"O-oh… I guess you're right, my lady… I'm sorry for causing a scene… But it's not like it was completely wrong of me not to realize how young he was…! Young Zane doesn't look his age!"
"It's okay, Adi~ I know you are doing your best~! And yes, he does look older than he is. That's a part of his appeal~"
The maid apologized timidly, trying to justify herself a bit more while the gold-haired noble laughed it off as it wasn't anything worthy of making her feel sorry in the first place.
After being done with unpacking, Adriana closed the suitcases and took them out of the room, passing them to Zane awkwardly while Melinda was locking the door.
After that, the trio went to the place the gatekeeper recommended, and after assessing the rooms offered to be adequate, they asked for the price…
"...here's for the immediate reservation for those two rooms…"
Melinda breathed out, acting calm while taking out the coins and handing them to the friendly and outgoing receptionist who showed them around the complex.
"By the way… could you tell us the way to the local adventurers guild?"
"Of course, Miss. It's…"
The gold-haired girl asked as casually as she could, and the receptionist nodded and began explaining while pointing out the hallway's window.
"...yeah… makes sense. We donated everything in Chainlink, so our finances are still in the gutter…"
"Indeed. Our lady is such a… ah...! H-hmph!"
For a moment, Zane and Adrianna exchanged looks of understanding, but then the maid suddenly flinched and looked away, putting up her guard.
"Zane, Adi, how about working out our appetite a bit before the dinner with Cath?"
The gold-haired girl thanked the receptionist and spoke up to her servants, acting as if the visit to the adventurer guild wasn't prompted by the immediate financial pickle they were in.
"I believe it is a splendid idea, my lady."
"We should at least show our faces to the local adventurers, too."
Adrianna played along without missing a beat, and Zane didn't lag behind either.
With the money paid, the servants left their belongings in their room - without unpacking them just yet… just in case… and the trio went to their new destination.
Whether intentional or not, Jade City's adventurer's guild looked almost exactly the same as its Chainlink port city counterpart before the latter was destroyed by the shockwave…
Either way, since in the first place, adventurer guilds were just like how the ones from Diamondium kingdom were in the game, Melinda beelined to the quest board.
"...prey…!"
Instead of checking it from bottom to the top as the quests were posted like that in increasing difficulty, the gold-haired girl looked at the notice at the very top and unintentionally let out a dazed gasp.
"No! Do not! It's not one of them!"
"...?"
Zane immediately scoffed at her, making Adrianna stare between them, out of the loop. The specifics of Melinda's actions had everything to do with a habit she gained while playing another game in her past life, after all.
"Ehm! I meant to say that it is a local roaming boss, Deep-Dusk Dullahan, who has been sighted outside his usual path, so everyone should be careful during their normal activities."
Melinda shrugged her shoulders and pointed out while skimming through the actual quests, acting as if she hadn't said something peculiar.
"Since I'm rank D, I'm allowed to take quests up to rank C, but… they are all so low level, and the rewards aren't really appealing…"
After a bit over a minute, the gold-haired girl pointed out while casually taking down every single note of available monster extermination quests from rank F to C.
"Let's memorize the higher-ranked ones too. Technically, I can't accept them, but what will they do if we show up with the proof of extermination? Tell us that we can't do that at that point? Heh~"
Melinda added with a smirk while neatly stacking all the notes she grabbed before leaning forward to study the content of the higher-rank monster extermination quests.
As the happy gold-haired girl was making her way toward the counter to have the quests officially assigned to her, the very stack of papers in her arms made her the center of attention for the adventurers within the guild.
After all, most of them got quest notes literally snatched right from under their noses, and they weren't too happy about it.
"Hello, all of those, please~ Oh, and by any chance, do you provide rough maps of the monster areas for the newbies?"
"?!?!"
Melinda placed the stack on the counter and slid it towards the taken-aback receptionist.
"Here's my guild card."
The gold-haired girl added, taking out the guild card and placing it on top of the papers with an innocent expression.
"I… umm… uuuummm… Miss… Are you aware that some of those have a time limit that if you fail to complete them, you will receive a penalty…?"
The receptionist had to breathe in and out a few times to compose himself before he could ask while leaning to the side and checking the thickness of the stack.
"There's nothing to worry about. I'm also on a time limit."
Melinda responded with a cheerful smile that honestly made the receptionist even more concerned.
"Rank D, level 24… I kind of see the confidence.. ah.. but, Miss - a few of those are rank C quests."
The man picked up Melinda's card and read the info off it before looking back at the notes and pointing it out with concern.
"That's right. What's the problem? Adventurers can take on a quest one rank higher than their own."
Melinda nodded, pointing out in response.
"Not exactly, Miss. It's not adventurers - that rule refers to adventuring parties, not individuals…"
The receptionist responded with a tired expression suggeesting that it wasn't the first time an adventurer used that argument.
"I am a registered adventurer, and I have a party. My teammates are right here."
The gold-haired responded in a still polite tone but with a look in her eyes that suggested she was getting annoyed by the situation.
"...haaa… one of those, huh…?"
"...?"
The receptionist breathed out as his eyes darted to the side, locking on the EXP shackle on Melinda's wrist, causing him to let out a defeated grumble.
"Sure. No problem, Miss. Whatever you say."
"Thank you."
Although the reason for his sudden change of mind was rather iffy, Melinda still nodded at the receptionist as he took out the graphite plate from under the counter.
Then the receptionist placed Melinda's guild card on the plate and placed the note with a quest next to it before feeding the graphite plate with its mana, making it release faint particles of pale-blue light.
"Here. Better be careful, the one with the shorter time limit is due next week. And here's the map of monster areas you wanted."
The man proceeded to do the same with all of the quest notes before returning the stack and the green guild card to the gold-haired girl while putting away the graphite plate.
"Thank you once again. See you soon."
Melinda grabbed everything and nodded at the receptionist while frowning. Then, she hid her guild card and handed the stack of notes to Adriana.
"My lady, didn't you want to update your card…?"
As the trio went to the door, Adrianna hesitantly reminded the gold-haired noble.
"Nope. not yet at least. He pissed me off, so let's aim to finish and hand in all of those quests before dinner."
"A-all of them!?"
In response, Melinda shook her head sternly, causing the maid to call out in disbelief while taking a fearful peek at the stack's thickness.