The next morning as usual the three ate breakfast with Rose, as they were deciding what to do today, Rin came down the stairs and couldn’t quite look at them as she said, “Can we talk in my room for a bit?”

Adrest and Co. followed Rin back up the stairs and crammed into her single person room, Rin and Belle on the bed with Adrest and Alissa sitting at the small table.

“Why are you two pretending to be weak traveling adventurers in a tiny town like this?” Rin opened the conversation with a fairly easy to answer question.

Alissa gave the truth, “We live in the complete middle of nowhere, this is the only place for thousands of miles around, so we come here for commodities and to relax when we’re bored.”

Adrest nodded along, “I can only take so many months of being trapped with Alissa at a time.”

Rin looked oddly at the demon who was trying not to yelp from his side being pinched.

“…You know what will happen, why do you still open your mouth every time?”

Alissa released him and as Adrest rubbed the tender spot, he shrugged, “It’s fun, and it’s how I’ve always talked to Ali, even when I thought she was just a dragon.”

Raising an eyebrow, “You ran into a mature dragon and the first thing you do is talk back to it?”

“Well yeah. She ate all of my food, skewers too.”

Rin was getting a headache as she tried to keep up with this conversation, but she was having a harder and harder time equating the two to the images of dragons and bloodthirsty demons she’d seen in books.

“It might sound rude, but you two are nothing like what I’ve been warned about all my life. Are you just outliers ?”

Contrary to her expectations, the two weren’t insulted in the least, Alissa answered for them.

“Well, I do like to think I’m unique, and a dragon’s general attitude varies depending on what clan they’re born into. But generally, we prefer to stick to our own territories. If I had to guess, what you’ve heard about are mostly the wild dragons, but comparing us to them is like comparing you to an ape. You look and act a little similarly, but that’s where the relation ends. Wild dragons are brainless, angry, muscle headed animals that the clans end up having to chase down more often than not.”

Rin was learning something new, she didn’t know there was such a distinction between the two. She knew some dragons were born and some evolved from scattered bloodlines but to think the wild born were looked down on so harshly by the natural born dragons was a shock.

“And in my case, I was actually human before I found a Lodestone, the thing saved my life.”

Rin’s eyes went wide. She’d heard about Lodestones in class before. Only those The Demon God approved of could control them and they were a prerequisite for becoming a true Demon Lord.

“A regular human got Baal’s blessing? It that even possible?”

Adrest awkwardly scratched the back of his head, “Well, there’s a bit more to it, but that’s a story for another time.”

Rin looked closely into the eyes of Adrest and Alissa for several heartbeats, looking for any trace of deceit, any reason to doubt herself. Failing to find any Rin came to a decision.

She stood up and grabbed the two sitting at the table into a hug. “The three of you are the first friends I’ve had in years, I’ll trust you.”

Alissa and Adrest stood and each used an arm to embrace the small girl, only coming up a little over their chests. It brought back some precious memories as she felt warm and safe surrounded by the pair. Belle had to run over, feeling left out.

When they separated, Rin looked happier with her warm and genuine grin back in place. She spoke to the group, “Now we have to figure out what to tell the Guildhead, we obviously can’t tell him about you or your strength Alissa, but I wanted to use the dungeon as a shortcut to getting you three promotions to B rank.”

“Why’d you want to do that?” Adrest had to ask.

Rin blushed a little while speaking toward the floor, “If you reached B rank, I’d be able to specifically request to work with you officially while I’m here. And I thought maybe we could use the excuse of a high level mission to travel together sometime…”

Alissa couldn’t fight the urge and picked up Rin, spinning around like she often did to Belle. Rin was starting to feel a little dizzy when she was set down.

“Sorry Rin, but that was just too cute, you tried really hard for us, huh? Well we’d love to spend more time with you. We’ll just agree with whatever you say.”

Rin really couldn’t believe this bubbly young woman who looked just a year or two older than herself was a dragon strong enough to kill an S rank giant.

“If you’re sure, then could you three follow me to the Guild later? Just leave out everything after the Resha and agree with me, and you’ll be walking out with shiny new Guild cards.”

“We’re in your hands Rin.” Adrest agreed easily, with the other two nodding like chickens.

To get the annoying work done early they decided to get it out of the way. On the walk over Rin talked a little about what the local Guild master was like.

“Well, his name is Gerard and he's a retired A rank. Back in the day he was known as the Iron Slab, but after an accident, he and their healer were the only survivors. It was only a decade later, when they were deciding to build this place that they were able to drag him out of the house and get him to take charge of the administration here.”

“Is he dependable?”

Rin thought for a moment, the verdict a wobbling gesture with her hand, “Eh, mostly? I’d say his biggest fault is he's too cautious. There's no way he would’ve let me or anyone near the cave dungeon before he spent a week studying and surveying it. It’s a good thing and a bad thing, normal adventurers would’ve died in those tunnels, but that S rank would’ve finished its breakthrough and flattened the town by the time he got to the last layer.”

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Adrest and Alissa nodded, Rin wasn’t saying the man’s steadfast and careful approach was wrong, in fact, for most cases he would be in the right. But there would always be exceptions and luckily, Rin was the one to find the unusual case.

They walked into the Guild house that had a midday buzz as people sat at the tables or waited in line. As soon as a receptionist spotted the little hero. She said something to the person she was waiting on and rushed over.

“Ms.Rin, the Guildhead wants to see you immediately.”

Rin gave a light nod and motioned for the others to follow her up the stairs. The receptionist looked as if she wanted to stop them, but gave up before words came out. Instead, she shook her head and went back to the man still waiting at the counter, finishing their exchange.

The group ascended two flights of stairs and were led to a door made of thick and dark wood. Rin lightly knocked and heard a deep gravelly voice respond, “Enter.”

Rin pushed open the door, Adrest got a sense for just how heavy it must be seeing Rin have to put some effort into it. Walking in, the office was crammed with paperwork on every available space making the large office look feel much smaller than it really was.

In the far center of the room was a large but simple dark brown desk with files, folders, and books piled a few feet high across except for the center. Through the opening of papertowers was an older middle-aged man that made even the oversized executive desk look small.

He had salt and peppered black hair that was kept short and a stern expression on his face that must be his default as the wrinkles emphasized the features as if he’d been frowning for years straight. He was clean shaven and Adrest could clearly see an old scar going diagonally across his face, one of his eyes, a milky grey, in the path.

Leading the way, Rin stood in front of the dark and deep grained wood desktop with the others standing behind her. Rin just stood awkwardly as she waited for the man to speak. The silence lingered for a near minute before the Guildhead spoke.

“How nice of you to grace me with your presence Rin. Would you be kind enough to enlighten me to your whereabouts for the past 4 days?”

Adrest could nearly see the sarcasm dripping from the man’s words. Rin could feel it too as she straightened up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Stammering she spoke up, “N..nno problem Sir. I had been escorting and helping train the group behind me in the forest when we found a Mantula nest in a cave on the mountain base. But after clearing it out, we noticed that the cave seemed to go especially far, and I made the decision to come back after preparing to make sure it was empty.”

Gerard remained stone faced as Rin spoke, but his eyebrows did furrow further. Not being interrupted to this point, Rin continued the story she’d rehearsed many times last night and this morning.

“I knew it could have been a new dungeon so I weighed the risks before agreeing to take in the group behind me as they proved as strong as a B rank party while fighting the Mantula.”

That was the first time Gerard looked at the three standing behind the supposed Hero. He saw a young man standing straight and stiff, but calm as they made eye contact. Passable and plausible that he was of use. He moved to his attention to the strikingly pale girl in the middle that was over a head shorter than the rest.

Her thin body was tense and her eyes were darting every which way except for his direction. She didn’t look like anything special, but could see the results of early training developing.

Gerard looked to the last of the party, a tanned young woman who was confidently smiling back at him without the slightest nervousness. Her body was completely relaxed as if in her own home and Gerard’s many years honed instincts were vaguely giving him warnings as he sized her up. Underneath that innocent exterior was something lurking.

Gerard was the first to look away, nodding for Rin to continue. “We spent several days mapping out what turned out to in fact be an undiscovered dungeon. In that time, Adrest, Alissa, and Belle were each indispensable and I feel they are far above the abilities of a C rank group. In our search, we discovered the leader that was an A rank Resha. It was controlling at least a hundred thousand bones, I barely managed to kill it after a long battle. And the entire time, the others were fighting off hordes of D, C, and even two B ranks.”

Gerard’s face turned incredibly sour after hearing about the strong Resha and Rin noticed after she finished the story, “Sir?”

Sighing, he relaxed and said, “It’s not really a secret, when the Great Joint War was carried out many years ago, there were too many bodies from both sides and too much destruction. Most of the fighting happened at a mountain stronghold just a few miles away. The military higher ups decided to have their mages bury the entire plot deep into the earth as a mass grave and memorial to the lost.”

The ridiculous mass of bones suddenly made much more sense to the group, Rin felt a bit of sadness knowing she destroyed so many heroic senior’s bodies. She knew it couldn’t be helped but it was still too much of a pity they couldn’t rest even after giving their lives.

On the other hand, The three demi-humans didn’t feel much. Belle couldn’t really comprehend how many people that was and that each one was a real person. Adrest felt it was a shame but they were just bones at the end of the day. Alissa couldn’t care less and just thought of it as an interesting fact.

“So that’s it then? You led a group of C rank adventurers into an unknown and uncharted dungeon, spent multiple days in said dungeon without informing anyone beforehand, then fought a peak A rank Resha in its own territory without support?”

Rin shrunk in on herself at each point listed, it sounded worse when he put it that way.

“Sir, we were always cautious and followed protocol when inside the dungeon and we were sure about every fight we started. We may not have sent word to the Guild, but, and I’m sorry to say this, unless you were able to escort us yourself, anyone still in town would’ve been dead weight and a detriment to our team.”

Though Rin’s voice still had a slight shake to it, she held her ground and stood tall under Gerard’s intense gaze. The standoff continued until too tired to continue, Gerard broke off first while sighing.

“Despite my looks, I was a young rising star once too. What you did was stupid and irresponsible, but you all came back fine and cleared a dungeon that could’ve wiped out the town if left alone. Every young adventurer is entitled to a few stupid heroics, just don’t do it again.”

Rin was elated and she regained her usual carefree demeanor. Gerard’s brow twitched in annoyance at her lackadaisical expression as soon as she got her way. But he managed to switch his focus to the party behind her.

“So, I’m to understand Rin was speaking truthfully and a C rank 3 man group helped clear an A rank dungeon? And you all even killed some B ranks?”

Adrest started to explain as Rin had told them, but Alissa took over the conversation for their party.

“When Rin told us it might be a dungeon, I volunteered us to go as I have a lot of experience in them. My father made it a habit to have me train in every city that had one. Additionally, I just recently broke through to B rank and Adrest here can just barely hold one off so I thought we’d do what we could to help.”

Inside Gerard was struggling to not retort when the young woman said she just recently advanced to B rank. Bullshit, there’s no novice B rank out there that could make him feel uneasy. Additionally, it may have been his imagination, but Gerard could swear he saw a twinkle of excitement in her deep purple eyes that dared him to question her story.

Gerard had been around adventurers for decades and he knew that there were plenty of eccentrics in the bunch, in fact the higher one climbed the more oddballs they see. In this business, you only get to the top by risking life and limb every day, some people were born for it and others broke on the journey. He wasn’t sure which category Alissa fit into, but he felt it wouldn’t hurt to go along with it, so after weighing the risks, Gerard spoke out.

“In light of your contributions and Rin’s endorsement, I will promote your group directly to B rank, additionally upon our team verifying the details of the dungeon, we will send an additional reward fit for the task.”

Adrest tried to hide the surprise on his face, he hadn’t had high hopes for this meeting. At best, he thought they’d be lectured for an hour before being able to leave, but the Guildhead was directly giving them exactly what Rin had been hoping for.