60 – I Want to Be an Adventurer Again
The appearance of the mutated Mandragora after the barrier was released was truly astonishing.
“Excuse me, is that an herb? The one you grew?”
“Yes, it is.”
So he was not a guild master, but a mad scientist.
What kind of experiments is he conducting?
The Mandragora that appeared was huge, and it clearly had a muscular ginseng-like appearance.
Moreover, there was a blazing flame of magic on its head.
“By the way, magic doesn’t work on this Mandragora. That’s why it was a bit difficult to handle, so I kept it confined for now, but it worked out well.”
Anyone can see that it’s a dangerous creature.
Is it really okay for a guild master to create something like that?
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The Mandragora started to move its massive body.
Every time it stepped on the ground, vibrations could be felt.
“Uwaaa! It’s disgusting!”
“Yuno-senpai, fighting!”
Meruru and Sylphy were cheering me on from a distance.
Philstan was also watching me, keeping his distance.
Alright, make sure you watch carefully as I take down that giant ginseng with my own eyes.
I’ve faced opponents stronger than that before.
Plus, I had the foreign magic I obtained from Einblad.
I immediately filled my sword with magic and charged at Mandragora.
Since I still struggled with magic control, I decided not to use any techniques and simply cut it down.
As I charged, Mandragora swung its thick arms towards me.
Thud!
I easily dodged the attack and circled behind Mandragora.
The Guild Master was watching, so I needed to handle this quickly and decisively to make a strong impression.
I jumped up, driving my magic-infused sword down from the top of Mandragora’s head.
The blade easily sliced through Mandragora’s head and torso like cheese.
I didn’t use any special techniques, but the quality of magic in my sword increased its destructive power.
The mutated Mandragora was split in half in an instant, turning into two large herbal chunks.
It was a fight that ended as easily as cutting through butter.
“Well, is that enough now?”
I looked at Philstan in front of the torn Mandragora, full of confidence.
Philstone approached and touched the statue, which now remained motionless, nodding his head.
* * *
As promised, Philstone became the guarantee of my career and skills.
Sylphy and Meruru also submitted documents to the guild, proving that I had dealt with the “Mandrake” as requested.
I was truly grateful to both of them, but I didn’t feel the same about Philstone.
If it hadn’t been for his stubbornness, I wouldn’t have had to go through all of this.
“Yes, it’s all done. Your final rank is silver. Well done.”
Tina processed my registration documents and congratulated me.
It was the initial rank that I couldn’t have obtained without the guild master’s endorsement.
With this, my adventurer rank had somehow been restored to its original state.
Even if I wanted to work in another guild in a different area, I would have to make a transfer declaration at least once, unless I had the special privilege of a gold rank.
It was a simple procedure, but I still needed a temporary document from the guild to do it.
Now that I had regained my rank, there were no restrictions on moving between guilds.
However, that lingering feeling of unease still remained.
“Tina, I have a question. Based on the records kept by the guild, does it mean that I died once and the current Yunoa became an adventurer?”
“Yes…”
I wasn’t any kind of undead.
The fact that such a record existed itself was unsettling.
From Noble mtl dot com
“Tina, you’ve been through a lot.”
After experiencing this incident, my perspective on the receptionists working at the guild had changed significantly.
It wasn’t just because of a heavy workload, but because I had chosen the wrong guild master that I was suffering.
Documents, documents, documents all day long.
Tina’s dark circles seemed to deepen every day.
The wide space inside the guild counter was filled with documents.
Even the documentation of tasks should be done moderately; this level of documentation would actually lower efficiency.
I suddenly became curious.
“Tina, do you keep all the documents written in the guild?”
“Yes. The amount that comes out every day is enormous, so we have a separate warehouse for storing documents. You know the building behind the guild without a sign? We store documents that have passed a certain period there.”
While Tina was answering me, she was also dealing with other documents with her hands.
“If all the stored documents were lost in an accident, what would happen to the guild?”
“It would probably be a huge disaster….”
Well, that’s true.
Anyway, I have regained my adventurer rank.
I didn’t like the way of the Philstone, but I can’t do anything about it.
Now, I feel like I’m finally returning to the daily life I missed.
From tomorrow on, I will go back to the life of an adventurer, taking requests and earning money like a normal person.
As I was thinking that way, suddenly a narration echoed in my head.
“Finally, Yunoa, who had recovered her adventurer rank, was looking forward to returning to her normal adventurer life from tomorrow.
But she didn’t know. What kind of result the extermination of the variant Mandragora, as demanded by Philstone, would bring.”
Hmm, the content feels a little strange.
I split it in half and decisively dealt with what they called a variant Mandra.
It was eerie to think that medicinal herbs could be alive and moving.
Could it really be alive and not dead?
I took the Mandra I dealt with, called Philstone, and brought it all to the refinery.
If it’s still alive even after being split in half?
No, that can’t be right.
It’s not some kind of starfish.
I decided not to worry about it and take a break for today.
***
Late dawn.
Philstone was attempting to refine the variant Mandra in his own refinery.
Mandra was a rare medicinal herb known to be impossible to cultivate.
But he had independently researched a method to cultivate Mandra and reaped its fruits.
Every day, he injected magic power as fertilizer into the Mandra and raised it with all his heart.
The size of the Mandra grew larger and larger, and Philstone injected more magic power to maximize its growth.
Was that a mistake?
One day, Philstone’s Mandra underwent a mutation and transformed into a monster-like creature.
The enormous Mandra extracted itself from the ground and began attacking its surroundings.
Panic-stricken, Philstone attempted to subdue the Mandra, but his magical attacks had no effect.
So, he had no choice but to confine the variant Mandra within a barrier and contemplate how to deal with it.
During that time, a man named Yunoa came to ask for the revival of adventurer records.
Filstone didn’t really want to pay attention to him, so he sent him away. But he came back again.
And he proposed a way to restore the grades while maintaining the guild’s rules.
The problem was that it was awkward to put it on the guild as an official request.
Above all, Filstone wanted to solve the problem quietly without unnecessarily increasing his workload, as he had raised it with his own hands.
In that sense, Yunoa seemed to be a man who could be quite useful.
Although his records were erased, he was also a silver-grade adventurer, and judging by the sword at his waist, he wasn’t a magician either.
If it didn’t work out, they could just confine him back to the boundary, so they decided to use him to solve the problem of the variant Mandragora.
And this was the result.
Filstone was satisfied.
The variant Mandragora, called the Mandragora of Creation, may have different effects from the regular Mandragora.
He brought the split Mandragora to the refinery and cut it into eight large pieces, putting them in a box.
He planned to carefully experiment with the essence of the Mandragora in the refining machine to see what kind of effects it would manifest.
But then.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
The box containing the Mandragora pieces made a strange sound.
Filstone was focused on the refining process and ignored the sound.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Snap!
But then, the box that had been making clunking noises broke.
When he turned around, he saw that the variant Mandragora, divided into eight pieces, had resurrected as completely different entities.
The size had shrunk to one-eighth, but the flames of magic burned brightly on its head, just as flickering and erratic as before.
“What…what is…”
Philstone hastily tried to confine it with a magic barrier.
But it would have been better if it had remained as the large one it was originally.
Eight mutated creatures, the size of young children, suddenly burst out of the box and scattered in the wind, making it impossible to confine them.
“Wow…woah!”
In the deep dawn, screams echoed from Philstone’s refinery.
And the mutated creatures that escaped from there began their mad dash towards the center of Cubel.
* * *
I was sleeping at an inn when I felt that something was noisy outside.
Looking out through the window, it was still dark, so what could it be?
“It’s a fire! Fire!”
“It’s a monster! It’s spewing out walking monsters!”
“aaah!”
Walking monsters…spewing?
In an instant, the image of the flickering and fiery mutated creatures flashed through my mind.
I quickly got up and rushed outside.
The scene outside was chaotic.
Mutated creatures, about the size of elementary school students, were running around the streets, setting fires in all directions.
The flames of magic attached to their heads spread sparks here and there.
Some people who appeared to be adventurers were already engaged in battle with Mandragoras.
Burning buildings everywhere, people running and screaming, adventurers fighting Mandragoras.
“The mutated Mandragora has been divided into eight pieces in the hands of Philstone.
But this mutated Mandragora, who absorbed too much magic, did not die easily.
Unless it is completely destroyed without a trace, it will divide into other entities as many as the number of pieces and resurrect.”
Crack! Crack!
A Mandragora, flailing around, grabbed an adventurer by the hair and punched him in the stomach.
Another Mandragora was climbing up a building, while another one was wildly shaking the flames on its head and jumping around like crazy.
“I can’t believe this is happening….”
Other adventurers who rushed out upon hearing the commotion joined forces to subdue the Mandragoras.
However, surprisingly, those Mandragoras were either strong, or the nearby adventurers were weak, because they were struggling.
“Listen up! If you just cut them, their numbers will increase! Make sure to defeat them completely without leaving a trace! I will help too!”
I drew my sword and leaped into the chaotic street, shouting.
According to the narration, if not handled properly, their numbers will only increase.
I struck down one after another with my sword, turning them into minced garlic and stomping on them with my feet.
Even in that moment, muscular Mandragoras were grabbing people by the hair and pounding their stomachs.
They looked very painful.
Are these guys fond of hitting the abdomen?
What the hell did Philstone raise?
I took the lead in helping people and suppressing the mutants who were running wild in the streets.
* * *