Adventurer Recommendation Slot
I promised to repair my engagement with Reina. I’d decided to follow through, but being disowned by the Dukeheart family, I had no clear idea how I, specifically, could get back to being the Fiancée of Hermenia Princess Reina.
Well, that makes sense. JRO is an MMORPG, not a romance simulation game.
Naturally, there were no events in the original game where you could marry Reina, and I don’t know any information about this world that wasn’t on the JRO strategy wiki.
But I can say this much: trying to get to Reina by lobbying nobles or using cunning schemes is 100% impossible.
In the first place, I’m confident I’d get stuck just trying to get an initial appointment. I’m fundamentally socially awkward.
However, more than being socially awkward, I am a JRO player.
Therefore, I think I’ll try to make full use of JRO strategy information. In considering that, the first thing I want to recall is, “What kind of position did Reina hold as a character in JRO in the first place?”
To explain that, I’d have to talk about the events of the entire Kingdom of Hermenia, but to put it concisely, the events in the Kingdom of Hermenia are the “Academy Arc.”
The synopsis is that at the Kingdom of Hermenia’s most prestigious institution, the Hero Academy, incidents of students frequently going missing were occurring. To investigate, the player would infiltrate the academy, something like that.
And so, the Hero Academy is a seven-year school, like a combined high school and university in Japan, and Reina appears there as a top-year student and the student council president.
Well, the story itself is a rather common Hermenia Hero Academy arc, but because the characters, starting with Reina, are all incredibly strong, your party gets wiped out many times in the mock battle events with students that frequently occur during the Hero Academy arc.
The unsuitably high difficulty for a story with a heartwarming atmosphere is something JRO players often joke about.
After the Academy Arc, it connects to the Kingdom Upheaval Arc, and if you recruit Reina after defeating the dark-fallen Sieg, she’s, as expected, absurdly strong.
In Reina’s case, her visuals are part of it, but perhaps the reason she’s so popular with JRO players is her extremely physically-biased stat distribution and, consequently, her overwhelming strength.
Anyway, I’ve digressed a bit, but in short, if the JRO story proceeds as it should, Reina is supposed to be enrolling in that Hermenia Hero Academy starting this very year.
So, for now, I think I’ll try to enroll in this Hermenia Hero Academy.
◇
I decided, “Let’s enroll in Hermenia Hero Academy!” which is all well and good, but Hermenia Hero Academy, true to its name, was established with the mindset of “Let’s cultivate talent that can become future heroes!”
And, if you ask what kind of people the academy thinks are “talent likely to become heroes,” it’s naturally people with strong professions.
And, in the Kingdom of Hermenia, the profession I’ve taken, “Farmer,” isn’t really recognized as strong—no, rather, it seems to be considered weak.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume that if I were to foolishly take the entrance exam honestly, I’d basically be rejected at the document screening stage.
However, that said, while a de facto profession filter exists at the Hero Academy, it’s not written anywhere that “Farmers” are forbidden from enrolling.
I think there might be a loophole there that even I, a “Farmer,” can exploit.
To be blunt, if I can just pass the document screening, all that’s left is the written exam and the Practical Exam, so I think I can manage somehow.
And, there were broadly two ways to pass that document screening.
One is the “Noble Recommendation Slot.”
This is a method where, by receiving a Letter of Recommendation from an influential noble, you can bypass not just the document screening but the entire entrance exam itself.
Actually, Reina and I were scheduled to enroll through this slot… but well, since I was disowned, that plan went down the drain, and having been disowned by Algeo, there are probably no nobles I can rely on.
Therefore, the main option is the other one: the “Adventurer Recommendation Slot.”
This is a slot where even people of unknown birth or with “professions” that aren’t very strong can be permitted to take the written exam and Practical Exam if someone with the rank of Adventurer’s Guild Branch Manager or higher recognizes their ability and writes a Letter of Recommendation.
This is information not disclosed in JRO, but apparently, only about two to three people can enroll through adventurer recommendation each year.
The Hero Academy has about three hundred students per grade, so that’s 1%. My past self would have given up, but my current self is aiming to be the strongest. I’ll show them I can become one of those one-in-a-hundred talents.
And so, with all that, I headed to the Adventurer’s Guild.
The Adventurer Recommendation Slot. It’s written that one needs to demonstrate high ability as an adventurer—however, the applicants are only children who have just barely acquired a “profession.”
Therefore, I’ve heard that out of the Adventurer Ranks, which go from F at the bottom to S at the top, if you’re around D rank, you can pass with ease, but my rank is C.
As a hardcore JRO player, I’d like to say that S rank is where it really begins, but if S rank were required, I definitely wouldn’t make it by the entrance exam, so I also feel relieved that C is enough.
I concisely told the receptionist, “I’d like the Adventurer Recommendation Slot,” and was guided to the Branch Manager’s office.
◇
“Why won’t you give me a recommendation slot?!”
“No, I’ve told you many times. At E Rank, I really can’t write a Letter of Recommendation. If I send someone without ability, it defeats the purpose of the adventurer recommendation, you see.”
“But I’m much stronger than your average D Rank adventurer!”
There was a previous visitor in the Branch Manager’s office.
A beautiful girl with crimson hair, and similarly fiery red cat-ears and a cat tail standing straight up. The moe red cat, Ragna Pussycat.
If I recall, in JRO, she was the character who was the disciplinary committee chairman at the Hero Academy.
…I see, so Ragna-san is also pre-enrollment. Or rather, she was going for the Adventurer Recommendation Slot?
“Ragna-kun. …Look, there’s someone else waiting, so it’s about time—”
“Hey, you over there, tell her too! This Branch Manager just won’t listen!”
As I was watching and thinking such things, Ragna-san called out to me.
The Branch Manager shook her head, looking exasperated, as if to say “good grief.”
“…Alright, how about this, Ragna-kun? If you can complete a C Rank or higher quest with him over there, you can be promoted to D Rank. Then, I should be able to write you a Letter of Recommendation too.”
“Really!?”
“Yes, and you there. Seeing how young you are, you’ve probably come wanting a Letter of Recommendation too, right? If you properly complete a quest with this girl, I’ll write one for you as well.”
The Branch Manager said so with a tired expression.
Ragna in JRO had quite the tenacious personality. She might have been pestering the Branch Manager like that for hours if things went badly.
Honestly, it feels like the Branch Manager just pushed some troublesome matter onto me, but Ragna-san is, at least, one of the JRO characters, and if I indebt her here, she might help me repair my engagement with Reina.
Besides, this kind of forceful situation feels like a JRO quest, which was quite enticing.
“Understood. Well then, um… Ragna-san, was it? I’m Haito—”
“I have no interest in your name. And if you drag me down, I’ll bite through your neck and kill you.”
“……”
Yeah. Well, JRO NPCs are often hostile from the get-go for some reason, but then you somehow end up getting along after the quest is over… Unlike JRO, friendly fire is possible here. This quest is shaping up to be quite fun.