Ch 8 - The Past

"So, have any idea on how to make some manacoins?" Jax asked Ruby as they walked.

"Uh… I don't know," she replied.

The two of them had recently split up from the group, and were now discussing their plan to earn some manacoins.

Quinn had kindly split up his manacoins between all of them, so Jax and Ruby each had 1000 manacoins to get started.

"Oh, I know!" Jax exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"We can work at the adventurers guild".

"How do you know that there's an adventurers guild?"

"Well, there has to be one. It's common knowledge that there's always an adventurers guild in a fantasy world".

"...okay then".

Jax and Ruby looked around for an adventurers guild, and as a matter of fact, there was one.

Jax gave Ruby a look of victory since his guess was right, but Ruby rolled her eyes.

A noisy atmosphere filled the room as they entered. People sat at the tables and chatted. Most people inside were men, with a few women here and there.

The duo walked up to the front desk. A young receptionist stood behind the counter.

"Hello" she said. "What can I help you with?"

"Me and my friend here would like to become adventurers," Jax said.

"Alright, first sign here" she took out two pieces of paper. Jax and Ruby signed the papers and handed the papers back.

"Okay, Jax and Ruby, place your hand on this" she said, taking out what appears to be a blue crystal ball.

"What's that?" Jax asked.

"This is a bionacite orb. All adventurers guilds on each floor use it to keep in touch with other guilds and verify adventurers statuses".

"Neat. But how did you get one to every adventurers guild?"

"The founder left one on most floors, and tasked those who found it to make an adventurers guild".

"Ohhh" he found that pretty neat. If you can't travel to previous floors, just leave stuff behind.

He put his hand on the bionacite orb, causing it to glow slightly. He took it off and Ruby did the same thing.

"Great. You two are now recorded into our databases and are official adventurers".

She handed them two cards with theory names on it. It said that they're G rank adventurers.

"Since you're new around here, you can take a pamphlet and learn what you can do around here". She signalled to a stack of pamphlets on the desk. Jax grabbed one and he started to look through it with Ruby.

It explained the basics of being an adventurer. Adventurers go and complete quests taken from the quest board found in each adventurers guild. Each quest has a rank requirement and a reward. You can only accept quests as long as you have the required rank.

Ranks represent the experience of an adventurer. Once you complete enough quests, you become eligible to rank up. For the higher ranks, you also have to take a test to prove that you're strong enough for the rank.

There was some other information on the pamphlet, but that was all of the stuff that was important to Jax and Ruby. Looking at the quest board, there were a variety of different quests they could take. Most of them required them to leave the city.

Apparently, this floor has a vast wilderness outside of the city. It's used for hunting and training, but also provides a lot of herbs and materials. Various medical herbs can be found in many different parts of the wilderness, some being quite dangerous.

But G rank quests don't require you to go that far. Jax selected a simple quest; collect 10 spring cloves. It's used for spices, so there's a decent demand.

They accepted the quest and left. Although they didn't go out straight away. They needed to find a place to live first. Which proved to be harder than they thought.

After asking around, they came to an apartment building. They went in and asked for their prices, but left straight after. It cost 1500 manacoins a month and they had to pay upfront. That's almost all of their manacoins. Plus, they still need to train an art.

Sadly, after going through a few more apartments, the prices were similar. The cheapest one they could find was 1200 manacoins a month. It was of poor quality, but there was nothing better to get.

Jax and Ruby discussed their choices.

"This is bad. We may not be able to find a suitable place to sleep, much less train" Jax feared.

"...then let's just rent at the cheapest one we found".

"But then we don't have any manacoins to train".

"..."

Jax looked at Ruby. She was being very shy.

"Are you normally this shy?"

"...yes".

Jax sighed. He just now realized how difficult this was for Ruby.

Firstly, she got dropped into the dungeon suddenly, like everyone else. But strangely, she's in a different body. Also, she's apparently half dragon. How hard would that be, confused about who you even are.

Plus, he only now realized that she's super shy. He remembered that she barely talked to anyone before. Also, when they went into the adventurer's guild, she barely talked at all. She must've had severe social anxiety before coming to the dungeon.

'This is a problem' Jax thought. She needed to become more assertive, or else he's basically going to have to drag her along. What'll happen if she gets lost or we get into a fight. He's no psychologist, but he knows that her shyness is an issue.

"Do you want to talk?" he asked.

"Sure…" she quietly replied.

They went onto a side street where it was less crowded. Leaning against a wall, Jax sighed.

"I was wondering. What was your life before the dungeon?"

"I… um…" she looked away.

"You know what. I'll go first. I'll tell you my life before the dungeon" Jax took the initiative since she didn't seem like talking at the moment.

"My life was average. I had a good family, an older brother and a younger sister. We weren't rich nor poor, just average. But it was good".

"My brother was always good at basically everything. School, sports, etc. Meanwhile, I was bad at sports, and only had decent grades. My parents assumed that I would be as good as my older brother, but were disappointed when I wasn't".

"So, I turned to video games. It was something I was good at, and I made some friends along the way. My brother got a girlfriend, graduated and got into a prestigious university. Meanwhile, I only had decent grades and was considered a loser to every girl in my grade".

"I hoped that my parents would realize that I'm not bad, but instead my brother's too good, but that never happened. They always showed their disapproval in me, so I never got a chance to prove my worth".

"Then, there was an accident. Me and my family were at the beach, but my sister went too far and got pulled into the water. I was near her and tried to save her, but got pulled in as well. I kept her above water, but struggled to breath myself. The last thing I remember was getting rescued by someone, but then I suddenly appeared re".

"I've gotten over my death, and don't have many regrets in life. My biggest regret would be not living up to my parents expectations, but hopefully saving my sister changed their view of me".

He grew solemn. Death wasn't easy to talk about, especially one's own death.

But he felt relieved talking about it. You have to let go of people's death, even if it's your own.

"What about you? Can you talk about your life?" Jax asked Ruby.

She paused for a moment, then started talking. "I didn't have a good family like you. My family was poor and broken. My dad would beat my mom, and they'd both beat me. They got divorced, and I ended up living with my dad".

"It didn't help too much. Both of them still treated me like trash. I was my dad's punching bag for whenever he got drunk. Meanwhile, my mom married a rich guy and decided to disown me".

"School was a nightmare as well. I was an outcast, bullied everyday. I barely learned anything and my grades were abysmal".

"The saving grace of my life was my work. I worked everyday after school and on the weekends to make money and avoid my dad's drunken outbursts. Most of my money was taken by him, but I hide portions of it".

"Soon enough, I could finally rent an apartment room for myself. I left with my stuff and moved. I also dropped out of school and worked full time at my job. It was a cashier at a gas station, but I was satisfied".

"It was all going well. Even though I was shy, I pulled through. But, the last thing I remembered was someone in a ski mask coming in with a gun. I don't know what happened next, but it was probably a robbery gone wrong".

"Now, I'm in an unfamiliar body that's not even human, stuck in a dangerous and scary dungeon…"

She stopped talking at this point. But Jax was told enough. Her life was terrible and ended suddenly, but then continued and was still terrible. Sharing her story only made her bummed out.

"Hey, look on the bright side" he cheered her up. "It's a new place full of dangers, but also opportunities. Magic, fantasy, it's like a dream. You have a new life".

"Plus, being half dragon can't be that bad, right? You're stronger and have lots of magic".

"You're right, but still…" she was still bummed out.

"Trust me. Think of all the amazing things you can do! It's all possible. The only thing you have to change is your shyness. If you learn to become more proactive, nothing can stop you!"

Jax laughed inwardly at himself. He sounded like a personal coach. But maybe that's what she needed?

"More proactive… less shy…" she mumbled. "Okay, I'll try".

"Atta girl!"

"Never say that again".

"A bit harsh, but good start" Jax said, slightly hurt. "Anyways, let's look for an apartment".

"Psst, I heard you were looking for a place to stay?" A shady man suddenly appeared.

"HOLY SH-" Jax was taken by surprise. Ruby was startled as well.

"Relax. I'm a landlord. I heard that you two were looking for a place to stay from some of my buddies. I can hook you up with a crib for a cheap price. What do you say?"

"What?" Jax was still startled from before, but processed what the Amman said. He still didn't trust this guy, but they did need a place to stay.

"How can we trust you?" Ruby questioned.

"I'll show you my place. If you're still interested, you can rent it for 600 manacoins a month. Good deal, right?"

"Can you let us discuss first?" Jax asked.

"Sure" he walked a bit away.

"I don't trust this guy" Ruby voices her thoughts.

"I don't either, but we really need a cheap place to stay" Jax said.

"How about this'' he continued. "We follow him to the apartment. If it's an obvious scam or something becomes sketchy, we leave. Good idea?"

"I still think it's not a good idea…"

"Come on! Be more proactive" Jax encouraged her.

This seemed to change her mind. "Fine" she said reluctantly.

"Show is the apartment," Jax said to the man.

"Follow me" he said, leading them through the streets.