LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 70- Adventurer
As I made my way towards the supposed location of the adventurer’s guild, I curiously studied my surroundings.
Since it’s a fantasy/sci-fi mixed world, I was really looking forward to experiencing the isekai life, but how should I say it…? I feel kinda disappointed, I guess?
To start with, the complete absence of beast-eared girls and other races as a whole makes the whole experience lacking.
However, what really hammers the nail is the total lack of magic in the atmosphere. I expected much more considering that magical tools and potions were somewhat prominent in the anime.
Kumoko did take a while to learn magic in the anime, and even I had to wait for a few months before I could use it, but I thought it’d be different for humans, y’know?
Both Kumoko and I are monsters, after all, so we had none other than ourselves to depend on in this matter.
Whether it's acquiring the prerequisite skills or self-studying the rune constructions, we did it all from scratch and even developed new variations with our own abilities.
I have Sage while Kumoko has Wisdom, so it’s only natural for us to figure it, you say? I mean... you’re technically right about that.
However, humans have entire academies dedicated to teaching and studying magic, of which some even have up until stage 3 magic books present in their libraries, y’know?
That is more than enough to offset the existence of our cheat skills.
I don’t know if they’re deliberately being suppressed by the nobles or if their affinities are just rubbish, but the fact that most commoners can’t even use magic is just lame.
An incredibly handy power like magic should’ve already been incorporated into everyone’s daily lives long ago… Such a waste.
Losing interest, I clicked my tongue and fastened my walking pace.
A few minutes later, I finally arrived at the aforementioned city square and promptly began looking around for my target destination.
The layout of this place is surprisingly organized for medieval construction.
Gathering all the important buildings in one place while laying down four main roads leading to the city gates is a surprisingly advanced idea for this era.
I’m immensely grateful to whoever planned the construction of this city, especially since I don’t have to traverse a man-made stone labyrinth every time I step out of a building.
My eyes first fell on the church where I confirmed this nation’s main religion: The Word of God.
And since there were no mentions of the empire on the way here, I believe this means I’ve landed on the human-dominated continent, Daztrudia.
I still don’t know where Aiko and Segawa’s birth places are, but the Analiet kingdom where Katia, Shun, and Feirune will be born seems to be quite close.
That is if I didn’t cause some drastic changes with my butterfly effect that led to Feirune being eaten by Kumoko instead of getting picked up by the human adventurers…
I personally don’t care, but I guess it’d leave a bad taste in my mouth. She’s still Aiko’s friend at the end of day.
Next up, my eyes drifted towards the merchant’s guild where I caught sight of a few carriages belonging to Mister Ellois’s caravan parked outside.
Several porters were carrying around crates containing fabrics and walking to the back of the guild building, presumably moving them into a warehouse of sorts.
By the way, Mister Ellois only sells the highest quality fabrics, so these ones are actually not his.
It’s quite obvious since the one supervising the process is one of the other caravan merchants, and it was one of the baddies at that.
Finally, I located the large adventurer’s guild building.
Unlike the ostentatious marble church with its grand architectural style or the luxurious merchant’s guild with its golden plaque and tinted glass windows, the adventurer’s guild is just a plain wooden building.
It’s probably built this way so that they can quickly and cheaply repair it when needed.
…Honestly speaking, I totally get how rowdy stereotypical adventurers can get, but this place’s guildmaster is just stingy at this point, right?! The freaking plaque is hanging down by a nail!!
Whatever, it’s not like I’ll have much contact with them anyways.
As soon as I get my identification and a short rundown about this country, I’ll go rescue my future maid and whoosh the fuck outta here.
The most dangerous place is the safest and all, so it’s best if I settle somewhere in or near the capital.
As I nervously tiptoed through the guild’s open door, a strange, unexpected scene entered my eyes.
There was nothing like rough fighting or boisterous laughter which isekai protagonists usually encounter upon entering the guild. In fact, the entire place was vacant save for a single soul.
A few meters behind the reception counter, a scowling woman sat on a tall chair, silently flipping through what I presume are request documents while looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
But that’s it. Not only was there no one manning the pub area, but even the guild master’s office was empty.
Oo-okay. I guess this calls for a quick information update, I’m probably too far away from the Elroe Labyrinth, or any monster infested area at that.
Come to think of it, the Grizlak was the only monster in the entire forest, wasn’t it?
I had been wandering around that place for a relatively long time, but I don’t remember coming across any other monsters. It’s strange even if you take Mischief into account.
Anyways, I stopped thinking about it and leisurely walked up to the counter… only to realize that I’m too short to peek over it!
What the fuck, man?! Since when did fantasy guilds discriminate against the shorties, huh?! What about the dwarves?!
They don’t have them here…? Well, you have to take them into consideration anyways, assholes!
Could it be that god hates shorties?
Answer the freaking question, D! I know you're rolling on the floor with laughter right now! I can feel it inside me!
Thud. Thud.
“Excuse me!” Knocking on the counter, I shouted for the lady, but the only response I got was the sound of pages turning.
Uhhh, is she just ignoring me or can she just not see me?
…Y’know what, don’t answer that. Both are bad in their own way.
THUD! THUD!
“Excuse meee! Down here, please lady!” I yelled again, louder this time.
“Tch.” This time, I got a tongue click in response.
I’ll ignore it though, I’m definitely the bigger person. Ain’t no old woman can make me lose my cool!
The sound of footsteps slowly approached my position, followed by a loud crash and a loud, irritated voice.
“Whaddya want, kid? You lost or somethin’?” The receptionist lady inquired impatiently, her eyes still glued to the file she brought along.
Patience, Violet. A city-tier monster shouldn’t be provoked by some human hag.
“Hello, auntie! I want to join the adventurer’s guild!” I answered while mentally smirking.
She visibly flinched at being called an auntie, but I’ll make no effort whatsoever to change that address.
This is just a respectful form of addressing an older person. It’s definitely not me being extra petty or anything like that!
“Join the guild?” She quirked an eyebrow. “What’s a kid that’s barely ten gotta do with the guild?” She continued, a bit of ridicule seeping into her voice.
“Yes, auntie!” I stressed the second word. “I’m here to join the adventurer’s guild. auntie! Am I at the right place, auntie?”
I’ll say it again, I’m definitely not doing this out of pettiness.
“Tch. Yeah yeah, this is the right place. Do your parents approve of you coming here, kid?”
“I don’t have parents.” Dejectedly lowering my head, I curled my lips into a sad smile.
“...Whatever.” She clicked her tongue again. “Do you have a guardian then? Where’s your identification?”
Rummaging through my cloak’s inner pockets, I take out the paper that indicated my clear record while answering her questions.
“No, and I don’t have any. Mister Guard told me this should work just fine as an alternative though, is it okay?” Handing her the paper, I put on a nervous expression.
Apparently having never encountered anything similar before, she carelessly took the paper and curiously browsed through it with raised eyebrows.
Soon, her expression morphed into that of surprise, subsequently proceeding to scan through it again, her contempt and negligence completely gone, replaced by a bizarre solemnity.
Uhhh, what happened? A letter from some random city gate guard can’t have possibly inspired such a change, right?
Does it have something to do with Mister Ellois? If so, then I might have to re-evaluate his position as a whole, both professionally and socially.
The utter lack of conclusive information about this world’s human society irks me to no end.
I can temporarily make up for it by relying on pure guessing and vague deduction to supplement my knowledge database, but I can’t leave such a serious problem unattended for much more.
A few minutes passed by, during which the receptionist lady scanned through the paper a few more times.
“It works just fine…” Letting out a sigh, she frowns. “It’s just that you’ll still have to start from the scratch and climb the ranks one by one.” She remarked. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take your strong magic and presumably high stats at face value.” She explained.
Strong magic and high stats…? Where did those come from?
I mean, the latter might’ve been inferred from my claim about living in seclusion, but I’m sure I never said a word nor revealed a thing about the former.
Is there something I’m missing here? I’ll have to look into that later.
“That’s totally fine by me! Thank you very much!” I beamed.
“Yeah yeah, wait here while I go get the printer.” Brushing me off, she stood strode away from the counter and towards a lonely door that stood at the far back of the hall.
Silence settled over the guild hall, only interrupted by the occasional loud thud or curse coming from behind the aforementioned door.
Just as I felt myself dozing off, the half-closed door was violently kicked open, giving way to the lady who was carrying a magic tool that’s eerily reminiscent of a paper scanner from Earth.
Carelessly leaving it on the counter, she fumbles through pockets before pulling out a small wooden card which inserts into a dedicated slot in the scanner thingy’s side.
“Place your hand on here and let your push a bit of magic into it. Should be easy for ya.” She pointed to a slightly dented handprint on the magic tool.
Well, I already know what the scanner does because I analyzed it with Sage, but you oughta introduced it to me, right?
I didn’t comment on your lack of courtesy, but you should at least maintain basic professionalism, y’know?
Let’s get this over with as soon as possible, else I might just use Dimensional Magic to raze this place into dust…
Enveloping my hands with a thin layer of scales, I line it up with the handprint before lightly pressing it down and injecting a minuscule amount of magic power.
The low level Appraisal stone embedded inside then did its best to appraise but it ultimately failed, so I had to manually manipulate the Fire Magic stone to burn a fake set of information on the card.
Finally, a bell chime echoed through the empty hall, and the transformed wooden card was ejected from a dedicated slot.
I stealthily shed the scales covering my hand and burned them with fire magic before I picked up the card.
Hmmm. Maybe they use better printers for higher ranks...?
The card had my name scorched onto it in a large font right in the center, and each corner had a piece of information also had something burnt onto it.
Going clock wise, the top left had my adventurer rank, the top right declared my profession as a mage, the bottom right had my level on it, and the bottom left had my race for some reason.
It literally had the bare minimum amount of information, but I guess that's to be expected since the utilized Appraisal stone can only detect race, name, and level.
“What should I do next, auntie?” I wondered.
“Nothing.” She bluntly stated while extending an arm towards me. “Card. I need to write down some of its details.”
“Ahh, okay. Here” Handing her the card, I let her do her thing and started reading through the available requests with my sphere.
The adventurer ranks in this world are divided into 7 different ranks equivalent to the danger level of monsters.
Basically, an F rank adventurer can solo an Danger-level F monster and it goes on like this until S rank.
There’s also an S+ rank reserved for Heroes and a special Legendary-class ranking reserved for exceptionally powerful creatures like Queen Taratects and Ancient Dragons.
Of course, all of this information was acquired from Barb. Grumpy receptionist lady is too shitty at her job to inform me of this.
She didn’t even tell me about the promotion system nor the general information concerning requests and such.
Anyways, I can only take F rank quests right now, which include the cliche trio of odd jobs, pest extermination, and herb collection.
Odd jobs are definitely out of the question, there ain’t no way I’d condescend myself to working as a coolie for some humans.
Pest extermination isn’t all that interesting as well. The strength of the monsters living near this city is abysmal at best.
If I wanna undertake this specific type of request in the future, I’d better move into a labyrinth city, preferably the one adjacent to the Great Elroe Labyrinth since I am most familiar with its monsters.
This only leaves herb collection requests, which are actually the easiest – and least exciting– for me to complete.
Or rather, any type of search, exploration, or investigation requests are literally easier than breathing for me.
My sphere’s range has already extended way past the previous one kilometer distance it had back on Earth, and it can even work in tandem with my Detection and Vision expansion skills.
In fact, if I add in the Auditory and Olfactory Enhancement skills into the mix, I’d basically have a makeshift version of Universal Sense.
So I can detect and distinguish between just about everything there is as long as it enters the radius of my sphere, including incorporeal bodies!
Finding a few plants is the least I could do.
“Here you go. By the way, the guild is supposed to be closed down until after tomorrow, so you can’t take any requests just yet.” The receptionist lady’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.
Hooh? So that’s why there’s no one around, huh…? Guess I came at the wrong time.
“That’s fine. Does the guild have any places dedicated for learning? Like a small library or an archive room.” Reaching out to take my adventurer card, I inquired earnestly.
I can see a relatively large room filled with bookshelves on the second floor, but the dust and cobwebs over there have piled up to the point where the spiders are about to evolve into taratects…
“Yes, but no one has used it for a very long time. You can use it if you want, but no one’s gonna clean it up for you.” She nodded while brushing me away with her hands dismissively, clearly disinterested in any further conversation.
Great! Now I have an alibi for at least the duration of next week!
As long as they find me inside the library, any suspicions about the new girl in town breaking into – Cough, roaming around the mayor’s house as an uninvited but esteemed guest will be automatically dropped!
My experiences with Mischief showed just how unreliable this skill is in reality, so I’ve mostly avoided relying on it in recent times.
I really needa step up my training efforts, otherwise I’d be wasting Sage’s incredible potential.
That’s for later though. Right now, I need to prepare myself for an upcoming hectic few days.
Those guys will probably take action very soon.
And since the supporting roles are doing their best in the rehearsals, how can the main heroine laze around?
I’m really looking forward to the moment when the curtains reveal the much anticipated action play.
