18 Preparations
Walking in a street early in the morning was a young man with dark skin, disheveled dark hair and clothes that had seen better days. On his shoulders was a backpack with survival tools and a few camping necessities like a rolled-up tent, a hatchet and a pan.
This young man was Adam.
He had woken up early, had breakfast and purchased some equipment to ready himself for what would come after he left the border.
The shop clergy had been very friendly and had told him he would need a type of identification to cross the border after seeing what he had purchased, and the most convenient identification for those who could manage their own in a fight and were not afraid of the risks was a card from the Adventurers' Guild, according to the clergy.
Adam had asked around for the location of the Adventurers' guild and was nearing the location given to him by those he had asked. After a few more minutes of walking in between houses, he arrived at a large building with double doors that were wide open.
He looked above and saw a sign that looked like a shield with crossing swords, and the name of the guild written on it.
He smiled at finally finding it and walked in.
Once inside, he found a huge communal space with many tables and chairs where many people were relaxing and enjoying food and drinks. If he hadn't seen the sign outside, he might have mistaken the place for a restaurant.
At one side of the big space was a wall full of papers attached to it, many of those papers had a monster or plant or even people drawn on them. His eye sight that had become a lot stronger these days allowed him to see numbers under each drawing. Those would most likely be the monetary reward for defeating the monsters or something like that.
At the very back of the space was a counter that had a few people attending them. Every one of the people behind the counter were women. Adam looked at the people around again and noticed that most of them were men.
As he started walking towards the counter, Adam thought that the completely female staff was a smart move from whoever managed this place.
Of all the women working at the counter, only one was free at the moment. Adam walked towards her and very quickly arrived.
"Hello", said Adam.
The woman quickly put on a professional smile in response to his greeting. She had long curly blond hair and blue eyes, which was how most people looked everywhere Adam had been as of yet. She wore the same clothes as the other female staff workers, which resembled a uniform of sorts. It consisted of a gray vest that was buttoned all the way to the neck and black pants with leather boots that went up as far as the thighs.
"Welcome! How can I help you?", asked the woman.
"I would like to register to the guild.", said Adam.
The woman paused for a short moment before her professional smile changed to a very genuine looking one. She grabbed a sheet of paper and handed it to Adam.
"But of course! Here, fill this document with your personal information. Everything except your name, job and age is optional, but you'll get some bonuses if you fill everything. You will also have to pay a fee of one silver to register.", said she.
"What kind of bonuses?", asked Adam.
"A discount of 10% on the food we serve here and the same discount on the price of the guild Inn.", answered the woman.
Adam thought that it was kind of interesting, but he decided against it out of caution. He took the document, grabbed one of quills that were on the counter and only filled the required information.
He hesitated a moment at the job, then wrote [Hunter] in it.
Adam looked at the final result again before handing the document as well as the one silver to the guild staff member.
She looked at it for a moment and then looked at Adam.
"Adam, aged 18 and the job is hunter. Do you confirm this as your information?", asked the woman.
"Yes.", he answered.
"Very good. Please wait a moment until your card is ready. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. I personally recommend to have a look at the mission board over there or enjoy the food and drinks we provide here in the meanwhile. It is up to you.", said the woman as she stepped out of her position at the counter and started walking towards a door in the back.
Adam walked towards the wall with the missions on it and started reading them to kill time.
The drawings that he thought were of monsters were actually of basic animals like bears and boars that were disturbing either the surrounding villagers or the roads that are usually taken by merchants.
The most dangerous foes appeared to be people, as there were some missions that asked to capture or kill some bandits. Adam guessed they were the most dangerous as they paid the most.
There were also some missions that had the drawing of a plant on them. They required those who took them to go gather said plant from the forest. The more rewarding plant gathering missions didn't include where one would find said plants, while the less rewarding ones had a map attached to the mission notice with the exact location of the plants marked.
This made Adam understand that the higher the risk or difficulty, the more expensive the mission would be and the higher the reward would be as well. It made sense.
Soon enough, the woman came back and started waving to Adam who walked towards the counter again.
"Thank you for joining us, and welcome! This is your Adventurer's guild card. Please make sure not to lose it, as it would cost you double to re-make it every time you lose it.", said the woman with a smiling face.
"Thank you.", said Adam as he took the card and had a look at it. It was made out of metal or some kind of wood? He couldn't guess. But it was a size that could fit in one's palm and felt very sturdy. There was the basic information he had provided earlier written on it as well as his rank, which was currently at [F]. There was also the name of this town written on the card as place of origin.
"Every new member starts at the rank F just like yourself, and when you have completed a sufficient number of missions, then you'll get promoted to a higher rank.", added the female staff member.
She then stopped smiling and added.
"Make sure you don't lose your card, as the cards we issue here are very special. Rosenwuld identification cards are something quite precious in the outside world. I'm sure you will understand what I mean once you cross the border.", said the woman with a smile full of meanings as she gave a look over Adam's shoulder and at his bag.
Adam nodded at her and then put a piece of paper on the counter top.
"I'd like to take up this mission.", said Adam as he remembered the other adventurers who had picked a mission from the wall and taken it to the counter earlier.
"Ooh, aren't you a quick one?! Already picked your first mission haha.", said the woman as she picked the mission paper.
"This is an E difficulty mission. On normal circumstances, you wouldn't be allowed to take a mission that's one rank higher than yours. But since it's a package delivery mission, then you can take it. Delivery missions work a bit differently than other missions as the difficulty is set according to the distance and how dangerous the location of the delivery is. This one is just outside of the border, so it shouldn't be too hard.", said the woman who started writing something on a big book.
"Once you complete the mission, take this receipt to the nearest Adventurers' guild building. There should be one in every town once you're outside of this kingdom. The reward will be as stated on the mission notice, 10 silvers.", said she as she stamped "taken" on the mission paper and put it back on the counter top.
She then opened a chest that was behind her and pulled a small packaged object and put it on top of the mission notice. It was small enough to fit in a pocket, which highly pleased Adam who was happy that he didn't have to carry something big or heavy around with him.
"Please make sure to deliver it as per instructed, unharmed.", she added as a final reminder.
Adam took the paper and the package, thanked the woman and left.
Once he was outside, he looked up and saw that the sun was very high in the sky, which meant that it should be noon right now.
After consideration, Adam decided to depart tomorrow. His stay at the inn would end after tonight and he had nothing holding him back anymore, so he would set forth tomorrow morning.
Adam thought about what more he would need, and it dawned on him that he had no real weapon on his self.
With a new goal set in mind, Adam started walking around in search of a weapon shop but to no avail.
He went back to the Adventurers' Guild and was given directions by one of the female staff members.
Half an hour later, Adam was standing next to a big shop that had a gigantic sword attached atop the door. On the sword were engraved the words "Rose Thorns Weapons shop".
Adam went inside and was welcomed by an overwhelming sight. There were weapons everywhere! Some were displayed on racks, some were attached to the walls, some were just stacked on top of one another in open crates and some were just stashed into lidless barrels.
"How messy...", said Adam who couldn't help thinking aloud.
The sound of a snort reached Adam's ears who now noticed an old bald man sitting behind the small counter at one side of the entrance.
The old man seemed displeased by the commentary but didn't say anything.
Adam felt that he had made a mistake but it was too late now. He started browsing the weapons and searching for something that would catch his attention.
At one moment, he stopped and started thinking. What type of weapon would suit him best?
He hadn't learned to use any weapon as of yet. He basically had no skills that would help him chose and he didn't know enough about weapons to make a decision.
This led him to simply choose whatever weapon he liked. He grabbed a sword and swung it around then put it down where he had found it.
'Too basic', he thought.
Adam then grabbed an axe and did the same thing as earlier.
'The weight is too unbalanced with axes'
This repeated until he arrived at a barrel that had a bunch of spears in it.
Adam was about to skip this barrel, as he didn't see himself using a spear, when he noticed something in between those spears and somewhere around the back of that barrel.
He moved the spears aside and grabbed it.
It was something like a long stick with a sharp pointy end on one side and a blunt end on the other side.
It was sleek and felt very tough, yet flexible. It was a bit taller than him and the girth felt very comfortable in his grip. Adam couldn't guess what it was made of, as it was too light to be made of metal and it didn't look like metal in the first place. It also wasn't made of wood either, as it didn't feel like wood at all.
The main reason why he had noticed it was that it was completely black and the color was so dark and deep that if it was put in a dark corner, it would be unnoticeable.
Having become a creature of the dark, this weapon that did not shine when hit by light attracted Adam.
The sharp end felt like the tip of a spear as it was kind of flat and very pointy. Adam tried to touch the edge of it and it cut his finger. It was very sharp!
As Adam was admiring this weapon, he heard a gruff voice behind him.
"That's made from the back spike of a shadowy spiked panther."
Adam turned around and saw that it was the old man from earlier.
"They have long spikes that grow everywhere on their back. They creep in the shadows and shoot you with one of those when you expect it the least...nasty creatures.", he added.
"How much does it cost?", asked Adam.
"For you? Thirty silvers.", said the old man.
"What if you lowered the price a bit?", said Adam as he activated his spell [Lesser Charm].
"Sure thing! It will be forty silvers, just because it's you.", said the old man with a big smile.
Adam was confused for a moment when the old man added.
"Don't try that again or I'll have you jailed. I do have some connections.", said the old man who was not smiling anymore.
Adam started to sweat at the realization that his spell hadn't worked, but also at the fact that the old man had noticed what he had tried.
"Forty silvers? That's a nice price, I'll take it!", said Adam with a very awkward smile.
Soon enough, Adam had paid and left the shop spear in hand. He had quickly walked out of the shop as he felt a strong pressure coming from the old man.
He had poked a tiger thinking that it was a cat. This made him realize that he needed some way of gauging the strength of other people or creatures or he would end up offending someone he shouldn't have in the future.
He had paid a hefty price for the spear, but he didn't regret it. It felt very sturdy and most importantly, it suited his stealthy fighting style while also being useful as a weapon he could use to fight during the day and in the open.
It also was something that came from a living creature and not something made out of wood or metal. Which surprised him and made him realize that there were very dangerous creatures out there.
He had never seen something like that in the forest, though. Maybe he would meet beasts like that someday.
Adam wanted to have a look at the border exit today before he would try to cross it tomorrow.
After asking around, he had been given a direction and after thirty minutes or so, he had arrived.
Along the way, he had been using the spear as a walking stick and got used to carrying it around very quickly.
The sight in front of him, however, completely broke his common sense and utterly shocked him.
He had seen the border wall from afar, but hadn't realized that what he had been seeing was actually just the bottom of the wall!
What he saw in front of him was a wall so tall that it went above everything and into the clouds.
He felt like it was as tall as a mountain or so and he couldn't see the top at all.
He willed Belekir to fly to the top and swapped his vision to his pet's point of view.
A few minutes later, Adam was shocked a second time. The wall was so tall that even his bird couldn't see the top once it flew over the clouds and it had gotten so cold up there that it couldn't fly any higher.
'This is impossible! Who built this wall and how could they do it?!!!', thought Adam as confusion and shock filled his mind.
While he was lost in thought, Belekir had flown down and landed on his shoulder. Adam stretched his finger and it landed on it.
He observed it and noticed that its feathers were covered by a thin layer of frost. Why would it be that cold up there when it was completely fine down here? Weird.
"Sorry you had to go through that, buddy.", said Adam to which Belekir chirped before jumping back on his shoulder.
Having had enough emotions for today, Adam turned back and started heading towards the inn. He would deal with this wall tomorrow and walk one more step towards his quest for more power!
