7 - Chapter 3: The Three Idiots are Zombies
Works with vomit-girls are always masterpieces.
Carla, a receptionist at the Imperial Capital's Adventurer's Guild, took a deep breath and stretched after finishing the morning's request intake. Her chest armor, which bore the intense gazes of the adventurers, swayed. The eyes of the adventurers preparing for departure shifted up and down as they witnessed this.
There are a fair number of female adventurers, but because they do rough work, the adventurer industry is full of strong-willed women. Since they sometimes share life and death, friendship often grows before affection, meaning a sense of camaraderie develops first and they often fail to reach romantic feelings. Aside from that, the person they interact with most is the guild receptionist. Moreover, if the receptionist is of marriageable age and has an attractive appearance, fans are bound to emerge.
Carla, who turns 18 this year, is in her third year of employment. She is no longer at an age where she can be called a rookie, and she can be considered a mainstay in the guild's clerical work. She is used to the job, and her life is stable. Her current worry is that she is approaching the middle of her marriageable age, so she wants a boyfriend.
Since she is a commoner, she didn't have a fiancé in childhood and didn't have the rush of marrying immediately upon turning 15, but in another two years, people will start telling her it's about time, and once she passes 22, they will start whispering that she's past her prime. Once she passes 25, the label will be completely applied. It's faster than the Christmas cake theory from the bubble era, so the difference in environment is truly terrifying.
However, there is an aspect of it that cannot be helped.
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth... the one who said that wasn't a person of this world, but this is a world where death is close at hand. There are external enemies in the form of monsters, there are wars depending on the location, and since medical care is at a medieval level, people die from minor injuries or illnesses. That is why the instinct to leave descendants while young and healthy existed. The feeling is different from the modern era, where everything, whether people, things, or technology, is overflowing.
Therefore, while she isn't panicking, Carla is also looking for a partner. While thinking that she'd prefer not to have an adventurer who might die at any moment, she currently has no encounters outside of work, and she has reached this point without being able to take action due to the daily busyness. Since there are occasionally nobility-related people among the clients, she wonders today if she can aim for a wealthy marriage, when...
"E, excuse... me..................."
"Adventurer, registration..."
"Please, do it-orororororo..."
"Hie..."
A horde of zombies appeared across the counter.
Carla almost let out a scream, but looking closely, they weren't zombies. They drifted with a gloominess like ghosts and a unique stench, but they were properly human. The source of the gloominess was their gaunt faces, and what drifted was not the smell of rot, but the smell of alcohol and gastric juice. Each held a bucket in their hand, and occasionally, unable to bear it, they performed rainbow water-spraying operations.
They were the Three Idiots, Geoglyph, Marianne, and Later.
As a result of the tension of reunion and the alcohol liberation event upon becoming adults in this world combining to make them go wild, they drank heavily until midnight and collapsed. Well, that can be their own responsibility, but no matter how much of a heavy drinker they were in their previous lives, the physical body itself is different in this life. Moreover, it is not a liver trained by years of nomunication (T/N: a portmanteau of 'nomu' (drink) and 'communication', referring to Japanese corporate drinking culture), but clean, pristine internal organs.
Naturally, the decomposition ability is an unknown.
This current situation is the result of running through the alcohol limit without realizing that.
"Uerp..."
"I, I feel sick..."
"Ah... no good... I'm gonna puke-orororororo..."
To put it simply, they have hangovers.
"U, um... if you aren't feeling well, why don't you go home for a bit...?"
Timidly, Carla, thinking that she wanted them to leave before the contents of those buckets overflowed because they smelled, made a relatively merciless suggestion.
"Y, yes... as expected, today, we'll leave once we've just registered..."
"That is why... I said we should do it after the alcohol has cleared..."
"I, I thought if I moved and sweated, it would clear out..."
It is a kind of annual event common among new adults, but Carla, who is caught up in it, cannot stand it.
"U, um, then I will give you the registration forms, so please fill in your name, age, the address you use as a base, and the techniques you are proficient in. Do you need someone to write for you?"
"Ah, we're good..."
The Three Idiots, who were so cornered they couldn't even maintain their characters, gripped the quill pens with trembling hands.
"Kuh... be still, my right hand...!"
"A, at this rate, I will join the ranks of the vomit-girls...!"
"I, who was called the greatest Bacchus of the Tokaido, am pathetic...!"
Even when cornered, the Three Idiots surprisingly retained their personalities. Once they somehow finished writing the necessary information, Carla explained the Adventurer's Guild system, the support they could receive, and the ranks. However, for the Three Idiots, whose heads were being hammered by the pulsation of blood, it was information that didn't enter at all.
"Do you have a letter of introduction? If you do, you can take a simple practical exam. Based on those results and considering your abilities, you can start from Bronze."
"Ah... that, my master..."
Later took a sealed envelope from his pocket. Carla received it.
"Then, only Later-sama, but can you take the exam?"
"Eh? Is it no good for the three of us...?"
"Yes, it is one introduction per sheet. Geoglyph-sama and Marianne-sama..."
"We don't have them..."
"We do not have them..."
"Therefore, it will be only Later-sama."
To this, Later went silent for a while as if thinking "I see," then had the envelope returned to him by Carla.
"Then, never mind... we decided to be adventurers as a trio..."
"Late... you don't have to hold back-orororororo..."
"That is right... leave this to us and go ahead-orororororo..."
"You idiots...! We're comrades, right? That's why when we register, when we rank up, and when we puke, we do it together-orororororo...!"
I don't care about that little play, so can't you drunks just go home quickly, you smell like vomit, Carla thought, applying pressure with half-closed eyes. Noticing this, the Three Idiots made themselves small.
"For now, we'll go home today..."
"Yes, please do that."
Thus, the zombies left the Adventurer's Guild while spilling a bit of the contents of their buckets.
Furthermore, perhaps because they smelled too much, the template event of veteran adventurers messing with rookies did not occur.
To be continued tomorrow.