With our business with Risa done, we quickly left the town hall only to immediately enter it once again - from the other side. This part of the town hall had a big sign in the shape of a shield hanging over the door. It listed what could be found inside, which wasn’t hard to guess even for me.

“Is this the Adventuring Guild?”

“Nobody calls it that,” Ofris quickly destroyed my fantasy. “It is officially called the Mercenary Guild. It is the first place to go if you want to find work in this town quickly.”

“What work are we going to get me?”

“We will just fight slimes today. Think of it as doing your chores.”

“Doing my chores…”

“It is easy work nobody wants to do but needs to be done regularly.”

“Why does nobody want to fight slimes if it is easy?”

“You will see that soon enough,” Ofris answered with a laugh.

Saying that much, Ofris pushed open the door to the mercenary guild and entered. I readily followed him in, this time not needing to be dragged along.

The inside of this side of the building was as big as the other side, with a door to its left leading to the examination rooms I had been in earlier. In front of it was yet another counter which was worked by a tall, muscular man with light brown hair and three big, claw-like scars running across his face.

“His name is Paul,” Ofris explained. “Try to stay on his good side. He is the most important man in this city after the mayor.”

I quickly bowed my head towards the man, which he silently answered with a single nod, before going back to work. Satisfied with that good reaction, I turned around and let my gaze wander through the rest of the room. It had four tables with two benches each waiting for adventurers or rather mercenaries waiting, one of which was already used by a group of four men.

A deep sigh left Ofris' lips as he turned towards them. “Hello, John,” he greeted what must be their leader, before nodding to the other ones.

“If it isn’t Ofris!” John happily answered back. “How come you are already back? I could have sworn you were supposed to look after the rookies!”

“Things happened,” Ofris answered, desperately keeping things vague. “I decided to breach my contract.”

“You- what?”

“Risa has already chewed me a new one. But I am happy I did it.”

“What did those fools do?”

“They decided to think with their dicks,” Ofris said while pointing over his shoulder and onto me.

John couldn’t help but laugh. He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on my tail and chest, but he chose to keep his mouth shut when he found my new treasure hanging around my neck.

“We are going to find her a few easy jobs to get started,” Ofris explained.

“Slime duty?”

“Slime duty.”

John laughed again, then beckoned me closer to greet me.

“Greetings, Beauty.” He said. “I am John and these are,” he pointed at his friends, “Richard, Thomas and Piers.”

“Hello,” I greeted them back. “I’m Rika.”

“They are my old party,” Ofris explained. “From before I began teaching. You can talk to them when somebody gives you trouble.”

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“As long as you don’t go searching for it,” John added.

“Thank you. I will gladly accept your help should it come to it.”

John laughed again, this time seemingly without reason, then he pointed towards a large board next to the counter. It had several sheets of paper waiting for us, each of them with what I assume to be jobs or subjugation requests.

“Go get them, girl,” he laughed.

“Will do!”

I happily strolled to the board and began searching for the right job. Luckily, it was easy to find. Not only were the letters big and well written - which would have helped a lot if I could have read the words - but there were also crude pictures drawn on the bottom half of about half of the requests, explaining which monster I was supposed to hunt down.

The slime poster had a small, ball-shaped monster with black eyes and a large mouth painted on it, which, quite frankly, looked more cute than it had any right to do. I knew what this monster was supposed to be like from reading books and playing games, but this example looked like it was a pet instead.

Naturally, I still picked the paper and went over to the guy at the counter, who greeted me with a simple nod.

“Hello!” I greeted him back, “I’d like to take this quest.”

Paul looked at the picture, nodded and held out his hand. “Your Identification,” he added when I didn’t react at first.

“Sorry!”

I hurriedly pulled off my treasure and placed it into Paul’s hand, who stuck it in another one of the black runestones I had seen so many of at Risa’s workplace. It took only a few seconds for him to give it back to me.

“You are paid for the cores only,” he explained, “make sure not to damage them too much.”

“Yes!”

After saying that much, Paul picked up the paper, walked over to the request board and simply pinned it back on for others to read. Apparently one mercenary wasn’t enough to clear them all out.

“How many slimes do they have…”

⊱————　❈　————⊰

After getting my quest and saying bye to Ofris’ friends, we quickly headed off in the direction of his home, where we stayed just long enough for him to grab a sword and a spear, later of which he happily shoved into my hands.

“I never used a spear!” I heard myself complain.

“Don’t worry, I will explain to you what to do.”

With the weapons sorted out, Ofris led me to the town gate closest to his home. It was protected by three guards, who eyed my identification with suspicion, but decided against asking us out about it. Soon enough we were outside, and more or less free from questioning gazes. Or so I thought.

Outside of the gate, there was a stone bridge with a small stream flowing under it. Both sides of the stream were protected by stone walls taller than me by a head or two. It was here that Ofris stopped and pointed to a ladder at the other side of the bridge.

“We have to get down here,” he explained. “Be careful with your spear.”

“The slimes are this close to the city?”

“It is the best place for them to be,” Ofris said with a laugh.

It took us about five minutes of walking to find out why. Here, in the middle of nowhere, there was a large pipe reaching outside of the city wall and into the bed of the stream. A small but steady supply of filth ran out of it and was desperately waited for - by a horde of dozens, if not hundreds of slimes the size of soccer balls, some of them larger.

“I think I know why this job is unpopular,” I couldn’t help but say. “And why you would use a spear.”

“Make sure to only attack one at a time.”

“Will they attack me back?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

Hesitatingly, I readied myself. I took the spear into an over-shoulder hold, aimed at a slime and… promptly missed thanks to a green screen flashing up and saving the slime in the nick of time.

『Quest 1/1: Slimes be gone!

Objective: Unlock and use Fox Magic to slay 30 slimes.

Rewards: You get to use magic!』

“This vixen…”