Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle

3 – Today Begins the Job Searching of the Unemployed

Now then, several weeks have passed since then. 

As for me, I was in the middle of the ever-so wonderful process known as job hunting. 

After making a big show of leaving the #4 ranked party in the entire world, I was now having trouble finding a new one. 

Even if I found one, they wouldn’t let me in. 

There are multiple ways to find a party. 

One way is to take advantage of one’s personal connections. 

Unfortunately that method wasn’t available to me. I had many acquaintances, but their evaluation of me didn’t amount much further than 「the Black Sorcerer that was in Fenix’s party for some reason.」 

And now considering that I had left that very Fenix’s party, it would prove difficult to find anyone that would lend me their strength. 

Another way is to find a party that’s looking for members. 

This might appear to be a more effective method at first, but parties looking for members typically have a specific Job that they want. 

It’d be something like 「Needed ASAP – Frontline Job!」 They wouldn’t ever be looking for a Black Sorcerer even by accident. 

Another way is to use the Matching Service provided by the Adventurer Guild. It costs money and it doesn’t guarantee finding a party, but it’s an attractive option due to it being much faster than just asking people one by one. 

I actually came to the guild to try it out today. 

The results were miserable. 

Why did the Job of Black Sorcerer even exist? It’s like it was God’s way of bullying, enough to make me cry over how much no one wanted one. 

I found several groups purely composed of Black Sorcerers that were searching for Black Sorcerers for the sake of Black Sorcerers, but I wasn’t desperate enough to join something like that. 

Having 4 out of 5 members in a party be Black Sorcerers would just be too horribly balanced. 

Maybe they thought they’d be able to debuff the enemies so badly that they’d be able to take them down just by whacking them. 

It might entirely be possible, but I doubt it’d be popular. 

But there was a more realistic problem to it. 

Due to regulations, a party has to have a Hero. 

The number of adventurers as of late has been rising rapidly. 

It was to the point where many children dreamed of fighting for the top ranking as their aspired job. 

Kids who became Heroes almost always became adventurers. Since parties require Heroes, party applications pretty much revolve around them. 

The world is filled with unpopular Jobs, so much that many people drop out of the industry due to no one ever recruiting them. 

That’s right, I’m a Black Sorcerer. It was impossible for me to establish a party on my own. 

「This is bad…」 

I can’t return back to my home. 

The moment it was revealed I was a Black Sorcerer, my parents were devastated. Well, I can’t blame them. There’s no proper job that a Black Sorcerer would be applicable to. They have no choice to become a Black Sorcerer. 

In the end my parents actually did find a job for me, but I rejected it and decided to become an adventurer instead. 

Because of that, it was hard for me to look them in the face now. 

But even so, I had no intention of giving up. 

「All right!」 

I slapped my hands against my cheeks to chase out the dark thoughts in my head. 

I stepped out of the Adventurer Guild building. It was still bright out since it was the afternoon, and the town was filled with activity. 

For the time being… I suppose I’ll find something to eat. 

My stomach was empty. 

I made my way to the marketplace to get some skewers and I happened to meet eyes with a young girl. 

She soon recognized who I was, as her dog-like ears and tail started wagging. 

She looked like she was about to rush towards me, but she restrained herself and instead waved her hand towards me. 

I immediately changed my direction and flashed a smile back at her. 

She was at a fruit store run by a good-hearted middle-aged giant of a man. 

「Hey, Lem.」 

「Good afternoon. And good afternoon to you too, Cashew.」 

「Yes, good afternoon, Lem!」 

Demi-Humans. A general term used to refer to creatures like goblins or orcs that closely resembled humans. 

Even though they were referred to as Demi-Humans, they were almost exactly the same as them, often only having a few traits that separated themselves from humans. 

Cashew was a dog Demi-Human. She had fluffy light brown hair and ears that popped up at a higher position on her head. 

I gave a hug to this girl who stood out with her large eyes and characteristically vibrant facial expressions. 

「I can’t believe you were able to snag such a profitable regular, it makes me wonder if it’d be better if you ran the shop instead of me, kid.」 

I made a wry smile to the shopkeeper’s quip. 

Cashew didn’t exactly help out with the shopkeeper’s tasks. 

Piled on some cloth between his carts were a bunch of unshapely fruit. 

The shopkeeper had Cashew sell any fruit he deemed not worthy to be his products at a reduced price. 

It wasn’t as if he forced her too, though. Cashew was insistent on helping her family out in some way, so a friend of her mother’s, in other words the shopkeeper, had offered her current task as a suggestion. 

The day after I left the party, I was incredibly depressed. When I happened to see the sight of Cashew working, it helped cheer me up. It was like she encouraged me. 

Cashew is only 8 years old. Such a young girl was working as hard as she could. 

Just because I was chased out of the party didn’t mean I had the time to act all depressed. 

Seeing as how she helped me out, as unintentional it might have been, I decided to pay her back by buying her fruit. 

Apparently I was her first customer, so she was extremely pleased. 

I was very familiar with the happiness of receiving compensation for one’s labor. 

Her smile shone so brightly that it made me naturally come back here whenever I was feeling a little down. 

I felt like her pure smile brought a little moisture back to my dried up heart. 

「What would you like today?」 

Cashew began her reception with excitement. 

After receiving a few suggestions, I took a bite in one of them and gave another to Cashew. 

Cashew showed some reserve at first, but seeing that I wasn’t going to draw my arm back, she took it with a smile. 

The red fruit was known for its characteristically slightly sour and refreshing sweet yellow insides. 

It’s usual spherical shape was a bit twisted, but the flavor was still all the same. 

「Yep, it’s good.」 

After nodding, Cashew made an extremely pleased face. 

She took her own fruit in both hands and put it to her mouth. A crunch was heard. 

「So how’s it been, Lem? Close to finding a job yet?」 

「Not yet, unfortunately…」 

「Well, you are a Black Sorcerer, after all.」 

「Yep.」 

「I-I think Black Sorcerers are really cool!」 

Possibly thinking that the shopkeeper was making fun of me, Cashew immediately retorted with an agitated tone. 

Her kindness melted my heart. 

「Thanks.」 

As I pat her head from how happy I felt from that, her eyes narrowed in pleasure. 

「Do you ever use anything other than Black Magic?」 

The shopkeeper was worried about me ever since he saw how down I was on the day I met him. 

Right, it’s not as if the entire world was cold towards me. 

It was only the adventurers who deemed Black Sorcerers to be unnecessary. 

「it’s not like I can’t use anything else, but whenever I try doing something outside of my Job, I usually don’t get very good results.」 

Jobs referred to one’s most suitable occupation, but that’s all it really was. 

Even if you showed interest in another occupation, you wouldn’t get any help. 

「I get you, I get you. I’ve always wanted to be a tailor, but no matter how much I practiced, I couldn’t reach the level of actually having that Job.」 

「If that kind of effort really rewarded people in this world, I’m sure you would’ve gotten that Job.」 

「Things don’t always work out the way you want.」 

「In the end, you just have to do what you can.」 

「Right. Well, if things just don’t work out, you can always lay out a cloth next to Cashew.」 

「Ahaha… Thanks.」 

The both of them were truly kind people. 

「Kyah!」 

I heard a scream coming from not too far away. 

My eyes immediately turned towards its direction. I found a lady who had fallen over. 

I then saw a suspicious-looking man running towards our direction with a bag in his hands. 

Judging from the lady’s voice, he was 100% a purse-snatcher. 

After thinking for a bit, I shouted towards the shopkeeper. 

「Do you think you could stand in that man’s way? It’ll be fine, you won’t get hurt.」 

The shopkeeper got out into the road before I could finish talking. 

He was someone with a strong sense of justice. 

「What the heck, Lem, are you not gonna do something about this?!」 

「Well… Black Magic is for support roles, after all.」 

The man drew closer. 

I then cast a spell on him.