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The Demon Queen (On Hiatus)
Chapter 8: Adventurer's Guild

Chapter 8: Adventurer's Guild

  With a new day comes a new possibility to finally achieve that unique class I want. It looks like just learning skills from traditional mage and rogue paths isn’t going to help me unlock anything. I’m not quite sure what else I need to do to fulfill any unknown conditions, but I might have an idea. If I just start trying to combine skills together, it might lead somewhere. Before that happens, I have to get that ID from the adventurer’s guild. I woke up early like usual and already finished my daily exercises, so I might as well go wake the guard up. I want to finish registering as an adventurer and go on some quests already.

  When I knock on his door, he opens it looking all freshened up.

  “Are you ready to go the Guild?”

  I nod an affirmative. I wasn’t expecting him to already be up, but he is a guard after all. I guess I shouldn’t underestimate them in the future. We head out with a wave goodbye to the hostess. I wasn’t paying much attention to the city yesterday, but now that everything is bathed in a nice light, I’m impressed by how nice everything looks. The architecture follows the same patterns as the castle, a mix of ancient Roman and Gothic architecture. The buildings are made of marble and had a lot of arches and columns, a design choice very reminiscent of Roman architecture. The Gothic aspect didn’t really come into play except for a few important looking buildings. That makes sense since Gothic architecture is mainly found in castles, town halls, universities and the like. The people themselves didn’t wear anything that would remind me of Rome though. No togas or anything like that. They instead had more practical clothing like trousers, skirts, and shirts. The only way I could tell that the clothing they are wearing isn’t from Earth is because of the look of the material. No synthetic materials like polyester are present in the clothes they wear.

  My people-watching is cut short when we finally reach a building that does have Gothic architecture. The building looks like a church from Italy but less tall. It has a single tower leading out from the middle of the building and the entrance is framed by pillars. It’s very impressive looking. That’s not to mention the huge dungeon next to it, about a block away. The dungeon is in the shape of a tower that ascends high into the sky. The outside of the dungeon reminds me of the Roman coliseum but stretched out vertically. It’s very impressive, and I wonder what types of monsters could be found in a dungeon with such a design. Maybe there will be minotaurs and harpies? That would be interesting. I also think it’s curious that this world has so many similarities with Earth. Maybe this is a parallel world to Earth? Well, no use in trying to figure that out now, the guard is starting to get fidgety with me standing stone-still in front of the guild entrance for so long. It’s really not my fault I get wrapped up in my own thoughts.

  I start walking into the guild as if the last few minutes didn’t occur. The guard follows in surprise. The inside of the guild looks way more futuristic than the outside would suggest. There’s a hologram in the middle of the room. A hologram. What? Upon closer inspection, it’s actually a scoreboard with a ranking from 1-100 with names of… groups? I assume that the ranks next to them are the stats that tells someone what their strength is. Even if they are literally just letters. What is this, school? Are they getting graded or something? Either way, this scoreboard is pretty interesting. It promotes competition but not to the point that too much trouble will come from it. The board only shows a rank number, the group name, and the group’s actual rank itself. It eliminates the risk of isolating individual adventurers and places the reputation mainly on the groups’ hands. There are still problems with that, but it’s significantly lower than using individuals.

  Besides the scoreboard, there’s a row of receptionist desks, each behind a glass window. There’s also a large screen that lists titles, maybe quests? They also each have a ranking from E to uh…SSS? I’m getting flashbacks to my time playing MMORPGs. I’m pretty certain the screen is a touchscreen like on a smartphone or tablet. Where the hell did they get this type of technology? This world has been a weird blend of futuristic and medieval elements so far, and I’m confused as to how they achieved this state. I suppose that’s something I’m going to try and discover as I go along. I’m doing the thing where I start thinking and forget where I am again. The guard is looking at me in concern and other people in the guild hall are also looking at me weird. I sigh internally. It’s really not my fault that my thoughts are more interesting than paying attention to what’s going on around me.

  I look over to the guard and ask him, “So how do I get identification from the guild?”

  He’s shaken out of his concern and says, “That’s easy, you just need to register as an adventurer. They’ll give you an ID card, or identification card. Adventurers’ cards are one of the best IDs that someone could have. Most people register as an adventurer if they live in the city, since anyone can become one. It’s strange that you don’t have one yet, but villages don’t have dungeons, so your situation is understandable.”

  “Thanks, I’ll go do that then. I just need to talk to one of the receptionists?”

  When he nods, I make my way over to the receptionist area. There’s a few receptionists open while the others are talking to some adventurers. The guild isn’t busy right now, but it is still early in the morning. I’m sure with the culture here gives the guild a lot of business. I go to the cute blonde receptionist. I’ve always been vain, so I’d naturally go to the prettiest receptionist. Seeing a pretty face is good enough, I don’t want to flirt with her. When I go up to her, she asks what she can do to help. God, she’s making it hard to not flirt, but I must resist. I’m here strictly for business… Who am I kidding? I’m flirting with her.

  “Well, I was going to ask if you could help with registering, but I’d rather get your help with something more urgent. You see, I walked in here and saw a beauty that captured my heart. Could you help me get it back?”

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  “Uh… I’m sorry but I can’t help you there,” she says with a frown.

  “That’s a shame, you were the only one who could help me after all.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re the one who stole my heart,” I finish with my signature grin. It’s guaranteed to make a girl swoon.

  She just looked at me unamused.

  “You can have it back then. Now, do you have actual business with the guild?”

  “Haha, ouch. But yes, I do. Can you register me as an adventurer?”

  “Alright, do you have any prior ID or are we starting from scratch?”

  “Oh? Do people start from scratch often?”

  “More often than you would think. There is a fee though. It’s 1 GP if you start from scratch. It’s 50 SP if you start with prior ID.”

  “Well, that does sound expensive, but business is business. Here you go,” I say as I hand her one “GP” as she called it.

  “Thank you. Now, what is your name, sex, age, and birthdate along with your birth place,” she says looking at a…computer screen? Wait, it’s more of a holographic screen with a holographic keyboard. Not an actual computer. I’m not sure if that makes it more or less confusing.

  I have to think fast of what age I should tell her and what birthplace and birthdate. Maybe I should just tell the truth?

  “What if I said I wasn’t human.”

  “…Well, I suppose I should ask that first then. I assumed you were human, but that is something that needs to be filled out too.”

  “Can I ask exactly what people can see on this ID card?”

  “…They can see your name, age, sex, race, and adventurer rank. It also shows a picture of you and any title you wish to show on the card. Only one title at a time can be used. It also shows what group you are affiliated with.”

  “Is it possible to hide it? Or show different information?”

  “Why do you need to know that?”

  “A lady can be sensitive with her age, can’t she?”

  “I don’t think that’s why. Please tell me the real reason or I will have to report you to the guards.”

  “Woah there, let’s not get hasty. I’m a race that humans aren’t really fond of and I’d prefer it if that isn’t so easily visible.”

  Her face immediately tenses up and I think I fucked up here. I don’t want her to make a ruckus, so I guess I have to use my OP powers here. I don’t want her to ruin my fun so quickly after all. I open a gap directly behind her neck and stick my hand through. I elongate my nails so that they’re razor sharp and set them against her neck.

  “I’m really sorry that you had to find out like this, but if you try and tell anyone, I’ll have to kill you,” I say with a shrug.

  I can feel the fear emanating from her. It’s delicious.

  “So here’s how this is going to go, you’re going to put in false information since I can’t exactly let people know what I am. You’re going to put in Misaki Miyamoto as my name, Misaki my given name and Miyamoto my family name. My sex is female, and my race is human. My birthplace will be left as unknown and my birthdate… Well, why don’t you decide that for me?”

  She nods frantically as she types in the information I gave her. Once she’s finished, she looks up at me for further instruction.

  “Good, so what did you put in as my age and birthdate?”

  “U-um, I p-put 25 as your age and I left the birthdate as unknown with the year 546 A.E.”

  “Well, that’s fine. Finish making my ID now.”

  “I-I need to take a picture of you.”

  “Well, you had better make this picture as flattering as possible,” I say with a smirk.

  She holds up a camera with trembling hands and points it at me. She tries to steady her grip and succeeds for the most part. She tells me to get ready so I just smirk. Having a smug profile picture is fine too. With a click, it’s over in a flash. She then starts typing stuff on the keyboard until the screen produces a burst of mana. I think it just casted a spell and out of the burst of mana is a nice polished card. So that’s the adventurer’s ID. It has everything in a horizontal format with my picture on the left side and my information on the right. It has everything that I told the receptionist to put on it and a rank of E. It also just interfaced with my mind because there’s a little system window that popped up that’s asking me what title I want displayed. What the fuck? The laws of this world are so confusing. Is it actually a virtual reality or did some god decide that it wanted this world to behave like a video game? More and more mysteries keep popping up, and I’m so eager to figure them out. Not yet though, I have to take one step at a time. I don’t want to exhaust all of the fun so fast. The receptionist is looking at me fearfully as I contemplate all of this. Poor girl, this was my mistake but I really can’t have someone knowing my secret. I don’t like killing pretty girls, so I guess I’ll just mark her so that she’ll be unable to say a word about what transpired.

  “Since you did so well in following my instructions, I won’t kill you. Instead, I’m going to curse you so that you can’t utter a single word about what happened unless you want to experience immense pain.”

  I say all of this with a smile as she starts going into a cold sweat. Youkai are able to curse others easily by placing a part of their demonic energy in someone. It’s a racial trait, so it wouldn’t show up as a skill. It’s more an innate trait of ours. Truthfully, my curse makes it so she can’t ever betray me, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. With the hand still against her neck, I pool my demonic energy into it and break her skin with my nails. I let my energy flow into her bloodstream and inside of her body. It’s a good thing that the process is painless or I would’ve made a scene just now. I can feel her power growing alongside my curse. Another effect of the curse is an increase in physical prowess all across the board. In my case, my curse will increase all of her stats along with her health. It’s really a great package, but she might experience a few…oddities. Being cursed is like being made into a partial youkai, so she might be feeling a little more violent than normal and maybe a little bloodthirsty. I’m sure she’ll be fine though, she seems like a capable girl. With that done, I wave her goodbye. She can only stare after me incredulously as she holds the back of her neck.

  I show the guard my newly minted adventurer’s ID and he nods. He tells me to have a good time exploring the dungeon and that with the ID, I can do as I like now. After he waves me farewell, I’m left in the guild hall with all the freedom in the world. Time to check that screen that I’m going to call the notice board from now on. I want to get a quest right away. Once I’m looking at the quest titles and ranks, I’m suddenly stuck with a problem. I’m not allowed to take these quests by myself. I need a party of four to do any of these quests. Well shit, I guess I have to find people for a party.