Except the name and the guild master, the guild looked normal. It was exactly what Lock saw in the newspapers. It was the typical guild one could see in the Kingdom—like a castle.
Chap led the way, and Lock followed.
Even at night, he had observed that people were still walking in and out of the large entrance. He could see farmers, merchants, clerks, carpenters, barons, and even children.
Lock felt intrigued as he broke into a grin.
He let out a sigh of relief.
Right now, his face was covered with his hair. Even to Chap, he could have only seen half of his face.
When he becomes an adventurer for this guild, he needed to hide his face somehow and some of his powers. It would not be good once someone found out he was the third prince of the kingdom.
"That's right. That would be no good." Lock said, touching his gold hair and putting more of it in front of his face. "Once I have money, I need to buy a mask or something too."
Fortunately, Lock knew that joining a guild was pretty easy. And the most important thing for him was that there was no requirement to show your face. Many adventurers joined guilds with masks on to hide their real identity and they even used alias instead of their real names.
The tasks entitled to adventurers were considered dangerous. Most of them were searching treasures, investigating ruins and labyrinths, fighting monsters and intercepting the moves of evil organizations.
There was no assurance for the lifespan of an adventurer. Thus, the Magic Association didn't care bout the real identity of adventurers.
A grin appeared on Lock's face as he got lost in his own thoughts. He was powerful. That was a fact. So he couldn't help but imagine the near future when his reputation as an adventurer was vast and sung by bards!
Finally, the huge building that was like a small castle was in front of them.
The guild's base was not a simple building only. It had a vast place dedicated for the entrance where people selling masks, potions, artifacts, magic items, clothes, and food.
"Whoa!" Chap awed, his mouth agape and his eyes in sparkles.
The Guild's base was really huge. But compared to the first entrance earlier, there were much fewer people coming in and out of the entrance.
Judging from the outfits, these were definitely wizards. They wore the kind of outfit that screamed they were wizards.
Chap started to slow down his stride, and walk behind Lock as he was scared. Lock cleared his throat too, as he felt like they were drawing a lot of attention.
It was not difficult to guess what they were thinking.
"What were two beggars doing here?"
Compared to earlier where some people were also dressed not very nice, here there were only them who dressed poorly and had bad appearances.
Lock ignored the eyeballs staring at them and moved forward.
Looking around the vast space inside the building where the ceiling was very high, Lock tried to find the sign towards the registration counter. Chap was useless now, as he was too scared. It was improbable to say he had never gone this far as well.
"Let's go." Lock said, as they headed to the registration counter.
"Tap. Tap. Tap." Lock could hear his footsteps.
It was not silent, but they definitely gathered quite the attention.
'Thankfully, even at night, they seemed to be working,' thought Kara, as he knocked on the counter twice.
When the person behind the counter who seemed to be sleeping heard the two knocks, he opened his eyes and saw two beggar-looking boys looking at him.
As Lock waited, the handsome man entered his vision.
The man was called Liam. He almost jerked on his chair upon the sight of the stuffy gold obnoxious hair. He calmed himself and sized the two boys.
"Huh? Ummm…" He was still quite sleepy.
"I want to register," Lock immediately said.
"Eh?" Liam glanced at the windows and the moody atmosphere in the guild and knew it was already nighttime. But he understood the boy's genuine intentions.
If someone was this down in his life that he became a beggar but was still very young, believing in luck and pursuing a paid work to have a wage in the future was rational.
There would also be the possibility of acquiring free lodging in the future if they survived and triumphed in quests long enough.
"I get you. Money is more attractive than the prettiest lady." Liam suddenly said.
Liam could understand as he had met many people like the beggar in his life but was the beggar joking on him?
"Sorry, young fellas. Excuse me for saying this, but becoming one of our guild members is a little high hurdle to overcome. It is a lot more preferable if you can use mana."
That was it. Liam tried to be subtle on his response.
However, nodding, Lock also understood this Liam's genuine intentions and started to show him who was on the wrong side.
With a grin on his face, he looked at Liam.
"Young fella?" Liam said, as he was not able to see what he was suddenly doing.
Lock then raised his palms and moved a little bit of his fingers like he was pulling on a tug of strings smoothly. Then all of a sudden, such invisible tugging was done in a forceful manner and then in an instant, the book that the man has in his table flipped its cover like it had its own mind.
"Huh? Oh…" Liam was startled as he smiled.
"Do I pass the requirements?" Lock quickly asked with a proud tone.
Seeing this, Liam was not given any choices, thus, he decided to get serious.
"It seems like you had some mana in you…"
Liam broke into a slight smile, and pulled out a document from his table. He then looked at the calendar on the wall, and remembered it was already the month of July. Thus, the month of fate was already over. It was natural to expect newcomers. But he was too lazy to rip the pages of the calendar. It was still in the month of January.
He then sized Lock, and rolled his eyes inside his head.
'We always had people like this every year. Just so they could use mana doesn't mean they have what it takes to become a wizard of our guild,' thought Liam as he handed the document to the beggar.
"This document is a registration form for people like you who want to join us…" but before Liam completely let go of the paper he slid on the counter, he asked, "Can you read and write? If you don't I can help you."
"No, I just do it myself," Lock replied. "More importantly, can you give me another form? We actually want to register as a two man party."
Liam started to wake his soul up as he remembered that there was actually a seemingly younger kid with the newcomer.
He just sighed, and gave Lock another document.
'What these two are doing is completely dangerous. This older boy must only be 16 but this boy should be years younger. That means he isn't even a wizard yet. He might not even be.'
"Oh…I see, here's a pen, please give me the paper after you finished so we could check it." Liam replied.