“Umm… Are we in the right place?”

It was late afternoon. Alice and Jayce stood at the front of the best, from Jayce’s perspective, a tailor shop in the merchant district. The shop, just like Nora’s, had a display glass, displaying a few selected, best dresses. But what held her back was…

“Yes. This is the place.”

The price tags that were placed on their designated clothing. They were ranged from 100 gold coins to 200 gold coins. Alice’s face went pale as her eyes laid on them. She agreed that he will get a new ensemble for her, but he didn’t mention anything about having it crafted by a high-class shop like this.

“But…”

Without giving her a chance to retort, Jayce entered the boutique shop with Alice in tow.

“Welcome. How I may be at your service?” A tailor, who seemed to be the owner of the shop, approached them and welcomed them as they entered his shop.

The shop had displayed varieties of apparel onto their mannequins, materials rolled into cylinders and stored in wooden cabinets.

“Yes, I would like to make a custom order for her.”

“Certainly, my apprentice will take her measurements.”

He called his apprentice over. The apprentice arrived without a moment’s delay. She gave a slight bow to them, with her right hand placed on her chest.

“Please do the measurements for this young lady over here.” He asked politely.

She nodded. “Certainly, right this way, ma’am.” She gestured to Alice to follow her to a private changing room.

“Jayce, is this alright? I mean… custom-made apparels are costly.” She turned to Jayce in askance.

For weapons, armors, and apparels, custom orders were usually cost at least ten times more than the price of goods displayed for sale. The reason was that they had to undergo sophisticated procedures and requires rare materials.

“Don’t worry, Alice. The guild will pay the cost.”

That statement made Alice even more anxious. By guild, he meant that the funds he had built up by himself. She tried to make an argument with Jayce to save the guild’s funds. However, he didn’t seem to yield to her arguments. 

Alice resigned herself and went ahead to the measurement room with the tailor. The measurement process didn’t take a lot of time, she deftly measured every specific part of the body. To her, despite that she was an apprentice, she definitely will be a great tailor.

“I need you to follow this design. Further details are written in this schematic. As for the material, it needs to be able to provide a warming or cooling effect depending on the bearer’s surrounding temperature.”

Once the tailor took the required measurements, they went out of the measuring room. Jayce was having a discussion with the tailor, giving an explanation or two regarding the design of the ensemble. A schematic was placed on the counter between them.

Knowing who the bearer was, the tailor turned his gaze toward her. “Any color preference for your design, ma’am?”

“White, please.”

“As you wish. The entire cost of the custom order would be thirty gold coins. But since the product is not finished, you have to pay ten gold coins as a deposit for this order, then make a full payment when it is done, or make a full payment.”

“I will pay at full price. Can you send the finished product to this address?” He wrote down their address to a small piece of paper on the counter.

“Certainly, we will ensure that the product will reach to this address safely.”

Jayce handed eighty gold coins to the tailor. The tailor and his apprentice gave another bow, thanking them for their patronage. 

____________________

 “So, what do you think of the capital? Hope I don’t bore you,” asked Jayce.

“I like it here. It’s fun, lively, and peaceful, and, no, you’ve been a great help but I have to ask...”    

Just as Alice was about to ask him a question, she stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes suddenly gleamed with sparkles.

Jayce was wondering what stopped her. He followed her gaze; her eyes were drawn to a café. Waiters and waitresses bringing out desserts to customers.

“Do you want to try that café?” He can’t help but smiled at her expression as she glances toward the café.

“Yes!” She answered immediately without leaving a fraction of a second.

 They obediently followed the butler to their allotted table. The table was made of wood, detailed with a fine craftsmanship. As the butler was about to assist Alice to take a seat, Jayce had walked silently and swiftly around the waiter to offer his assistance to Alice.

Once they settled in, the butler gave each of them a menu and stood by, ready to take orders. Jayce told him that they will call him when they are ready. With that, the butler gave a bow and went off to serve other customers who required his service.

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Alice browsed through the menu excitedly. The menu listed a huge variety of cake and teas she had never seen before. Some pages even had pictures of specific cakes, with a sign of recommendation by the café’s pâtissier. 

The butler who served them earlier arrived at their table and asked whether they are ready to order.

Alice had a difficult time to decide which cake to order. Feeling conflicted, she decided to order a slice of Black Forest cake which was at the top of the recommendation list and a cup of black tea, while Jayce ordered a slice of white chocolate cake and a cup of green.

“So, what is it that you want to ask me?” asked Jayce, reminding her about the question she was about to ask a few moments earlier.

“I don’t really mean to be rude. I’m really thankful for everything you did for me… but why did you help me?”

She was genuinely grateful for everything he did for her. At the same time, she felt guilty that he’d spent a huge sum of coins for the custom-made apparels for her.

“It’s for your own protection. Besides, you’re the first member to join my guild. Only a handful of adventurers were able to see through my cloaking spell.” He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, but his eyes suggest concern otherwise.

Curious, as she was about to speak, the butler came back with all the orders they had made on a silver platter.

“A slice of black forest cake for you, my lady. A slice of white chocolate for you, sir. And two cups of tea. Is there anything else would you like to order?”

“That would be all, thank you.” He answered, sensing that she no longer required any service and thanked him for his service.

“Understood, sir.” He gave another slight bow before taking his leave.

“That doesn’t matter for now. Let’s enjoy our tea break.” Jayce ended their conversation, clearly trying to avoid going any further into their current topic.

Alice began to wonder what she had done to make Jayce worry about her. After noting his choice of words, she grew suspicious that he was hiding something from her. But, she doesn’t want to ruin the mood on this occasion.          

Both of them began indulging their food in silence. What a way to make an awkward situation for Alice. She thought to herself.

“Do you want to come with me to Capital’s guild headquarter? …You can choose not to come if you don’t feel like it.”

Jayce felt the awkward air between them, so he attempted to cheer her up.

“…I don’t mind, I always wanted to see what the headquarter looks like.” She didn’t expect him to speak during their meal. Although, she clearly understood that he was just trying to cheer her up at this point. If he really was not ready to tell her, then she will have to wait for the appropriate time.

____________________

 The Capital’s guild headquarter, also known as HQ, was huge; it looked like a mansion from the outside. Adventurers gathered around in their respective groups. Some were discussing their tactics regarding their quest, while other parties celebrated for completing their quest.

Alice, admiring the fine details sculptured on the entire building. She was beginning to lean towards the word “library” would be more appropriate to describe HQ.

When she was about to speak out her thoughts, Jayce had already made his way to the entrance of the building.

“H-hey!” She went after Jayce into the building.

 The ground floor of the building was spacious. There were four billboards hung on the wall on the far left, while the remaining space was covered with open lounges, where adventurers can wait for their party members, or sometimes buying or selling information to info-brokers.

The main operation of the Capital’s guild headquarter took place on the floor above them. Workers ran around their offices, bringing documents to their analyst, who were responsible to declare whether the requests were legitimately based on the evidence they had gathered. Of course, information related to their requests will be gathered by their scouters.

“I’m going to look for a quest for us. Feel free to look around.” He suggested, walking toward one of the billboards.

Alice looked around and found nothing intriguing. Mostly due to her feeling out of place as other adventurers and the receptionists were busy with their work. Feeling that she doesn’t want to attract unwanted attention, she went to one of the billboards.

The quests that were listed on the quest boards were arranged in the manner of the ranking system from S to D. The rewards, however, varied depending on the clients, and the higher the rank, the higher the reward values and risks.

However, there was also a strict rule by the government that adventurers can only accept one quest at a time. Based on the adventurer rank, they can accept quests one rank above, their respective rank, or one rank below. This rule was implemented so that there will be enough quests available to every adventurer.

Alice went to browse a D rank quest board which was on the far right of the billboards. The quests were essentially for beginners; they were focused on gathering herbs or ores instead of hunting monsters.

“How about this quest?”

The moment she was about to move on to C rank quest board, Jayce approached her with a paper in his hand.

She took the paper and read it. Wanted, bandit leader at the outskirt of the moon village, committed crimes of theft and kidnapping.

“Can you handle it?”

It was a C rank quest. She hadn’t built enough confidence to be able to have an actual fight against humans with her life on the line. Sure, she did learn some non-lethal spells to take down her enemies, but that will also ruin the whole mission as their target was responsible for the kidnapping, and there was a high possibility that there will be hostages at their camp.

Despite all that, she had to save them.

“Very well. We should register ourselves for this quest at the reception. We will head out to Moon village tomorrow after your equipment arrives.”

They ascended to another floor with one of the spiral staircases that were at the far corner of the floor, away and across from the entrance.

For new adventurers, their initial rank will be D. In order to get promoted to their next rank, they had to complete ten quests above their rank or thirty quests of their respective rank. Completing a quest below their rank will not provide any contribution to their ranking. The adventurer’s ID can only be registered by receptionists in the Capital’s guild headquarter. Not only their rank was displayed on their ID, their ID also showed their class, rank, skills, and stats. Adventurer ID was made to analyze their physical and mental prowess, and to promote awareness to their owners when it comes to their capabilities.

After Alice listened to the receptionist’s explanation, she gave a blank card to her. Later, she was instructed to infuse some mana into the blank card.

As she did so, a string, emitting a faint white glow, appeared from the center of the blank card; it gracefully wove through the blank card with her mana, dancing through the air.

Once the string stopped reacting any further, she examined her first Capital Adventurer ID:

Name: Alice

Gender: Female

Class: Magician

Rank: D

Skills: Ice Shots, Snarling Chains, Miasma…

And the list went on. Then, she gave her ID to the receptionist, along with Jayce’s ID to register for their quest.

There were two types of IDs, the Academy’s student ID, and Capital adventurer’s ID. Most adventurers called Academy’s student ID card, SID; while Capital adventurer’s ID card is called CAD. SID can be used to register Academy's quest, ranking system, and education purposes. CAD was mainly used for government-related quests, social status, and their own ranking system. Meaning, they were meant to be used in different situations.

She examined both IDs, checking their rank and name. She then took out a large logbook and began writing their details. They were officially accepted their first quest. With the registration concluded, the receptionist wished them a best of luck.