Tired from the adventure, Ravina decided to stay in the city after her first dive. Using magic might be easier to deal with monsters than a sword, but it's far more exhausting. Returning after, with the adrenaline gone, she realized just how tired she was, doubly so after waking up from a full day's worth of sleep.
Eventually, Ravina woke up and found that her bed was still very comfortable. However, because she wanted to go back to the dungeon, she forced herself up and went to the guild. It was only then that she realized she had spent the entire day sleeping.
“Ah, so…”
“Ralf already turned everything in for you.” Grace, the receptionist at the main guild branch in the middle of the city of education told her. She pulled out a bag of coin and a slip of paper, clearly anticipating Ravina’s arrival.
Ravina looked at the items, or rather, the lack thereof. “Oh," Ravina said once she saw the pouch for the monster materials, "I was actually hoping to pick the ones I want to keep for myself, if that’s okay?"
"Oh yeah, no, that's fine," Grace answered. "That's actually what the list is for. The payment is for items that the guild must keep, minus the processing fee. We're keeping the controlled items that you actually have to go through a government auction to get."
"Oh, I see," Ravina replied, furrowing her brow. She didn’t remember reading anything like that in any of the law books she had been studying on the side. However, that just goes to show how complicated and long the law of the nation was. And boring. So boring. Clearly, there were more complicated issues than she understood, but for now, she accepted it as is. She didn't care to argue after all, she wanted to get a jump on what materials were in the Eternal Ruin dungeon and see what she could make of it, if anything useful.
She smiled at the thought of Earl's face when she took the top spot of the class from him. With that in mind, she picked up the list and read through it. It was an itemized list, and Ravina’s brow furrowed as she read through it.
* Shard of Carapace (3 pieces) - 2 Kel (x3, 6 Kel)
* Spider Silk (10 bundles) - 2 Geld (x10, 20 Geld)
* Rock Essence (5 vials) - 5 Geld (x5, 25 Geld)
* Crab Shells (4 fragments) - 4 Geld (x4, 16 Geld)
* Cursed Pages (8 pages) - 20 Geld*
* Scribe's Quill (2 quills) - 3 Geld (x2, 6 Geld)
* Librarian's Spectacles (1 pair) - 5 Geld (x1, 5 Geld)
* Paper Fragments (20 pieces) - 1 Kel (x20, 20 Kel)
* Venom Drippers (5 sacs) - 5 Kel*
* Stone Dust (1 small pouch) - 3 Geld (x1, 3 Geld)
* Ectoplasmic Residue (6 vials) - 9 Geld*
* Ink Spirits (3 vials) - 4 Geld (x3, 12 Geld)
* Mineral Deposits (5 chunks) - 5 Geld (x5, 25 Geld)
* Binding Threads (15 pieces) - 2 Geld (x15, 30 Geld)
* Bottled Ink (4 bottles) - 5 Geld (x4, 20 Geld)
* Wispy Fragments (7 pieces) - 2 Geld (x7, 14 Geld)
* Claw Fragments (5 claws) - 4 Geld (x5, 20 Geld)
* Enchanted Ink (2 bottles) - 2 Don*
* Dust Particles (1 small pouch) - 2 Geld (x1, 2 Geld)
* Beetle Legs (10 legs) - 3 Geld (x10, 30 Geld)
* Librarian's Spectacles (1 pair) - 5 Geld (x1, 5 Geld)
* Ink Spirits (3 vials) - 4 Geld (x3, 12 Geld)
* Wispy Fragments (7 pieces) - 7 Geld*
* Binding Threads (10 pieces) - 2 Geld (x10, 20 Geld)
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She didn't recognize half the items and, more importantly, asked, “What's a Kel?”
“A Kel? It's a… coin,” Grace's eyes shifted as she tried to figure out what Ravina was asking.
“Yeah, but what kind? Never heard of it before.”
“Oh…” she blinked in surprise. “Well, it's a… like,” biting her lip, she tried her best to think about it. “You know, like 10 Kels would get you a Geld… maybe? But like not really?”
“Wait… so it's a cheaper coin than a Geld?”
“Yeah… I mean, you really can't buy a…” she took the list from Ravina, pointing at the first Kel reward item her eyes fell upon. “Okay, here, so like, paper fragments, right? They're used to enhance magical scrolls or spell books, but honestly, scraps of them are not worth a lot and are mainly used in alchemy as a, like, binding agent or something like that. Like, they have a value, but they really don’t… you know? So you can’t expect people to pay money for them, especially if you got a few scraps of them….and yeah, here you have cursed pages, worth so much more. The Eternal Ruin has a few of them, and the scraps are probably from cursed pages, which are all ready to go—except they’re used for banned magic, hence the half-price buyout and government confiscation.”
“I see…” Ravina frowned. Why did Ralf pick them up if they were that worthless? Surely that affected his bottom line too, right? 5% wasn't much but it was still 5%.
“Right, anyways, you want to sell everything, right?”
“Uh, no, let's keep everything that has magical use to it. I’ve got an assignment for the White Tower Academy.”
“Ah, you're a student of Weis Academy, are you?”
“No, I’m—” Ravina’s brow furrowed again. “The White Magic Academy, new to magical things.” She fumbled, realizing she didn't know the name of her academy despite being a student. This elicited a laugh from Grace.
“Yeah, Weis Academy. Don’t worry about it, most people don’t know what it's called—I only do because they need a name for their orders and honestly, I think the person in charge of requisitions just scribbled something down randomly. Honestly, they scribbled the 's' so badly every time, it’s hilarious.” She found a blank piece of paper and scribbled a letter on it. “Honestly, what is that, every time.” She giggled as Ravina looked over the ß now inked on a scrap piece of paper.
“Huh…” For some reason, it looked familiar, but right now she couldn't place it. “Well then, I guess I am a student there. I really should ask about that.” She thought aloud. “Anyways, I need magic materials, so that's why I’m diving.”
“Understood, will do. That being said," Grace straightened up, a serious expression on her face, "we would like to confirm a few things, if you don’t mind. Ralf gave us a very interesting debrief, in which he depicted several corpses of poisoned ogres, as well as several monsters that shouldn’t be appearing on the top floor of the dungeon. Last time we sent a team, it was confirmed that there were 16 floors. So, you assume that the first couple at least have a bunch of level zeros, not a bunch of level ones."
Ravina nodded, internally thanking Ralf for not outing her as a super magician or someone who killed a level two by herself. "Yes," she affirmed, "From what he told me as well, there were several monsters that shouldn’t have been on that level."
“Yes, judging by the drops alone, I would have thought you went to the fourth floor at the very least.” This caused Ravina’s mouth to gently fall open in surprise. After the receptionist asked her to recount her adventure, Ravina began a little twisted tale of what she went through in the dungeon.
It took a little more time than expected, but eventually, the report was finished, and she was free for the day with a new bag of coins. It was light, but she had decided to keep a lot of the items. Almost all of them had magical value of some kind. Unfortunately, she had classes tomorrow, so it wouldn’t be that much of an enjoyment. But for now, she would at least enjoy a nice meal out before heading back home and dividing the materials she had received from the dungeon. Hopefully, they would give her an idea of what she should do for her final assignment. She needed something that put her over the edge of Earl, something that gave her first place so she could rub it in that smug boy’s face.