Chapter 23 : Adventurer's Guild : Vonnear (2)

Roth and Lilian looked at him with an eyebrow raised, curious to what the name would be.

"Dusksteel." He said puffing out his chest, proud of the name.

The two contemplated about the name, but something isn't right.

"Dusksteel, Dusksteel, Dusksteel...." Roth mumbled it repeatedly and glanced at Lilian who was looking at him as well.

They understood what's wrong.

"Raymond, It's fine if you want to mirror the Dawnsteel but.." Lilian stopped and tried to find words of gentle refute.

"Basically, it's really bad on the tongue. It doesn't flow well." Roth laid out the truth.

"But.." He looked at Lilian. She just nodded.

"It was a good name though." He looked dejected and stared at them.

"Just remove 'steel' and it fits. Dusk is good." Roth comforted his friend, at least letting half of the name stay.

After a few minutes of silence.

"Alright." He returned to his jolly nature.

"Miss Stella, our party name is Dusk!" Raymond confirmed to her.

"Understood. Please wait a moment, I need to check the records if there are any parties that has this name." She took out a binder and quickly browsed through the papers.

Raymond was hoping that there would be a match, so he could argue to put the word 'steel' on the name.

"Luckily there are no matches. Please give me your license again so I could record them." She asked politely.

The three handed over their license, only Raymond was a little hesitant.

"There you go! Congratulations on forming the party Dusk."

"Thanks." Raymond looked at his license a little bit sad.

Adventurer's License

Raymond Dawnsteel

Class: Knight

Adventurer Rank: F

Party Affiliation: Dusk

"Let me proceed with the explanations. There are four different quest types that an adventurer can get, solo or party." Stella continued as she raised a finger on each count.

"The first one is Subjugation, as the names states, you need to defeat monsters or beasts that were commissioned by the guild. You need to bring in the whole carcass, or a specific body part for proof.

Next is Gathering. You will need to gather a certain amount resources, be it herbs, ores, or materials that could be found in certain areas.

Third are unranked commissions. Usually these are submitted by the citizens of the kingdom, and its difficulty could not be ranked properly. The rewards are specified by the people who requested it. For example, finding a lost kitten.

And lastly, are bounties. These are to hunt - dead or alive, the vile individuals who broke the law of the guild and the kingdom they reside in. I recommend you to leave this type of quest until you are at least a B rank."

Stella put down her hand and took a stack of papers and put it on the table.

"There are limitations for quests though. You can only get 2 subjugation or gathering quests at the same rank or below, or 1 quest of a rank above yours. This is to ensure that there would be no hoarding of materials or quests for a quick cash. The rewards will also be significantly lower if you have done a quest below your rank.

Unranked commissions and bounties are free to do as many as you like. You can check the most recent on the board over there. Understood?" She pointed at the side of the guild.

She paused and observed the reactions of the new adventurers. Raymond's eyes started to hollow as he was just nodding automatically. Lilian was distracted by the guild as her eyes were darting around. Only Roth was listening intently and ingraining every information he heard.

She smiled at Roth and continued, she understood that he will be the one who manages the party.

"Now, for promoting your Adventurers rank. Party and Solo are very similar. You just need to subjugate a special monster that the guild requires. You will be dispatched with a guild invigilator to observe your performance. For support classes that wants a solo promotion, the invigilator will lower their abilities to be the same rank as you, and you need to let them defeat the subjugation target.

And lastly, for the privelage an adventurers can get. You can use your guild license to other Kingdoms as a pass." She finished her introductory information of the guild.

"Any questions?" She directed this question at Roth.

Roth thought for a moment.

"Are there any prerequisites before we can take a promotion quest for our rank?"

Stella let out a genuine smile.

"Yes, as you can see your guild license is silver colored. Your license will change color into yellow gold as you completed enough quests." Stella took a mental note that this boy.

"So, do you want to start a quest?" Stella asked.

"Yes!" Raymond awoke from his boredom, and was very thrilled to try subjugating monsters.

The receptionist took a portion from the stack of papers for them to sift through

"Here are requests for F ranked, and here are D ranked missions if you want. But for your first, I recommend an F rank first to get the feel of it." Stella divided the papers, on the left was F ranked, and the right was D ranked.

"Hey guys, which one do you want?" He asked his friends while looking through the papers mainly for subjugation ecstatically.

As Lilian goes towards Raymond, she was pulled by Roth.

"Choose gathering." Roth slightly leaned on her ear and whispered.

"Why?" She was confused at Roth's sudden decision.

"It is our first mission together as an adventurer make it memorable." He paused.

"I'll find a way to split up, so you can be together… with him." Roth then pushed Lilian towards Raymond.

"Yo Roth, why did you chose Cleric?" Garver's voice was heard from behind, and he clasped Roth's shoulders with his broad hands.

Roth looked back slowly and he saw the same adventurers that wanted to strangle him earlier.

"Roth come here. Lilian wants gathering, and I want to start subjugation" Raymond was waving his hands calling Roth.

"Tell you later." He removed Garver's hand and rushed towards his team.

*Tsk* Garver and the other adventures were really curious about his decision.

"Which one do you think?" Raymond asked as he saw Roth beside him.

"Hmmm…" Roth feigned to think.

"Gathering is better, we already had battled with Sapphine this morning. And besides, we don't need to rush. We take proper time, let's use gathering as a feel for the outer forest first before we start with subjugation." He concluded his thoughts.

"But…" Raymond tried to reason but he was cut off by Roth.

"I know you're eager, but think of it this way. We need information the most, what do we know about the forest? We were cooped up in this town training against each other. If there are any accidents that may happen it would be dangerous. It is better for us to start with a gathering quest first, observe the forest, then plan our next move." Roth explained his reasons.

"Very good Roth! Exactly, as an adventurer you need information, information is a very valuable resource, and a lack of it may lead to life or death situations. Don't forget that." Stella was very pleased by the coherent understanding of Roth's perspective.

"Oh alright, but tomorrow" Raymond glanced at Roth with pleading eyes.

"Yes, yes, tomorrow we start the subjugation quests." Roth accepted his friends wish.

"Then, which one is better for us?" Raymond asked Roth giving him the stack of papers.

"I recommend getting the Pilaf Herbs, commonly used for low grade potions. They are scattered around the outer side of the Vonnear forests. You just nee d 10 for the party. Make sure not to venture in too deep. There will be caution markings there for you to see.

There will be mostly wildlife at the outermost area, like rabbits and deer, And for monsters on that area, you can just ignore them as they are mostly slimes. But just be aware of striped snakes, rarely they wander outside their territory. Just be careful." Stella gave her opinion as soon as she saw Roth giving her a nod.

"Thank you very much!" Raymond exclaimed.

"We'll be back soon." Lilian waved at Stella.

Roth bowed and followed his friends out of the guild branch, making sure he didn't look at other adventurers that were tracing their eyes at him.

The receptionist smiled and stood up. She arranged the quests back to her drawer and beckoned her co-worker.

"Mia, cover for me for a bit." She said to a black haired girl, wearing the same black and white dress as her.

"Taking a leak or…?" She teased her colleague.

Stella rolled her eyes and just walked to the back, and used a staircase going to the second floor.

"Report!" She voiced at a distance.

"Sure…" Mia sat at Stella's desk waiting for adventurers to cater.

Stella opened the door a room at the second floor. It was the branch leader's office.

A long haired man with a rough shaven beard, black hair but riddled with gray, was looking at some documents.

"Did you change it?" He asked Stella.

"Yes." Stella affirmed as she walked over and sat on a cushion in front of the branch leader.

"What are your thoughts about the boy?" He asked as he put down the document to listen to her attentively.

"He'll be strong, that's a given. A young straight forward boy with a lot of passion." She said with no interest while looking at her nails.

"You're disappointed?" He was curious. Usually, this woman is quite the battle maniac and would gladly wait for person for years to grow, until she could fight them.

"No, but I found myself… something else." She licked her lips and let out an unnerving smile.

'She's crazy.' The branch manager thought as he took out a letter from Belial and burned it in his palm to remove evidence.