Ever since the world mission had been triggered, Ren Kuroda returned to the Adventurers' Guild again the very next day.
The world mission came with two prerequisite conditions. The first—becoming the strongest adventurer in Axel—had already been completed without Ren even realizing it.
The real headache was the second condition: defeating a Demon King Army general.
This world also had a Demon King, though no one knew how strong he truly was—after all, no one had ever seen him in person. Even so, the Demon King Army alone, merely through its generals, had already beaten the kingdom to the brink of collapse. Their terrifying power was obvious.
Ren's purpose for coming to the guild this time was simple: to gather information about the Demon King Army generals.
The Adventurers' Guild wasn't just a place to accept and issue quests—it also served as an information hub.
Every major city had its own guild, and through special means, these guilds maintained constant communication. Whenever something significant happened in another city, the guilds usually knew about it immediately.
Even for secrets the guild itself didn't know, adventurers could issue information-gathering quests, allowing others who knew the truth to step forward and complete them.
Of course, obtaining information from the guild required payment. After all, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
"Luna, could you help me organize any intelligence regarding the Demon King Army's recent movements?" Ren said calmly."If possible, I'd also like the confirmed locations of any Demon King Army generals.If there isn't any concrete information, then please issue a quest for it—and distribute that quest to the Adventurers' Guilds in other cities as well.As for the fee, use the rewards and monster materials from the quests I completed yesterday. That should be more than enough."
Although Ren had been in this world for over a month, he had only ever heard of the Demon King Army in passing. Forget generals—he hadn't even encountered a single low-ranking foot soldier.
That likely had something to do with Axel being a frontier town. The Demon King Army's reach simply hadn't extended this far.
It was also precisely for this reason that many high-level adventurers had chosen Axel as a place to retire.
Ideally, Ren would have preferred to gather information about the Demon King Army generals on his own. But he wasn't familiar enough with this world—and more importantly, he didn't know when the Mobile Fortress Destroyer would arrive in Axel.
What if he left town, only for the fortress to attack while he was gone?
After careful consideration, Ren concluded that relying on the Adventurers' Guild to collect intelligence—and then moving swiftly once a target was confirmed—was the safest approach.
"There is some recent intelligence regarding Demon King Army activity," Luna replied. "And issuing a quest won't be a problem either.But before that… Ren, you'll need to pay some information fees and quest processing charges…"
She looked at him with a conflicted, sympathetic expression as she spoke hesitantly.
Ren, on the other hand, froze completely upon hearing her words. He stared at Luna in confusion.
"If I remember correctly," he said slowly, "I haven't received the rewards from the quests I completed yesterday—or the monster materials I submitted.That was a huge amount of money. Enough to buy a house in Axel, even.So… did information suddenly get more expensive, or is the quest I'm issuing that difficult?"
Ren always accepted multiple quests at once to save time, completing them in batches. Yesterday alone, he hadn't finished just one or two quests—he'd cleared several days' worth of work in one go.
And all of those quests had been high-difficulty ones, with correspondingly outrageous rewards.
Combined with the monster materials he turned in, the total amount of Eris was so absurd that—without exaggeration—it exceeded what an entire adventurer party might earn in a year.
And now Luna was telling him that even that wasn't enough to cover information fees and a quest posting?
"N-no, no," Luna hurriedly waved her hands."With the rewards from the quests you completed yesterday, paying for information and posting a quest would be more than sufficient.But… that money has already been spent. Completely. And, um… please take a look at this."
Ren was already dazed, but Luna's words left him even more stunned.
Yesterday, after submitting his quests at the guild, he hadn't gone out at all. How could he possibly have spent that money?
But the moment he looked at the itemized expense list Luna handed him, thick black lines immediately appeared across his forehead—and everything became clear.
Especially when Luna added that not only had all of Ren's deposited rewards been spent, but he now owed the guild a massive additional sum.
The black lines on Ren's forehead quickly evolved into bulging veins.
The debt slip Luna showed him was written clearly—and at the bottom was the unmistakable signature of a certain very famous goddess.
The culprit couldn't have been more obvious.
—
Yesterday, after Kazuma Satou and Aqua completed their adventurer registration, the overconfident duo immediately accepted a monster-subjugation quest.
But when they finally came face-to-face with their target—the giant frogs—they realized something horrifying.
These were not frogs as they had imagined them.
Ever seen a frog the size of a small hill?
That was what a "giant frog" actually looked like. And to make matters worse, these creatures had a peculiar hobby: chewing on goddesses.
Kazuma, a level-one newbie adventurer who had been a shut-in NEET before being summoned, stood absolutely no chance against them.
As for Aqua, while her class was the rare Arch Priest, that class specialized in purification, exorcism, and support-type abilities.
The only offensive spells she could use were water-element spells.
And honestly—had anyone ever seen a frog that was afraid of water?
In short, the moment they saw the giant frogs, the pair's confidence completely collapsed.
In the end, by using a certain brainless goddess as bait, Kazuma somehow managed to defeat two giant frogs, earning their first-ever reward from Luna.
But the money didn't even have time to cool in their hands before the two of them stuffed their faces and drank themselves silly, burning through it instantly.
During this time, Aqua loudly complained that as a goddess, being forced to eat bread as hard as stone and drink flavorless wheat beer was completely unacceptable—and that all of this was Kazuma's fault for being such a useless human.
Kazuma, being a modern person, naturally found the food borderline inedible as well. Unfortunately, Luna informed them that the reward from subjugating giant frogs was only enough to afford exactly that.
Worse still, even after finishing every last crumb, they found themselves just as hungry as before.
And thus, the useless duo came up with a new idea: running a tab.
Kazuma initially assumed that as unknown, powerless adventurers, there was no way the guild would allow them to buy on credit.
But to their shock, when Luna heard that Aqua and Kazuma still hadn't eaten their fill and wanted to put food on credit, she smiled and said it wouldn't be a problem at all.
Because before leaving, Ren Kuroda had mentioned that all of his friends' expenses for the day should be put on his tab.
What Ren had meant was that the registration fees for Kazuma and Aqua should be charged to him.
But Luna, hearing that they were Ren's friends, felt it would be too pitiful if they couldn't even eat their fill.
And considering the enormous amount of Eris Ren had earned, she believed treating them to a decent meal wouldn't matter in the slightest.
What Luna failed to realize was just how catastrophic that single sentence would become—especially when dealing with two individuals whose shamelessness was thicker than castle walls.
The moment Aqua and Kazuma exchanged glowing looks, Kazuma quietly pulled out the black bread he had been saving for dinner, stared at it with disgust, and tossed it aside.
Right in front of Luna's stunned gaze, the two human disasters entered full binge-ordering mode.
They ordered whatever was expensive. If it wasn't the most expensive item on the menu, they didn't want it.
Courtesy? That concept did not exist.
Drunk on reckless spending, Aqua even pounded her chest proudly and declared that all expenses at the Adventurers' Guild today would be covered by Aqua the Goddess.
Anyone who lived in Axel long enough knew exactly what its adventurers were like.
Operating on the principle that "not taking advantage of free food makes you an idiot," Axel's adventurers began calling friends over in droves. Opportunities to eat and drink for free didn't come around often.
As for Luna—who had known nothing about Aqua and Kazuma beforehand—she was completely dumbfounded. This situation had never even crossed her mind.
No—no one could have imagined that a blue-haired beauty who called herself a goddess could be this utterly shameless.
As the situation spiraled out of control, Luna finally stepped in and announced that the guild had run out of beer and food supplies, barely managing to stop Ren's tab from growing even larger.
And the two masterminds behind the chaos, right in front of Luna's disbelieving eyes, calmly packed up massive amounts of leftover food—
—and left without a shred of guilt.
This was precisely why Luna had been so hesitant when she saw Ren earlier.
If she hadn't acted on her moment of sympathy, Ren wouldn't have ended up drowning in debt like this.
"I'm really sorry, Ren," Luna said apologetically."I've already taken out all of my personal savings from my years as a receptionist, but it's still not enough to cover the loss.Not only was all the Eris you left here spent, you've also been saddled with a huge debt… I'm truly sorry. I promise I'll find a way to repay you."