Adventurer's Guild

The Adventurer’s Guild—practically a second home for the courageous and foolhardy alike.

These pristine wooden floors and meticulously crafted archways exemplified the new makeover that Breven had, completely unrecognisable from the hometown of my memory. The lobby was teeming with all kinds of adventurers—short, tall, robed or armoured, I had never seen such a diverse collection of people before.

I could vaguely recall being in the Guild a long time ago, when I was still a rambunctious child. Compared to the branch in the former capital, Zethos, it felt like a marketplace in here, this impression was made all the more apparent by the hubbub and clamour of adventurers chatting and discussing amongst themselves.

Were there always this many adventurers around? Or was it because of a certain foolish adventurer slaying the Demon Lord and becoming a Hero that resulted in this dangerous profession’s popularity? I hate to admit it, but it was probably the latter.

Anita and Ain went ahead to submit the completion of the quest. They didn’t want to trouble me with the ennui of queuing up and signing documents. Instead, I got to wander around and explore this newly erected structure, observing both adventurer and architecture.

There was not much to do in the waiting area that offered seats and tables for lounging and idle banter. I was all alone, after all. Sereya scurried off for reasons unknown, which I could only hope would be cleared up after this.

I subjected myself to the most crowded spot on the entire premises—the request boards. The musty scent of sweat was especially thick here as people huddled body-to-body in an attempt to see what quest was taken and what was still available.

Instead of throwing myself right into the human mosh pit, I crept from the side where there was a tad bit more space. My eyes merely wanted to scan through the kind of quests Breven folk would put up in this modern day.

Starting from the board on the most left, most of the parchments pinned on the most left were those for Goblin-ranked adventurers. The quests here were simple—gathering herbs, searching for missing horses, nothing I would call particularly life-threatening. The stream of people was the most concentrated here, which wasn’t too surprising since the Goblin rankers were also the most common.

Shimmying myself out of this crowd and moving to the next, I found myself by the board for Ogre-ranked quests. There were noticeably fewer people here—I could just walk to the board without rubbing shoulders with anyone. The Ogre rankers here were looking at tasks such as exterminating a den of Dire Wolves or escort duty—like what was requested by the pilgrims I met earlier.

By the time I reached the board for Basilisk ranked quests, it felt like a quaint grocery store, with only a few other people browsing through what was being offered. Contrary to the number of people, the number of quests was even more than the previous board, which I could only assume that they have been stacking up due to manpower shortage. Stealing Roc eggs, capturing a Cyclops for resea—wait, was that a quest for searching for the body of Farhana Constantine?!

I snatched that parchment from the board as my eyes opened wide and my anger started to boil. It was requested by the Temple of Breven no less. I felt the urge to rip this parchment in half, before a hand on my shoulder put that to a stop.

“I wouldn’t take that if I was you.”

I turned around and saw a chiselled man with armour that accentuated the ridges on his abdomen.

“How come?”

“Did you not see the reward?”

He pointed towards the bottom of the paper.

“Five thousand denars for a quest of this scale? Those Evanists are stingy as hell!”

“What should the reward be?” I inquired.

“You new here or something? The corpse of Hero Evansmith’s mother is practically a relic of the highest degree! We should get a fortune for that!”

In silence, I placed the parchment back to where it originally was and left. If I didn’t, the desire to punch him in the face would have overwhelmed me.

How dare he treat mum’s body like some sort of treasure to be found?! How would you feel if people placed a price tag on your mother’s body, huh? This was my own flesh and blood, for goodness' sake.

Pacing back and forth, I fought to regain control of my breathing and emotions. Looking at the last two boards, the one for Dragon-ranked quests was completely barren.

The Chimaera-ranked quest board was the final board that still had people looking at it. There was only one man in front of it, in fact. Fearing that I would be bothered once more, I stood at a distance and directed my attention to the quests stuck on the board, away from the rage welling inside me.

Uncharted dungeon exploration and Griffon slaying were amongst the few that I could make out as I stood quite far away. If these were already Chimaera rank, I wondered what kind of quests would be fitting for Dragon-rank adventurers.

Out of nowhere, a young warrior barged open through the Adventurer’s Guild doors and ran straight towards the man in front of the Chimaera-rank quest board, panting.

“Boss! Boss!” he called out as he tried to catch his breath.

“What Mervyn? Could you not cause a scene?”

“The Dragon-ranked knight was defeated!”

I shared a similar expression with Mervyn’s boss. Sereya went and took down the escaping knight, was that it?

“Explain.”

“It was a woman. She didn’t have any special equipment whatsoever, but she fought against the knight by the main gate. By the time I arrived there, the knight actually fought like an assassin with twin blades, then as a mage with wind magic. Even then, the woman held the advantage the whole time and was about to deliver the winning blow, had the fight not been interrupted by some shrill sound."

So it wasn’t a new development then. That was the same thing I witnessed.

Mervyn’s boss couldn’t hide his astonishment.

“What? How?!”

“She’s a swordswoman, but her speed was beyond anything I’ve seen before. When she moved, it was as if she teleported. When she swung once, I could hear the sound of ten slashes. Please, boss, you have to recruit her to the Clan!”

“Mervyn, I’m impressed as you are, but give me some face, will ya? Aegis only has Chimaera-ranked members, and you expect us to recruit someone who beat a Dragon-rank? What, you want me to hand my Clan Master position to her?”

“S-Sorry.”

I was feeling a lot more self-conscious than before. My hand pulled my cape in closer to my body, making extra sure that my Dragon-rank plate was completely hidden from sight.

“While I would’ve loved to meet this woman you’re saying, first, we’ll be taking this quest.”

He grabbed one of the parchments and showed it to his subordinate.

“Exploring the Salaric Cave System? B-But didn’t they say there was a dragon sleeping there?!”

“You want that woman in our Clan right? Then why not kill that dragon in its sleep and become Dragon-ranked ourselves!”

The allure of climbing to the top of the adventurer hierarchy slowly turned Mervyn’s face from worry into excitement. If I didn’t know the context, I would have thought that he saw a girl stripping naked or something.

“Yeah! Let’s do th—”

As he was pumping himself up, he happened to turn towards me. As his eyes met mine, he froze momentarily, before asking:

“Weren’t you friends with the woman?!”

“Huh?” I feigned ignorance.

“The one who beat the knight. You were in the same cart with her!”

“Wait a sec…I swore I’ve seen you before.”

As Mervyn’s boss said that, I felt my heart free falling into an endless pit. Did he recognise me from the time when Hanasuke was in control?

“Uncle!”

As Ain called out to me, I felt her hugging my waist from behind. I Immediately ignored the two adventurers and addressed the little girl instead.

“W-What’s up?

“Here’s your reward!”

She handed me a pouch of coins. The weight caught me off guard at first—just how much was inside there?

“Ain, behave yourself!” Anita said as she approached us. “Sorry that took so long, but the quest is finally over. Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“Thanks for the reward. I hope everything goes well for you two.”

“Likewise.”

“Uncle, you’ll visit us right?” Ain held my hand as she asked with puppy eyes.

“Only if you’re a good girl.”

“Hey!”

Anita giggled warmly.

“Well then, I guess this is goodbye,” she said.

“No! True friends don’t say goodbye, they say ‘see you soon,’” her daughter corrected her.

“My, where have you learned that from? Well, I suppose you’re right. See you soon, Uncle.”

“Yup! Uncle, see you soon!”

“See you.”

I waved at the two of them as they left the building. At the same time, I welcomed a strange sense of longing into my heart.

“Sorry about that,” the man next to Mervyn approached me, “I must’ve mistaken you for someone else.”

He turned to face Mervyn and continued, “Anyways, let’s not trouble this gentleman any further. Let’s meet up with our comrades right away.”

“Got it.”

Just like that, the two Chimaera-ranked adventurers also made their exit. I had to make mine, too, since this reward belonged not just to me, but to someone important to me as well.