Page | 13 floor of his inn for breakfast. Adventurers were said to eat to double or triple the portions of an average person. That said, food was expensive in the Northern Region, so many practiced moderation— but Quagmire was not one of them. He ate perhaps twenty percent more than most people did, devouring heaping bowls of cooked rice and bean dishes. A hearty breakfast was the source of his power. After breakfast, he headed for the Adventurers’ Guild—a spot in the middle of the town where other rugged types gathered. Eyes turned to him as he entered. Quagmire didn’t have a party of his own, preferring to team up with others on a case-by-case basis to tackle difficult missions. There was high demand for a magician as exceptional as Quagmire. As usual, the leader of an S-ranked party hit him up today. “Yo, Quagmire, did you hear? There’s a Red Wyrm straggler up north!” This was Soldat Heckler, an S-ranked adventurer. He was a man with deeply chiseled features characteristic of those who lived in the north, who possessed Advanced-tier skills in the Sword God Style and Intermediate-tier skills in the Water God Style, and who was a famous adventurer in these parts. He led a party known as Stepped Leader, one of the many parties controlled by the clan Thunderbolt, which worked all across the lands of Basherant. Stepped Leader had six members: two swordsmen, one warrior, two healing magicians, and one offensive magician. They’d had seven people at one point, but a magician had kicked the bucket. They were a bit low on firepower as a result, and Soldat would occasionally solicit Quagmire to join them for real. “Hey, Quagmire. Isn’t it about time you became one of us for real? You’re comfortable working with us, right?” However, Quagmire would simply shake his head. “No. Now that I’ve gotten famous here, I’ll be moving on to the next country soon.”