“Now, let me see that sword…” The louse adventurer’s grubby hand approached me.

Twack!

A quick slap, courtesy of my own decidedly smaller, less grubby hand, smacked his hand away, served with a cheeky smile and brazen eye contact to make it all sweeter. For me, not for him.

“Nah, I’d rather you not do that, mis-ter!” I said, applying a playful inflection to my last word.

“Huh?! Who the hell do you think you are?” the tall, drunken adventurer growled, hunched over me like a hound. “I ain’t privy to how you’re looking at me, boy. You think you’re tough? You fucking know who I am?!” he barked loudly, veins popping on his forehead, spit flying everything he opened his mouth, and landing on my face.

Man, is he making it real hard for me not to be an asshole as well…

I cautiously side-eyed the other adventurers around me. Most of them sat comfortably at their tables and ignored us, engaged in the humming and buzzing of their own rowdy conversations. Though I felt a few silent, interested eyes linger upon us.

So do I just pop this guy’s inflated ego, or should I silently sneak myself around it? The former sounds like a fun but definitely-not-prudent choice and the latter is becoming less and less of a choice.

My right hand hovered over the hilt of my scimitar, fingers itching to draw it at the right moment.

It won’t be too out-of-the-line to respond with my own intimidation, with a little application of a sharp edge, right?

“Yea, so you see, I really don’t know who you are, nor do I really care,” I said, making sure to sound energetic and upbeat, like a child given candy. “Haven’t spent enough time here to get to know the local drunkard, y’know?”

“Why, ya goddamned brat!” he said, slurring. Infuriated and face completely flushed, he grabbed the staff I held in my left hand and tried to pull it from my grasp. I made to grip it, but the thought of potentially breaking the only memento I have of my mother in a petty little bar brawl left a bitter taste, so I loosened. With a proud grunt, he snatched it completely from my hands.

Okay, now he’s just asking for it.

“What now, ya freaky brat! Gonna st– Agggh!” His teeth bit into his tongue as I jumped, delivering a headbutt right under his chin. Bewildered, he dropped my staff and took a few steps back. I took the opportunity to calmly pick it up and dust it off. Realizing what just occurred, his face twisted into rage. “Ah’m gooonna kell ya, ya fuckin’ punk!” he yelled as he charged forward like a boar.

“Sheesh, that’s enough, Marcus. Stop that.” A deep voice commanded from the other side of the room. As soon as his words resounded, silence descended upon the room and the angry man stopped his charging. Both of our heads turned towards its source. It was a rugged man of dark complexion and well-built stature, casually walking towards us. His long, black hair ran down to his shoulders like a lion’s mane. A long, notable scar was present on his face, right across the bridge of his nose. “You’re getting real outta hand, man. Don’t take it out on this guy. I mean, he’s just a kid. Though, funny enough, it looked like you’re the one who needed rescuing,” he said as he laid a friendly hand on the drunk adventurer’s shoulder.

“O-Orlando, whacha m-mean–” Marcus stammered, his gravelly words growing more and more incoherent.

“You know what I mean.” Orlando then turned to meet my eyes. His dark brown eyes seemed friendly in one instant, but wily in the next. “Hey, kid, sorry about this guy. He’s had a little too much, too early to drink today, and he hasn’t been having a good time. Cut him a break, will ya?” he asked with a wink.

“Uh, sure,” I responded.

“Great. And now, Marcus, we are going to have you pass out drunk somewhere else. And, no, you can’t sleep here. C'mon,” he said while he dragged his drunkard friend out. Marcus looked deflated as he moved to leave the room, ashamed. His slumped shoulders made him look small in comparison to Orlando, despite the two’s similar heights. “And kid,” the long-haired man said, right as he passed me, “you a newbie looking to register?”

“Of course,” I said.

At my words, he simply closed his eyes and smiled knowingly. “Hmph, well, good luck with that.”

TIck-tack. Tick-tack. Tick-tack.

With calm steps across the stone floor, the two adventurers exited through the door leading outside, and the loud buzzing of the adventurers in the hall returned to its usual.

“Wow, you must certainly be proud of yourself,” Shara suddenly said from behind me. She stepped forward to my side. “Right?”

“No, now I just feel a bit ashamed too, in hindsight. I mean, did you hear some of the things I said? I was practically just asking him to punch me in the face,” I responded.

“That is true, I can deeply sympathize with that poor man you so harshly provoked and brutalized,” she said.

“Hey! Don’t make it sound like I was the bad guy. I wasn’t… I think.”

As we bantered, we approached the desks at the back of the hall, behind which, a woman with eyeglasses sat. She seemed to be in the middle of important work, shuffling through papers and writing furiously. At our approach, her cat-like ears on top of her head twitched and she tilted her gaze up at us while exhaling a deep breath. I tried not to stare curiously at her ears.

“Hello there. How may I help you?” she asked through a neutral smile.

“Hello, the two of us are looking to be adventurers,” I said.

“I see.” As if expecting our response, she took a slate from her desk and showed it to us. Words written in the Voralten alphabet filled the slate. “Unfortunately, due to extraneous circumstances, the Guild is currently under stricter regulations. As such, the registration process for adventurers is currently limited.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Wait, what does that exactly mean?” I asked.

“Under normal circumstances, the process would be relatively easy and registration as an adventurer would be cost-free. But that doesn’t apply currently. Nonetheless, here are your current options,” she said pointing to the slate. “To qualify for registration, you’d have to procure a sufficient recommendation in addition to funds from your recommender to sponsor you. A sufficient recommendation means one from a gold-ranked adventurer. We also take recommendations from the Mage’s Guild, if you’re an applicable member, as well as other influential sponsors. After that, you will take an examination, both practical and knowledge-based, to quality as an adventurer.” As she talked, she examined our faces closely as if to gauge my understanding. “As another option, you may also fund your own test, but I will warn you that it is quite expensive to do so without a recommendation. It costs up to 250 gold pieces.”

250 gold pieces… If I remember the currency correctly, a copper piece should be enough for a small loaf of bread. 10 of those is a silver… and 10 silvers is a gold… It’s worth 25000 small loaves of bread. Huh.

A sympathetic smile rose on the woman’s face as she saw my face grow dejected as realization set in. “I truly apologize for this inconvenience. I take it that these two options I presented are not feasible for the two of you?” she asked.

Maybe I can raise enough funds by selling monster parts. That’d mean I’d be adventuring and slaying monsters… just to register as a new adventurer.

My eyes darted to Shara who looked surprisingly nonchalant in the face of this sudden headache in our way. “Sorry, we don’t have recommendations and we can’t afford that test right now. But, we might be able to raise funds for it. We have rare monster parts to sell, you see,” I said, facing the woman once more.

“Oh.” Her polite smile temporarily faltered. “So. You see… in this town, and in most towns in this region, the Adventurer Guild is the one who deals with the purchase of monster parts from adventurers and other non-officials. We act as the sole direct supplier of monster parts to the Merchant Guild, which then has its own distribution system to its members. So…” she said, hesitating. “You’ll have to be registered to sell monster parts to us. Apologies. Unfortunately, you’ll be hard-pressed to find other vendors willing to buy from you. And as an employee of the Adventurer’s Guild, I am obligated to recommend you not to to do that.”

So we can’t register because we can’t sell monster parts… and we can’t sell monster parts because we can’t register… Who the hell made these rules?!

“I… see,” I finally said after a moment of silence. “Thank you for your help then, miss.”

“No worries, thank you for your understanding,” she responded. “My name is Ophelia, pleasure to meet you. I hope to see you enter the Guild’s ranks in the future.” Her eyebrows furrowed in tender sympathy. “I’m sorry to break these news to you. If you’re an aspiring adventurer, honestly, what I recommend is for you to head for another city. These stricter rules apply only for the Guild in the Free City of Lefke and its dependencies… But if you’re so inclined to be an adventurer here, which is a sentiment I understand,” she said, standing and leaning in to whisper in my ear, “you’ll be able to find people willing to buy monster parts from you outside from the Guild. Just look in the right places, okay? Be careful, and avoid searching for peddlers in narrow, desolate streets.” She leaned back and coughed. “Alright, now have a nice day, you two.”

“Thank you,” I said. Without missing a beat, Shara and I turned around and walked to exit. As we were leaving, I looked at the bulletin board hung on the wall. My eyes were drawn to the largest poster, hung dead straight center.

URGENT QUEST [dia.]: HORDE IN HAUNTED FOREST, its title read.

My eyes couldn’t help but linger on it as we exited through the door.

“What shall we do now, Luqa? We're in quite the strange situation,” Shara said, surprisingly still enthusiastic. The two of us now stood right in front of the Adventurer Guild’s bricked facade once again.

“…That miss Ophelia whispered something helpful. But we might be breaking a couple of rules,” I said.

“I heard. What are we waiting for then? Rules are meant to be broken, no?”

“Haha, I hope you’re right.”

***

“Why’d ya whisper that to him? You might get him in deep trouble.” A young girl approached Ophelia. On top of her head, similar to Ophelia, were mammal-like ears, though they appeared more fox-like than feline. Her fluffy, reddish-brown tail waved in curious wonder. Silently accompanying this girl was a tall, lithe woman, carrying a bow on her back and a stock of arrows at her hip.

“Oh my, did you hear what I said?” the receptionist asked with a casual smile.

“Of course! These ears of mine are quite sharp,” the girl responded.

“How could I forget? To be honest, I don’t quite know, to answer your question. The most I could truly say is… that he shared the same sort of determined look that you had when I first met you,” Ophelia said, a pondering finger on her chin. “Helping such a new eager adventurer? I couldn’t help myself, is what I can only say.”

“Geez, Ophelia. Don’t treat it so lightly. Adventuring should never be a kid’s dream,” the girl said. “It isn’t as prim and pretty as it sounds from the outside. You of all people should know that.”

"I... know. But I like to be hopeful."

***

Marcus walked dejectedly and limply, in contrast to his companion, Orlando, who walked beside him spryly and casually. They wandered through a narrow, silent street, devoid of people, familiar only to those most knowledgeable of the city’s veins.

“Right. Now tell me about what happened last week, Marcus. I just got here today,” Orlando said. “I heard about it from the Guildmaster earlier, but I’d like to hear it straight from you.”

“You’re talking about t-that. I-It was… I… I…” Marcus said, drawing a worried look from Orlando.

“Shit, sorry,” Orlando responded with wide eyes. “You’re not in the best state to talk right now. Don’t worry about it, we’ll discuss it later then.”

“Nah!” Marcus suddenly yelled. “I can tell you. I-I gotta tell you. I-I’m fine.”

“Marcus…”

“It was s-strange. F-four of us were just doing the usual quest, not even too far from the city, hunting down some skeletons. All of a sudden, that thing, it came outta nowhere. It w-was like some fucking slime, small but crazy fast, jumpin' around. But the crazier thing,” the drunk man said through harsh breaths, “is that thing seemed too goddamned intelligent, working together with those skeletons, like they were communicatin’ or somethin’.”

Orlando listened closely as he walked beside his companion.

“And… it completely blindsided us,” Marcus continued. “First it jumped Claire from behind. We w-watched it suffocate her to death. Then… it… it fucking used her to kill Andre and Hughes. Before I knew it, I booked it, and found myself in that Haunted Forest. I ran out of soma and passed the hell out. Somehow, your party members found me and dragged me back here.”

“Hm.”

“Orlando… why them? Why not me? Tell me man,” Marcus said, wet tears streaking down from his eyes, “why the hell am I still here? Why the fuck did I survive?”

“...To live another day, Marcus,” Orlando said, resting a hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Take it easy on yourself.”

“Shit… damn it all,” he sobbed. “Orlando, you’re… strong. Avenge them for me, please. I know that’s asking for a lot. I mean, right now I can’t even join ya. But, I don’t want th-that monster using ‘em like that. It’s eating away at me, knowing that their bodies are out there, roaming around undead. I wanna bury them in the ground, with my own two hands. That’s just the least my sorry ass can do.”

“Of course, Marcus, don’t sweat it. That was my plan anyway. I’ll get Claire, Andre, and Hughes back to you," Orlando said, wrapping his arm around the other's shoulder. "Now, let me buy you some grub, you need it. I know a real good, charming place, a bit dinky on the outside, but trust me, they got some fine food for cheap.”