Side Story: A Day in the Life of G-Class Master Dasu

… You're an odd one. Well, if there's a reward in it for me, I'll talk about anything.

I'm Dasu, G-Class Master. 38 years old.

How I became G-Class? What a weird thing to ask. Everyone graduates from school as G-Class, right?

After that, never winning 10 straight even once, never losing all my Garumon and failing to meet the quota… yeah, 23 years straight as G-Class.

In that sense, if you want to know about G-Class Masters, I'm probably your guy.

My school grades were 5th. A bit above the middle.

At graduation I was handed 3 R-Class. The HR-Class just barely ran out at the 4th-place guy. Damn, I figured at least one of us should've gotten picked from R-Class.

Because of that, of the 8 HR-Class in our class, not a single one came around to me.

So I set off with 3 R-Class… and back then I figured, sure, A-Class or S-Class is a pipe dream, but E-Class should be a breeze, and if I'm lucky maybe D or even C…

That sort of thing.

I never dreamed I'd stumble at G-Class. Because, you see…

Except for me and the other rookies my year, all the G-Class old guys only had N-Class Garumon.

I figured there was no way I'd lose holding R-Class.

That said, I'd been warned that the first battle required extra caution.

Even an R-Class at LV1 has lower stats than an LV10 N-Class. In that state, the high-rarity Garumon is wasted…

A high chance of getting picked off in rookie hunts.

But there's a skill gap, so with enough caution you can win.

So I was careful. Slipped out of the school under cover of darkness, scouted out a weak-looking old-timer Master, and challenged him from the shadows.

I had one Knight Garumon secured. At low classes, you could honestly say whether you have a Knight or not decides the battle.

I beat the old-timer easily.

… And my LV rose a bit too. Good. The more LV rises, the more it favors me.

Having cleared the first big hurdle of winning my first battle, I could easily climb to F. Or so I thought.

… I won 9 straight just like that. My three Garumon had risen to about LV5 each.

And searching for the last one… I had a hard time finding one, but finally I did. Delighted, I challenged him.

… But he had 3 HN-Class Garumon.

I found out later: the F-Class Master who ruled that town had heard a hot rookie was around, and he'd set a trap for me.

He handed his own Garumon to a subordinate and… hunted me down.

I fell right into it. No way three LV5 R-Class could beat three LV20 HN-Class.

He neatly stole my Garumon.

… So, start over.

But this time I wouldn't make the mistake. Thinking that, I racked up wins again, but…

I got challenged again. By the guy who'd stolen my Garumon.

Before, I could only challenge him due to the value difference, but the guy who'd stolen my Garumon could now challenge me.

With my core Knight Garumon stolen, I lost to him again…

Only one R-Class remained. To me in that state, that guy… no, F-Class Master Deshiu-sama, deigned to speak to me.

If I quietly handed over my remaining R-Class Garumon and became his subordinate, he'd let me live in this town.

… I had no choice. I handed over my last R-Class too. Going head to head, there was no chance.

… After that, I was given 3 N-Class Garumon… Calling them cute would be flattery.

In school, even HN-Class and R-Class Garumon far cuter than these were giving me come-hither looks.

But I had to forget that past glory.

Deshiu-sama introduced me to work too. Set the Garumon to work…

I came to live stably as G-Class. Truly thanks to Deshiu-sama.

He did far more valuable things for me than one R-Class Garumon ever would have.

G-Class life is basically work.

I do painting work. Finish-painting on small products. Big painting jobs suit Garumon with physical strength, but fine work even a Master can handle.

My earnings are about 5G a week, but with our 3 Garumon working we pull in about 80G a week. That's after the 90% tax G-Class Masters get hit with.

Saturday afternoon is the weekly quota battle site. Gotta spend 8 hours there.

Time at the battle site is basically the gathering around Deshiu-sama.

We curry favor with Deshiu-sama and pass the time leisurely.

Basically just the regulars gather. Newcomers and the like are different.

… And when the 8-hour mark approaches, we battle each other.

Wins and losses are taken in turns. We wager the opponent's lowest-value Garumon and alternate winning and losing.

My Garumon is value-70 Egemu. Her appearance is, well, a bit… if you're not used to it, it induces nausea, but she's a good kid who supports our household economy. Today's my turn to lose.

I just ordered Egemu to wait and lost normally. Then I bought back the released Egemu for 70G.

… That makes this week's income +15G. Looks tight, but…

The week I'm allowed to win, that guy has a same-value Lugera. Winning and releasing her nets me 7G.

So income reaches +92G.

Monthly income runs about 200G.

Pretty high, right? Become a G-Class NPC and your income apparently drops to 1/10 of this.

If you can live stably like this, there's no reason to deliberately become a G-Class NPC.

… But it's certainly unstable.

When we just rotate among our circle, it's all safe.

The problem is… customers.

Non-regular outside customers sometimes come to the battle site. Let me explain what kinds.

"Yo, Deshiu-chan, my bad, I got dropped down again…"

Troublesome customer type 1. The F-falls — F-Class Masters who've fallen down.

This is Hagi. Even Deshiu-sama can't talk back to him — a fairly skilled F-Class Master. And even Hagi sometimes falls down. That's F-Class for you, a gathering of ridiculous types apparently.

"Let me grind out some wins."

"Yes, by all means, Hagi-san! Hey, you lot, lend Hagi-san your chests!"

… When this happens, there's nothing to do. Even fighting seriously you wouldn't win, and if you tried,

"Huh? What're you doing? Hey, Deshiu! How the hell are you training your underlings!"

"M-my apologies! Hey, Dasu! Don't go embarrassing me! Stand still and be a punching bag!"

He'd just get angry, so we obediently let ourselves be punching bags. Damn, another 70G expense…

Equally hopeless are the young talented Masters who occasionally show up.

Brats from noble families especially — no dealing with them. Worst case, they're G-Class but bring C-Class Knights as their subordinates…

Even ganging up on them as a group is impossible. It counts as picking a fight with the C-Class Master, and you get crushed in the counter.

We've got no choice but to humor the young master's playtime and let ourselves get beaten.

… Well, these cases are rare. Better to count it as lucky — you get to see absurdly high-value, gorgeous Garumon you'd rarely encounter. Remember the brat's face and name, and you might be able to brag later when he makes it big: "I raised that guy."

This sort of thing can't be helped. We call them misfortunes.

The biggest misfortune is the overwhelmingly strong guys who don't have 3 Garumon and just snatch Garumon willy-nilly.

These guys we call disasters.

Huh? Disasters are Great Magical Beasts? How would I know? To me, a disaster is some shitty Master who steals my Garumon.

And what calls for serious battles are raids by G-Class Masters from elsewhere.

Basically we're laid-back chatters passing time, but sometimes conflicts arise with G-Class Masters based in other towns.

Usually it starts from disputes between the F-Class Masters who control those towns.

That is, F-Class Masters Deshiu-sama has beaten holding grudges, or conversely F-Class Masters who beat Deshiu-sama deeming him easy prey and attacking to grab more.

I've had 2 experiences. Fortunately we won both times, so I've served Deshiu-sama for over 20 years and stayed G-Class.

Lose a conflict and your Garumon get stripped wholesale. You fall.

We've done that ourselves, so the same would happen to us if we lost.

Well, conflicts rarely happen.

But rebels from other towns suddenly attacking happens a bit more often, and losing to that could cost us our Garumon, so when that happens we've got to fight desperately too.

The other time we fight desperately is March-April… when rookies debut.

March-April is the busy season, with rookies pouring in en masse. But for us veteran G-Class Masters it's prime hunting period.

Rookies hold at minimum HN, with R, HR, sometimes even SR.

If they grow smoothly, they might become monsters even I couldn't touch.

But right now they're greenhorns who don't know left from right.

Such a crowd lugging around treasure-trove high-class Garumon, wandering about — it'd be rude not to take them.

The schemes and tactics for stealing from those greenhorns — we've honed them for decades.

Watching glittering rookies, prized Garumon stolen, the light gone from their eyes, finally on their knees crying and joining our crew… it's truly unbearable. My chest feels clear and I get insanely excited.

The joy of taking some self-deluding idiot like my younger self and educating them by slapping them with the fact that they're trash…! The best! Better than sex!

… I can't let go of this joy, so even knowing the risks, I probably can't stop being a G-Class Master.

Of course there are some great rookies who don't even take notice of us.

Not many, but a fair number. About 2/3 don't fall to our G-Class Master baptism.

But of the 1/3 who climb up, more than half get baptized at F-Class and fall back.

That's how the F:G ratio settles at about 1:4.

When you hit one of those great Masters, it can't be helped. Just chalk it up to misfortune.

What we lose by losing is, at the end of the day, N-Class Garumon. We may be a bit attached, but their value is limited. Meanwhile, success means snatching huge things.

There's no reason for us not to be wild for rookie hunts. The odds of crushing them are far higher.

… Well, the ultra-rare Garumon we snatch get hoovered up by those above, and only a little trickles down to us.

But I have stolen an SR before.

Of course it was with a Garumon I'd borrowed from Deshiu-sama.

… As a perk, I got to touch her breasts a little.

I mean really, eh, these are breasts!? That's how it felt…

A different dimension from N-Class Garumon.

Th-those felt so good… if I were in some dreamlike environment where I could grope breasts like that to my heart's content… I might not do rookie hunts, might fight more purely and head-on, aiming higher and higher…

… Hah. Well, no.

This life is plenty fun, of course. The best part is brothels.

The cheap brothels with N-Class run 1-2G a session, but us G-Class Masters have no business there. If N-Class would do, you can just do it with your own Garumon.

Well, for the guys stocking ugly ones to limit their losses, it might be essential.

We mostly hit mid-tier brothels with HN-Class. About 3-10G a session.

Even counting 1-2 disasters a month, we still have about 100G of disposable income.

That means about 10 visits a month to mid-tier brothels. HN-Class Garumon are fairly cute. Plenty of fun.

After getting an R-Class Garumon through a rookie hunt or whatever, though, even HN-Class Garumon you usually find cute look pale by comparison. But at those times, you get bonus money from above, so your wallet's warm.

At those times, you splurge and go to high-tier brothels with R-Class.

Cheap is 10G, expensive is around 50G, so it's stupid to visit every time.

But, well, for special occasions it's gotta be high-tier brothels.

It really is like a dream, like the Pure Land of paradise, with beautiful Garumon waiting on you…

Above that's obviously beyond us. Ultra-high-tier brothels with HR-Class start cheap at 100G, easily a digit higher.

Well, once in a lifetime, you think… But we G-Class are barred entry…

HR-Class is a far, far distant existence for us G-Class, beyond the clouds.

Huh? An inn where a UR-Class Garumon, a goddess of supreme beauty and eroticism, will do anything erotic short of the main event for just 5G?

Ahaha, sounds nice. I like dreamlike stories like that too.

But UR-Class — I know they exist, but I'd rather not utter the word.

Stare directly at the sun and your eyes burn out.

The most you should reasonably consider doing it with is around HR-Class.

I'd love an HR-Class super-beauty to take me on, just once in my life…

SR-Class is… no, no good. That's poison. That's a drug. Absolutely unobtainable, and I really wish they wouldn't come near me.

G-Class is the bottom? Hah, of course it is. But, well, the days are fun.

Battles are interesting, the fulfillment when you win is the best, when you lose it's frustrating but that's interesting too…!

Save up money and you can hold any good woman you want.

This world's truly the best!

A guy like me being born into such an interesting world — I'm a happy guy.