I am about to head off to hunt rats, when a group of adventurers call me over. They look like teenagers and have 2 males and 2 females in their group, and all of them have badges marked rank F+.

"Hey new guy, we were about to hunt some hobgoblins, if you come with us then we will let you get 12 copper for every kill." (Adventurer)

Hobgoblins are worth 1 silver for each nose you bring as proof of killing one, I am clearly getting paid less than even but the deal seems fair enough.

"Count me in, when and where should we meet to head out" (Xique)

"We were planning to head out now if that works for you, the name is Delder by the way" (Delder)

"I am Xiquey, are there any formations or tips I should know?" (Xiquey)

"Nah, with 5 of us we should be able to gang up on it pretty easily, just make a circle around it and stab from all sides without getting too close. Your spear looks like a piece of crap though, did you just pick it up from the woods?" (Delder)

"Yeah I whittled it myself, it is enough for killing basic goblins and keeping enemies at a distance" (Xiquey)

"That won't be enough for a hobgoblin though, hey Farene mind if newbie borrows your spare spear for the mission?" (Delder)

"Go ahead, but if he breaks it then he has too pay me back out of his share" (Farene)

If the spear was too high quality then I'd suspect a setup, but it was just a wood spear with a metal tip, much better than my stick but nothing too fancy.

We head out of town from a different way then I came in, I take note of the path so I know where to go hunting for hobgoblins if I want to try on my own later.

There are a couple of fortifications in this direction, and more guards than were on the walls before, this is probably the direction where the war is in, but it is probably just a small outcropping in minor contension since I don't see any massive supply routes or an armies worth of soldiers.

The names of the group members are the leader Delder, Farene, Delfar, and Mary.

The rest of the four largely talk among themselves, occasionally asking me questions about my village boy persona while I occasionally ask about their adventuring experiences and whether any of them aspire to be a mage.

"I want to be an earth mage, they get paid well for construction work that barely requires them to work at all, all I can move for now are pebbles though so don't expect magic support against the hobgoblin" (Delfar)

"If your magic was combat ready you'd at least be an E+ rank, no ones gonna mistake you for a combat mage at F+ rank. (Mary)

Delder seems to be able to track the goblins pretty well from smell and footprints, hobgoblins are apparently easier to track than regular ones because they are bigger and smellier.

We come across a hobgoblin after a mere 15 minutes in the forest, this one is about 2/3 my height and from a glance it is clearly more muscular than your normal goblin.

It also has a proper fighting posture and tries to keep moving to avoid being surrounded, the other 4 are much faster than it though so they can easily block its would be esape routes.

It seems to have noticed I was slower than the others while pursuing, and lunges toward my direction, I position my spear toward its throat but it manages to push off the ground with its feet to back off, I refrain from pursuing and opt to maintain my stance while the others close in around it.

Once one of the others takes a shot at it and it turns away from me, then I prepare to take a stab at it. The hobgoblin however managed to grab Delfar's spear and jumps at his throat, I try to stab my spear between the two and hit its stomach while Mary manages to hit the neck I was aiming to intercept. The goblin continues to thrash about despite being stabbed twice, and its claws manage to slash Delfar's neck before he figures out to drop his spear and retreat, after which the rest of the party stabs the hobgoblin and alternate stabbing it while the others hold it down.

Delfar is bleeding pretty badly, and he is wrapping himself up while we kill of the hobgoblin. It is pretty clear that had I overcommited on my first attack, that I would be the distraction while the rest hit the hobgoblin, simple stratagy indeed. Although I do question why they would make the rookie mistake that they invite weak meatshields to fill, there are probably tons of gaps in my fighting stance but even I know basic things like not to overcommit when attacking and leaving yourself vulnerable to counters.

Not to mention how he dlayed abandoning his weapon, that may be important in 1v1 combat, but in a group like ours you can abandon your weapon if you are in a tough spot as long as your foe isn't in a position they can use it in.

Delfar turns a bit pale, but he recovers before dying. Rather than scolding his mistake, Delder actually compliments him on his bravery for supporting me before the others, I now have an idea on how this party is set up and as much as I want to call the leader out on it, I would look ungrateful to the others by doing so and would likely lose any claim to the rewards. I thank Delfar and play along but internally I am berating how the party is behaving. I will remember to ask the receptionist if there is a way to report this type of behavior.

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I also felt lighter again after the hobgoblin died, I am suprised it was enough to level up again so soon considering it was split 5 ways, but I suppose it was far stronger than I am. We hunt another 4 hobgoblins with more close calls then I feel comfortable with, and I feel like I levelled up at least 2 more times. We head back to the guild and I get paid my share of 60 coppers, I also return Farene's spear without difficulty. I am asked if I also want to join them tomarrow, but decline saying I have previous plans as I want to quickly distance myself from Delder even if the other party members seem like nice people.

I can hear some snickering about a newbie begger having other plans, but choose to ignore the redicule.

I ask the receptionist if the guild has a system to punish people giving bad advise to other adventurers to benefit themselves.

"Officially the guild's policy is that it is the fools fault for being fooled, but if you give a more detailed account about the situation then I will see what I can do about advising the party members who are being mislead" (Receptionist)

I explain the situation with Delder and give the names of the other party members for her to advize, hopefully she can convince them to be more careful in the future.

I head back to the forest where we hunted and take a hobgoblin thigh bone to craft a new dagger from, and the process is much easier than the first bone dagger I made as it feels like the bone whittles down easier than before, despite clearly still being a sturdier material when I test it on some trees.I place my new dagger in my pouch to hide it from people who might be suspicious of someone with a bone dagger, and move to a different section of forest on the opposite side of the hobgoblin area to sleep for the night as I don't want to pay for an inn, none of the ones in my price range have a proper bed anyway.

I wake up to being attacked again as a large beetle the size of my arm has bit my leg. I lift my leg up to stab it underneath the shell and kill it rather quickly. I practice my fire magic by burning the corpse to sooth my anger caused by the massive pain.

My leg heals quickly like usual, and I head back toward town. I notice a bear along the way and make a large detour to avoid fighting it. I practice my fire magic while in the woods but avoid using it when I am in or near town as I don't want people to catch on to my rate of progression and discover I am a hero. I am also still trying to figure out how to use other magic than just fire, but have had no luck so far.

When I reach town I ask around about rat problems, and am told to just look in alleyways to try my luck as most people won't trust you enough to invite you into their house or store to hunt rats, which is probably why this city has a rat problem in the first place.

It also doesn't help that when I do go hunting in the alleyways, the rats often climb into holes in the nearby buildings where I cannot chase them to. I only have success when I set up some snares with rope and place some chopped up fish as bait.

I set up these snares in only 2 alleyways that I can watch at the same time as the rats can chew through the rope if I don't kill them quickly after being trapped.

I am able to kill 10 rats this way after changing locations 4 times, but this is clearly a terrible way to make money as it would barely be enough money to rent a poor room for the day even without meals.

I sleep in the woods again without a suprise wake up this time, and head to a nearby river I heard about to fish as it is a better way to make money than rat hunting. It is also easier to practice magic while fishing as I don't need to be too concerned with people watching me.

I can now make a fire about the size of a candle flame for a minute before it fades away, still only usable as a fire starter but it is much better than the spark I started with. I also can also barely make a ripple in the river water now with the most basic water magic.

I am able to catch 40 fish by the end of the day, each one is worth about 2 coppers so I sell 30 of them and keep the rest for food, I also buy some fruit and bread to expand my diet from just fish.

I head over to the adventurer guild to apply for membership, the prettier receptionist has the longer line like usual, and I head over to the same receptionist I have been using so far.

"I'd like to apply for membership please" (Xiquey)

"Do you have a silver to pay for the memnership fee?" (Receptionist)

"No, but I do have 100 coppers if you dont mind counting" (Xiquey)

She makes a disgruntled face that doesn't approve of my sarcasm when it is increasing her work load, but she counts up the coppers and pulls out a sheet of paper.

"This is the contract for your guild membership, just read it through and sign your name at the bottom. I already told you most of what the contract says before, but be advised that guild members are obligated to mobilize in the case of a nearby monster invasion" (Receptionist)

That's an important tidbit she left out when explaining the benefits before, then again detriments are usually left out of sales pitches. I read it through and there don't seem to be any legal traps or loopholes, and the terms are acceptible enough so I sign on. It is mentioned that if I continue wearing my badge without paying to renew my membership after the term is over, that I can be arrested for fraud.

I am handed a wooden tablet and told to head up the stairs to have my strength evaluated before giving me a badge.

The guard at the stairs gives me a nod when I show the wooden tablet, and he gives me directions to the training sector where I will be tested. The second floor is much nicer than the first one, and this one has the tables full of adventurers with food and drink and the lively atmosphere I was looking forward to. I also notice that the request board up here has a lot more higher level missions that weren't on the first floor.

The training center has several sectioned off corridors, and is made of a different material than the rest of the building although I can't recognize what it is. I walk up to a table with a sign saying evaluations over it and show my wooden tablet.

"Do you have any magic or special abilities you wish to test?" (Desk worker)

"No" (Xiquey)

"What is the strongest monster you have fought?" (Desk worker)

"A hobgoblin, but I was in a team of 5 adventurers and didn't face it alone" (Xiquey)

"What is your preferred weapon?" (Desk worker)

"Dagger" (Xiquey)

An examiner walks out and asks me to follow her into one of the corridors.

I am handed a wooden dagger and asked to spar with her, I lose completely but she mostly just dodged my attacks to analyze my speed and technique, it was clear that she was far stronger from the beggining and I was only hit a few times to see how long it took me to recover.

I am handed a badge that labels me as F rank, and when I ask how strong goblins are as a base line I am told that they are G- rank and one of the weakest creatures that are classified as a monster.

Its about time I hit the library for a day or 3 to learn some of this worlds common sense.