From the day after he announced he would be taking the A-Rank promotion exam, Rei's life subtly changed.
Of course, his core responsibilities hadn't really shifted—going to the Treant Forest to haul felled logs to Gilm, visiting the Fairy Dwelling, and checking on Anastasia as she conducted her research in the underground space beneath the forest.
Regarding the Fairy Dwelling in particular, since Nielson was essentially boarding at Marina's house, Rei wasn't actually going to pick her up. Instead, his trips involved escorting her back so she could report various matters to the Chief.
And while Rei still transported the majority of the wood the woodcutters felled, he had also started doing trial runs of moving it by hand a few times a day—just so things wouldn't fall into chaos when he left for the promotion exam.
Previously, the adventurers working in the Treant Forest had hauled the felled timber all the way to Gilm. Now, however, those adventurers only carried it as far as the forest's edge, where a separate group of adventurers took over the transport.
Rei had also been running construction materials to the Expansion Construction site, but fortunately or unfortunately, a workable system had already been established to manage that without him.
After all, it was simply transporting building materials.
There was no need to venture outside the frontier town of Gilm, and the work required no complicated thinking.
It was a job anyone could do, provided they had the physical strength for it.
The pay was correspondingly lower than other jobs, though.
Even so, the ability to work safely was what made jobs in Gilm popular, and a fairly large number of people had signed on for that particular task.
As a result, unless things were exceptionally busy or an emergency arose, Rei was freed from that duty.
Once the promotion exam was over, he probably wouldn't need to handle the construction material transport at all.
With the jobs Rei had been doing delegated to others, his schedule naturally opened up.
What Rei was doing with that free time...
"No. You raise your head only after the Prime Minister gives you permission to do so."
Elena's scolding voice echoed through the room.
This was the living room in Marina's house.
They usually ate their meals in the courtyard, so Rei rarely had occasion to use the living room. But since Elena received visitors there, she was quite accustomed to the space.
And in that living room, Rei was currently receiving etiquette lessons from Elena.
"After the Prime Minister says I may raise my head. Got it."
Rei, who had been bowing on one knee, nodded at Elena's instruction.
Even the act of kneeling on one knee involved a bewildering number of precise bodily movements that Rei simply couldn't comprehend. To him, the sheer level of detail was baffling.
But the Kingdom of Mireana was a major power.
It hadn't been forged through rapid expansion, but had grown steadily over a long span of time.
Because of that, the etiquette for meeting with the Royal Family was extraordinarily precise.
For Rei, it was the kind of tedious exchange that made him seriously reconsider whether he should just abandon the promotion exam altogether.
That said, having committed to it once, he wasn't about to quit so easily.
Even while finding it thoroughly exhausting and accumulating stress, he followed Elena's instructions and worked his way through the etiquette training.
After about an hour had passed...
"Hmm, that should be enough for today."
At those words from Elena, Rei collapsed onto a nearby sofa.
"I'm drained..."
It was mental fatigue, of course, not physical.
To Rei, practicing etiquette like this felt far more taxing than fighting monsters. Fighting Dragonias had been hundreds of times easier.
"Fufu, so Rei really is hopeless at this sort of thing."
"Of course I am. From where I stand, I'm just amazed nobles can do this kind of tedious nonsense so effortlessly."
"Because they are nobles, I should think. Conversely, for ordinary nobles—those who never set foot on a battlefield—there are undoubtedly many who would absolutely refuse to do what Rei does and fight monsters."
"Really? The image I have of nobles is more the type who'd march off to battle themselves."
"That is... quite a skewed impression. There are certainly many such nobles, but ones who never participate in combat at all aren't uncommon either."
"I get that in theory, but the majority of nobles I've actually met have been that type."
Of course, Rei had also encountered nobles who wanted absolutely nothing to do with fighting.
But by sheer numbers, the nobles Rei had met more often were the ones who involved themselves in battle—even if only to command from the rear.
Because of that, Rei's mental image of nobles was still firmly rooted in the idea that they belonged on the battlefield.
"Lady Elena, when it comes to the nobles Lord Rei meets, he likely encounters many of them on the battlefield, so wouldn't it be natural for him to cross paths with that type more often?"
The speaker was Ara, who had just prepared tea for Rei and Elena for their break now that etiquette training was over.
Normally, hot tea wasn't particularly welcome in summer—especially at the height of the season.
It wasn't universal, but at least in Rei's case, he always gravitated toward cold drinks when summer rolled around.
He had read or heard somewhere that drinking warm beverages in the heat was actually better for your health.
But even so, when it was hot enough to make you sweat, craving a cold drink was only natural.
...However, Rei was wearing his Dragon Robe with its Simplified air conditioner function, and more importantly, this house was kept comfortable by Marina's Spirit Magic.
Even in midsummer, it was the kind of place where drinking hot tea never felt unpleasant.
So Rei sipped the tea Ara had prepared without a second thought.
"Mm, it's good."
If he were a tea connoisseur, he might have been able to identify what kind of leaves were used, or even pinpoint when they were harvested. But while Rei liked tea, he wasn't that knowledgeable about it.
Back in Japan, he'd been the sort of tea drinker who was perfectly satisfied with canned tea from a vending machine.
For Ara to brew tea good enough to impress even Rei, her skill in that area had to be exceptionally high.
What's more, Ara had prepared it out of a desire to serve the best possible tea to Elena, the woman she looked up to. Elena, satisfied with what Ara had brewed, spoke up.
"Those kinds of nobles are probably the ones Rei gets along with best. By comparison, nobles who avoid combat tend to be far more particular about etiquette."
"I'm not so sure about that. I've had my fair share of run-ins with that other type too."
Those experiences were precisely why Rei held such a strong impression that nobles were simply people he couldn't get along with.
If most of the nobles he'd met had been like Elena or Daskar, he probably would have maintained a much friendlier relationship with the nobility.
"Even when nobles are compatible with Rei, there's a limit to such things. Nobles who are perfectly suited to Rei in the way Lord Daskar is are naturally quite rare."
"Which means that after I'm promoted to A-Rank, the negotiation proxy for dealing with nobles really will be crucial. I wonder who it'll be. They said I'd meet them face-to-face before it's officially decided."
Rei understood that his personality diverged considerably from the norm.
Because of that, his honest wish was for the person serving as his negotiation proxy to be chosen with great care.
A negotiation proxy would primarily handle dealings with nobles.
In other words—under what conditions the work would be done, and matters of compensation—Rei would be entrusting them with full authority.
If the proxy turned out to be incompetent, it could easily result in compensation that was utterly unreasonable for Rei.
Alternatively, they might demand excessive payment from the nobles, pass a smaller cut to Rei and his party, and pocket the difference.
Since the person would be introduced by Daskar, perhaps there wasn't much cause for concern on that front.
Even so, becoming Rei's negotiation proxy came with its own set of difficulties.
"The proxy will be traveling and acting alongside us, right? If so, being able to ride the Set Basket would be essential."
"Thinking of it that way, it would be like gaining another party member."
There was a distinctly envious undertone in Elena's voice.
Elena considered herself one of Rei's companions, and she believed the others accepted her as such.
But ultimately, she had been dispatched by the Noble's Faction. That made her a companion, but not a party member.
The B-Rank party, Crimson Lotus Wings.
She couldn't join it as a member herself, yet someone—someone she didn't even know—would be entering Rei's party. It would have been more unnatural for Elena not to feel complicated about it.
(If I became the negotiation proxy... no, that's impossible.)
The thought crossed Elena's mind for an instant, but she dismissed it immediately.
No matter how she looked at it, Elena had been sent to monitor whether anyone from the Noble's Faction was up to anything suspicious during Gilm's Expansion Construction. She couldn't possibly take on such a role.
There were people who could casually do what she herself could not.
That was what Elena found so deeply enviable.
"Elena? Is something wrong?"
Lost in regret over her own situation, Elena snapped back to reality at Rei's words.
She hastily shook her head and said it was nothing, though whether Rei was actually convinced by that was another matter entirely.
Still, he didn't press further, having read the look on her face.
And Elena, perhaps sensing Rei's consideration, shifted the topic.
"From what I saw today, Rei's etiquette isn't that problematic. Of course, if we were to fix every minor detail, there are certainly things that need correcting. However, that standard applies if you were a noble. As an adventurer, there'd be no problem at all."
"I'm glad to hear you say that."
At the end of the day, Rei had attended high school back in Japan.
The etiquette he'd learned then wasn't perfect, but having participated in school events—entrance ceremonies, graduation ceremonies, opening and closing ceremonies—he at least had a foundation. A very small one, true, but still more of a basis for understanding etiquette than an adventurer who knew nothing at all.
Beyond that, he'd also absorbed some of this knowledge through subculture media like manga and anime.
"Fufu, at this pace, there won't be all that much left for me to teach. However, things learned in a hurry like this tend to be forgotten quickly. If possible, I'd like the promotion exam to take place before Rei forgets what he's learned."
"Yeah. I'm hoping the exam comes as soon as possible too. But Worker is the one who decides the scheduling, so there's not much I can say about it."
Daskar had probably already told Worker to hold the promotion exam as soon as possible.
But as Guild Master, Worker couldn't afford to focus solely on Rei's affairs.
If anything, since Worker oversaw the Guild that directly managed all adventurers, it wouldn't be surprising for him to be even busier than Daskar depending on the circumstances.
"In that case, all we can do is pray the promotion exam notice arrives as soon as possible."
"Given the etiquette situation, it's also true that I can't afford to take things too slowly."
"...Why not have Lady Marina press the issue?"
At Ara's suggestion, Rei shook his head.
It wasn't that the thought hadn't crossed his mind initially.
Even after stepping down as Guild Master and returning to life as an adventurer, Marina still wielded considerable influence within the Guild.
Naturally—having served as Guild Master for years, there were many people who owed her a debt of gratitude.
But precisely because she had retired from the position, Marina wouldn't actively intervene with Worker on her own.
If there were a compelling reason she absolutely had to, that would be different. But this time, there was no need for such measures.
...Though if the promotion exam still hadn't been scheduled by the time autumn rolled around, that might be another story entirely.