After exiting the elevator I once again found myself making a beeline for the reception desk. I hoped no one would stop me this time, how unlucky would I have to be for another person to come over and announce my big racial secret?

Thankfully I reached the desk without being accosted and submitted my form. The desk was manned by a blonde Catonid named Lucy.

“Ah, I see you already have the director’s signature. Trying to get into his good graces early are we? That’s a smart tactic Mr… Akabane.” She said brightly, scanning my form to find my name.

“He’s an old family friend.” Panda piped up from the floor.

Lucy leant over the desk to see him; she didn’t seem to have realised that he was with me.

“Aw what a cute little daemon you have Mr Akabane.”

It seemed that everyone, even the receptionist, knew the difference between a demon and a daemon. Apparently I was the only one in need of a vocabulary lesson.

“Righty then,” She continued, wagging her fluffy tail as she stroked Panda’s head. “If you follow the stairs to the ninth floor you’ll find the administration offices. The class selection room is up there. Just take this ticket to their front desk and they’ll show you where to go. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No that’s great thanks.” I said politely, excusing myself and heading for the stairs.

As we continued walking upwards I noticed that each floor had its own message board with tougher and more well-equipped candidates looking at them the higher we went.

Once we hit the fourth floor there were only a handful of adventures in the room and the fifth floor only had two people on it. The seventh floor upwards was deserted. They each still had a receptionist but the message boards were empty and there wasn’t an adventurer in sight.

Panda began to speak, noticing my perplexity.

“Each floor is assigned by rank. The ground floor is for newbies like you who don’t have a rank yet. Wandering mercenaries can also take quests from there as long as they pay the charges.

“Then, as you go up floors it goes Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Mithril. You’ll be iron once you pass your exam. Bronze is also a pretty common rank in these parts. The exam for that is harder and more combat dependant but it’s still pretty low on the ladder.

“Silvers are pretty much the top dogs around here and there are only a few golds in the entire region. Naturally they’re the strongest, but most aren’t permanent residents.

“It is possible to reach gold rank whilst on the islands but the monsters around here are so weak there isn’t much point sticking around after silver. Most golds head over to the continent or come here for a vacation or to accept jobs working directly for the society as administrators and the like.

“Platinum ranks are rare. The director we met is pretty much the strongest guy in Havar and he’s only a gold rank. Diamond rankers pretty much run the show worldwide. Most of the continental directors are diamond rank.

“Mithrils… well honestly I don’t even know why they have a floor for mithrils here. There are only a handful of them in the entire world and they sure as hell aren’t coming out to the boonies to accept jobs.

“Of course, these are adventure ranks so they aren’t level dependant. However I’ve never heard of a Platinum who hasn’t surpassed the top level and even most Silvers are close to top level in their own right.

Panda finished talking just as we hit the ninth floor. I had so much to ask him but the receptionist had turned to look at us as we approached the administration offices.

I relegated myself to asking a single question.

“What is the top rank?”

“Level 100. I know you’ve blitzed through 9 levels already but the early levels are easy. Hell, most kids in town are level 10’s. You’re weak as shit my friend, so make sure you get questing once we’re done here if you want to survive.” He jumped and patted me on the lower back with a cheeky grin plastered on his round, fluffy face.

“If most kids are level 10 then how come the cultists I fought weren’t stronger?” I replied, hearing the pout in my voice, and immediately regretting it.

“It was part of the tutorial kid. The system isn’t just gonna throw you newbies into the firing line from the off, where’s the sport with that? More than likely it imposed a sanction on the gods who run the cults and told them they had to send their weakest guys for a while. I’m sure it’ll be open season soon enough though and you need to be ready. The system won’t protect you for long.”

He kept his voice down as he explained, not wating the nosey and impatient looking receptionist to hear us.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I approached her desk and showed her the ticket Lucy had given me.

She sighed deeply. She was a normal human with mousey brown hair. Her name tag said Tash but she looked more like a Karen to me with her cropped, single mom hair style and her perpetually agitated expression.

“Follow me.” She said in an irritated voice as she slumped away from her desk and walked down a hallway.

I followed her past the other offices. They remined me a lot of cubicle-style offices back home. Each room was separated by glass but the office layout of the individual rooms were basically small partitioned cubicles with about ten occupants per room.

“Imagine living in a world with magic and working a nine to five office job. How depressing.” I whispered to Panda as we walked.

“I know right,” Panda replied behind his paw, as if that made him any quieter. “Just think, any one of these people could have been an adventurer or a warlord or something.”

“Ah yes, warlord or taxpayer it’s a fine line to walk these days.” I replied just as we reached an unassuming, brown office door.

“In here please.” Tash replied in a bored, monotonous voice.

This certainly wasn’t the exciting and magical experience I had hoped for when I’d been promised a class.

I walked through the door and in the room was a single, large screen which took up most of the far wall. In front of the screen was a beachball sized metal ball on a stand, it had cables sticking out of it that disappeared into the floor.

“When you’re ready please place your hands on the ball and follow any and all instructions presented to you. Once you choose your class please exit the room and return to the ground floor for further instructions. Please be aware that you will not be allowed to change your class after this unless the system offers you a different one. This is a rare case so make your choice wisely.” Tash said monotonously.

She had been reading from a laminated piece of paper which she put down on a table near the door before she exited.

I was left alone in the room with Panda and without Tash’s sparkling personality to distract us, I was actually getting pretty excited.

“Ok kid,” Panda said after dragging the table to the side of the ball and jumping onto it to be eye level with me. “Class selection 101. Everyone gets offered the same basic classes, archer, swordsman, spearman, caster, healer and a few other fighting classes like monk and knight. Ignore them.

“Since you’re a you-know-what-worlder you’re probably gonna have much more interesting choices. Most people have to start basic and get class upgrades to get something cool. The system won’t make you do that… probably.

“So skip past the crap and let’s take a look at the good stuff ok?”

He sounded excited and I had to admit that I was too.

“You know who you remind me of? Danny DeVito you have the same accent.” I said, smirking at the confused giant teddy bear.

“I don’t know who that is. Are you gonna grab the damned ball or what?”

Chuckling to myself I placed my hands on the giant, metal ball and the screen flickered into life.

It felt like a mild static shock was racing through my veins as the ball reacted to me. The room lights went out as well, like we were at the movies. My heart raced, party from the static, but also from the excitement. I hoped I got something good.

I knew it was naïve of me, but I really wanted a magic based class. But not healer, no one wants to be the healer in a party of one.

The screen flickered a few times and then it came to life. An infomercial sounding voice blasted out as a little animated movie played. The movie itself was of a cartoon person walking through a wood and being attacked by non-descript monsters.

Suddenly he pulled out a cartoon wand and they all blew up splattering blood on the screen. Then he turned to the screen, gave a thumbs up and the words Adventure Society – Killing the Monsters Under Your Bed popped up.

Of course the whole thing was playing to the backdrop of the infomercial-like voice reading its script.

Here at the Adventure Society we thrive on making the impossible… possible. If you become a fully-fledged member you’ll be able to tell the world that you are working for a company that truly makes a difference.

We’re a company that truly cares and we put you at the heart of all major decisions. Like choosing our award-winning dental plan and offering unpaid holiday days to all employees who complete their monthly quota early.

With branches located in every major city, the world is truly your oyster as an adventurer. From fighting monsters in the forests of Barkesh to fighting monsters in the forests of Sinegaul. No day is the same at Adventure Society.

So why not sign up today? Adventure Society – Killing the Monsters Under Your Bed.

The screen flashed for a moment and it remined me of an old film reel at the end of a movie.

“What’s with all the corporate propaganda, I’m already here aren’t I?” I asked Panda as the next part loaded up.

“I think this room doubles as a recruitment office.” Panda replied, shrugging his shoulders as the next part started.

The next video showed arial shots of the building we were in, mixed up with cheesy clips of office staff pretending to laugh whilst they did their boring, soul crushing jobs. The infomercial stuff continued but it was basically a rehash of the same stuff from the last video, just a little more in depth about the day-to-day stuff.

Then the screen flashed again, just as I looked at my non-existent watch and realised it was half past a freckle. It’s not like I had anywhere to be, but this really felt like a waste of time.

Back on earth I’d chosen to be a truck driver to get away from all this bullshit. I’d had an office job before, a few actually, but they were all hypocritical, soulless companies who had the audacity to demand that you pretend to care about them.

No one, and I mean no one, working in an office gives a flying fuck about the policies and the corporate mission. They do it to pay the bills and that’s it. So why did corporate assholes continuously ask me why I wanted to work at their shitty office when I took interviews?

In the end I got so sick of it that I got my class c+e license and started driving wagons. It wasn’t a glamourous job but at least I didn’t have to pretend to care about whatever crap I was hauling.

Just as I finished internally ranting about my old world a notification screen popped up on the big screen in front of me. It jolted me back into the room and I soon forgot about all the infomercial crap I’d just listened to.

Do you want to begin class selection?

Y/N