Isekai Requirement

Aaron stood ready at the door of the Utorian capitals adventurers guild. Boldly pushing his way into the building. To which he was met with a surprisingly lacking crowd, a few stragglers here and there just looking at what seemed to be a job board-wow really?-with a few missions on it. 

"Where even is everybody?" He wondered out loud, which got him an odd glance from a man who was writing out some form of paperwork at the front desk.

"Sir, have you been living under a rock?" They asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Uhhhh..." Aaron considered his options for a moment before responding, "yeah, you could say that. Mind filling me in?" 

The man stared inquisitively, before letting out a small sigh. "The king opened up the royal coffers to the adventurers guild. Any extra support they could provide in defense of the kingdom against the monster hordes would net them a fine reward. If you live in this kingdom, I don't see how you could've missed it."

"I'm... Visiting." He said after a moment.

"Well, whatever." The man at the desk shrugged. "What're you at the adventurers guild for?"

"Oh, I'm here to register." Aaron spoke in a rather monotone voice. Which got another raised eyebrow, but the man didn't say anything this time.

"Well then visitor, what's your name?" They asked as they reached below their desk and unrolled a fresh piece of parchment. Pulling a pen out of seemingly thin air.

Aaron strolled up to the desk casually, coming to a stop in front of it. "Names Aaron, how about you?"

"Odd name visitor, I'm Harris, just an intern doing mission registers, no need to get chummy." He shrugged again before twirling the pen in his hands, holding the feathered end out to Aaron. "Sign your name here and I'll have you registered in a moment." 

Aaron went ahead with it, didn't bother to read the fine print and just signed. "Done." He said succinctly and handed the pen back.

"Right, now I'm going to read off the responsibilities just in case you didn't read the fine print in the seven seconds it took you to finish that." Harris smiled slightly. "Most of it doesn't matter, but there's three things you should know. First off, kingdom takes twenty percent tax off of mission rewards." 

"Harsh," Aaron immediately responded.

"Quite, second, you must complete at least two requests weekly for a salary, otherwise you'll be treated as an independent commissioner and you will not be paid your wages."

Rank, that had been the thing that threw Aaron for a loop when he initially read the brochure, or well, thrown for a loop was an overstatement, more like, mildly surprised. Adventuring was less of a life style in this world and more an actual career choice. Working menial every day jobs for the good of the community was a legitimately viable way to live your life because the guild would pay you for it. Frankly, as a student who has minored in business this entire "adventurers guild" scheme is kind of genius...

There were nine ranks in total, Apprentice, F rank, G rank, E rank, D rank, C rank, B rank, A rank, and of course, finally, S rank. Each of which having the ability to take a job within one rank of itself. F ranks can take apprentices and G ranks, A ranks can take B ranks and S ranks. Given it was possible to have a salary based off simply doing missions, it was a vested interest of the adventurers guild to not pay an S rank their salary for helping a stray pet out of a tree.

Basically, the adventurers guild of this world was less based off just letting adventurers do well, whatever, pretty much. But was instead more of a mercenary thing. With perfectly non lethal jobs available for those without the drive for that. It was a thriving industry which encompassed a huge amount of job opportunities with leaders that seemed to understand the concept of customer loyalty, cause BOY did they give their workers good deals. So, like I said, kind of genius. No reason not to sign up to work for the industry titan when the industry titan upholds good standards I suppose. 

Everything except for that seemed to be just about standard for adventurers though, aside from the surprisingly competent structure everything else was par for the course. Job board, man or woman at the desk, some guys looking... adventurerey in the main lobby, rooms upstairs for boarding, the whole package really. But, getting back to that fine print.

"Lastly, you understand that the adventurers guild can legally mandate you to complete a quest once per year, yes?"

Oh, that's new.

"Well, now I do... What, are they gonna make an F rank go slay wyverns or something?"

"They very well could. If you're above C rank anyway. Only C rankers or above are required to participate in mandated combat quests. You might have to act as a support for such a quest though. Now that you've actually heard all the little niche terms that might turn people off, still care to join?" 

"Of course." Aaron said without a moments delay. "Welcome aboard then, would you like to start as an apprentice or an F rank?"

Aaron blinked twice, "what?"

"Do you want to start as an apprentice or an F rank? You'll work for an adventurer at D rank or higher as an apprentice and earn a sliver of their quest rewards while being under their care, or simply start on your own as an F rank, what will it be?" 

"I'm sorry, you can just force adventurers to take apprentices?" 

"Ah, no? Adventurers are able to opt into taking on apprentices. They get a bonus to their quest rewards and pay less tax to the kingdom while an apprentice is in their care." 

"...Oh." Hell, it's a self training buisness as well? They've really just got an oiled machine here huh? 

"How long does an apprentice position usually last?" Aaron asked the man.

"A year, give or take. It's not uncommon for it to last for less then that though."

"Ah, I'll just start at F rank then. I'd rather get right to work." 

"Right, I'll mark that down for you. Welcome to the Utorian capitals adventurer guild Aaron, you're now officially an F rank adventurer. Remember, two quests per week for your salary. The F rank payment starts at two silvers per week. Now, feel free to carry on with your day."

"Alright, thanks Harris, be right back." 

"Getting right to it, hm?" The man asked somewhat lazily as he leaned back into his chair. 

Aaron didn't deign to respond, given he was already walking towards the job board. The quests were ordered from left to right, the left side being the lower ranked quests, and the right being the high ranks. Though he was interested in specifically G ranks at the moment. F rank quests mostly consisted of menial tasks, and while Aaron wouldn't consider himself above them he didn't see himself leveling up by doing them.

G rank quests were much more agreeable, some of them were something simple like going out to the forest to gather raw materials in order to get them for cheaper by bypassing regular commerce at the cost of taking longer. Yet others were more directly combative like hunting down boar monsters or killing stereotypical goblins... Though goblins were closer to a D rank quest instead of a G rank one. Goblins were... Nasty in this world apparently, more so than other fantasy worlds...

Regardless, Aaron intended to do two or so quests after the flux was over. Just some basic monster hunting. He would do more, but his rank currently limited himself. If Aaron was to place himself... He'd say he was somewhere between D and C rank at the moment. What was the cause of such a generous judgement you may ask?

Aaron, Human.

Level 41

Strength 316

Dexterity 415

Constitution 371

Wisdom 142

Capacity 11

Intelligence 175

Charisma 201

Manipulation 8

Abilities, Planeswalker, Touched By Death, Blade Enlightened. 

Because of that, that was the reason. Aaron had to deal with his fair amount of shit after being brought to this world. All he had was a sword and leather armor. Dropped off in the middle of the forest with nowhere to go. He'd learned a lot in the ways of survival because well, he had to. Even managed to get an EGO class entirely based off of swordplay which was apparently rare from some of the things he'd read, so Aaron figured he was pretty well off now. 

He took a closer look at the "D" section of the job board. Anybody could put in a guild request as long as they had the money for it, and given the Utorian kingdom was a very populated place there were a lot, a lot, A LOT of quests to do. There were about seventy three quests in the D rank section from today alone, so it took Aaron a bit to read over them.

Eventually, he decided on two quests. Entirely combat oriented, the first of which being a job to clear residual monsters from the flux off of a farm near the kingdom, and the second being to bring in various monster parts as proof of having culled them. This one was effectively a "standing quest" which couldn't be completed. It was posted by the kingdom itself, and offered compensation based on the parts you brought in. All the while still counting as a quest that could be completed for his salary, it was great! 

Basic monsters were worth less, counting as low rank quest rewards. But if somebody brought in something wacky, like some kind of magic rich monster or a higher ranked beast it would be treated as a higher ranked quest. It's pretty cool of the kingdom to do something like this, most nations I know from my world wouldn't spend money like this in defense of their people, so good on this place I guess. 

So with that, Aaron returned to the front desk with two pieces of paper taken from the job board. "I'll be doing these two quests today."

"Hm, you're rather confident aren't you?" Harris noted as he looked at the quests and their descriptions.

"You could say that" Aaron agreed and shrugged. 

"Well, not my place to butt in, be careful newbie." He also shrugged, then he stamped the paper, marking it as a "in progress" quest. "Return here when you have proof of the completion of your quests. Off with you now." 

Harris waved him away, and Aaron complied, stepping out onto the street once more. He'd need to purchase a few bags.