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Hey, I’m Vector. An ordinary adventurer you can find everywhere.

Eh? Don’t like it? I’m not lying at all… Ah, you knew? I see.

Hmm!… Yes, I am Vector Georgius Ostrat. Formerly the second prince of the Kingdom of Georgius, presently the Duke of Ostrat.

… Sorry, can I stop now? I don’t ‌like talking about this.

What did I want to say again? Oh, I’ll talk about my life as an adventurer. As you can see, being an adventurer is a way for me to hide my identity from the world. I have various circumstances… Well, it’s not that complicated.

When it came to royalty and the older prince, I frequently experienced many cases where my life was targeted because of the right to succeed to the throne. To put it simply, most people didn’t like me and just wanted me to quickly become a subject of the state.

Since I received the royal education, I understood my obligations and responsibilities, and I intended to fulfill them. Even so, I was a little tired of the political conflict or the plotting… In the first place; I had no interest in the throne, so I gave it up.

When I was twelve years old, I hid my identity and started working as an adventurer. When I reached adulthood at fifteen years old, I served the kingdom, receiving the Duke title. However, I never thought ‌I would end up fighting the Lord of Winter right after that…

Some nobles didn’t take sides to the political affairs and got along with everyone, abandoning the right of inheritance of their family and succeeded using their own ability. I wanted to become someone like that, and it went better than I expected.

However, I couldn’t completely abscond the right to succeed to the throne, and that’s… something I was still ‌worried about.

Territory management? I had no particular problem there. I had them ceded a fertile land from the territory under the direct control of the royal family, and my aides were excellent… My partner originally grew up with me as my foster brother. I could trust him with things like this. He looked like he was going to die due to a lack of manpower, though.

Eh? How could I afford to become an adventurer with no aim in my life? No, my main purpose was to scout human resources to solve the labor shortage.

I had to find a reliable partner since they were going to be my subordinate hired in my territory, right? Plus, I could help the commoners who were in trouble by becoming an adventurer, killing two birds with one stone… And I wasn’t enjoying my valuable freedom to the fullest, okay? But I couldn’t say I didn’t appreciate it.

I frequently went back to the territory to watch the situation, so it’s okay. My partner was excellent, and I kept increasing the talented people, so I could be free for the next few years… no. I’m going to be an adventurer. It’s not like I was playing around, okay?

Besides, I also caught a few merchants who were doing dishonest business secretly… And also several corrupt reeves…

Speaking of which, when I returned to the royal castle the other day, Sir Eisenstein, who I met after a long time, called me an ‘as’ or something like that. What does that mean? Maybe I should ask him when I meet him next time.

I was currently working with a few colleagues.

Most of them were younger than me, but I had good chemistry with one of them… Hmm, maybe it was a few years ago? I didn’t like how my name became popular after the Lord of Winter’s subjugation. That only made my surroundings noisy. The story started when I met them, when I was working in the territory of Mubarro, away from the royal capital.

He was called Neil, a young adventurer who got along with me. A lot of things happened, so I worked together with him.

At first, I talked with Neil to decide on the policy, but I became the leader before I knew it. When I realized that, I could only laugh bitterly.

That being said, I wasn’t always working with them. Actually, I also joined several other parties. My original purpose was to gather human resources, so I had to meet many people. But well, I mainly worked with Neil and his team.

Anyway, let me introduce them for now.

First‌, Neil.

He wanted to be a swordsman. I taught him the regular style of swordsmanship, but he was ‌good. Even if he only trained for a little over a year, he could think for himself and work hard. If he keeps going like this, he most likely would be quite strong.

Next was Collie.

She was Neil’s sister… how could I say this? She was ‌handy, willing to do anything, but she didn’t excel in anything. She became the scout for now, but I’d like her to use a spear to switch with the middle guard to balance the team. I just hope she could stop looking at me amorously like that.

The last one was Tess.

Tess was Neil’s lover. An alchemist who came to their village a long time ago taught her a little, so she could make up a prescription, even if not much. Thanks to that, the party could reduce the cost of recovery medicine a bit.

She was also interested in magic after learning alchemy, so I taught her magic occasionally when I have time.

They were all farmers, but they were better than I expected. Especially Neil. If he keeps improving like this, I might leave one of the units to him. The latter two were… it would depend on their future growth.

Ah, actually, besides these three, I had two more members a few months ago.

One was Irvine.

He was an archer, an excellent rearguard who could also become a scout. He used to be the third son of a noble of lower status…

The other was Gilliam.

He was a warrior equipped with a large shield, a tanker? But thanks to him, the battle became stable.

I had invited these two to be my subordinates. They were happy to accept my offer. After that, I talked to Neil a bit, but he seemed to be worried about various things. Well, we still had time left, so he could take his time to consider it.

Ah, and I was also interested in a kid.

I heard about her from Neil before. She was a witch who lived in the forest nearby Neil’s home village, who was also an excellent alchemist.

She could even make a medicine to cure a highly lethal epidemic in just a day.

I was only thinking of meeting her if I had a chance. But a few months later, after I ‌met her, I wanted to rope her in.

She took care of the orphans in the town who were working as adventurers, improved their life, defeated an orc alone, and collected a sizable amount of herbs every time… I heard she also introduced a dish no one had ever seen before at the inn.

Irvine and Gilliam also said she had helped them before.

They took a request to subdue a group of ogres. But when they went to fulfill it, a lord actually commanded the group, putting the subjugation team into a difficult position.

They were almost dead after being chased by a ferocious orc. She was the one who helped them.

However, there was one problem in recruiting her. It was her relationship with Neil.

Apparently, Neil had offended her when she was going home. Neil also had a hard time adapting to the situation, so he bothered her a lot.

… Well, Neil didn’t seem to be aware of it, but he clearly favored her. I think that’s why his attitude toward her had changed.

The girl in question was called Ren… I heard a lot of stories and talked to her a bit, but she seemed to have a very troublesome personality.

It’s better to gradually deepen the relationship than to force it. With that in mind, I pretended to meet her by chance and greeted her whenever we met, but she vanished from the town during my gradual approach.