Chapter 35: The Tin Knight and The Mysterious Underground Labyrinth (4)
The late emperor of the Empire, known as the Iron Blood Emperor, was said to have evaluated adventurers as follows:
“The dregs of society.
“They neither take up sickles to farm, board ships to catch fish, spin looms to make clothes, nor do they lead carts to transport goods.
“Like the military, they are a group that produces nothing—merely consuming. However, at least the military follows the nation’s control and can be self-sufficient in forms like military farms if necessary. Furthermore, they function as a deterrent that protects the country from external threats and suppresses instability in public order by their very existence.
“But what of adventurers? Far from stabilizing society, they sow chaos. They stride through the streets with all sorts of deadly weapons, making the people tremble with anxiety, and flaunt their occasionally lucky gains, instilling a relative deprivation in those who labor honesty. Worse, their flamboyance misleads the foolish youth who mistakenly think their appearance is ‘cool’.
“Some might defend them by citing the heroic deeds of the few. However, I ask in return: Out of the riffraff scattered across the continent, how many adventurers are truly worthy of respect? If only one in a hundred is a gem and ninety-nine are trash, how is that different from a simple pile of garbage?
“The freedom that adventurers cry out for is nothing more than licentiousness. A society where adventurers are respected proves the incompetence of its rulers. Therefore, my words to them are simple.
“Submit to the nation’s control. Take responsibility for your assigned tasks. That alone is how you can prove that you are not mere trash, but upright citizens of the Empire.”
The Iron Blood Emperor’s disdain for adventurers was well-known, but ironically, it was also the Iron Blood Emperor who brought about a great revival in the adventurer industry.
Before the Iron Blood Emperor, the Adventurers Guild was not a single large organization, but separate armed groups rooted in each region, and there were no proper standards for request fees or adventurer ranking systems.
It was common for adventurers from different guilds to fight each other with force, and it wasn’t rare for adventurers who failed quests to transfer to guilds in other regions to avoid compensation for failed commissions.