“I apologize. I judged you too quickly.” As he spoke, Duarte bowed his head slightly towards Mican.

The look that Duarte had on his face as he raised his head up was one of respect. It seemed as if he had thought things out more clearly, giving Mican a small smile as his eyes bent into moons. The unexpected surprise had clearly put him into a good mood. He was happy to have gotten another friend that shared the profession he dreamed of.

It was evident to Mican that while Duarte was fairly mature for his age, he was clearly still a child.

“Heh. I’ll have you know; The bronze E rank is the lowest of the low in the adventurer rankings.” Duarte smiled as he spoke.

The teenager’s hips had been set on his waist, and the smile he had on was a haughty one. With the atmosphere calmed down and Mican having revealed that he was an adventurer, Duarte seemed to be comfortable enough to act in a teasing manner around the young man.

It seemed to him like being an adventurer was a massive deal to the boy, almost a bit too much.

“So you do know that bronze is the lowest, huh. The real question is do you know the rest of the ranks, though?” Mican put a teasing smirk on his face.

“Of course I do! The adventurer rankings go from E to S, weakest to strongest! Their respective colours are bonze, silver, red, green, blue, and… well, I haven’t quite learned of the other two colours, but that’s because they’re simply too rare.”

“That’s just basic knowledge, though. I can’t really say I’m impressed. Let me test you on your knowledge as an adventurer myself.” Looking at the young boy, a scheming glean appeared in Mican’s eyes.

Seeing as his mood had improved, and he had successfully gained his goodwill, the young man had decided to shift the topic to one he was quite interested in. An unsuspecting boy that knew of adventuring, as his dream? Trusting enough to talk to Mican about it? All the pieces had slot themselves into place snugly. It was the perfect opportunity for Mican to pry for information.

“Oh yeah? Heh, I’ll take you up on that challenge!” An excited expression surfaced on Duarte’s face, evidently unable to fully control himself.

It seemed like he had been bottled up for too long, unable to really talk to anybody about his dreams and struggles. Mican was the perfect outlet for him to let loose, and he was quite excited to show what he knew.

“What do you want to know specifically? Because I know it all… probably.”

“Hmm. Tell me about the adventurer’s system, about the guilds and parties.”

“Alright then-” Shifting in his seat, Duarte adjusted himself to a more comfortable position. “-the first thing to note is the difference between the two.”

“An adventurer party is basically just a group of adventurers who have banded together to create a ‘party’ of sorts. An adventurer guild is a massive group of adventurers and workers who have banded together, usually under the founding force of a very powerful or rich adventurer.”

“Which one is better?”

“Well, there’s not really a better here. The adventurer parties act as one, as a single group, while the guild’s multiple members band together. Obviously, the guilds are much more varied in the quests they’re able to take as they have much more members with different specialties, but the parties have unity, formed through close bonds and experiences.” The teenager continued his explanation with a proud look on his face. “I would say guilds are usually stronger, but I’ve heard of several adventurer parties that have gone down in legend. They were supposedly like unstoppable forces of nature!”

“Then what’s with the adventurer’s association? That’s not a guild, is it?”

“Well, the adventurer parties used to be quite oppressed by the guilds. They also didn’t have a set place to accept quests or the like, only being able to wait for commissions to come in once they were famous. This all changed when several powerhouse adventurer parties formed the adventurer’s association.” The boy took a deep breath before continuing. “The association spans across the multiple regions, all over the world of Yaribol. The association is where adventurer parties go to accept commissions, and new adventurers sign up. It’s basically a massive alliance to confirm that the parties don’t get bullied.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Multiple regions? The world named Yaribol? Mican absorbed the new information like a dried sponge soaking up water.

“As far as I know, the two groups get the same quests, and share the same ranking and judgement criteria, but I don’t know that much about it.” Tapping the side of his head, Duarte stared off into space as he thought.

“Excellent, a flawless answer.” Mican smiled and nodded at the boy sitting opposite him.

“Thanks!” Hearing the praise, Duarte’s face lit up in glee.

Mican was simply fully bluffing, but there was no way for Duarte to know that, even if he was wrong. The young man felt the need to keep encouraging the boy to talk, enabling him by continuing the conversation with him.

“Speaking of which, I had met several fellow adventurers in my travels. They all had different… equipment. Armor, weapons, and even their method of battle. What’s with that?”

“Ah, those are the classes. They’re various professions that adventurers have that classify them into people suitable for parties, so guild members and other adventurers can tell them apart and see if they’re suitable for a certain team composition or commission.” He boy gave a wide yawn as he spoke. “They’re basically titles that say what an adventurer specialises in.”

Mican had already expected this answer as it was fairly obvious, but he had asked anyway simply to make sure.

“There’s one more thing, being… the godcraftsman? Do you know what they are?” Seeing the boy yawn, Mican decided to wrap things up with the question he was the most curious about.

Although he was slightly reluctant to let Duarte go, there would be more opportunities to learn in the future. There was no need to be hasty with things.

“Well, umm…” Tilting his head at Mican, the young teenager scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “You’ve gone and done it. You’ve asked the question that stumped me.”

“You mean, you don’t know?”

“Of course I know! Or at least I will in the future… Anyway, you probably know more about this than me.”

“I guarantee you I probably don’t. Let me hear what you know, and I’ll see if it’s correct.”

“I really don’t know much. All I know is that the godcraftsmen are kind of a class of adventurers? I know that they are often much more powerful, and much older than all of the other classes. I also hear that they’re very rare.”

“…”

“From all of the fairytales I’ve heard since I was young, the godcraftsmen manipulate the divine powers of the gods, even more so than all of the other classes. They do it directly, or something.”

“Divine powers of the gods?” A very interesting note popped up in the teenager’s words.

“Yep. The same divine power that we’ve won back from the evil gods in our battle against them and their cruel ways.” A bit of excitement spread across Duarte’s face. “The godcraftsmen of old won the war between the two, driving the gods back into the heavens, taking their divine language of power for their own. It’s how they use the god’s divine powers! Supposedly, they’re the ones closest to gods on Yaribol.”

“We? As in, us humans?”

“Yes? What else could I have meant?”

A very prominent old note of information conflicted with this new information he had heard from Duarte. It was from the cambion, Rose.

He had mentioned that the various churches had forgotten their animosity, banding together to play gods. He had mentioned that it was the demons themselves that had spread the divine language of power. There was no mention of any war between the gods and the humans, only the humans being unfaithful after the demons had spread the language.

The clear discrepancy confused Mican, but he chose to trust the demon more in this case, as he felt the clear emotion of truth from his words, and in the fact that he clearly knew more than the lad in front of him.

While Duarte’s words had mostly been truthful, he felt nothing from the boy’s latter half, of what he was unsure. It seemed as if he clearly lacked information and wasn’t sure of the fairytales he had heard of youth and whether or not they conflicted with reality.

“…” Mican’s brow’s furrowed slightly as he though to himself.

If the demon wasn’t lying and the church was being unfaithful, then there was only one answer that Mican could go to. Someone was spreading lies, and it was someone in a high position. Who would have the ability and influence to spread mass misinformation on this large of a scale? To the point that it would become fairytales for children.

From the young man’s perspective, using his old world as an example, there was only one group of power that would be capable of such a thing. It was especially prominent as there was no overarching government in the world. The most obvious conclusion that Mican could come to, despite not being entirely sure, was of the heads of the various religions.

“Mican? What’s wrong? Did I do good?” Duarte’s worried voice broke Mican out from his train of thought, attracting his attention.

“Yes, Duarte. You did wonderfully.” Shaking off his useless thoughts, Mican smiled at the boy.

In response to Mican’s praise, the teenager beamed. He was full of pride and smiles, in joy of getting the ‘adventurer’s’ approval.

While Mican wasn’t completely sure of his conspiracy, the safest thing to do in this situation was to not speak at all. The young man decided to keep his thoughts to himself, storing the information away in his head.

“It’s getting late, Duarte. What do you say we head to bed?” Looking out of his window, the young man had realized they had been talking way into the night.

The noises of the festivities had all but stopped, and even the drunkards had headed home for the night.

“Ah, alright. I’m getting tired too.” Albeit slightly hesitant, his sleepiness won over in the end and the teenager dragged himself to the bed, flopping down on it.

Blowing out one of the lamps, Mican lay down beside him, quickly drifting off into a daze.

Although there were still many things to think about, tomorrow’s problems were for tomorrow.