“Chaotic,” I can’t help but mutter the first thought to enter my mind as I see the city for the first time.
Having heard what I said Sophia briefly stops and interjects, “I suppose it may seem that way to someone entering this city for the first time. Look around if you wish, but remember to stay by my side.”
As Sophia starts walking again, I quickly grab her hand to make sure that I won’t fall behind and try to better take in my surroundings. But, taking a better look doesn’t do much to change my initial thought.
The roads seem to be made up of uniformly laid bricks, but then that uniformity stops shortly after. Looking at the buildings lining the streets I am reminded of a multitude of cultures from my other life. Some resemble my new home, but I can also see architecture many other cultures present. There are buildings that remind me of the middle east, some make me think of traditional japanese, and those are only the few that I can immediately place.
Turning my attention away from the architecture, compared to my other life, the populace in this city is also quite different. Only briefly taking notice of all the different races around, what really surprises me is seeing quite a few people simply stopping and talking to each other.
In my other life once you entered a large enough city everyone would usually keep to themselves. Sometimes people would know each other, so they would stop to talk, but usually talking to another person on the street would only get you a dirty look or completely ignored.
As we walk further into the city the concentration of people starts to rise and I’m starting to see roadside stalls selling various goods. I am also starting to spot signs hanging from the sides of buildings designating all kinds of shops and restaurants.
Walking along more I notice the shops and stalls around start to subtly change. The further we go, the more I can see a variety of survival supplies being sold, I even notice shops dealing in primarily weapons and armours.
When Sophia finally stops us in front of a large stone building, the area around us seems to consist of a lot of inns and taverns. Looking at Rin I can see her staring starry eyed at the sign attached to the building in front of us. Managing to catch a glimpse of the sign before Sophia leads us into the building I read, “Airnez Explorers Branch.”
Entering the building, it’s quite spacious. Along one wall, there is what appears to be several boards, most of which have quite a few papers pinned on them. There are also quite a few people seated at tables filling the front half of the room.While there are almost no two people of the same race, almost all have the same thing in common, which is they are armed. Nearly everyone in the room is visibly armed in one way or another.
Guiding us inside, Sophia leads us to what looks to be a reception desk, manned by a dark skinned woman with ears that look like father’s. When we reach the desk the woman is sitting at, she doesn’t even look up from the papers she is writing on until Sophia clears her throat to gain her attention.
Giving a startled gasp, the woman quickly regains a professional air as she greets us, “Ah, I’m sorry about that, welcome to the Airnez explorers branch, how may I help you…”
The woman trails off near the end of her sentence as her gaze settles on Sophia and she shouts, “Sophia! It’s more than rare to see you here, last I heard, these days you only leave the Natsumi’s household when absolutely necessary...u-umm, s-so sorry, w-what can I help you with today?”
Withering under Sophia’s glare, the woman stutters at the end of her sentence and Sophia responds in her usual tone, “Simply because we have known each other for eight years does not mean we maintain such causal relationship. As for our business here, the madam would like to have Lady Kitten and Lady Rin learn more about explorers from the guild branch itself.”
With a look of realization, the woman is about to say something, but instead I feel someone grab my shoulder followed by a male voice, “The older girl I can accept, but for a succubus, this one looks way too young to-!”
The male voice stops suddenly and along with a strangled sound of pain, I feel the pressure on my shoulder disappear, followed by a loud crash. Turning towards the crashing sound I see a fat man, with features resembling those of a pig, on the ground slumped unconscious against the wall. The wall in question also now seems to be cracked where, I can only assume, he crashed into it.
Giving the unconscious man a look of disdain, Sophia stores what looks like a miniature gavel on her person and loudly addresses everyone else in the room with a deadly calm tone, “Consider that a warning, if anyone else decides to touch Lady Kitten or Lady Rin, you will not be as lucky as that orc.”
Turning back towards the reception desk, Sophia addresses the woman once more, “Now, could we use a private room to continue, I do not wish to expose Lady Kitten and Lady Rin to this filth any longer than necessary.”
Looking rather horrified, the woman behind the counter tries to respond, but the best she can muster is a quiet squeak. Glancing at Rin standing on the other side of Sophia, she seems rather agitated, but before she can say anything, an unknown female voice breaks the silence.
“Good to see that you haven’t lost your touch as the ‘Mad Dog of War’, but could you refrain from destroying the premise. Not to mention, you’re scaring the employees… I guess I will have to handle your business myself.” turning to look at the source of the voice, I see another woman sauntering towards us.
Inspecting her more closely, the woman has a pair of horns that greatly resemble mine, a pair of small wings on her lower back and a thin black tail ending in a spade shape. Her clothing, or lack thereof, seems to be meant to greatly accentuate her more than bountiful figure, fulfilling its purpose quite well, probably more than necessary in fact.
While I wonder who this woman is, she slowly closes the distance between us. Stopping in front of us, the woman slowly looks over Rin and give a satisfied nod. She then careful passes her gaze over me, but unlike Rin’s case for some reason, the woman suddenly leans in before smelling me.
Confused by the woman's strange action I take a half step back and Rin steps between us while saying, “You’re making sis uncomfortable, so stop it.”
From behind Rin I can see the woman smile coquettishly as she straightens herself, but unlike before her tail is quivering as she talks, “Oh you sweet little child, I haven’t even started making anyone uncomfortable yet, but don’t worry once you get used to it, a little discomfort can feel quite amazing. Then again, while your sister seems like quite an exotic treat, that air of innocence you give off is, as always, quite delectable. But, I shall have to stop myself, I’m afraid that before I go any further I would have to subdue a certain dog of war. Such a shame, I will have to ask your mother about lending me the both of you later, but if I had to choose one, I haven’t had something this exotic before.”
Grabbing onto me, Rin is completely beet red as she puts more distance between us and the woman while shouting at her, “You stay away from sis, mommy would never give sis to someone like you!”
Seeing that things are starting to get out of hand, Sophia steps between us and the woman before flatly stating, “I was tolerating your behavior because you're a friend of the madam, but I do believe you have teased my Ladies more than enough. If your needs must be satisfied outside of sanctioned establishments, you may use my body as you wish. Now let us consider the matter settled and continue with our business.”
“Aww, but you’re no fun to play with. Some people might like playing with dolls, but I enjoy slowly teasing cute reactions out of my toys,” giving a clearly fake pout the woman protests Sophia’s suggestion.
Seeing that Sophia is not going to relent, the woman sighs with a shrug of her shoulders and turns around while saying, “Fine, you said she wanted the young ones to learn about being explorers right? Hmm, alright follow me to my office and we can sit down and talk.”
After telling us to follow her the woman starts to walk away, but Rin refuses to follow. Eventually, Rin begrudgingly relents, while completely red in the face, when the woman points out that it would be against the law for her to ‘eat’ us without our permission.
Following the woman she leads us into a room full of shelves filled with papers. The room also has a small desk at the back and a small table surrounded by rather comfortable looking seats.
Walking to the small table the woman motions for us to sit in the biggest seat, while she sits opposite the table to us. Clearly still not trusting her, once we sit down Rin hugs me protectively and stares the woman down.
With a small laugh at Rin’s actions, the woman finally introduces herself, “Allow me to finally introduce myself, I am the manager of the explorers branch located here in Airnez. I would offer you something to drink, but considering the situation I hardly think little Rin here would agree.”
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
While I’m curious what this woman being the branch manager here means, I am more curious as to why she is so familiar with Rin and Sophia, so I ask, “You know Natsumi family?”
Slowly and deliberately crossing her legs, the woman looks towards me and gives suggestive smirk as she replies, “I know your new family very well, I was in a party with yours and Rin’s mother before I took over this branch. But when I heard that she had adopted a new daughter, well that woman has never lead a dull life has she.”
As she talks the woman looks at Sophia and puts on a serious face before carrying on with the conversation, “Right, you wanted to know more about explorers, where should I even start. I guess the basics is a good of a place as any, explorers by simple definition, explore, but you might have already figured that out.
Being more precise explorers are a branch of specialist that many consider to be a jack of all trades. When they first came to be, the main purpose of explorers was to explore and map previously unexplored lands. But these days, with the exception of the northern lands, most of our current world has been very well mapped. Thanks to that, many explorers these days tend to search for and explore dungeons instead. Though given the nature of dungeons, being an explorer has naturally gotten more dangerous, and to deal with that many explorers now learn to fight. Now before I continue, any questions so far?”
Rin’s previous wariness seems like it was almost a lie as she sits on the edge of her seating while she excitedly asks, “You said explorers are a type of specialist right? What other types of specialists are there, and if dungeons are so dangerous, why do explorers go into them? Do explorers do anything other than exploring dungeons? Actually, what is a dungeon and why do we need to explore them in the first place?”
Putting her hands up, the woman tries to calm Rin down and answer some of her questions, “Whoa there, pace yourself and let's get this done one question at a time. A lot of this stuff you will learn when you attend the specialist academy, but some of the quicker questions I can answer right now. Firstly, specialist is a collective term, while it can be used to describe anyone that has attended at the academy, most choose to refer to themselves using their specialization if asked.
I’ll briefly touch on a few of the larger specializations, and try to give you an idea of what they do. Firstly you have slayers, they are pretty simple people, and all they do is take bounties on monsters. Some slayers will settle in one town or city, but most of them end up roam from city to city looking for their next payout.
Another common specialization is tamers, most tamers deal in catching, taming, breeding and selling regular animals, but there are the crazy few that aren't content with that. We call those individuals monster tamers, while they are still technically tamers, they deal in monsters rather than regular animals. Did you know your father actually used to be a monster tamer? It took your mother a lot of effort to convince him to become an explorer and set out with us.
The next specialist branch comes in, when instead of monsters, it’s other humanoids that need to be dealt with, and the people who accept those bounties, are the mercenaries. Mercenaries, like their slayer counterparts, do their work on the basis of bounties. Got a group of bandits that needs to be taken care of, need more bodies for your army? Put up a bounty and chances are mercenaries will the be ones to answer.
However, not all specialists are combat oriented, I won’t go into it now, but good examples of specialists that don’t do combat are merchants and craftsmen. There are more specialists of both varieties, but this explanation is already starting to drag on so I will move on.
When it comes to dungeons, you will learn exactly why they are dangerous in the academy, but if I had to say, it’s because they don’t follow the natural laws of our world. As for why explorers have decided to explore them, well it differs from person to person, some are fueled by greed, others simply seek the thrill of adventure. In the end, these days the only one who can decide what it means to be an explorer is the one exploring.”
While the woman's final piece of advice sounds really sagely, it leaves me with a question that I decide to ask, “Then, aren’t explorers pointless?”
Giving me a slightly saddened smile the woman answer my question, “Yes, as far as current demon society sees it, unless an explorer is able to venture into dungeons then their only purpose is to fulfill odd jobs. Most explorers these days, are people giving a last ditch effort to try and get a recommendation into the academy city. The other group are the truly strong, those seeking to uncover the mysteries of unexplored dungeons. Explorers like your mother and father, that simply used the title of explorer as free entry to go wherever they wish to go, are almost extinct these days.”
Hearing the woman’s answer, Rin who has been quietly listening to her asks a question, “But explorers can still go wherever they want right? So me and sis can explore the world before coming back with lots of stories for mommy and daddy right?”
“Your innocence truly knows no bounds does it? Hahh, I can’t even bother thinking about asking your mother to lend you to me anymore. To answer your question, yes, more than any other specialist, explorers can go wherever they want, so long as their rank allows that is.” the woman smiles softly as she talks before she looks at me and seems to remember something.
Getting up and walking to the desk at the back of the room the woman talks as she rummages through its drawers, “I almost forgot, your mother asked me to make you an identification card, but I couldn’t get it finished since we lacked your mana signature, aha found it.”
Pulling out a small clear credit card shaped object the woman walks over and hands it to me while she says, “If you guide a small bit of mana into the card it should register to you. Afterwards, it should show your name, and job as designated by the system. The card can also show your chosen specialization plus its current rank, but you have to get it updated at a specialist branch for that. The cards final function is for purchasing or selling goods, and services. With a little mana and a thought, joules can be transferred or received. But don’t worry, only your unique mana signature can be used to transfer joules from your card to another.”
Doing as the woman said, I transfer some mana into the card in my hands and my name appears in black lettering. The word joules with a zero beside it also seems to be present on the card and after taking a quick look the woman,she nods as she says, “Looks like it’s properly registered, however, I will ask that you try not to lose.”
While the woman is talking, I decide to try drawing the card in my hand into my second skin because the residual mana clinging to it feels remotely like the bracelets I got from the goddess. Much to the surprise of the woman in front of me, the card seems to melt into my hand and when I think of myself holding it again, the card reforms in my hand as it was before.
Not even bothering to hide her shock, the woman shakes her head before saying, “What just happened? … you know what, I am not even going to bother asking, some topics are better left untouched. Just so you know that card is something made with a magic item granted by a god, so how you did what you just did with it, is simply beyond me.”
“Anyways you girls have probably heard enough prattling from an old lady like me. Knowing your mother she probably told Sophia to let you two have a little fun before heading home, so I won’t keep you any longer. But, if you want to try my brand of fun, well that could also be arranged,” as the woman finishes her sentence she lightly licks her lips and Rin immediately moves to defend me.
Seeing Rin’s reaction, the woman throws her hands up in defeat and Sophia gets up to guide us out of the room while giving the woman a curt bow while saying, “Thank you for catering to the madam's request, hopefully, we will never meet again.”
With a short laugh, the woman guides us to the door. Following behind Rin I am about to leave the room, but the woman stops me to whisper in my ear, “One last thing, while I have no clue exactly how a succubus mix breed came to be, my nose is never wrong. So if you ever need advice on how to deal with the instincts that will come when you’re older, my doors are always open. Anyways, have fun in the city today and I hope that you will think about accepting my...advice, I can assure that you won’t regret it.”
Craning my neck to look at the woman, she gives me that same coquettish smile and gently pushes me out the door.