It doesn' t matter who you are, what race you belong to, or what gender you are, because anyone can become an adventurer as long as you' re 15 years old.
A simple job where you just hunt beasts or dive into dungeons to kill monsters and sell their remains.
You' ll gain both fame and wealth so vast it could last a lifetime.
Grow up fast and hurry to sign up!
We' re waiting to put your names in the [S-Rank] hall of fame.
An advertisement that sells dreams, one every child must have heard.
But as they grow up, the reality turns out to be the complete opposite of what the ads promise.
In this world, dungeons spring up everywhere. If no one reduces the number of monsters inside, they' ll overflow and spill out into the open.
We call this phenomenon a "dungeon break."
Monsters that escape from a dungeon break can evolve into beasts.
These creatures are intelligent, brutal, and love to invade, attacking and killing every living thing in their path.
The people blame and attack the king for not handling it despite the taxes they pay.
This stems from the imbalance between the number of hunters and dungeon divers and the rapid spawning of monsters.
It takes humans years to grow and learn how to fight, but monsters are born quickly and can hunt right from birth.
To maintain their power and prevent their kingdoms from being destroyed, nearly every king across the world collaborated to change the laws.
Originally, becoming an adventurer required completing a 10-year adventurer course.
This was to discover weapon aptitudes, find a combat role that suits you, train, and learn about adventurer professions and skills, teamwork in parties, survival techniques in emergencies, foraging, basic healing, monster weak points, butchering methods, and much more—10 years still barely felt sufficient.
On top of that, you needed 5 years of real combat experience alongside professional adventurers.
Now, it' s been changed to require no training or experience at all—just turn 15, get evaluated for a rank, and receive a license immediately.
Then you' re free to hunt beasts or kill monsters and sell their parts. Every piece of them can genuinely be exchanged for money.
A great tragedy ensued. The death rate of those aged 15 and up skyrocketed without end.
But, in a cruel twist of irony, it worked. Dungeons began closing in large numbers.
Beasts stopped hunting citizens because prey was delivered right to them.
Yet it didn' t always help. Some dungeons that couldn' t be closed grew stronger as people died inside. The dungeon cores absorbed the corpses, evolving and expanding, becoming uncontrollable threats.
Some kingdoms fell simply because of a dungeon break, turning into beast lairs.
Certain beasts, after feeding and hunting enough, evolved beyond anyone' s ability to defeat. Some kings had to flee, abandoning citizens without enough wealth to escape, leaving them to live in fear every day and night.
Though many protested to revert the laws, their voices were a minority and gradually faded.
The reason the laws weren' t changed back was the success of adventurers. They gained status, power, fame, and endless wealth.
Young boys and girls became enamored, dreaming of this shortcut and aiming to become like them.
In reality, adventurers who achieved such success were rarer than rare.
Nearly a hundred years later, this law became the norm. No one questioned or doubted it anymore.
Another thing that fueled everyone' s desire to become an adventurer was power and fame.
An adventurer' s skill is divided into ranks based on evaluation.
[Rank E] is the weakest adventurer. They must diligently train, learn, and improve their rank. No one cares to recruit them into parties; they often go solo, scavenging leftovers.
But reaching [Rank D] allows them to take on quests or general requests, enough to scrape by day-to-day.
[Rank C] earns trust and reliability. They often hold key roles in parties. If they have interesting skills or professions, guilds will vie to recruit them.
[Rank B] can start their own guild. With fame, they attract many followers and can take on nearly any mission.
[Rank A] guarantees skill. They receive personal requests by name. Guilds with A-rank members gain renown. If they' re guild leaders, their future greatness is assured, drawing merchants from far and wide to buy high-level monster or beast remains.
And [Rank S] —those who reach this rank are rarer than rare. Kingdoms highly value them. Even foreign kingdoms compete with offers to claim them as citizens, pampering them like cherished children. S-rank adventurers can act freely, unbound by anyone, with no one able to command them. They might humor a king they' ve made a deal with, just to save face.
As for me, Calika Nehu, I had to become an adventurer out of necessity for money.
Our parents died in a dungeon break. The king and nobles fled without warning the citizens, using them as a wall to slow the beasts so they could escape.
Our homeland was destroyed, turned into a beast-ridden land, when I was just 13 years old.
Now, only the three of us siblings remain, wandering and seeking refuge in another kingdom.
With no money to buy or rent a house in the city, we were driven to the slums.
We built our own home from scrap wood, tied together with ropes scavenged from trash heaps and canals.
A house just enough to shield us from freezing winds, but riddled with holes when it rained.
To support us, my older sister, Tiara Nehu, three years my senior, took a gamble and became an adventurer. She was skilled with a sword, having practiced playfully since childhood.
At her evaluation, Tiara received [Rank D] , with no profession or skills.
We managed to get by somehow. I took care of our younger sibling and the house, dreaming of saving enough to buy a cheap home on the city' s outskirts.
Life moved slowly. Though it was tough, the three of us were happy together.
Two years later, we' d saved a little money.
But then the harsh reality of being an adventurer struck.
Tiara returned gravely injured—her right chest torn apart, her right arm gone, and both legs devoured, leaving her crippled—after joining a party to hunt a beast.
My younger sister, Elda, and I knew Tiara hated hunting beasts because of the danger, but we don' t know why she agreed that time. Even now, she won' t tell us.
Her injuries came from the party leader, Gibo, who fell into a beast' s trap and got surrounded.
Tiara, unable to afford protective gear, couldn' t fight after one hit. The beasts left the wounded, including Tiara, and the others fled.
Tiara' s legs were eaten alive, but luckily, a party from the [Resonant Magic] guild, passing by to enter a dungeon, saved her just in time.
If it were just wounds, healing could fix them. But missing limbs meant her adventurer career was over. Only [Rank S] healers could regenerate limbs, and we had neither the money nor connections to beg for such help.
To keep Tiara alive, we spent nearly all our savings. Our dream of a new home vanished in an instant.
The party leader, Gibo, responsible for medical costs, funeral expenses, and compensation for the failed quest, disappeared.
The other party members had to pay for the failed mission—including Tiara.
Now, Tiara can' t even get out of bed. Someone must feed her and clean her waste. She often cries, cursing herself as a burden and saying she wants to die.
Because Tiara was beautiful, a man named Gika, who' d seen her before, offered to pay for her services.
Despite Elda and me begging her not to, Tiara bitterly agreed.
But when Gika got her in bed, he insulted her. The stench from waste she couldn' t fully clean—since we bathed with rainwater, and none fell when we needed it—repulsed him.
He called her filthy, said she ruined his mood, and in anger, beat her face until it was disfigured.
Before leaving, he stole her sword to sell.
When we reported it to the adventurer administration, we were accused instead—of luring him to rob him. Gika belonged to a powerful guild, a fighter wielding knuckles as weapons, with a higher rank than Tiara. With money, he silenced all witnesses.
Justice in this world belongs to the rich or the strong. Though we weren' t at fault, we had to publicly grovel and apologize to him to avoid further trouble.
After that, we were shunned and forced to pay him for "emotional damages."
Tiara became terrified of strangers ever since.
My younger sister, Elda Nehu, two years my junior, was born premature and has been frail since birth, relying on medicine to survive.
Elda falls ill constantly and struggles to breathe if she exerts herself too much. I often carry her on my back to avoid burdening Tiara, but now Elda risks her life helping with chores as best she can.
Living in the slums, Elda' s cute face makes her a target for child traffickers. She smears herself with canal mud to stink and look dirty, covering herself with cloth.
She always stays with me when we go out. If anyone grows suspicious of her face, I quickly reveal mine, lying that Elda' s looks similar.
Showing my face gets us chased off, sometimes beaten with sticks or pelted with stones out of disgust, but it' s better than losing Elda.
The role of family head fell to me—to buy medicine for Tiara, supplements for Elda, and food for us all.
When we fled our old kingdom, beasts ambushed our group. One struck my face, mangling half of it. My left eye is blind, and my mouth' s skin is torn, exposing my teeth. I drool constantly and cover it with cloth.
In that chaos, no healer or doctor could treat me in time. My face festered, oozing pus and reeking. I wear a hood to avoid scaring people.
No one hires me for service jobs, and my bony frame can' t handle labor. Our bad reputation from the robbery accusation ensures no one will employ us, even for simple tasks.
My last option is to become an adventurer.
I didn' t want to, fearing I' d end up like Tiara. I' ve never trained or studied adventuring, and we can' t afford even a basic weapon.
But circumstances left me no choice. When I told Tiara I' d try becoming an adventurer, we fought so fiercely the house nearly collapsed.
Tiara swore that if I went for evaluation, she' d disown me and kill herself, unable to bear seeing another sister injured and crippled like her.
But there truly was no other way. I persuaded her for ages, citing every reason—especially Elda' s need for medicine and special food.
Finally, Tiara relented. Since then, she' s cried secretly every night, blaming herself for not being strong enough, forcing me to risk my life.
But Elda and I never thought that. Tiara has sacrificed more than enough.
The next day, carrying our family' s hopes, I prayed to the goddess endlessly.
Every rank evaluation costs money. We sold everything we could to pay for it.
Just registering as a [Rank E] beginner would give us a chance to move forward. Dangerous as it was, it beat living without hope.
But reality is cruel. The evaluation crystal ranked me as:
[Rank F]
A rank scorned and ridiculed as incompetent—dreamers, leeches living off scraps, worthless trash, a curse.
No one in history, past or present, has ever risen from this rank.
It' s truly the rank of despair.
It guarantees physical and magical weakness. No one values it. Even basic requests from civilians are off-limits due to the high risk of failure and damage.
Lower than ordinary citizens, there' s a saying: if you' re going to get this rank, better stay silent and live as a normal person forever.
Once you' re [Rank F] , prepare to be seen as less than human by the world.
The only real jobs for this rank are as bait, meat shields, or toys for higher ranks to relieve stress during hunts or dungeon dives.
It has the highest death rate of all ranks.
Why don' t F-rank people flee to other jobs? Simple: they' re all like me.
They have no other path. Society shuns and forces them onto this road.
After the evaluation, that day felt pitch-black. No light of hope remained.
This rank branded me as doomed to stagnate forever.
When I returned home and told Tiara and Elda the truth,
Tiara grabbed a broken bowl, aiming to slit her throat to lessen our burden. Elda and I stopped her. Elda, overexerting herself, couldn' t breathe.
By the time things calmed, I was drained—physically and mentally.
That night, I watched over Tiara and Elda to prevent anything else, stifling my sobs all night.
Before dawn, I woke Elda to give instructions. I kept consoling myself that if I begged for work, someone kind might hire me.
After briefing her, I left the house to find a job, amid light snow flurries.