“Disguise, check. Proficiency-spoofing gear, check. All righty, time to go in.”
I took a deep breath and then stepped into the Helenna branch of the adventurer’s guild.
In Golden Dawn, every player had been affiliated with this behemoth of an organization. Like in the vast majority of MMOs, the adventurer’s guild had been the new player tutorial for those just beginning their foray into the game. After a player completed the tutorial, the guild still continued to be present and supportive by doing things like issuing rank certifications and intermediating quests.
Having been reincarnated into a world that was almost a carbon copy of Golden Dawn, I was all but certain that the guild here also provided the same sort of helpful services. They were a place close to the hearts of players who had found themselves transmigrated here without rhyme or reason.
At this point, though, they could burn in hell for all I cared.
It’d be one thing if they had taken me in immediately after I’d discovered that I was a transmigrator, but I’d managed to live twenty-five whole years on my own without them. There was no “helpful service” they could offer me now. That was even putting aside the fact that, even after I had found out about their existence, I hadn’t had a single decent interaction with them.
At any rate, I would’ve rather steered clear of the guild and its members. But if they decided they had business with me, I’d have to make sure to keep well enough away to allow for a clean escape.
So, with that in mind, it was time for me to take a quiet little look-see around their guild hall...
The interior of the building was arranged exactly as it had been in the game. Directly ahead of the entrance hall was the reception area, where a number of counters were open for things like negotiating job requests or the buying and selling of materials that’d dropped from monsters.
Plastered all over the walls were an assortment of job requests, all sorted by rank. To accept a job, a prospective candidate would simply take one from the wall and bring it to the counter. The requests were all color-coordinated as well. Different types of requests, like monster slaying or material gathering, were posted on different colored paper. Urgent requests were red.
A tavern where adventurers could take a load off after finishing a job was attached to the entrance hall. It was also used for meetups, so people temporarily cooperating for a job could find their party members.
Upon entering the building, I immediately banked left and headed to the wall. If the layout of the guild was precisely as I remembered from my past life, that wall should have bounties posted. They would be on plain-colored sheets of paper with a black border around the edges.
I scoured the bounties for a moment.
“I don’t see anything...” I murmured to myself.
There were none posted for a Tiuccian prince, nor for any individuals who had a description that would match Wald. I had no idea whether transmigrators were out looking for us, but at least they didn’t seem to be mobilizing NPCs to join the search yet.
I continued looking over the requests posted on the wall, making every indication that I’d just so happened to check out the section with bounties first. There were requests for armed escorts as well as jobs to gather materials. There were also recruitment notices for mercenaries. Although fighting hadn’t broken out to the east of here yet, the situation was starting to seem a little dicey.
I also didn’t see any mercenary recruitments for Khrasiel, which was situated to the south of Helenna. Either the town was simply too far away, or the war there had already ended. I needed more information.
As I pored over the requests, I noticed something curious—there wasn’t a single job posted here for A-tier or higher adventurers. The tier cap for NPCs was B-tier.
Did they simply not have any jobs for A-tier or higher transmigrators here? Or were there no high-level transmigrators associated with Helenna’s branch in the first place?
I prayed it was the latter.
I was just a crafter with zero combat skills to speak of. I’d crafted new resurrection items for myself, and I had them equipped, but I highly doubted I could win against any combat specialist.
Although...I could probably beat the pants off any of the NPCs hanging around the guild right now.
So, with awfully insulting thoughts running unfiltered through my brain, I wandered around the guild hall. But unlike the light novel tropes that were popular in my past life, no one came to pick a fight with the newbie. In fact, not a single person among the guild staff or members acted out of the ordinary at all.
Since I’d put all this effort into sneaking into the guild undercover and all, I decided I wasn’t going to leave empty-handed. I strode over to the sales counter to hunt down some bargains.
In the game, materials and other curios that’d been purchased by the guild were occasionally sold at slashed prices. Sometimes they marked down things they had in surplus, or if there was only one left of something. You didn’t need to be a member of the guild to purchase these sale items either. The bargain bin was more like a daily revolving lineup of serendipitous stock. If the guild happened to be offering something you wanted, you were just lucky.
Sure enough, the clearance section I remembered from Golden Dawn existed in this world as well.
I figured other shops in town would probably carry hides sourced from ordinary animals, so I turned my attention to materials that could only be obtained from monsters.
They had leather fashioned from Giant Frog hides. Those hides had exceptional water resistance, so I thought they might be good for making a cloak or for reinforcing the tent I planned to make.
I flagged down the clerk at the purchase counter. “Give me fifteen...no, wait. Make that twenty of these. Thanks.”
“Just a moment, please. I’ll check our stock.” The clerk at the counter took the hide sample that had been laid out and disappeared into the back.
As I waited at the sales counter for the frog hides, a voice coming from near the entrance of the building caught my attention.
“I’m back! The last of the stagecoaches has left, so I’ve brought back all the reports for today.”
A young swordswoman in leather armor approached the reception counter a little way away from where I stood. She was calling out to a female clerk whom she seemed to be acquainted with.
“It’s so exhausting to have to stand around in the plaza with nothing to do! I want someone to do shifts with me. You know, so I can actually go use the restroom,” she complained loudly.
The clerk didn’t seem convinced. “Come on, you know the carriages depart at fixed times. Couldn’t you just go when you know there won’t be one for a while? This isn’t a job that needs two people.”
“I guess. I mean, all I’m doing is counting the passengers and writing down what they look like anyway...”
My eavesdropping was suddenly cut short as the clerk I was working with reappeared at the counter in front of me.
“Thank you for waiting, sir,” the clerk said. “I’m happy to inform you that we did, in fact, have twenty pieces of giant frog hide. Your total will be—”
“Oh, wait,” I interjected. “Could you add some blue frog hides as well? I’ll take two. It can all be bundled up together.”
“Just a moment,” the clerk replied, and they vanished back into the storeroom.
I kept my eyes trained on the retreating clerk as I listened intently to the conversation unfolding at the other counter.
The swordswoman had been loud when she first stepped into the guild, but her voice had lowered to a normal volume as she approached the counter and began chatting with the clerk there. The rowdy buzz from the adjacent tavern felt all the more irritatingly loud as it filled the hall, making it difficult to catch their whole conversation. There were a number of words I couldn’t catch.
“Isn’t this... But like, I thought it was a plan for the town... New carriage routes, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. The job came straight from headquarters... It’s an ongoing job, since there’s no deadline. They’ve sent it out to all branches with public carriage routes...”
“But...wasn’t it? They’re asking for reports on all carriage passengers... Just what are they looking into?”
They’re trying to figure out where the escaped Tiuccian prince is, I answered her in my mind. I bet they’re trying to collect as much information as they can about a fifteen-year-old youth, give or take a couple of years or so.
Making use of NPC adventurers across the land was honestly a great idea. They weren’t expensive to hire, and it would help them search the entirety of the Central Nations.
Still, I was ever grateful that the security here in Helenna’s branch office was so lax—so much so that people were openly discussing the details of their jobs. Now, I knew that stagecoaches weren’t an option for us.
The adventurer’s guild headquarters—or Khrasiel, to be precise—was searching for the missing prince. Since no one knew whether he still lived or had died, this was their current strategy. If they found out he was still alive, their search efforts were bound to intensify.
I needed Wald to learn to Jump as soon as possible. If he didn’t, then I had no idea how many years it would take us to get back to Tiuccia.
All right, I decided, I’m going to have to put him through hell with boot camp.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” the clerk said, returning once more. “Twenty sheafs of giant frog leather and two additional sheafs of blue frog. Your total will be...”
I paid the clerk at the sales counter. Then, with the frog leather and some priceless intel in tow, I left the adventurer’s guild.