Still a little drowsy, I got up and followed Lena out of the room, and up an extremely creaky staircase. I could tell we were almost to the top when I was able to finally see natural light once again. We emerged from the basement hospital and I saw the glory of the guild, or what I had thought my whole life would have been a glorious place.
The second floor balconies looked like they were about to fall off and there were dozens of what I assumed to be fellow Paladins, running around drunk. Looking towards the service desks, that were extremely old, there were only three total secretaries manning them.
“Hey Lena, what happened to this place?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Well over the past decade the quality of the paladins has gone down hill, and the state of the guild along with it, although it’s their fault really. As soon as they had given up hope and realized that they only had to be a member of a party for their contract to count, they all became lazy drunkards with side jobs. Because of this, the Empire slowly began to decrease the funding for our branch of the paladins guild. No one sees the point of continuing the fight as there seems to be no end to the undead hordes.”
“Well that’s a nihilistic view, while the undead are nearly endless, if we didn’t continue the fight for all of these generations, we would have been overrun by now.”
“You know, I wish more would think like you, maybe you could bring change to this place.” Lena remarked in a regretful voice.
“I’m not sure that I could do it as one man.”
“Well I guess we’ll see honey, but for now we have some business to take care of. First let's have one of the lovely secretaries explain how it works around here, and then we can have you meet the girls.”
Walking over to the decrepit secretary desk, Lena began talking to the tired secretary in a friendly tone, “Hello Mary, it’s nice to see you again, could you explain to my young friend here on how the guild works.”
“No problem Lena, I love talking to the young ones before they lose their hope and become pathetic like these old asses that I have to deal with everyday.”
Mary turned her attention to me and began speaking, “Hello, so you’re Leone, the leader of the new Cat Dragons squad.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Well nice to meet you, let me explain the basics so you can get started with your work as a Paladin. A young one like yourself starts off at Recruit. As you destroy more and more undead, overtime you will be promoted through the ranks…”
As she was talking to me, I overheard Lena speaking to one of the other secretaries, “Hey, Sam, do you know where the other four went?”
“They went over to Mr. Richard’s restaurant.”
“I told them to stand by and wait for their new leader to wake up so they could greet him.”
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“Yes, I am aware, my Lady. I tried to warn them but they left regardless. When they did, they told me that they were bored waiting so they left for Mr. Richard’s restaurant.”
“Haaa… Those four… I told them to wait, because I knew exactly when Leone would wake up, yet they left regardless. Those girls really are impatient, why can’t they be more like Asayo.”
“...So after you reach the 9th rank of Grandmaster, there are some special classes that you can progress through. The first is the Knight class, which is earned through merit and mastery over your preferred weapon. The second is the Archivist class, earned through gathering immense knowledge of the undead. The third is the Sorcerer class, which can be earned through merit and showing superb ability in the magical arts. The fourth is the Archpaladin class, which can only be earned through mastery of both weapons, and the magical arts. The final class that you can earn is the Ace, which can be earned through merit and mastery of a skill that is unique to you. We’ve only had three in the history of this guild’s branch, and along with earning the rank of Ace, one gains a title that is unique to them. In fact, two of them are related to you, your father and grandfather. They were both excellent warriors in the glory days of our branch, Richard “The Death Hunter” Anlett, and Ezekiel “The Eagle Eye” Anlett.”
“Who was the other?”
“He was the glorious founder of our branch after he was granted the rank, Adam Enoch David “The Untouchable” Benel. He died soon after the founding of our guild, but those of us who work here still consider him one of our Aces.”
“So you're telling me that I am a direct descendant of two of the Aces?”
“Maybe that’s what the Necromancer meant about being the third generation.” I spoke quietly to myself.
“What was that?" Mary asked me.
“Nothing, just continue on with the explanation of the guild.”
“So as you probably suspected, even though this is an obligation for the citizens of our fine Empire, you will still be compensated for your successful work. As you progress through the ranks, the compensation that you gain will increase along with the difficulty of the missions that you are given. Due to our lack of funding, the pay is not as high as it would be in other locations within the Empire. But who knows, maybe you’ll be able to turn that around one day.”
“Why does everyone here seem to have so much faith in me?”
“It's probably a false spark of hope, produced from the fact you are the son and grandson of the most powerful members of our guild branch, besides our glorious founder of course.”
“Well Leone, are you ready to meet the rest of the squad?” Lena came walking back over to me.
“I sure am Lena, because the faster that we get introductions done, the faster I get to go see my parents, before our first mission.”
“Well about that. Due to how long it took for you to wake up, I already have your first mission. And it is a bit urgent.” Mary spoke from behind me.
“Damn it, what do you have for us?”
“A Necromancer has been sighted near the city. They have begun to raise the entire catacomb, and now there's mass amounts of undead roaming the area. The situation is very dangerous for the public, so this mission is a high priority.”
“Fine, we'll do it. But why are you giving us such a hard first mission?”
“If you haven’t noticed, none of these lazy asses are going to do it, and the only other active parties are already on missions.”
“Whatever.”
She handed me the scroll with the details of the mission on it, a large B was stamped on the top, below that was listed the details of the mission, below that was a gold payout. I had to admit that the payout wasn't bad, it was around 7,000 gold pieces which was just about the right price for a finely crafted bow.
“Well Lena, I guess it's about time for me to meet the rest of the squad, so that we can get this adventure started.”