…The town . Doesn’t it seem different from usual?’

Said the slime as soon as we entered it .

We had only been gone for a day, and yet there was something about it that had changed .

‘It’s kind of scary . ’

The slimes thought so too .

The Adventurers that we pa.s.sed all seemed to be wearing armor as if they were getting prepared to fight .

We continued to walk through the town until we reached the guild .

As I could not take the wolf into the building, I tied him up at the entrance .

“Huh? Mister Yuji, didn’t you go out to gather some Dria flowers? Did you fail the quest then…”

The receptionist asked me .

She seemed quite interested in the Dria flower quest .

“No, I didn’t fail . A lot happened, and I was able to gather them quickly . ”

I said as I took out a few flowers from the slime and showed them to her .  

She looked at them and her expression turned both happy and relieved .

“Th…that’s so great! It would have been incredibly bad if you failed…”

“Bad? Wwas this really that important of a quest?”

I don’t remember anything about it being important when accepting it .

As I thought about this, the receptionist continued .

“It wasn’t important when you first accepted it…but since then, there has been a need for a lot of medicine, and in a hurry too…oh, uh . Just how much did you get?”

“Uhh…slime . If you please . ”

I said . And then I put the slime on the counter .

‘Okay!’

The slime replied . Then it started to noisily unload the Dria flowers all over the desk .

In less than a minute, the entire desk was covered in them .

“Wh-why is there so much…are these real?”

“Yeah . Maybe it wasn’t the usual way, but they should all be real . ”

She heard this and–

“I…I must tell the manager!”

She screamed and then disappeared towards the back of the guild .

And then a few minutes pa.s.sed .

Then Manager Agias came out .

“…Yuji . It’s you again . I heard that you brought in a year’s worth of Dria flowers this time…”

He said . Then he looked at the Dria flowers on the counter .

And then he looked at the receptionist .

“…This . This isn’t a year’s worth . It is at least two years’ worth . ”

“I’m very sorry . I could not count all of them…”

The Dryad had given me that much then…

Well, it had taken me half an hour to gather them, so I had thought it was a lot .

However, the guild didn’t seem to be too happy about suddenly having two years’ worth of it unloaded onto them .

“Was it too much?”

I asked .

And then I tried to get the slime to store them again .

However…Agias’s reply was most unexpected .

“No, we’ll buy it all . This is exactly what the guild needs right now . ”

“…You need a two years supply of flowers? Did something happen?”

“In fact, a swarm of monsters has been sighted near a closeby mountain . …And they have come in incredible numbers . It may not be long until that swarm comes to attack our town . ”

…A monster outbreak, huh?

Now that I think about it, I had heard something about how the number of monsters was increasing recently .

Maybe it’s related to that .

“And they are coming to this town?”

“No . We don’t know which town they will attack . And that is why they are dangerous . As a guild, we cannot focus all our strength in one place . That is why we need medicine . ”

The manager said as he picked up one of the Dria flowers and inspected it .

Then he nodded with satisfaction .

“…With this much, we could reduce the damage . Medicine made from Dria flowers is highly effective . …Here is your reward . Please take it . ”

The manager then stacked the gold coins in front of me .

As it was supposed to be a safe quest, I had only accepted it as practice…and yet it had turned out to be quite lucrative .

Still, it wasn’t all good news .

There were many monsters . And we didn’t know when or where they would attack .

“So the guild is going to take care of everything regarding the monsters?”

“Yes . And so we are currently refusing any requests that are unrelated to the monster outbreak . …Will you help us, Yuji?”

The manager asked as he stared at me .

I did not hesitate to answer .

“Of course . …So, what should I do?”