[Early evening - after returning and removing his disguise]From what he understood, the guild offices were open through the night, catering for some mercenaries, adventurers or hunters who brought in their bounties even at odd hours - or those who only operated in the night taking on shady jobs!
"Hmm... Which of the three should I choose...? I guess adventurer or hunter? Since their offices are shared and the missions are posted in the same place..." He thought about it for a while, then decided that between being an adventurer, mercenary or hunter, the best choice would be to become a solo hunter.
"It"s better if I move alone so that no one will discover any of my secrets... And that will also let me keep the lion"s share of the rewards too."
In comparison, an adventurer or mercenary would most likely take on jobs as a group, sometimes even being engaged for large-scale monster subjugations or dungeon exploration expeditions. Despite the higher average pay, it also entailed a longer time spent on doing jobs as he would be slowed down by the much weaker members.
As such, he decided to head for the hunters" guild. Anyway, if the hunter jobs available weren"t suitable, the adventurers" jobs would be posted inside since they shared the same building, just on another board. And if that too didn"t work out, he could always just pop in to the mercenaries" guild right next door!
He walked through the broad streets and the many people heading home for dinner or a rest, and could see a large clearing in front - a city square where the largest blacksmiths, sundry stores and equipment retailers could be found, as well as the four major guilds of the city - the questers" guilds, comprised of hunters, adventurers and mercenaries; the alchemists" guild, the magicians" guild and the craftsmens" guild.
He was not surprised at the large number of people still crowding around the adventures" and hunters" shared premises and also at the mercenaries" guild"s entrance; even at this evening hour near dinner-time, there was a whole throng of them bustling in and out of the wide and tall double doors of the building.
Most of the questers looked to be locals with tan skin, bushy moustaches or beards and wearing the traditional local garb pa.s.sed down for generations, a desert rider"s yellow-brown clothing with a white or grey head-wrap to block out dust and the sun. From his observation, the composition of questers at this time was about 60% men and 40% women.
Apart from the human locals, there was a smattering of peoples of other races such as beastmen, half-beastmen, elves, dwarves, tieflings and various other species. Despite the obvious dislike the questers of each race had for the others, they generally minded their own business and stayed civil. Probably because of the numerous city and guild guards scattered along the streets around the large city square.
He patiently jostled in past the other people and soon made it through the door and saw a cavernous large main hall with 9 help counters, though of these 8, only 5 were still open. He shuffled up in the queue to a greeter"s counter where a 2.5 metre tall and heavily muscled beastman stood, handing out queue numbers.
Just this t.i.tanic greeter alone would be a great deterrent against trouble, apart from the various guild-workers who looked like they could take care of themselves and a few city guards standing or seated at strategic locations!
It finally came to his turn.
"Purpose of visiting?" The beastman spoke with clear diction, seeming to have a cla.s.sy urban accent, obviously born and bred in a big city like Gorun. Despite being cordial and polite, the beastman seemed to be rather ornery as his neutral expression already seemed like he would devour whoever he was looking at.
"First time registration as a quester." Lars smiled up at the towering greeter as he spoke; he had to crane his neck to look at the beastman"s face!
The greeter nodded perfunctorily and handed him a queue number - #0364. To have the need for 4 digits on their queue numbers... That was impressive level of traffic to have here!
"Thank you, sir." Lars nodded back and smiled, drawing a slight tightening of the beastman"s lips in response, before he waved Lars on and said, "Next!".
Lars looked around and saw a few simple crystal magic displays hanging from the pillars showing the queue number currently being served and which counter to go to. It currently showed #0359. With 5 counters open... It should be his turn soon.
He glanced around and saw that there weren"t actually many people waiting for their turns at the counter; most of them were sitting around at the guild cafe Starbolts or just standing around chatting. Another portion were peering at the bulletin board or job postings which were segregated by the many ranks of questers.
There was 1 bulletin board and 5 job posting boards, each one roughly 2 metres wide and 3 metres tall hanging from nearly the ceiling down to about waist height for an average man. The job posting boards were nearly full for the lower ranks but gradually grew spa.r.s.er as the ranks moved up.
The ranking system for questers was uniform across all 3 of the major bodies, in order from highest to lowest:
Divine 15,000,000 QP (Quest Points to reach this level)
Semi-divine 6,250,000 QP
Mythical 2,000,000 QP
Adamantine 750,000 QP
Mythril 325,000 QP
Orihalc.u.m 125,000 QP
Gold 50,000 QP
Silver 20,000 QP
Bronze 8,000 QP
Wood (Starting point for all questers)
He tried to look at the jobs available and saw that each quest in their separate section of the board had 5 areas of information: The name of quest, the quest awarder, the description, the reward and the danger level a.s.signed by the guild.
The danger level was broken down by grades, going from a G-grade meaning "easy within the level" to B meaning "only for the most skillful of questers in this rank". The maximum danger level of grade gave the implication that even the best of the best in that category of quester might not even come back with their lives.
However, there were a few lines of text printed at the top of each of the job posting boards that made Lars frown:
-A quester may only take jobs of a particular danger level if they have already completed at least 3 jobs of the previous grade e.g. to take jobs of E-grade danger level, a quester would have to complete 3 jobs of F-grade.
-A quester may only advance to the next rank if they have completed at least 3 C-grade quests of the previous rank e.g. to advance to the Bronze rank, a quester needs to complete 3 C-grade Wood quests.
"That rule... Won"t it slow me down greatly? If I start at the bottom and work my way up to reach Adamantine, equivalent to my Legendary-level, I"ll need to complete..." He began to calculate with his abnormally quick mind, finis.h.i.+ng in less than a second, "...90 quests...? Even at 1 quest a day, that would take 3 whole months??? Phew..."
Nevertheless, Lars decided to register anyway and see if there was a way around the restrictions. Otherwise, he would just have to breeze through the low-rank and low-grade jobs as quickly as he could...
If he had to, he would just have to demonstrate a slight glimpse of his city-conquering powers. Just enough to avoid the irritating low-level jobs.
And once he understood the capabilities of the powerhouses in this city, he could just establish himself as the new kid on the block with his Legendary-realm abilities.
* * * * *
"#364 - Counter 6. #364 - Counter 6. #364..." He heard an annoying announcement calling his number and went up to counter 6.
"Good evening~! How may I help you, handsome...?" The person manning the counter was a cute and beautiful pony-tailed brunette; smiling pleasantly at him. The horse-woman was not too tall, only about 1.9 metres tall while sitting. This helped Lars not to have to crane his neck and end up having neck-ache while talking to the gla.s.ses-wearing girl - he a.s.sumed it was a girl and not a woman from the way she spoke, but was not too confident when it came to the beast-race.
"First time registration as a quester, please."
"Alright sir~! Please fill in your details here, then we"ll do a simple test of capabilities to make sure you can take care of yourself out there. We wouldn"t you to get... Hurt, you know... Ehheheh!" The cute girl (he a.s.sumed she would be cute according to horse-people"s standards) giggle and punched him on the arm lightly, turning his arm numb from her immense strength.
Lars gulped, trying to ignore the fact that the counter-girl was obviously hitting on him (and hitting him), then quickly filled up the form while she did some admin work.
He filled in his name, age, a fake birth location and address and when it came to abilities, he wrote "beginner Elite-level". He was confident that even with his sealed Adept-level capabilities, his skills in combat and swordsmans.h.i.+p should let him easily fight at the level of a common Elite combatant.
He handed the form back to the counter lady who winked at him suggestively, then waited as she placed the registration card into a scanner.
"Please look into the magic painter lens and smile, sir!" He looked at the device that looked very much like a camera and did as he was told. As the magic painter lens flashed and clicked just like a camera would, the scanner glowed blue with the light of mana and then the screen before the horse-girl lit up, showing the details he had entered along with the picture he had just taken. The only part that was not complete was where he had entered his cultivation realm - it said "Elite-level - unverified".
"Sir, you"ll need to verify your levels? Please take this card to the room on the far right and knock on the door labelled "abilities test". Once you"re done there, you can complete your registration here at the front desk. Make sure you come back to me, "kay...?" She winked at him again and blew a kiss at him, which he avoided by leaning aside.
Her face stiffened a little when she saw that but she kept a hopeful smile plastered on her face as she handed him the form and "accidentally" brushed his hand while pa.s.sing it over, causing uncomfortable gooseb.u.mps to rise on Lars" skin.
He thanked her and hurriedly walked away while pulling up the hood of his cloak, stepping towards the direction she had indicated.
"Hey! New boy! Yeah, you!" He heard a commotion in the resting area and saw a man wearing an eye-patch and 2 burly men surround a newbie who looked barely 15 years old.
Despite being probably the same age as Lars, he was nowhere nearly as mature and did not have the air of confidence that the trained a.s.sa.s.sin had, an aura that made him seem like a seasoned veteran. On top of that, the kid"s naive and innocent face made him stand out as an easy target, tender and tasty.
Of the three thugs, one was tall, one short one and the last average height one wore a black eye-patch.
He sighed as he turned away to ignore the cliched newbie bullying that he knew was coming.
"Don"t you know the rules around here...? We here, your seniors, will show you the ropes and teach you about questing! A green-horn like you might not know, but we"re pretty big around here, eh boys?"
"Yea!" "You tell him, boss!" The tall and short one agreed enthusiastically, then the shorter one stepped up in front and said, "The boss is already a B-grade Wood rank quester, B-grade okay! He"s a downright veteran of questing, eh?" Lars paused, not sure whether that was meant to be a question or a statement and kept quiet, bemused. Then after a moment, he decided to continue on with his ability test.
Then their tanned, half-blind leader pushed his lackey aside and half-shouted, half-spat in the wimpy kid"s face; "All you need to do is pay us, say... 5 gold coins each and we"ll help you out in your quests! Oh, but if you don"t have enough cash, don"t worry! We"ll just take your first dozen mission earnings, right boys?" With that, the other two bullies laughed uproariously as if what their boss had said was very funny.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry! P-please... I c-can"t afford, can"t survive... My sick father..." As they stepped up around him to close off his paths of retreat, the boy bowed his head and kept on apologising.
The boss lowered his head down to take a peek at the newbie"s face, then his face turned from a scowl to one of amazement; then one of lascivious l.u.s.t.
"Pretty boy, aren"t you... Well... I"ll forgive you this one time; we"ll teach you for free! Starting from tonight, in the big boss" room... I"m sure he"ll enjoy this gift very much, right guys? Hahahah!" He raised his eyebrows suggestively as a perverted smile crossed his face, laughing together with his men.
"No... No! Please, please no! Someone, p-please help!" The blonde boy tried to resist and escape but was grabbed from either side and picked up forcibly and dragged away screaming.
Lars frowned at the debacle before him then looked around, curious as to why none of the guards or other questers stepped in to intervene. They stood or sat silently, looking fearful of taking action; perhaps fearful of the big boss the hooligans spoke of.
He sighed and frowned. Regardless of how big their backers were, he wouldn"t just stand on the sidelines and let a kid his age be destroyed!
Then he smiled.
He guessed he could teach these "kids" a lesson on behalf of the many more newbies to come...
And find out what was wrong with this city and nation - there were far too many perverts! He would have to get to the bottom of this...
No pun intended.