Letty suddenly declared, "Well then, let's decide by majority vote whether Master should join our party!"
I had no clue why she insisted on calling me "Master." I'd told her to stop multiple times, but she never listened, so I eventually just gave up and let it go.
"I don't really mind," Lina said with a nod, turning her snake-like eyes toward me. "I'm just a bit worried about something. I've got no worries at all, so don't sweat it."
"...Either way works," the last one, Eve, muttered in a complete daze.
"If 'either way' means you're okay with it, that's a yes!" Letty exclaimed. "Three to one—we're dragging you in!"
"Hold up, don't decide for me!" I shot back. "I never agreed to a vote, and 'either way' clearly means I don't want in. Case closed!"
I rattled off my excuses at lightning speed and tried bolting from the trio, but Lina snagged me by the collar, and my escape failed miserably. Someone, please save me.
"Hmm, I'm sure Eve wants you in too!" Letty insisted. "Look at her face, she's totally begging for it!"
"Her face is blank!" I yelled. "She look like she's done with this chaos and just want to go home!"
"It won't cost you anything, so join already!" Letty countered.
"It'll eat into my precious slacking time!" I shouted.
Letty and I kept yelling back and forth like that. Luckily, the client hadn't shown up yet, so our embarrassment stayed contained within the group. The other adventurers in the room were staring, though, which made me incredibly uncomfortable.
"Hehe, Master's so stubborn!" Letty giggled. "Fine, we'll let Eve decide..." Letty takes a brief pause. "Hmm, yeah, Eve agrees... She really wants you to join!!"
"Liar!" I cried. "She hasn't opened her mouth once! You don't want a D-rank with these dead eyes dragging you down, right?"
I desperately hyped up my own uselessness in a last-ditch effort. Saying it all out loud just made me feel depressed. What am I even doing with my life?
"...I said it doesn't matter...!!" Eve suddenly snapped, then stormed off with quick steps. She seemed a little annoyed; maybe I'd pushed too hard.
"...Don't worry about her," Lina said calmly. "She's always like that."
"O-Oh, got it," I replied.
"When I joined this party," Lina continued with a wry chuckle, "I flat-out said, 'I have zero interest in getting close to you all—I'm here for one goal only.' ...Well, it's still the same for me, I guess."
Both Lina and Eve clearly had some heavy baggage from their pasts. Letty was the only carefree one, with her brain seemingly on permanent vacation.
"Maybe she was just hungry...?" Letty blurted out, completely missing the point as usual. This girl seriously thinks about nothing.
The whole situation was such a hassle. I screamed internally for the client to hurry up and arrive already.
"--Hero! It's been too long!" a booming man's voice suddenly echoed through the room. "I'm Cain Stolz, B-rank adventurer! Never expected to run into you here... This is fate! You and I, and you're a noble like me. We are destined to be bound!"
The man, Cain, could be described in one word: "gentleman." He had flowing, perfectly groomed blond hair and wore ornate, pricey gear overloaded with decorations. No way that stuff was practical for actual adventuring.
...I couldn't picture him having the real skills to back up a B-rank title.
Some nobles hired high-rank adventurers to artificially boost their own ranks, creating that fake "momentum." This guy was a textbook example, his rank bought with cash.
Cain shoved me aside without a second thought and planted himself right in front of Letty, spewing a torrent of flowery compliments. She looked young for her age, but hey, tastes vary.
Letty didn't seem thrilled by the praise... more like she was thinking, "Who the hell is this guy?" Come on, girl, remember him.
"Even so... something's been bugging me for a while," Cain said, turning to me with a condescending glare.
"Why's D-rank trash mixed in here?" he asked bluntly.
The entire room went dead silent at his words.
Cain looked genuinely baffled, as if a D-rank's presence on this quest was utterly incomprehensible to him. It must have felt like too heavy a burden for his delicate sensibilities.
"It's no big deal," I answered honestly. "I just took the request...?"
"Haa... That's not the point," Cain sighed dramatically. "I'm the third son of House Stolz. Let me dumb it down for trash like you: Why's a mismatched D-rank guarding a C-B escort gig? Get it?"
His eyes dripped with pure contempt.
"Sure, the road to Ettal's tough for D-ranks," I admitted. "But it didn't say 'no D-ranks allowed,' right?"
The paths to Ettal were infested with C-to-B level monsters. Cain was basically calling anyone two tiers below, aka D-ranks like me dead weight.
He responded with a loud, annoyed tsk.
"You're just sucking up to nobles or scavenging scraps from real adventurers, huh?" he sneered. "God, I hate low-rank scum."
His face twisted into an ugly grimace as the insults kept pouring out.
"You want cash, right?" He said mockingly. "Here, fetch."
With that, he tossed 10 gold coins onto the floor like they were garbage. Murmurs instantly rippled through the crowd of watching adventurers.
"--! This--" Letty started, her face flushing with anger.
"Letty, wait," I said, holding her back with a raised hand.
As expected, she'd hit her limit and was about to lunge at him, but I stopped her just in time.
"Pick 'em up and quit the quest," Cain demanded. "D-ranks are useless. Stick to herb-picking, loser."
For me, this was perfect: easy money with zero effort, plus a clean escape from Letty's clingy party.
But I didn't touch a single coin.
"What's wrong, trash?" Cain taunted. "Hurry up... Oh, want more? Fine."
He threw down another 10 coins, glaring at me like I was a disgusting bug.
"...Low-ranks are pure garbage," he muttered. "The guild should purge the dead weight already. Guess I'll have to reform the system myself..."
He shrugged theatrically, pretending to lament the guild's sorry state.
"Yeah, I do want money," I admitted flatly.
"...Master?" Letty whispered, her eyes trembling with worry, as if my words had betrayed everything she believed about me.
...Sorry, Letty, but I'm not the hero you think I am. I crave cash and lazy days, I'm just a total slacker.
"I'm no hero," I continued. "Just a bum. You're not wrong."
"Obviously--" Cain started to interrupt.
"I might be human trash," I cut him off. "But... low-rank adventurers? They're NOT garbage!"
He could trash-talk me all he wanted, that was fine. But dragging every low-rank adventurer into the mud? No way I could let that slide.
I knew the truth from experience.
There were old-timers who knew more about herbs than anyone else.
Monster experts with disassembly skills that bordered on magic.
Young kids who tackled the nasty jobs no one wanted; like sewer cleanups, just to protect the city.
Low-ranks got shunned by townsfolk for their rough attitudes, sure. But high-ranks had plenty of jerks too.
Yet even at the bottom, there were people grinding honestly, bursting with pride, and working their asses off for everyone's sake.
"...Trash talk is still trash," Cain dismissed coldly. "Pick it up and scram."
"...Fine," I said. "Wallet's empty anyway. I'll take it."
I bent down and started gathering the scattered coins. Cain's face lit up with a sadistic grin.
Letty watched me anxiously, her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to scream something but couldn't find the words. ...Just watch, Letty.
"One, two... Wow, 20 in total," I counted aloud. "Thanks a bunch."
"Heh, just sharing with trash, how noble I am," Cain sneered, beaming with delight.
"You picked 'em up now get--" he began.
But before he could finish, I dumped every last coin right back onto the ground with a satisfying clatter.
"...Changed my mind," I said casually. "You need this more than I do, right? No choice, take it back."
"What?" Cain sputtered. "I'm House Stolz's third son. I don't need pocket change--"
"You do," I interrupted, taking a deep breath.
"The third son who'll never inherit a thing, buying his B-rank with daddy's gold. Use this for tea and snacks, you could suck up to the client real good, 'sir'?"
Cain's jaw dropped in shock. A few seconds later, his face turned beet-red. He let out a bizarre screech, yanked his ornate sword from its sheath, and charged straight at me.
I sighed deeply and rested my hand on my own hilt.
The instant his blade swung down toward my head--
"--Quiet down!"
A clear, beautiful girl's voice rang out, cutting through the chaos like a bell.