‘…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? Wa-was 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?”

…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?”