The sentence spoken by the woman sounded dry and bored, as if it had been recited a countless number of times. The woman herself looked quite bored standing behind the counter, dressed in a buttoned-up uniform cloak paired with a short pair of trousers.

“Are you here to report a finished quest? Or perhaps register as an adventurer? Whatever it is, please don’t dawdle.” The young woman stared at Mican with an expressionless face.

“I would like to register as an adventurer.” Looking up at the price board above them, he swiftly gave his answer.

“Are you here to register alone, or as a party?”

“Alone.”

“That would be five silver, please.” Looking behind Mican, the woman gave him an odd look as to why he was alone.

Begrudgingly, Mican took out the coins from his purse and handed them over to the woman.

“This is your tag of identification as an adventurer, now if you’re done here, please go.”

After accepting the money, the attendant placed a bronze pendant in the shape of a small tag in the young man’s hand, verbally shooing him away.

“Is that it? Five coins is all it takes to become an adventurer?” Perplexed, Mican spoke his thoughts out loud.

“What? Did you think it was any more official? This is why kids who inherit their parent’s wealth are so clueless.” Not knowing he was merely speaking out loud, the attendant answered his rhetorical question anyway. “Five silver coins is a large amount of money for us common folk, it’s not so easy to just pull that much money out, you know?”

Mican watched the woman with curious eyes, absorbing the information into his brain like a sponge. It was like his question had broken a dam within the grumpy woman.

“Besides, do you know just how many adventurers die every day? Probably a lot, I’d bet. I’ve known plenty personally.”

“You mean you don’t even know?”

“Spurrose is just a pitstop for adventurers! Most of them stop by Grantold as the facilities are much better. Even so, deaths still get reported here.” As if offended, the young woman defended herself vehemently. “That alone should explain a lot to you.”

“Can’t people just take the tag from their dead bodies?”

“Yes and there’s no stopping it, but once you reach a higher rank, the tag is engrained with a person’s name and their face is in our records, don’t you know even this simple thing?”

“A higher rank, you said? Wait, were you just going to let me go without telling me any of this?” Slightly angered, Mican pushed the question forth.

He was not angry due to her personality or attitude, but that she would have pushed him away without knowing anything had he not sounded out his doubts.

“How was I supposed to know you didn’t know? Besides, those who come registering all know this sort of information as common knowledge.” Rather irresponsibly, the attendant sounded out the words in an annoyed tone.

“Well I don’t know, so tell me about the ranks and any other ‘common knowledge’ you didn’t bother to mention.” Giving a slight sigh, the young man decided that it would be better to let the matter go.

The woman’s face broke out in a visibly annoyed expression before she could help it, to which she sucked it up and began speaking at a rapid pace.

“The adventurer’s association ranks are divided into six main ranks, E, D, C, B, A, and S, from the weakest to the strongest. The rankings are shared between all of the adventurer associations and major guilds-” The woman took a deep breath before she continued speaking- “There are two categories for ranking adventurers, an individual adventurer and a party of adventurers, in which the latter is obviously more powerful on the scale.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The speech was so quick the young man would have missed it if he had not been listening carefully.

“Major guilds? What’s the difference between a guild and the association?”

After voicing out the question, Mican realized it was probably a stupid one as the woman gave him a vulgar frown that he could only describe to be a mixture of disdain and pity, likely at his ignorance.

“You don’t even know that? Well fine. The association is one made by the parties across the regions, while the guilds are basically groups that have their own power through their own members, like a giant family.” She listed out the words robotically before taking a heaving sigh, as if a complaint to the world about the major problems she had to deal with.

“Hm yes, that will be all then.” Unabashed, Mican left the woman with those parting words, turning his body and walking away.

“The commission board has the colors signifying the different ranks if you’re curious, if you die it’s not my fault!” The words of the attendant sounded out behind him as he walked away.

He turned back and gave her a slight nod of gratitude. It seemed as if she was not entirely irresponsible after all, and she had only not told him because it should have been common knowledge.

With the way she had treated him after asking those questions, Mican felt as if he was lucky that he had encountered her. If it was any smarter or more curious person, clear suspicion may have been shot his way. What sort of person could take out five silver coins, yet not know common knowledge in the world?

He did not care too much about it, as he doubted people would be able to guess that he was from another world, but after hearing Rose speak of “the systems of men that the gods did not bother to know of”, it was much better to be safe than sorry. Besides, it was always better than attracting untoward attention to himself.

Walking over to the large bulletin board in the hallway, Mican squeezed through the small crowd to get to the front. The wooden board had the words ‘quest board’ carved in at the very top. The board had thin pieces of paper that had been nailed into the worn-out board, with sentences and small pictures written all over them.

The people of the crowd were not loud, muttering quietly to themselves or each other, and they looked fairly important, carrying an air of dignity around them. Most of them were carrying thin pieces of paper that had been ripped from the board.

Considering as to how the woman had treated Mican odd for registering alone, and looking at the groups of people sitting at the tables across the hall, he assumed these people to be solo adventurers like him, or the leaders of their respective parties coming to accept the commissions.

The attendant was indeed telling the truth. On the pieces of paper pinned on the board, various colored pendants of different shapes lined the section where the ‘recommended rank’ was listed.

Many different quests dotted the board, and their titles opened up Mican’s view of the current world he was in.

‘Remedy commission: Tatalla antidote required.’

‘Subjugation quest: Roaming eye spotted through Grantold’s southern plains.’

‘Ingredient request: As many spotted dandelions as possible.’

‘Cure urgently required: Spread of Slate Fever in Argas village, alchemists needed.”

Different names of creatures and objects Mican had never heard of popped up in his vision, making him realize that the world was much vaster than he had originally imagined.

The young man knew that the world was one filled with power, but he hadn’t known that even the general populace was also deeply involved with these problems personally.

The requests had all sorts of information and drawings listed underneath the title, written in small letters. The information was of the rewards, or additional info, or of the location. The papers had titles both official-looking and rough, and the contractors were from all sorts of people, from adventurers, villages, rich merchants, and even cities.

The bronze requests corresponding to the E rank, the rank he was in, had been all but wiped from the board. The quests of varying colors were much more plentiful. It was obvious to Mican that the quests had been taken due to the easy difficulty of the job after reading the descriptions of various pin-ups.

The load of information launched Mican into thought, and he needed time to digest it.

“We should obviously ignore it, it’s too dangerous for us as we are now. Just alert the other party members of the problem and make sure they be careful, even the demon Rose alone is too much for us to handle.”

As Mican as inspecting the board, a familiar name spoken by a man off to the side immediately attracted his attention. Looking their way, his eyes widened for a split second before narrowing.

There were three gruff men at a corner of the group, talking between themselves and gesturing at a notice pinned up to the far side of the commission board.

‘Kill request: Two (?) unknown demons.’

Discreetly shuffling over to the request, Mican read through the text closely.

‘Several core members of the Brave Heart adventurer party have been slaughtered brutally on the path to Grantold. Along with the infamous cambion, Rose, there has been another demon reported along with him, of similar strength. There may be more than the two in their group, please be cautious.

Dead or alive, please contact the adventurer association.

Rewards for information.

Recommended rank: B

Contractor: The Brave Heart party

Reward: Negotiable’

Mican knew information travelled fast, but he didn’t know that the word had spread so quickly, or that the adventurer association moved so fast as to have the request posted up in such a short amount of time.

Thinking of having to face even more enemies similar to that group, the young man felt his head throb in pain.