Chapter 58: Melina

“Melina!”

The roar erupted from the mouth of the man who was as majestic and dangerous as a lion, shaking her so violently she almost believed her eardrums had shattered.

“I warned you long ago—stop hanging around with those shady low-level adventurers! They’re weak and useless. You won’t learn a single useful thing from them!”

“You’re wrong, Dad!”

Melina heard herself roar back hysterically.

“They’re not nearly as weak as you imagine! You stand so high up that you’ve overlooked some problems—your policies and strategies have done nothing but make relations between adventurers even worse! Only by doing what I’m doing—getting close to them—can we find a way to make the Adventurers’ Guild better!”

The small girl watched as her father’s gaze shifted from rage to disappointment, and finally settled into calm.

“Naive.” 

After a suffocating silence, he spoke. 

“Since that’s what you think, go and take a good, serious, detailed look for yourself. I know a friend in the Nordvian Kingdom. In a few days, I’ll have him take you to the imperial capital of Nordvian to work as a receptionist at the Adventurers’ Guild.” 

“Then you can see with your own eyes exactly what the low-level adventurers you care so much about are really like. It won’t be long before you understand me—and why every guild president for the past thousand years made the decisions they did.”

“Fine, I’ll go!” The girl, her blood boiling, agreed without a second thought.

After that, Melina followed her father’s friend and traveled by carriage all the way to the Nordvian Kingdom on the western continent. 

As arranged by her father, she began working as a receptionist at the Adventurers’ Guild in the seaside city of Hilos.

In the ten long years that followed, she watched wave after wave of adventurers register their identities, complete quests, and either achieve fame and retire from the profession or be carried back one night by their teammates with nothing but a bloodstained silver badge.

Melina had wondered more than once why successive guild presidents turned a deaf ear to the so-called “recommender” system.

Didn’t they know that this system made the already meager quest rewards for low-level adventurers even thinner?

Maybe one quest would fail simply because of those missing few silver coins—an adventurer would die in a demon beast’s jaws or at an enemy’s hands because they couldn’t afford a few extra arrows.

But as time passed and she saw more and more adventurers, she had no choice but to admit that her father and the guild presidents were at least partially right. 

At the very least, there were indeed some kind-hearted veteran adventurers who, because of their “recommender” status, would offer new adventurers extra protection and attention.

Still, there had to be another way.

The relationships between adventurers shouldn’t be built solely on pure self-interest.

Although Melina didn’t particularly like her father, she had inherited at least some of his stubbornness.

So when the guard her father sent relayed his wish for her to return home, Melina refused without hesitation.

“Until I find a solution to the problem, I’m not coming back.”

Not long after that, the demons invaded.

Melina slowly opened her eyes inside the tree hollow.

She carefully sat up and rubbed her sore back from sleeping on the hard ground.

This was the fourteenth day since the spatial teleportation spell had flung her into this forest.

She had been lucky. 

She hadn’t been discovered right away by the demon beasts roaming the woods, and she had even found a tree hollow large enough for a person to shelter in, with a low thicket of unknown fruit-bearing trees nearby.

For these fourteen days, she had survived on nothing but the moisture and nutrients from those fruits.

Melina cautiously poked her head out of the hollow and scanned the area.

No sign of any demon beasts.

She breathed a sigh of relief, stepped out on shaky legs, picked a few more fruits from the thicket, and quickly ducked back inside.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to stay outside longer.

In the first few days after being teleported here, Melina had tried venturing a bit farther to look for a way out of the forest.

But for some reason, the number of demon beasts in the woods had grown to a level she could barely comprehend. 

The moment she left the immediate area around the hollow, she could see demon beasts everywhere. 

The sight had terrified her so much that she didn’t dare go too far from her shelter.

She had even begun to suspect she had been teleported straight into demon territory—how else could there be so many demon beasts on human land?

Melina chewed on a fruit, her thoughts drifting.

Fortunately, over the past few days she had faintly heard human voices in conversation and the sounds of battle against demon beasts, which had eased that particular worry.

Judging by the voices, they were probably adventurers who had come into the forest to exterminate the demon beasts here.

That was at least some good news. 

There was hope of rescue now; she wouldn’t have to wait here forever with nothing to look forward to.

Melina comforted herself with that thought.

The last group of adventurers had passed too far away. 

She had been afraid that calling for help would attract demon beasts first, so she hadn’t dared shout.

But lately, adventurer activity in the area seemed to have picked up again.

Maybe the day she would be rescued was finally close.

People always fantasized about good things, and Melina was no exception.

Even though she was currently trapped in a damp, narrow tree hollow, even though her only meals consisted of barely enough fruit to stave off hunger and thirst, even though she no longer had the strength or courage to escape on her own.

She still hoped someone would come and save her.

She wanted to tell her father everything she had experienced in these ten years, to condense it all into a practical plan that could finally solve the problem.

She wanted to see that lion-like man look at her with approval in his eyes.

The former guild receptionist, now trapped in a tree hollow—Melina clenched her fists and thought this.

Rustle… Rustle…

But at that very moment, a faint sound suddenly caught her attention.

If Melina hadn’t already spent more than ten days in this forest, she might have mistaken it for the wind rustling through the leaves.

Who is it?

Melina’s heart tightened with fear.

She waited a long time, but the sound did not return. That only made her wonder if her hearing had started failing from malnutrition.

Just to be safe, she set down the half-eaten fruit and poked her head out again.

Still no sign of any demon beasts.

The pink-haired former receptionist finally relaxed and ducked back into the hollow to continue eating her fruit.

It must have been my imagination, Melina thought.

But above her, unseen, a pitch-black “cat” with glowing green pupils stood on a branch, staring down at the tree hollow below with curious eyes.