The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

Lamdrion, adventurer's guild.

Just like normal, the adventurer's guild is as noisy as every today.

In the main hall of the guild, various adventurers equipped with all kinds of armor and weapons were gathered together like they're letting off their stress, stuffing themselves full of food and wine. That's basically the norm.

Of course, there were also people gathered in front of the quest board, selecting various kinds of quests. The receptionists' counter also had a various parties lined up in front of them. That's also one of the normal sights that contributes to the noisy atmosphere.

At a certain moment though, the noise level in the guild suddenly dropped off quite a bit.

The reason for that is quite simple.

That's because a party that is very eye-catching in various meanings appeared in the main hall.

"Look, Vivian's party has returned."

"Oh? They're pretty quick this time huh?"

"Miss Vivian is as beautiful as ever."

"Little miss Melika is also terribly beautiful. As expected of an elf."

"Little Lumia is also quite cute right?"

"Oy, keep it down a bit. If you got overheard by Diere, you're be in serious trouble."

"As expected, the girls of that party really are too good looking."

"I really want to join that party."

"Look, that newbie's still there."

"It looks like he didn't do anything unpleasant."

"What a lucky guy."

Accompanying such comments, Shien' group returned to the adventurer's guild and reentered the main hall of the guild.

Shien could naturally hear the surrounding comments. He could also feel the taste of those commentary and even the stabbing gazes, so he quietly shrugged his shoulders in the safety of his mind.

(As expected, it's all the same old expected reactions.)

Shien had no longer even considered it as a matter to think about anymore.

As for the rest of Vivian's party, it seems that they're already completely used to such gazes, so they just ignored the rest of the people around and directly approached one of the counters.

"Welcome back, Miss Vivian."

That receptionist immediately stood up to greet Vivian.

"Hn. We're back." Vivian returned the greeting with a gentle smile, but she dove straight into business, "We've completed the previously accepted quests."

With those words, Vivian gestured to Melika beside her.

"This is the spring water from a mid sized magic spring. There's a total of 3 bottles. We've also collected all of the flame salamander hides." Melika set down a bag onto the counter and politely spoke, "Please check it over."

"Very good. 3 bottle of spring water from a mid sized magic spring. Also 30 flame salamander hides. We have indeed received them." The guild receptionist just gave a brief look inside the bag and immediately confirmed the quest items. It's unknown if it was due to trust in Vivian's party or if they just had the ability to confirm things that quickly, and they continued, "Besides that, the guild as already confirmed from the merchant caravans that the vampire vines on the main road to Fresia have been completely cleared, so all three quests that you accepted are confirmed as complete."

This efficiency really is high. As expected of the worldwide power adventurer's guild.

"This is your reward."

The guild receptionist brought out a plate. On it were filled with gold coins.

"Gold grade quest – [Spring Water Collection] – the reward is 20 gold coins."

"Silver grade quest – [Flame Salamander Hides] – the reward is 10 gold coins."

"Silver grade quest – [Vampire Vine Removal] – the reward is 10 gold coins."

"They total to 40 gold coins. Please verify."

Hearing that, Vivian nodded and while she collected the gold coins and handed them over to Melika, she also continued talking to the receptionist.

"Are there currently any collection quests for lizardman scales, horned beast horns, and bristle spider venom sacs?"

"There's one quest for horned beast horns. Although there are no collection quests for bristle spider venom sacks, but the potions workshop on the west street seems to need venomous materials. Their apprentices will issue quests at regular intervals, so we can just directly hand it over next time. There are no current requests for lizardman scales though."

"Then what about violet-eyed beast's eyeballs, gargoyle hearts, and fanged newt's tendons?"

"Apologies, but violet-eyed beast's eyeballs were already brought in by someone else. The guild still has fanged newt tendons left in the guild storage, so we would just hand it straight over. However, gargoyle hearts are rare materials, and there are quite a few people who would want them. Such requests could come at any time, so we can make the exchange at that time."

"Thank you. We have some more materials here with us."

"No worries. These are all high level demonic beast materials, the demand for them is high, so there will be people making collection quests for them soon enough."

"Then we'll leave it to you."

"Very well."

Vivian thus smoothly communicated with the guild receptionist while having Lumia, who had been carrying a bag bigger than herself, come forward and hand that bag over to the receptionist.

"What's this about?"

Shien was a bit confused there.

Unexpectedly, it was Diere who had been silent the whole time who answered Shien's question.

"We're confirming whether or not there's any demand for the materials that we collected outside of our quests." Diere quietly spoke, "It's because adventurers will often end up subjugating demonic beasts that had nothing to do with their targets during their quests and end up collecting their materials. Even though those materials may not be within the bounds of their quests, the guild may end up getting quests for collecting those materials or for subjugating those demonic beasts. Thus, normally when that happens, the adventurer could report it directly to the guild and complete quests that they didn't take."

Shien understood in a flash.

True though, if they ended up collecting other demonic beast materials during their adventure, and the guild happened to have quests for the collection of those materials, then they could very well turn in the materials afterwards, complete those quests, and get some unexpected rewards.

Even if there wasn't a quest for collecting those materials, that doesn't mean that there won't be such in the future. Thus, adventurers will even hand over some materials over for the guild to manage. The guild will directly hand them over when a quest for the relevant materials appear and complete those quests that way.

"There are also some people who don't do it this way. They'd take the collected materials to the town to sell and get their money that way. What exactly one does will generally depend on the person in question."

Diere thus spoke in a completely toneless voice.

"Our party would generally hand our materials straight to the guild. We'd only hold on to super high class and valuable materials. If you don't like that, you can bring it up with Vivian. Vivian will calculate out your portion of the materials for you and let you deal with it yourself. That's our party policy."

That's quite understanding of her.

As Shien thought that, he also spoke, "I don't have any objections. Let's just deal with it this way."

Diere also nodded her head without opening her mouth.

Not long after, Vivian who had finished dealing with the quest and materials businesses came back with Lumia and Melika.

"We're quite lucky this time. There's a bunch of materials that were needed, so we managed to finish a number of quests beyond what we picked, and we got 60 gold coins in return for all of them."

Vivian brought back bags of money already properly spit up and showed them with a smile.

"This time, we've earned a total of 100 gold coins. It splits perfectly into 20 gold for everyone. Here, go ahead and take it."

With that, Vivian handed 4 bags of money into everyone's hands.

"This really is easy money."

Shien reached out his hand towards the money bag meant for him with such thoughts.

At that moment, a hand reached out from the side and took away the money that Vivian was about to hand over to Shien.

"It's no good for a newbie to take so much reward. How about you use it to buy everyone a round of drinks instead."

A laughing voice rang out and entered everyone's ears.