Chapter 17: Guild

Rex left the dungeon around three in the afternoon, the sun still high in the sky as adventurers flooded in and out of Babel. Today wasn't as busy as usual due to Denatus, with most of the adventurers who had leveled up waiting around for their titles.

'Wouldn't it have been better for me to level up before Denatus?' He shook his head. 'Nah, since I leveled up so close to Denatus, there'll be nothing known about me, and I'd be stuck with a trash alias. Now, I'll have three months to make a name for myself.'

Right now, he was an unknown, and even if he leveled up, he'd just be one of the hundreds of level twos. He wouldn't be breaking records, since technically, it took him five years to level up. But if it became known that he'd killed nine Infant Dragons at level one!?

'Yeah, I shouldn't do that.' He shook his head. The last thing he needed was gods coming after him, which would greatly distract him from doing anything at all. He liked how he could just walk around the city without anyone sparing him a second glance due to him being another adventurer and he didn't want that to change.

'I guess it might change when I become a level three.' Then, he'd be breaking lots of records. That is, if he reported his level-ups... 'Hmm...'

He hadn't decided on what Familia to join, or if he should even leave Soma, but this brought up another point. He couldn't join a Familia that leaned too much into the 'good' side. He couldn't have restrictions on what he could do—like what if they told him not to use Scavenger on people?

'Come to think of it, I haven't used Scavenger on people except when I first reincarnated.' He noticed, which was normal since all the bodies he'd run into had been dead long enough for their 'aura' to fade.

And it wasn't like he could just go around the dungeon killing people to absorb their stats when he wouldn't get anything different than what he got from absorbing monster stones. Even if the person had a good skill or magic, it wasn't like Scavenger had a 100% loot rate, and killing them would likely end up being useless.

'My thoughts are all over the place.' The fact that this next decision will decide his future was kinda getting to him. Once he levels up in a familia, he can't ever leave said familia as his status will be seen by the deity and he doubts they will let him go. 'Haah.'

For now, Rex pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he entered the Guild to sell his basic drop items. He made his way to the seemingly always-bored werewolf, who barely shifted in her seat as she acknowledged him.

"Good afternoon," Rose greeted in the same monotone she always used. "What can I do for you today?" 

"I want to sell a few drop items," Rex replied, gesturing to the bag on his back. She nodded and stepped out of her booth, not needing to say anything for him to follow her into a private room, and she closed the door behind him. 

"You do know that you could sell your drops on the third floor of Babel, right?" she asked, glancing at him as he dropped the heavy bag. 

"I do," he replied. He did know about that, but just forgot about it until now. 'I should have just gone there instead of walking around with such a heavy bag.' He thought as he opened his bag. 

He had arranged the loot before leaving the dungeon, placing the dragon loot at the bottom and the basic drops on top, so he didn't need to search for them as he arranged them on the table. There were a lot of drop items, as he was selling thirteen hours' worth of dungeon running, along with a few magic stones. 

Rose stood to the side with one arm folded across her torso as she silently watched as he arranged the items on the table, noticing the lack of magic stones compared to drops but assuming he destroyed them to kill the monsters. However, when she glanced inside his bag, she froze upon spotting some of the drops at the bottom.

The red haired blinked, looked away, and then looked back to make sure she saw what she thought she saw. She had seen it right! "Pardon the intrusion," she suddenly spoke, her gold eyes meeting his amber ones as he placed down a hard armored carapace. "What's your level?"

"Level one," he replied, returning his attention to his work.

"I'd assume you're in a team of level twos," she said, her gaze lingering as he reached into the bag, revealing more dragon scales.

"No, I work alone," he said casually.

"Really?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. "Then may I ask how you got your hands on those Infant Dragon drops?"

"Hmm?" He looked down at his bag and then realized why she was asking. "Oh, I just killed a few Infant Dragons. Normal stuff."

"Normal, right," Rose nodded, not believing a word he said, but she decided not to pry any further. If he wasn't going to tell her, she wouldn't force it out.

"That's all," Rex gestured to the table while closing his bag. "I also want to ask a few questions about development abilities. Should I ask now, or...?"

"It's not my place to advise an adventurer who isn't under my supervision," Rose replied, shaking her head. "It's best to go to your advisor for that kind of question."

'Really?' Rex raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember getting one. An advisor, I mean."

"Your advisor is automatically the person who registered you as an adventurer, or someone else if you changed your advisor or were assigned someone different later on," she explained, walking toward the table to inspect the drop items. "Do you remember who you registered under?"

"That was five years ago," Rex said, shaking his head. "I don't remember that."

"...So you haven't spoken to your advisor in five years?" Rose asked, giving him a sidelong glance. He shrugged, and she let out a small sigh. "Wait in the lobby. I'll check the records for your advisor when I'm done with this," she said as she gestured at the table. "Feel free to ask one of the receptionists instead if you can't wait."

"Right, thanks." He nodded, leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

Deciding to wait, he wandered over to the commission board to browse through the postings while eavesdropping on the surrounding conversation. Most of the adventurers in the guild were still buzzing about the Minotaur that had appeared on the eighth floor. Even though the Loki Familia claimed they'd killed it, the fact that a Minotaur had climbed up seven floors from the fifteenth without anyone noticing still terrified a lot of level ones.

It should be noted that a Minotaur isn't much weaker than an Infant Dragon, so the idea of one roaming the eighth floor was akin to an Infant Dragon wandering around. A terrifying thought, indeed.

'Oh, look, the price for this flower has gone up to eleven million,' Rex noted, spotting the flower he'd seen last night, the commission from the Panacea Familia, one of the medicinal familias. 'If I could get down there, I'd just grab it and make eleven million for free.'

Scavenger would make finding the flower easy, but he knew he couldn't make it to the 18th floor solo, let alone the 20th. Even if he got lucky and made it that far, death would come quickly. From what he'd heard, even level threes struggled to solo that region, and he doubted he was anywhere close to that level of strength, even of he became level two.

'I could join a team, and we could find it together and split the reward,' he mused, folding his arms as his eyes scanned the board. Most of the higher-priced commissions from the 'Large Tree Labyrinth'—floors 19 to 24—were for rare items that would take a long time to find. None of that would be a problem for him, though.

'I can already see the money flooding in when I become a level three,' he thought, covering his mouth to hide his grin. 'Thirteen million for one flower? God, life's going to get so easy.'

He only then noticed Rose emerging from the back room with a form and a pouch, so he left the board and walked up to her. "Please follow me," she said as soon as he got close, before spinning on her heel.

Rex trailed behind her and after a short walk, they entered a private room with a square table surrounded by four chairs. Sunlight spilled in through a window, falling across the table and onto a small potted flower in one corner, with the room having a flowery scent.

"It turns out I'm your advisor," Rose announced, closing the door. "Why don't we introduce ourselves?" She placed the pouch and folder on the table. "I'm Rose Fannett, your advisor."

"Rex Magnus," he introduced himself, removing his bag and setting it on the ground before sitting in the chair facing the window.

Rose took a seat opposite him, her back to the window. "The total came out to twenty-nine thousand five hundred eighty-nine valis," she said, pushing the pouch towards him. "This has the details." She slid a paper toward him.

"Thanks," Rex took the paper but didn't glance at it. It wasn't like he could read it.

"The last time your record was updated was the day you registered, so it's past the yearly due date," Rose explained, pulling out a blank sheet and another already filled with information. "Wait a moment while I transfer some details..."

"Alright." While he waited, he transferred the thirty thousand valis into his pouch. Now, three of his five pouches were filled with valis. 'I should probably convert them to one-thousand denominations.' In total, he now held around 215,000 valis, the most he'd ever had at once.

'Well, in this world,' he mused. Assuming the author of DanMachi was Japanese, valis likely had an equivalent exchange rate to yen, meaning his 215,000 valis would only be around two thousand USD back on Earth.

'...Damn,' his eyes widened as he did the math. 'I made two thousand dollars in a few days. That would've been a month's salary back at McDonald's. Definitely an upgrade—'

"Please answer these questions," Rose's voice cut through his thoughts. He looked up at her, the sunlight streaming from behind her, making her appear almost radiant, especially due to her red hair. "It's best if you answer them truthfully and to the best of your ability."

"Alright," he nodded. "What are the questions?"

"First, you're still a level one and still in the Soma Familia, right?" she asked, and he nodded, prompting her to jot it down. "What's the lowest floor you've reached?"

"Floor twelve," he replied.

"And what's the lowest floor you've been to solo?" she continued, writing his last answer.

"Floor twelve," Rex answered, causing Rose to look up sharply.

"You went down to the twelfth floor solo as a level one?" Her tone remained even, but there was a hint of disbelief. "I assume you know how dangerous it is down there, especially for a solo level one. Even a level one with B-rank stats would find it hard to solo those floors."

'I had S-rank in most of my stats before even going down there,' he thought, but simply nodded. "I'm well aware."

Rose stared at him for a few seconds before continuing with the basic questions, all of which Rex answered honestly. There was nothing he needed to hide. Once the questioning was done, Rose placed the paper into the folder and tucked her pen back into her pocket.

"What was the question you wanted to ask?" Rose inquired, her gaze steady as she looked up at him.

"How do you acquire certain development abilities?" Rex got straight to the point, already feeling like he'd spent too much time here.

"The kind of Development Ability a person can learn depends on the type of excelia they've collected up to that point," Rose explained, her eyes never leaving his. "In a way, an adventurer like you has control over which abilities appear. Certain Development Abilities won't be available if the right type of excelia isn't present when an adventurer levels up."

She paused briefly before continuing, "For example, if an adventurer primarily uses swords and gains a lot of excelia from sword combat, the Development Ability Swordsman will appear during their level-up."

'Ah,' Rex nodded in understanding. 'No wonder Abnormal Resistance is so common.' It made sense, given the abundance of purple moths in the upper levels. "What about the Development Ability, Hunter?"

Rose hesitated for a moment, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied him. "The anti-monster ability, Hunter, can only be learned at Level 2. It requires an absurd amount of excelia from the same type of monster. It's one of the more difficult abilities to acquire, and it would be dangerous to try to gain it." She warned.

'I've gained most of my excelia from Infant Dragons, so...' He decided to probe further. "Has there ever been a Development Ability like Dragon Hunter?"

Rose paused for a moment and looked thoughtful. "There's a rumor that Maxim, the late Captain of the Zeus Familia, had a Development Ability similar to Hunter but more advanced. I believe it was called Apex Hunter?" She shook her head slightly. "It was believed that he was the reason the Zeus and Hera Familias were confident in their ability to defeat the One-Eyed Black Dragon. However, it was never confirmed before his death fifteen years ago."

"Ah, alright." Rex didn't have anything else to ask. As he stood with his bag, he suddenly remembered something. He pulled a coin from his pouch and held it up. "Heads or tails?"

"What?" Her ears twitched as she tilted her head slightly, confusion flickering across her face.

"Just pick," he insisted, holding the coin higher. "Heads or tails?"

Rose stared at him for a long moment, her golden eyes narrowing in suspicion. Finally, she relented. "Heads."

"Tails, then," Rex declared. 

He flicked the coin into the air with his thumb, watching it spin rapidly, catching the sunlight as it arced upward. It fell back into his left hand, and he slapped it onto the back of his right palm. He lifted his hand slightly, peeking at the result. 

"Ah..." He mumbled.

"Which is it?" Rose asked, unable to see the outcome from her seated position.

"Don't worry about it," Rex replied, slipping the coin back into his pouch.

"What?" Rose's confusion deepened. "Why can't I know the result? Was it headed or tails? What was the point of this game?"

"Don't worry about it," he casually repeated.

This only made her more curious. "Was it heads or tails?"

"Have a good day, Rosalina," he said with a wave, already heading for the door. He stepped out, closing it behind him.

Rose sat there, staring at the door in utter bewilderment. 'What was that about?' she wondered, then realized, "And my name is Rose," she muttered under her breath, her lips twitching slightly.

'Was that some new kind of flirting?' She frowned, still trying to make sense of the strange interaction.

As for Rex, from that heads of tails, he has decided on what to do about his level up. It might seem stupid to make such an important decision from a game of heads or tails, but even Scavenger was acting up when he tried to judge his thoughts. It kept rating everything high, basically telling him any choice he pick wouldn't matter due to his overpowered skill, so he settled on a simple game.

And finally, the answer to the millennium long question, 'To leave or not to leave,' is…