An Adventurer’s Side Job

The day after I had partied with Gonz and the others, I took it easy and rested. The next day, I headed back into the forest.

I had planned to stay quiet until things blew over, but it seemed like no matter how much time passed, the situation wasn’t going to calm down.

There was no point in staying cooped up in the inn. If trouble couldn’t be avoided, I had to become strong enough to handle it when it came.

I took on a simple gathering request and continued my training in the forest.

Even today, at the guild’s tavern, adventurers were drinking and partying loudly from early in the day. They didn’t seem to be working much, living pretty good lives.

Adventurers earn more money than regular people, but even so, making enough to drink all day long is not something you can do easily, even as an adventurer.

Unlike the Gonz party, which is said to be the strongest in Rock Cliff, most other adventurers don’t make that much money.

Yet, here they are, drinking in the middle of the day without a care. How is that possible? It’s because many of them have side jobs.

Adventurers take on all sorts of side jobs. Some do unsavory, shady work that they can’t even talk about. There’s also the issue with the slums, but there’s a lot of demand for adventurers in that area as well.

Among the side jobs that adventurers in Rock Cliff do, one of the more respectable ones is “pimping.” This job used to be known as “enjoying the company of women” or “pimping,” among other terms.

While not exactly the same, it’s more or less a similar thing.

A “pimp” is someone who controls women through violence or pleasure, forcing them into prostitution, and then takes a cut of their earnings. They aren’t like “kept men,” who depend on a single woman for support. These guys control multiple women and make them sell their bodies. It’s like running a small prostitution ring.

On paper, they’re supposed to find suitable clients for women and deal with any trouble that arises with customers, taking a fee for their efforts.

In reality, they force the women into submission with violence or drugs, trapping them in a cycle of pleasure, and then make them sell their bodies. It’s one of the lowest jobs imaginable.

There are frequent troubles with clients, often resulting in violent confrontations. Because of this, it’s common for strong adventurers to take on the role of “pimp.”

Adventurers with good looks use sweet words to seduce women, and then trap them with violence and drugs.

Just hearing about it makes me sick, but oddly enough, this is one of the more “respectable” side jobs for adventurers in Rock Cliff.

Even for a small operation, running any kind of organization requires at least a basic level of intelligence. You need to be able to manage the women and keep things from escalating, while also being careful not to upset the slums.

Those who can think like this tend to live by the rules and don’t cause unnecessary trouble.

However, adventurers who come from outside, those who are former criminals with no real education or sense of morality, act differently. These adventurers kill people impulsively to make money.

They kill and steal. They don’t use their brains, taking the easy route to make cash. These types of adventurers don’t last long.

They end up either angering the boss of the slums or getting killed by other adventurers.

But before they’re disposed of, they kill a few people and make their money. The ones who are killed are the ones who really suffer.

Most of the time, new adventurers who come to the town from small villages are the ones who get preyed upon. These are people who were sent away from the village to the town as a means of “thinning the herd.”

They’ve never left their villages and are perfect targets for these former criminals masquerading as adventurers.

They either get killed and have their equipment stolen or, if they’re women, they get attacked and sold as illegal slaves.

Those who make a flashy profit this way eventually attract the attention of other adventurers. They get caught in traps, end up enslaved by debt, or are killed and have their gold and equipment stolen.

It’s shocking how many people flow into Rock Cliff. It seems like former criminals and desperate farmers are always showing up, getting preyed upon, and then disappearing.

It’s disturbingly easy for lives to be consumed and replaced here. Even the adventurers who drink at the guild’s tavern during the day come and go with alarming frequency.

Among them, there are some who manage to survive for a long time.

These are the crafty adventurers, the seasoned veterans who know how to survive. Even these clever adventurers, though, sometimes find themselves in a bad position. When they team up to target a newcomer, the newcomer might already be in league with others, and they end up being the ones trapped and eliminated.

This is a town where such things happen frequently. It’s a terrifying place.

Even Gonz and his party, whom I think are a fairly decent group by Rock Cliff standards, are probably just above the bar for adventurers in small regional areas. Compared to adventurers from the Leagam Kingdom or the Megad Empire, they are still dangerous.

Gonz kills people too easily. While it’s one thing to think, “I’m pissed off, I’ll kill this guy,” it’s another to actually bring an axe down on someone’s head. Very few people have the guts to do that.

And yet Gonz does it. His side job is extortion. He robs any adventurer who looks like they have money or any weak, new adventurers who cross his path.

When I first saw it, I was shocked. The first thing he said to a fellow adventurer was outrageous.

“Hey, hand over anything valuable!”

Just like that. It wasn’t a casual, “How’s it going?” or “I haven’t seen your face around here,” but “Hand over anything valuable!” That’s how direct he was.

The moment you resist, you’ll get an axe in the head! Living like that, most people would be dead within days. But Gonz has the strength to pull it off.

If Gonz doesn’t like someone, multiple adventurers will challenge him, and without fail, they end up dead, their gear taken and sold for money.

Gonz is strong, but he’s not very smart. He might be able to kill someone with poison or a honey trap. But there’s someone who can stop that. Al.

Al’s side job is as a consultant, but not for anything respectable.

He’s an expert in finding legal loopholes and teaching effective ways to blackmail people. He gets paid for providing such services.

Given his line of work, Al has strong connections in the slums. This means information naturally flows to him. If someone tries to harm Gonz, it’s likely to leak out, and Al will find out.

Even if someone tries to sneak poison into Gonz’ drink, Kimon, the hunter, with his finely honed instincts from years of tracking, would be able to detect it.

There are poisons that are tasteless and odorless, but they are extremely rare, only available in the deepest parts of the monster heaven “Heaven” or in dungeons. They’re used for high-profile assassinations, so they’re in high demand.

These poisons are incredibly expensive, so they would never be used just to kill a single adventurer.

As for Kimon, his side job is simple. If he’s short on money, he heads out solo with a bow to hunt beasts. His approach is a very typical way for a hunter to make money.

Even with his skills in mind, Kimon’s archery is on another level. He can take down moving prey without leaving a scratch on its fur.

Because of this, he never has trouble covering his drinking expenses.

Kimon is a man of few words, and his rough, taciturn demeanor, along with his overwhelming skill with a bow, makes it rare for anyone to mess with him. He also doesn’t care to interact much with others, so he’s rarely targeted.

Still, there were a few who tried to target him in the past. Al caught wind of it in advance, lured them into the forest, and set a trap. Using his bow, Kimon took out all six of them without a single scratch on him.

Kimon returned to the town with a large pile of equipment from the would-be attackers. After seeing that, the other adventurers gave up on trying to target him.

Kimon has a favorite prostitute. She’s thin and seems unlucky, not someone you’d call beautiful by any stretch. She’s a gloomy woman who doesn’t even come close to fitting the ideal of a “pretty girl.”

One day, a customer became violent with her. The adventurer who was the customer was causing a ruckus at the guild’s tavern when, suddenly, an arrow pierced his head.

In broad daylight, Kimon shot the man dead at the guild tavern. Everyone there understood immediately.

The quiet man, who they thought was harmless as long as you didn’t provoke him, was definitely not someone you should mess with.

Anyone who tried to harm Gonz or his party ended up being struck down. Eventually, no one dared oppose them.

Occasionally, a newcomer who didn’t know any better would challenge Gonz and end up with their skull split open by an axe.

In the end, the only way to avoid being targeted is to continue showing your strength. Al expects the same from me.

It’s not that Gonz and the others won’t target me because they’re scared of me, it’s because I need to make the other adventurers think I’m someone they shouldn’t mess with.

The adventurers in this town cycle in and out quickly, always looking for new prey. The idea of “waiting for things to cool down” didn’t work here.

When a new adventurer arrives in town and starts sizing up the dangerous individuals, my name needs to come up alongside Gonz, otherwise, I’ll just keep getting targeted.

Understanding this, I decided that, if I had to fight, I would at least do it on my own turf in the forest. So today, I went out again to continue my training.

Since the three men who attacked me had just been taken out, it wasn’t likely I would be ambushed right away. However, I could feel the sticky, hostile glares coming my way at the guild’s tavern.

I wondered which would happen first. Would the fear in their eyes turn to avoidance and they wouldn’t dare make eye contact with me, or I would end up killed, my life claimed as prey?

I had earned a large sum of money, but now I was being targeted by adventurers. There would be no peace of mind for me for a long time. I sighed deeply, fully aware of this grim reality.