The next day (if you could call it that, considering I only slept for two hours), I headed straight back into town. Despite my lack of sleep, I actually felt reasonably refreshed.
No matter what my plans were, though, I couldn’t do anything without money.
Thanks to the things I’d pawned yesterday, I wasn’t completely broke. The three gold coins, four silvers, and several dozen coppers I had on hand made me feel pretty flush with cash, but I knew they weren’t going to get me very far if I wanted to finance my search for poisonous plants.
Besides, even though eating the plants in Patia Forest had saved me from starvation, I never wanted to go back to that kind of lifestyle again if I could help it. Plus, I had a debt to pay now. I needed to save up enough money to comfortably pay for the book I’d been given.
Getting better gear was also a high priority, and realistically, I probably still needed to learn a bit more about plants before setting off on any botany expeditions.
What’s more, I’d be spending five copper coins for a night at the hotel and roughly five more for a day’s worth of food; that added up to one silver coin a day. When I thought about how that meant I’d go through one gold coin every ten days, my stomach turned.
Forget the botany expeditions; if I didn’t start earning some money soon, I wouldn’t even be able to afford my day-to-day life.
Even though I’d been given a useless farmer affinity, Otto’s autobiography had given me a glimpse of a way to potentially get more powerful—and if I wanted to pursue that possibility, then I’d have to start by becoming an adventurer and earning a few coins.
At the very least, my motivation for becoming an adventurer was completely different now. Before, I’d only had a vague notion that it was something I needed to do in order to survive, but now, I felt a lot clearer in my sense of purpose.
I pushed my way through the throngs of menacing-looking adventurers and stepped inside the Adventurers’ Guild.
It was surprisingly spacious inside, with not one but four different reception desks: the request desk, the quest desk, the trade desk, and the information desk. There were also enough guild employees to rival the number of adventurers.
It seemed to be only women working the reception desks, but most of the other staff members were men who looked every bit as muscular and aggressive as the adventurers. They also seemed like very capable fighters. Most likely, it was an intentional show of force to scare off any troublemakers and ne’er-do-wells.
There appeared to be fewer adventurers here than when I’d taken a peek from afar yesterday—maybe because it was still early in the morning. I made it to the front of the information desk without even having to stand in line. A beautiful receptionist immediately greeted me with a smile.
“Welcome to the information desk. How may I help you today?”
“Well, uh... I’d like to become an adventurer. Is this where I sign up?”
“Yes, sir. If you’d like to register as an adventurer, then you’ve come to the right desk. The registration fee is one silver. Would you like to proceed?”
“Sure. That’s fine by me.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a silver coin, which I handed to the receptionist. She gave it a quick inspection to ensure it wasn’t a fake, then smiled at me again and placed a card on top of the desk.
“This is your adventurer card. Please state your details to me, and your information will be recorded onto it with magic.”
“I’m Chris Spa— Actually, I’ll just go by Chris. I’m sixteen years old.”
“Understood. Chris, sixteen years old, yes? And your registered guild will be Realzahd. Give me just a moment and... Done! Registration complete. You can use your registration card to record completed quests, as well as skill assessments conducted at the church. You’ll also use it to verify your identity, so please take care not to lose it.”
With that gentle reminder, the receptionist handed me my adventurer’s card, and I handled it carefully as I put it into my bag, mindful of the warning.
“Now that you’ve registered as an adventurer, you may access the guild’s trade desk and accept quests from the quest desk. Do you have any further questions?”
“Can I accept any kind of quest I want?” I asked.
“No. All quest commissions brought to the guild are sorted by difficulty level. When you first join the guild, you’ll only be able to take on rookie quests. As your rank increases in accordance with the number and rate of completed quests, you’ll be permitted to take on quests with higher difficulty levels.”
“Can you tell me more about the different ranks?”
“They are, in ascending order: rookie, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, and diamond. It does go above that, with orichalcum and scarlet steel...but those ranks are given to very few adventurers, so don’t worry too much about them.”
“I see. And do you have to have certain abilities to achieve each of these ranks?”
“Skill and class affinity does heavily affect one’s guild rank, as well as the number and rate of completed quests, so I’m afraid I can’t give you any concrete numbers on that. But generally speaking, all stats need to be at about 10 for rookies, 20 for bronzes, 40 for silvers, and so on, doubling each previous rank’s stat requirements.”
That makes sense. So, for gold, each of your stats would need to be at least 80, and for diamond, they’d need to be 640?
I had no idea what my current stats were, nor how my capabilities would even be classified, but I felt like that at least gave me a rough measuring stick to go off of.
“Thanks for that explanation,” I replied. “I just had a few other questions...”
I proceeded to ask the receptionist every question I could think of about being an adventurer.
The smile she’d been wearing began to start twitching impatiently, and I could tell she was desperate for our conversation to be over, but I just continued on until I felt I had all the information I needed.
Information was every bit as valuable as money, after all.
Besides, she’d invited me to ask questions. It seemed only prudent to take her up on that. I wasn’t about to hold back, even if it meant she hated my guts by the end of our interaction.
“Whew...” she sighed. “Any other questions?”
“No, I think that’s pretty much it.”
“Well, I wish you the best on your adventuring, then.”
There wasn’t even a trace of the smile she’d greeted me with initially as the receptionist bid me farewell.
“Thanks,” I replied, giving her a quick bow.
And with that, I left the information desk and headed for the quest desk.
Based on what I’d just learned, I’d probably be able to take care of a rookie quest on my own, so I decided to forgo forming a party for now and start my adventuring career alone.
If I joined or formed a party, we’d have to split the rewards. Going at it alone seemed like the best way to maximize my earnings.
That being said, I knew I could complete more quests in the long term with a party. Plus, the best way to make some money would probably be to increase my adventurer rank and take on some high-paying, high-level quests.
Having a party kind of conflicted with my longer long-term goals, though, because once I’d saved up enough money, my plan was to leave Realzahd and go foraging for undiscovered species of poisonous plants. If I was a committed member of a party by then, it was sure to cause some problems.
Right now, I just need to stay grounded and go slow and steady with some quests so I can gauge my capabilities, I thought as I took my spot at the back of the quest desk line.
“Welcome to the quest desk. How may I help you today?” asked the receptionist when it was my turn in line.
She sounded so much like the previous receptionist, it was uncanny. Maybe they have to follow a strict script? I wondered. Guess it would make sense that the guild would want them to keep it friendly and by the book, though. That’s probably the best way to make things go as smoothly as possible with some of these rough-around-the-edges adventurers.
“I’d like to accept a quest.”
“May I please see your adventurer card?”
I took out the card that I’d carefully placed in my bag earlier and handed it to her.
“Let’s see... Mr. Chris, is it? I see that your rank is ‘rookie’ and that you’ve yet to complete any quests. Would you like to take on your first quest?”
“Yeah. Oh, but I don’t need any instructions or anything. I already got the whole story from the information desk.”
“Understood. I’ll skip the instructions, then. Before I list the available quests, do you have any particular types of quests that you’d prefer?”
“I’d like a monster-hunting quest.”
“Understood. The monster-hunting quests currently available to you include: goblin extermination in the fields to the west, goblin extermination in the woods to the south, and goblin extermination along the abandoned road to the northwest.”
“They’re all goblin extermination quests?”
“That’s correct, sir. Rookie-level monster-hunting quests only target two types of monsters: goblins and kobolds. We currently have no commissions to exterminate kobolds, so that leaves only goblins. If you would prefer not to undertake a goblin extermination quest, might I suggest a fetch quest instead? They make excellent first quests.”