The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 162: Orthodox! Fantasy! Adventurers!

"Death Maniac Swordswoman."

"Gender?"

"Male."

The camp registrar paused briefly, then said in a detached tone, "Please read and confirm that you will comply with Adventurer 430 and the Confidentiality Agreement. Here's a printed copy..."

"I accept."

"Please present your adventurer badge."

Ashe had worn a face mask to conceal his identity. He pulled out a circular badge and scanned it. The glass panel glowed green. The registrar nodded. "Mission registration complete. You may enter."

He had managed to step into Observation Point Fifty-Three with ease, encountering no major obstacles. Thirty-meter-high earthen walls separated the camp from the outside world. At the center stood a tall tower. Above its peak, a deep-blue vortex swirled in the clouds. This was the Level 2 Virtual Channel, and also Ashe's main reason for being here.

All the vegetation in the camp had been cleared, leaving neat rows of benches and long stools in its place. Adventurers clustered in groups, chatting casually, popping Moon Candies, and sipping alcohol. The combination sent shivers of bliss through them, occasionally causing convulsions of delight.

Voices rang out across the chaos.

"Flame Brigade, over here!"

"The Hungry Wolves, assemble at my spot!"

"Farga, Farga... hasn't the Coffin-Bearer's Farga arrived yet?"

This spectacle captured the reality of adventurers in the Battle Zone.

Amid the raucous gathering, lone figures like Ashe lingered on the sidelines, cloaked in standard gear and masked, observing silently.

When Ashe had studied adventurer data on the Curtain, he almost applauded the Blood Moon Kingdom's craftiness. Beneath the veneer of human rights and equality, running a conscripted army had been far too costly. Three hundred years ago, the kingdom had abolished the army entirely, replacing it with the adventurer system.

Under this system, the Battle Zone issued tasks, and adventurers accepted these assignments, completed them, and collected their rewards. The relationship was purely contractual. They came and went freely, theoretically taking on some military functions.

The advantages were clear. There were no training costs, logistics, or employee pensions to cover. If an adventurer died, the Battle Zone bore no responsibility. If one refused a mission, they could leave at will. Someone else would simply take their place. It wasn't an employment contract; it was temporary, voluntary, and entirely transactional.

Running an army required treating soldiers as humans, which was expensive. Recruiting adventurers, however, allowed the kingdom to treat them as tools. There was no need to consider race, human rights, or other concerns, and costs dropped dramatically. In its first year alone, the adventurer system cut military expenses by eighty percent.

And the best part? The shift didn't harm the kingdom. It didn't need a standing army to quell rebellions, defend borders, or manage disasters. Large-scale uprisings were impossible. Strict Love Prohibition education played a role, but the mandatory neck chips alone were already enough to make such revolts unthinkable. Natural disasters were rare. The Weather Station resolved potential calamities long before they could erupt. Virtual World disasters sorcerers caused required sorcerers to deal with them personally. The army could not help in such matters.

As for the borders, the Curtain offered a straightforward explanation, stating that, "The Blood Moon Lord has already repelled external enemies." For that reason, there was no need to station troops along the borders.

Tasks such as maintaining public order, pursuing criminals, and preventing cult activity fell under the Heresy Court's authority.

That left the army with only two real functions: emergency response and the suppression of Abyssal outbreaks, both of which adventurers could fully handle. When the military system shifted to the adventurer system, efficiency didn't necessarily improve, but it didn't decline either. Adventurer groups thus rose to historical prominence.

As a group defined by violence, adventurers were a diverse mix. There were the combat sorcerers devoted to protecting the Blood Moon or honing their skills, opportunists drawn to the battle zones in pursuit of resources, and even criminals seeking refuge there to avoid arrest.

Yes, the Battle Zone accepted fugitives, and the Heresy Court would not pursue them there. For those who had committed serious crimes in the cities and had nowhere left to go, the Battle Zone was often their only refuge.

The Woodpecker Gang under Syrin's control, for instance, maintained a branch in the Lakeside Battlezone, specifically for sheltering troublesome members. If Gold Beak Ronald had not been captured, he would likely have gone there to live as an adventurer.

When Ashe had listened to Iger explain the adventurer system in prison, he had wondered if it would be possible to make a living in a battle zone after escaping. He imagined embarking on a grand adventurer's journey, earning merit, clearing his name, and steering the strange cult leader back onto the proper path of a fantastical adventure.

Iger, however, coldly dismissed Ashe's fantasy. As long as an adventurer had a chip, the Battle Zone didn't care whether they were a notorious criminal guilty of countless sins or a petty offender punished for racial prejudice. Without a chip, fugitives simply could not enter the Battle Zone's Safe Rest Areas. As the name implied, these zones activated the attack restraints in the adventurers' chips, prohibiting all violence within.

Ashe had refused to implant a chip himself, but even if he had wanted to, it would have been impossible. The Church of Devotion had monopolized the chip implantation industry. Even the underground black market offered only purification services and not implantation. Thus, the five infamous escapees had already burned their bridges by removing their chips.

Life as an adventurer was far from the paradise Ashe had imagined. The Battle Zone paid only in merit. No amount of money could guarantee comfort there. In fact, adventurers often ended up exploited, bleeding both literally and figuratively, and eventually, everyone had to take on missions, delving into the sewer abyss to hunt monsters for survival. Statistics showed that rookie adventurers had only a twenty-five percent chance of making it through their first year in the Battle Zone. Among them, a significant number did so only by quitting early and returning to city life. That figure was deeply alarming.

To manage such a complex adventurer population, the Battle Zone introduced the Adventurer Merit system. All mission rewards were paid in merit, which could be redeemed for anything within the zone, including spirits, Miracles, class-specific knowledge, and more. The clever part? Merit wasn't tied to the chip. It was stored on the adventurer badge itself, which was non-personal. As long as someone had a badge, whether it was their own, one they picked up, or one taken by force, they could redeem merits.

When Ashe fully understood the system, he finally grasped the Blood Moon Kingdom's cunning. This single mechanism made coordinated adventurer groups impossible. Large-scale violent factions were crushed at the root. As long as the Battle Zone continued offering merit rewards, distrust would persist among adventurers. If the Blood Moon Kingdom forbade families from organizing, there was no way it could allow an army, a structured instrument of violence, to exist.

While large gangs were gone, countless small adventurer groups of five or six remained. In this single camp, there were already seven or eight of them. Seeing groups like the Flame Adventurer Group, the Hungry Wolves, and the Farga, Ashe felt a lump in his throat.

He secretly longed for this kind of fantasy life, where he could form an adventurer party with like-minded friends, embark on unknown journeys, live out epic tales, and retire before thirty-five to marry and settle down. In the ideal case, he would meet a beautiful, caring lover, a thoughtful wife, a confidante, and a lively, charming girlfriend, preferably without them ever meeting each other. That was the essence of a true fantasy story.

Instead, he had been captured, escaped, and fled the country. This was no fantasy; it was a crime thriller. Even without transmigration, misappropriating company funds could have given him the same experience.

As Ashe sank back into the gloom of adult disappointment, a commotion broke out among the adventurers. A cloaked, masked adventurer claimed he had lost his badge and accused three passing adventurers. Naturally, they denied it and agreed to be searched.

When the masked adventurer frisked the first man, the man raised both hands, holding the badge in his right, and tossed it to the second man while staying out of the searcher's line of sight. Everyone nearby saw it, but no one intervened. Even those who might have intended to help stayed put. If anyone could let such an important badge be stolen, they might as well quit adventuring and return to city life.

The second man repeated the trick, tossing the badge to the third. By the time the masked adventurer reached him, the badge had already made a full circle. The onlookers couldn't help but laugh. The three were simply toying with the masked adventurer. In the end, he walked away empty-handed, muttering about his misfortune.

Just as Ashe thought this was a typical social beating, the three suddenly panicked.

"My badge! Where's my badge?"

"Mine's gone too! Damn that goblin bastard!"

"Where did he go? Find him! My badge has merits for buying spirits!"

They furiously searched for the masked adventurer. However, with so many cloaked and masked adventurers around, he effortlessly melted into the crowd. The furious adventurers even targeted Ashe, but he met their gaze without fear.

Members of nearby adventurer parties shouted and jeered.

"Hahaha, this is hilarious. I saw him frisk you guys and casually grab your badges, but I didn't say a word!"

"Why glare? You can't even stop a theft! Why embarrass yourselves here? Are you looking for a fight?"

"We've laughed enough. Go home now."

The three fumed. Their shoulders trembled, and their eyes welled with tears. They muttered a few curses nobody could hear and slunk off to the edge of the camp.

At that moment, a tall, lean goblin in formal attire climbed the platform. His delicate features, framed by silver-rimmed glasses and a top hat that concealed his hairless head, gave him an almost elfin elegance. Even Ashe, normally oblivious to racial bias, couldn't help but be impressed. The Blood Moon Kingdom's genetic optimization technology was simply unparalleled.

The goblin said calmly, "Good evening, adventurers. I am the clerk for this mission, Keppert Mantelas. Only 90 minutes remain until midnight. The camp is now closed for entry and exit. We will begin operational preparations."

Just then, Ashe heard political commentary he had grown used to during his time in the Shattered Lake Prison.

"Handling low-risk, politically convenient missions like foreign invasions... looks like this goblin might be a candidate for the assembly."

He glanced at the cloaked adventurers but couldn't tell who had spoken.