"Ari, do you see anything. I am not finding anything on this board…”

“Not at all…” Ari replied with disappointment, I didn't blame her. The quest boards were practically empty, or rather. There was just a lot of gathering requests, escorts to god-knows-where or just subjugations that required a lot of traveling. There wasn’t anything that was relatively close, or nice for that matter.

I looked around the guild, it was completely desolate, the wooden floors had visible drink stains from partying, the tables had passed-out drunk adventurers. People were sleeping, others were just not moving, the staff was also sleeping at the counter, or rather. Silently looking at the tabletop with closed eyes, yeah… The guild was just a mess and the requests boards were empty (to me).

“What now?” Ari tiredly asked as she stood by my side.

“I don’t know…” I paused. “Maybe they will bring quests at a later time?”

“Maybe… The question is, when is that time…”

“Yeah…”

Looks like we were practically stuck without being able to do something.

After a short sigh, I grabbed Ari’s hand and headed to the counter, we needed information, and who to ask other than someone that works at the guild, it was the common thing. We arrived in front of the counter with a bit of worry, deciding to go to the first receptionist who was at the far left. A cute woman with black hair, she was a head taller than me and sleepy, or rather. She was sleeping.

“Umm, excuse me?” My soft voice did not make her react or open her eyes for that matter. “Umm…” I decided to start tapping the desk with my nails as I called for her. Ari did not seem to know what to do either, so I continued. “..."

“... Wa?” She finally opened her eyes with heavy dizziness and incredibly confusion, I could tell how lost she was. Although I did not blame her, waking up can be rough.

She groggily looked around until finally she looked down to see me. She slightly tilted her head in confusion at the kid who was looking at her with slight hope (me), and continued to scan her surroundings, she saw her peers also sleeping, she saw the messy hall and then it all finally made sense. She blinked repeatedly in a hurry.

“I-I am sorry about that. H-How can I help you girl? I-I mean… Customer… I mean… A-Adventurer...” She was bright red from embarrassment.

“Em… I wanted to ask about quests, or adventures, or missions… Or whatever you call them…” I smiled in awkwardness having completely forgotten the right word they used.

“... Right… Requests was it?” Eh, was it that? Well, quests sounds kind of the same… “Well…” She awkwardly paused as she glanced in the distance. “Looks like they are quite empty…”

“How insightful…” I couldn’t help but comment that after she assessed the situation.

With a gulp she continued. “Well… I-If you don’t mind me asking, w-why are you here. D-Dear adventurer…” She seemed nervous.

“Well… Actually, I wanted to know when will there be new quests available… Em, I mean… Requests.”

“Ah yes… They should be arriving along with the Guildmaster.” Ah…

“Well, thank you, umm… Receptionist…” Instead of giving me her name she just did a forceful nod, with a shrug I turned away and took an empty table with Ari.

“She was weird,” Ari commented.

“Yeah…” I don’t know what was with her, or why she was so nervous, truly weird indeed.

“So, Dan is bringing in the quests?” Ari asked with a bit of hope.

“That should be it, yes…” Although, when was Dan arriving? That was the thing I wondered the most.

As I thought about the boredom I was suffering as well as experimenting in my head with various metals I realized something. Ari seemed slightly troubled.

“Is something the matter?”

“Ah… Well… When I was left alone, I might’ve done something bad to Lynn…” Who was Lynn? “Since he has to direct the academy, I wonder what will happen…” Ah… So, probably the director or principal… Or someone important.

As I looked sympathetically at Ari, I heard a loud knock and the door was forcefully opened. Heavy steps echoed on the wooden floor, who could it be? I lifted my gaze only to see a pair of arms holding a bunch of boxes, said arms were slender and childish.

“Why… must… it… be… like… this… every day!” The person exclaimed in annoyance, dropping the boxes with a loud thud that echoed throughout the hall.

“So it was you…” No wonder said voice was familiar.

“Huh, what?” Dan looked in my direction in confusion, his eyes widened in surprise for a second and then sighed. He sluggishly picked up the boxes yet again and brought them to the counter. Dropping them again.

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

Bang!

“What?!” A high-pitched voice asked in panic.

“Eh!?” Another one.

“... What happened?” The receptionist from before was confused as well.

Looks like Dan’s antics woke everyone at the counter up, he didn’t look annoyed by seeing them sleeping, so I guess it was a common thing. Ari seemed to still be worried about what she did, although I don't know what she did. It couldn’t be that bad, right? I tried offering some words of reassurance.

“It can’t be that bad, besides, even if it was. As long as you didn’t harm him I think it won’t be much of a problem.” I just tried guessing.

“If you say so…” She didn’t seem that cheered up. “... Maybe it’s not as bad as I make it out to be.” I nodded with reassurance, which made Ari slightly more cheered up.

Dan started clapping his hands to gather the attention of the receptionists, or workers? I don’t know how he would reference them.

“Alright, new requests came. Go to work.”

“””Yes!””” All of them exclaimed in unison and started to frantically take documents out of the boxes and arrange them, some looked like documents some were quests. It was quite weird to see the Guildmaster bring those, I mean, wouldn’t they have a dedicated delivery man or something?

I heard some footsteps coming my way but I did not think much about it, after a few brief moments they stopped.

“Hmm… What do we have here?” Dan sent us an inquisitive gaze, after sensing our silence he sighed. “What do you need… I’m tired, so please make it brief.”

“Em… We just came for a request, no need to be so… Aggressive…” I was taken aback by Dan’s straightforward attitude so I made a claim that did not make much sense.

“Well, I don’t know if ‘aggressive’ is the right way to describe it… But, sure, grab any request you like as long as it's within your rank, now let me rest.” He turned around and waved his farewell at us, he didn’t seem mad, so I did not take his rudeness personally, but it seemed weird to see Dan in such a state, but now that I thought about it, he was kind of like that when we first met him, professional mode I guess.

I felt some tugging on my cloak. “Yami, look.” Ari pointed at the boards, the receptionists were pinning new requests among all the boards, since Dan made a point of making it within my rank, I paid special attention to the Silver and Gold boards, Cobalt one did not interest me much. It was a bit too extreme for me.

“Should we go see?” Ari asked with excitement, however, I slowly shook my head.

“It’s better to wait for all requests to be posted.” The receptionists were still in the middle of pinning things, so it was better to just not interrupt them. I’d feel bad for them. Ari awkwardly nodded to my “command”, if you could even call it that.

We waited and waited, until finally, they had finished putting up requests, it only took a few minutes so it wasn’t so bad, although I could tell Ari was bored, however, she did not say anything. She was waiting for me to say something or do something. Before that, I looked to the door and into the window, the light filtering through the clear glass was a bright deep blue, so it was still quite the early morning. I wondered what was the normal time at which adventurers came.

“Well, we can check now…” I awkwardly informed Ari, I kind of felt guilty for making her wait. She awkwardly nodded in response, so it did not help with my feelings. We stood up and headed to the request board with gold borders, or the Gold rank request board.

“Subjugate werewolf in the mountains, Save the village, Steal herbs from the hermit…” I kept reading through the quests, my confusion grew bigger and bigger the more I read on it. “'Destroy the morale of the goblins'… What the hell is this…” I couldn’t help but say my own thoughts out-loud, Ari was distracted reading the quests as well. I could tell from her expression that it was not any different, which wasn’t very encouraging. I mean, we weren’t looking for anything specific, just something fun, I guess.

Ari had been reading the Silver request board as I read the Gold one. “Hey, Ari, did you find something?” I asked with little hope as I waited for the worst answer.

“Um, unless you are interested in yarn gathering in the canyon… I don’t think so…” Wait… how would I even gather yarn at the canyon, isn’t it manufactured? Well, something to later think about, some other day… I sighed in defeat after hearing other requests that Ari found.

We sat back down. “Are you sure you are not interested in a subjugation one?” Ari asked with doubt, I just quietly shook my head in reply.

“I mean, we could do that, but it’s not quite what I am looking for… Although I don’t know what I am looking for…” I added my own thoughts, Ari sighed in defeat. She quietly started thinking to herself, before abruptly opening her eyes.

“What if we check the blue request board?!” She cheerfully asked.

“Eh, you mean Cobalt? I mean, I guess we could check that, although I don’t have many hopes for it, if at all…” With yet another sigh I stood up with Ari following behind.

After a bit of walking we stood in front of the board, upon first glance I noticed the quests were roughly the same, however, they were a lot more extreme, such as ⁠— Dive into the acid cave to get samples, or, destroy a goblin nest; likely to have champions and king. They were quests geared towards adventurer parties more than anything else.

Then I read an extremely familiar word. “Dungeon…” I muttered it out-loud which made Ari confused and follow my gaze.

[Conquer and Destroy ⁠— Dungeon subjugation ⁠— Details are unknown, possible rare minerals and rare metals inside. Base pay: 2 Gold coins another 2 upon completion.]

It looked incredibly sketchy. Ari did not seem really keen on it either, but what was the worst thing that could happen. It’s probably just a low-rank dungeon if it’s on the Cobalt rank board, while details are unknown it must’ve not been threatening enough.

Without a second thought, I grabbed the quest, Ari firmly held my hand at that instant. “Are you sure about this?”

I firmly nodded. “Don’t worry, I know a way, besides, worst case scenario we fail the quest, not really life-threatening, just believe in me,” I said with utmost confidence, if it was a dungeon then it most likely had all of the dungeon characteristics. Which made it rather predictable.

We brought it to a receptionist, unfortunately, the one from before was gone. She looked at the paper with confusion.

“Are you sure you girls can take this on, I mean… It’s Cobalt… Do you even have the requirements?” She asked with a bit of shock, I just showed her my dog-tag thing, which was silver. She turned pale and even grim.

At that moment a group of adventurers walked into the guild. I heard some more footsteps.

“Huh, there is no dungeon request?”

“There must be one, I heard there was one coming!”

“Stop making such a fuss and just read the quests…” A tired female voice added.

“Umm… Maybe someone took it already… So, we better go ba⁠—” One of them was nervous.

“What are you saying!? We need that quest, it will be our first dungeon clear in a year, we gotta get back strong!”

At this point I turned around, one of them was a burly man with a beard and tall frame, another one was a woman that looked like some type of assassin. There was also a mage wearing robe, he also seemed to be the healer, and there was a kid that seemed slightly ramped up, he had a bow with him. It was a 4 person party.

“Umm, this girl wants to take the dungeon request, would you guys be interested in doing a party together?” The receptionist called out to them, which made my jaw drop. How could she?! I felt betrayed.