Damn it! It's not enough! Neither money nor power!
Seeing Irene shouting as she banged her cup on the table, her companions exchanged glances as if to say, "Here we go again."
"I think Irene is doing quite well."
"That's right, it's rare to see a child who has become an adventurer and made so much progress in just a few months."
"Don't treat me like a child! I'm not a child!"
Irene roared, but to the older members of the group, she just looked like a wolf cub trying to intimidate them with all her might. The others shrugged, thinking that as long as you get angry when you're called a brat, you're still a child.
In fact, Irene was a child. In the Great Vrishab Empire, the age of majority was set at 21, so Irene, who was probably around 14, was legally a minor. I say "probably" because Irene grew up in an orphanage in the slums without parents, so she did not know her exact age.
Regardless of what the Great Charter stipulates, in reality, the common people of this country perform some kind of work from childhood. Those who grew up in the slums, in particular, have no room for surplus labor. They engage in jobs that do not require education, such as porters, water sellers, sewer workers, and shoe shiners, and in their spare time, they hunt small monsters together.
Horned rabbits were a particularly convenient prey. Even children could hunt them, and they provided meat for dinner, adding to the stew made only with vegetable scraps. For a slum kid who was always hungry, there was no monster more welcome.
However, slum kids are only allowed to hunt things like horned rabbits, and are strictly forbidden from touching any higher-ranking monsters. This is because they are simply no match for them. High-ranking monsters wield magic, and a direct hit from one without magic-resistant equipment could mean instant death for a child.
—The regional city where they live is surrounded by walls, and intelligent monsters consider it human territory, so they are not often seen in the city. However, it was well known among the children that if they encountered one, they should flee immediately.
The guards would probably tell them not to go out alone, but if the children were attacked by monsters right in front of them, about half would let them die.
This is because children from the slums do not have citizenship. The guards' job is to protect the city and its citizens, and it is not their job to protect people without citizenship. The other half might help, armed with the theory that monsters that appear in the city must be repelled. But even that is not guaranteed. For children in the slums, the only person they can rely on is themselves.
Irene was a special child. She possessed strong magical powers even as a child, and using the physical strengthening magic she learned from an old woman who lived in a corner of the slums, she was able to demonstrate superhuman strength that surpassed that of an adult. Her facial features were so beautiful that it was hard to believe she came from the slums, and she could have been the illegitimate daughter of some noble, but she had no trace of her origins.
The old woman who taught her the basics of magic sighed as she saw her beauty become more and more prominent with age.
"If you were a man, you would have become a popular guy in a brothel."
Unfortunately, Irene was a girl, so no brothel would accept her. In a world where the ratio of male to female births is skewed, brothels are places where women go to have fun with men... or to obtain semen. Brothels are full of men with great hereditary magical powers and good looks, so for wealthy women who want superior offspring, they are a place where they can have fun and have an heir at the same time.
Incidentally, women without money and no chance of marriage end up in brothels. These could be described as very low-class brothels, where men are forced to have an erection through drugs and then take turns inserting themselves into the vaginas of the clients, forcing them to extract semen by force.
It is a miserable environment where sexually transmitted diseases proliferate, and it is said that the men forced to live there die within a few months. Of course, no one would voluntarily sell themselves into such a world of suffering; it was the fate of men kidnapped by bandits or bought cheaply in rural areas during famine.
— —
Let me explain!
This is basically a cheap sex service, similar to wall asses or lucky holes in our world!
In ours, it's little more than a niche fetish that's not even worth taking advantage of... but here, poor people would die out if they weren't forced to get pregnant this way!
Anyway, their libido is on par with any man in our world, so I don't care!
As women who exploit them, they feel sorry for them, but they also want to have children. They need successors, and if a boy is born, they can marry him off to a good family or sell him to a brothel and make a fortune. ...If they have too many girls, they can abandon them in an orphanage.
As the abandoned orphans grow up, the slums gradually expand.
However, not all children who grow up in slums end up poor: some show talent and obtain citizenship and decent jobs.
Irene, who became an adventurer, is one of them.
Adventurers are monster hunters, and their main task is to eliminate the monsters that appear in cities. If you trust your abilities, you can even take on powerful monsters. Expanding humanity's living space is an act of righteousness, and your dedication will be honored and rewarded.
It was hard physical work and required a high level of magical power and a certain level of knowledge to handle magic, both of which Irene possessed thanks to an old woman who took a liking to her and taught her some basics.
A dirty brat from the slums burst into the guild saying that he wanted to become an adventurer, and naturally, they almost excluded him.
However, a black-haired young man who happened to be there interrupted him and said, "Why not? It makes no sense to accept a mysterious stranger like me but reject a child who grew up in this town."
Nice.
Thanks to this, Irene was able to have her aptitude as an adventurer evaluated, and her high priority was recognized, leading to her being lent equipment as special assistance.
She joined a group with a shortage of front-line personnel and is now quickly proving herself to be a talented adventurer. The group that took her in was not exactly low-ranking; they simply had not been able to find new members after losing their front-line member in an accident, so they had the time and energy to carefully train this talented newcomer.
Things are definitely looking up. If they keep this up, the group will undoubtedly reach even higher levels.
But every time Irene drank, she cried because she didn't have enough strength.
The reason is that,
"At this rate, they'll take Yuji away from us! No way!"
"Hmm..." sighed the wizard, the leader of the group.
"Give up now, Irene. He's a man you can't have."
"No way! I have talent too! I'll make Euguene my maid and protect him from those guys!"
"You certainly have something to offer. With you, we could become a high-ranking group in the guild, and even hire a handsome butler for your mansion."
But Eugene's marriage will soon be decided, and by then you won't be able to save enough to hire her as a servant.
"Ehh~"
Irene was lying face down on the table with tears in her eyes. Her shoulder-length red hair was tied back in a ponytail and shaking violently. The other members of the group sipped their drinks as they watched her.
How many times have we had this conversation?
"It's been six months since she joined us, and it's been like this almost every night."
"Well, if you follow your crush and become an adventurer, the best members of the guild will compete with each other in a desperate battle for your crush. You won't be able to stand it."
Overall, their attitude is terrible. "It's okay to go after the boy you like, but why make fun of him? He definitely doesn't have a good impression of you."
Irene's shoulders slumped even further as her friends stabbed her with verbal knives.
"Because when I see Eugene's face, I don't know what to say..."
"You're just a brat."
"You're just a kid."
"It's common in adolescence."
"So don't call me a brat!"
After being dismissed by the bastards, Irene's eyes were filled with tears and her small shoulders were shaking.
Explain yourself!
In our world, he's a little boy who can't be honest with his older sister and says mean things to her!
He's a fickle guy, the kind who gets swept up in the plot when it comes to relationships between older women and younger men. Oops... looks like he's already fallen in love with her!
And why be my maid? If he had told her he liked her and asked her out, wouldn't his crush have been taken away from him in an instant?
— — —
It's not that I like you or anything. I just want to protect you from those lustful beasts, so I thought that making you my servant and keeping you by my side would be the easiest way to protect you...
As Irene fidgeted nervously and constantly rearranged herself, cracking her knuckles, the members of the group snorted.
"He said he wanted to protect her regardless of his sexual desire."
"You act like a bastard and you act like a haughty and powerful ~"
"It's common in adolescence."
"I mean it!"
When Irene's face turned red from drunkenness and embarrassment, the other members of the group shrugged in exasperation.
"Just admit it... it's possessiveness. It's an emotion that is 100% sexual desire."
"Come here too... you'll feel how everything gets better when you touch yourself with that sadness weighing on your chest..."
"It's so moving... yes, open more wounds in your heart. Let me see them... one by one."
"These adults are the worst!"
It was really the worst.
As adventurers, they are very kind people.