Chapter 9: Starting Point

Robert and the cat girl stood in front of the job board talking as other adventures watched in shock. Some of them were jealous others were curious, and some were fuming, the cat girl in question had never been nice to any of them, and she was flat chested she should be loving on them, it wasn't until the two of them walked back over to the reception counter that the other adventurers began to quiet down and slowly returned to their meals and conversations. Robert knew that this newfound popularity would only stay if he actually managed to achieve something in this world, what that was exactly he didn't know. 

Once back at the reception counter the snow furred cat girl began grabbing some papers from around the desk, some were under some were in random drawers. It took a while before she returned with all of them stacked neatly into a pile. The cat girl sat down quietly and sat the now hefty stack of papers in front of Robert, who instantly picked them up expecting to read through them, but instantly remembered why he had to ask the cat girl for help at all. He sat them back down and looked at the cat girl who was now silently giggling to herself, clearly proud that she was correct.

"So, what is all of this?" Asher asked, pointing down at the massive stack of papers in front of him, it took a bit for the girl to get control of herself before she grabbed the stack from him and began reading through everything. For the most part it was a liability waiver that made it to where if she or any other guild member under direct employment of the guild somehow accidentally caused his death, outside of murder, then they wouldn't be at fault and no family members would be able to take action against them, all in all Robert saw it as them saving their own asses in case of a fuck up.

"All I need you to do is sign on a few lines, allowing me to go with you," the cat girl said. She quickly handed the stack of papers back to Robert while pointing at a few spots, she seemed nice enough and while Robert wasn't sure that he could believe her he wasn't sure what other choice he had, it didn't really make any sense for her to lie to him and even if she was lying there was nothing, he had that she could possibly want. With that Robert gave in and signed the document, hoping that she was telling the truth. 

"Perfect with all that done we are all set to head out on the dungeon reconnaissance quest," the cat girl said with glee, clearly tired of sitting behind a desk all day. Robert could understand why she was excited but what he didn't get was why she had waited until now to take on a quest, and why with him of all people, it didn't make sense to him. For now, he would just have to see how things unfolded and hope that it turned out alright.

"I will need about an hour to get everything I need ready, if you want to sit on the bench over there then I'll meet you in an hour," with that said the cat girl turned around and began on her way, leaving Robert in silence as she ran off. Robert was happy but conflicted, he was happy he got to spend time with a cat girl, hoping that he would get a harem just like he wished for, but worried about the fact that she said it would take her an hour to get ready. The cat girl stopped a few feet from where she started running and quickly turned around.

"By the way my name is Jasmine, it's a pleasure to be adventuring with you," and with that she was off, disappearing up a set of stairs to the right of the reception counter. Robert could just sigh and turn around, his eyes quickly finding the bench she had mentioned. The bench was nothing special. It was made from a light wood and looked like it could hold maybe three people comfortably without anyone touching each other, if everyone squeezed then it might hold four. Robert sighed once again and walked over to the bench taking a seat on the far-left side, sitting next to a small tree looking potted plant, a similar looking plant on the other side of the bench. 

Robert sat on the bench for what felt like forever, he watched as other groups came in did their business, each group consisted of four to six members. The composition of the groups was fairly even, some had two to four males with only one to two females while others consisted of only females. There was even a group of five that had only one male, every other dude in the guild had envy in their eyes, including Robert. Still, he did his best not to let anyone see his clear jealousy. While Robert waited, he saw two groups turn in quests, both of them had gone on monster clearing quests and proved their kills by turning in full sets of monster ears. 

The guild representative rewarded each of the parties with one gold coin for each pair of ears they delivered, but from what Robert could tell the only ears they turned in were green and he assumed they belonged to goblins, if he had the foresight Robert could have brought the ears from the goblin he had killed with him, but alas he didn't think of that. As for the other parties they seemed to store most of the gold they had gotten in some sort of bank service that the guild offered, only taking enough for each member to live on out of the total. 

After a while Robert gave up on actively watching for Jasmine to return, and instead laid back against the bench and stared up at the ceiling, he knew that it would be a horrible idea to fall asleep in this place, who knew if someone would try to rob him. Instead, he decided to see how many deformations he could find in the gray ceiling above him, making a game out of it. While he did this the cat girl finally finished getting ready, it had taken her well over an hour to get ready, all she had done was put on black leather armor and attached a sturdy looking single handed ax to her side. The rest of her time was spent talking to the other receptionists in the employee dorm common room. 

Robert's focus on the ceiling was eventually broken when he heard movement coming from the stairs for the first time in over an hour, he looked up with hope to see the snow-colored cat girl walking down. She wore black leather armor that covered most of her but still left little to the imagination, why there was little protection to her he didn't know, not that he was complaining. Robert could only assume that she was either a stealth based attacker or a speed based going off the axe attached to her hip. Jasmine quickly hurried over to Robert once she noticed the look of extreme boredom that was plastered on it, silently thinking that she might have spent too much time chatting upstairs.

Once Robert saw Jasmine rushing over to him he quickly got up happy to stretch his now tight legs. Jasmine was quickly upon him and with little warning grabbed his hand pulling him towards the guilds main entrance. Robert could actively feel the other men starting daggers into his head as they approached the exit. He didn't blame them as he had recently joined them in doing the same with the group of five, but he also didn't bother to hide his happies. 

The two of them exited the guild hall rather quickly and stood out there for a second before Jasmine let Robert's hand go, letting it fall to his side like a rock thrown into the sea. Before Robert could say anything though Jasmine reached into what looked like a tan pouch that was attached to the other side of her body and pulled out a folded looking piece of brown paper. Jasmine opened it up and revealed that it was a map of the area. Robert watched as she quickly plotted a point on the map of what he assumed was the dungeon, only to put the map away once she was done. 

"Ok, my bag of holding has enough food for a few days, and I think I know the perfect path to get to the dungeon, are you ready to leave?" Jasmine asked Robert, her hair blowing slightly with the light wind, the sun shining on her back like it was agreeing with her. All Robert could do was nod in agreement, Jasmine just smiled and turned around beginning to walk in what Robert thought was a random direction but could only assume was the right way.