GILF Hunter

Chapter 278: 278 Captain’s... that thing is.... an elixir?

"Leave? What are you talking about!"

"Let’s go demand an explanation from the Captain!"

"No, the Captain didn’t say it directly, but..."

In the face of their intense reactions, Rin shook her head in a fluster.

In a way, it could just be her overreacting, which is why she hadn’t told her friends...

But since things had come this far, she had no choice.

Rin finally began to pour out the worries she had been harboring alone.

"The thing is, of course the Captain didn’t say that. But looking at the situation, isn’t it obvious?"

Rin is useless now, so maybe it’s time to fire her.

...Of course, there was no way Ian would actually say that.

However, even if the duration was far too short to be called a "career," during her time working as a mercenary, Rin had developed enough intuition to notice when the tide was shifting.

"Now that we have such a strong vanguard, I’m useless in that role.... Efficiency-wise, it makes sense, doesn’t it?"

"There’s no way that—"

Mika started to refute her but paused for a moment.

To say "there’s no way" was, honestly...

"Well, if you compare yourself to Lia, it is a bit..."

"See? Even you guys see it that way, right?"

"No, no!"

No matter how much they wanted to comfort her with empty words, comparing anyone to Lia as a vanguard felt like a betrayal of their own consciences.

Still, Mika and Tanya stayed close to the discouraged Rin, trying their best to console her.

"Even if the vanguard position is taken, Rin, you have other things you do!"

"Right. You stand guard in the center, and you do scouting..."

"What if someone better at scouting joins?"

"Huh?"

"We have this huge base now. Once we rise to C-rank, more people like Lia could join the group."

Back when there were hardly any members, she never had these worries.

She was the only one who could take the front line.

She was a bit clumsy, but since they were a low-rank mercenary group, it was only natural for everyone to be clumsy.

However, they say you can only be called a proper, full-fledged mercenary once you reach C-rank.

Seeing Lia, a C-rank mercenary, Rin felt she finally understood what those words meant.

A true vanguard who was worth their salt. No matter what mercenary group she joined or who she stood beside, Lia would be able to fulfill her role as a solid vanguard without wavering.

As the group prepared for the C-rank promotion, Rin, who had never thought about these things before, suddenly felt a sense of crisis.

Until now, she could pull her weight just by doing various odd jobs half-heartedly, but that wouldn’t be the case anymore.

"If someone who can scout joins, I’ll be pulled from scouting.... If a real guard joins, I’ll be pulled from the center.... Then eventually, I’ll just be left at the base to do the cleaning..."

Thinking about it coldly... she couldn’t say the possibility was zero.

Mika and Tanya also fell into deep thought for a moment.

Unlike Rin, the two of them had clear roles from the start, so it was a worry they had never faced.

Based on their experience so far, it was certain that Ian wasn’t the type to fire someone out of the blue.

However, everyone understood that running a mercenary group couldn’t be done on sentiment alone.

If a member failed to meet Ian’s standards, it might be inevitable for them to be relegated to the second string or moved to a support position.

At first, they thought Rin was just talking nonsense again, but after hearing her out, it wasn’t entirely far-fetched.

Having listened to Rin’s concerns seriously, Mika and Tanya also sank into deep thought, and the atmosphere grew heavy in an instant.

In particular, Mika had experienced a similar worry not too long ago.

Able to fully empathize with how Rin felt, Mika suddenly sprang to her feet.

"Alright, then we’ll help you!"

"H-how?"

"Rin just needs to get stronger!"

Rin’s problem would be solved if she became skilled enough to proudly hold her own place.

If they could find a way for Rin to get stronger, there would be no need to worry anymore.

"I’ll look through my books to see if there’s a way for Rin to get stronger too!"

"O-okay.... Thanks. I’ll practice every day too!"

While Mika was getting fired up and holding Rin’s hand, and Rin was nodding back in gratitude.

Tanya tentatively raised her hand to offer an opinion.

"Um.... Can’t we just ask Lia to teach you how to fight?"

"...."

"...."

Tanya endured the stares from the two of them before quietly lowering her hand.

"Lia is a rival."

"Do you think she’d even help if I asked her to help me get stronger?"

I think she would...

Tanya buried that thought deep in her heart.

In the end, she grabbed Rin’s hand as well, saying she would help with the special training.

＊ ＊ ＊

"Rin. Get up."

"Uuugh..."

"Get up. You have to do your morning training."

"Uuuh..."

Tanya kept shaking the sleeping Rin.

Rin, hiding under the covers, groaned as she opened her eyes in bed.

It was dawn, before the sun had even risen.

It was the time Tanya usually went down to prepare breakfast.

Woken by Tanya, Rin opened her eyes and sat up with an expression that looked like her soul had left her body.

It had been a week since Rin decided to undertake her training.

The spirit of Rin, who had boldly started her dawn swordsmanship training, was slowly reaching its limit.

"...How much did I need to retire and open a bakery? What I’ve saved up so far..."

"Rin, get it together..."

Tanya forced Rin up and dragged her down to the first floor.

"Sigh..."

In the afternoon of that same day, after barely finishing her morning training, Rin was slumped over the table in the lounge reading a combat manual.

Mika, who was reading a potion encyclopedia next to her, poked Rin with her finger and held out the book.

"Rin, look at this. It’s the Elixir of the Master. It says it can turn even a novice into a swordsmanship expert if they drink it."

"How much is it?"

"...It says there’s no market price because it hasn’t appeared in the last 50 years."

Mika, who had vowed to find a way for Rin to get stronger, looked through her magic books and introduced various magical items.

The problem was that such convenient and powerful items naturally had prices that were out of this world.

"Phew.... Even if an elixir like that showed up, there’s no way we could afford it with our money."

Listening to Mika, Rin let out a small sigh.

An elixir sounds great, but such an expensive and wonderful item wasn’t going to just appear out of thin air.

"Unless an elixir just springs up for free..."

"...Ah."

Hearing Rin’s mumble, Mika let out a sound, flinching as if she had realized something.

At Mika’s sudden reaction, Rin and Tanya looked at her with puzzled expressions.

"What is it?"

"Come to think of it..."

Mika started to speak but then trailed off, her face turning red.

It was a thought that had suddenly occurred to her, but it was an incredibly embarrassing story to actually say out loud.

However, since she had already caught their attention, Rin was looking at Mika with sparkling eyes.

It was a potentially viable idea that had finally come up after several days. If she brushed it off as nothing now, Rin would be terribly disappointed.

Understanding the emotional distress Rin was going through, Mika couldn’t bring herself to change the subject in front of her.

Mika overcame her embarrassment and shared the thought that had come to mind with the two of them.

"It’s about the time the Captain cleared my curse..."

As they listened to Mika and recalled that incident, Rin and Tanya’s faces also turned bright red.

"Wh-why bring that up all of a sudden?"

"No, just listen! My body felt a bit strange for a while after that."

This was a part of the story she hadn’t told the two of them yet.

After the curse was lifted.

Mika felt that her physical condition was somehow different from usual.

"My mana... it felt stronger than usual."

She wondered if it was just because her condition had improved.

At first, she thought it was just her imagination, but after a few days, Mika realized her mana capacity was definitely unusual.

It would be one thing if her mana had decreased, but for it to get stronger when she was supposed to be in poor health was something that didn’t make sense to Mika.

After some worry, Mika had quietly gone back to Ian to ask him.

"I asked the Captain if the curse hadn’t been fully lifted, and he said it was because my mana had temporarily increased."

"Your mana increased?"

At their questioning tone, Mika nodded slowly.

"The Captain... he has a special constitution, doesn’t he?"

"True..."

Since he couldn’t explain "Potential" to the mercenaries as it was, the excuse Ian had chosen at the time was... simply that it was his special constitution.

It was a convenient setup—no one could verify the truth, and since there were actual results, no one could deny it either.

Because of that explanation, everyone believed as fact that Ian’s "substance" had special effects.

"Since it’s enough to break a curse, he said it has those kinds of effects too."

What Mika had felt was the effect of the [Satisfaction] trait, which temporarily raises stats when engaging in acts with Ian.

It was just a minor stat buff located in the skill tree as a prerequisite to reach the traits that cure corruption.

As in most games, it was one of those unremarkable prerequisite traits tucked in the middle just to make you spend points, so Ian hadn’t really paid much attention to it.

However, from the perspective of the low-level Mika, it was a significant enough change that she noticed the effect immediately.

The two of them listened quietly to Mika’s explanation, processing this somewhat hard-to-understand experience in their heads.

They had heard directly from Mika that night about what she had done in the Captain’s room.

She had used her mouth for the Captain, and when she swallowed his "substance," the curse was cured.

And that wasn’t all—her mana had increased, albeit temporarily...

It sounded too good to be true, but then again, the fact that his constitution could break curses was already beyond common sense.

Tanya, who had been listening silently to Mika’s explanation, cautiously reached a conclusion.

"So. The Captain’s... that thing is.... an elixir?"

"...."

"...."

The three of them stole glances at each other.