"I was punched, so I fought back to defend myself. This is self-defense."

"Whatever the reason, you punched Papico. That's a fact, right?"

"But he punched me first! Is that okay?"

"Even if you say that, I only saw you punch Papico..."

Ash looked at the surrounding adventurers.

"What's the story here? Is what this boy says true?"

"It's true, Papico picked on the boy and suddenly punched him."

A man who had been trying to stop Papico before spoke up. He was an adventurer named Cairo.

"Well, it's Papico, so I can imagine..."

"I'm Ash, I'm the instructor for new adventurer training. Are you a newcomer? I haven't seen you around."

"Ryujeen. I just registered."

"A newbie beat Papico up? Papico's an E-rank adventurer in this town, he should have some skills."

"I'm an experienced adventurer. I'm re-registering."

"I see, so Papico attacked you without judging your strength... But Ryujeen, violence is prohibited within the guild. Papico is wrong, but you're also wrong."

"So what should I have done?"

"Even if you're experienced, you're still a newbie in this town, so you have to be careful not to anger your seniors."

"What if you're being picked on unjustly?"

"Seniors would never do that, would they?"

"It just happened."

Ash looked a bit embarrassed as several adventurers around them nodded.

"Well...if it looked like things were going to get out of hand, you could've called a guild staff member to deal with it."

"I was getting punched in the face, and this town's instructor just walked past without saying anything."

"What? Instructor?"

"Iraira the instructor."

Ash covered his face, groaning.

"Iraira, what are you doing..."

"So it's okay then? I thought this guild didn't care about squabbles between adventurers, so I just solved it myself."

"Ash, did you tell Iraira?"

"I did, but..."

Cairo spoke to Ryu.

"The truth is, this town's newcomer training is notoriously difficult. Few people graduate, and there aren't many new adventurers joining. And the main culprit is Iraira, the head of the instructor's training program."

The surrounding adventurers chimed in.

"You have to be incredibly skilled for Iraira to let you graduate."

"And even after you struggle through training, you're only an F rank. You can't enter the dungeons, you're only allowed to gather herbs near the city. You have to take another test to become E rank to enter dungeons."

"Finally, you become E rank and can enter dungeons, but then you're just given goblin extermination requests that spill over from the dungeons, non-stop. You can't even take a break, you don't make any money at all."

"Adventuring is dangerous work. You can't expect to make easy money."

"I heard from a childhood friend who came back to visit. In other towns, you can easily register as an adventurer, go into dungeons right away, and make tons of money."

"It's true that you can easily register in other towns, but they don't teach you anything. I think having a proper training system is good. This town's dungeons are very difficult, you understand that, right?"

"Why make the initial training so strict when you're just going to make us gather herbs near the city anyway? What do you think, Ash?"

"I've told her, but she won't listen...I'll try to talk to her again. ...It's true that many newbies get killed by monsters in other towns. So isn't it better to take training? If you can survive training, you'll be able to survive as an adventurer later on. No one has died in this town since training started, right?"

"If newbies quit before they can grow strong due to the Demon Instructor's training, then it defeats the purpose. Only the exceptionally talented remain, so of course they'll survive."

"Normally, those goblin extermination requests that spill over from dungeons are for new adventurers. They're making senior adventurers do it, so they can't spend time in the dungeons, which is completely pointless."

"Well...this town's dungeons are high-risk dungeons where high-rank monsters frequently appear. The monsters that come out are dangerous and F-rank adventurers might not be able to handle them."

"But the fact that monsters are spilling over means the dungeon culling isn't keeping up. Everyone is saying a stampede could happen soon..."

"The problem is, there's a lack of adventurers."

"We'll have to bring in experienced adventurers from other towns. But those who dropped out of training here went to other towns to become adventurers, so now this town has a bad reputation and few adventurers are willing to come here. It's a vicious cycle."

Cairo turned to Ryu.

"You, Ryujeen, right? You're experienced and you have that kind of skill, you're a valuable asset. Why don't you just re-register in another town?"

"No, I'm going to take the training. It's fine, I'll just pass normally, right?"

"Yeah, if you have the skills, you'll graduate quickly, yeah."

"It'd be nice if they actually assessed our skills fairly..."

"Iraira seems to be a pragmatist on the surface...but if she gets annoyed, she won't let you graduate, no matter how skilled you are. Newbies who get that treatment usually give up and go to other towns."

"I'll talk to the guildmaster again about it. It's unfair for Iraira to make the final decision on her own."

Ash said that and walked into the back room behind the counter. It must be the guildmaster's office.

The situation was left unresolved, and they disbanded.

Papico was treated by his companions in a corner of the tavern and left quietly.

The next day, training finally began.

Surprisingly, there were fourteen trainees. Including Ryu, there were six newbies. He'd thought there would be fewer, given the stories about high drop-out rates, but it seemed that wasn't the case.

Standing before the gathered trainees was a middle-aged woman with a voluptuous figure. It was Iraira, the head of the training instructors.

Training started with Iraira's speech.

"I'm Iraira, your instructor. Former S-rank adventurer."

The newbies gasped when they heard S-rank, but Ryu was more interested in the use of "ore" (I) as the first-person pronoun.

For example, in English, "ore," "atashi," and "boku" all become "I." But the language in this world was similar to Japanese, and there were many different first-person pronouns.

And in this world, it was common for women to use masculine first-person pronouns. People in this world didn't seem to mind, but Ryu, with his strong memories of living in Japan, found it subtly off-putting.

The "ore" woman continued her speech.

"Some of you have probably heard the rumors, but this training is tough. Many will drop out. But you won't be able to work as an adventurer in this town if you don't graduate from this training. If you want to be an adventurer, you have to graduate. But I won't accept anyone with mediocre skills. I'll be the one to decide if you graduate. You won't graduate unless I say so! Keep that in mind."

The newbie trainees looked bewildered.

Next Episode

Will Ryu's attitude provoke Iraira's wrath?

Stay tuned!