After resting to recover their strength, the group returned to Valencia Village.
They informed the village chief that the slimes had been cleared out and showed him the fresh Slime Gel. After resting at the inn for a while at midday, they set off that afternoon, leaving the somewhat run-down little village behind.
"There really aren't many people in this village."
"Yeah. Apart from a few outsiders like us at the tavern and inn, you hardly see any locals anywhere else."
"These days, young people all like to try their luck in the big towns. Give it a few more years, and this village might be completely abandoned. I've seen signs of that happening in a lot of villages."
"But the village where my family lives is pretty lively."
"Then why'd you leave?"
"You're no fun to talk to."
"Sigh. No wonder there've been more and more requests lately."
On the way back, Leven and the others chatted among themselves.
Gauss didn't have much to add. He hadn't been an adventurer for long, so he just listened quietly.
"By the way, Gauss. What were you before you became an adventurer?" Doyle turned to look at Gauss, who was walking silently beside him.
He had brought the conversation around to Gauss.
The others also glanced casually at Gauss, who was in the middle of the group. They had the same question on their minds.
Come to think of it, although this was the second job the group had taken on together, Gauss's identity still seemed shrouded in mystery to them.
All they'd heard him say was that he was a rookie adventurer.
Before temporarily teaming up with them, he'd only ever taken on one job.
And it seemed that hadn't gone very well. After the job ended, the party had split up and gone their separate ways. Everyone except Gauss had gone to Barry for treatment.
If that was all there was to his history, then he didn't seem much different from all the other rookie adventurers who'd hit a rough patch as soon as they set out on their own.
But Gauss clearly wasn't an ordinary rookie.
By rights, an adventurer with so little experience shouldn't have been as "powerful" as Gauss.
The more they compared his experience with their own, the more they felt there was something unusual about him.
At this point, they simply couldn't keep their curiosity in check.
"Of course, you don't have to tell us if you'd rather not."
Knee-high weeds lined both sides of the road they walked.
The wind swept across the plain with a rustle, sending waves through the grass with a soft swishing sound.
Gauss smoothed down the strands of hair the wind had blown out of place and shook his head.
"There's nothing I can't talk about."
He didn't think there was anything worth dwelling on about his life before he became an "adventurer."
As far as he could remember, he'd spent more than a decade as a peasant boy in the mountains, going barefoot through the fields to catch rats, fishing in the river, and setting snares for rabbits and pheasants.
If his former self hadn't refused the marriage his parents arranged for him and resolutely left to seek his fortune just before coming of age, he'd probably still be tucked away in some mountain ravine, living from sunrise to sunset with an ordinary-looking farmwoman with broad hips.
Still, though Gauss thought there wasn't much to tell, his teammates were clearly curious.
And since it wasn't some shameful past he needed to hide, he didn't keep it from them. He simply picked out a few things and gave them a brief account.
"..."
"After I left, I lived on my own. As for magic, I learned it through a chance encounter."
As soon as Gauss finished speaking, the other members of the party looked at one another, their expressions complicated.
The answer Gauss gave was clearly nothing like what they'd expected.
They'd actually discussed and speculated about his background in private.
They'd thought he might be the child of a noble family. Since he didn't seem to have much money, perhaps he was an illegitimate child. Or maybe he was the descendant or apprentice of some Mage.
They hadn't expected any of those guesses to be right. Just a year ago, he'd been an utterly ordinary farm boy.
"So you reached your current level in just a year?" Leven realized there was something unusual about the timeline Gauss had mentioned and asked in surprise.
It had actually only been about half a month.
That was what Gauss thought, though he didn't let it show on his face.
After a brief pause, he nodded.
As far as he was concerned, reaching his current level over the course of a year wasn't all that extraordinary.
Hadn't Gron, the owner of the Blacksmith Shop, said that it normally took ordinary people anywhere from one or two years to several decades to become a professional?
If some people could become professionals in a year, then the fact that Gauss hadn't become one yet wasn't an especially outrageous pace.
"A year? Maybe you really are a genius," Doyle sighed.
The faint urge to challenge Gauss, which had taken root in his heart over the past few days, suddenly vanished without a trace.
He knew that someone like Gauss was certain to set foot on the path to becoming a professional.
The only question was how long it would take.
Maybe in a few years, on some ordinary evening, the two of them would happen to meet in a tavern in an unfamiliar town—and by then, Gauss would already be a Mage of lofty status.
Meanwhile, Doyle might still be struggling as an apprentice.
The others fell silent as well.
Leven realized that the odds of getting Gauss to officially join the party were growing slimmer by the day.
He sighed inwardly, then tried to console himself.
It was still a good thing if they could team up a few more times.
At least with someone like Gauss, who was exceptionally powerful among low-level adventurers, the party would be that much safer.
Gauss glanced at the party, which had abruptly fallen quiet.
He couldn't help feeling that he'd done something to deal them a serious blow.
But that was only because he didn't know much about their circumstances.
Though they were all young, Gauss was undoubtedly the youngest among them.
The oldest members of the party, Leven and Oliver, were both nearing thirty.
Even if they'd started out as adventurers at twenty, that still meant nearly ten years of struggle.
The others had also spent at least two or three years as adventurers.
And compared with professions like Warrior and Ranger, the bar for getting into a spellcasting profession was obviously much higher.
Yet now, the younger Gauss had already pulled far ahead of them in the more difficult field of magic—and he was still growing at a pace they could see with their own eyes.
They couldn't help feeling a profound sense of helplessness.
Sometimes, the gap between people was greater than the gap between people and dogs.
The rest of the journey passed in silence.
Just as they were about to reach Grayrock Town, the clear sky suddenly filled with dark clouds.
Howling winds drove raindrops the size of beans straight into their faces.
The rain soaked the dirt road, which had been relatively smooth until then, leaving it pitted with puddles. Raindrops struck the ground, splashing filthy water everywhere.
The storm had come so suddenly that they couldn't find a suitable place to take shelter.
And since Grayrock Town wasn't far away, they had no choice but to pick up the pace.
They pressed on through the downpour, pulling their cloaks tight and trudging along in their boots.
Whenever they came across a flatbed cart stuck in a puddle, they had to push it from behind.
By the time the party finally made it back to Grayrock Town, it was already late at night.
The drenched group didn't even bother going to the Adventurer's Guild hall to turn in the job.
They agreed to meet outside the hall first thing the next morning, then went their separate ways.
Gauss hurried back to the inn and looked up at the sky, where lightning still flashed and thunder rumbled.
He couldn't help sighing.
The weather really changed faster than the turn of a page. Not long ago, the sky had been clear; now, rain was pouring down in sheets.
Luckily, they'd brought a rain tarp, so none of the supplies on the flatbed cart had gotten wet. That was at least one bit of good news.
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