A short time after arriving at Sural city, the capital of the Sural kingdom, we arrived at the merchant guild, which marked the end of our journey. The merchants thanked us, and paid each of us three silver coins for our service. We collected our belongings from the carriage, and grouped together with both Chris and Hina, to look for the adventurer guild. None of us had been to the capital before, and we didn’t have a map of the city, so we had to ask around to find our way.

  The city was filled with all different kinds of people. I spotted beastmen, elves, dwarves and even a few demons, hustling and bustling through the broad streets. After searching around and walking in circles multiple times, we finally found it. The building was huge and looked more like a tavern than an official guild building. We entered the building and found ourselves in a huge hall with multiple rows of tables, completely filled with drinking and laughing adventurers. I could make out a reception counter behind the tables, as well as a blackboard with multiple notices on it. We carefully made our way through a small gap between the tables, trying not to step on any feet or tails.

  I had just passed the last row of tables when someone suddenly screamed behind me.

  “Let go of me you dirty little brat!”

  I turned around and saw that Shizuka had grabbed a man by his wrist, twisting it painfully.

  “Keep your hands to yourself. The next time you try to steal anything from my friends, I’ll make you regret it.”

  The man was skinny, and his skin was wrinkly and pale. He had greasy brown hair and dark bloodshot eyes, which were underlined by dark circles. He wailed in pain at Shizuka’s tight grip on his wrist. I was honestly impressed that Shizuka noticed him trying to steal from us.

  “Shizuka, let him go. He’s not worth the trouble”, Kuro intervened and made her let go of the man. I noticed that all of the eyes in the room were trained on us, and it suddenly became insanely quiet. The air was almost thick enough to cut it, and full of tension. The instant Shizuka let go of the man, the adventurers all returned to their business and the hall was filled with conversations and laughter again. Shizuka shot the man one last angry look and then turned away.

  The young receptionist smiled friendly as he greeted us.

  “Welcome to the adventurer guild, how may I help you?”

  I was a little nervous, but still returned the man’s friendly smile.

  “Uhm, Hello… My name is Ryu. We would like to register as adventurers…”

  The man scribbled something into a notebook and then handed each of us a form to fill out.

  “Please fill this out and then return it to me.”

  I scanned the form with my eyes, it was just generic questions such as my name, age and my place of birth. I filled everything in and returned the form to the receptionist. Once all of us had filled the form out, he vanished through a door behind the counter and came back a couple of minutes later with a few small metal cards, which he handed out to us. I was happy like a little child when I received my card, and couldn’t stop a smile forming on my lips.

  I took a closer look at the card and noticed that it was almost completely empty. The only things on there were my name and my rank, which was “F”.

  “Great, thank you very much! I would also like to form a party with my friends.”

  We received another form, where we now had to put in our names, ranks and the roles we would fulfill within the party. The receptionist handed us a small booklet featuring all the jobs. I entered my information and passed the form to Kuro and Shizuka. Just when we wanted to return it to the receptionist, Hina asked to join our party as well. Kuro and Shizuka were okay with it, so there was no reason for me to say no. We asked Chris if he wanted to tag along too, but he declined, saying he’d rather do his own thing. When the receptionist saw what we had written on the paper, his face twisted in amazement for a second.

  He showed us the form again and put his finger on Shizuka’s entry.

  “Are you sure this is correct, Miss?”

  Shizuka had written two jobs in the party role field, ranger and rogue.

  “Yes, I’m sure. This is correct.”

  Even though he still seemed skeptical, he accepted her answer, collected our metal cards again and left through the door behind the counter. It took a little less time than when he had initially made our cards until he returned and gave them back to us. There was a little job title section below my rank now, which said “sword fighter”. Next to the reception counter, there was a bar that sold hot food and drinks. An open door behind it led to a spacious kitchen, and I could see a few chefs cooking food. We bought some lunch and sat down at one of the tables to celebrate.

  The adventurer guild offered a lot of different services, such as cheap food, equipment and accommodation. Because our budget was tight, we decided to sleep here for a few nights. After paying for our lunch, we had eleven silver coins left, which meant we were on a tight budget. Chris said he would stay at the guild for a few days as well, so we decided to stick together for some time, even though he wasn’t part of our party. We went up to the reception, paying for a one-bed room for Chris, and two two-bed rooms for Kuro and Me, as well as Shizuka and Hina.

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  We collected the keys to our rooms and went through the door to the stairs towards the second floor. We brought our luggage up and into our rooms. Once we stashed all of our stuff, we gathered in the hallway. The girls’ room was right in between Kuro’s and my, and Chris’ room. We had to wait a bit until the girls were done stashing their stuff, but when they finally came out we went back downstairs to the main hall. We walked past the reception counter and straight to the blackboard, which was covered by dozens of quests for the adventurers, and I made sure to put some distance between me and the guy that tried to steal from us earlier as I walked past him. Our party’s rank was “F”, the average of all of its members' ranks, which meant that we were only allowed to take on F-rank quests.

  I let my gaze glide over the available quests, looking for any ones that we could accept. Hina ripped one of the papers off the board and read it out for us.

  “Help guard the transport of a dangerous criminal. Parties with more than three members only. Reward: fifteen silver coins”

  Even though it was an F-rank mission, it sounded very thrilling.

  “When will this transport be? And where will it start?”

  I could see that Kuro was as excited as I was when he asked this. Hina frowned as she searched the piece of paper for this information.

  “Uh… I can’t find any date or place here… Ah, there it is! For questions about the time and place, ask at the reception when accepting the quest.”

  It actually made sense to not just tell such sensitive information to anyone. When we voted if we wanted to accept the quest, no one was against it. Chris didn’t want to do this quest with us, so we waited for him to find a quest and then took the papers to the reception, officially accepting the quests. The receptionist told us that the transport would be in two days, starting at the royal courthouse of Sural, which was at the center of the city. We would need around twenty five minutes to walk there from the guild building. Chris decided to leave for his quest immediately, so it was just us four left. I threw a glance at his quest paper, but didn’t have enough time to read what type of quest he had.

  We decided to take a stroll through the city and throw a look at the courthouse, the place where our quest would begin. It was a huge building built from bricks and cement, towering high above the other buildings in the street. There were many shops in the same street, so it was quite busy and loud. If the street was as crowded on the day of the transport, it would be hard to keep our eyes on the target. I looked around for any high ground except for the roofs, where we had a good overview of the street.

  Unfortunately, there was no such place. It seemed like it was best to just position two of us in front, and two of us at the end of the transport. Scouting the place didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but taking a stroll with my friends had been fun. We went into one of the stores and bought a map of the city, hoping we wouldn’t get lost anymore. With the map, finding our way back to the guild building was easy, we didn’t even have to ask someone for the way. Back inside the main hall, we decided to take a look at the other facilities of the building. There was a library, a meditation room, a training hall and a huge, shared bathroom. My muscles were sore and I was far from clean, so taking a bath sounded perfect right now. The others craved a bath just as much as I did, so we went to our rooms, getting our towels and then gathered in the bathroom.

  There were small booths for undressing, with little baskets where you could store your clothes while you were in the bath. I got into one of the booths and stripped off my clothes, wrapping the towel I brought around me. I folded my clothes and put them neatly into the basket. When I got out of the booth, I saw that Kuro was already waiting. We got into the water, which was a little too cold for my taste. Apparently, Kuro disliked the temperature as well.

  “Hey Ryu, should I warm this up a bit?”

  If he could warm the water with his magic, I would definitely not be opposed.

  “Please. It’s a little too cold and doesn’t quite seep into my muscles how I’d like.”

  I saw on Kuro’s face that he focused, and I could feel the warmth radiating from him. The water heated up slowly until it reached the perfect temperature. He leaned back and let out a sigh of exhaustion. Apparently, it was harder to use magic when you were surrounded by water. Only members of the ocean folk could use magic underwater without any struggle. His face told me that just heating up the water a bit had exhausted him a lot.

  “Wow, you’re a lifesaver”

  I couldn’t remember ever having such a nice bath. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Only when I heard steps approaching did I open them again. Shizuka and Hina were approaching us, both wrapped in their own towels and with their hair put up above their heads. The tub was easily big enough for all of us, even though I doubted that Shizuka would even go in with the wound on her leg. My thought was confirmed when she sat down on the edge and put just her feet into the water.

  “Sooo, how’s the leg doing?”

  She wiggled her toes a bit, showing that it was still there.

  “It’s okay, I’m not going to run with this but I can walk just fine. Good enough for our quest.”

  I didn’t even ask because of the quest, but it was nice to know, nonetheless. When Hina joined us in the tub, I noticed how muscular her body was. When she moved, her muscles were clearly visible beneath the skin. She had always been a fit girl, even back when we were playing as children. Hina was the son of a farmer and always helped him on his farm in one of Greenwood’s neighboring towns. When we were young, Hina and her parents visited Greenwood often and we spent a lot of time together. Being reunited with her now made me happy. I had always liked her company, and she was easy to be around.

  While we soaked our aching bodies in the water, we talked a lot about our past memories together and what happened in our lives during the time we didn’t see each other. We left the bath when our hands and fingers started to become wrinkly, and had a nice dinner in the main hall. After that, all of us went to our rooms and Kuro and I laid down on our beds for the first time. They were so much softer than the sleeping bags, and even the bed at the church that I was used to. Once I had covered myself with the blanket, I felt just how badly my body needed rest. I knocked against the wall at the head of my bed, where the girls’ room was.

  “Good night!”

  I wasn’t sure if they heard me, but it didn’t matter anyway. Kuro wished me a good night, I closed my eyes and fell asleep in the capital for the first time. We had finally reached one of our goals. We had become adventurers. From now on, things could only get better. A warm feeling spread through my entire body as I slept in.