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When it was nearing noon, Gemel finally woke up and visited the guild branch, which made the female receptionist in charge startled.

She quickly switched to her usual business smile, but it still proved enough to irritate him.

“Hey.”
“G-Good morning, Mr. Gemel.”
“Are there any nominated quests?”

Gemel had been visiting the guild once every two or three days lately, and asked that same question.

“None so far…”
“……Sigh. Are you even f̲u̲c̲k̲i̲n̲g trying? You better not be hiding them from me, you hear?”

He drew his face closer like a threatening chicken, making the receptionist hang her head while trembling.

“I used to get nominated quests all the time. Are you b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲s̲ stopping quests directed at me?”

The quests aimed at specific adventurers had a larger share of the fixed reward appropriate for their rank.

For the Seventh Dice which was slightly above the middle ranks, nominated quests looked very attractive. Since they couldn’t bear doing the normal quests which had busts mixed among them, Gemel had decided to just wait for a nominated quest instead.

He completely believed that there would be work waiting for him whenever he came.

However, nothing showed up no matter how long he waited. Previously, there used to be so many nominated quests that he even had the option of turning down the ones he didn’t like.

It was natural that Gemel started wondering whether this was the guild’s retaliation for the previous incident.

“Um, we… the guild is not involved in the acquisition of the nominated quests. Your manager most likely negotiated with the clients directly and asked them to issue the quests through the guild…”
“Huuh?”

The receptionist refuted his claim while trembling. And she once again reminded him of the one guy he didn’t want to remember.

—That guy again? This makes me sick…

Gemel didn’t for a moment think that he had done something wasteful or wrong.

However, the realization that the incompetent ■■■■■ that he’d been looking down on used to actually support his livelihood made him feel as if a part of him was made of that incompetent parasite, and that made him extremely displeased.

“Um, are you looking for other quests?”
“Forget it!”

He clicked his tongue with saliva spitting and left the guild with rough footsteps.

“Gemel, you’re back!”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”

Just as Gemel returned to his party’s rented house with a bunch of booze to wash off his worries, the three of his party members all rushed to the entrance to meet him.

Their expressions were tense like those of newbie adventurers when fighting monsters for the first time. Certainly not expressions skilled adventurers like them would make.

“Hey… Look at this.”

Gemel was dragged inside by them and shown a silver plate lying on the table.

“Is it that b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲’s adventurer’s card?”

Gemel quizzically lifted it up, but then, his expression immediately turned similar to the rest.

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“Wha……the heck is this.”

Gemel’s face paled at the impossible numerical figures listed on the adventurer’s card with a blurred name.

“We were rummaging through that guy’s luggage to deal with it and we found it like this.”
“Gemel, what are your stats?”

Gemel pulled out his own adventurer’s card at that question.

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10 was considered average, excluding magic.
20 was considered first-class or talented.
30 was considered superhuman, or perhaps a heroic person.

Humans had differences in growth based on talent, but everyone honed their abilities through training.

And eventually, they would exceed the limit of their body.

In terms of the ability score, 30 was already considered to be beyond the physical limitations of the human body. It was already at the level of magic in the form of a body.

However, ■■■■■’s values on his adventurer’s card easily crossed even those.

His HP and MP were particularly extreme. Even heroes that each kingdom only had a few who had values in the 200s. Even 300 was already impossible.

Gemel had been working on good jobs lately so his body was polished well. Frankly, his stats were something to brag about. The clients who knew how to read the stats would be impressed and trust his strength just based on those numbers.

However, even if some of his stats were winning, they were still trivial compared to ■■■■■’s stats.

“This is crazy. His magic power and MP…”
“How many first-class magician’s worth is this?”
“His vitality is also off the charts.”
“It feels like he’d shrug it off even if he gets bit by a dragon.”
“Actually, what the heck is with his resistance being 78?”
“All his stats are basically impossible values. He won’t die even if the demon lord curses him.”

The adventurer’s card they knew well had impossible values listed on it, making it feel eerie.

Everyone was staring at the silver plate as if their eyes were glued to it.

“M-Maybe it broke, after all. There’s no way humans could become this strong. Much less that parasite.”
“Gemel, you’re the one who said adventurer’s cards don’t break.”
“But it’s not like it can never happen, alright?! I just meant in general!”

Gemel realized his voice was stiff.

“Hey, let’s just throw this away already…”

Before long, someone said that.

“How? It’ll be dangerous if someone finds it. And it’s not easy to break it.”

Calmly, very calmly and carefully, Gemel made his decision.

Frankly, he wanted to throw an ominous thing like this just like them. But unless he came up with a proper way of getting rid of something this troublesome, it would just invite trouble down the line.

“We can just ignore it. Let’s just put it away somewhere.”
“Yeah, no one’ll find it.”

Everyone nodded.

But none of their faces had any confidence or composure.

“And what if this isn’t broken…?”

Someone spoke up. Maybe it was even Gemel himself.

That should have been impossible, but no one could speak up to deny it, as if some invisible boulder had crushed their throats.