Alice’s welcome party wasn’t exactly a grand affair.

Although the crew desperately wanted to give her a proper celebration, they were all hyper-aware of the five million sum Fubuki had mentioned earlier. Right now, no one dared to throw money around carelessly.

As for Fubuki, she had already drained her own savings.

Even if she wanted to throw a larger party, her hands were tied—she couldn’t exactly ask her crew members to pitch in using the wages they had painstakingly saved from their part-time jobs, could she?

She wasn’t that kind of person.

Because of this, both the crew and Fubuki felt a nagging sense of guilt toward Alice.

After all, Alice was an A-Class hero; there were plenty of factions out there who would gladly throw a massive welcome banquet just to recruit someone of her caliber.

Granted, the Blizzard Group was considered quite large among hero factions, but... at the end of the day, they were still just a B-Class group.

Alice herself, however, didn’t care about any of this in the slightest. Instead, she seemed incredibly intrigued by the fact that everyone was trying to save money.

And so, over breakfast one morning, Alice piped up with a question.

"Well, it’s because..." Eyelashes scratched the back of his head. "A while back, when we went out on a mission, we could only afford to rent a pretty beat-up old jalopy. People on the street actually questioned us, asking why the Blizzard Group was riding around in a car like that."

Speaking of which, do robots actually need to eat...?

Looking at the bread on Alice’s plate and the milk by her hand, Eyelashes couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of bewilderment ever since he found out she was a robot.

How does she even digest that? If it just gets incinerated or dissolved inside her... isn’t that technically wasting food?

"Hmm... So everyone is saving up because you want to buy a really cool car?"

Alice nodded in realization, her eyes practically sparkling like bright stars. "In that case, Alice wants to help too!"

"Uh, about that..."

Eyelashes could more or less guess what was going through her head.

Having known her for about a month now, he figured the girl was probably treating this as some sort of ’side quest.’

Still...

"A part-time job suitable for a robot, huh..." Eyelashes frowned, deep in thought.

"Can’t she just work as a regular waitress or something?" Mountain Ape mumbled around a mouthful of food.

"Hey... no matter how you look at it, little Alice is still an A-Class hero..." Eyelashes replied, exasperated.

"Alice wants to go outside and explore missions on her own!" Alice declared, raising her hand high.

"I guess that works."

Eyelashes nodded. "We have to head out with Fubuki-sama in a bit. As for you, Alice... I’ll have Lily keep you company. Just remember not to run off on your own again."

Compared to him and Mountain Ape, Lily really wasn’t that strong. In fact, she was still quite young, not even sixteen yet.

She ranked 74th in B-Class and used a three-section staff as her weapon. However, Eyelashes wasn’t worried about their safety. With Alice around, Lily’s only real job was to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t stir up any massive trouble.

Once breakfast wrapped up, Fubuki hesitated for a moment before giving Alice permission to head out. Lily had a great impression of Alice anyway; as a girl around her own age, Alice was a first for the Blizzard Group.

More importantly, Alice was an A-Class hero who would eventually fight side-by-side with Fubuki-sama.

Lily wanted to make sure Alice had a wonderful impression of the Blizzard Group so she would stay with them for good.

Bursting with motivation, the two girls quickly left the headquarters and began their patrol, with Lily taking the lead to explain how things worked.

"Once you become a hero, there’s a ’periodic quota’ you have to meet," Lily explained as they strolled down the street. "The quota means a hero has to contribute a certain amount within a set timeframe. Your specific contributions are scored based on the quantity and the difficulty of the tasks."

"So, we need to do our best to work toward that quota."

"Though, if you’re in the Blizzard Group, you don’t really have to worry about it. With Fubuki-sama leading the charge to subjugate monsters, we usually clear our quotas in just two or three operations. We use the rest of our time for patrols."

"Keeping the area around the Blizzard Group safe ensures the citizens think highly of us!"

Lily’s explanation was simple and easy to understand. Alice nodded along readily. "I see! So it’s like doing ’reputation quests’ during downtime!"

"Pretty much."

Lily nodded back, though she only half-understood the terms Alice was using.

"If Alice wants to earn funds, what kind of things should I do?"

"Hmm... missions, I guess." Lily looked a bit troubled. "Missions actively assigned by the Hero Association usually come with very handsome rewards. But those kinds of things are rarely designated to just one person. They usually broadcast the request to all heroes within a certain radius, and it’s first-come, first-served."

"Besides, you can’t just conjure those missions out of thin air."

After all, it wasn’t like monsters just popped up constantly and conveniently waited around without being defeated by someone else first.

Right as the thought crossed her mind, a rhythmic ringing sound drifted into her ears.

It was a phone ringtone. Judging by the direction... was it coming from Alice?

"This is Alice! Is there a difficult mission that needs Alice’s help?!"

Never mind Lily; even Alice hadn’t expected to get a call from the Hero Association so quickly.

She assumed it might just be official paperwork or onboarding details, given that she had just become a hero and probably had plenty of logistics to sort out.

But... it really was a mission request.

"Alert! A disaster is currently unfolding in M-City! The threat level is Demon! We have already mobilized four A-Class heroes! ’Hero’ Alice, please head to the location immediately to provide backup!"

"What?! Demon level?!"

Lily gasped in shock beside her. Could such a powerful enemy really just appear out of nowhere like that?

A Demon-level monster was capable of halting the functions of an entire city or even bringing it to the brink of destruction. Usually, those were handled exclusively by S-Class heroes!

"What about King? M-City is supposed to be King’s jurisdiction, right?!" Lily knew very well that defying an emergency deployment order violated their contract and carried a hefty financial penalty.

Alice was practically guaranteed to go on this trip, but that was assuming her safety could be guaranteed.

If her safety was at risk, the Blizzard Group wouldn’t just let Alice walk into such a dangerous place, even if it meant paying a massive breach-of-contract fee.

"Who is this?" the voice on the other end asked, sounding puzzled.

"This is Lily, Alice’s companion," Alice said into the receiver.

"Where is King right now?"

Ignoring the handler’s question, Lily stubbornly demanded to know the exact status of the situation first.

"King... we haven’t been able to contact him," the Association representative hesitated, before continuing in an attempt to soothe them. "However, we have already contacted other S-Class heroes. If you can just hold the line for a little bit, they will arrive shortly..."

"Aren’t you completely dismissing any responsibility for our lives?!" Lily’s face turned grim.

The person on the other end of the line grew irritated as well.

"You are heroes! How can a hero say something like that?!"

Lily wasn’t about to buy into that guilt trip.

To put it nicely, they were heroes; to put it bluntly, in this transactional system, weren’t they just working stiffs? It was just that their job involved fighting monsters. "Oh, please! We—"

"Alice needs to hurry over right away!" Before Lily could finish, Alice’s voice cut her off. "People are getting hurt! As a hero, Alice must go protect everyone immediately!"

--+--

T/N: If you want advance Chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL