"Hit him in the face!""Punch him!"
"That"s too slow! hit him harder!"
We were standing in front of a building that had the sign of two crossed axes in its signboard. Below the sign "Adventurer guild" was written in bold letters. Two macho men were fighting in front of the building and a crowd of rowdy looking men was encouraging them. One of the macho men was tall and had a cross-shaped scar on his forehead while the other was short and had a goofy looking face.
Most of the men there were wearing armor made of monster parts. Many of them had scars on their faces and, by no means, they looked like an everyday normal people that you meet in the trade district. These fights were probably the reason why the guild building was established this back from the main street.
While we were looking, two knights who were patrolling the area came and separated them. The rest of the people who were watching the fight started booing when they saw the knights coming. The knight ignored them and took the two macho men into custody. The people who were fighting did not resist as if they were waiting for the knights to come and arrest them.
"See Junior, this is how you arrange a free stay in the city," said the tall macho man looking towards the short one.
"Wow senior, you are so smart," the goofy-looking short macho man replied.
The people who were gathered to watch the fight went their own ways and the way to the building was cleared.
"These people are crazy. How did we end up here?"
★★--Earlier that Morning--★★
"You will need to join the Adventurer guild before we move to your next training," said Miss Lilith. We were in the sitting room and it was almost breakfast time. Miss Lilith was explaining how we were going to train from now on.
"Adventurer? Aren"t those a bunch of rowdies who do odd jobs because they couldn"t become knights or magicians?" said Nina in a surprised tone.
"Yeah, we are training to become knights and magicians, we don"t need to join them," said Princess Anna with a look of confusion clearly visible on her face.
"Hmph!... You underestimate them. If there was a fight between all the knights and adventurers of this Kingdom, I can bet that the adventurers will win," replied Miss looking a bit annoyed. After a pause, she continued, "For your next training, you need to fight monsters, but they are not going to come to the city for you."
"But we don"t have to become adventurers for that, we could just travel to the villages where there are frequent monster attacks and hunt them there," said Ronald in his usual calm tone.
"And, who would sponsor your journies?" Miss Lilith asked looking towards Ronald.
"Yes, I don"t think our monthly allowance would be enough to finance our travels," said Princess Eliane.
Our monthly allowance was 2 silver coins each. In this country, the cost for a normal meal was around 2 copper coins and the parking for carriage and horses cost around 4 copper coins a day. A silver coin was worth 20 copper coins which made our allowance 40 copper coins a month.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, the academy provides food and housing which meant that the money on our allowance could be used for personal purposes. But, since we will be traveling on our own in this case, the allowance we get won"t be enough.
"But, you are our teacher so isn"t that your job to do that, Miss Lilith?" Sistina asked looking confused.
"HA! when will you kids grow up and start living on your own?" Miss Lilith replied in an irritated tone.
We didn"t have the necessary things to go on quests even if we were to join an Adventurer guild. I wasn"t even sure if they paid advance before taking a job or not.
"There is no way we will be able to arrange all the things on our own. We will also need a wagon," I said since there was no way we would be able to get everything with just our allowances.
Miss Lilith also knew that so she said, "I will ask duke to arrange equipment and wagon but you will have to arrange rest of the expenses yourself."
We had recently got our first allowance so we all gave it to Ronald for spending during our travels. We also decided to visit the Adventurer guild in the afternoon.
★★--Back in the present time--★★
When we opened the door to the guild building, the bell on the door rang producing "ding" sound. When we stepped in the receptionist at the reception looked towards us. She was a brown-haired girl wearing a black and white formal looking one-piece dress.
The environment inside was completely different from the one outside. It wasn"t even that noisy compared to other places at the trading district. There were chairs where people could wait if the reception was busy. There were few people inside but most of them looked like the guild staff.
Since it was crowded, we decided that Ronald and I will go and ask how things work at the reception while the rest will wait in the waiting area that was in front of the reception desk.
When Ronald and I approached the reception desk, the lady at the reception smiled and greeted us with, "h.e.l.lo sirs, how may I help you?"
"h.e.l.lo, we wanted to know how we could join the guild," Ronald replied with a similar-looking smile.
"Yes. that"s easy sir, you will need to provide us your identification doc.u.ments and we will do the rest of the things for you," she replied giving a straight answer.
"We also want to know how things work here and how will we receive the payment for our work," I asked since we had no idea how things worked here.
"Yes. People bring quests to the guild which we filter and post on the board. The quests are cla.s.sified based on the difficulty level. Any guild member can take the quests based on their rank but the advance is only paid to the members whose rank is silver or higher. A badge displaying their rank will be given to the members which also acts as proof of their affiliation with the guild. The payment is made after the proof of completion of the task is presented to the guild," she replied.
The part about only silver and higher-ranking people getting the advance money is probably a strategy to prevent people from not returning the advance money if the quest is not fulfilled. People who are ranked high are less likely to abandon guild for the advance money.
"Can you tell us more about the ranks and quests?" I asked since knowing that would be useful.
"Yes. You can find the information about the ranks and quests on that board," she replied pointing towards the board on the side of the reception desk.
We looked at the board and the ranks were: Steel --u003e Copper --u003e Silver --u003e Gold --u003e Mithril --u003e Orichalc.u.m. The quests were also ranked the same way as the Adventurer"s ranking from Steel quests to Orichalc.u.m quests.
Ronald and I came back and told these things to others. We all decided to join the guild so we gave our academy test score as our identification doc.u.ment. The receptionist said it was going to take some time to make the badge for us. She told us to go to the second floor and look at the quests in the meantime.
We went to the second floor where there were many people looking at the quest boards. Some of the people who were cheering during the fight earlier were also there.
There were different boards for different ranks. There weren"t many quests for steel ranked adventurers and the ones there only paid around 20 copper coins.
"T- this one looks good," said Marina pointing at a quest. Strangely, the poster she pointed at paid 20 silver coins for steel ranked quest.
"The money looks too good for killing few monsters that show up in the farm to eat crops, this looks fishy," said Nina looking at the quest she pointed at.
"Nina, you just worry too much. I don"t think we need to worry since the guild filters the quests according to the difficulty level. Let"s take it," said Princess Anna in a positive tone.
"But it"s too far away. It will take days to reach there," said Arica. Most of the quests there were from the villages that were far away from the city. Since Knights worked on thinning the numbers of monsters in the surrounding villages, there weren"t many quests from there.
"I think that is probably why they are paying that much for hunting just a few monsters," said Princess Eliane in her usual calm tone.
"Let"s take this quest and see how things work," I said looking towards Ronald.
"Okay, we will take this quest," said Ronald taking the quest poster from the board.
We then brought the quest poster to the reception. The lady there looked at the quest number and marked it as taken.
Our steel badges were also prepared by the time we brought the quest. They were small round silver badges with the guild"s symbol on one side. A number was stamped on the other side which we needed to remember since it could be used to get a new badge in case we lose this one.
"You can also take this, this is the map that the villagers who brought the quest to us gave," said the lady giving Ronald the map. It was a handmade map that showed details like forests and rivers on the way to the village.
After taking the badges and the map we returned to the dorm. Now we needed to start our preparations for the journey.
Next Chapter: The Monster Hunting Quest.