s free, but once you follow along, they make you buy expensive food, they haggle over the materials you bring back, and that’s it. There’s no real support. And on top of that, they make a fuss about making reservations.”

“Yeah, that bald guy acts all high and mighty. He makes fun of us behind our backs because we can’t read.”

That alone helped me understand what the Adventurers’ Guild was thinking and where they went wrong. They saw my actions alone and interpreted the rookie adventurer tours as a “service for country bumpkins to buy food cheaply at the store,” and that’s why they failed.

The designated food store likely took advantage and raised prices. They might have been getting kickbacks through connections with the staff. They probably didn’t bother making reservation forms for illiterate adventurers. Just the sort of thing a corrupt bureaucratic guild would do.

In reality, what I’m doing is a service to train adventurers in management. It’s about sharing and discussing the preparations needed for quests, acting together, and understanding each other’s preparations and expenses. We settle current recovery costs upfront and distribute the rest fairly. They fail to grasp the value of invisible support, such as teamwork training that rural farmers-turned-adventurers haven’t experienced. They fail because their service is merely imitative without grasping the essence.

Well, it’s natural they wouldn’t understand, since guild staff themselves can’t do such things. Those who have only done bureaucratic routine work can’t handle new tasks.

Leaving behind such obvious lessons, the Adventurers’ Guild quietly ended its support for novice adventurers in a short period of time.

For me, it was enjoyable to greet that annoying bald guy at the counter each time with a smile and ask, “How’s the service going? Let’s do our best!”

It’s a shame. I wish they had struggled a bit longer, even if it meant more losses.