That night, with no money and no other choice, we stayed in the house where Kapren lived with his sister. Kristern was a lovely woman who graciously let us freeload with an offer of extended stay. And she had no ulterior motives, unlike a certain someone.

She also lent us money to buy proper shoes and dried our clothes for us. I added her to the list of people of repay once I get a job.

Speaking of jobs, Kapren had suggested we become adventurers. I had no objections, and once Mitsuo heard the full scope of what adventurers did (once he heard that we could just gather herbs to earn money without having to subjugate monsters) he agreed too.

We went to the Adventurers’ Guild to get registered.

A beastman was behind the counter. He had the white ears of a fox perched on top of his head. Although I’d seen other beastmen around town, this was the first time I’d seen one up close.

Kapren and Mitsuo handled everything, while I stared everyone else in the guild down. It was annoyingly ineffective, which I suppose was to be expected given that most of these people were experienced adventurers. The glare of an unblooded wouldn’t have much effect on them.

“Mitsuko!” My brother interrupted my staring contest with another delinquent looking teenager. I gave the guy one last scowl before facing the counter.

“Yeah?”

“Sign the papers please.”

The beastman receptionist held an inkpad out to me. I glanced at the paper already signed by Mitsuo, and seeing the thumbprint, pressed my own thumb onto the inkpad and then the paper.

“Now, if you would follow me to get registered for your adventurer IDs…”

The receptionist led up to a room off to the side. We had to wait a minute or so until the previous occupants left.

“One person at a time, please,” the receptionist said.

I looked at Mitsuo and he looked back at me. I glared at Kapren and made an ‘I’ll be watching you’ gesture at him. He gulped.

Once I was in the room, the receptionist closed the door behind me.

There was a giant floating crystal in the room. It was about my height and couldn’t seem to settle down on one colour.

“Please place your hands on the crystal and channel your energy into it,” instructed the receptionist.

I wasn’t sure how to, so I just imagined stuff flowing from my chest into my arms into the crystal. It lit up so brightly I had shut my eyes.

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“Stop!”

At the frantic shout, I ripped my hands off and the room went back to its usual brightness. I glanced at the receptionist. He seemed shaken.

“A-alright, that should be enough. Please call the other one in next.”

What was his problem? Well, whatever. It only took a minute, so Mitsuo should be fine.

“Sis!” Mitsuo perked up once he saw me. “How’d it go?”

I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. It got really bright though, I had to shut my eyes.”

Kapren frowned. “Really? When I did it, it only glowed a little bit.”

“That just means Mitsuko is really strong, right? You’re so cool, sis!”

Kapren deflated at that and I couldn’t resist smirking at him. Ha, sucker.

Mitsuo entered and I waited in silence with Kapren. It was supremely awkward for one person and that person wasn’t me.

After a moment, a bright light could be seen seeping through the frame of the wooden door into the crystal room. I raised an eyebrow.

Wow. The crystal must be shining even brighter than when I was in there.

I heard a muffled “Stop!” and a minute later, the shaken receptionist and confused Mitsuo walked out.

“Al-alright. The measurements have been taken. Now, if you would follow me, I will issue you your guild cards.”

“So how was it?” I asked Mitsuo once we were back in the guild lobby.

“You were right, the crystal got super bright! It felt really cold though?”

“Really? It got really hot for me.”

“Oh, maybe that’s an indicator of our elemental affinities!”

“That’s strange,” Kapren said. “The crystal shouldn’t have changed temperature. Maybe-”

A wolf whistle interrupted whatever he was going to say. A male adventurer swaggered over to us, leering at Mitsuo. Two other men formed his posse. I bristled.

“Wow, Kapren, who’s the babe?”

Kapren sighed. “Neiron, please. Don’t do this.”

‘Neiron’ ignored him. “Hey, gorgeous, why don’t you ditch that washout and come with me instead? A B-ranked adventurer is much better than a weak town guard, don’t you think?”

Mitsuo pointed at himself with wide eyes, like ‘Who, me?’.

Neiron reached a hand out to brush his cheek.

You can bet your ass I didn’t like that at all, so I grabbed his arm and threw him, armour and all, over my shoulder.

The loud crash silenced the entire guild. I cracked my knuckles.

“Oi, oi, oi,” I drawled like a true delinquent. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, trying to lay your filthy hand on my baby brother like that, huh?”

“You bastard!”

His lackeys charged at me. I grinned.

Ever since I’d arrived in this world, I’d been feeling off kilter. But when I saw those two charging at me with fists raised and snarls on their faces, all was right with the world again. Mad Dog Mitsuko was back in business, baby!

I dodged the first man’s punch and elbowed him in the back while kicking a leg up into the second man’s face. It caught him under the chin and he went sprawling.

The first man leapt at my back and tried to restrain me. I grabbed the arms he had wrapped around my shoulders and threw him forward, right into the second man and sending him down to the ground again.

Only a gut feeling saved me from a punch to the head. Neiron had recovered. I ducked underneath his fist and kicked out one of his legs. The man was obviously not used to brawling in armour and landed hard on the ground.

One of his lackey’s got up and tried to tackle me. I jumped up and landed on the back of his head, successfully knocking him out when he kissed the ground. I elbowed the remaining lackey in the nose and was just about to grab and throw him into Neiron when-

“[Paralysis]!”

-I suddenly found myself unable to move.

“What is going on here?” a voice boomed from behind me. I strained to turn my head, but no dice. “Fighting is forbidden in the guild hall. All of you will need to come with me, now.”