Chapter 8: 1-8 The Adventurer’s Guild

The Adventurer’s Guild, or The Guild for short, was a gathering place of adventurers and their base of operations. The Guild was an international faction with a branch at almost every town and city. Adventurers were hunters, mercenaries, scavengers, explorers, and many other various profession all mixed together.

At least this was how Lyra had explain to Erin. Although Lyra stuttered on a lot of points, Erin got the gist of it. It built up a lot of expectations for Erin towards the Guild.

Which was why when they arrived at Green Scar’s Guild Branch, Erin was met with utter disappointment. The building that functioned as The Guild for this small town resembled its peers in size and design. The only way that Erin could tell discern The Guild building was the small sign at the top of the entrance that read, “The Adventurer’s Guild - Green Scar Branch.” Erin had seen eateries they passed by with much more distinctive designs.

“The Guild isn’t one for aesthetics. As long as the building stood against time and the staffs performed well, everything else was secondary,” Lyra had told Erin when she notice her unimpressed expression. The reason they were heading towards The Guild was a simple one, Lyra had a quest to turn in. It was the most obvious reason and Erin felt dumb for asking.

Once they were inside the building, it wasn’t as crowded as Erin expected it to be. In fact, they were the only adventurers there. This was because it was now late in the evening and adventurers were advise against “adventuring” at night unless circumstances said otherwise. Monsters were fiercer and stronger during the night. This was especially true for Green Scar’s forest with the appearance of Razor Grizzly and Duskmanes, as how Lyra had explained.

Erin knew about Duskmanes but they weren’t complete nocturnal in her previous life. Duskmanes were lion-like monsters with black fur and mane. Their peculiar trait was their thick tapered tail that resembled a lizard’s tail instead of a lion’s.

At the far end of the first floor, there were a row of counters but only three were station with staffs. One of the three stationed counters had a wider working space than the other and this one was located to the far right of the counter row. It had the signboard reading, “Material Procession” while the other two counters were under the sign, “Registry / Reception”.

“You can wait there,” Lyra said and pointed at a corner with a bunch of tables and chairs neatly placed. It was the waiting area. There were even an elderly lady there in a small booth, selling water and some food. The food displayed didn’t look appetizing but for adventurers who had just arrived or returned from a long trip, it was most convenient for them.

“I can’t follow you?” Erin asked.

“You can. It’s nothing interesting to watch though?”

Erin smiled assuredly. “Let me be the judge of that.”

“Alright.” Lyra shrugged. “If you say so.”

They walked to the Material Procession counter together. Since Erin still had Lyra’s cloak on, she wasn’t drawing much attention but at some point, she had to took the hood off. It was just too suspicious to be wearing a cloak indoors.

“Hey, Tom,” Lyra greeted The Guild staff casually as she put the sack she was holding on to the counter.

Erin noticed a weighing tool just beside the Guild staff on the counter desk. It looked like a weighing tool but the design was unlike any of its kind that she had ever seen.

“Good evening, Miss Lyra,” The Guild staff named Tom returned her greeting with an amicable smile. He was a man in his early forties. He had balding hair but he made it looked natural to his demeanor. He was quite a short man as even with the elevation of the counter’s side, he only stood as tall Lyra. “What do you have for us today?”

“Fifteen Serks’ Core.” She pushed the sack to him.

Erin heard another familiar name. Serks were dog-like monsters with reptilian skins. They were slightly smaller than Rot-rats. Their notable trait was their tusk that could potentially grew up to a foot long. However, Erin had never heard of a Serk’s Core.

Is it their heart? But the sack was not fill with odorous smell.

“Tom?” Lyra waved at Tom who was staring with an entranced gaze at Erin. Even without her ears and tail, he could tell Erin was a great beauty from the small glimpse he had of her face under the hood. “Tom!” Lyra slammed the counter.

“Hah? Oh, right. Sorry about that.” He bowed his head towards Lyra and Erin. “Apologies to you two.”

After snapping out of his fascination and clearing his throat, Tom took out a medium-sized deep tray from behind the counter and pour the sack’s content into it. The contents were all some kind of red crystal ores in crude spherical shapes. They smelled a little foul to Erin but nothing putrid. In fact, it smelled like monsters.

Tom began to count these “ores”.

“What are those?” asked Erin, pointing at the red stones.

Lyra gave her a look of dubiety. “You don’t even know what these are?”

Even Tom looked at Erin with disbelief but his hand did not stop moving.

Knowing that Erin would just reply her with “it’s a long story,” Lyra told her without further questioning her surprising lack of knowledge. “These are Monster Cores. When a monster dies, the Magic within them crystallizes and forms into what we dubbed it as a Monster Core. They are very useful. Probably the most sought after commodity in the world. I heard that the southern continents use Monsters Cores as their currencies.”

The more Erin heard about these things, the more excited she was becoming. This was Evaren but a different Evaren. It was igniting the withered flame within her. She had long stop adventuring the continent as the Sword Saint at the age of forty two. She wasn’t retired, however. She just stopped hopping from places to places since her age was starting to show. Now that she was young again, she wanted to explore the world again, a whole new world at that. New monsters, new ruins, and most importantly, the likelihood of novel blade forms that he never knew existed.

Maybe I should become an adventurer. No, I definitely need to become an adventurer.

Erin proclaim so to herself. She was absolutely thrilled with the prospects.

After he finished counting them, Tom moved the tray onto the weighing tool. He looked at what Erin presumed to be the meter screen of the tool. “Yeap, it’s all Serks,” he said and proceed to write something down on a small parchment.

Wait, what? That’s a discerning tool of sorts?

Noticing her baffled gaze, Lyra explained, “that thing’s use to measure the authenticity of the Cores such as which monsters they all came from and whether they were actual Monster Cores, not forgeries.”

“Damn, that’s fucking impressive,” Erin exclaimed, drawing a stunned gaze from Tom and a flinch from Lyra. “What?” Erin asked when she witnessed their reaction.

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“Nothing,” Tom responded with a forced smile and resumed writing on the parchment.

Lyra leaned in close to her ear. “You might want to mind your tone. What you said was very shocking to hear from an enchanting lady like you.”

“Oh. You’re right. That is… odd.” Although Erin didn’t care about her tone and such, she wasn’t keen on being stared weirdly at by others.

Looks like I have another aspect to take heed of.

“Here’s your receipt,” Tom said and handed Lyra the parchment he was scribbling on. “Just give it to Sam like always.”

After taking the paper and the empty sack, Lyra head for the registry counter with Erin trailing quietly behind her.

“Good evening, Miss Lyra.” The Guild receptionist offered a similar greeting to Tom. She was a graceful woman of at least ten years older than Erin’s current self. She had brown braided hair and like Tom, she was in a similar attire. Erin guessed that the attire must be the uniform. But unlike Tom, she was wearing a cap. Erin wondered how that cap managed to stay on her head in spite of the slanted position.

“Hey, Sam.” Lyra slid the receptionist the parchment which she accepted it.

“Who’s your friend here?” asked Sam as she looked over the small paper. Her amicable smile held a lot of nuance, also unlike Tom.

“A gold that I struck,” Lyra said with a cordial chuckle. “She’s Erin. We just met today.”

Erin greeted the receptionist with a casual wave of her hand.

Sam raised her head up and frowned. “In the forest?” She eyed at Erin. She had similar questions to Lyra. Erin was way too underprepared to be venturing into the forest.

“It’s a long story but I can vouch for her capabilities.”

“I’ll take your word for that.” Sam continued her scribbling for a few seconds before looking up again. “Your tag, please.”

Lyra took out a small rectangular brass tag with curved edges from one of her many back pockets. The tag had The Guild’s symbol on it.

“This is an Adventurer’s Tag. It’s kinda like your identity papers.” Lyra answered Erin’s wordless question without even glancing at her. At this point, she was just treating Erin with the notion of her knowing nothing.

Sam received the tag and inserted it to a slot on the desk. After giving the desk a gentle double tap, the surface of the desk lit up. And when she put a paper on it, the lights flowed into the paper, forming into words, columns, and numbers.

Fucking hell. That is just amazing.

Erin took heed to not spill out her excitement this time. Magic was a common sight in her previous life but this sort of application of Magic was a complete novelty. She held herself back from asking the many question she had about the inner workings of such Magic.

Sam made some changes to the numbers and added a few words before giving a double tap to the desk once again. The contents on the paper turned back into lights on the table before flowing all back into the tag. She opened the desk drawer out like a till. It was fill with coins of copper, silver, and gold. She took five silver and ten copper from it. Before she closed back up the till, Erin notice there were two kinds of copper coin. One was the size of the copper coins she had on her and another was of a smaller size.

Yeah… I should learn about their currencies first before anything else.

“Here you go, Miss Lyra.” Sam handed back the tag and the five silver and ten larger copper coins. “Thank you for your service.”

“You’re welcome too, Sam.”

As Lyra turned to leave, the receptionist called out to her. “Oh my, no fervent invitation to dinner this time?”

Erin understood it was just some light jest as Lyra responded with a chuckle. “I can’t afford meals for more than two person.”

“I see.” Sam wasn’t disappointed. She was even smiling warmly at Lyra. “Well, don’t go drinking too much now, you hear me?”

Waving Sam’s worries off, Lyra was about to turn to leave but she was once again stopped.

This time, it was Erin. “Wait.”

“What?” Lyra asked.

“I want to register as an adventurer,” she told Lyra, firmly.

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