The Adventurer Guild

The two little girls then got back to the booth near the entrance. The "Prez" took their name plates, then gave each of them a pocket watch. They looked identical, so the "E" on Elyna's plate and "A" on Eliza's didn't make any difference. After receiving the pocket watch, Elyna put hers in the pocket on her shirt. She always wanted one since forever, but a dwarf-made pocket watch could cost a fortune. This was like a dream come true for her. Eliza wanted to put hers in a pocket too, but she was wearing a dress, so she put it on her neck instead, liked a necklace. With this, she now had three things that match her big sister. The two girls leave the academy's gate happily.

It was just around 12 pm, as they reached the center area of Pagta. Elyna wanted to treat the little Liz to a meal at a new place, since she got some allowance from "mama" earlier this morning. But not a single one of the restaurants, out of the three on their way to the Adventurer's Guild, had any table left, even those that also had tables outside of the restaurant. As Elyna was about to skip lunch

'Big Sis, I want to eat that one'

Elyna looked at Eliza, then shifted attention to where her little finger pointed to - A food stall close to the Guild building that sell ... white buns!? But it didn't look like, or smell like, the white buns she used to have back home. It was much smaller, and instead of a mixture of minced meats and vegetables, it had roasted pork with sweet sauce inside. Delicious, nonetheless.

Finished their lunch, the two girls slowly opened the door. Not sure if it was because the space was big, or there was barely any people, but it felt pretty empty inside. Still had some people doing their things here and there, but most of them wore the same outfits, so maybe they were Guild's staffs. Elyna slowly walked toward the reception area of the building. Eliza tried to follow her sister, but it ended up looking like a rabbit tried to follow a turtle. It made some peoples giggles.

'Welcome to the Adventurer's Guild, how can I help you?' - the bright red, short-haired receptionist spoke, as the two children reached her desk.

'Hi, I'm looking for Ms. Balba.' - Elyna answered.

'Is she an adventurer?'

'I'm not sure, the man who gave me this...' - as she pulled out the envelope - '...only said that she was in the Guild, so maybe she is?'

'Eh, that name sounded familiar.' - the light blue, long-haired receptionist, who seemed a bit older than the red-haired one, overheard the conversation - 'If I remembered correctly, it was...'

'That was my old name.'

A voice came out from the big door behind the receptionist desk. The door then opened, and a tall, muscular old woman came out. She looked like a warrior from your average storybooks, and her height was about two Liz tall. She glanced at the envelope, and the two little girls.

'Guild Master!'

'You guys came from Noreas, right? That Veldus guy sent you here?' - the Guild Master looked at the kids.

'Yes.'

'Tchh, this dungeon freak, can't even remember that I've married... Did he mention something about time?'

'Yes, he did. It was "before 6 pm", I believe.'

'Then we don't have much time. You two, follow me. And you as well, new hire.'

'Me too?' - the bright red hair receptionist surprised.

The trio then followed the Guild Master to the warehouse located at the back of the Guild building. There was a staircase that led to somewhere underground in there. According to the Guild Master, there was once a underground training ground here. Since the Guild acquired the plot of land, they built a warehouse above trying to utilize it, but adventurers fought monsters as part of their training anyway, and the Commerce Guild also founded around that time, so it never came up. The newly hired receptionist knowledge about this was as much as the two behind her.

The underground training ground was about as big as the guild building, but with little to no furniture, just some equipment racks here and there. Guild Master then touched a plate on the wall at the end of the staircase, which made the wall glowed. It lit the place up brighter than the light all those small glowing orange stones attached to the wall could provide.

After the Guild Master whispered something to the receptionist, the young girl talked to the kids, with concern showed all over her face

'The Guild Master wanted to make sure that you two can survive inside a dungeon, so we need to confirm yours abilities. Can you please show us?'

'Abilities? You mean, like, cast a spell?' - Elyna asked.

'Anything that help you survive, say, an angry wolf that try to attack you.'

'Wait, isn't that just everything?' - the big sister thought, but seeing the receptionist worry face, and the scary guild master, she decided not to say it. She then whispered something in Liz's ears. The little girl giggled, seemed like she heard something funny. Then Elyna looked for something in her bag.

'Okay, Liz, go!'

'FLOWER GARDEN'

As Liz shouted, grasses and white flowers started growing rapidly from an area under her feet. Just a second later, the whole training ground, except where she stood, was filled with them.

'What t... wait, this thing is poisonous... and this drowsiness...'

The Guild Master stood her ground. She had built up some resistance to these kind of status ailments throughout all the years adventuring already, but getting hit by it was still not a pleasant experience. The receptionist was already asleep, her skin slowly turned purple due to the poison's effect.

As the guild master looked at the sisters duo way, she saw the bigger one, unscathed, threw a pea seed near her . The seed then turned into a big tree that cured the two adults from the status ailments, and healed them up.

'Hah'

The guild master gave a big sigh, as she looked at the little princess tried to wake her employee up. The receptionist woke up, wondered why she was sleeping on the floor.

'New hire, you go help them sign up as adventurers, then come to my office. And you, the big kid, take this piece of paper and write whatever you can think of about slime. If you can't think of any, just go to the Slime Cave outside.'

'But, Guild Master...'

She still tried to go against the idea, but the guild master's mind seemed already set.

'...You two, follow me.'

The three of them then went back to the reception desk. Here, the receptionist took out two application forms and two pencils, and gave it to the kids.

'Please fill in these forms with these pencils. If you don't know what to write in, just ask. Parts with a small mark before it can be left as is.'

'Yes.' - Liz answered, and Elyna just nodded.

The rustling noise then could be heard from where the two girls sat. Name, age, hometown,... seemed like they had no trouble writing it.

'What should I write in this "Occupation" part, miss... receptionist?'

'Wait, I haven't introduce myself yet? My name is Rina, and that part, let see... you two go to the magic school starting this year, right? So "Mage" will do.'

'And what about this "Preferred Position" part?'

'That... back in the day, when there was war and everything, the military people came up with this "group of four" idea, to efficiently train their soldiers inside dungeons. Ever since then, it have become the standard way to approach dungeons, so we just use it. There are four positions to be considered: a Tanker who soak up monster's retaliation, a Supporter that help with all the healing and enhancing needs, a Damage Dealer focus mainly on taking the monster out, and a Rearguard who protect the group's back, also help Damage Dealer if needed. Sometime, if you need help to tackle a dungeon, we can get other adventurers of other positions to fill in, to increase the chance of beating said dungeon.'

'Can I write all of them in?'

'Technically, yes. But there will be time tons of help request come in all at once, and the guild can't sort out all the available adventurers in time, and assign one adventurer to three or four different groups, which is very troublesome, so please don't do that.'

'Okay, I see...'

Elyna thought for a bit, then wrote "Tanker" in her form. Liz saw her sister wrote "Tanker" in her form, so she also wrote "Tanker" in hers. The two then gave the forms back to Rina.

'Erm... Liz?'

'Yes?'

'Do you want to go with your sister?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Then let me change this into something else.'

She said it as she erased the "Tanker" in Liz's form, and changed it to "Supporter". Unless the group had more than 4 members, one of the two duplicated role would be marked as "Available" all the time. Just a small little rule that she shouldn't have to worry about. She then gave a small, hand-drawed map that lead to the Slime Cave to Elyna, and saw them off. After that, she went to the guild master office, with application forms in her hands.

'Guild Master, why are you making them adventurers, and letting them go to the dungeon? Look, they're not even old enough yet.'

'Calm yourself down a little, miss Rina. I knew about your circumstances, but please, have a seat first.'

The Guild Master was looking into some documents when Rina came. Then she put a small, worn book in her drawer on the table.
'Give this book a read.'
'This... look like the book about dungeons and monsters that we receptionists have to study before getting the job? But it looked somewhat different.' 

'Because it was the first one. Can you guess who made it?'

'Maybe... the former Guild Master?'

'If that guy have a chance, he will go inside a dungeon blindfolded, so no.'

'Then, who is it?'

'It was an elf guy name Veldus.'

'Wait, isn't that name...'

'Yes, the one who sent the two girls here. We made a deal for the guild to provide all the necessity for whoever he send here, so we can get the same information about dungeons that he get. You know that those information are crucial, right?'

'Then why don't we make it ourselves?'

'It need much time and manpower to do that thing, and we don't have any of that. You would think that we can just ask the adventurers for that information, but in reality, it even harder than we doing it ourselves. After all, it's their job, their money, not something that they want to share. With that Veldus guy, however, I've known him for long, and there is nothing but dungeons inside that guy's head, so the only thing we have to worry about is the people he send here.'

'...Why me, then? Isn't it something that need people with more... experiences? Like... you?'

'Experiences with the job, yes, but experiences with the kids, I don't think this branch have anyone like that beside you. You have two little sisters around the same ages as them, aren't you? I want to do it too, but kids don't like me, so I just can't.'

'...Okay, I understand it now.'

'Good. And now...' - she took the two application forms from Rina's hand - '... we need to tinker their guild cards a little bit, so come with me.'

There were many regulations that discouraged children under the age of 15 that wanted to become an adventurer, like they couldn't become adventurers unless they were orphans; things they collected inside dungeons would be unable to trade in, and their achievements, like a dungeon completion, would also not be counted, etc... For now, the two adult decided to make the kids orphans, and also made up two fake adventurers to store their achievements and such.