Chapter 21: First task

Immediately the team got home, they scanned through the contents of the package, oblivious to the news of their domineering display at the scavenger guild. With the help of the manuals they received, they understood the way the scavenger guild operates.

In the scavenger guild, people can choose to register as individuals or teams. Individuals carry out missions on their own and hoard the resources they earn. Since they act alone and save manpower, their reward is usually higher than that which teams receive for accomplishing more missions. while the teams are forced to split theirs equally and earn fewer rewards when a mission is accomplished. Zero and the rest were not really satisfied with these rules but they decided to ignore it and bottle up their discontent since they could do nothing to change it. From their previous encounter and based on the fact that no one hanged around the D rated guardian Kira defeated they could easily guess he was a lone scavenger.

The scavenger guild also utilizes what they call merit points to grade their hunters. There were three ranks in the scavenger guild, the first was the bronze rank, silver rank, and then the gold rank. The higher one's rank goes, the more benefits they reap from the association! Jumbling his memories, Zero remembered that the scavenger badge attached to the guardian's shirt was silver in color. Meaning had entered the silver rank!

Even if the team rewards are not on par to individual rewards, it should be good enough if they can take advantage of their numbers and accomplish more quests. Finally, the difficulty of the missions used the same ratings as the guardians as well, this really didn't surprise zero and the rest, this part was a normal information they were already familiar with. With this out of the way, they decided to rest for the day and return to the scavenger guild the next day.

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The next day passed by pretty fast. They attended the usual classes and listen to Miss Lane rant on about the various types of magic beasts, their weaknesses and strengths. Also, the students and even Miss Lane stared at them with strange expressions on their faces, they easily guessed Kira's actions the previous day got out and chose not to bother themselves about it.

In the minds of the others, they began wondering if these four are humans. Their rate of improvement was already terrifying enough and their fighting skills were not any weaker. From defeating a yellow belt martial art practitioner, to murdering a four-star bodyguard and now, they defeated a talented D rated guardian!

They just couldn't understand where these four were drawing their insane power from, only those of the older generation were not shocked. The parents of these four kids performed similar feats when they were younger as well… so why won't their kids be able to do the same?

After class, Alfred drove them straight to the outskirts of city A where the scavenger guild is located. They returned to the building which they registered and to their greatest surprise, the damages caused by Kira's battle a day ago had already been fixed and covered up.

They pushed the thoughts off their mind and walked straight to counter, there they got their bronze badge with the word 'Oscuro' boldly imprinted on it.

With this done, the ran up the second floor in search of an E rated quest. Since they lacked experience, they decided to be fair and start with minor quests. After search for close to an hour on the massive billboard where the quests are pinned to, Zero and the other three were frustrated!

They couldn't find even a single D rated mission, leaving only C rated missions here. No one needed to tell them that this was above their capabilities do they didn't even bother to spare those quests a second glance.

With low spirits, the team was about to leave the room when Zero noticed a quest poster pinned to be board, almost hidden by other posters as well.

He quickly reached for it and pulled it off of the board. His face revealed a confused emotion as he stared at the mission information.

"What's up? Is it what we are looking for?" Dan ran over impatiently and pulled the poster out of Zero's hands.

"E to C ratings? And why is there over 5 red stamps on it?" Dan was confused as well.

They all knew that a mission poster can only stamped when the mission has been accepted by someone. Since there are over 5 stamps on it, it simply meant that five groups have attempted this mission and failed.

This definitely stole their attention and they strode down the stairs silently, handing over the mission poster to the red-haired lady at the counter.

"We are interested in this… Can you explain why there are five red stamps on it? And why is it graded E to C ratings?" Zero asked whole rubbing his chin with his right hand.

Hearing Zero's words, the lady quickly looked at the mission poster they slid over and her face twisted strangely. She gazed at the four of them with determined eyes and declared…

"You cannot handle this… it's too dangerous and strange… Find something else!" She said with a stern look on her face.

The four of them were startled, they were pretty sure this woman in her late twenties was afraid of them just a day ago after Kira's display of skill and power. Even when they arrived here today, she also took the initiative to greet them respectfully, but now, she boldly rejected their request, without a proper explanation…

[What the hell is going on?] They thought.