* Perverted Dragon Girl Reina Accepts the Bandit Extermination Quest
"Accept this new recruit~!"
Thud!
The idiot dragon girl Reina makes her entrance by kicking open the saloon-style swinging doors with her boot.
'Hell yeah~! Bursting in this energetically, they'll notice me whether they like it or not?!'
Apparently convinced that making this much noise would draw the attention of any adventurers inside, she curled the corners of her mouth into a wide grin and let her eyes gleam. A busty, red-haired beauty <new recruit> showing off the underside of her chest in a perverted outfit, strutting in with an attitude — you'd think that would be enough to attract every creep who'd love to "educate" a new girl like that. After all, both the gate guard and even the Black Witch had nothing good to say about the guild, so it was perfectly reasonable to expect the place to be crawling with that type — but
Reina's wish was not granted.
A gust of wind whooshed through, followed by silence, and Reina's yellow eyes went wide.
"Huh?"
"Welcome......"
"......Huhhh?"
Looking around, there was only a single guild receptionist sitting at the front desk — not another soul at any of the tables. Kicking the door open and barging in like that should have seemed bizarre, but the receptionist wore an expression that said 'this kind of commotion is perfectly normal' as she stared at Reina.
'What's with that exhausted face...'
Even more haggard-looking than the Black Witch she'd just met. The guild-issued uniform was disheveled, bottles of booze and cigarettes were rolling around on the reception desk, and the word 'irritated' seemed to be stamped all over her freckled face in multiple places. Her brown bob hair, tucked behind her ears, was greasy, and her brown eyes had sharply upturned outer corners that made her look perpetually cutting. The Witch could be written off as a character quirk, but this one seemed like the type whose personality was just genuinely rotten — a woman who looked full of spite even in a service job.
"U-um, uh, well, h-hello?"
"Yeah yeah... hi..."
"S-so... this is the adventurers' guild, right?"
"Obviously. Can't you read the sign? It says guild."
"Then where is everyone else?"
"How would I know? I don't keep track of that~!"
"U-ugh..."
Indeed, this was not a normal attitude.
Thank goodness she'd met the Black Witch first — if she'd come straight to the guild and run into this receptionist, her mood would have been absolutely ruined.
'I thought the person here last time was a bit more put-together, but maybe I imagined it? No. I think it was a prettier woman back then...'
She decided to probe a little.
"Where did the other receptionist who was here before go?"
"What... were you an acquaintance of that slutty senior of mine? That woman quit, so there's not a damn trace of her here anymore."
"I don't actually know her......"
"Then why are you asking? God, so annoying... Isn't it obvious enough that I got reassigned to a shithole like this~?"
'Like I'd know anything about that~!'
A flicker of irritation rose up inside her, but she suppressed it quickly. The old Reina would have already blown up by now, but fortunately the current Reina was a dragon with patience. The fact that she'd also enjoy getting verbally abused even by another woman was a separate problem entirely. It was clear from the flow of the conversation that expecting any decent attitude from this receptionist was hopeless, so Reina scratched her proudly displayed horns and awkwardly glanced around.
'Shouldn't this place be packed at this hour? Or did I come too early?'
Scratch scratch.
"I don't know who you're looking for, but those trash adventurers are all at the mine."
"The mine?"
Despite her obvious desire to not talk, something about Reina standing there in the middle of the guild seemed to catch her eye, and she tossed out those words. She sat with her legs crossed, smoking her cigarette, sizing up Reina's body with a spiteful gaze.
"This is an adventurers' guild — what do you mean the mine?"
"What, you don't even know that? Even I've never not noticed someone with a build as big as yours... Oh, you just arrived in this city, didn't you? ID plate?"
"Oh, uh, here's my plate..."
"What... Iron ore? Garbage. And the timing couldn't be worse. What kind of unlucky star were you born under? Iron ore at your age — I've never seen that before."
"Ugh! Mm, yeah... So what's going on?"
The receptionist lit her pipe and jabbed a finger toward the outside of the guild.
"There was a big accident at the mine over that way, and most of the mine slaves who'd been brought in died. The regular workers were still there so things kept running for the time being, but they still needed to fill the gaps, and while they waited for new workers to arrive from other cities they put in a request to the guild — swept up all the idle adventurers to use as laborers."
"So there's nobody left?!"
"Obviously not. They were recruiting in a hurry so the pay was generous. The kind of money that would let the trash around here eat and loaf around for a good while — so they all jumped at it and grabbed spots. Everyone who signed up for mine work is staying in the dormitories over there, so there's nobody left at the guild. And the proof is right over there."
"...Blech!"
Where both their gazes landed was the quest board — and it was such a disaster that Reina let out an involuntary sound of shock.
"Normally there'd be no open slots — simple gathering requests, monster hunts, merchant escorts, all kinds of quests — but now they're all abandoned and ownerless, an absolute mess! Thanks to that I get complaints every single day and it's driving me absolutely insane~! What am I supposed to do about them all rushing off to the mine~?! God, I'm so pissed~!"
She knocked back a drink like she couldn't hold back without it, then narrowed her already sharp eyes even further and spat on the floor.
"Which means right now, the adventurers' guild is very much welcoming even a scraggly little iron ore like you."
"Scraggly..."
"It's not wrong, is it? If you don't want to hear that, hurry up and clear some requests and climb up to copper ore. Now then, quest bargain sale~! Pick whatever you like~! Me being this nice to a girl whose only asset is her tits is a one-time deal, got it? Right now I might even quietly OK a quest above your rank~?"
'No wonder she got reassigned. This woman is genuinely beyond saving.'
All the bottom-feeder adventurers who might have messed with her had gone off to the mine. She'd already been worked up to begin with, and the disappointment was immense. Reina had mentally scripted the whole thing — walking into the adventurers' guild, getting sexually harassed by guys calling themselves her seniors, being forcibly recruited into one of those sketchy clans the gate guard had warned her about, and having all sorts of things done to her — and now every bit of that was ruined.
'At this point, having plain sex with a male escort feels off... and getting it from the woman right in front of me feels off too... Haah...'
Those guys weren't going to be working at the mine forever, but she needed someone to kill time with and vent her stress on. So she rummaged through the quest board, ignoring the gathering section and eyeing the monster hunts — but none of them suited Reina's level or tastes.
'Every single one of them has no genitals... Oh, a Warwolf? Ugh... of course it's female... Pass on this one too......'
"Stop messing up the quest board, would you? I don't want to have to reorganize it~!"
"Mmmmgh......!!"
There were plenty of quests, but nothing appealing.
And so her hand reached out.
"Hm? That one is..."
Seeing the quest Reina had grabbed, the receptionist's expression turned complicated. She puffed away at her cigarette with a look that said 'there's no way she'd actually bring that one over' — but sure enough, this idiot dragon thrust it forward without a moment's hesitation.
"Hey, big-tits. Are you illiterate, or is it because you're a demi-human?"
"Don't treat me like an idiot. I know what kind of request this is."
"And you know that and you're still bringing me a copper ore quest?"
"You're the one who said you'd OK quests above my rank."
"I mean, I did say that... but look at this! The recommended party size is 10! And there's no rescue support! The reward is suspiciously low, and it's a quest with a long string of failures? Don't go eyeing a bandit extermination quest when you're just iron ore~!"
Thwap thwap!
The receptionist smacked the request form Reina had brought and fumed. This was the very quest the Black Witch had warned her so strongly about. Even this newly reassigned receptionist seemed to know something about the bandit gang — she furrowed her brows and seethed, but Reina had no intention of backing down.
"Even if one iron ore who just showed up today disappears, it's no skin off your back, is it?"
"It's no skin off my back, but it'd be trouble if anyone found out."
"If I actually succeed and come back, I'll spread the word that it was all thanks to you. If I fail, just pretend someone like me never existed. ...That works, right?"
"......Ngh."
Since she'd been backed into a corner by her own words, the receptionist deliberated for a long while before finally accepting the request form.
"Don't go snitching to anyone, got it?"
"I won't, so give me some information. Even you're going to give me the basics, aren't you?"
"Information, huh..."
After processing the paperwork for accepting the request, she dug through her desk and pulled out documents containing information about the bandit gang. There was a hefty amount of material on the damage they'd caused, and the receptionist, clearly not thrilled about touching any of it, gave a brief summary.
"The Pig-Head Bandit Gang. They operate between the highlands near Orbie and the main roads. True to their name, they hide their identities behind pig-head masks. They're active regardless of whether it's morning or night, but apparently they have a weird habit of only operating on specific days of the week."
"Only on specific days each week? That's blatantly suspicious."
"Maybe they've got some kind of routine. Their main targets for plunder are ores from the mines. They occasionally attack merchants on the main road too, but apparently the damage from those is minor. Since ore is this city's main commodity, a support request was sent to the Royal Capital a while back, but it hasn't come through yet — it hasn't been long since the Demon King's army was defeated, so things are still in disarray — which is why it ended up as a guild request. Naturally, the trash here went in and came back having taken a beating. Especially women like you — they didn't just have a bad time, there are rumors that some were sold off somewhere, so if you don't want that happening to you, you'd better quit right now."
"I heard the guild might be connected to them somehow?"
"Who told you that?"
"Did I hit a nerve?"
"I don't know anything~! I haven't been assigned to this godforsaken place long, and every single person who talks to me is trash, so I've got way too many suspicions~! I've heard it's connected to some clan within the guild, but... honestly, they're all such trash that I've got way too many suspicions to narrow it down~?"
"Because they're all beyond saving?"
"Beyond saving... I wish it ended there. This request was filed by the Guild Master himself, and the reward is suspiciously low on top of that... Even I figured that out right after being assigned here, so... Aaaaagh~! Forget it~! Telling all this to an iron ore like you is just putting my own neck on the line!! You've heard enough — just go die! No wait — go get wrecked like the dog you are!"
'Is this woman really guild staff.'
"The paperwork's done so do whatever you want. I really can't stand watching a girl whose only feature is giant tits bouncing around inside the guild, so ideally I'd prefer you don't come back in one piece."
More than half of that was clearly sincere.
"So today happens to be one of their active days..."
By this point she'd grown so used to the woman's venomous, heartfelt insults that she tuned them out entirely and turned her mind to the surrounding geography.
'The main road... the highlands...'
She'd seen them on her way in yesterday when she was flying, so the terrain around the area came to her quickly.
"The sheer cliffs on the highlands over that way are especially notorious. Nobody goes near there on these days, so if you take a look around you'll run into them pretty quickly."
"That's right next to the mine."
"It's pathetic, isn't it — a bandit gang openly setting up camp right there and nobody can do a thing about it."
At this point she was practically spelling out that something was connected, but Reina didn't press further. Right now she wasn't hero Reina — she was adventurer Reina, iron ore rank. Her appearance was conspicuous enough that some might recognize who she really was, but she'd come all this way to throw her life away, and her interest wasn't in 'exterminating the bandits' — it was somewhere else entirely.
"They're obviously an all-male group, right?"
"Obviously. Haven't I been talking about what happened to the women this whole time? The confirmed count alone puts the gang at 20 members. If you get caught by them, a weak little girl like you is guaranteed to have every hole she's got torn to shreds."
"Skip the threats and give me any other information you have."
"Apparently among the items they use, there are some restraint tools that were used by the Demon King's army. Nobody knows where they got them, but after the Demon King's army collapsed, their gear started circulating all over the place, so they probably picked it up from there. The guild I used to work at was in the middle of struggling to recover items that belonged to the Demon King's army, so we got caught up in the fallout too. Alright, I'm done being bothered — check here for the details. If you bring back any of the items they're using, there's a separate reward for those, so if you somehow survive, be smart about it and bring them back~! Whether you'll be in any state to do that after seeing what's in there is another question, but hey, you never know."
'Getting dismissed right to the end. Hmm, so this is it...?'
She takes in the information about the area around the highlands and the restraint tools that the receptionist handed over.
'Demonic restraints... the type that gets dangerous the more times you're hit... These were standard-issue equipment used across the entire Demon King's army, right? A cursed item that forcibly strips your gear each time it hits and leaves you naked and bound... Three hits triggers an Armor Break, leaving you restrained in the nude — but if your level was high enough or your resistance was strong enough it wouldn't work, so against certain targets it was absolute, but for our party it was basically a toy.'
For Reina in particular, it was laughably useless.
But.
'Demonic restraints... mage-hunting type?'
She knew the demonic restraints themselves, but she didn't recognize the descriptor attached after.
'Is this a variant of the demonic restraints I know? And then there's the Monkey's Tail — I've never heard of that item before... There's a note saying it's a cursed item, so why aren't the other details listed?'
Among the items on the list was something even Reina didn't recognize. She could pride herself on knowing the Demon King's army better than anyone, yet here was something even she had no knowledge of. Naturally, there was no information provided about it either. The fact that it wasn't described here despite there apparently being quite a few victims could only mean the guild was withholding information.
"What are you staring at? Stop asking questions and get out already."
The receptionist clearly had no intention of sharing any more information, and Reina was fine with that.
'That's enough. Winning was never the point to begin with. There's a special thrill in getting wrecked without knowing what's coming, isn't there?'
Nfufufu~♡
"What's with this girl... has she lost her mind...?"
Finally in a good mood, Reina broke into a giddy smile, and the receptionist scrunched up all her freckles into a disgusted expression and backed away. She'd explained the dangers of the bandit gang thoroughly enough, and yet this girl had pushed through and taken the quest anyway — and now she was laughing to herself. By anyone's measure, this was one weird-ass woman.
'Alright, I've got what I came for — I'll head back, get ready, and leave right away~!'
"W-wait, what?! Why are you laughing just now?! Hey, can you even hear me?!"
-Tadadadak!!!
"Hey! Iron ore!!!"
Reina turned her back and the receptionist yelled something at the top of her lungs, but it didn't register. The perverted dragon bolted out the door with a spring in her step, made it home in no time, and there she took out a certain item and equipped it.
"With this... nfufufu..."
Click♡
"Ahnnnn♡ Ngh♡ Ah, this feeling is amazing~♡"
An unpleasant iron ornament snapping shut around her ankle. Along with it, red smoke billowed from Reina's body and drifted up into the sky and vanished. The languid sensation of something important being drained from inside her made Reina's body sway, but she didn't fall — she steadied herself, broke into a satisfied smile, sprinted out through the main gate of the city of Orbie, and once she was somewhere no one could see, she unfurled her wings and took to the sky.
'Rape~♡ Sex~♡ Rape~♡ Sex~♡'
Ten minutes to the highlands where the Pig-Head Bandit Gang had made their base. Fortunately, the moment she crested the highlands she spotted a suspicious group, so there was no need to waste any time. Reina dove into a steep descent, determined to finish things before the aphrodisiac she'd applied that morning and the heat it stirred up had a chance to cool down.
"Ahah~♡ Ahahah~♡"
The creature dropping from the sky laughs with delight, eagerly anticipating what's to come. Something very, very bad was clearly about to happen. So bad it would be enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Naturally — not to the bandit gang, but to Reina herself.
Defeat-addicted Reina had not the slightest intention of winning against a mere bandit gang — her mind was filled with nothing but thoughts of losing.