Crossing high mountains and rivers, fighting monsters, rescuing a princess and gaining a fortune, becoming a 'legend' along with the monsters.
That is how it is written in picture books, but in reality an experience like that is probably granted to one lucky soul in several decades.
In the end, every job under heaven is the same: the moment you have to consider anything to do with profit, the un-'romantic' parts come running out on their own.
Shu suddenly remembered that when he and Seraphia had been chatting earlier, she had mentioned that by the standards of human age, she was still very young.
There were indeed a great many areas in which she knew nothing of the world, and occasionally she showed a very childish side. Set against her face and her figure, it made for a curious chemical reaction.
At times like this Shu grew all the more intensely curious about what her real age actually was.
Strange as it was to weigh another race by human age, people habitually take themselves as the standard by which to weigh everything around them.
【Should I ask?】
Shu could not shake the feeling that if he really did open his mouth about this again, he might get hit.
"Next, regarding the assignment of personnel: low-tier adventurers below third tier are responsible for protecting the goods, adventurers above third tier protect the documents, and the few fifth-tier adventurers we have are specifically responsible for protecting the trading company's representative. That is the arrangement, in specific terms..."
As the trading company's representative laid out the plan, his gaze suddenly fell on Shu's side of the room.
More precisely, on Seraphia.
The golden halo that floated above Seraphia's head at all times had no physical body, could not be touched, and naturally could not be covered either.
The trading company's representative counted as a man who had seen something of the world, and one look at that was enough for him to understand instantly what Seraphia was.
"..."
He paused briefly, then went on.
"That is all. Does anyone have any objection?"
Some adventurers raised further questions about the content of the commission, while more of them followed the representative's gaze to look at Seraphia, above all those few standing in the front rank.
They were very curious about why a Holy Wing of the church would be here.
After all, the Church would like nothing better than to keep every one of these haloed, winged beings under protection, and an ordinary person might go a whole life without seeing an angel once.
Before long the trading company's representative had finished explaining everything and announced that they were dismissed, sending the adventurers off to sort out their belongings.
Just as Shu was about to leave to prepare a few things, that representative of the trading company came looking for him.
"Excuse me a moment."
Pale gold hair and blue-green eyes, the typical look of a man of the Mitran Empire, fairly rare here in the Kiden Federation; a young man of a rather cool and capable bearing. Shu guessed the fellow might be a child born to a concubine in a noble house.
"Is there something you need?"
"Regarding your... companion. She isn't registered as an adventurer, is she? It looks as though she will be setting out with you, so in what capacity should we record her on our side?"
The representative considered his phrasing.
"...Mm. Guard and assessor? Unless my life is in danger, as a matter of principle she will not be taking action in any other circumstance."
"Understood. In that case we will still deliver payment at the second-tier adventurer's rate."
The representative nodded, which counted as the matter confirmed.
Seraphia stared at his retreating back and pulled a face.
He could have handed out a little more. Just in case she ended up helping of her own accord.
A while later, as Seraphia and Shu were resting together, a voice brimming with energy inserted itself between the two of them.
"Sir and madam! Please let me take your luggage, nya!"
As that strange verbal tic came across, Seraphia turned her gaze towards it and met a pair of green vertical pupils.
Black cat ears trembling faintly on top of her head, a fluffy tail swinging endlessly behind her: this was a cat-eared girl in a maid's outfit.
With considerable interest, Seraphia watched this cat-eared girl take the luggage from Shu's hands with great enthusiasm and lead them towards the carriage they had been assigned.
By this other world's usage, this was what they called a cat demihuman, was it not?
Some of the church texts Seraphia had read earlier had contained a few rather interesting things.
In regions with a higher degree of secularization, places where the Church's influence was weaker, the angels were treated as a kind of demihuman.
Demihuman mainly refers to those humanoid races with animal features such as beast ears and tails, though on the whole it is still a crude classification of the human world's making, given that merfolk, whose lower halves are fish, and centaurs, whose lower halves are four hooved limbs, are treated as demihumans too.
The Church would naturally never agree to so blasphemous a claim, and propounding this theory in places where the Church's influence was strong could be very dangerous.
After all, demihumans are a fairly marginalized race in the human world.
A demihuman's lifespan is on the whole only half a normal human's, and their capacity for learning knowledge is far inferior to a human's, so even when some demihumans surpass humans outstandingly in certain respects, it makes no difference.
People do not discriminate against demihumans, but they do not believe demihumans can do very respectable work.
Which is why the Church is furious about the Holy Wings being treated as demihumans too.
"Please, sit~"
Her tail swaying left and right, she guided the two of them into the interior of the carriage, which did not look like the ordinary carriage prepared for low-tier adventurers.
Seraphia saw the representative there, along with people dressed like the trading company's upper ranks, and the several fifth-tier adventurers who had stood in the front rank of the group.
【Honestly... deliberately putting me in here, banking on the certainty that I'll fight back if we run into danger.】
It had to be said, this move of theirs was fairly disgusting.
They did not want to pay any more, but they did want one more unit of combat strength.
"Madam, madam, what would you like to drink, nya?"
That pair of grey ears trembled faintly, drawing Seraphia's attention, and as though she had noticed her slight displeasure, the cat-eared girl came up in front of her, holding two cups of a drink she could not name at precisely the right distance.
The pale gold eyes settled on the cat-eared girl before her, and Seraphia began seriously looking over the first beast-eared girl she had encountered in another world.
The first impression was: cute.
The origin of the demihumans is a mystery throughout the world's history, in large part because the humans of this world have been through several breaks in civilization.
But the consensus among everyone is that most demihumans' appearance has been specialized to serve human aesthetics.
Take the cat-eared girl in front of her: large eyes standing out vividly on an exquisite, rounded face, a slender and well-proportioned figure with a feline softness to it, the ears on her head and the cat's tail trembling and swaying with her mood.
Most importantly, this person was perfectly aware of how cute she was, and would use her own features to win other people's goodwill.
Seraphia knitted her brows.
Precisely the type she hated.
The type born to be loved.
"Anything is fine."
Seraphia answered in a thoroughly perfunctory way.
Seeing that cold attitude of hers, Shu glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering what she was unhappy about this time.
【Miss Seraphia doesn't like cats? And that extends to cat demihumans as well?】