As the porter, I carried some of Hoss's luggage.
Given my build and stamina, there was no way I could carry all of it.
"Sorry. I'm supposed to be the porter, but..."
"Don't sweat it."
"Do you always bring this much?"
"It's a bit more than usual this time."
"Because I'm here?"
"That's part of it. Don't worry about it. I'm the cook. Wof, do you cook?"
"Yeah. Just simple home cooking, though."
"That's reassuring. Those two don't cook."
"I'm really curious what kind of meals we'll be having."
"In that case, I'll have you help out."
"Sure!"
Dungeon cooking. I was looking forward to it.
Incidentally, I'd offered to carry Mineha's luggage too, but she politely refused.
She glared at me like I was some creep who wanted to go through a girl's belongings.
That is literally my job, but... I could see her point.
I had no idea how long we'd been walking since we set out.
Eventually, a forest came into view. We decided to take a break nearby.
"The dungeon we're investigating this time is deep in this forest."
"Hey, is it a long way to the entrance?"
Mineha asked, sitting down on a nearby rock.
For the record, she hadn't walked or flown the entire time.
She'd been sitting on my shoulder the whole way. There was a reason for that.
Her size made it difficult to walk alongside us. Our speeds were different, too.
She could fly.
But apparently, flying for extended periods drained her stamina.
Having someone carry her was the best option.
I was the only one among the group who could do it.
This was something I absolutely couldn't say out loud. She hadn't noticed, either.
The softness of her rear pressing against my shoulder made my heart skip a beat.
Something else I couldn't say: she was heavy sitting on my shoulder.
But for someone in full armor, she wasn't outrageously heavy.
That armor. It didn't seem to be made of iron.
If it were iron, she wouldn't be able to move at all.
She was heavy, but the softness of her backside canceled it out, so I barely noticed.
A girl's rear is truly magnificent. I'm pretty sure that's a universal truth.
Axe looked up at the sky and answered.
"It's around midday now, so we should get there by evening."
"That sounds about right. So, you're going to tell me about this dungeon exploration?"
"Ah, yeah. First off, this dungeon is one of the countless dungeons that appeared after the anomalous earthquake. The dungeon is small — only about three underground floors. This will be our third exploration."
"What do you mean, third?"
"Each time, a different set of delvers is supposed to explore it. Four times total."
"Is that a commission from the Guild?"
"That's right."
"Um, by the way, what were the results of the first two explorations?"
"Apparently both came back with nothing unusual."
"Then it should've been done after the first time, right?"
Mineha furrowed her brow like I was an idiot.
Axe let out a bitter laugh.
"Yeah. But the Guild decided on four total explorations. Another set of delvers is already scheduled to explore after us, doing the exact same thing."
"I don't get the meaning behind any of this. The results are already in, aren't they? So why are they still making people do pointless work? Even if the dungeon is impressive, they already know it doesn't change much."
"I agree with that opinion."
"I reckon it's pointless no matter when you ask — before or now," Hoss added.
"…Yeah, you're right…"
A heavy silence settled over us for a moment. Everyone was thinking the same thing — how unreasonable and baffling this was.
And honestly, anyone would think so. No matter how you looked at it, it was meaningless and wasteful.
I resigned myself and spoke up.
"It's probably because they need to use up the budget."
All eyes focused on me.
"What do you mean?"
"What's a budget?"
"Hmm. Interesting."
"What's a budget, then?"
Mineha and Hoss gave the same reaction, huh.
This is just my assumption, but... I'll hedge by saying that upfront.
"The Delvers' Guild isn't state-owned, but it receives a substantial amount of funding from the government. That funding is distributed to each branch as a corrective budget. And they build various guild requests around that corrective budget."
"Corrective budget...?"
"I see. So this request was also factored into that corrective budget."
"...So we've been getting money from the government this whole time. Well, yeah, that makes sense. It was a government institution to begin with."
"But how does that connect to pointless requests?"
"This corrective budget — whether it's a fiscal year or not — has to be fully spent. If any is left over, the budget gets reduced next time."
"What? So if you manage it efficiently, it gets reduced?"
"That's exactly why it gets reduced. Because you *can* manage it — that's the whole point."
"If you do a good job, you get punished. I can't wrap my head around that."
"So that's why there are requests that seem pointless — they exist to use up the budget."
I nod at Axe's grasp of the situation.
"That's right. And just to clarify, it's not that requests come first and budgets follow. The budget comes first, then the requests. They decide how much to spend, then build requests that fit within that budget."
"Wait, isn't that backwards!? That doesn't take delvers into account at all!"
"I don't think anyone actually considers that. The requests exist to burn through the budget, after all."
"That's straight-up corrupt and horrible, no?"
"...That's a fact I really didn't need to know."
Everyone was more or less shaken by this.
"You're right."
It was a story devoid of dreams or hope.
"Hmm, hmm. So that's why guild requests are so full of waste, like the third sister."
"The master grumbled about it too—that there are lots of weird requests."
"Can't blame anyone for hating them, then."
"How rude. The third sister is not hated."
"That's not what we were talking about."
"It's only speculation, of course."
But yeah, it was probably more or less correct.
I already knew the guild requests had a bad reputation.
After hearing about a few of their contents, I could see why—so many of them were wastes of effort with no clear purpose.
I looked into it a little and learned they were subsidized by the state.
Subsidized, meaning subsidized with money. Got it.
So this guess was something I'd already formed a while back.
"If they're going to pull that kind of thing, they should just raise the commission fees."
"Completely agree."
"Hearing that, I'd never accept the commission fee, I tell ya."
Axe and the others were getting worked up.
I grew curious.
"Is it really that low?"
"Low commission fees are the very first reason people give for why Guild requests get a bad rep."
"Of course. This time's fee is low too. About half of what the same job normally pays."
"Wow... then why did you take it?"
"It's good for your promotion prospects."
Mineha answered.
I understood in an instant.
"Ah, so that's how it is."
So your contribution record with the Guild determined whether you got promoted or not.
But was that really okay? Wouldn't it be dangerous not to base it on actual ability?
"Even so, you sure know a lot of odd things."
Mineha looked at me with half admiration, half exasperation.
"You know too much, if anything. Are you really thirteen?"
"The eighth sister was just as impressive. She was great knowledge to have."
"That was just a reality I didn't wanna hear."
"Ha ha ha... I read it in a book once."
As it happened, I'd known it from my past life memories.
I couldn't tell if he'd been a bureaucrat or not, but one thing was certain — he wasn't a kid.
After the break ended, we headed into the forest.
We didn't run into many monsters, and before long we reached the entrance to the dungeon.
It was a hole that had opened up right in the middle of the forest.