Chapter 19: Chapter 16 – The Guild

After Avilia arrived, Karine wasted no time. Just as I finished taking off the gloves and putting my equipment back on, she took us back to the study room, giving me some books to read, a notebook and a pen. Once she had given me all my homework material, she made it very obvious it was time for us to leave, almost pushing us out of the door.

Not in a rude way, mind you, but still. It's not like I don’t understand where she’s coming from. She does have a shop to run, after all! It might not be the most popular shop in the village, but she can’t keep teaching me all day. A lot of work goes into maintaining a shop, even if it’s not incredibly popular.

That brings us to now.

The door closes behind me, and Avilia and I are again outside the magic shop. With my lessons for the day done, apparently she had something she wanted to show me.

Just like before, she takes my hand and we start to slowly walk towards our destination. There’s no need to hurry, everything we needed to do for the day is already done, as far as I know.

“I am sorry I could not come before you were done,” Avilia says with an apologetic tone, “My errands took a little bit longer than I expected.”

“No worries! It was probably better to not have distractions on the first day, anyway. I learned a lot!“

She blushes a little. “Um, so what did you learn?”

“We started with reading and writing. I’m pretty confident in them already, even if it’s just the basic alphabet at this point.”

“Is that so? I think normally that would take at least a bit longer.”

“I guess. My augments helped me a lot. I didn’t expect the alphabet to be just a weird looking version of the Latin alphabet, though. Really surprised me.”

“Of what?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The alphabet we use where I came from. Karine suggested that it’s probably because of outworlder influence.”

“That would make the most sense, yes. It is a bit odd, however.”

“In what way?”

“Most outworlders can read and write the language due to their blessings, right? What would compel them to alter the actual written language?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s true! Well, if I had to guess, some sense of superiority, probably?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a long tradition of… ‘educating the savages’ and all that. I mean, that’s just my guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

“Ah. Right.” Avilia sighs. “It is not a concept unknown to the people of this world, either.”

The atmosphere is getting a bit too heavy. There’s plenty of injustice in the world that we can’t do anything about. Let’s change the subject.

“Oh, we also started with magic!”

“You did? I thought you would have to wait with that due to your condition?”

I nod. “Turns out I didn’t have to wait at all”, I say with a smile, “It’s all thanks to those gloves they gave me.”

“Oh, so that was why you were wearing those silly looking things?”

Ouch. Sure, they weren’t exactly fashionable. But I’m not going to say no to something that’ll help me just because of that!

“Yes. Karine says it’s only until she feels more confident about doing what she suggested yesterday. But they do work, and that’s the important part.”

“Did you learn anything?”

I nod. “I think so. She made me create a fire ball, maintain it for a bit and then make it disappear. It was kind of intense, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Avilia smiles. “It is good that you have gotten your first experience with magic. I am not sure you could have gotten this far if I tried to teach you in her stead. And that is not only because of the gloves.”

“So, what did you do all day?”

“Oh, nothing important. I went to the guild house to register with them and to see if they had any errands to run.”

“The guild house?”

“It is a place maintained by various local guilds. You could think of it as its own adventuring guild, I guess? I think that was the name given to it by its original outworlder creator, after all. I think they had loftier goals for it than what it usually is used for.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It is simple really. The guilds’ spaces are not used by what you would call pure adventurers so much as the various guilds to network and communicate their needs to each other. Considering the risks posed by adventuring as described by the creator of the guild to the health of a person, you would be hard pressed to find many actual adventurers, well, anywhere.”

“Makes sense. The thought of an adventuring guild sounded a bit strange anyway. Wouldn’t most of their jobs be done by soldiers, guards and the like?”

“Truly. The guild never seems to have functioned like a normal guild. With no apprenticeships, each prospective adventurer has always had to figure everything out for themselves. As a result, depending on the location, it is more like a makeshift mercenary guild, a courier guild, or just a guild hub.”

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“Wouldn’t mercenaries normally work in mercenary companies or something?”

“Companies? I guess they would. But thanks to the existence of things like the adventuring guild, they can supplement their incomes with more individual work, for sure.”

“Alright, that makes sense. Where are we going, by the way? We’re not going towards the inn.”

“I figured before we go back, I’d quickly show you the guild house.”

Figures! I can’t say I’m very interested, but she looks excited. I’m not going to rain on her parade.

“Okay. How far are we?”

“Oh, we are there,” she says while gesturing towards the next building only a few meters away from us. I feel a bit silly, but it’s not like I would’ve been able to tell. The buildings in this village are all rather unassuming, if you don’t count the church.

She goes in first as per usual, and I follow.

“Welcome to the guild house,” she says, almost whispering to my ear.

The interior isn’t much to write home about. Most of it seems to be just one large hall room with a large counter at the back, some tables and a few smaller stalls representing the various guilds within the village to the sides. The most prominent one looks to be a farmers’ guild based on its sign. Then, a combined crafters’ guild stall. A merchants’ guild stall. And… A mages’ guild stall? I’m guessing they have a presence here due to Karine’s family. Looks really out of place, truth to be told.

I bet the reason why this guild still exists in the first place is thanks to Karine’s family. Holding out hope for adventurers of some sort to show up after all these years, I assume? I wonder what’ll happen to it now that I stumbled on their documents.

Either way, from what I can see, there are six people in here, us excluded. A clerk behind the counter looking rather bored, four people manning the stalls, and a guard. Not a single adventurer in sight. Not very surprising, given what I already knew and, well, what Avilia just told me.

“It was like this earlier when I came here, too. Not very lively. But they were nice enough to come up with some chores for me.”

Having said that, Avilia guides me towards what looks like some sort of a bulletin board. ‘Jobs,’ isn’t that right? It looks old, but also nearly unused.

“This is where they post the jobs they have for the adventuring guild. There was only one before I registered, so I can only assume that I am the only person working for the village’s branch.”

A question has come to mind.

“Why’d you decide to do something like this? It’s not like we need the money.”

“It is not for the money, silly.” She giggles. “It is to get to know the people and the village. If we are to stay here, I thought it would be good to have some connections.”

“Doesn’t that mean someone else might lose their job if you do it for them?”

“What? No, of course not. Members of the guilds usually have to do these jobs unrelated to their professions, so they are just happy that someone else will do it for them.”

I nod and take a closer look at the bulletin board. The few notes on it seem to be mostly for continuous jobs, like deliveries, gathering herbs and the like. You know, they look new. Really new. I guess they added them just for Avilia?

Another question rises.

“Couldn’t these gathering jobs turn out to be dangerous?”

“Not really. The locations are well mapped and patrolled. It is not like they would send their own guild members to their deaths.”

“But can you be sure they wouldn’t try to make you go in dangerous places?”

“I guess not? But I would not accept a job I knew to be dangerous. As you said, we do not need the money. I make a point to ask the clerk if the locations are safe. As likely the only active person doing jobs for the guild right now, they would not want to lose me, I would hope.”

“Good point. I’m sorry, I just worry.”

She smiles. “It is appreciated.”

“As for the rest, you can read now, right? You know what the stalls are for, right?”

I nod.

She nods back at me and guides me back towards the entrance. Already? For some reason I expected more. Thorough explanations of the guilds, maybe? A chat with the clerk? Having me join the guild? But no. None of that happened. She seems to have decided to end this quickly.

… She probably realized I’m not really feeling very interested in all this. I’m sorry, Avilia! I guess I ended up raining on your parade after all.

“Was that all?”

“Oh, yes. I merely wanted to show you what I do with my time while you study! I come here to do odd jobs for the guilds. I already have their members’ booklet and everything for you to read later.”

And with that, we leave the guild.

I guess not everything an outworlder comes up with is bound to succeed.