I Played the Role of a Hated Hero, but for Some Reason, I'm Loved by the Last Boss and Living W

Chapter 94.1

The Adventurers' Guild is Busy ◆ (Part 1)

Translated by AmaLynne

「Master! Peak is almost over, so it’s just us now~!」

Beatrice, who was boiling pasta in the kitchen, was approached by【Ann】, the head of the serving staff.

Peak is dinner time at noon. From noon to afternoon. It is during this time that customer traffic is at its highest at the coffee shop【Bear’s Claw】.

Dinner time at night does not exist in this coffee shop. During the day, the cafe is operated as a café for the general public, but at night it is a time of revelry for adventurers who have returned home after hard work.

The cafe is busy during the daytime hours as well, but in terms of the number of people they have to deal with, the daytime hours are by far the busiest.

But at night, there are『rare』troublesome situations, such as resolving disputes between adventurers, but the frequency of these is extremely less than in other places…

This is because of the existence of a strong stopper…deterrent force, to put it bluntly.

「Yes~♪ I’ll take a break right after all this…」

「No! When say again, the master tries to do that one too! Leave that to Billy and take a break! So, Billy! Take care of the rest, okay?」

「Oh, leave it to me!」

The young man called Billy gave a terse reply and approached the pot Beatrice was looking at to check inside. He turned around with a hunched back and raised his hand in a small gesture.

「I’m sorry, Billy-kun. Anne-chan is so strict~……」

「All I’m asking is that you get your act together! When rest, go rest! Master has a job as a guild master as well as a coffee shop!」

「Ye~s… I’ll take your word for it and go take a break. Anne-chan, Billy-kun, take care of the rest, okay~♪?」

「Yes, yes!　Please go quickly!」

「Oh, hey, Anne-chan! Don’t push me!」

Beatrice was shooed out of the kitchen by Anne, who pushed her back.

When Beatrice heard the door close behind her, she glanced back and gave a small grimace, removed the apron from her waist, and turned to walk to the guild master’s office.

As she walked down the passageway leading out of the kitchen, she saw a staircase on her right. Going up there, you will see another passageway extending to the left and right.

When you turn right and go straight ahead, you will see the door to the guild master’s office on the left.

「My, you two, what are you doing in front of the room?」

「Oh, sis! Are you taking a break now?」

「Yes, I am. Anne-chan kicked me out.」

As soon as she recognized Beatrice, a petite girl rushed toward her.

【Aurora Element】. She is Beatrice’s younger sister, as is clear from the fact that she called Beatrice sister.

Her flaxen hair was tied into two buns, and her large, round eyes were the same shade of yellow crystal citrine as Beatrice’s. Her face still has a slightly innocent look, and she appears to be in her late teens. She is short in stature. However, her chest is so large that it is not inferior to her older sister’s. To be honest, she is unbalanced. She was dressed quite revealingly.

However, this girl, despite her appearance, already has『B』rank as an adventurer and is the ace of her guild.

「Ahhh~. Anne-chan is pretty strict about that, isn’t she?」

「Aurora was also very angry with me when I snacked in the kitchen before.」

「No~! I’m not allowed to talk about that!」

While the two sisters were conversing amiably, another person standing in front of the door joined the conversation.

「Aurora, small talk is fine, but why don’t you get down to business?」

A light-weighted man with steeple-red hair calls out from behind Aurora, who is flirting with her sister.

【Lloyd Flavour】. Like Aurora, he is a skilled adventurer with【B】rank and contributes a lot to the guild. He is considerably taller than Beatrice, so much so that she lifts her head to look up at him. His eyes were sharp, the same steeple color as his hair, and he had a moderately well-defined face.

「Yes, it was. Sis, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I have a little something I need to put in your ear.」

「Fufu, that’s fine. Is it important that we’re here together?」

「No, it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s certainly not something to be too optimistic about.」

「Yes, it’s a little bit troublesome.」

「Oh, well…then, let’s not just stand around and talk, let’s go inside.」

Aurora and Lloyd’s expressions made Beatrice smile with lowered eyebrows, and she slipped between the two and opened the door leading to her room, and went inside.

The two followed her, and Beatrice sat down at the large office desk at the back of the room.

In the center of the room are two sets of couches flanked by a reception table, and Aurora and Lloyd sit on the couches on either side.

Beatrice looked at them, and Aurora opened her mouth to speak.

「You know that recently there have been adventurers from other guilds hanging out in town?」

「Yes, I know. The residents of the town have been asking us about it, right?」

「Yes, because all the children know my sister’s『scary』. They are well-behaved children who don’t do strange things in town.」

「Aurora-chan~? You’re not afraid of me, are you~?」

「T-That smile is scary~!」

Beatrice smiles with a shadow on her face and a「fufufu」smile.

She does not reign as the leader of the guild out of pride or arrogance. She has a personality and character that attracts the admiration of everyone around her, regardless of whether they are adventurers or not, and she basically treats everyone with open arms.

But that is not all. She is also the strongest adventurer in the guild. Her rank is, of course,『A』.

The guild has several『B』rank adventurers, including Aurora and Lloyd, and dozens of『C』and『D』ranks, the majority of whom are in the guild. There are around a hundred people in the guild, including newcomers such as『F』rank.

And Beatrice, even if she were to take on all of the guild’s adventurers, would be able to sink them all to the ground by herself, which should give you an idea of how fierce this seemingly calm woman is.

As mentioned earlier, the reason there are so few brawls between adventurers in the guild’s bars is that the guild master physically stops them.

Although she is generally of a gentle disposition, she is known to show no mercy to her colleagues who have harmed someone else, such as the destruction of the guild building… She is certainly a much-loved guild master, but she is also an object of fear and awe. She is indeed both adored and feared as a guild master.

From her point of view,「I’m just doing what I have to do you know~?,」But she is so merciless that she will disable an adventurer who gets out of line for a month or so, making Aurora say「Normally saint, but a devil when angry,」according to Aurora.

「Guild Master, I’m told that just the other day one of our recruits almost lost his life at one of their parties.」

「Yes, it was Roy and Priscilla. They were invited to a party, went out to gather medicinal herbs, and were left behind in front of a crowd of demons…」

「You know about that?」

「Yes. I heard it was a close call.」

「Yes, yes. And also I heard that there had a brawl with someone in the town because they forced himself on a girl.」

「Hmm…」

Beatrice puts her hand on her chin in contemplation, a melancholy expression on her face.

Most of the members who caused the commotion have been captured by the guards, but some of the runaways are still hiding out in the town.

「I heard that the knight who is now in Cid also participated in the suppression. They beat up the thugs almost by themself.」

「I feel like protesting that they don’t have enough awareness of their responsibility as the people in charge of the town’s security.」

「I don’t know how you feel, but if you say it’s our job to manage anything related to adventurers, I can’t argue with that. Even if it doesn’t belong to us…」

Beatrice chuckles and chides Lloyd. Lloyd, however, sniffs sullenly,「Hmph.」

「But what are you going to do about it, sister? It’s not good to leave it like this, is it?」

「That’s right……Ummm……」

Beatrice crosses her arms and ponders further. Right now, adventurers are working almost without a break every day to collect medicinal herbs, which are in short supply in the town, and to deal with the increasing number of demons around the town.

Furthermore, some of the more capable adventurers are investigating the traces of phantom beasts along with other adventurers who have come to the town.

Frankly, we are short on manpower.

Worst case scenario…I’ll have to work alone…she thought to herself…the guild is in bad shape.

If we leave it like this and the guild’s image, which has been recovering, goes downhill once again, it will be difficult for the guild to continue its activities. Simply put, it will likely lead to a decrease in requests from the public.

Right now, we are busy with work due to an emergency situation, but that will not last forever. If we were to look ahead, we didn’t want to make a bad impression on the guild here, and thus alienate the public’s trust in us.

「Guild Master. And one more thing. I heard that all the guards are searching for a certain man in town these days.」

「What?」

Lloyd brought up another subject to Beatrice, who had been thinking about solving her colleague’s problem.

「I honestly wondered if it was necessary to mention it, but I thought it would be bad if something happened and the guild master didn’t know about it. I’m sorry, but I’d like you to put it in the back of your mind as well.」

「No, thanks, Lloyd. So, do you have any details about the guy you’re looking for?」

「Yes, I do. I was able to get a description from a guard I know…」

Lloyd pulled out a description from his pocket and handed it to Beatrice.

She accepted it, saying,「Thank you.」

The person written on it made Beatrice’s movements freeze.

「This person is…」

「Sis, show me, show me!」

Aurora got up from the sofa, went around the office desk, and peeked at the portrait from behind her sister’s back.

「Umm…he doesn’t look very poofy. Lloyd, you’re definitely better looking!」

「Thanks for that…guild master? What’s wrong?」

「Eh, ah…uh…」

The two tilted their heads at the flustered-looking guild master.

But Beatrice could not take her gaze off the portrait writer, even with the「what’s wrong?」questioning glances, and she could not help but wonder why. The only question that arose was,「Why him?」

The person listed in the description…was a rookie adventurer whom she had just met in a coffee shop a few minutes ago.

She had no doubt that it was【Alexei】.