In the inner city, at a tavern near the outer district.

"Mr. Banxia, thank you so much. If you hadn't stepped in..."

"It was nothing." Banxia waved a hand, gaze drifting to the table loaded with food in front of him. "If anything, you two spent quite a bit treating me to all this."

What sat before him was the tavern's most expensive set meal.

An entire hind leg of crag sheep, roasted to a golden, glistening brown. The skin was crisp and fragrant; when a knife tip sliced through it, meat juices ran down along the grain.

Beside it sat a large bowl of rich broth made from wild forest mushrooms and monster marrow, flecks of herbs floating across the surface, the rising steam carrying a dense, savory aroma straight into the nostrils.

The staple was spiced flatbread, crisp outside and soft within, alongside a small dish of honey-soaked dried figs.

There was also a jug of warmed ale. The amber liquid sat lightly foamed in the mug, fine white bubbles at the surface.

This meal cost two silver coins, at least two days' wages for a prime laborer. Under normal circumstances, it was the kind of extravagance he wouldn't have dared to dream about.

But they insisted on paying, so there was nothing to be done.

Banxia wasn't the type to bother with hollow pleasantries anyway.

"...No, it was the least we could do."

The blond youth glanced at the wheat bread and mushroom soup in front of himself, then at the equally plain meal before his companion, then let his eyes drift back to the outrageously lavish spread across the table. He swallowed quietly.

This meal had stung the purse. Neither of them regretted it.

Compared to being squeezed dry by that fat steward, this was a drop in the bucket.

Besides, even after leaving their original world, their family upbringing had kept one thing firmly rooted in their minds.

Repay kindness with gratitude.

"By the way, there's something I'd like to ask you two." Banxia tore off a piece of roast meat and chewed with satisfaction.

Since the physical enhancement, his craving for meat had grown noticeably stronger than usual. "Hashaka, did I get that right?"

"You remembered correctly." Hashaka nodded, looking mildly puzzled. "What is it?"

"As traveling merchants, you roam far and wide. You must have been to plenty of places." Banxia set down his knife and fork, expression settling into something more serious.

"Have you ever heard of... any treasures related to lifespan or time? Any rumor at all will do."

"Lifespan and time..."

They had no idea why Mr. Banxia, a man in the prime of his youth, would be asking about something like that. Still, both of them bowed their heads and thought for a long while.

Eventually, Hashaka shook their head with an apologetic look. "Something like that is far too nebulous, even ancient records rarely mention it.

At most... the Church has said that through the Goddess's grace, high-ranking monks live somewhat longer than ordinary people."

"...I see."

Banxia let out a quiet sigh. The hope that had barely surfaced shattered just as quickly.

He only had six years left. He had never once doubted that the system was telling the truth about that.

"Is changing my class to monk really my only way out?" he muttered. "I don't even know if I have the aptitude for it."

"There is one rumor... that might be of use to Mr. Banxia."

The speaker was the woman who had been wearing the wide-brimmed hat the entire time.

Both Banxia and the blond youth looked up at once.

"Go on." Banxia set down his ale mug and leaned forward slightly.

"When we passed through a village some time ago, the villagers mentioned that deep within the northern forests, there lives an elf said to command all the magic in the world."

"Perhaps she has a spell related to time."

"Kaguya?" The blond youth stared at his companion in open astonishment, then turned to Banxia with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. That rumor only circulated in that one village. There's no corroborating evidence, and no one can say for certain whether that elf truly exists."

He paused, his tone heavier. "On top of that, the northern forests are crawling with high-tier monsters. Great Demons prowl the area regularly. Even Platinum-rank adventurers who venture in could die at any moment.

So please — don't hold out too much hope..."

"It's fine." Banxia waved a hand.

He hadn't built up any great expectations. But he filed the information away regardless.

The woman named Kaguya lifted her hat brim slightly, revealing a pair of wine-red eyes and a somewhat youthful face. Her voice dropped a notch.

"Though... ever since the Demon King began massacring the elven race hundreds of years ago, pureblood elves have practically vanished from the world."

"If that rumor were true, and an elf really did live in that forest, the Great Demons would have found her long ago."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Banxia. That's the best I could offer, a rumor with nothing to back it up."

She wasn't wrong.

In this era, elves were already a rare sight to begin with. What the three of them meant, of course, were elves of pure lineage, not demi-humans like Forest Elves, the offspring produced when the First Hero used forbidden magic with whatever species and spawned a whole new bloodline.

"True enough." Banxia gave a soft laugh and picked up his mug again. "Speaking of which, you two are also from another world, aren't you?"

"Pfft—"

The blond youth nearly spat his mushroom soup across the table.

"And Kaguya — that name sounds awfully familiar. Have we met somewhere before?"

"..."

...

Early the next morning, Banxia woke up on the hard wooden bed in the novice quarters.

Thanks to Monk Marl, the room hadn't been reclaimed yet. He could stay another week.

But with only a few dozen copper coins left in his pocket, at this rate he wouldn't be able to afford hard black bread in a few days.

"I need to figure out how to make money, build up my strength, then go check out that northern forest..."

Too many problems stacked in front of him at once. Just thinking about it was a headache.

He sighed, stuffed the hard bread he'd lifted from the kitchen into his mouth, and bit off a corner.

He fixed his gaze ahead, and the system panel materialized from the void.

[Heaven Rewards Diligence, and effort will surely bear fruit.]

[Current Skills: Basic Sword Technique lv.1 (1|1000) · Basic Dodge lv.1 (1|1000)]

[Current Remaining Time: Six years.]

[Held Monster Time: Eight years.]

Everyone else ground away in misery, sweat and suffering just to eke out the smallest scrap of progress.

He was different. As long as he hunted monsters with enough lifespan, he could grow strong fast.

There was one thing about this world that suited Banxia's taste just fine.

Hard enough fists, and everything got simple.

He washed up, got himself together, and headed toward the Adventurers Guild.

"My strength probably isn't too bad by now, but I have almost no experience outside the city walls. It'd help to find a reliable veteran willing to show me the ropes."

Reality wasn't some game to mess around in.

The wilds held more than small fry like goblins. There were all kinds of strange, chaotic threats out there.

The ladies at the pleasure houses had mentioned it in passing during idle chatter, plenty of once-famous adventurers had met their end at the hands of bizarre traps or monsters with unusual mechanics.

Banxia didn't yet consider himself qualified to go making a mess of those predecessors' legacies.

Before long, he was standing in front of the quest board in the guild hall.

One posting on the E-rank board caught his eye.

[Recruiting one vanguard warrior. Compensation guaranteed to satisfy.]

➤ Next: Roxy — The Conversation

Chapter 10 - Roxy — The Conversation

"My name is Roxy Migurdia. Pleased to meet you."

"Just call me Banxia."

Second floor of the Adventurers Guild.

Banxia held the recruitment notice he'd torn from the bulletin board downstairs and tracked down the employer who'd posted it.

The client was a petite girl with blue hair and a single ahoge sticking straight up from her head, genuinely cute.

She cradled a white staff in her arms, the thing taller than she was by several inches. The robes she wore marked her as a mage of standing.

Banxia remembered her.

She'd been summoned here around the same time he had, roughly a month ago. More than that, she was a character he recognized from an anime in his past life.

Incantationless water magic. A serious discipline. The kind you didn't forget.

The Church's summoning art was wildly unstable. Most of the people it dragged across were ordinary folk like him and Marl. But every now and then, it pulled someone over who already had a high-tier class.

The girl in front of him was one of those rare exceptions.

"You've already read the bulletin board post, right?" The blue-haired girl tilted her head up to look at him. "I need to travel to Damuro to find materials to repair my staff. I need a warrior to escort me along the way, a class-holder, preferably."

"Damuro?"

Banxia knew the name.

His source, naturally, was the well-traveled beastfolk girls at the pleasure houses.

Damuro had once been the kingdom's second-largest city. The war against the orcs reduced it to rubble, and it had long since become goblin territory. Tens of thousands of the creatures were said to be entrenched inside, enough that a variant strain had emerged. A Goblin King.

If you got surrounded in there, even a Platinum-rank adventurer might not walk out in one piece.

Seeing the thoughtful look on his face, Roxy paused and offered an explanation:

"Don't worry. The materials I need are in the Old Quarter. The ones there are only the weaker strains that got pushed out by the New Quarter. The danger should be minimal."

"I see." Banxia nodded. "Then let's talk compensation."

"Before that, I need to get a sense of your strength." The blue-haired girl's eyes lifted to him, a quiet scrutiny in her gaze. "Have we... met before? About a month ago?"

His face was the kind you only needed to see once to remember.

Even after years of solo adventuring away from home, and over a month of being inexplicably dropped into this world and meeting all kinds of people, Roxy couldn't think of a second person who came close.

That wasn't the point.

The point was that, if she remembered correctly, he'd been an ordinary person back then.

She had no interest in a simple escort job turning into a situation where they both ended up dead. She still had enough sense to worry about that.

"Good memory, Miss Roxy." Banxia smiled and drew a small card from inside his jacket. "This should settle the question."

"Class: Warrior, Level... 18?!"

The blue-haired girl's voice jumped. She caught the odd looks drifting their way, reined herself in immediately, and cleared her throat.

"I apologize. A level like that... I don't see it often."

"It's fine." Banxia filed her reaction away.

So level 18 counted as seriously strong even by class-holder standards.

"...That said — are you sure you want to take this quest?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because..." Roxy's expression shifted into something rare, a reluctance, like the words didn't come easily.

"I did write 'satisfaction guaranteed' on the notice, but that was aimed at novice class-holders. For someone at your level, I genuinely can't offer a price that would satisfy you."

"Specifically?"

"Calculated over three days, I can pay you ten silver coins a day at most. The loot along the way was supposed to be split fifty-fifty, but if you take the job, all of it is yours. I only need one branch from a Twilight Tree."

"...Still too little, isn't it." Seeing no immediate response, the blue-haired girl dropped her gaze and let out a quiet sigh. "I'm sorry. This is already the absolute limit of what I can offer. Any higher than this, "

"Deal."

"...Huh? You agreed?"

Roxy stared at him.

Outside the city gates, a stronger vanguard was always better, that went without saying. But what she was offering was cheap even by Iron-rank standards, never mind hiring a warrior who could go up against a solid Silver-rank.

"When do we leave?"

"A quick preparation and we can go now."

...

The appointed time was almost up. Standing at the city gate, Banxia couldn't help but reflect.

"Money is genuinely easy to earn..."

A prime-aged craftsman in Alterna worked themselves half to death all day for maybe one silver coin. He was getting ten a day just to walk outside the city with someone.

Going by how Roxy had reacted back there, accepting this rate at his level was probably an absurdly bad deal on her end.

No wonder this world had people scrambling to become professional adventurers.

It was a bit of a shortchange, sure, but he wasn't the type to sweat every last coin. And as a newcomer, following an experienced mage into the field and picking up some survival knowledge for free wasn't a bad return at all.

He was still thinking about it when a petite figure appeared in the distance, leading a horse toward him with quick, light steps.

"Mr. Banxia, you're early." The blue-haired girl stopped at his side and looked up with a small greeting.

Having a vanguard like this along, the trip outside the city was going to be considerably easier.

"Not really. I just got here myself."

"Hm?" Roxy glanced around, then looked back at him. "Mr. Banxia — where's your horse?"

"A horse?"

"...We need to conserve stamina. The plan is to ride to the town nearest Damuro, then go on foot into the Old Quarter to search." Roxy studied him with something close to suspicion.

"That's basic adventurer common sense. Mr. Banxia — you didn't know?"

"...Ahem. I like the exercise. Don't worry about it, I might even be faster than a horse on foot."

A beat of silence followed. The blue-haired girl did not, in the end, indulge that particular wish.

"..."

The horse had monster blood in its lineage, and once it hit its stride, it was far wilder than Banxia had expected.

The force of it pressed him back harder than any supercar from his past life.

The problem was what that did to his lower half. His backside was getting absolutely punished.

"This horse is too fast, I'm going to fall off, "

"Um... Mr. Banxia, please don't hold on quite so tight, "

One hour later, the horse slowed to a stop in front of the stable at the village entrance.

Banxia swung down from the saddle without so much as a changed expression, movements clean and unhurried, as if the person who had been clinging on for dear life and yelling about falling off for the entire ride wasn't him.

Roxy glanced over. Seeing nothing visibly wrong with him, she turned toward the stable hand coming out from the village and passed over the reins.

"Please give it high-grade oats. We'll be back to collect it later, this is the deposit."

➤ Next: Please Let Me Monopolize the EXP