Nick took a deep breath as he opened the door to the guild, he was nervous to meet the people he may be working with in the days to come. He didn't know if he would hate them or like them, or if they would hate him or like him. Regardless, these two people would be the best chance for him to accomplish his goal of taking out an important member of the Dragon's Circle. Any progress against the circle is good considering all of the bad things they have their hands in. If torture is the kind of thing they reward as long as it brings in money then he had a hard time thinking of the other things they could be doing for the sake of profit and power.
The inside of the guild was packed as usual, most of the people were there the two days before seemingly just loitering and socializing until they have to head out on their next quest. The guild seemed to be a popular place to hang out as long as you were a member, even if you didn't go on quests that often. However, if you didn't go on at least one quest in a long time without a good reason you would have your membership revoked. Not that having your membership revoked meant much, you could simply get it back after paying a small fee. Nick had not heard about anyone's membership being revoked due to inactivity yet during his time in the guild.
As he made his way to the mess area he took in the sight of all the adventurers, it was an interesting contrast to what he would see in video games on earth. Not many of them wore any shining armor or were overly handsome, most were average looking with some pieces of leather armor covering parts of their body. Nick figured that metal armor was probably too expensive for the average adventurer to buy, they did not make much money at the lower ranks. B-rank has been the only rank so far which he could see himself making a living off of. Even now he would not have much spending money if he had to pay for a room.
Once in the mess area Nick began to look around for the table Dario was at, being able to spot him pretty easily. Beside him sat two younger men, one looked to be in his mid twenties where the other looked to be in his early thirties. The younger looking of the two has dull blonde hair and dark green eyes, he wears basic chain mail armor with a plain dark grey tabard. He also has a simple metal kite shield and a long sword, overall he looked like one might expect a normal warrior to look like. The older man looked a bit different, but not by a striking amount.
The older man has a stubble-covered face, short black hair, and brown eyes. He was wearing a simple leather chest piece with shoulder pads and he has a sword and dagger on his belt. Nick was not sure why someone would voluntarily decide to wear such little armor without some kind of shield to protect himself, but he wasn't going to question it. Together the two didn't look like what Nick had expected a team of A-rank adventurers to look like. They didn't look all that different from the B-rank or even some C-rank adventurers.
As Nick approached the table to two men locked their eyes on him, the younger with a friendly smile and the other with an indifferent glare. These two seem to be pretty different from each other, I wonder how they get along. "Hey, I'm Nick. Nick Anderson." Nick held out his hand for either of the men to shake.
"Will Lewis." The younger one said, eagerly shaking Nick's hand.
"Zach Hill." The other man said, lazily shaking Nick's hand after Will was finished.
"So, Nick, I told these two about your quest and they have agreed to sit down and discuss it with you but there are no promises that they will accept the quest or even take you with them. You understand that, right?" Dario asked, raising an eyebrow in question.
"Yeah, I get it."
"Alright, good. Then I shall leave you all to it, I have a bandit group to take out. I will be back in a week or two." Dario said, getting up and leaving.
"Well, let's see this quest of yours." Zach held out his hand as a way of asking for the quest poster. Nick handed it to him and waited a few seconds for them to start reading it before speaking.
"The target is a General, or at least I think she is a general, in an organization called The Dragon's Circle. They are some kind of criminal syndicate that has no problem using any means they can to make a profit and grab at power. I heard about them before but never thought too much about it, that was until one of my quests led me to the doorstep of one of their bigger earners." Nick pulled out the ring and put it on the table. "He doesn't seem to be up too high in the organization judging by the metal of the ring, but even though he did unspeakable things to people he was praised by this group for bringing in a lot of money."
"Well, that is generally how these kinds of things work. When you are part of any kind of criminal organization all that matters is how good you are at earning money, it doesn't matter how you get it as long as you do." Zach responded as he read the poster.
"Hmm, it doesn't sound like too hard of a quest. Especially with three on one, but there is also the possibility if we bring you, Nick, along that she could use you as a hostage to get away." Will advised.
"That isn't an issue, if something like that happens I can just take the hit. I have medical magic and medical training so even if you have to run me through with a sword to injure her then I should be at least able to stabilize myself." At least that was his hope, it wasn't exactly something he could just test during his free time.
"I have heard that you demons have insane vitality, so I guess it makes sense that when coupled with medical magic and training that you would be able to save yourself from fatal wounds."
"Ah, Dario told you guys that I have demon blood, huh?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it though. We don't have any Ill will against anyone with less demon in them than a half." Will grinned.
"Yeah, halves are kind of assholes by nature but any less blood than a half and how they act tends to be more nurture than nature." Zach agreed.
"Alright. Well, if nothing else I will be useful as a medic if you don't need me to actually fight."
"We could use a medic, It never hurts to be careful. She could get a lucky hit on one of us if we aren't careful or if she surprises us." Will shrugged, looking down at the paper once again. "You sought out this bounty because you knew about the person prior, right? Do you know anything about her, like her fighting style?"
"No, but if I had to guess I would imagine she isn't much of a physical fighter." Nick said, taking another look at the paper himself.
"Why is that? Because she is a girl?" Zach asked.
"Well, not exactly. It is just my guess from her sketch, she doesn't look like the type to get up close and personal with her enemies. It is also probably why she has so many guards around her place, so she doesn't have to fight unnecessarily."
"That is just guessing, but I guess it makes enough sense. It would be unwise to underestimate her however, appearances don't often tell the whole story. Take you for example, you may have some decent muscle on you but you are still a kid. Nobody would guess you were a B-rank adventurer with the guild." Zach slid the paper back over to Nick who folded it up and put it back in his pocket.
"True, I guess we won't know for sure until we actually fight her. However I think it is pretty safe to assume she will probably be using mostly magic. She probably also has a couple higher level bodyguards, it is hard to say for sure." Nick sighed. "I just wish I could take her out on my own, it is kind of a personal vendetta for me but I'm just not strong enough."
"Don't be too hard on yourself, you are still young. Give it a couple years and you will probably be one of the stronger A-rankers. Hell, maybe even an S-ranker." Will said with a friendly grin.
"I highly doubt that. I can't see some barely 18 year old kid being an S-ranker." Zach said, a more neutral look on his face which seemed to be its default state.
"Isn't the current youngest S-ranker 17 years old?" Will asked.
"Fair point. Still, it is just weird." Zach sighed.
"Wait, there is an S-ranker that is 17 years old? How?" Being 15 going on 16 Nick couldn't imagine being on the same level as Trak and his demonic energy trainer in just two years time.
"If I understand correctly he is some kind of prodigy from a noble family. Whenever he is in the guild he walks around like he owns the place, treating everyone under his rank like they are less than dirt and he doesn't treat his equals or superiors much better." Will obviously did not have a high opinion of the man.
"Nobody I want to be associated with, then." Nick stood up and let out a sigh as he stretched. "Well, shall we get going on the quest?"
"Yeah, you just need to register that you will be taking us with you on this quest. It is just a formality, technically you don't have to do that but if you didn't you could also just take the payment from the quest for yourself. Adventurers aren't entitled to any kind of reward from the guild unless they formally take a quest. Well, as long as it isn't an emergency quest." Zach stood up, Will following his lead as they began to walk to reception.
"Wait, emergency quest? I think I have heard that term but I don't really know exactly what it means. I can guess from the term, but I could be wrong." Nick quickly followed after the pair.
"An emergency quest is a mandatory quest for all adventurers, if you are in the area of the quest you could be required to drop everything you are doing to help depending on the severity. An example would be a dragon attacking the city."
This world really does have dragons, then? Fucking wonderful. Demons, dragons, evil organizations... This world has it all! "Ah, well I just hope a dragon doesn't attack in that case. I am not too interested in being turned into a lump of charcoal."
"Oh, at your rank you would more likely be tasked with helping evacuate the populace. S-rank and some A-ranks would be the ones taking on the dragon unless they needed the extra help from B-ranks. But it has been over a century since the last dragon attack, it is unlikely another will happen any time soon. Especially with the dragon demi-humans keeping them under control."
Guess it shouldn't surprise me that there are dragon demi-humans if there are cat demi-humans and users of draconic magic in this world. "Dragon demi-humans, huh? Are they able to use draconic magic? What is draconic magic anyway? I don't know much about it."
Zach thought about this a second before deciding to answer. "Well, I don't really know much about draconic magic myself, besides that it is the magic that both dragons and dragon demi-humans can use. The only difference is that dragon demi-humans can use normal magic just like any other human where as full fledged dragons cannot. It is said that the dragon demi-humans were created through an old pact between a human and a dragon god."
This world just keeps getting more strange with each passing day. Dragons, gods, and dragon gods? I mean I know it is supposed to be a myth or a legend but come on... We have demons in this world, so I can't dismiss the possibility of dragon gods. "That is a bit much to take in. Well, it doesn't matter much at this stage of the game I suppose."
"Yeah, let's just focus on this quest instead of old legends. You can read up on the history of dragon demi-humans at another point. Though they are pretty secretive people. Most of their history is a secret to all but the nobility of their race, rumored to be descended from the first ever dragon demi-human." Will nodded as he said this.
"Huh... So it will forever remain a mystery to me then, that's wonderful. I love mysteries that I will never be able to solve." I hope one day I can learn more in depth about the history of these demi-humans.
"Yeah, we all know your frustration, believe me. You aren't the only one who wants to know what the dragon demis are hiding." Zach said before stopping at the reception desk, looking to Nick. "But that is a discussion for later. We need to prepare and set off for the quest before the sun sets."
"Alright." Nick walked up to the desk and looked at the receptionist. "I would like to add these two to my party for this quest..."