Chapter 22: Cozy

Morning came, we had our breakfast and headed straight to the guild. Strolling around leisurely along the way. We arrived at the guild, and found many adventurers checking out requests. I guess it's an early bird thing. We met with the same female clerk from yesterday.

"Congratulations on finally becoming Official Adventurers. Here are your tags," she handed it to us. A gleaming silvery one for Lia and a dull, iron one for me. We both accepted it and thanked her. In return, we took out the metal cards she borrowed us before and passed it back to her.

"I'm Jenny, by the way. Welcome aboard to the Adventurer's Guild of Barissan City. The requests are on the boards there. If there's any request you'd like to accept, just head to the counter and let us know. We'll give you the complete details as soon as we verified your qualifications. As for requests that requires a minimum amount of adventurers, you'll have to form a party beforehand and accept the request with all members present."

"Nice to meet you, Jenny. Thanks for the explanation. We'll take a look at the boards again."

"Sure. Oh, and another tip, wearing your tags out in the open signals that you're looking for a party. Similarly, you can find anyone who has them out and form a party if you're aiming to take on requests that requires a certain amount of members.

"Thanks, Jenny."

"No problem."

We kept our tags and went ahead to check out the request boards once again. Some of the requests from yesterday were taken off, replaced by new ones. Unfortunately for me, all of the new requests that came requires me to be at least a Copper-rank Adventurer to accept it. And the ones that has no rank requirements are either low-pay or vague, like that missing person request I saw yesterday. I scanned the boards one more time, looking for requests an Iron-rank Adventurer like me could accept. I noticed the missing person request from yesterday had been removed. Eventually, I found the request I wanted to take and turned to Lia, "Hey, I think I'm going to go with this request. Is it okay with you?"

"Anything is fine as long as I'm with you," she replied with a smile. My heart skipped a beat. Only Lia can spout out such misleading words without batting an eye. It never gets old no matter how many times it happens. I closed my eyes and nodded in appreciation. I should stop by at the market to buy some salt and spices for later, since we're gonna have a lot of meat on our plates soon. A group of 4 Silver-rank Adventurers approached us, well, Lia specifically.

"Excuse me, Miss. But I noticed you received a Silver tag from Jenny. Are you by chance a Healer?" one of them asked. He was a handsome man with silvery blonde hair. His eyes were light brown and he wore a studded leather armor, in contrast of my plain unarmored clothes.

Lia clenched the hem of her robe nervously and let out a tiny voice, "Yes."

"That's great! I noticed that you don't have your tags out, but maybe that's just because you're new. Would you like to join us on an extermination request? We could use a Healer of your calibre."

"Thank you for your kind offer, but I'm already in a party with someone else. " Lia refused politely.

He studied me for a while an sized me up, then turned back to Lia, "What? This guy? He's just a lowly Iron-rank Adventurer. He'll just drag you down together with him. Why don't you ditch him and come with us instead? We'll even give an extra 10% from each of our rewards, how's that?

Lia's expression hardened and she scowled at them, "As I've said. I'm already in a party and have no intention of going with you."

The man was taken aback for a moment, then glared at me disapprovingly. In response, I decided to return the favor with a obnoxiously smug smile of my own.

"Seriously? It's such a waste for Silver-rank Healer like you to team up with him. Fine then. If you ever change your mind, we'll be sitting right there until lunch. Then we're off, with or without you," he said. They marched away from us and returned to their seats.

Lia sighed a long breath. Rejecting them sternly must've taken a lot of courage from her. Although I must admit that there's a certain ring of truth to what he just said. I'm nothing but a chain that restricts her from fulfilling her potential. A burden, as I am right now. Being a prodigy Healer and an expert Potioneer, there's no doubt that a far brighter future awaits her in the future. If only she decided to follow Darius or Telara instead of me.

What is it that she sees in me? Is it because I had Ellariel with me? Perhaps she just can't leave me alone because she's attracted to hopeless men? But whatever her reasons are, I will not tell her to find a better partner, and I will not apologize for it. She had chosen me. And I will not let her regret it.

"Come on, let's go tell Jenny about the request we wanna take," I said.

She nodded and we strolled to the counter.

"I saw Danny approached you earlier, what did he want with you?" Jenny asked curiously.

"Such a rude man, he actually went out and insulted Mike," Lia replied unhappily.

Jenny shook her head and sigh, "Don't let him get to you. That's just the way he is. He's actually quite a nice guy, in spite of his attitude and the way he talks. The other thing is that he doesn't like adventurers who's only in it for the money. He believes the Adventurer's Guild exists in order to give the privilege of safety to commoners without having to hire expensive mercenaries to get the job done," she said dreamily, as if enchanted.

I eyed Jenny suspiciously, "Is that so? And how did you know so much about him? I thought you said that you just started working here recently, am I wrong?"

She blushed furiously and looked away.

I grinned mischievously, "Ah, I see. How sweet."

"Oh, shut up!" she pouted her lips.

Lia looked at both at us in confusion, not understanding the topic at all.

Jenny cleared her throat, "Ehem, regarding the request you guys wanted to take. Have you decided?" she said in a businesslike manner, escaping the topic.

I waved my hands flamboyantly, "The piggies at Canta Town, if you may."

She snorted, "I'll just check and see whether it's still available or not," she flipped through some papers. "You're in luck, there's only another adventurer aside from you who accepted this request. She only just left yesterday, so there's most likely still plenty of them to hunt. The location will be sited at Canta Town, nearby the border of the forest. The reward is 5 Coppers/head. After you hunted them, be sure to collect a pair of the tusks as evidence and hand them to a guy named Rando over there. He'll later pass you an envelope for to collect the rewards from here. Since it's still morning right now, if you can rush to the city gates within the hour, it's possible for you to catch a ride that's heading to there right there today."

"In that case, we'd better get going. Let's go back to the inn to retrieve our luggage and check out," I said. "Thanks, Jenny."

"No problem."

We rushed and managed to hitch a ride on a trading caravan that's on its way to Canta Town, but not before stocking some dried food and bread for the trip. We showed our tags to the merchants as credentials and handed them a Silver each. Seems like the Adventurer's Guild has quite the trustworthy reputation in this world. I guess that's no wonder. I onced skimmed through the laws regarding adventurers and found it significantly harsher compared to civilians. The punishment ranges from a measly demotion in ranks, up to a death sentence if the crime was severe enough. I shuddered at the thought of even considering killing Gallagher back in the exam.

We arrived three days later and easily found lodging within the town. The inn's aren't exactly as cozy as Waldo's, but it'll have to do since it only costs 1 Silver a night, including breakfast. Lia continued her lessons and we studied a little before heading to bed early.