I look at Lex a bit perplexed, “Uhh, you want me to become an adventurer?” The GM nods, “Correct, we’ve heard from Jesse that until now you’ve been accompanying adventurers but weren’t one yourself. Wolf Kings are mostly High-B-Ranked Monsters and would take a whole team of adventurers to fight in earnest, but from what I’ve heard you beat it almost singlehandedly.”

He looks at me with a determined look, “That kind of strength is completely unheard of, even a Guild Master like myself would struggle to take down a Wolf King without any kind of assistance, even though I am most likely the strongest adventurer stationed in Lunach.”

I already know the basics of adventuring from my old world, but I ask him anyway, “What does becoming an adventurer entail?” Lex launches into an explanation, “The basic requirements would be to complete quests for the Adventurers Guild to beat dangerous beasts, collect rare herbs, escort clients to locations, or guard clients for a specified time. There are many kinds of jobs, but the basic connection that they all share would be that you’d be helping humans in return for compensation. With your talents, it would be a bit different though…”

“…With your level of power, you’d be placed into the B or A-Rank of Adventurers, which would probably force you into a similar position to me, you could be hired by royals or nobles to work for them or you’d be employed by the guild with a wage to work on specific quests or handle an entire guild location, instead of doing whatever you want.”

So high ranking adventurers are mostly employed by the rich to do things for them instead of working paycheck to paycheck. I don’t know if I should become an adventurer, it just seems like more of a hassle. I say, “Hmm, this is a bit difficult to decide on the spot, in the first place I was going onto those quests only to make sure that Emma and Jesse wouldn’t get into danger…I don’t have much interest in adventuring of my own.”

The GM looks at me a bit dejected, “I won’t force you to join, sorry if me coming here put you on the spot…” he gets up from his seat, “If you do decide to join us, come meet me in the guild.” The guild master leaves the room and goes back to his guild duties.

I sit around a bit trying to make sense of what I should do. Is joining the guild the right idea, but wouldn’t that be just me serving other people again? But when do people not serve other people? I know I am a robot now and I should try and preserve my own interest, but what even were my interest again? Wait, what do I even want to do? At that moment I realize, ever since coming to this amazing world of swords and sorcery, I never even once thought of doing my own things, following my dreams.

As I stew in my thoughts, a hand shakes me from behind, “…-ndy! Andy! Emma woke up, you wanna go talk to her? I already explained things a bit to her and gave her some food and drink.” I look behind me and see Jesse shaking me, “Oh, uhm, sure, I’ll go have a word with her.”

As I walk into her room I am greeted by a pale and weak Emma. She sure did lose a lot of blood... Emma looks at me weakly, “Ah, Andy…I heard from Jesse…You killed the Wolf King in the end, right? Thank you, without you, we would’ve been surely defeated by that thing.”

Emma tries to sit up but I push her back down, “Don’t worry about sitting up Emma. How are you doing, anything still hurting?” Emma shakes her head, “No, I don’t feel very well, but I think some recuperation should heal me up again.”

As I look at Emma, the image of her being thrown around by the Wolf King shoots into my head and I hastily ask, “Emma, why did you attack the Wolf King if even one bite from it could’ve killed you? I had a good hand on the situation.”

Emma looks away from me and starts explaining, “You remember how I told you that I ran away from my well-off family to become an adventurer?” I nod and Emma continues, “I didn’t tell you the whole story, my family wanted to marry me off to a small baron family because one of their sons was interested in me.”

“At first I was elated, there was a noble who wanted to marry a commoner like me, but when I first met him, I found out why,” Emma clenches her hands, “he looked like he’d fit better in a pig pen than a house, and the worst part, he was a gigantic pervert who simply wanted to have his way with me…”

Tears start forming in her eyes, “The first time I met him, sniff, they left us alone in a room in his family’s mansion to talk, and he-, sniff, he-…” I can guess what he might’ve done…

“…When I came back home to report to my family what had happened to me, instead of protecting me, they simply talked around the issue.” She looks at me, “They said stuff like “This has been planned since your childhood!”.” with tears streaming down her face, “Their daughter was assaulted by a baron’s son…sniff…and they didn’t call off the marriage…so I ran away…”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Emma wipes away her tears, “I ran away and ended up here at Seline’s place. We were childhood friends when I was still in the village, but she left for a magical school when she was young.” Emma looks at me, “She accepted me here and helped me, so I decided to become an adventurer because I wanted to be one when I was still living with my family, I couldn’t just loiter around Seline’s house forever.”

Emma glances down again, “But I’m not good with a sword, I’m weak, I cannot kill anything and I have a fear of death…so I always simply collect herbs and plants…”

“When I got ambushed by the goblins, they knocked me unconscious, by the time I woke up again you were standing in front of me…and you were so powerful, you could wipe out goblin camps by punching their heads of their skulls and fell trees by punching them once…”

She turns her body to me, “Even if it was just once, I wanted to be as strong and as fearless as you, but it didn’t go the way I intended…” Emma goes silent, before she can say anything, I speak up, “Emma, you had it tough, I understand why you wouldn’t want people to know about your past.”

Emma’s tears well up once again, I hug her and she cries into my shoulder for a few minutes, “I-I’m sorry! Sniff I’ll get stronger…I-I-I’ll learn to fight! Sniff,” when Emma finally stops crying, she lies weakly in her bed and falls asleep.

I think I found out what I need to do… I go back into the living room and see Seline and Jesse sitting there, “Oh Seline, you’re awake again?” Seline looks over to me, “Yeah, Emma looks fine again too, and I heard from Jesse that the GM was here, will you become an adventurer?”

I look down, conflicted, “I…still don’t know. I heard from the GM that if someone as strong as me became an adventurer. They’d be tied down to the guild or a client for a long time, and I don’t know if I want that…”

I look up at the two of them, “I think I found out something though, I want to protect what’s dear to me.” Seline and Jesse grin at me. I still don’t know if it’s this robot’s body that’s making me want to serve people, but I want to make sure I and the people I care about can live in peace. And if I don’t become an adventurer, I won’t even be able to travel properly.

“All right, I’ll become an adventurer, and get even stronger.” Having steeled my resolve. Both of them look at me with smiles on their faces. Seline speaks up first, “I still have that decree in the capital to take care of, so I’ll be going away for a few months in the coming days.” Jesse follows up, “And I was planning to continue my mission leaving tomorrow anyways.”

“So, we’ll probably only meet again in a few months?” I finish. Both of them nod and then Seline continues talking, “So, can you watch over Emma while I’m away? Make sure she doesn’t get hurt like that again.” I nod, “Of course.”

“Oh yeah, here,” Jesse heaves a small bag of coins onto the table, “this the reward for the Wolf King and all the other quests we did, take it, it’s yours. You did all the work anyway.” A bit stunned by the amount of money I made, I say “Uhm, sure, thank you, Jesse!”

The evening ends and nighttime begins. With newfound resolve, I’ve decided to become an adventurer. I still don’t know if that was the right choice, but it feels more like this was the best choice possible. I couldn’t just sit around and run after people like an actual robot all day.

When morning comes, I prepare myself and take a little money with me and go over to the adventurer guild, when I enter all eyes fall on me, and hushed gossip can be heard from all sides “Is that that one golem by the mage Seline?”, “Dude, he looks so spindly, is he strong?” and many more such comments can be heard around me. Guys, I can hear you…

I walk up to the counter and enter the short line, when it’s finally my turn the receptionist greets me cheerfully, “Welcome to the Lunach Adventurers Guild! What can I do for you?” “The Guild Master Lex Halo came to talk to me yesterday and said I should come to talk to him when I made my choice. Can you tell him that Andy is here to talk to him?”, the receptionist nods at me in return.

The receptionist goes up to the GM’s office and comes back down soon after to urge me to follow him up. He guides me into the Guild Masters Office, where Lex Halo sits signing some paperwork. A gigantic buff guy sitting at a normal-sized desk and chair signing paperwork does look pretty silly…

The GM greets me and I sit across from him at his desk, “So, you’ve decided to become an adventurer I presume?” I speak, “Yes, I think in the long-term becoming an adventurer will be the best for me, I’ll get to see more of the world and make some money doing it.”

“Perfect here is your guild card, press your finger onto it and it will register you for it, this can be used as identification pretty much anywhere the Adventurers Guild exists.” I press my hand onto the small card, but nothing happens. I try a different finger, but again nothing happens.

“Hmm, weird, maybe this card is defective?” the GM hands me another one, and another one, but none of them work. Maybe this has to do with being a robot. Is ask the GM sheepishly, “How are these cards supposed to work?”

“They read your Magical Power and attune to it, they light up blue if held by the person they are supposed to belong to, red if someone else holds them. Your name and simple info about you are written on the front. It’s not much in way of identification, but it’s enough.” after his explanation I know the issue.

I say, “Well, you see. I don’t have any MP, so there I think there is simply nothing to attune to.” The GM lets that information flow into his brain, I wait a moment before he looks back at me and asks, “Wait, how is that possible? Doesn’t everything in this world contains Mana? And how are you so strong without Body Strengthening Magic?”

Sighing internally, I simply say, “Please don’t ask, I don’t know either. Ask Seline because she made me.” Not that she knows much more about me…