Chapter 6 – Promise

The door opened with a creak, and I passed through it into the Adventurers Guild.
Looking from the entrance there was a bulletin board on my left, and there were a number of papers that seemed to be requests pinned to them.
On the right side were a number of round tables, and chatting adventurers who seemed to be in parties.
And in front of me was the counter, with a young receptionist staff member who was speaking with an adventurer.
At the counter, besides the person speaking to the reception, there were also about two people lined up behind them, and I decided to line up behind them too.

My turn finally came, so I walked forwards to the counter.

“Welcome to the Adventurers Guild. How can I help you today?”

“I’d like to register.”

“Understood. To register you will have to pay 1 silver coin. Will that be all right?”

I nodded and drew a silver from my robe pocket, and handed it over to the receptionist.

“Well then, please place your hand atop this card.”

After saying that, the receptionist brought out 1 unmarked card and placed it on the couner.
I did as I was told and placed the palm of my right hand above the card.
After leaving it there for about a minute, the card shone.

“Thank you, that will be enough.”

Being told that I removed my hand from the card and found that the card that should have been plain up until just now was now marked with letters.
It seems that part of my status has been written here.

Name:  Anri
Race:    Human
Sex:       Female
Age:     17
Job:       Mage
Level:   1

I-, I’m glad it was only a part.
If my title or skills were written here, it might have caused a huge fuss.

“I’ll be transcribing what’s written on the car──”

“Oi, oi, this little girl wants to become an adventurer? It’s the end of the bloody world.”

Cutting off the receptionist oneesan’s words was a voice from the side.
When I reflexively looked that way, I found that one of the adventurers talking by the tables earlier was now standing there, and walking our way.
He’s a large man at around 2 metres, and has a fierce and filthy, thickly bearded face.
Could this be… a ‘picking a fight with an OP protagonist’ event?

“Oi, oi, Gartz. You’re seriously picking a fight with another newbie?”

“Doing this everyyy singleee time. You sure don’t get bored, huh.”

Wai-, this happens all the time?
It seems that I was just being overly self-conscious. I’m so embarassed that my face is burning up with shame.

“Oi, how ’bout saying something. Don’t just stand there wordlessly forever with your face hidden.”

Saying that, the bear of a man that picked a fight with me────Gartz, pulled away my hood with his hands.

“!?”

Gartz who was looking right at my eyes stiffened up, with shock and horror frozen on his face.
Fortunately, his large build was hiding me so it seems that the other people weren’t affected by my mystic eyes.
The next moment, something flew up from below and settled into my hand.

“HII-!?”

When I had a look, I found there the ominous jet black tantou that I got used to yesterday.
It seems that the time limit for leaving it out of my hand has passed.
Seeing me who looked like I was preparing a weapon, Gartz let out a shriek and fell on his backside.
Like that, he backed away to get away from me.
While watching that, I managed to get the hood on and hid my eyes just in time.

“Oi, what’s wrong!?”

Perhaps noticing Gartz’ strange behaviour, one of his comrades who was sitting at a table behind us rushed over to Gartz and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“!? UOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH――――!!!”

“Ga-!? What the fuck are you doing!?”

Gartz had turned around when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and letting out a roar of terror, he stood up and bolted.
Some adventurers besides Gartz’ companion tried to stop the rampaging Gartz, but Gartz shook them off and jumped out the door.
I can hear shrieks and angry yells from outside but, ummm, this isn’t my fault, right?

Decided that it didn’t happen, I turned around and found that the receptionist ojousan was frozen with the card in her hand.

“Not going to copy it?”

“Heh? Ah-, please excuse me. I’ll immediately copy it over!”

She transcribed the details from my card into what seemed to be a register of names.

“And it’s finished. Umm, what did you do to Gartz-san earlier?”

“Nothing really.”

Taking the card back, I gave a curt reply.
It’s the truth that I actually didn’t do anything, and it was all an act of fate, but it seems that the receptionist isn’t really buying it.
Even if he’s carried off my cursed tantou in the chaos and is affected by the status effects, it’s not as if I’ve attacked him after all.

“Umm, do you require an explanation on the requests?”

“Yes please.”

Even if she hadn’t accepted it, perhaps sensing that it wasn’t a good idea to poke her nose into it, the oneesan changed the topic to pretend it didn’t happen.
I was grateful for that too, so I accepted.

“The things posted on the bulletin board to the left are request papers. Please rip off the requests that you’d like, and bring them to the reception along with your Adventurers Card. Once the request is complete, please present the proof and your Adventurers Card, and we will hand over the reward. There are also some requests with time limits, so please take care. Once the time limit has passed, you will have failed the request, and will need to pay a penalty fee.”

Hmm, so far it’s all normal.
Only, nothing is written on the request paper except the contents of the request, the reward, and the time limit, huh.
Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be ranks written on the Adventurer Card either, does there.

“Are acceptable requests divided by rank?”

“They are not; you can fundamentally accept any request. We do warn you if you pick a request that’s too impossible, but we will not force you to comply.”

In other words you’re responsible for yourself, huh.

“Requests are mainly divided into three types; subjugation, collecting, and guarding. Do you requite an explanation of each?”

“Those are fine.”

As you’d expect, at least that much can be understood just by the names.

“That concludes the explanation. Will you be immediately accepting a request?”

After giving a nod, I peeled from the bulletin board a request that I had my eye on, and placed it on the counter together with my Adventurers Card.

“Umm, let’s see, the medicinal plants collection request. The minimum number is five leaves, and are 30 copper altogether, but even if you collect more it isn’t a problem. This is a permanent request by the guild, so there’s no time limit.”

One leaf is 6 coppers, huh?
It’s probably in-between the buying and selling price of the stores.
Eh? Aren’t you going to accept a subjugation request, you ask?
It’s scary, so don’t wanna.

“It doesn’t matter where you collect them, but they grow in large numbers in the eastern forest, so that would be the most reliable place.”

“Got it.”

I collected my Adventurers Card and turned around.
All of the adventurers who were peeking at me averted their eyes together.
What’s with this? Bullying?
It didn’t seem that it’d be a good thing for me to say here like this, so I left the Adventurers Guild.

I bought a sandwich from a stall to eat for lunch, and headed town from the eastern gate.
I returned the temporary ID that I got when I entered town yesterday, and had them return my deposit.
After walking for an hour I reached the forest, and around the time I collected 10 leaves, the sun had set so I returned to town.

Unusually I didn’t meet any trouble, and passed the day without being attacked by monsters, but I only realised that this was something abnormal much later.

 

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