325 Great Luck Like Always (1/2)

”As expected, streetside advertisements are totally false.”

Early in the morning of the next day, I met with yesterday's priestess, whose name was Betty, at the same restaurant. I was introduced to her team. But as a veteran former adventurer, I merely had to take a glance at her team to notice that far more was strange about her team than just the team's name, Wood Spirits Are So Cute.

Actually, not even a veteran adventurer was necessary. Even a novice adventurer would be able to notice their problems! No wonder they had Betty as the one trying to recruit people. Everyone else in this team was simply ridiculous!

The team consisted of three other people apart from Betty and myself. The first and most familiar one was… the barbarian thief I had seen bragging at the restaurant yesterday!

Standing at 2.3 or 2.4 meters tall, his wrists were thicker than my thighs. His armor was bursting at the seams due to his overly muscular body structure. His face seemed so vicious that simply a look could kill. His natural-born advantage in Strength as well as racial talent, Frenzy, made barbarians the most suited warriors to join the berserker job class. However, the moment I met him, he actually said, rather awkwardly:

”Violence is wrong. That's why I haven't resorted to brute force for a long time. I, Ah Gen, am a non-combat thief.”

A non-combat thief? He was telling me that a barbarian was a non-combat thief? The barbarians' God of War would be angered to death upon hearing such a thing!

Of course I knew what a non-combat thief was. Such thieves would be experts in ruin exploration, disabling and dismantling all sorts of traps and mechanisms—not to mention the obvious, stealing. Their most important stats wouldn't be the Dexterity and Strength that was the norm for most thieves. Instead, it would be Intelligence—plenty of knowledge was required to understand how to avoid and disarm traps and so on. No idiot would be able to become a non-combat thief. And since non-combat thieves typically spent all their time on training their special job class skills rather than their combat skills, they usually had far less than fifty percent the combat strength of their fellow thieves. In fact, it was more like zero combat strength.

Since non-combat thieves weren't required to focus on combat strength, it naturally became the most favored job class of gnomish adventurers, as they naturally lacked Strength and were willing to do underhanded things. Their smaller bodies would be able to more easily dodge traps targeted at humans, plus they had naturally flexible bodies and racial bonuses to Intelligence, making them the best non-combat thieves of all.

As I recalled, barbarians had a racial talent bonus to Strength together with a racial talent penalty to Intelligence. Once they entered their berserk states via their racial skill, Frenzy, their Intelligence would be lowered even further, to 3 or so. They would be no different from beasts. Even speaking in complete sentences would be difficult when under the effects of Frenzy.

If he had utilized his natural-born Strength advantage and entered some type of combat-focused assassin job class, I would have only considered him ”slightly unusual.” Yet, this guy actually entered the job class of the non-combat thief, the one which had extremely high requirements for Intelligence. All I could say was that this guy was probably a terrible teammate who always dragged his team down with him.

'…I must remain classy. I'm currently a Holy Knight. If I give in to my anger and shout or viciously comment about him, I would ruin my image.'

I did my best to suppress my urges and somehow managed to smile and nod.

”Friend, may the Holy Light give you its blessing.”

At this, the tremendously tall barbarian suddenly rushed over and hugged me, with huge tears dripping down my back and wetting my shirt.

”You—you—you're the first person ever who hasn't laughed at me!”

”My dear barbarian friend, everyone has the right to choose their own path in life. How could I possibly laugh at you?”

”From today onwards, you're Ah Gen's bro! All those who laughed at Ah Gen deserved their beatings!”

Seeing how Ah Gen didn't attempt to beat up his new companion, his other teammates had unmistakable expressions of disappointment. It was obvious that they had intended on watching a fun scene—a scene most definitely fun for them but not me. Just what teammates were these!?

The second one who came over and introduced herself was Betty, the priestess from yesterday. She appeared to be quite normal.

”My name is Betty Wenlais. You can just call me Betty. By the way, I'm a boy.”

Alright then. In just an instant, the most normal-seeming one became the weirdest one of all…

”I'm a Holy Knight, I'm a Holy Knight, I'm a Holy Knight. The most important thing for Holy Knights is… Remember: even if you're bleeding, even if you die… your hairstyle and smile must never ever die!”

I kept muttering this to myself in an attempt to calm myself down, but I still couldn't prevent my expression from freezing over for a moment. Seconds later, however, I recovered and used the standard #59 Holy Knight smile and reached out my right hand to Betty.

”I'm quite pleased to meet you, Mister Betty.”

”Wow! This guy is still capable of smiling! It's just like Betty said, his fake smile seems so realistic! I've heard that a Holy Knight's power is in direct proportion to how well they can maintain their fake smiles. Since he's still capable of smiling upon learning that Sister Betty is actually a man, doesn't that make him super amazing!?”

'I can hear everything you just said, you bastard!'

Veins were throbbing on my forehead. Still, I kept muttering ”I didn't hear anything, I didn't hear anything” to myself and continued smiling at this team filled with weirdos.

The little girl who was just commenting about me now seemed like the most ordinary member of this team. She was incredibly short and stocky with an ordinary appearance. Her sledgehammer at her waist, low and deep voice, and long blonde ponytail that almost reached the ground all indicated that she was from the Alaidun Mountains… a dwarf girl!

Dwarves were quite common in the world. The Underground had gray dwarves, while there were mountain dwarves and shield dwarves residing in the mountains on the surface. Although dwarves were quite short, they had stat bonuses in Strength and Constitution and would typically become smiths, warriors, or miners. They were typically direct and bold, and were natural-born warriors.

Of course, disadvantages came along with the advantages. Not only were dwarves short, but they also had slow reactions. Having them hop around like elves would be impossible. Still, dwarves were quite famous for their high defensive prowess, especially with shields. With a dwarf in their team, why did they lack a tank?

”Hello, Sir Holy Knight. I'm Mary, Mary the archer.”

This female dwarf even pointed directly at the ironwood bow on her back as she introduced herself.

Alright then, should I say that it was to be expected? There was no normal person in this team at all. A dwarf actually went and became an archer, the specialty of elves? Her mountain bloodline was probably crying!

”Very pleased to meet you, Miss Mary.”

”Actually, that should be Mrs. Mary. I'm already married with two children. My husband's a good-for-nothing so I'm having him stay at home and take care of the kids while I'm out working, earning money to support my family.”

Pahahah, so she was a dwarf auntie all along!

I didn't even know what to say as I looked at her rather squarish face.

There was a saying that the only noticeable difference between male and female dwarves was that male dwarves had higher-pitched voices. Yep, that's right. It was the male dwarves who had higher-pitched voices, not female. This was mostly because female dwarves spoke in a gruff fashion and had low and masculine voices. Their deep and booming voices would always attract attention and echo numerous times.

When you looked at their physical appearances, female dwarves would grow beards just like the male dwarves, while male dwarves also enjoyed wearing ponytails. It was incredibly difficult for outsiders to differentiate between male and female dwarves based on physical features alone. Also, they had strange standards of beauty by human perspectives. I had absolutely no idea what was so alluring about a ”local dwarf girl with that sexy barrel waist and thick beard,” a common dwarven saying.

Due to the differences in standards of beauty, it was also difficult for outsiders to guess a dwarf's age. Still, most dwarven adventurers were ”youngsters” that would be about 70 to 80 years old, which was why I had assumed that she was just a dwarf ”girl.” But since this Mary said that she already had two children, when calculating by the fact that dwarves were considered adults at 120 years old, she was probably a bit over 200.

Alright then, with three strange teammates, I was already becoming numb. The fourth and final teammate was a nice-looking elf. His fancy leather armor and three-stringed harp on his back told me his job class. He was a very handsome elven bard.

”Hello, I'm Solonor. Nice to meet you.”

Not bad. His etiquette was quite normal, his physical appearance seemed normal, his name seemed normal, and his job class seemed normal for his species. But, for some reason, my gentlemen spidey sense instinctively told me that this Solonor was no normal individual. The chill running down my spine told me that I was in danger.

”…As expected, Solo's taken an interest in him.”

”Big Bro Solonor's such a fine fellow in all respects, except for this little interest of his. He's already scared away several warriors… but we couldn't have become such good sisters if he wasn't like this.”

My sharp hearing picked up on their whispers. This time, my smile was finally no more.

”I—I—I… you're gay?!”