I opened the saloon style doors to the Adventurer's Guild and walked in with Eris and Ruijerd following behind me. The place had a rowdy, but fun atmosphere. Everyone there seemed to be having a good time, other than the occasional fight that broke out from time to time.
The adventurers here were almost exclusively demon-folk, which caused us to draw a little attention to ourselves when we walked in. I walked up to the reception and was welcomed by a demon woman. I couldn't help but notice the clerk had three breasts. I had forgotten about her since it's been so long.
"I'd like to register our group as adventurers", I said.
"In that case, would you please start out by filling out these forms?", she said with a smile.
The forms were rather simple. They had a blank space for your name and another for your profession (Mage, Healer, Swordsman, Fighter, etc...). Below that, they had a list of the rules for the Adventurer's Guild. I read the form out aloud to Eris, translating it to the Human language for her.
As described in the form, all adventurers begin at 'F' rank. You can only accept jobs within one rank of your own. For example, a 'C' ranked adventurer can only accept 'D', 'C', or 'B' ranked jobs. Successfully completing a set number of jobs consecutively will make you eligible for promotion. Likewise, failing a set number of jobs consecutively will get you demoted a rank.
We all filled out our forms and handed them in to the clerk.
"Please place your hand on this." She said as she handed us a small card with a magic circle engraved in its center.
After I placed my hand on the card, she pressed down on another small magic circle in the card's corner. After that, my card lit up with words that glowed faintly. Ruijerd and Eris did the same and were provided their own ID cards as well.
Name: Rudeus Greyrat
Sex: Male
Race: Human
Age: 10
Profession: Magician
Rank: F
Name: Ruijerd Superdia
Sex: Male
Race: Demon
Age: 566
Profession: Warrior
Rank: F
Name: Eris Boreas Greyrat
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Age: 12
Profession: Swordswoman
Rank: F
After we finished registering individually, I registered the three of us as a party, naming ourselves 'Dead End' with myself as the leader. After naming ourselves that, I heard several people start whispering to one another as the guild got noticeably quieter.
The clerk's face twitched a little when I announced our party's name, but she regained her composure quickly.
"Very well." She took our cards into the back room and returned shortly, giving us back our cards.
Our cards now had one extra line on the bottom reading: 'Dead End: F'.
"If you want to take on any jobs, simply take the listing from the bulletin board and bring it to one of us clerks", she added.
As we made our way to the bulletin board, we walked past several smirking adventurers, several of whom poked fun of our newly formed party name.
"You'd better be careful coming up with a name like that. The real Dead End is going to come after you", one of them laughed.
One demon who looked like a humanoid frog stretched his leg into the aisle intending to trip Ruijerd. However, as Ruijerd glared down at him, his smirk quickly disappeared and he nervously pulled his leg back.
Once we reached the bulletin board, I glanced over the lower ranked jobs and selected three of them. I handed one to Eris, one to Ruijerd, and kept one for myself.
"Hey there 'Dead End'. Taking on three jobs right off the bat? Don't you think that might be a bit much for newbies like you?" A demon man with the face of a horse approached me from behind and rested his hand over my shoulder.
"We'll be fine, these seem easy enough", I replied.
"Hey now, I'm just trying to give you newbies some advice. You don't want to have to pay the breach of contract fee for failing them, do you?"
"I appreciate the advice, but we'll be fine", I said curtly.
"Hmm...", He frowned a bit as I walked away from him.
Before leaving the guild, I exchanged two Asura large copper coins for the equivalent amount in Demon currency and then we made our way to the inn.
I had given Eris an 'F' ranked job request to help out in a shorthanded kitchen. Ruijerd's job was 'F' ranked and it was to organize a warehouse in the city. My job was an 'E' ranked job to find a lost pet.
Once we got to the Inn, I rented a room for three. As I was paying the receptionist, I noticed a familiar group of three young demon children approach Eris and begin pestering her.
I turned around and said, "She doesn't speak Demon-God. Did you have something you needed to tell her? I can translate for you if you wait just a moment."
They waited for me to finish paying for our room and then tried to recruit us into their party. Their names were Bachiro, Gablin, and Kurt, and their party was called the 'Tokurabu Village Toughs'. Of course, I politely declined their offer, but we chatted for a while. They were nice kids.
Tomorrow morning, I walked Eris to the Kitchen she would be helping out at. I taught her a couple words of Demon God and cautioned her that she needs to be respectful and work hard so that we pass this job. I made sure to explain that failing this job will mean it takes longer to rank up and start taking slaying jobs.
After Eris got started working on her job, I parted ways with Ruijerd.
"Are you sure you don't want my help?", he asked. "Finding a lost pet would be easy for me."
"I'm sure it would", I laughed. "I'll be fine on my own. There is no time limit for this job, so if I end up needing help I'll definitely come to you."
When I met my job's client I felt bad for her. She was a very young girl, maybe seven years old or so, who was worried sick about her lost pet. She had saved up her allowance for a month to offer up the payment on this job. I assured her that I would find her lost cat and gave her a big smile before setting off.
I made my way to a small cave on the edge of the city. The cave had a terrible stench in the air that only got worse the deeper you went. At the end of the cave I found several animals locked up in shoddy cages.
I waited there for about an hour, until I heard some people approaching. I waited for them out in the open. Once they got within eyesight, one of them yelled out "Hey! Someone's here! Who the hell are you!?"
I fired off an air spell, pushing up against the cave wall and then used earth magic to lock their hands in place against the wall.
"What the hell is going on!? I'll kill you!", the same man yelled.
There were three of them. A Loud obnoxious demon named Roman and another demon man with the face of a lizard named Jalil, and a woman who had insect-like features named Vizquel.
"I would calm down if I were you", I cautioned him.
"You're a dead man! Just you wait. Once I get out of here..."
He didn't get to finish that sentence, as I had fired a stone cannon directly into his skull. The other two screamed in terror as they witnessed their party member killed beside them.
"Quiet!" I yelled.
Jalil immediately piped down, while Vizquel continued sobbing.
"What kind of people kidnap a small child's pet at ransom?"
"It was Roman's idea! We didn't have a choice!", Jalil yelled.
"I'm so sorry!" Vizquel shouted.
"Hmpf!", I snorted in response. "I'm going to take this cat back to its owner and you both are going to return every other animal here to their respective owners. Do you understand?"
"Yes! Of course!", Jalil answered.
"If I ever catch either of you doing something this abhorred again, you'll wind up like your friend over there. Understand?"
They both nodded.
Using earth magic, I unlocked the cage holding the pet cat (the size of a panther) and tied a rope around its collar like a leash. As I began walking out of the cave with the cat, I turned around and unbound their hands from the wall.
"Get to work. All of these pets had better be returned by this time tomorrow."
I made my way back to the little girl and returned her pet to her. She ran to the cat and gave it a big hug. As she marked my job listing as complete, I gave her the money she had put up for compensation.
"Take your money back. I'm just glad I could find your pet."
"Are you sure? Thank you so much!", she ran up to me and gave me a hug as well.
Later that night, I met up with Eris and Ruijerd back at the inn, and listened to Eris as she excitedly told me all about her first job and how great she did. Ruijerd just showed me his job listing marked as completed.
I ordered us a round of drinks and we celebrated the completion of each of our first jobs as adventurers.