With a deep blush adorning her pale face, she began making her way back inside the amorphous shape of the city, rapidly walking through the hills full of mushrooms, her boots leaving a trail of dust and dirt on her wake. It truly seemed like there would be nothing interesting on her first quest. A shame, really, even if it was completely expected. After all, it wasn’t like the guild would assign some dangerous missions right away, as it would mean that quite a lot of newcomers would end up dying before even having their skills evaluated, making it both a waste of potential human resources as well as a complete and utter failure as an evaluation tool. So it only made sense that these first few quests, assigned only to those F-ranked, that is to say, those who just joined the guild, would be exceedingly easy, and, as such, completely lacking anything exciting at all. It was nice to have safe missions for those who didn’t feel comfortable or didn’t have the ability to take on harder quests, but, for someone who had spent the last six months training to the point of exhaustion with the best of the best, there was little interest to keep them going.
As she thought about these things, Kary walked absentmindedly through the hills, her body on autopilot as she fully preoccupied her brain with meaningless things, so much so that she almost failed to notice something weird going on with the mushrooms near her feet. Although there was no wind, some of the mushrooms were moving wildly. Their movements wholly unnatural, almost as if they had been possessed by some entity, though that raised the question as to what kind of creature would be so miserable that it would be content inhabiting the most common type of mushroom around these parts. She almost felt sorry for it. Almost. But even though she sympathized with the pain of this weird creature, whatever it was, she wasn’t stupid. At least, she wouldn’t consider herself as such. As the diligent girl she was, she immediately dropped the mushrooms she had been holding, immediately moving her hands towards the sword on her hip, preparing herself for any eventuality, as long as said eventuality involved slaughtering monsters. Eyes narrowed, she waited in a ready stance as the moving mushrooms hastily approached her, whatever moved them too low on the ground for her to discern among the normal, stock still variety of shrooms.
And then the mushrooms jumped. No, to be more precise, it jumped, the being beneath the mushroom, its form nothing but a blur as it reached for Kary, letting dirt and debris fall from its body. In a split second, the girl scurried backwards, eyes wide and arms slightly trembling at the sudden attack. She hadn’t even had the time to see what exactly had attacked her. Whatever it was, it had more speed on its feet that she had thought, as before she was able to take a breather it had already lunged itself towards her once again. This time, though, Kary was more than prepared, sliding her sword out of her scabbard and slashing in a wide arc in order to quickly neutralize the threat. Contrary to what she was expecting, though, she only heard a metallic clink before a small cloud of dirt rose from the ground, her enemy simply thrown into it, instead of being cut in half as she had wanted. Creasing her brows in slight frustration, she waited for the weird monster to once again charge at her, but no attack came, much to her confusion. Once the dust settled, however, things began to make slightly more sense, though not by much.
Half-dug on the ground was what appeared to be an overgrown ant, only its rear end and its last pair of legs squirming above the dirt, its body slowly sinking deeper and deeper as the creature appeared to be doing… something. Whatever it was, Kary had no desire to discover. Aiming it at the soft belly of the creature, she sank her sword into it, twisting and turning so as to inflict the biggest wound she could from that position. The monster’s pained howls, drowned by the soft earth below, were only felt as faint vibrations on the ground, its crazed dance of death, performed with only its rear legs and butt, appreciated by no one other than its killer, an ending quite fitting for a pest that had tried to sneak up on her. Although it was somehow able to deflect her initial attack, it appeared to be nothing more than an annoying bug, an overgrown insect at worst, perhaps a normal animal that had been exposed to too much mana, perhaps a monster that had evolved to look like big, fat ants. Compared to that abomination that had chased her down on her first day on this world, this little guy was nothing to fret about, a weakling who had only learned how to hunt through dirty tricks and sneak attacks, its patterns simple and obvious, their variety none. For a brief moment, she even doubted that she would get anything out of this encounter, the monster’s strength so little that whatever being governed the almighty status window wouldn’t deem it worthy to give her anything for the kill. Of course, the all-powerful, all-seeing system wouldn’t let such an extraordinary feat go unnoticed without giving proper rewards for the courageous person who had taken it upon themselves to defeat such strong foe.
<(Lv 1) Pincher defeated>
Seeing these strings of words, Kary couldn’t help but smile, exhaling a little bit of air through her nose at the apparent sass of the system, for it knew that it had to give some sort of recompense for defeating the monster, but said monster was so easy to defeat that it had barely awarded her with anything at all. At this rate, she would need to defeat three hundred more of these pesky insects before being granted a level up, only further accentuating the monster’s uselessness. But she shouldn’t judge it too harshly. Maybe it could be used to make some armor, though she had to wonder if those willing to wear the shells of what were essentially huge insects were right in the head. Probably not. Picking the Pincher from the ground, she was finally able to see it in all of its glory, its whole ten inches in size, towering over any normal ant despite looking exactly like them. Well, not exactly. At the very least, the ants Kary knew weren’t that chubby, nor were they fast, but its strong, although not particularly sharp mandibles, coupled with its segmented body, the stubby, almost underdeveloped-looking antennae, and the six legs, screamed that this guy wasn’t anything more special than a common house ant, the only difference being in size and shape.
Although Kary didn’t think of this accident as anything noteworthy, the thought that she could turn this unpleasant pest into some easy money called for her more than anything else. After all, even if she was under the protection and care of one hell of a strong knight, independence was still her ultimate goal, and depending monetarily on the goodwill of other people most definitely wasn’t the way to go. Of course, since Asteria had offered to care for her, she wouldn’t reject the love she had been receiving from both her and the two-person staff in the mansion, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t start building some funds on the background in the meantime. Even if this Pincher wasn’t worth a thing, it would still be a good learning experience for her. At least, that was the excuse she had devised in order to ease herself should she be unable to earn any money from the dead body of this monster. With a sigh, she turned around to pick up the shrooms that had fallen on the ground, only to see them being snatched by more of the same ant monsters, looking at her with their beady eyes as they crawled back to their holes, not a speck of shame inside those glistening eyes. Kary, despite her extensive, albeit brief training in the arts of the sword, could in no way predict the ingenuity of these seemingly simple individuals, who seemed to have acquired the ability to steal the hard-earned sun shrooms from unaware adventures through the usage of the simplest of baits, a sacrifice for the better of the population. It was a level of intelligence that made the girl look at the deceased corpse in her hands in another light, her judgment of these little monsters perhaps too harsh.
As she watched, mouth agape, the Pinchers disappearing one by one inside the earth, leaving behind only a small mound of dirt with some mushrooms on top, she felt a weird sensation rising deep inside her stomach. On one hand, she had to give credit where it was due, and these monsters had absolutely nailed it. On the other, however, they were stealing the shrooms she needed to complete the quest, and, although picking up more of them would be just as easy, it was still a bit annoying that she would need to redo the entire thing, this time while carrying a corpse of a big, fat ant. With a deep sigh, she once again began plucking shrooms from the earth and tucking them in between her arm and torso. Since they were quite small and very, very abundant, it wasn’t long before she was once again heading back home, this time bringing with her a small souvenir to anyone who wanted it. Looking around, she saw some other kids also plucking sun shrooms, some others fending off attacking Pinchers, and others simply laughing and talking to each other, taking the quest as if it was nothing more than a picnic right outside the gates. Well, if one was determined enough, doing such a thing would be possible, but, considering the lack of appropriate places to sit down and place a food basket, as well as the surprising amount of monster attacks in this seemingly peaceful area, it would be nothing short of stupid to try.
Thinking about it now, the girl wondered how in the world she had completely failed to notice the monsters sneaking through the mushroom fields. With her eyes darting everywhere, she began to realize that these monsters were just as common as the mushrooms themselves, though their black armor and the mycelium on their heads made it so that the ones who dared to thread through the surface were much harder to spot than the colorful mushrooms. She walked absentmindedly, sometimes taking note of some interesting adventurers here and there, but otherwise keeping her thoughts to herself, all the way until she found herself once again at the front of the guild. No one had tried to stop her, not even the guards at the gates, much to her surprise, and no one tried to do anything funny to her. If there was one bunch she was sure would kick up some trouble, it would be the knights, but, perhaps recognizing her from when she went out, perhaps because of her very characteristic attire, they made no attempts to even talk to her, simply letting her in with a nod of their helmeted head. Other than the oversized ants, there was nothing to write home about, and even that would be something utterly underwhelming to brag to Asteria.
With a small chuckle, she made her way into the guild hallway, where quite a few queues were constructed and deconstructed as people moved from one line to the other, based on how fast it appeared to be moved. It seemed like that behavior hadn’t changed, even in another world, so maybe it was just something natural to the human being, to search for the shortest, although not necessarily easiest path to achieve the goal. Looking around, she eventually found the man she had talked to in the morning, his queue suspiciously much shorter than the one of his peers, though that was nothing but a blessing to the girl, who had already spent the entire day walking and running around, as even the most energetic person in the world would eventually tire out from staying standing for too long, from the simple discomfort it caused after a while to the genuine pain it would result in the moment they were allowed to relax. Unfortunately for Kary, the time to rest had still yet to come, as she planned to do at least one more quest before the day was over, in order to minimize the time spent in meaningless tasks like this.
Soon enough, she was once again standing before the utterly bored man, who seemed to be done with everything and everyone in his life, his expression all but begging for someone to take him out of his misery. Still, despite that, he still did his job with utmost uptightness, up to an almost excessive degree, his overly serious expression serving only to scare away adventurers. About that, Kary couldn’t care less, for it meant that not only would she be able to take and return quests more quickly, but there wouldn’t be much idle chatter with the man, something the girl utterly despised on most occasions. To her, there was a big difference between talking about nothings amidst people you knew and cherished and prolonging a conversation just for the sake of pleasantries. Such things should be unique to nobles, those folks who cared only for power, money and appearance, the latter two being of utmost importance to keeping the former. After all, without a good appearance or a good standing in the societal hierarchy of nobility, it would be much harder to secure a good marriage through which they could further rise socially. Peasants and simpletons like her and probably all the other adventurers within this building should have neither the need nor the time to care too much for appearances, so it made no sense to her that they would spend their precious time doing something so meaningless like chatting with complete strangers. That, however, wasn’t up to her to judge, so she simply kept her opinion to herself, like she had done with most of her thoughts throughout her life.
As the girl approached the counter, the clerk’s utterly bored expression morphed into one of mild curiosity, his eyes wondering through the wooden counter in search for something. Watching the silent man, Kary could only guess what it was that the man was looking for, although she could make some hopeful guesses, and, sure enough, a few moments after she reached the boundary between adventurers and regular old jobs, the man grabbed something from beneath the huge book sprawled across his desk, a shiny tag made just for Kary. Despite being adamant about chatting away with strangers, at that moment she suddenly felt the need to spend the rest of the day thanking him for taking care of his tag for her, even if it was by the request of… what was his name again…? Oh, right, Jerry. How could she forget the name of the man that had so kindly set her out into the world of adventuring? Well, it was undeniable that she had immediately thrown that name into the trash bin of forgetfulness almost as soon as she had left his office, so the damage had already been dealt, meaning that the only thing she could do now was scold herself and send quiet apologies through thought to the man. With a quick thanks, she received the metal tag from the clerk, before carefully putting it away in one of her many pockets. Seeing her doing all that, the man suddenly returned to his default expression before launching on his usual tirade of questions.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Welcome to the guild. What may we do for you today?”
“I would like to report the completion of a quest.” Kary, who had been attentively listening to the adventurers that had come before her, responded with utmost confidence, absolutely certain that her answer was the correct one.
“The… sun shroom one, huh. Well I guess it is the first one rookies like you receive, but still, you completed it quite quickly. Although it rarely takes more than a day for folks to come back, it’s rare for someone to be back so quickly after leaving. Well, whatever. It isn’t my place to pry, so I won’t. May I please see the mushrooms you collected?” The clerk asked, a slightly amused expression on his face, before putting aside the heavy book he seemed to use as a way to keep track of the adventurers and the quests they had taken. Although Kary thought very hard about the logistics of such a system, she still couldn’t quite understand the way a registry system like this was supposed to work. Was it each clerk on their own, taking care of only the requests that went the way, trusting the adventurers to choose the same employee they had come to before? Or was there someone responsible for keeping track of everything written down by all the employees? Was there magic involved? If so, how? What kind of magic could be used in a situation like this? No matter how much she racked her brain, the only thing she was left with was more questions. Discreetly shaking her head, she approached the counter sideways until the arm that was holding the mushrooms practically touching it, before slowly raising the limb, allowing the cascade of mushrooms to flow into the wooden surface. For the first time since joining the guild, she saw genuine surprise flash across the clerk’s face, even if for only a second, before he returned to his neutral expression, his professionalism ever impressive.
After picking each and every single mushroom and thoroughly inspecting it, not minding at all the sweat with which they were covered, he simply nodded and put them away in a leather bag he apparently had stashed somewhere beneath the counter. Although Kary knew not what would be the destination of those mushrooms, she was relieved to find out that at the very least they weren’t particularly picky in regards to the state of the shrooms. After all, more than one sported some amount of squishing and dirt where it shouldn’t due to the Pinchers dragging them through the earth, and that was without even considering the small amounts of sweat that rolled down her entire body, a natural result of walking through almost half a city with the sun at its peak. She watched carefully as the clerk dragged his thick book once again to his front, before opening at the latter half, and then at the latter half of this half, and so on, until he eventually found the last written page, where Kary’s name sat neatly near the bottom, followed only by one single person before it was all blank. With a pen that, once again, the girl had no idea where it had come from, he noted something down beside her name, before closing the book with a loud thud, scaring Kary more than she would be willing to admit. Promptly ignoring the girl’s awkward laugh, the man continued to ask her questions, though it seemed that she would be soon free again to leave and do quests on the remaining time she had. Quickly collecting the coins he had offered her, she busied herself with politely answering the man’s question, so that she would be finally able to leave this stuffy, bureaucratic room.
“Is there anything else you desire from this place? Please ask quickly, the queue is getting longer.”
“Umm… when I was out… I found something other than the mushrooms. Can you please take a look at it?” She said, a little bit apprehensive about showing something that the man definitely knew already. Gently, she put the dead Pincher on the table, taking great care so as to not make the remaining blood flow through the wound. After all, even if she had allowed the blood to seep through one of the many holes created by its brethren, there must still be some more that had refused to go down at the time, right? So it was only natural that she treated it with utmost care, even if it represented no threat anymore. Not that it was particularly threatening when it was alive, but whatever little damage it could do with its surprisingly blunt mandibles had already long been neutralized, only its thick carapace and slowly decaying body remaining. Contrary to her expectations, however, the clerk at the counter let out an audible gasp, for the first time truly breaking out of his serious character. It was something so sudden and out of the blue that Kary didn’t know how to react, simply staying stock still, staring at the man while her whole body trembled under the newfound idea that she had made some sort of mistake. Before she could brood for too long under the weight of whatever it was that she had done, the clerk once more addressed her.
“Are you absolutely certain that you found this alongside the mushrooms?”
“Y-yes!”
“Hah… so it is already that time of the year, huh? These pests sure came early this time around. Thank you for bringing the guild’s attention to this. We’ll handle it from here, if that’s okay with you.” Although he tried to seem polite, he had quite the ugly expression on his face as he rubbed his temples, as if already sensing the rare overtime days coming in droves, as the number of injured rookies would dramatically increase, as not many of them had reflexes to dodge the battering ram that the Pinchers were, and the amount of F-ranks complaining about getting injured and losing their quest subjects would be sure to give at least one employee a headache on the weeks to come. Knowing all that, the man could only sigh in despair, for he knew that there was nothing he could do once these bugs decided to once more disturb the peace that reigned on this region. Seeing his annoyed face, Kary tried to speak as calmly as possible, though all that left her mouth was a stuttering, high-pitch mess.
“It’s f-fine! T-t-totally fine! I-I don’t know what the guild will do with these monsters, but please act at your own discretion!”
“Thank you, girl, truly. Is there anything more you want from the guild?” The clerk once again asked, his expression returning to normal as he picked up a silver coin from beneath the counter, where there surely was a pocket dimension, as there was no other explanation for the seemingly infinite number of things the man had already taken from there, from leather sacks to coins, to exaggeratedly big books, there seemed to be a whole world stashed in there, just waiting for the clerk to uncover it when needed. Since there were still things she wanted to ask, she refrained from staring too much at the counter, instead staring straight at the not-so-bored-anymore clerk with a slight smile breaking her own poker face, for that man, as serious and annoying as he could be, seemed to go through great lengths in order to guarantee that his clients would have all their doubts and questions dispelled, regardless of how long it took or how dragged out each section became. Perhaps that was another reason why he was so unpopular, as most adventurers probably didn’t want to spend a decent chunk of their day simply going over each and every single question they had, instead choosing to only ask about the most essential and figuring the rest out as they went.
“Umm… I would also like to ask about the next quest for F-ranks, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind, this is my job after all. If I were to get upset about every little thing that came my way, I would have already quit a long time ago. But as you can see, I’m still here, so there’s that. Anyway, about your question, the standard second quest for novice adventurers is defeating and collecting the core of five bloated Garbage Slimes, named that way because they are used to deal with the trash in a much cleaner way than it would otherwise be possible. But there is the problem that, once they reach a sufficiently big size, they stop processing garbage and instead opt to cannibalize their own species, devouring the smaller one in order to keep themselves alive and growing. Since they aren’t particularly strong, they are quite suited to be the first adversaries of F-ranks, and, in a way, it also helps us to rank them once they return. I recommend taking with you some sort of bag to carry them. You can find them in the shopping district to the west of the plaza. That’s all the info that I can tell you, so, if there isn’t anything else you’d like to ask, please let the queue flow.” Hearing his lengthy speech without a single change in intonation, Kary couldn’t help but snicker before finally moving aside, letting the poor soul behind her have their turn.
Although she had planned to ask the man where she could find sturdy bags to carry raw materials, she hadn’t expected him to see right through her and already add that information to her question about her next task. It was seamless that she had to wonder if he told that to all adventurers or just to the ones who seemed to be carrying the shrooms on their arms like her. Feeling the weight of the coins inside her pockets, she made her way out of the guild and into the busy plaza, quickly scurrying away from the crowd as she moved through towards where it had been advertised that she would be able to find her prized bag. Walking around the many shops, seeing everything from weapons to fancy accessories, the only consistent thing she saw were folks complaining about the prices, shouting contests starting every other store, with both rugged adventurers and nicely-dressed butlers trying to make sense of this apparent surge in prices, most of them engaged in fierce battles with the local vendors. It was annoying, and, quite frankly, far from what Kary had expected his trip to be like. She was eager to see the classic troupe of shopping areas, with people bartering with merchants left and right, exotic merchandise hanging from every corner, and suspicious looking fellas watching from the shadows for any opportunity to make big money. Instead, what greeted her was an overcrowded, way too loud street, where any speck of the decency showed by the adventurers inside the guild had been thrown out of the window and into the direct path of a speeding train, turning the whole thing into a chaotic mess, to the point there the girl seriously considered just doing her second quest on the same way she had done her first: carrying the spoils on her arms, even though she knew it would ultimately be very impractical to do so, especially in the long run.
With a sigh, she eventually found the store she had been looking for, and, after some back and forth, she was able to leave with a new leather bag and a few copper coins lighter. As she began to ask people about where she could find those so-called Garbage Slimes, her mind went to the seemingly absurd prices they were asking for a simple, small bag, marketed as being more expensive than even some jewelry, though that might have been simply because those pieces she had seen weren’t actually genuine jewels. But still, even fake, beautiful gems should have a higher price than small leather bags, right? It made no sense, and yet, the merchant himself seemed to be aware of this absurdity, as he was quite generous with the bartering, accepting all but the most absurd discounts, making her wonder what in the world was going on. Whatever it was, though, it was not something for her to worry about, for she had other things to take care of, namely bloated slimes not too far away from here. Thanks to some kind old folks, she was able to navigate through the labyrinthic streets of this city, passing through fewer and fewer people, until she eventually found what she had been looking for: an almost rural building standing in the middle of the city. Well, not at the exact center, more like to the side and up a little, but still, it didn’t erase the weirdness of having something one would expect to see in a farm far away from the busy city life cramped in the middle of two narrow houses.
It was some sort of pen, tended by a tall, lanky man, who seemed to only be there to direct the trash from the piles to the lazy slimes scattered throughout the dirt square. It was a sad sight to witness, but at the very least it allowed Kary to immediately spot the bloated slimes, their sizes much bigger than their brethren. In quick succession, she approached the fence, talked with the guy inside, got his permission to cull the problematic slime, and got inside the simplistic space. Although most of the slimes seemed to be unable to care less about her presence there, the big, round, sickly green slimes seemed to be more than pleased to have a new snack to devour. Slowly, so very slowly, they approached her, jumping but a few inches in the air in order to propel themselves forward. Compared to the Pincher she had encountered earlier, though, these guys were so slow that she even felt bad for them, though not to point where there was any hesitation in the swing of her sword. The only surprise coming from them was the fact that striking them not necessarily meant they would go down, as they only seemed to die once their core, a metallic-silver ball on the centermost point of their being, was struck. It didn’t even needed to be cut in half, just chipping away at it with a sword was enough for the ball of translucent, gelatinous liquid falling to the ground with a weird sound, thankfully not spilling anywhere other than where the slime had once existed. For the remainder of the afternoon, the girl struck down slime after smile, a task so boring and menial that she couldn’t help but go back to what little time she had spent in the shopping district, her mind flooding with plenty of possibilities for the sudden price surge, the times where she had attentively listened to her history teacher speaking paying off in the form of baseless theories.
Once she was done, she returned to the guild, all the cores neatly packed inside her bag, her reward for her (not really) hard work only a few copper coins, an amount that wouldn’t even pay for another bag. Not that she needed another one. Watching the sun going down on the horizon, she quickly walked through the emptying streets, heading back to Asteria’s manor, just in time to see the maid, Marta, heading outside with a bucket being held in both of her hands, the girl’s tiredness blinding her to the red contents of the recipient. In a daze resultant half due to the exhaustion of having to run from place to place for the entire day and half due to her still-present elation at becoming an adventurer, the rest of the night passed in a blur. Although she remembered talking to both Asteria and Gunther and having a nice dinner with the knight, the details seemed to be nonexistent, almost dreamlike in nature, despite such events having transpired not even a few hours ago. As she laid down on her bed, letting exhaustion wash over her, she thought back to everything she had done today, and everything she would be doing on the days that followed, and a small smile naturally formed on her normally stiff face. For the first time in a while, she took a peek at her status screen, any sense of progress enough to justify a little look. Although not much had changed, it was still enough for her to drift off to the land of dreams with a wide grin on her face, an expression many of those acquainted to her in her previous life would find wholly unnatural. The girl herself, though, couldn’t care less about those people she had left behind, instead appreciating the present as it was, hoping that this current peace would remain for the years to come, even if she knew that wouldn’t be the case.