Adventurers, A complex, contradictory group drifting outside the mainstream structure of society.
They hunted monsters in exchange for gold coins, kept fields and villages free from disaster, gave many people who should have starved to death in alleyways and on street corners another mouthful of food, and the enormous profits nourished countless upstream and downstream industries built around them as their core support.
At the same time, however, the relatively low threshold for entering the trade, along with individual might far surpassing that of ordinary people, made this group a mixed bag.
Snatching food, harassing women, plundering villages, and fighting to the death over the slightest disagreement were all common occurrences.
They were an unstable factor in society, a potential source of danger.
For those noble lords living in towering castles, they needed adventurers to handle certain "dirty work" that they, with their noble bloodlines, could not and disdained to do, yet they also regarded these armed people who carried weapons and did not belong to any fief as a threat.
As for the farmers working in the fields, they might fear that adventurers passing by would wantonly rob their villages and ruin their peaceful farming lives, but when monsters attacked, they had no choice but to beg adventurers in despair for help, even if it meant paying an exorbitant price.
Different positions and different perspectives led to enormous differences in how this group was viewed.
Even so, over countless years, certain stereotypes—or rather, "common traits"—had been summed up regarding adventurers, especially those at the bottom.
In truth, it came down to just two words:
Desire.
From the humblest longing for survival: "to live," "not to go hungry," "not to freeze"; to dreams of leaping between classes: "becoming a lord," "buying land," "becoming a sheriff"...
From instinctive, immediate indulgence of